I closed my eyes to sleep. Lately my dreams have been an exciting escape from my day-to-day. Although, today, I didn’t dream.

I saw my dad when I closed my eyes. I saw him get very upset.
He threw my guitar after screaming about something. As his rage progressed the more violent he became.
It felt real. It felt like a memory, and all of the sudden the floodgate had opened. Whether or not this was my subconscious I do not know. All I know is the memory of my 7th birthday party where my mom
locked me in my room, invited the neighbors to eat my cake in front of me while she denied me cake…

Sounds silly 20 years later.

The year that she called me moron every day, the years that she called me retarded, and would choke me, spit on me, hit me with recycling bins, have sex with different men every week were relived in this dream.
All of the shame and denial from my parents for just about oh, my entire life had spilled out of the bucket and on to the canvas of my mind.
It’s a feeling I can’t shake.
What does it mean to me? It means the last thirteen years of drug and alcohol abuse wasn’t because I liked to get high.
It wasn’t experimental, it wasn’t “kids just being kids.” My drug abuse was in response to my childhood trauma.

I’ve made an earnestly half-hearted attempt at sobriety this year, and despite a few slip-ups have finally regained control. I was starting to think I drank because I was lonely. I’m not. I am an only child I know no different life than being alone. My parents divorced when I
was two years old, and I never really thought anything about it. I thought it was normal.

I’ve tried to let people in lately but, that doesn’t solve the problem and more often than not I end up being the shoulder to cry on.
I hate that I’m writing this on my work laptop, but the feeling is unshakeable.
I was in public school until my Mom had me test into a gifted school that ran grades 2-12. I didn’t fit in.
I remember crying alot in class. My mom was no help on homework and just was frustrated with me for not doing it right. I was in a spin cycle of going to school trying to do the whole school thing but having this abusive shithole of a parent.

I’d see my dad on weekends but I really didn’t know anything about him.
He was my ticket to freedom, I could play video games, stay up late, things that normal kids would do.
My mom forced a bed time on me until I was 12? That was about the time I stopped living with her, and really the bed time thing dissolved when she got arrested at Universal Studios on Christmas.
The shit she put me through:
She encouraged me to steal a necklace from a renaissance fair, but we got caught.
I’m not here to point fingers or write my mom’s biography. I’m here to understand myself.

I’ve seen such negativity from these people.
It’s nice. I think the physical distance has helped create the event that I realize that I have been poorly coping with a less-than-perfect childhood. Sure, I had a roof over my head and food and all. Moreso at my dad’s than my mom’s I remember eating popcorn and oatmeal for dinner many nights. But she lived in a nice house so who cares?

I currently live in a better house than my dad was renting in 2015. I finally have a positive environment.
Am I lonely? Yes.

I really thought I met the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. That didn’t work out. I take responsibility for my part in it why it didn’t work out.
I hold no grudge, but I am still hurt.
In short, at 21 I got a 29 year old woman pregnant and we had to have an abortion. It was not my choice.

I’ve been expelled from high school twice
I’ve been fired from 3 jobs (two restaurants and a brewery), but I’ve worked over 30 jobs (I’m 24).

I’ve spun a sign on the side of the road, I’ve worked for so many shitty so-called entrepreneurs who have stiffed me.
None of those things faze me

I remember being the worst mechanic at a Just Tires in Culver City. As I’ve studied management in college I’ve learned that it actually was the hiring manager’s fault for hiring me.

Being blackout drunk on a monday two weeks ago and throwing up on myself at work- doesn’t bother me nearly as much. Doing Heroin doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the way I was treated by the people who love me.

A bitter selfish entitled child inside of me would love to have put that last sentence in other words, but I really am not bitter about the whole thing. I’m actually crushed and afraid.

My friend and I were crossing the street a few months ago and somebody shot a gun at us. I was glad that people nearby cared and walked home with us.
December First my friend and I got into a car accident by hitting a deer. It totaled my car. We were drinking.

Now I could have not drank, I could have also been more responsible and not gotten scammed out of $2,000 and actually gotten a place in LA. That all took place before the pregnancy.
I could have been more secure, more chill, I could have… and that’s where I think my behavior pulled more influence.
She made her decisions, and I don’t think I could have changed that no matter what I did. It’s the pain of every day that goes by is a day that I would have a 3 year old now. The baby was going to be born on my Mom’s birthday.

I had to pause writing.
This is so fucking hard to write because I am feeling this way in real time. I’m not sure how to take it.
Half of me says “I made it, there’s only one way to go and that’s forward.” The other half says,
“What does it matter?”

---

Sure, okay look there are people I hang out with, people I work with. I get alot of texts every day. I have a podcast that unfortunately is proof that I do have more than three friends.
Some friends have cut me out of their lives- some of them I don’t blame.

The second time I got expelled from high school was for weed. I was almost immediately hired as a sign spinner at a head shop at 15 years old. I worked at this headshop from 15-17 until I was managing the store. I had a key, I counted the drawer down all that retail shit.
The owner of the store was a drug addict. I didn’t know that. Every day was either top of the world, or worst day of your life but this guy, who owned this headshop. He used to be a sound engineer. He knew everybody in town, he could kind of play guitar, he was your typical prog rock boomer.
There was some good in this guy, he introduced me to alot of really cool music and really cool people. He helped me out of some jams when I needed them but he probably did more harm than good…

I wouldn’t know what efukt.com is if it weren’t for him.
He acted like an older brother where anything I did- I could paint the Mona Lisa and it would still be shit. He definitely would gaslight me. This was at a time I didn’t know what gaslighting was.
He definitely tried to manipulate me, and definitely got me into manipulating people. Treating everybody I met the way a greedy manipulative sociopath would treat them.
I only had to deal with him for around three years.

It gets worse when right next door to the headshop was a clothing store.
I was fifteen years old and this lady was forty-five. It started as a joke. I can still see the Facebook post. Part of why I got off of Facebook was to stop seeing this post in my memories.
NEXT ON WHEN COUGARS ATTACK was the headline and then followed up with something about the lady at the boutique saying I was cute.

Well, fifteen year old me chatted her up.
It took all of eight months before she pulled me into the clothing store after they closed and made out with me in the store. It happened over the course of two days. I can still see it. Gotta tell ya, I wasn’t really digging it.
It definitely shocked fifteen year old me.
She’d pop in and out of my life even after I left the headshop. Sometimes via text, or an accidental run-in somewhere. But her texts stopped after a while. I remember texting her when I moved to California and received no reply.
I later found out she died.
Suicide.

That still doesn’t really sit well with me. The whole thing to be honest.
I feel better after writing this but I’m not sure what to do with this feeling. I’ve never felt it before.

I’ve felt anger- I can deal with anger. I can deal with sadness. I can deal with confusion, jealousy, happiness, lust, you name it.

I don’t know how to deal with this foggy worthlessness. It’s the closest to suicidal I’ve ever felt. It’s like I can dissociate from it enough to “be myself” for others, but it doesn’t go away.

writing this helped a lot actually. But I still don’t know what to do with it.

I remember a pastime of mine was to wake up, drink a pot of coffee and be spiking it with whiskey. Drinking from the time I woke up until the end of the day. Ceaseless smoking and drinking. Hours of my life spent doing that for so many days I can’t recall. What I thought was
fun, what I thought was ‘just being young’ was a cry for help. Pure escapism from an oppressive situation. It’s Saturday morning, a day off for me- (don’t read too much into that, I had a 9:00 meeting, I have homework to do, and I’m going to work on music)- and I have no
desire to drink.
It’s a morning just the same as any of those other mornings, but that desire to flee isn’t there.
That depressive urge is no longer urgent. My life is peaceful and I am finally in control of it.

There is nothing to run from. There is nothing to fear.

I’ve compared my “alcoholism” to a whisper. My decision to drink is a gentle and insistent push by a gust of wind. Not strong at all. Easy to ignore.

My addiction to cigarettes is like being caught in a fucking bear trap. It’s almost a competition for my affection- my ex or smoking cigarettes: always passively occupying my mind. Even right now I want to smoke. I am out of cigarettes and money, and it’s too fucking cold outside to
walk to the store.
Today is a great day off. That’s not sarcasm, today I can fucking actually be content at home without spending money or going anywhere.

I remember my first cigarette. I was 13? I was curious to try it, and I remember when I inhaled it it scared the living shit out of me. Like an electric shock, I smoked half and put it out.

Both of my parents were non-smokers. I did not grow up in a smoking household. Rather, quite the opposite. I thought I grew up in very anti-smoking households.
I only saw my Dad on weekends, turns out he smoked cigars. He just did a great job at hiding it from me until I was 13 (around the time I started living with him)
My mom didn’t smoke cigarettes to my knowledge, but she dated a lot of men who did smoke. I “caught” her smoking once and she put it out but I was maybe 11 or 12, and it was shocking. The first time I smoked a cigarette I was completely unaware that Cloves were cigarettes. I’d smoked cloves with weed before not knowing cloves were tobacco.

Regardless, it never became a habit until December 2013.
The first pack “I” bought was pall mall menthols. $5.
I spent the first year as a smoker (age 15-16) becoming immersed in the hobby. I tried as many cigarettes as I possibly could. I had a vape, I smoked Cuban wrapped cigars, $2 clippers, scraped cigarette butts from ash trays, Hookah, pipe tobacco, roll your owns, everything. Camel Crushes were my “starter pack” but it didn’t take long for me to hate
menthols. I smoked Newport Blues and Marlboro Skylines when I did smoke menthols, but after a certain point, I couldn’t feel the hit and I hated the taste.

Kools, Newports, Marlboro 72s, Marlboro NXTs, Marlboro Black Menthol etc. etc. I settled on Marlboro reds at some point. I was warned that I was going to catch bronchitis from the cowboy killers and guess what? I did!
I’ve had bronchitis twice on account of my smoking.

So I got off the Marlboros.

Oh yeah, I tried dipping in 10th grade. I’d dip and smoke at the same time. It never stuck with me though- it’s gross. One night in the embarrassingly recent past, I got blackout drunk and woke up with
dip in my mouth. I spent most of the morning wondering why I bummed dip off somebody. “
I vaped for a little bit then I sold my vape and actually quit smoking for a close to six months. It definitely didn’t exceed six months. I started back up again, but this time I only smoked expensive cigarettes:
American Spirits were the lowest I would go. Dunhills were my smoke of choice, Nat Shermans were second. My friend’s dad was a chain smoker and he was always traveling the world on business trips bringing back brands like Ruili River, Gold Flake, but I think he smoked Marlboros
when he wasn’t abroad.

I remember my friend stealing many many Marlboro lights from his neighbor and by osmosis I received quite a few of those. For about a year we stole cigarettes from my neighbor we called, “the camel lady.”
I remember not being able to afford cigarettes and smoking a pack called Native Prides. They were 2.89 a pack. The name was a knockoff of American Spirits and I assumed that somebody had taken all of the tobacco from a slough American Spirit butts, put it in a roll-your-own machine and started their own company.
There were a brand of cigarettes called 305s… I remember recruiting a homeless guy to buy a group of us beer and 305s at a party once…. My shitbag Italian neighbor smoked 305 menthols.
They were fucking awful.

I’ve dated 2 smokers thus far. More often than not I date non-smokers. It’s not something I do on purpose, but I do prefer nonsmokers.

I switched to American Spirits at some point, trying every color before I
landed on yellow. From yellow I progressed to smoking American Spirit Blacks. That was senior year of high school. The year I went to Boston realizing that American Spirits ran an odd $14 a pack. I smoked Dunhills and Shermans pretty much exclusively after I graduated high school.
Every now and again I’d smoke Marlboro 27’s. Marlboro Southern Cuts were a favorite. I discovered those in 11th grade.

I’m breathing slowly as I write this, realizing how long ago that was, and how often I’ve smoked. At the headshop, the owner smoked Marlboro reds inside (yes, where I decided to make
Marlboro Reds my brand).
I worked at a fabric store for an HIV positive gay dude who graduated from a bible college. He smoked Marlboro menthols inside. I would smoke southern cuts or spirits I think at this point.
Those were the only jobs where I could smoke inside.
In the American southeast, cigarette prices were the cheapest I’d ever seen. Marlboros were running $7.50 a pack in Florida, they were almost $5 even in 2017.
American Spirits currently run around $9. If I buy 2 packs a week that’s $20 a week. $20*52= $1040.00
Not that I don’t waste enough money but that’s a grand that can stay in my pocket rather than kill me.
One thousand dollars a year is actually quite a dedication to self-hatred coming to think about it.

Nat Sherman stopped making cigarettes two years ago, a sure sign to quit smoking.

I smoke American Spirit light blues now, on account of being unable to find anything else remotely smokeable. Seriously since I moved to this town, I don’t think I have bought a different pack of cigarettes. I fucking can’t.

This is my tenth year smoking, and it’s kind of unbelievable. I think that’s what makes the habit so hard to break.

What have I done for ten years?
I’ve been alive for ten years. Twice now. Going on Two and a half times actually.
I’ve played guitar for over ten years.
I’ve used a computer for over ten years.
I’ve spoken, read and written for over ten years (this includes the other inherent/obvious things like breathing eating drinking and shitting).
I haven’t even been driving for ten years yet. I’ve smoked longer than I’ve been legally allowed to drink. I’ve smoked longer than I’ve been driving, than I’ve been or am going to be in college.
I’ve smoked longer than I’ve ever kept a job.
That’s fucking eye-opening actually. Did I mention that the addiction feels like a bear trap? I’m running out of “free years” and I’m starting to do damage. I have a smoker’s voice. I get winded
pretty quickly. But I’m still not done walking through this journey.

I moved to California unprepared for a completely different world! Nobody in California really condones smoking in public. Even in private, you hopefully own the land you’re smoking on because shame on you. I remember the prices of cigarettes being $12 a pack no matter what I wanted. I think Marlboros bottomed out somewhere around $9.
I’ve always preferred Marlboro to camels. I remember trying Turkish royals or fucking… camel wides. I fucked with unfiltereds too and I just found Marlboros to be more to my tastes. Which is ironic considering all smoking does is fuck up your tastes. I’ve thought (especially since the pandemic has started) that it takes brass balls to smoke during a pandemic where the disease is a major respiratory infection.

I’ve also thought that smokers are extremely tough people. They don’t care if it’s 2 fucking degrees outside or it’s flooding they be out there smokin. Wildfires? Shit that’ll light up my cig.
Cig. Stoge. Smoke.

More realizations from California:
1) Nobody would bum me a cigarette. Nobody. Didn’t matter how I asked, didn’t matter what the situation was. Nobody would bum me a cigarette. I did notice a culture of “Can I buy a cigarette” in LA that seemed to have a higher success rate than “spare a cigarette” but generally speaking, “no” was the answer.

2) No smoking in parking garages, no smoking near dumpsters, no smoking at the beach, no smoking within 50 feet of…. This was a much more restrictive culture than I was accustomed to in Florida (let alone anywhere else in the South).
3) I can’t afford to smoke.
4) It was a turn off. Anyone that was going to approach me, immediately distanced themselves as soon as they saw me light up. Totally ruined opportunities just by being a smoker.

Just a general realization about smoking: Almost all homeless people smoke.

So that kind of hit me. I was living in my car (in various forms) from 19-24 with a slight break when I was 22-23 and was on probation having to live with my dad.
Living that way created a certain mindset…certain habits. I’ve only had a home for five months going on six. I am only just beginning my walk of breaking these habits and changing my lifestyle.
Mind you this entire time I’ve smoked cigarettes, I was smoking weed roughly two years before
(I started smoking weed at 13, cigarettes at 15)

I received a tobacco citation when I got expelled from high school for the second time. I had a can of Grizzly chewing tobacco and a pack of I fucking forgets on me. Every day before 10 th grade started my friend and
I would meet up smoke a cig and talk shit.

I also had a friend who would bum me cigarettes in class, and vice versa.
I paid some disgusting amount of money (under $100 but still) and sat through an anti-tobacco class (that entailed a ten minute break hahaha) that was so long ago, and I still fucking smoke.

The teacher of that class added me on Facebook and still occasionally messages me. As I’ve gotten my life together, I hear from him less and less but still the infrequent pop-ups are appreciated more than he knows.
I must have given my zippo away at some point I’ve only owned one. Otherwise, I’m an impassionate lighter buyer. Djeep, Clipper, Bic, ‘Crack Lighter’ whatever. I was never so into smoking that I needed a special lighter. I was never so into smoking that I bought a carton. Ever. I’ve never bought a carton for myself. I bought a carton for someone else with their money, but I have not ever bought a carton of cigarettes myself for myself. I’m going on year four of telling myself “this is my last pack”
It’s so easy to quit, it’s literally not doing something, yet it’s so hard. I feel mild physical addictions to cigarettes but guess fucking what? My psoriasis is coming in full swing- and this fucking smoking addiction makes it worse.
I’ve already let it fuck with my breathing, how much worse do I need to let it get?!!?
Letting this stupid addiction be the thing that controls what I can and can’t do/ who does and does not want to fuck with me. How many more sacrifices am I willing to make? I’m running out of the negligible ones and staring the serious deadly looking ones in the face.

I left California unsuccessful. I came back to Tennessee and did my best to get sober. I got close. Very close. Even during the pandemic I was able to get on top of my addictions. But the people around me were enablers. I know it’s a typical addict move to point the finger, but where I was at on my journey of not smoking- I needed support.
For the first time in my life, I’m away from enablers.
I don’t want to be a smoker anymore. I never saw myself as a lifelong smoker.
I remember leaving school for lunch to get a smoke before class started. I remember leaving school and lighting up. Cigarette after cigarette I was digging a hole. The hole I’m currently writing from.

Benson & Hedges, Capris, Virginia Slims (vagina slimes), fucking newport reds, Senecas, Pall Mall red orange green and black, I never liked L&Ms, I’ve received Marlboro and camel coupons since I was 14.

Camel Snus, Cope, Winstons, Lucky Strikes, Parliaments, Doral, American Spirits (owned by Camel) fucking Vantage, Kamel Reds, Camel no 9s, Marlboro Special Blend, Marlboro Eighty-Threes, Dunhill Reds, Nat Sherman MCD’s, Native Pride, Timeless Time, Clipper filtered cigars,
Hookah bars, cigars, Export A’s, I’ve smoked for too long. It’s killing me.

I can’t stop seeing a ventilator in the future. I can’t shake the sensation of drowning in the air. I don’t like the future of a smoker.