February 11, 2005
I didn’t have time to blog this morning, more accurately, I didn’t think anything I had to say was worth making time to say. I have to wonder if I was sensing that I was to hear some news that would be worth writing about.
Boy, did I ever.
It was announced today (at least on NPR) that a gay man in New York, in his 40s, has been identified as having contracted a new, virulent strain of the HIV virus that is resistant to three of the four categories of medication used in combination to treat the virus. In addition, this strain develops from infection to full-blown AIDS in a matter of months.
This, I fear, is the other shoe that has been waiting to drop for years. I have always felt that it was just too good to be true that the present treatment regimens could continue to constitute a de facto cure without the virus finding ways to outwit the medications. I am certain that we are on cusp of a horrific new wave of illness and death, as it cannot be that this man’s is an isolated case.
Interestingly, the reports cited that the infected man identified himself as a crystal meth user, and that authorities are recognizing that both epidemics are acting synergistically, fomenting a new crisis that may be upon us. When crystal comes in the door, safe sex often flies out the window. It is simply the nature of the drug. The possibility of working in Being Alive in this area has suddenly taken on a new urgency.
A generation of gay male crystal users has grown up without having lost legions of friends, seeing around them instead those with HIV surviving and even thriving. These users are much more likely to already be HIV-positive than their non-using peers, and much more likely to continue having unsafe sex under the illusion that re-infection does not constitute a particular danger. If they do not confront their drug use and their profligate unsafe sex, they may be in for the rudest of awakenings. Likewise the HIV-negative men who find themselves venturing into sexual danger zones under the influence of the drug.
I had an eerie sense of déjà vu hearing this report.. I remembered back in 1981, when "GRID" (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) was first reported. I couldn’t quite conceive of the horror that was to follow, of course, any more than someone witnessing Kristallnacht could have conceived of the Holocaust. But I knew in my gut that these cases were not a blip on the radar, that something big and dreadful was afoot. I remember as well my first candlelit march, in 1982 or so, and my sweet friend Paul turning to me and saying, "We’re all going to die." I didn’t, but Paul did, 10 years later.
Ironically, if this new strain has been spreading (and I have to believe it has) I may personally have been spared being exposed to it by being incarcerated. It’s impossible to know, but it certainly puts a new spin on my prison experience. And from my particular journey--as dealer, inmate, recovering addict and blogger—I have constructed a lifeboat, for myself, but maybe for others as well. My experience has given my words credibility they wouldn’t otherwise have had. (Someone found this blog by putting into the search engine "Meth Addict Wants to Commit Suicide." I can only hope that he read something that brought him back from the brink. This lifeboat is big enough for any who want to climb in.)
It’s raining in L.A. again. Appropriate enough, considering hearing this report today felt like the earthquake preceding a tsunami.
MCO 2005
