Recovered

by Robby Gallaty

  I thought about the way he had pushed me toward a doctor he worked with, one who was eager to get me taking more of the drugs. The second doctor had vastly improved the odds I’d become addicted by sending me home with four kinds of drugs. I had to wonder what kind of back deal the doctor had with my attorney, who now had a more substantial case. And the thought of it made me sick. That just made me want another Valium.

  I was still one of the regulars in various bars and nightclubs, and of course my new crowd hung out in those places, too. I was pursuing club DJing at this point. I’d purchased a set of Numark turntables—standard equipment for that field. I’d have said that was my new high, except I already had a new high. The two went well together. You needed energy for hours if you wanted to be the life of the party in these places.

  After a couple of months of taking the pills, one of my friends said, “Robby, it’s time for you to take the next step.”

  “What next step?”

  “It’s called Ecstasy,” he grinned.

  “I’m not so sure I want to get into serious stuff like that.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing. I ain’t kidding, man—it’ll change your life forever. First one’s my treat.” Those pills went for about twenty-five bucks apiece. I knew that Ecstasy was always in high demand.

  “Maybe another night,” I said. My friend stayed on me, though. He kept telling me I had to try this amazing experience. After I couldn’t put him off any longer, on a Thursday night, and in a weak moment, I told him I’d try a tab. “You won’t be sorry. Tell you what, I’ll split one with you,” he said. “You’ll get a taste.”

  I examined the bland, rose-colored half-pill, so small and innocent looking, and placed it on my tongue.

  As soon as I swallowed it, my friend let out a whoop of joy. “No turning back now. You better strap yourself in for the ride.”

  We sat around my place for a while until it started to kick in. I noticed the effects within fifteen minutes. I was talking more than usual. I felt very open, eager to be transparent. I could talk about anything. We had music playing in the apartment, and it sounded wonderful, incredible. It moved me. I had never felt quite like this before.

  “How’s it going, Robby?”

  “You weren’t lying,” I said.

  “I told you!” He looked at his watch. “Escapades is opening.”

  This was a club in Metairie that was only open from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. I walked through the doors for the first time. The bass from the subwoofers took my breath away as we entered. I immediately noticed yellow glow sticks in the hands of other partyers lining the dance floor. We danced, drank, and stayed until the place was shutting down. Everything at Escapades, every friend, every conversation was amplified. In two hours, I had to be at work—and that felt like it could be fun, too.

  That night was the beginning of an all-out dependency on drugs and the life that came with it. The more I used, the more cash I needed to buy. So I expanded my operation. I sold not only pills but an expensive and effective form of marijuana through a connection I had from my network marketing days. I met my clients through selling cars.

  I’d carry my zip-locked package in the trunk, make some deliveries at lunchtime, finish my workday, and at night, I was training to be a stockbroker. I left the car business to pursue another career during this period, my parents wanting to steer me in the right direction. I also sold GHB, a liquid high, through another connection I had. There was something for everybody, a drug for every situation. Maybe if my mind had been straight more often, if I hadn’t been either high or thinking about a high, I’d have realized I was on a road that led deep into the wilderness, and if I went far enough, there would be no turning back.

  Perhaps my saving grace was that I didn’t like blood and needles. That’s the fastest road to death for a lot of addicts, and I had my second-grade self to thank for my refusal to inject anything. At the age of seven, I came down with walking pneumonia and almost died. My teacher was good enough to come to the hospital and teach me on her own time, so that I wouldn’t fail second grade (once again, my parents behind the scene, working everything out to give me the best life possible). But the whole hospital experience left me with a dread of needles. As an addict, I had many friends who shot something into their veins, and I noticed those were the ones most likely to be goners.

  Spoiler alert: God was looking out for me. Like my parents, he was behind the scene, working out the foolish and sinful decisions I was making in a way that would turn out for my good. I couldn’t see it yet, but I would one day.

  For a while, I felt on top of the world. Immortal. Unstoppable. Ecstasy has its name for a reason. But artificial ecstasies never last. Eventually, I’d come down and face another work day that was less and less interesting to me. When I wasn’t high, nothing in the world was interesting other than the idea of the next high.

  Somebody said that sin takes you farther than you want to go, keeps you longer than you want to stay, and costs you more than you want to pay. Drugs are the perfect expression of that. Who doesn’t want to feel great? Who checks the map to see where the trail eventually leads? Nobody ever starts out thinking, “I have a long-term plan to destroy my life.”

  We should come into this world with a warning label: Don’t fall for your false sense of control. “I can do this, and I can pull back when I need to.” Addicts believe they can quit whenever they want, until they actually try to do it.

  Eventually I realized I was trapped. I wanted to get out of the trap, but I didn’t know how. My life wasn’t what I’d planned. The former lead guitarist of a Christian band shouldn’t be selling pills in dark nightclubs. My friends weren’t a very admirable crowd, and I had deep secrets I had to keep from my family at all costs.

  Like the car that started the whole thing, my life was an absolute wreck.

  Chapter 7

  Downhill Racing

  C. S. Lewis once wrote that the surest road to hell is the gradual one, with a gentle slope you almost fail to notice—no sharp turns or signposts. It winds downward to its destination without your even noticing it.1

  I know that road well. It’s just that I’ve never been a slow driver; when I head somewhere, I head there at full speed.

  My descent into full-scale drug abuse was amazingly rapid. In November of 1999, before the accident, I was selling cars, training for the UFC, and thinking about business opportunities. By early the next year, I was looking for faster and better drug connections. I got in too deep for a number of reasons, all having to do with my wiring.

  Addictive personalities are the ones at highest risk to be devastated by alcohol, drugs, sex, or almost anything else. I don’t possess every mark of the typical addictive personality, but I do have some key traits.

  First, I was born with ADHD, so any kind of stimulation, any shiny thing dangled before me, was all but irresistible. ADHD people chase the dopamine surge nonstop.

  Needless to say, life is full of highs and lows alike, but a chemical high is in a class by itself. There’s a parable in the Bible about a “pearl of great price.” A man searches everywhere for fine pearls, but when he finds the one that outshines them all, he’ll sell everything he has to possess it. My pearl, at this point, was the ultimate high; the day would come when I would find something greater than any riches found on earth; the true “precious pearl” that doesn’t enslave. In 2000, I only knew the thrills of the physical world.

  Second, I was a fully functioning addict. Not everyone can live that way, but I did. It enabled me to lead a shadow life by compartmentalizing my drug abuse so that the people who loved me most knew nothing about it. It meant I could cut off my parents and my sister from getting me help. Other than God himself, the greatest resource available to us, in times of crisis, is the love of the people who care about us. But true love always demands full transparency—my family needed to kno
w what was going on in order to help, but I covered it up so well, they had no idea.

  During this period, I never hid away from my family. We had dinner, we went to the movies, we hung out together—but all the time my parents had no clue their son was a drug abuser and dealer. I also went to work every day, I did my job, and everything seemed normal.

  But I was secretly continuing to destroy myself.

  Third, and with tragic irony, I was a born networker, entrepreneurial to the core. I loved interacting with people and stepping up to lead them, empowering them to accomplish a greater purpose. Like every other skill I had, this one was made for greater things. I was just misusing my gifts.

  Practically my first impulse on being introduced to drug use was to start building distribution networks. That meant I was good at making money on narcotics, which only meant more narcotics were at my disposal. I was simply too proficient and creative at feeding the beast.

  A guy named Rocky worked for my dad. One day I was hanging out at the collision center, and we got into a conversation. We were close enough that I’d let him in on my secret. He’d told me in the past that he was prone to taking too many Somas, so he would “walk around in the Soma coma like a zombie.” He was a great body man for car repair, but of course my dad knew nothing about what he did in his spare time.

  “My only problem,” I said, “is that I can’t get my meds fast enough. My new doctor writes pretty good prescriptions, but it’s still not as many as I can move or use. I could really make some money if I had a better source.”

  “You need two doctors,” said Rocky.

  “So how am I supposed to do that? Don’t they stop you from doing that stuff?”

  “Not if they don’t know. You’ll have to fill the scripts at different pharmacies not to be detected. Also, always pay cash. I know a doctor who will write you up ninety of each prescription. I’ve done this for years.”

  “Where do I find him, and how do I get in?”

  “It’s a she. Dr. Casey is her name,2 and I’ll give you directions. She has a pain management clinic over in New Orleans east. It’s in kind of a rough area, but you just walk in, pay something like a hundred and fifty bucks, and she’ll pull out her pad without asking many questions. You’ll just have to wait a while. Remember, make sure you take it to a different drug store.”

  I drove to the place he told me about on Chef Menteur Highway and walked in. I should have known—the waiting room was packed wall to wall. Most of the people I would have guessed were drug addicts, rather than the kind of uptown, “recreational” user I considered myself to be. Could I be staring at a possible future—the place where the road leveled out, at the very bottom of that road with no signposts?

  The thought never crossed my mind. I was in full control. I could stop anytime I wanted, like all the other addicts.

  This wasn’t your typical medical practice; it was open from late afternoon until very early in the morning. Off-duty cops stood at the door and in the waiting room. It was a crime-ridden area, and prostitutes hung out nearby looking for business. Dr. Casey even kept a pistol with her.

  Many of the cars in the lot had license plates from out of state, and payment was cash only—this place was definitely “out of network.” They didn’t even try to file insurance.

  I sat smoking through a pack of cigarettes, waiting for three or four hours and checking my watch impatiently. This gave me time to think of ways to use my business expertise and come up with a way to avoid camping out in the waiting room.

  Sure enough, the doctor owned a BMW that was all but totaled. “I think we can help each other,” I told her. “We’ll have Rocky fix your car at my dad’s shop without paying your deductible, and you let us go to the head of the line whenever we visit.”

  When things couldn’t seem to get any “better” for me, I got even luckier. While Rocky was working on her car, he found a blank prescription pad in her trunk. There’s nothing more dangerous than a prescription pad that’s found its way into the hands of the wrong people.

  “This is even better than going to the head of the line,” I said. “Can we just write our own prescriptions?”

  “We’re gonna have to forge the doctor’s name,” said Rocky.

  “That’s no problem. I used to forge my dad’s signature back in the day on most of my report cards in school. I can trace Casey’s writing and learn to imitate it perfectly. Not that anybody takes a second look. We just need to go back to the doc one more time, get her signature on a prescription, and we can go from there.”

  In the present day, when we have data networks in the cloud, the various pharmacies and doctors keep tabs on people. They know who you are and what you’re taking, so this particular scam wouldn’t work. But in early 2000, we could get away with it. Double our drugs, double our funds. The typical prescription would cost me four hundred dollars to fill, and sell quickly on the street for fifteen hundred or so—a nice profit margin with no taxes involved.

  Given my compulsive nature, of course, I’d often end up snorting the whole thing myself instead of selling any of it. Then there would be a week with empty medicine bottles before I could return to the office for another script.

  I remember the moment I realized how close to the edge I was.

  That day, I wrote myself a prescription on the pad and took it into a drugstore I’d never visited in the past. It looked safe enough. I walked up to the pharmacist’s counter and laid down the slip of paper. The man picked it up, looked up from it with a smile, and said, “Hi, Mr. Gallaty. Did you see the doctor today?”

  “Yes, I did.” I tried to smile calmly, look him in the eye, and seem casual.

  “This will take me about thirty minutes, okay?”

  He carried the prescription around the corner, and I heard him pick up a phone. I realized he was going to verify that what he had was genuine. My heart began to beat rapidly. The pad, of course, came from the doctor who ran the pain clinic. I suddenly realized he just might be suspicious of Dr. Casey. A guy the pharmacist doesn’t know walks into his drugstore, he’s going to be a little more careful about filling a prescription for Oxys and the like. I hadn’t given that a thought; I’d just seen the pad and figured it was Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket.

  I thought rapidly. Two options came to mind. One, I could jump the counter while the pharmacist was on hold, punch him in the face, and make a quick getaway. But this six-six guy would be IDed quickly and he’d go to jail for assault.

  Two, I could roll the dice and see what happened. As I went back and forth, I heard the man say, “Okay, then. I’ll call back in a few.”

  I thought about the pain management clinic and how much of a zoo it was. It was the kind of place where nothing happens quickly or efficiently, and suddenly I was thanking God for that fact. The delay was my grace period.

  The pharmacist returned and said, “Your doctor’s a little busy, I’ll call back in—”

  Before he could complete the sentence, I snatched the slip of paper out of his hand and said, “Thanks, I’ll just come back later!” And I hustled out the door as the pharmacist watched me in surprise. If he didn’t suspect something before, he would now. But I never intended to set foot in that drugstore again.

  I called Rocky. “Abort the mission immediately.” If it happened to me, it would happen to him—then we’d both be in huge trouble.

  Since the introduction of Oxycontin in the nineties, this had become a common crime and the penalties were strict. This was another wake-up call, but I wasn’t capable of waking up—not at that moment anyway. I was selling all kinds of drugs, and if I’d stopped selling, I wouldn’t be able to buy and use them. It’s a vicious cycle. I was known among my crowd as the MVP of the drug world. Friends couldn’t believe I’d gone from never trying a drug to full-blown addict in three months; I never went anywhere at half-speed.

  Not long after th
at, Spring Break 2000 came around. In the past, I hadn’t necessarily been a big spring break guy, but now it had different meaning. College kids go to the beach and a certain number of them buy drugs. If you’re a dealer, it’s like fishing in a stocked pond, and all you have to do is get there and bait your hook.

  On the beach in Panama City are the Moondrifter condos, and right next door is Club La Vela, supposedly the world’s largest nightclub. I was one of five guys heading to PCB to do business. Instead of suntan lotion and beach towels, though, we were loaded up with a car full of drugs. But you don’t just load these things in suitcases and take off in an SUV—the police, of course, are all over the highways. You take precautions.

  We made it there safe and made all the rounds of the spring break beach scene; the only notable thing that happened was that I met a girl and started dating her. This generally doesn’t happen at the beach during spring break—people just do some hard-core partying and then go home. But this girl lived in Lafayette, Louisiana, two hours across the state, and we began driving back and forth to see each other.

  She shared my interest in getting high and helping others do the same. And once again, she compounded my problem, because she had Mexican drug connections. These people were serious about bringing in drugs from across the border, and our business grew. I was now involved in trafficking hundreds of pills through the network, and I could have done serious time as a federal offender. Somehow that never happened.

  As much as I spent my evenings in dance clubs, I gravitated toward the center of attention—the role of DJ. This was my new aspiration; the closest thing to being a rock star in a nightclub is being the one who selects and mixes the music.