Chapter 13

I have never spend so much time with myself.

I hate it.

I am 31 years old and I have always lived with someone. Never could stand being alone. I am realizing that I am so uncomfortable in my own skin. I have so much built up crap inside of me that is haunting me. It fuels my drinking. Fuels my self hate.

So many things. So much shame.

I was in my Junior year of college. We went on a weekend acid adventure. It was my friend Perry and his brother and another guy that I don't even remember. We went to a Hippie festival up in the hills near Twisp Washington. Four day weekend. We were also going to hit up the apple blossom festival in Wenatchee.

Mostly we were just gonna trip.

The Twisp festival is a blur. Huge bonfire. Drums. Pagan paradise. I just remember the gatorade being passed around that had so many tabs of acid floating in it.

Big swigs.

The door swings wide.

We danced and the drums became the beat of my heart. The drums take on a life of their own. Hours and hours of this. At times it is the most beautiful thing you can imagine. Altered reality. Everything just melting into everything else.

To actually touch sound. To taste it.

I can't ever explain acid.

Acid can also bring demons. Often called "bad trips". I can never explain the terror. The moment you feel like you are stuck inside the trip. That you may NEVER regain reality again. When you feel the hands pulling you into the bowls of hell. When you see them.

Never ending screams inside of your head.

Unexplainable terror.

Godless void.


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We were up For three days straight. No sleep. That in itself does wonders to a person. My face feels cold. I hum. The inside of my head hums. We have been driving for most of the morning. We are out of drugs and that isn't a great thing at this moment.

Perry's brother says he knows a guy in Snoqualmie.

We get to this guys house some time early Monday morning. He lets us in. He is there with his wife. He breaks out the bong and we get to smoke some weed. At this point it does nothing at all to me. There is a certain point that you can never get to again.

It will never be that again.

We sit for a while and the wife offers us some speed. I am crashing hard and I just don't want anything right now but my bed. I am in a weird state of confusion. Halfway between reality and dream. I am on the floor trying to hold it together and I turn to see them at the table eating breakfast.

A little boy and a little girl.

Eating cereal and staring at me.

Breakfast before school.

Elementary school.

What the fuck am I doing?

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The rest of my group sits and listens to me retell the story. All of us share our shame in one way or another. It is all different but also the same.

I need a cigarette so bad after group.

I also feel like there is something else. Something more important.

Prayer.

I feel like praying. I feel like I need to pray. My soul has been feeling so empty that it is crying out to be fed.

I see Cozmo in the courtyard sitting at one of the tables.

I need to pray man. We need to start praying.

I just sat next to my brother and I placed my arm around him and we prayed. We prayed for strength and we prayed for freedom from all of this. All the guilt and all the shame.

It felt good.

Really good.

Cozmo looks at me and says the same.

That felt good.

I smile at him.

Lets go get someone else