A Junkie's Journal

Fourteen

edited (11.10.16)
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Tristan was desperate for the feeling that snorting pills gave him. He had a little bit of crushed Focalin in a bag - he didn't even make lines with the powder this time, he just snorted it out of the bag. As he snorted the powder, he realized a few reasons why others were stuck in a drug addiction like he was. They wanted to fill a gaping hole in their life, they wanted to be happy for once, and they felt alive when they did drugs. Although that could be part of the reason, maybe it was only Tristan that felt this way.
A documentary about drugs that Tristan watched kept reinstating that people, not addicts, thought a drug addiction was a choice. To Tristan, it wasn't a choice. The only choice involved in drug addiction was the first time someone would do a drug. The second they felt the effects of the drug and the euphoria it brought along with it, they would want more. Addiction was not a choice, but the first hit was.
When someone struggled with a long-term drug addiction, they would't want anything other than drugs. They would lie to their families, they would go for days without eating, and they would become a failure and a disappointment to their families and lovers. One was an addict if they got to the point where they would kill for their drug of choice. Was Tristan at this point? He didn't know.
A few minutes after he snorted the powder, he felt it kick in. Tristan felt the weightlessness, the energy, and the happiness that came with his Focalin. He had fought long and hard for this drug; the constant arguments with parents and grandparents, the look of sadness in their eyes when they figured out Tristan had been sleeving the pills again, the feeling of betrayal that his family felt when he went behind their backs and snorted the drug was all worth it at this point. Tristan didn't know how to regain the trust that he had lost; he needed to continue snorting pills, but he wanted back the trust he had lost. He couldn't have both. He would choose drugs over trust any day.
Tristan was in a hotel room when he snorted the drugs. His grandparents had been gone for a while, but now, they were back. He always acted different when he was high, and he didn't know whether or not his grandparents would notice. Tristan didn't think they would, but if they saw the powder caked in his nostrils, he would be done for. He wouldn't be able to come up with a convincing enough lie to assure them he wasn't back to old habits.
Although he wouldn't be able to come up with an excuse for that situation, overall, he was a good liar. Tristan knew what his tells were, and he covered them up easily after years of practice. He lied to everyone and manipulated people to get what he wanted. He wondered if this happened because of the drug addiction - he hadn't been able to lie this well before he tried the drug for the first time. Ever since the first time he got caught high, lying had become one of his only talents.
While he laid on one of the hotel beds, he thought about how he was going to get weed, and maybe Adderall, from his lover when they meet for the first time. Currently, if he couldn't sleeve pills in the mornings, he would do any drug that was offered to him, no matter how dangerous he knew it was.
He thought ahead about when he was going to smoke the weed he was getting. Tristan wouldn't be able to get any rolling papers without his grandparents knowing, so he bought a bowl from an online shop. Once the bowl arrived in the mail, he easily convinced his grandparents that it was for tobacco, since they let him smoke cigarettes. Tristan's grandparents were either incredibly stupid or incredibly gullible - maybe a little bit of both.
Tristan was at the point where he needed something, anything, to get him out of his head. Sobriety was the thing he hated the most; why be sober and unhappy when you could be high or drunk and be ecstatic?
Tristan and his grandparents had traveled all the way from Indiana to South Carolina. His grandfather went to the grocery store and bought beer for the first time in ages. Tristan had gotten away with stealing several cans that night, maybe five or six, and he chugged them all in a short period of time. The next morning when he woke up, he couldn't remember the previous night, and that made him feel sickly happy. He was back, better than ever.