My whole life I’ve always thought, with all of my being, that something bad was about to happen, that impending doom was lurking around the corner. As a heroin addict, it has been especially easy for me to fulfill that prophecy. I’ve built my life up and burnt it to the fucking ground more times than I can count, but now, just six months sober, and in the wake of a global pandemic, there is only one thing that comes to mind…

I told you so!!!

I’ve struggled with drugs my entire adult life. It started, as it usually does, around 15 with alcohol and garbage weed. It actually took longer to remove all of the seeds and stems from my bag than the high would actually last. I would sprinkle in the occasional cocaine or ecstacy to the mix, but liquor and pot were my co-pilots for years. When I was 19, and I’ll remember this moment until the day I die, I found the holy grail, the messiah, in the unlikeliest of places, my mother’s medicine cabinet.

The first time I swallowed a painkiller I knew that I had finally found what I was always looking for but never knew I needed. I also was very aware that it would be my downfall, so I avoided it like the plague (no pun intended).

Until I didn’t.

Fast forward to 27, when I was living in Las Vegas trying to make a living playing cards during the poker boom, when my old friend Lortab came by for another visit. I hesitantly opened the door to what became a decade long living nightmare. Thirteen treatment centers, one 5150, and two felony arrests later, I find myself newly sober, as the world falls apart around me, without a single thought of using.

But how is that possible? I’ve been waiting my whole life for something terrible to happen, and now that it’s here I have zero desire to get high around it.

I don’t know the answer, but my best guess is this: As someone who’s been in a constant state of existential crisis since well before I could spell it, the Coronavirus pandemic has been the single most reaffirming situation I could have ever hoped for.

In short…you can’t set something on fire that’s already burning.

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