Confessions of a Mad man: The story of an addict

Based on a real story....

“Here’s a question for you: What is an “addict”?

According to Cambridge Dictionary an addict is “a person who cannot stop doing or using something, especially something harmful”. According to Wikipedia an addiction is “a medical condition characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences”

My name is Aaron Parker Knight and I am an addict!

It all started when I was 16 years old…..Correction! It all started from a very young age; since I can remember, actually. I was always an A+ student (or most of the time anyway). In kindergarten I was always the teacher’s favourite because I was quiet, obedient and never caused any kind of trouble. I would always sit in a corner with my back-then best friend (only one and preferably a girl as they are always a bit kinder than boys) and we would quietly play with random exciting for our age toys, or we would draw silly pictures of our favourite cartoon characters or family members. Mine was always Donald Duck and Pluto or my mom and auntie.

Anyway, moving forward to Primary school, I would ace every single class apart from one " PE! Physical Education never appealed to me, mostly because what we mainly did was play football " and kicking a ball around never seemed meaningful to me. I mean what is the point? Yes, it is a kind of exercise and in some respect it teaches you strategy, but people get so passionate about it and sometimes aggressive that it made me hate it. I know, I know….getting carried away (an addict’s worst attribute). So to cut a very long story short, during PE I would sit on a bench and watch a bunch of aggressive boys run around, kicking balls….or I would take part in the “girly” activities like sprint, obstacle jumping etc etc… You can only imagine the bullying that followed that… I’m telling you out of experience, being pushed around, thrown on the ground and being kicked is not as fun as it sounds! Being called names is a little bit amusing but again not as fun as it sounds!

“Look at him playing with the girls”, “Hey Aaron, where’s your skirt?” and my personal favourite “You f*****g f****t!” followed by laughter, finger pointing and cheers (little did they know that by the time they were 25, most of them would be married and enslaved with 2 or 3 children…one of them would commit suicide because he was depressed and no one noticed the cuts on his wrists…and the rest of them would still live at their mom’s at 30 because they couldn’t land a job after failing high school… while this f****t enjoyed life). So as you can imagine, that did not help in making many friends and I obviously wasn’t the most popular kid at school.

Anyhow, fast forward a few years down the line ….High school!

Fortunately for me, my postcode being further out of town than the rest of my Primary schoolmates meant that I had to attend a different High school than ALL of them. Yes, that was very lucky indeed " it was like being given another chance.

 I didn’t take it!

I spent the first year, in a quiet corner " still ace-ing my classes " and not being noticed by anyone apart from my teachers. In a way that was a blessing, the bullying had stopped as I was a complete stranger to everyone in the school and with a tiny bit of effort from my side to take part in the PE classes (which thankfully, did not include football very often…you see the PE teacher turned out to be a woman so…SURPRISE! No football unless it was a special occasion)

What a wonderful woman she was! I always liked her and will always remember her " may she rest in peace!

….ah yeah, back on track…. So, the first year, I went by unnoticed which was great and refreshing. But I needed more and I had made my mind…. I would do my best to fit in (and ace my classes at the same time)

Second year, I opened up a bit, befriended the guy sitting next to me in class and finally had my first ever real friend! We started hanging out, having sleep-overs and spent a hell of a lot of time playing video games and watching horror movies…you know, everything that a normal kid would do!

Now, you can imagine, I had a friend, who had a friend who knew some other guys….long story short, by the end of the year the whole classroom was a gang, tied together, hanging out together and sworn eternal friendship through a blood ritual.. ( I might have overreacted a bit on the last part)…but you get the point!

Summer came, school ended and we kept the friendship going….

Third year of high school was here before you knew it. We all came back to the same classroom and everything was the same. I was ecstatic! I couldn’t wait to go to school every morning. For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to go to school and I actually had fun. However that came with a price…my grades fell and the straight As became SOME straight As and some Bs, one C… and the first cigarrete, maybe my first joint… and expected as it was, the parents were not happy but did not kick a massive fuzz. They most probably thought that it was all down to puberty and more difficult classes, who knows?

Now, you wonder why I have not mentioned my family life at all, so far and it’s all about school. That’s simple! At that age, what is most important in one’s life is school.

A child spends most of their day at school and whatever happens at home (yes it’s important too) but whatever happens at home has always been there. All the family drama and arguments, fights and punishments, they have all been there since the dawn of time " or at least dawn of one’s life " so I won’t bore you with my family drama.

Now, where were we….ah, yes! 

As I said, the third year was great! I made friends and I started enjoying life, no one would bully me and if anyone dared to, I had back-up!.... But this wouldn’t last forever. Year three had to eventually end and after that there was College.

As it would be expected, once again, life decided to raise its middle finger to me and the same postcode that had sent me to a great High school life, sent me back to College with most of my Primary schoolmates. However, this time I would take no s**t!

I don’t need to tell you that the group of friends that swore eternal friendship, forgot me the minute I was moved to the new school. I still bump into some of them of Facebook, sometimes, and they seem to keep in touch, just not with me.

Aaaanyway…..

The first year of College started and I instantly looked for the first people I would befriend and first up would, of course, be the coolest guy in school, who happened to sit right next to me, in most classes. A bright guy but he was never bothered to use his intelligence to prove anything to anyone. He just didn’t care. Befriending him was easy! I always watched and took my time to evaluate a situation before acting and in his case all I needed to do is make him trust me…. And yes, maybe I fancied him a little bit, afterall, he was smart, good looking and talented. I was a bit jealous, sue me! So I waited for the first time he would almost get himself in trouble with a teacher and helped him work his way out of it, making the teacher look stupid. Pretty easy task!

We started hanging out and as the coolest guy in school he received a lot of attention…which helped with my next task. Befriend one of the cool girls! That was easier. We just started hanging out, sometimes, where they used to hang out, shared a cigarette or two, exchanged stories and grievances about our parents and siblings and BANG!

By the end of the first year in College, most students knew me or of me…

The second year was trickier…. We had younger people coming in " New blood " and new blood sometimes can be damaging! During that year I had to bully someone to make them understand who had the upper hand. That didn’t end well " I got a punch in the stomach, but my goal was reached and that person never argued or showed their face anywhere near me again. I won by becoming what I always hated " a bully! Needless to say that my grades started sliding like an avalanche and by the end of the year I had 3 Cs and barely missed an F!

And that’s when it started!

During that summer my life changed completely. Until then, every time I was offered any kind of drugs, I would refuse them (apart from weed " that didn’t count as a drug in my opinion) but that changed, because I changed! Wanna know how I changed..?

On a Sunday night that summer, I left the house and wondered in a park not far, lit a cigarette and sat on a bench to smoke it. I thought I looked cool " to no one as it was deadly quiet in the middle of the night but I did, in a way, to myself! I smoked one, waited about five minutes and then lit another but before I finished it, out of nowhere and to my surprise, a guy walked into the park and in a very slow pace, approached me. I played it cool and didn’t flinch, I said hi and he politely asked for a lighter which I (being nice as always) handed to him. He asked for permission to sit on the bench and I granted it and then he took a bag of marijuana out of his pocket and asked me if I’d like to smoke aswell. I refused as I would have to return to my parents’ house after that and go to sleep (my dad would definitely smell it if I walked by their room while he was in there sleeping). The nice guy asked if I would mind joining him behind the church as he had no lighter to light it and me being 17 years old then, I felt brave enough to accompany him. The church was only a few meters away from us so I wouldn’t have to go far…and who knows, maybe in a way I wanted to have a puff.

We walked behind the church, he rolled the joint and I gave him the lighter to light it. He smoked and I did not give in to the temptation. We chatted for a while and then he grabbed my leg " that’s when I flinched! He asked me not to make any noise and with steady slow movements he unbuttoned my trousers and pulled them down. I froze! He put his hands down my underwear and again in a slow manner, pulled them down. He then, stood up and pulled his trousers down. He grabbed his dick " which I have to admit was quite a handful " and asked me to touch him and slowly work my way down on him. Even though I felt forced, I could not do anything, I was frozen and unable to function in any way. He put his hand in between my legs and before I knew it he was down on me and I was hard. He stood up, turned around and sat on me " me sitting still and unable to move, naked on a cold metal bench. It seemed like hours but it only took 15 minutes. He finished and stood up, pulled his trousers up, handed me my lighter which had fallen off my hand and then turned around and walked away.

After he was gone (and I made sure he was entirely out of my visual field) I rushed up, pulled my pants up as fast as I could and run as if someone had set fire up my a*s! I went home, turned the shower on and sat under it for more than 30 minutes and by the time I went to sleep it was 4am.

The next year when I went back to college, I was a different person!

The first chance I had, I took drugs. The cool guy and I would meet regularly even after school, to get high on mostly marijuana but sometimes pills aswell. We would go out clubbing while high and sometimes even to school. That year we were both almost expelled for smoking a joint in the classroom during breaks and by the end of this third year, my straight As had become anything but As.  School was finally over and I was enjoying myself to the utmost possible, but not the way I should!

I decided not to go to University and start working immediately but unfortunately for me, my cool friends had other plans, so they all left for other cities or even countries and I was left alone again. I keep in touch with some of them but not very often. This was the second time I was forgotten by my so called friends.

This time however, I had the confidence I needed to make new friends and in combination with the right drug….all I needed to do was go clubbing. I did and I made new friends.

 I met Joshua in August 2004 and by then I had no insecurities. We became friends and a little bit more, almost instantly. We started taking ecstasy and clubbing and until the end of the winter in 2005, that’s almost all we did. Then we became more intimate and wanted to try something different and a friend suggested something a little more…relaxed!

We would finish work every other day, go to Josh’s house and the lines were ready on the table waiting for us. Cocaine was our downfall…or the beginning of it. We would spend the night chatting about all kinds of things " life, the world, our future, aliens… Then we would start cuddling, become more comfortable, we would have sex and go to sleep. That was our life for a year and every second of it was incredible, until another friend offered us something stronger.

 

Heroin was the easiest to obtain back then and it was the easiest drug to get hooked on…and hooked on it we got! We ended up having almost no sleep, go to work high, finish work, go home, get high…if we had time we’d eat…forget about sex, forget about cuddles and intimacy. It was all about the high. We started arguing sometimes because I insisted on cutting heroin down but Josh was enjoying it so we would end up fighting but then the next day we would be loved up again, as if nothing happened. We discussed our drug use and we decided that coke would be for weekdays and heroin for the weekends

It was Monday, October the 2^nd 2006. I went to work that morning, after spending the night at Josh’s and having only 2 hours of sleep " we were high on coke the night before " Josh decided to keep the H for the next weekend  as a celebration for something silly. I woke up at 7am, gave him a kiss on the cheek, he winked at me and I left for work. I was exhausted, I couldn’t concentrate and I could barely keep my eyes open.

 At 14:26 my phone rang and on the other side of the line a distressed woman asked me where her son was. I said, I had no idea what she was talking about and she hang up. At 14:45 my phone rang again and the same woman asked if my name was Aaron and I said yes. She said that she called her son’s phone but he didn’t pick up. I explained to her that I still had no idea what she was talking about. She said she was Josh’s mom. I calmed her down and said that he will be probably sleeping as he was not working that day, to which she replied saying she had a bad feeling. I disregarded it as I was tired and could not think straight either.

The next time my phone rang, it was 15:17. It wasn’t Josh’s mom, it was a friend asking me if I would go by Joshua’s house after work. I said I was finishing work in 13 minutes and I would head there and he said he’d meet me there around 16:00. At 15:44 I received another call while I was on my way to Josh’s place. This time it was Josh’s mom again.

“He’s gone.” She said in tears “They found him in a car park with his stash”

I stopped the car in the middle of the street and I asked what she meant, thinking this might be a prank my stupid friends pulled.

“My baby is dead” she screamed and I could feel the world collapsing into an abyss around me. I found the strength to park the car on the side of the road and I sat there with his mom on the other side of the phone line, both bursting in tears and screams while the world was plunging into darkness… “What are you talking about?” I said “He was fine this morning…if this is a prank, it’s not funny” I screamed but it was not a joke.

I was on the phone to his mom for hours that day. She said he had spoken to her about me and that she asked him to take me home for dinner one day and that he gave her my number in case of an emergency. She told me that she had seen a picture of me that he kept in his wallet. She wanted me to keep his wallet. I told her I would go and collect it and up to this day I had not had the strength to face her.

I did not attend Joshua’s funeral. I thought it would be better if I stayed away even though I knew his mom and he would want me there. I did, however, visit his grave a few times over the coming years and I am sure that every time his mom found violets at his grave, she knew it was me leaving them there " it was his favourite flower.

It will be 10 years this October!

Right after Joshua’s death I stopped taking any kind of drugs. I did not attend any rehabilitation centres or whatever they want to be called. The thought of him wanting me to build a life, like we planned to do, was more than enough to get me through. I spent the past 10 years studying (one way or another) what makes people tick. I have a diploma in behavioural psychology and I read and researched everything that has to do with behaviour; what behavioural queues to look out for and how to build connections between behaviours and as I promised his mom, myself and him that day, I have not and never will do drugs again and that’s a promise I intend to keep. We promised to make a better life for both of us and I intend on keeping, at least my part of this promise.

I am, however, an addict and always will be, because every time I get the chance; every time I think of him and every single day of October, all I want to do is take a line and maybe another one and maybe one more and maybe the last one will get me back to him….but I made a promise!

 

ApKWrites

2016