Chapter 29 An Evening With Trey

Consumed in a shroud of shame, I was whisked home to the South Bay, feeling a pariah in the only home I knew. This wasn't partying too much, this was a serious attempt on my life. But how much did they know? Only Gayle fully knew and she wouldn't tell a soul. But I knew. And I knew they knew something went terribly wrong with me. 

Being the bullshitter I was (the survival skills one learns along the way) I manipulated my way back in to my client's good graces, eliciting compassion and sympathy with my stock answer, that I had another  adverse reaction to my medications. It was all I could do. And within no time, all was forgiven if not forgotten. I still had my job. I still had my clients. Lets get back to fixing backhands. Same time next week?

Seriously in debt now, I tried to make up for lost time, scheduling as much work as much as I could. Playing catch up was always a trap for me. I'd fuck up, sober up, speed up, then fuck up some more. Rinse repeat. Incapable of doing life with anything resembling balance. Barely getting through my days, at night I tried to attend meetings. But I was rattled. The meetings were too much reality, a reality I had no idea how to process as I walked around in a low grade state of shock from the shame and the pain. The things we carry.

For what had I done to myself?

Desperate, I thought of calling my parents. They knew nothing of what happened in Denver or of my Bipolar Diagnosis. The hospital didn't reach out to them and Gayle kept quiet too. I felt I should tell them, that they should know their son was in trouble. But I couldn't. It'd be too much for them. And it'd be too much for me too. And just like my tennis and my alcoholism, Bipolar disorder was going to be my problem to figure it out alone.

Within weeks, I was right back at it, strung out on meth and heading for trouble. The pull of crystal on my mind, so far beyond my ability to refrain. And the rapid cycling began again . Up for days, down for days. The fever of the mania, the darkness of my depressions. 

Again, I began to see no way out. I didn't want to go on, I couldn't go on. So I concocted another plan. Not a very good one though. Turned out I was a bit of a pussy. I didn't like pain or violence, to myself or others. I just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.  . 

Prepared to put my plan in to action, one dark night in Hermosa Beach, wearing every piece of clothing I could, I loaded up on every drug and medicine I could find. At the end of Hermosa pier, I strapped heavy weights to my arms and legs. And I took one last long sad walk to the end of the pier and dove in, hoping to pass out and drown and sink quietly and softly from this life. 

The problem was I still had meth in my system, its powerful stimulating effects overriding all. Within minutes, I was seen. And help was on the way. Trying to drown myself, but the first responders had other ideas, swimming toward me with all their might. Starting to fade, I should have passed out already. But the meth, it wouldn't let me. The drug that had been killing me was saving my life. 

Reached at the last second, I was rushed to the Harbor UCLA ICU where I lost consciousness soon after. Unconscious for days, when I came to, Gayle was there. She had filled the staff in about my Denver suicide attempt which was only two months ago. And there would be no talking my way out of this predicament. It was 5150 time. Transported to the lock down wing of the Harbor-UCLA Psych ward, I was now at the mercy of the state. They would be the ones to decide if or when I got released.

I was officially certified now. I was a psycho. Sampras was right all along.

In the ward, the days were long. This was a beat down crowd and I was being treated so. The kid gloves were off, the staff aggressive, confrontational. I had fucked up and they were letting me know it. Passing time, they asked if I'd like to participate in some workshops. We all sat in a circle. It felt like kindergarten all over again. Instead of asking what I wanted to be when I grew up, they asked us what we looked forward to the most upon our release. The nurse went around the circle, with most patient's answers scattershot. I was among patients with minimal faculties, but there was a lady next to me, eager to share her answer. She'd written it down and could barely wait her turn. As the circle reached her, she stared down at her answers, telling the group all she wanted was her Momma's lima beans. In increasingly hushed tones, she kept repeating the answer, at the end just mouthing the words. 

My momma's lima beans...My momma's lima beans. 

And I got it. Life had gotten away from her too. She wanted her innocence back, to her childhood home and her Momma's cooking. To the safety of her youth, to how her life once was. 

But she had more hope than myself. As the circle worked its way back toward myself, I looked down at my blank pad, for I'd written nothing...

I couldn't even envision a better life for myself. All I wanted was for it to end...

I was in the Psych ward a week before being let out. Upon release, I went straight to round 3 of inpatient treatment, this time to the Pasadena Recovery Center (PRC), where the show Celebrity Rehab was filmed. PRC advertised itself as a dual diagnosis facility, treating addiction and mental illness concurrently. In reality, it was a total scam. Insurance companies were pretty much done paying the obscene rates for 30 day inpatient rehabs like Sierra Tucson and Betty Ford. But they would cover hospital stays if mental health issues were involved. So PRC exploited that loophole, yet PRC offered no mental health services whatsoever. It was an insurance fraud racket right from the start just waiting to be exposed.

Released in the summer of 2004, I wasn't out more than a few weeks before I was right back on the meth. So enslaved I'd become to its seductive pull. It had overtaken my body and mind, I simply couldn't stay away. Once again, in a sleepless delirium, I ended up in Las Vegas with every intention of ending my life once and for all. But this time I wouldn't be found. I was heading for Hoover Dam, to simply jump my way from the world.

On my way to the dam, I got pulled over for a traffic stop. An expired license plate tag. They ran a background check on me. I had a bounced check to a casino. That was a felony in Nevada. The police searched my car. They saw immediately what I was up to, taking me straight to Clark County jail. The irresponsibility destroying my life had just saved my life. Oh the irony.

Jail was a madhouse. I wouldn't have survived 5 minutes in there. But they put me in a cell on suicide watch with nothing. No sheets, no blanket. Nothing. Just a mattress and a pillow, for once again, I was a danger to myself.

Gayle and Bobby drove all night from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to rescue me again. On our way home, they tried to drop me back at the UCLA Psych ward, but there was no room. Bodies lay on the ground blocking the entrance way door. I begged them to take me home, agreeing to try treatment again. Against their own best judgement, they acquiesced.

Inpatient Round 4. The Bimini, a free center near downtown Los Angeles. There was a pattern to my inpatient facilities and it wasn't upward. I lasted a week before checking myself out, vowing to my inner circle to do better.

But crystal meth owned me. I was possessed, feeling like my mind had been hijacked by evil spirits. I felt like the famed Houdini, wrapped in chains and locks, yet I had no hidden key. And the debate that used to rage in my mind, to get high or not to get high. I didn't win that debate often, but at least part of me was still trying. But now there was no debate. I had to have my meth. No matter what, no matter how.

Early 2005. My stability deteriorating, I was determined to take my life again but this time to never be found. No more first responder saviors, no more ocean rescues, no divine police intervention. I would find the most barren place I could. And I did. On the 5 freeway North, deep within The San Jouquin Valley, a hundred miles North of Los Angeles. On the outskirts of nowhere, I pulled over in Buttonwillow California. I drove deep in to a farm where at sunset I took another lethal dose of medications and narcotics and lied down beneath my car once again to peacefully pass from this world.

Days later, my eyes slowly opened. I was in another hospital, but this time in great pain. The left side of my face was fractured. My jaw, my cheek, the orbital bone around my eye, so much so I couldn't move my face. The attending nurses approached, seeing me awaken. I asked where I was. They informed I was in a hospital and that I'd been in a coma for 5 days. I was still alive. If I'd only taped an advanced directive to my chest. 

Another failed suicide attempt. Coming in and out of consciousness, the first emotion I remembered feeling was being highly disappointed. I so didn't want to continue on like this. 

The nurse, seeing me coming to, approached my bed to ask me some questions. She started with the softballs.

 Do you know your name? How old are you? Where do you live?

Then the stumpers began.. 

Do you know where you are?' Do you know why you’re here? Do you know what happened to you? 

And I could only shake my head no. 

Then she started in. I was in a car accident, I was air-lifted by helicopter to the hospital trauma unit. I had a broken eye, cheek, jaw and several ribs and that I'd been comatose for 5 days, being kept alive by life support. 

I fell into shock. I just wanted to die, not be crippled. This was not how I wanted this to play out.  I didn't want to be there, I didn’t want to be anywhere. 

Please, somebody deliver me relief from my hopeless state of body and mind..

But like it or not, here I was again. Alive. Now what? A plethora of emotions swarmed me as I gently  drifted off again, to another soft extended sleep, duration unknown, knowing that upon my arising, I had some serious shit to straighten out.  

Within days, I was feeling better. But they were not letting me out and nobody would answer my questions. Turned out the state was looking to have me committed full time, to a permanent bed in  California's psychiatric system. And who could blame them. But the bed never opened. And after 10 days they couldn't keep me any longer, eventually releasing me to Gayle once again.

But I wasn't done with Buttonwillow yet. I was being charged with all sorts of stuff. DWI and destruction of property. Apparently I got in my car and started driving, passing out along the way, taking out a PG&E power poll in the process. The collision was violent, the air bag breaking the left side of my body, but it undoubtedly saved my life. Worse yet, the police report told a daunting story. I'd crossed over in to oncoming traffic before crashing. I could have hurt innocent people. Did I do it on purpose?

Days later, I returned to Buttonwillow with my friend Dan to retrieve my belongings from my towed and battered car. I arrived to the tow yard early, looking through the chain link fence with razor wire atop, trying to locate my car. The junk yard dogs scared me away, but not before seeing off in the distance my Ford Explorer, badly wrecked, sandwiched between two burned out and ruined vehicles.

A tow truck driver soon arrived to let me in, parking across the lot from our car. The driver got out and began fumbling through his pockets for the right key to open the gate. But in the process, he began staring my way, his eyes locked on to me as a look of shocked bewilderment spread across his face.

In no mood, I asked if there was a problem. His stare, still locked on to me magnetically, intensified as he closed the gap between us. It was not the stare of a long lost friend. Something was up here, so much so I interjected.. “Is everything OK?”

The driver stopped in his tracks, pointing right at me..."Is that you? I can not believe my eyes..shit..no way..can't be...no.." ..

"Umm, have we met before? I'm not from around these parts".. I respectfully responded.

"Oh, I know me that...I come up on you last week...you were the guy in the Silver Ford..My God..look at you....I done thought you were a goner...oh my...the power of prayer I tell you...I come up on you, I didn't even call 911..I just dropped to my knees and prayed for you and your family and I can not believe you're standing in front of me..shit, you were all broken and bloody I was afraid to even touch you..I will BE!!!".. I just can’t believe you’re up and around moving forth as well as you are.” 

Catching on now, I asked "Are you saying you're the person who rescued me last week”  

“Yes sir, you were  pretty bad off, I reckoned you weren’t gonna’ make it. I just can’t believe you’re moving around like you are, looking as good as you do.”

My tow truck driver was seeing a ghost...and it was me.

Getting uncomfortable, I asked if I could retrieve my stuff. Obliging, we entered through the massive sliding metal gate. Passing by him on my way to my car, I felt his urge to touch my shoulder, to prove that what he was seeing was real. As we approached my wreck of a car, my anxiety at the condition of my car was only matched by my desire to get the fuck away from this town as quickly as possible and never return. 

But I had to deal with the tangled mess of metal that was my vehicle. As I got closer, with each approaching step, feelings of nausea and panic mounted as I arrived upon the twisted steel and broken  glass of the car I tried to take my life in but that very likely saved me.

Busted car, busted life, the only difference being my car was totaled,  yet miraculously I was not. As I hurriedly gathered up my stuff, cutting my hands and knees on the thousands of sharp shards of  shattered windshield, emotions swirled within. The last time I exited this vehicle was not under my own power. This time I would walk away under my own power, but not feeling very powerful. Quite the contrary. I hurried from the car back through the compound to my friend and his waiting car. 

Upon passing the tow truck driver, I stopped to thank him for all he'd done for me.

Without acknowledging a word of what I said, he started in ... 

"Ten year old girl died in that car next to yours. Family of four all died in that burned out one to yours left. You got yourselves another mighty lucky chance there mister....promise me you won't end up like them?"

And as I turned to walk away, I made a promise to the man who saved my life, a promise I had no idea how to keep.

Upon arriving home, I settled down for a bit. I was scared straight, for at least a moment. Vowing to do better, but within days my phone was blowing up. Dealers, hookers, dancers, bookies, all stocked up, seeing if I needed anything. 

I'd never realized how important I was to the underground economy...

October 2005. Months passed and I'm struggling again. The meth back in full control. I just can't kick it. I end up in Vegas one more time. I'm blowing it all. Everything was gone. I smoked my car. I lost a boot. How do you lose a boot? My depression raging again, in a black out, I drove my car to an abandoned lot in the hills outside of town. I was going to try again. This time I left voicemails. They were awful. They were tragic. But I didn't know what else to do, the drugs and my mood swings had taken complete control of my life. 

And one last time I slid under my car to hopefully end it all...

But I came to hours later in a bush. With nothing. And extreme carbon monoxide poisoning. I'd been car jacked. They took everything. And beat the shit of me in the process. I'd been kicked, punched,  and robbed, beaten with inches of my life. 

Yet the carjackers, they saved my life...

Staggering through the streets of Henderson, Nevada. Delirious. The police picked me up. I tried to explain to them what happened, but they weren't hearing it, taking me to the city line and dropping me off to fend for myself once again. I staggered for miles through the Las Vegas night, slamming in to light polls, breaking up my face even further. I eventually reached an ER. They admitted me to the ICU, nursing me slowly back to life. 

I was sick and badly beaten, but alive. Maybe we do get more than one miracle..

And one more time, Bobby and Gayle came to rescue me again. Don't even try to tell me there aren't saints in this world. 

And so would end the year 2005. Early the next year, struggling to get back on my feet, the fever of my suicidal ideation that took me to the darkest of places had finally broken. And though I was far from healthy, I wasn't obsessed with harming myself any longer. In spite of every effort to make it back to the clean and sober way, I just couldn't get there It had been a rough stretch; hospitalizations, rehabs,  medications, clinical trials, car crashes, jail, psych wards, comas and a whole lot more more. My life was pure unadulterated chaos. I had lost control.

My inner circle of  friends were at their wits end. After each blow out, there I would stand before them, contrite, humbled, frightened, willing. I would promise to sober up, to change my ways, only to lose my way even worse the next time. 

And early the next year I had what could be called a moment of clarity.

After all the trouble, the drama, the trauma, the near death experiences, the promises to change,  knowing full well every doctor I saw said the same thing, that I wasn't going to make it much longer continuing down this path, that I needed to sober up to have any chance at stabilizing mentally and that my life hung in the balance.

Yet knowing all this, I just couldn’t do it..

But it wasn't from lack of effort. Three thirty day stints in treatment centers, hundreds of hours of psycho-therapy, several psychiatrists, a dozen or so medications, a thousand or so AA meetings, several AA sponsors, several trips to the ER, a couple rounds in the ICU, several brushes with death, hospitals, jails, institutions and the reading of every meaningful book from Nietzsche to the Dalai Lama.

And after all that, after everything I'd put myself and my loved ones through, there I was, in my car, late one night, driving to score drugs one more time...

And it was on that drive it hit me, a moment I recall today with great emotion. A moment where I saw myself for what I had become, an addict, in a purely hopeless state of mind and body. And all I could remember that night was asking myself a question

"How did my life get so far away from me?" 

One more question I could not answer..

But what made that run to score drugs even more memorable was how little resistance I had left. My addiction had taken me over completely, the decision making portion of my id had been taken over in the most hostile of takeovers.  

Helpless and hopeless, I came up with a plan that night that amounted to a life-saving decision. From that moment forward, I decided to live my life as a functioning addict. I know, try not to laugh. But that's how far out of reach sobriety had become. If I had any hope of staying alive, becoming a functioning addict was the best of all my bad options. 

It was simply the best I could do. I really had no other choice...
  

And its was impossible to live as a functioning addict, many around us do it all the time. But at least I had to try. And I did.

And for better or worse it worked. I lived the next 6 years of my life in a haze of narcotics, dysfunction and depression, with some stretches more productive than others. But by the end, my life had turned pretty bleak. I was a mere shell of my former self, spending the last two of those years not inhaling a single sober breath. Not one. In two straight years. 

Then I got a call. It was from my friend Adam. He had an extra ticket to go see Trey Anastasio from Phish. He was performing with the Los Angeles philharmonic orchestra at the beautiful Walt Disney theater in downtown LA

I initially said no. I wasn't feeling it. I couldn't afford it. In reality, I feared being away from my drugs that long. Plus I wouldn't be able to party at the show like I needed to. It was at a concert hall. A fancy one. It would be classical music for hippies 

But Adam insisted, saying we could barter for the ticket, just give him a couple tennis lessons. The day of the show, I was still thinking of opting out, but I gave in. I was off once again to see a show.

I'd been following Trey and Phish since 1992. I'd grown up with him, with Phish, and with the amazing colorful community of loyal fans. I'd never met the man personally, but I always felt I knew him. For he too suffered from the scourge of alcoholism and addiction. During my 20 years of watching him perform, I'd watched him go from clear eyed rock star to a strung out junkie, nearly throwing his life and career away. In 2006, Trey got lucky one night in upstate New York. He got pulled over and arrested with a cache of narcotics he likely would not have survived. Upon being arrested, he thanked the police for saving his life, so beginning his journey in to the world of sobriety.

And there we were again that fateful evening, meeting in the way that we did. Him on stage, myself in my seat. And as the show began, I thought back on some of the lower moments of his life but also how far he'd come. Six years ago his life hung in the balance. Now all cleaned up and sober and rocking a sweet sport coat, Trey took the stage leading the LA Phil through a magical night of composed Phish music. 

How does one get from that car in upstate New York to leading the LA Philharmonic..

As the evening progressed, watching what Trey was pulling off, I was overcome by an emotion I'd never felt before in all my life 

I was overcome with envy. I felt intense envy toward Trey, but not in some delusional sense where I wished I was a famous wealthy rock star. No, the envy was more personal. It was from the sense that we both suffered from the same disease of alcoholism, yet there he was on stage clean and sober, living out his artistic dreams to the fullest. Whereas I so obviously was not. 

And the the emotions hit me hard. So much so, I had to go for a walk to compose myself. Coming back to my seat, the flow of remorse started right back up again. With my head swirling, I recounted all the difficulties I'd experienced living sober.  Yet right before me was somebody who also struggled mightily with sobriety, yet there he was, living clean and sober and with gusto. 

And then Trey strummed his guitar. And so began my favorite Phish song, If I Could, a song I'd never seen performed live before. And with the orchestral strings in full force, the lone harp plucking plaintive notes, Trey and the crowd repeated the songs refrain.

If I could I would, but I don't know how... 

Over and over and over...

And the floodgates opened. I tried to contain myself, but there was no point. I just cried and cried and cried as the song played on. 

If I could, I would...but I don't know how..

But the moment triggered something within me. It had been a long time, over 15 years since I had good strong sobriety, 15 years since my Dad called me a completely different person. It was so long I'd forgot it was even possible. Yet there was Trey right before me simply killing it as a sober man. It was possible. It was right in front of me. And for the first time in a long while, I began to think about my future. Could I get back to the sober life again and live the life I'd always dreamed of?  

It had been 15 long years. Did I have another recovery in me?

My mind went a-racing. Yet the epiphany was I didn't need to figure everything out. I didn't need a master plan. I just needed to do one thing. Try harder. It had been a long time since I seriously committed myself to sobriety. Did I have it in me, Could I try one more time? 

And as we drove home from the show, inspired by the example of one Trey Anastasio, on March 10th 2012, I made a promise to myself.

To try sobriety one more time...

It had been a long time since I'd been clean...Could I get there from here?