Tales from the dark side - part 2 (the sad conclusion)
For those who read my prior posts on this subject, I figured I would share the sobering outcome. Tonight was an unpleasant night.My sweet young dancer (whose boyfriend angrily accused her of being a junkie) called again with another emergency. Once again, against better judgment, I rescued her. (Trust me I am sparing you a lot of details.) In the course of this event, I get in another series of lengthy chats with the boyfriend, who seems genuinely awestruck that I am going out of my way to help someone I barely know I explain that having children myself, I do not feel comfortable adandoning this girl to her own devices.
The boyfriend then confesses to me that he told a terrible lie. She is not really a junkie. He made that all up, just to get back at her.
I am feeling great, needless to say. My faith in human nature is restored. The dancer and her boyfriend seem to be making a clean, amicable break. All is well.
So now I am hanging out with her (no sex, we're fully dressed) and I am marveling at the elaborate web of deception the boyfriend had spun. Suddenly there is pounding at the door, and who bursts in, but the enraged psychotic boyfriend.
He is carrying on like a raving madman, and I am somewhat fearful for my safey. Most of what he is saying is gibberish about their failed relationship, but in the course of this he keeps yelling, "tell him the truth." He actually leaves at one point, and in the momentary calm, I ask the girl to explain, but she claims not to understand.
Finally, he returns and demands that she show me her arms in the bare light of the rooms. She bullshits a little more, showing me the top sides of her arms. But finally I grab her wrists and turn them over. And there are the track marks. Unmistakable.
That wasn't the end of the confessions, however. I am sure the more jaded among you will not be suprised to learn the boyfriend is a junkie too. To his credit, he had the decency to force the truth. Personally, I feel lucky I wasn't robbed at knifepoint. Sad.
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At the end of the day, she will either get better or will continue to sink, and it has very little to do with you...
The part that most amazes me (and, of course, it's just a comment on my own stupidity) is that I had absolutely no clue that this person was a junkie until the boyfriend told me. I knew she was lying about things, and I had a general sense of unease, but never thought drugs were the issue. It simply never crossed my dull mind that someone so sweet and pretty and nice could be a junkie. What a dummy.
The other amazing thing is how the evidence of the drugs was there in plain sight. All you had to do was look at her arms and the track marks were everywhere. The clubs are usually so fucking dark that I guess you can't really see what's going on unless you bring a flashlight with you. Still, it's pretty funny (in a perverse way) that a junkie can be dancing around with hardly a stitch of clothing on and your average patron doesn't notice the really, really obvious signs of major drug use.
I hope seeing what a moron I am makes the rest of you feel less stupid.
I think nearly all strippers do some illegal substances, they just don't consider themselves to be on drugs. They distinguish between what they call soft drugs and hard drugs, and don't consider use of soft drugs to be doing drugs. Few strippers probably become what most of us would consider to be drug addicts. For example, my ATF used to smoke pot daily and experimented with lots of other stuff especially when at dance clubs, but she drew the line at injecting herself with anything. And I don't think she was ever addicted, in the sense that the term is usually meant. She did spend a month in rehab after getting busted once, but she never went through any withdrawal and she has managed to stay pretty clean since then. I know that for a fact because she was subject to regular random testing for the next 4 years and never once flunked the test. I'd say she was one of the luckier ones - she now considers getting busted as one of the best things that ever happened to her - the rehab changed her life.
I realize these are distinctions in degree sometimes. But I am probably reluctant to make that big a deal out of pot smoking, particularly given the prevalence of alcoholism in our country, which probably causes more of a problem healthwise than pot. On the other hand, I would like to continue to steer clear of anyone using profoundly addictive drugs, like heroin or crystal meth, even if they are used "recreationally."
I was jsut "lucky" enough to go to grammer school during the Regan administration.LOL
we had a " DA.R.E"(aka Drug Abuse Resistance education) class, Not to mention Im addicted to C.S.I. LOL
My GF and I are letting a recovering addict stay at our place right now. She is on methadone maintenance, which effectively suppresses her cravings for heroin and other opiates. And she can function pretty well, working part time. We're trying to get her into a halfway house so she can have a more structured environment. Unfortunately, she has too much free time, and she still sees the same people as before (a bunch of losers). We have evidence she is getting high on meth and abusing pills. She'll be out of here within 2 weeks and that's that. The success rate on "saving" addicts is pitifully low.
However, my GF is one of the "escapees" from a life of drugs. She did it all by first breaking from her old "friends", going on methadone, and then latching on to me. Then there was about a year of hell while she slipped in and out of drug use, smokingcrack mostly. I literally tracked her down and pulled her off the streets a few times. Biggest challenge of my life was to hang in there. I kept telling myself, as I lost 10 pounds and got demoted at work, that it was about her, not me. Now she has been clean for 2 years, she's an A student in college, and she has a purpose in life rescuing animals. She also has a great heart. AND, she is one sexy lady. There is hope after all! :-)