Hey Ma. Hey Mike. How ya doin? Oh me, I’m good thanks. Well, sort of…um…yeah…so….um……I’m a drug dealer. Pills. Oxys. Yup, have been for quite some time now. Explains a lot huh? No, don’t ask who. Definitely don’t ask where. There will be none of that. Why? Oh money of course, and well….I’m telling you because I’ve decided to stop….oh yeah….I’m hooked on drugs. Pills mostly. Lately it’s been a lot more though. I mean…with life and work, and this wedding shit, everything is happening so fast. I know…no excuse. Yeah, I’m pretty bad. OK…OK…I’m really bad. Yeah, I’m high right now. I sniffed a few in the driveway before I came in. See…that’s why I’m here…because I have no control anymore…I can’t stop…because I desperately need your help…will you help me?
I played all sorts of conversations and possible outcomes over and over in my head on the drive over to my mom’s house. I went alone. It was probably the longest ride of my life, even though I lived but five minutes away in Charlestown…right over the Tobin Bridge. I didn’t know where to begin, or how to begin for that matter. I was about to tell the two people who I loved and respected more than anyone else in the world that their son was an epic failure. I was not only a drug dealer, but I was hooked on pills. I’m not going to lie…I was scared shitless. Looking back, other than the day I was sentenced in Federal Court, and had to stand up in front of Judge Wolf and practically beg for him not to smoke me with too much time, telling my parents about my drug dealing/drug using lifestyle was probably the hardest day of my life. Now mind you, I’ve been to rehab, I’ve been to prison, I’ve survived both motorcycle and automobile accidents, I’ve lost loved ones, I’ve lost a parent, I’ve had bad break-ups, you get it…so that says a lot when I say it was the hardest day of my life…
I went over there to my mom’s, high as ever on drugs, with my hat in hand, with my tail between my legs. I don’t really remember too many details of the conversation. I know I told my mother Laura and Mike about all the drugs that I’d been doing. How I was sniffing more 30s in one day than most pain patients get prescribed for the month. How I was sniffing the pedico everyday like a fucking crackhead. I told them how the drugs were making me lose my mind, how I was very depressed most days, paranoid, up and down, and how I had absolutely no control anymore. I was an addict. I finally admitted to them that I was a drug dealer and had been for a while. They weren’t stupid, they had their suspicions. They noticed how well off I was and how good I lived, considering I didn’t have a job for a long time. They knew something was up but didn’t want to believe it. I mean who wants to actually believe that their son is a drug dealer?
I told my parents everything…well everything I could with out implicating anyone else. I spoke of my many Florida trips and my wild times, again without mentioning names. I’d say “my boy” or “my girl”…I wasn’t there to blame others for my wrongdoings. Every choice, both good and bad, that I’ve ever made was mine…and mine alone. I made the choice to smuggle drugs from Florida and take them back to Boston to sell them in mass quantities. I made the choice to literally party my life away by sniffing even more pills than I sold. I made the choice to lead the life that I was living. No one forced pills down my throat or up my nose. No one put a gun to my head and said “let’s make this money…sell pills.” Nope, all these poor choices were mine unfortunately. Now I was standing in front of my parents, owning up to what I had done, coming clean. I needed to rid my body and mind of these drugs once and for all. I asked for their help…
I won’t get into details about the reactions that I got from my mother Laura and Mike…or what else ensued that day…some things are better left unsaid. Maybe that and all the other shit I can’t or choose not to talk about will be in the book…lol. I will say that I am surprised at how well they both took the news of the life that I’d been leading…especially my mom. You see, my father Stephen died when I was just a young kid…9 years old. He died from a drug overdose, mixing an upper with a downer, ironically. Then there I was, admitting that I was a drug addict…history just about repeating itself right in front of my mother’s eyes. I’m sure it wasn’t easy on her, or Mike for that matter. In Boston it’s much more than a cautionary tale about the oxy dealer getting hooked on his own supply and then…well let’s just say that I’m certainly not the first person around my way that this has happened to. Like I said before, where I’m from these pills are an epidemic. Oxys usually lead to two places: prison or dead in the ground. They’re known to break up homes, ruin lives, fuck up friendships, etc…there aren’t too many success stories of drug dealers. I’m really surprised at how well my parents took the news…grateful even.
My mother Laura was on the phone and the computer within minutes of me breaking the news to them, looking for inpatient rehabs and detox centers in Mass and out of state. If you knew my mother, you wouldn’t expect any less. After many searches, she finally found one in Mass that would take my health insurance. Damn, I guess I wasn’t going to Florida or Cali to clean up after all…lol. The only downside is that a bed wouldn’t open up for 5 days from the day that I told her. I agreed, gave them my info, and that was that…
5 days…..now that posed somewhat of a problem. That’s a lifetime to a drug addict. Remember…with the amount of pills I was doing per day, the withdrawals would be brutal. They would start within 12 hours, maybe even less, from the last time I had taken or sniffed one. 5 days……shit I might be dead by then. So against the will of my parents who wanted me to stay at their place until I was set to go, I left. There was NO way I was going to go through withdrawals for that long…that’s fucking torture…especially when I still had to go to work and function socially. I had other plans. Life didn’t stop because I was an addict…it definitely wasn’t going to stop because I was dope sick. For 5 days I bought pills from a local street dealer at street prices. Not exactly cheap if you take into account how many pills I was doing per day. Not even close to how cheap I was getting them in Florida. I’m not going to lie, I thought about taking one last trip down there, to grab some pills, make some more cash, but I made promises. I was sick of hurting the ones I loved. So instead, I shopped at the local hustler and sniffed away for five whole days. I sniffed away like shit was sweet, went to work and life went back to normal. Though in the back of my mind I knew where I was headed…good ole rehab. No, not the Vegas pool party…DJ Prefanna wouldn’t be spinning, shutting down the pool party (stories lol), there would be no sexy girls, no big rehab cups filled with my favorite mixed drink, none of that…I was headed to a real rehab. A place I had only seen on TV and heard rumors about. I won’t lie, I had second thoughts during those 5 days, with me being high and all. Shit, I had third, fourth, and fifth thoughts…then one night I got a call from my boy Alessandro. I still remember that call to this day. “Matty, whats up kid?” We exchanged pleasantries…then, “Are you doing okay palzy? Someone told me they saw you the other day…said you looked like shit…” That was all I needed to hear. I lied. Told him I was great, looked great, felt great, started this new workout, just got back from Florida last week, looking at wedding venues. I lied…not about Florida and the wedding thing…that was true…but about how I looked and felt. I remember getting off the phone with him and thinking, “fuck it…I’m getting my life back.” His call may have been the final kick in the ass that I needed…
As luck would have it, the Dana Farber job I was working on was ending for my company. My cousin Jackie told me I was going to be laid off for a month until the next job was going to be set up to start. I was thrilled. I could use this time to clean up my act, then get right back to work as if nothing ever happened. It also saved me a pretty embarrassing conversation with my cousin and union foreman, Jackie. He didn’t know of my drug use, not until much later. Things were falling into place…
The day I was to go to rehab was like any other. I woke up. I sniffed some pills. Did some laundry. PLR (pills, laundry, rehab) haha…. I packed my suitcase for my stay at hotel detox. I ran some errands…the usual. I had to be at the rehab by 3pm, so I used the beginning of my day to get as high as I possibly could…my last hurrah if you will. I sniffed an obscene amount of pills on that warm September day. I was so high that I started to have doubts again. I thought about blowing off rehab and hopping on a plane to Florida for a few weeks to stay with my former friend. I could clean up down there, and I could come back with a boatload of pills, and stack up some more money. Yeah, I didn’t need work. It was like it was starting all over again. Cold feet isn’t the word for what I had. I just simply didn’t want to go. I was back on my “I don’t need fucking rehab shit.” That was obviously the pills talking. Luckily for me, my mother thought otherwise. She was hip to my plans. She was outside my apartment in Charlestown in the early afternoon, blocking my driveway, beeping like a madwoman for me to get my ass downstairs and on the way. Shit, I guess that was it. I was going…not like I didn’t put up a fight. Once again, I’ll spare the specifics, but I screamed, argued, cursed, you name it. My mother wouldn’t budge. There was NO getting out of this lil’ vacation. I finally caved in once my mother said I could drive myself in my own car and she would follow. I had some calls to make and I really wanted some privacy. That…and I had a pocket full of pills I wanted to sniff on the ride. So she moved and I pulled by…I was speeding like a madman…to call my trip to rehab a high speed chase would be an understatement. I flew over the Tobin Bridge, all the way up Route 1, driving like a real asshole. I was in and out of traffic, speeding, doing about a buck, while still managing to crush up some pills and sniff them while talking on the phone at the same time. I didn’t know how long rehab would last and I was told that I couldn’t bring my phone in with me, so I had a lot of goodbyes and loose ends I had to tie up that I had to handle via phone, some of which weren’t pretty. Again, I’ll spare details. I still have NO idea how my mother kept up with me the whole way. I was really putting my car to the test with the speeds I was hitting. God I miss that car. At first I was trying to lose her…I had visions of Florida, pills, money, and warm fun in the sun. Then…as soon as I would see her in my rear view, I knew she was determined, and if I fucked this up, I probably wouldn’t get any second chances, so I kept on driving til I hit the rehab. After the long chase, I finally pulled up to my new home for the next some odd days. It was a big brick building with a fenced in backyard of some sort. I noticed there were some people playing wiffle ball in the backyard as I pulled up, and they were all looking at me, probably cause I pulled in there like a madman. I parked my car, grabbed my suitcase and walked over to my mom. I gave her a huge hug…my last hug I ever gave while high on pills. She was crying…I wasn’t. I was more aggravated…like this was some sort of chore for me…like I had somewhere better to be. In all reality, it was the BEST choice I ever made. I tossed her my keys, handed her my phone and walked inside with her…like fuck it…here goes nothing…
“Hi, I’m Matthew McDonald…I have a 3 o’clock reservation…..”
(To be continued)….
mattymcdonald 