Recovered

by Robby Gallaty

  There was a real flair to it, a knack for making nightclub magic, keeping the house rocking to its highest potential. Raves—huge dance parties—were at the peak of their popularity during this time. Nonstop, pounding, synthesizer-dominated grooves, played through huge speakers, drew people into these clubs, and a slick DJ knew how to move seamlessly between CD and vinyl.

  For me, it was a continuation of what I had done with “Closer’s Corner,” replacing comedy with music—and to a large extent, liquor with recreational drugs. In 2000 and 2001, I was all about being a techno DJ, just as I’d been all about Brazilian jiujitsu and multilevel networking. It was my new chosen career.

  Every club regular knew me, and a lot of them bought from me. My new girlfriend had enlarged my network, and I was able to move uptown to a nice apartment. Most nights we walked into the club at nine or ten, and ended up on Bourbon Street before it was over. We used friends who would distribute whatever drugs we were moving at the time. The evening ended at five or six in the morning, unless we threw a Rave after-party that would last until noon. The party was always at my house, the center of activity for a lot of people caught up in this world.

  I remember a lot of crazy things—and I guess it’s amazing I can even remember anything at all. One Sunday morning, we decided to be “roof rangers,” as we climbed on the roof of our home to read the morning paper. It’s a miracle someone didn’t plunge to the street below in our stupefied condition. Another time, we climbed into my friend’s attic, walked toward the neighbor’s attic from there (he lived in a double), dropped down into his home while he was out of town, borrowed his vacuum cleaner, then returned it without being caught.

  I never got into trouble—not selling drugs, not getting sketchy prescriptions, not driving to Florida while high. We were bulletproof.

  Until we weren’t.

  One of our closest friends, a big part of our group, died with a heroin needle stuck in his arm. It sent shock waves through us. Maybe he just wasn’t careful enough. Maybe we should have picked up on his warning signals. Maybe, maybe—there had to be something different with him. He was dead, but it wasn’t going to happen to us.

  Until it did happen to another one of us. Over a three-year period, I lost eight friends to drugs and alcohol. It was like living in a mystery novel, where characters were being found dead one by one. But the identity of the murderer was no mystery at all. Everyone knew the killer and knew the killer would strike again. But nobody could do anything, because the “killer” was the thing that held us all together and gave our lives meaning.

  The killer owned us, and we despised it but continued to serve it as slaves.

  We talked about getting out, changing things, moving on with our lives. Detox was a hopeful and completely terrifying word, but if we really thought about it, there were only two potential outcomes: detox or death. The problem was, we didn’t really think about it for very long—the drive to the next high was too strong.

  Eight dead, six in jail. Those six weren’t bulletproof, either. Looking back, there’s something very odd about the fact that none of this ever happened to me. Things were happening all around me, after all—things I didn’t even know about.

  For example, at the New Orleans State Palace Theater, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) began to investigate the raves as a real local crisis, a health epidemic. They knew that, during a two-year period, four hundred teenagers overdosed and ended up in local emergency rooms during fifty-two raves at the State Palace, many of which I attended. The DEA, along with the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, began an undercover sting operation called Operation Rave Review in January of 2001. They began arresting dealers, went after the owners and operators of the club, and eventually all but eliminated the drug activity at that particular location.

  Soon after their success there, the same investigators moved down to Panama City, to Club La Vela, the place where I met my girlfriend and sold drugs during spring break in 2000. Again, multiple arrests were made. The owners of the club were charged with operating a “crack house.”

  I also discovered that when I was visiting Dr. Casey, who wrote almost unlimited narcotic prescriptions, there was another visitor sitting in that waiting room—a pharmacist named Dan Schneider. He had carried out a personal investigation of why his son was shot in the head, why it happened during a drug deal, and who had supplied his habit. The web of evidence led to Dr. Casey.

  For months, Schneider discreetly watched the crowded office, noticing the strange hours, the out-of-town buyers, and the fact that when Dr. Casey wasn’t even present, prescriptions were still being written. He collected compelling evidence.

  Eventually, Schneider got federal investigators interested in the case, and eventually the doctor was arrested. They also came down hard on a drug network that originated with her practice, arresting her runners. When SUVs full of federal officers showed up at her house, Dr. Casey smiled cynically and told them they were all dead. She had some dangerous backers.

  Somehow I spent this same period of time with all these doomed people. I was in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times. All around me there were deaths and arrests, and some of those people are presumably still doing time. Yet for now, I continued to walk between the raindrops. It was as if the Angel of Death was two steps behind me, but never quite caught up with me.

  But the time was rapidly approaching for me to pay my dues. Soon, my sin would find me out, and I would finally come to the end of that long and winding road.

  Chapter 8

  Hitting Bottom

  OxyContin made its debut on the pharmaceutical market in 1996. It comes from the same poppy from which we derive opium, which is the key ingredient in heroin. The most active substance in opium is morphine, but OxyContin is 1.5 times more potent than morphine.

  When it was first introduced, this wonder drug was a difference-maker in pain management for terminal cancer patients. But its method followed in the tradition of all the opiates: it dispensed euphoria from a handy pill bottle. Or through a patch, a snort, or a shot.

  Oxy delivered little doses of the thing every member of the human race desires: a powerful sense of joy and well-being. Or at least something that wore a convincing mask of joy.

  It invited you into a world where everything was wonderful, but after a short period of time, the invitation was null and void. The party was over, and just maybe, if you became accustomed to these drugs, you almost began looking forward to the original pain, because it was your return invitation to the party. It was a never-ending journey without a destination. Like a book without a conclusion. We called it “chasing the ghost.”

  After a while, pain wasn’t even a factor. Your drug-induced reality was your life, and the old reality—the real reality, where your friends and jobs, issues and sufferings existed—that was no more than the waiting room you had to endure until the door opened again.

  OxyContin was the hottest thing in painkillers at century’s end, the time when my Mustang was wrecked. In 1998, the previous year, the drug’s parent company produced a video called, “I Got My Life Back.” Six people with chronic pain were shown living wonderful, blissful lives through OxyContin. A dignified doctor looked into the camera and promised, “No side effects!” These videos were shown in patient waiting rooms of medical practices across America. Everybody wanted a piece of it. Oxy was the new drug store sensation.

  In 1999, the year of my accident, opioid prescriptions increased by eleven million. But with that many users, the claim of “no side effects” was quickly debunked. In 2007, executives with Oxy’s parent company stood before a judge to plead guilty of misbranding their drug. They settled with the United States government for $635 million.

  The problem was, it wasn’t the U. S. government with the monkey on its back. Federal lawyers weren’t out on the streets searching desperately for a way to
feed the habit. I was. My friends were. Hundreds of thousands of us were hooked, and our entire lives were rocked.

  In the weeks and months following my wreck, during early 2000, I was the textbook case of opioid addiction. By the grace of God and the love of family, I escaped the death that came to hundreds of thousands of people like me. And though all kinds of controls and regulations have been slapped on the opioid industry, it’s still a problem—a crisis, actually. More people died of opioid abuse in 2016 alone than in the entire Vietnam Conflict.

  By 2001, when the bottom fell out for me, the crisis was still working up steam. It was clear America had a new drug-related problem, so advisory groups were being created and research was underway. But none of it was in time to help me.

  I had found that, like every kind of sin, Oxy offered the world but demanded your soul. Drug addiction left absolutely no detail of your life untouched, because you’d do virtually anything for that next high. When could I get my next dose? I’d live in anxiety until I had it, and beyond anxiety, I knew there was the sheer physical hell of withdrawal. I knew on some level what was happening to me, but the next visit to my drug-induced state kept me from having to dwell on that thought.

  I lost interest in everything else, which is one reason so much of this period of my life remains a blur, like an impressionistic painting filled with dark, swirling colors but little real detail. It’s difficult to reconstruct exactly what happened when. My life existed as a pursuit of a high, and I surrounded myself with fellow pursuers.

  Yet my parents and my sister were always there. They weren’t quite sure what was up with me—not at first—but they knew something wasn’t quite right. I’ve already mentioned how, in 2000, they set me up in an apartment, bought all the furniture, and arranged for me to train for a career as a stockbroker. They were convinced I’d be a natural. Of course, they believed I could do anything. No matter what I was into, they were my cheerleaders. But if they’d known the truth, they wouldn’t have been leading any cheers.

  Mom and Dad were excited about my future in the financial world. I had a terrific stock-trading coach whose pupils never failed to pass the Series 7 test. In fact, he was 18 for 18 up to this point. After passing the test, I was promised an office in a high-rise building off Poydras Street in downtown New Orleans as a stockbroker.

  During the final section of the exam, I had an attack of nerves and decided to snort some Oxys in the bathroom during the last break. This should calm me down, I told myself. It seemed like a great idea at the time. At least nerves made a good excuse to get high. My wrong answers spiraled, and I failed the test by two points.

  My parents were throwing me a party to congratulate me. There were refreshments, ice cream, cake, streamers, banners, and friends—and I had to walk in and say, “I’m sorry. It’s not happening. I failed.” I remember thinking, How many times do I have to say that? It was the story of my life.

  And of course, for me, that badge of shame was a brand-new excuse to double down on getting high. Everything was an excuse in those days.

  In 2001, I finally ran out of money. It’s an inevitable moment for every abuser—the outgo is always greater than the income, and you can’t do much about it.

  Users begin taking everything they own to pawn shops, and ultimately there’s nothing left to sell but the one thing in your new world: the drug itself. And that’s a struggle, because the temptation to use rather than sell your stash is too powerful. So life becomes a vicious cycle that’s smaller and tighter every time it comes around—until it resembles a noose.

  To keep from strangling, I began stealing from my parents.

  As someone who owned his own business, Dad had a credit card he used. He might put thousands of dollars’ worth of car parts on it in a single day, so there were pages of charges each month, and I knew he didn’t check them too closely. He also entrusted the card, its number, and its expiration date to me during the time I was working for him. I helped him make purchases, ran things while he was out of town, and, most of all, I was his son. He trusted me.

  When I began needing money desperately, I realized the power of that credit card number. I could order something over the phone, then turn the brand-new item into cash as soon as it arrived.

  I told myself it was a stopgap; I wouldn’t do this forever. (I was correct on that count.) All that money was running through the business, and Dad wasn’t going to notice. And most important of all, I needed another high. And I needed it now.

  “Little” sins never stay that way. They grow up. Guilt begins to dissolve like a fine mist, and you become reckless.

  I started out using my dad’s credit card for my insatiable physical need. But in time, I found it easy to use the card for something I simply wanted: a Fender Stratocaster guitar, along with a pedal and an amp. If there was a tiny whisper in my ear, coming from my conscience, I ignored it. That whisper would have said, “One day, maybe you could say, ‘Hey, Dad, it was my body crying out for the drug. I had no choice.’ But you can’t say that about a guitar. This is simply stone-cold theft, and from the parents who love you.”

  That’s why it was significant it was that guitar—not something I bought and pawned for drugs—that got me caught. It was the most revealing, most shameful example of a pattern of sin that caught me.

  I ordered the Fender over the phone, and someone from the company called my dad’s office to say, “Mr. Gallaty, your guitar is on back order.” My dad’s assistant handed him the phone.

  “We didn’t order any guitar.”

  The girl on the line confirmed the name on the card. When Dad got off the phone, he called my mom about the mystery—was it identity theft?—and soon they were checking the monthly statement. It wasn’t only the guitar they found there, but a number of other strange purchases—nice stuff, expensive stuff. Quickly they pulled out previous bills, and they added up at least $15,000 in bogus charges.

  They knew about my interest in guitars, and they also knew I had access to that card number. An “ordinary” identity theft wouldn’t have gone on so long—the thief uses information quickly and moves on. Only one person could have stolen from them like this.

  I can’t imagine how deeply ill, how personally wounded they felt, when the hard truth became clear. Our son, our pride and joy, is robbing us blind.

  The conversation that followed between my mother and me is terrible to remember—how she told me I was no longer welcome in their home, how hurt my father was. And then the way I snapped back in anger. All of it replayed over and over in my mind like a horror film. We were done, my parents and me.

  What followed would be the worst seventy-five days of my life—two and a half months, beginning with a cold February that now seemed far colder. Even while high, I felt the rift between my parents and me, and besides—I was still jobless, out of money, living in an apartment where I couldn’t pay the bills. I pushed drugs here and there, but for addicts, money is fleeting. It slips through the fingers like sand.

  There was some place in my soul that realized I was completely out of control, this couldn’t go on. Something had to give, either my life or my habit. The two couldn’t coexist forever.

  There weren’t many alternatives, really. I could come clean and ask for help. I could move into serious crime. Or, well, maybe I could find some other stopgap and delay the inevitable. For a week, a month, however long.

  As far gone as I was, I couldn’t fathom “serious” crime—selling pills was one thing, but I wasn’t going to get into big-time robbery or cocaine distribution channels.

  I wasn’t going to come clean, either. Ask for help? I couldn’t face the shame of it; there was some tiny element of my pride still holding firm. I hadn’t come to the end of myself, which is that one destination we must reach to find any hope.

  So I opted for the stopgap. I’d sell even the few possessions I really cared about. My personal things
went to the pawnshop; my baseball card and comic book collection; my guitars, amplifiers, and stereo equipment; rings and jewelry. I even tried selling the air-conditioning window unit, but I couldn’t figure out who to sell it to. However, pretty soon it was useless anyway, because the power company cut Rick, my roommate at the time, and me off. We had no lights, no water, no gas. All of the furniture my parents picked out for my apartment was gone. I sold everything.

  I’d buy drugs with the proceeds, get high, come down, and walk down the same dead end street. Addiction is utterly merciless. The drugs never told you, “Okay, that’s enough. You’ve completely ruined your life. I’ll leave you alone now.” They just shout even louder, “More! More!”

  So I hit absolute bottom.

  As the gap in my relationship with Mom and Dad widened, my friendship with Rodney deepened.

  Rodney was all in as a dealer. He had an apartment downtown where I often crashed or just hung out. Rodney sold Crystal Meth and Special K (ketamine)—serious drugs he could move quickly on the street. The police knew him as well as I did, and he’d been followed for some time, which is why he moved out of Chalmette.

  In Rodney I couldn’t help but see my future—someone who no longer thought about turning back. He was in this life for the duration, wherever it led, and he wasn’t kidding himself about turning over a new leaf. After the blowup with my parents, I felt like Rodney pointed the way where I was heading. The old world was gone.

  My new friend welcomed me with a proposition. “Let’s get out of this place,” he said. “They know us too well here. Cops will get us sooner or later.”

  “This is my home,” I said. “I love this city. Where would we go?”

  “San Diego.”

  “Why? What’s there?”

  “A rich life and an easy life. Look—I’ve done this before. We move to Southern California and rent an apartment. Once a month, we cross the border. It’s half an hour to Tijuana, two hours to Ensenada. And Special K comes in 10-mil bottles there, dirt-cheap without a prescription. You load up, fly home, and you’re in business.”