I’m having the slightly odd sensation of experiencing a weekend, in the sense that this is the first time in eight months that I’ve worked the five days previous to the current two. Of course we’re only talking about one hour or so a day of actual work (at 8am and 11am I sweep and mop the bathrooms or the hallways, 30 minutes a pop.) I suppose it feels like more than it is because everything in prison seems somehow magnified. Any moment a small mistake can ricochet into an event with bad consequences. I’ve pretty much settled into a routine and gotten known and “have my back covered,” so to speak, so it is unlikely in the extreme that anything I do here will have serious untoward ramifications. It is also equally unlikely that I won’t witness something dramatic or ugly from now until my release, but I guess most people who commute daily on the freeway can say the same thing.
What I wonder is whether the stress of incarceration itself is not up there with the stress of almost any job. I’m pretty sure the answer of that is yes. The difference is that the stress of work is defined by what you have to do, the stress of imprisonment is characterized by what you can’t do.
But not entirely. What I can do is considerable, and much of what I spend my time doing is what I might choose to be doing on the outside. In fact, I doubt if I’ll ever have so much time to devote to reading and writing and listening to NPR at any time for the rest of my life, (not to mention sleep all I want.) Still, this afternoon I lay here, at one point wondering: 1) Do I exercise? 2) Do I watch the prison softball game? 3) Do I write a blog entry? 4) Do I write a letter? 5) Do I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez? 6) Do I listen to NPR? 7) Do I read Newsweek? The anxiety that this avalanche of choice provoked led me to do some serious thinking, which coincided with the receipt of an article my mother sent me.
It was an observant piece from no less than The New York Times about the impact of crystal meth on the fabric of gay social life in New York. It noted the tendency of users to isolate and reconfigure their social lives to long solitary hours on the computer, hunting for sexual liaisons. In my view, this was somewhat reductionist, but it certainly reflected much of my experience and that of many I knew.
I remember when I was had been on disability for a while, but was healthy, with a lot of free time and some disposable income. I could easily get overwhelmed by all of the choices open to me. At times, I was literally paralyzed with indecision. But one puff of meth on the pipe guaranteed an immediate sense of purpose, a complete surrender to the dictates of the libido. The hunt this entailed, by the way, was often successful and—sorry—often gratifying, if transient.
In almost all reportage of crystal meth, this part of the story often goes unmentioned. Reading The New York Times article for example, one would never know what the big payoff of using meth was. At risk of glamorizing it, the truth is, it is a potent aphrodisiac. This does not make it all “worth it,” and it does not negate the horrific consequences of the drug’s abuse. It does however, go a long way to explain why, after the crash, when one might be expected to recognize that meth use is creating serious problems, users will go right back to it. In prison, I’ve heard this perpetual return called “chasing the dragon,” as rarely is the high as good as it was in the beginning.
Eventually one’s tolerance to the drug does increase, and if done daily, the point of its use becomes less to get high than not to crash. One often becomes able to do all the things one did sober—although technically high— like eat, sleep and work. (Most users do work. I know because I sold to them. But I would say their rate of job loss is significantly higher than that of the general population.).
This is not intended in any way as a defense of crystal meth use, but its pandemic status begs us to investigate what aspects about the times we live in seem to be making it the drug of choice for so many. I think in the case of gay men, its genesis is inextricably linked to the AIDS epidemic, which has had as a consequence a distortion in how gay men apprehend time itself.
With AIDS came a creeping encouragement to both those infected and those fearful of infection to focus on the next week, weekend, or next six months at most. The future was for others, the present was for us. Then, in walked meth, the ultimate facilitator of instant gratification. Add to that the glorification of youth and dread of aging that pervades society and gay culture in particular, and the stage was set for a perfect storm of crystal abuse on a grand and destructive scale.
Even the advent of effective medical treatment couldn’t get the genie back in the bottle. The drug became our second epidemic, with its own dictates, almost like a wily retrovirus that will do whatever is necessary for its own survival.
But above and beyond (or behind and below) this catastrophe, I perceive a more subtle but pervasive factor, an existential angst that runs the gamut of affluent modern life, filled with ample leisure time and endless options. Whatever we choose to do with our time, we are aware of the million other choices we are not making, Should we be backpacking, or going to a concert? Writing a screenplay or visiting a friend? Walking the dog or traveling to Romania? The list could go on forever. Even in prison one is not immune to this feeling of being overwhelmed by choice, and the subsequent yearning to have choices made for us.
Meth closes all those doors and answers all of those questions. It shuts up that little voice asking “What should I do now?” When you are high, you do whatever the high dictates, period. Meth is the wrong answer, but the questions are real, and the anxiety caused by the sheer volume of them all should probably be recognized in trying to get a handle on overcoming the crystal epidemic.
MCO 2004
