I had vacated my old apartment in LA because my second roommate had left and I did not want another. She had been a nice person, but passive-aggressive, and with a cat. I could deal with a passive-aggressive person, but when she mentioned bringing her pet, I’d been hesitant—until she swore she would keep him in her room or in that massive contraption she bought for him. She was lying, and that whiny little monster was a headache to constantly clean up after. He was probably cleaner than she was, though. The two of them would forever ruin roommates for me.
I was looking for another place (all my own), only to run into a few hiccups: being let go of one position where I had made most of my monthly intake and running into trouble getting paid for the work that was supposed to supplant it. It was more “human error” that humans of decency would have fixed sooner, but alas. All I could do was hope my money would come when promised, and if not, may the folks responsible fall into a lake of fire. Very Old Testament form of vengeance to be sure, but to quote my favorite corrections officer turned rapper and undeclared thespian, Rick Ross, “God forgives. I don’t.”
The delay in pay led to me crashing on a friend’s couch for what was supposed to be a week but turned into five or six. I was forever grateful for the generosity, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was wearing my friend thin. I wasn’t junky or loud or intruding; I was just there longer than advertised. Sorry.
By the time everything got sorted out, the apartment I’d planned to move to was still available, but during the wait I’d questioned the purpose of staying there given how unhappy I had grown living in that city. One friend in particular, Mitzi, flat-out told me on a phone call, “Why are you still acting like you don’t want to live in New York? Move already.” The only one stopping me was myself.
I got out of my own way. The decision to stay in Houston longer than originally planned had been one heavily weighed. My immediate plan was to drive back to Houston, and for about a month just be still, before heading to New York City, where I knew I belonged at this point in my life and career, to find an apartment. But given the months that preceded me leaving LA, I eventually decided to take up the suggestion that I pause myself if only for a little while.
Moving back after college had been one thing; that was relatively normal, especially after what two terms of President George W. Bush did to the economy. But a repeat offense? That could potentially signal that I’d failed. Even though I returned with more money and more work, to be at home at twenty-eight, even if temporarily? I already felt like a fuckup being in this bind at this age. Did I want to feel like an even bigger fuckup?
Worse, home was a chaotic place where not much had changed and most of it showed no willingness to change. Why subject myself to that at length? Because I needed to save as much money as possible before some other jackass in accounts payable screwed me over, some other media company imploded on a whim, or some other unforeseen event happened and catapulted me back into another dire situation.
I wasn’t especially social the second time around. I was focused. I was adamant about making clear this was not a permanent shift, but a strategic move for the greater good. I tried to behave as such in terms of how I lived, worked, and spent money. I went to the Vinson Neighborhood Library to write. Not the old location across the street from the post office. The new one—the one built a few minutes up from that. It’s so nice. It reminds you of the new building you’d see pop up in the hood at the conclusion of some white savior movie tied to educating inner city youth.
The library kept weird hours—something about city budgets—but she was a cute, quiet location to focus. There were quiet moments at my parents’ house, but only if my mom was the only other person there. Everyone else was more lively, which you enjoyed, but not when focus was required. So if I wasn’t at Vinson Library trying to focus, you could find me at the Starbucks on Main Street. It had a lot of car traffic, given its proximity to the loop and Texas Medical Center, but not a lot of people ever planted themselves there for long. I wasn’t in New York, Los Angeles, or D.C. anymore. There were other places with centralized air-conditioning to spend your time on the side of town I was used to.
I would go out sometimes. Mainly happy hours, though. Not out of cheapness—the liquor is cheaper in the South no matter where it is served or what time it is served—but because of the emphasis on avoiding staying out too late because I wanted to tackle as much work as possible to make as much money as I could to get the hell out the city and back to my plans.
It wasn’t a bad choice. I saved money and paid off debts from the time. To that end, thank you, Mom and Dad, for not charging me rent. Some parents do that. I’m glad my parents did not do that. They would never do that. I’m forever grateful of that, weirdness of the situation be damned.
To stay there rent-free didn’t mean there wasn’t a price to pay, however. I had to live with him again, in his house. He and my mom might not have taken money from me, but being there left me prone to him finding ways to take up space in my head—whether or not that was inadvertent or intentional was moot.
We almost fought after I called him a bitch over the way he spoke to my mom. Gone were the days of waiting for him to strike; with my age, added weight and height, along with residual anger, confrontation felt like the key to retribution and subsequent bliss. But that was not the best move for either of us. He needed to chill and I needed to scale back my resentment.
Over time, I learned to have compassion for my father. To not judge his alcoholism solely through the lens of the pain it brought to his wife and children, but to recognize that he himself was hurting. I learned to accept that while nothing he revealed ever excused his actions, he did suffer from a disease that can be directly traced back to trauma. Being able to recognize that his fallibility, no matter how high I believed it ranked, was directly attributed to circumstance rather than being innately horrible, I was able to meet him where he was without most of the resentment. I say most because realistically, all isn’t forgiven; merely put into context.
As always, he offered gestures by way of food. He made me turkey wings. Turkey wings can infinitely make a bad situation better if smoked and baked correctly. He likes when he does something that elicits happiness from us. So he made turkey wings often.
By now I had already started to be receptive to him asking me to drink some of his liquor, if I wanted to. He wanted me to drink it. It was his way of bonding. I was never going to be like the men outside who were easier for him to relate to than me, but I could at least accept this gesture. He kept the liquor in water bottles in the cabinet. Easier to transport, I guess.
They were in the cabinet that was right above the microwave. My mom kept a lot of medicine over the microwave. My dad called his alcohol his “medicine” from time to time. His medicine was Paul Masson, Jack Daniel’s, and maybe Crown Royal. Only in California have I seen the medicine of my mom and the medicine of my dad sold at the same location.
I sort of liked that he liked that I accepted his offer and also invited him to try whatever liquor I got from the liquor store across the street. I have a thing for trying out whatever alcohol a rapper is affiliated with. He would try whatever because he is a drinker.
It was fine, or as fine it could conceivably be anyway. What wasn’t so fine was him spotting me impacted by the effects of marked down well liquor. That threatened the peace accord between us that I had drafted in my head. It’s one thing to have a drink with you, it’s another for you to look at me and think I’m drunk—like you.
I understand many men start as boys who idolize their fathers and want to be like them. I’ve added nuance to my father both in my work and my real-life conclusions that have informed it, but that doesn’t mean I ever wanted to do anything that suggested I was a reflection of him. And if I ever did, I didn’t want him to see it up close and in person. So much for that. Why was I drinking $1 tequila in Pearland anyway?
When he saw me and clocked me, he couldn’t wait to tel
l someone—specifically the one who often led the charge on making the obvious even more pronounced.
He told my mom that he saw me looking tipsy. Well, that nigga doesn’t use words like “tipsy.” He likely used the descriptor “drunk” or some variation that only someone within his demo—uh, aging thuggish Negro but with heavy country overtones given regional background—would say to my mom. I wondered if he was aiming for a gotcha moment.
She described the scene as such anyway, which is why when she told me the next day what he had said, she did so dismissively.
“He just wanted to finally say he wasn’t the only one around here drinking too much.”
I felt the same, hence my irritation. In my mind, I could never, ever be like him. Even if he didn’t mean it that way, and to give credit to him, perhaps he just thought I looked funny as hell sloshed or whatever—our history didn’t call for humor, so no matter the motive, it was going to be troubling to me.
As the child of an alcoholic with good knowledge of how drug abuse and alcohol addiction snatched the soul of many a male Arceneaux, it took me longer to start drinking compared to many of my friends. Outside of a sip of church wine, a wine cooler at a high school graduation party, and a sip of some consenting uncle’s adult beverage once or twice at a holiday function, I didn’t have a sip of the stuff until I was twenty-one. It wasn’t self-awareness about the virtues of self-restraint; my mama didn’t let me go anywhere in high school and I took a while to adjust to college socially.
When I did start drinking, it was like a fish—true to form for men of my familial lineage. I noticed that unless I hadn’t eaten that day, it would take quite a bit of alcohol consumption for me to feel any effect. I had to learn how to gauge my alcohol intake, but for the most part, it didn’t have the negative consequences for me that it did for others around me.
Booze loosened me up a bit. It toned down my demeanor, which did not generally present as outwardly jovial. That’s my way of saying it tempered that resting bitch face I’m accused of having. I talked to boys who wanted to talk to me but were not going to make the first move. It got me to dance.
I did not like to drink my feelings. I tried that once—the first time I moved back home and was sad and mopey over the state of my life. I was also mad about some man I should have let go of ’cause it wasn’t like he was ever going to admit he had feelings for me, too. It was early in the afternoon—probably a little after twelve—when I went to the liquor store to get what was ultimately a liter of Belvedere. I went home, turned down the lights in the living room, and went to the main computer in the house and turned on Amy Winehouse’s Frank album.
That album is fantastic, but the following vision was less than stellar: me, suddenly on the ground crying like an idiot while holding the bottle. If I could go back in time, I would stand over myself, kick me ever so slightly, and lovingly say, “Get your goofy ass the fuck up.”
It was so overly dramatic, but I react remarkably poorly to lingering feelings of being trapped.
There is a fine line between having a naturally high tolerance and possessing a lack of impulse control. When you turn to alcohol for comfort, you can be convicted swiftly on the latter. And while I could understand how my dad became someone who moved in such fashion, I had the attitude that I was above that.
I have had many drunken moments, but I learned. Drink water in between drinks. Take BC Powder before and/or after you’re done drinking to prevent hangovers. I have tried to tell so many people about the benefits of BC Powder. I cannot believe they haven’t given me an endorsement deal yet. Someday, I’ll be the one their ad execs are wishing for.
That was all about coming up with ways to deal with the physical effects of too much drinking, but I also considered how to mentally not let booze get ahold of me. I didn’t consider that that wasn’t making me better than anyone, only more equipped to handle a looming problem. Because I could intellectualize the situation. It counted for something, but not nearly as much as I used to believe it did.
Life did get me together, gradually. I’d soon learn that I wasn’t immune from the circumstances that cause people—my father—to pick up a bottle full of a substance that altered their state of mind. It simply took more living and, ultimately, trial and error to realize not only that any feelings of difference between me and those people were invalid, but that I was the bigger sucker for believing otherwise.
* * *
I have never genuinely wanted to try cocaine, but I used to get offended that no one ever offered me the opportunity to ruin my life. I doubt it was that D.A.R.E. essay competition I won way back in the 1990s. I just wanted to stunt at the assembly and eat pizza.
I think I give off judgmental vibes—probably because I can be judgmental—but I’m not a narc. I’ve had plenty of friends pop their lil’ pills around me, and I didn’t immediately begin quoting lyrics from “My Mind’s Playing Tricks on Me” or singing the theme from Cops. At most, I’d say, “Pop that shit now ’cause just my luck we’ll get pulled over and they’ll blame me, not you, lady.” I’ll be damned if I die by a trigger-happy cop on the way to a gay club that I was told has termites.
I didn’t judge the folks who dated drug dealers, either. I didn’t grow up in Mayberry; mad people sell drugs. So long as you don’t make me go on runs with you, be best.
It couldn’t have been anyone recognizing that I was the child of an addict. People aren’t that considerate, grow up. Whatever the case, no one ever directly asked me about cocaine until I was in my mid-twenties. The person who asked was an LA native; figures.
She picked me up for a day party and randomly asked me if I had ever done it. She asked in a leading way that suggested she was down if I was. And then she confirmed.
Girl. No. Hell no. But whatever rocks your boat and works the middle is fine for you, but you know I don’t need anything that would make me even skinnier.
FINALLY.
She knew damn well I wasn’t about to do that rich people’s drug with her, but it’s the thought that counts.
The only drug I had ever tried when she asked was weed.
That, too, took longer for me to try than it did most of the people I knew.
I had to have been about twenty-one at the time.
I made it a whole celebration with my best friend Kim.
We would go to Pappasito’s to get takeout, and then we would go back to her house, where her mom would roll our blunts. At the time, her mom was not smoking, because of her job, but as evidenced by her rolling capabilities, she seemed to have had a special skill set in a past life. I had a good time, but it didn’t become a habit as a result. At most, I would hit it if it were around at a house party. Outside of that, I avoided weed.
It wasn’t until my early thirties that I tried something else.
It wasn’t crystal meth. I’m too vain to allow my mug to give “My mug died five years ago, but my body won’t give up the fight.” It certainly wasn’t heroin, or “her-ron” as Blacks of a certain age or speech pattern would say, because my uncle Daniel had a tragic end to his life messing around with that. Apologies to my fellow Houstonians, it wasn’t lean, either. From what I gathered from my surroundings, lean made you very immobile, to the point where you just kind of sat there and packed on pounds. I was already big in the past and have suffered from strep throat so much that cough syrup could never provide any entertainment value, no matter the newfangled concoction.
There are better ways for me to honor Houston: trashing Dallas every chance I get, an unyielding commitment to the phrase “Mane, hol’ up,” and reminding everyone that Shipley’s Do-Nuts is superior to all other donut chains.
What I did later try was Adderall, and it wasn’t even for any fun-related reason. My use of it for the first time was borne out of slight desperation. I was not able to take off from writing full-time to write a full-fledged book, so on the advice of someone with a prescription, I told myself to give it a try to improve my concentration. It wasn’t the
first offering; that was also in Los Angeles, when a TV writer gave me a pill with a big grin on her face. I called her a crackhead in my mind and threw that shit away. (My bad, girl.)
This time, I didn’t pass on it. My level of focus was not where it needed to be, and the mental exhaustion that comes with writing to the speed of the internet while trying to revisit and process one’s own trauma felt overwhelming to a frequently overwhelmed person. So I used something that I knew wasn’t an ideal substitute, but was the one readily available.
I learned later that I had basically taken the legal form of coke. I had taken pride in never trying a drug that had Rick James smacking folks up and always sweating his jheri curl out. Unfortunately, I now had to face a new truth: that I cannot take Adderall and feel above a coke whore. It would be like a Real Housewife looking down on a cast member of Love & Hip Hop because when you look at both at their core, they’re all inebriated persons messing up some small business owner’s restaurant wineglasses. Classism isn’t cool, and neither is a drug hierarchy. #TheMoreYouKnow.
That aside, I do not like how I feel on Adderall. It serves its purpose, but I’m not the kind of person who needs so much help being wound up. It doesn’t distract me from my problems either. If anything, it adds a hyper-awareness to them. I didn’t have to worry about ever becoming addicted to regulated blow, because it didn’t produce any joy or sense of distraction.
But I did have instant and growing fondness for when I used to come down from Adderall.
The same person who gave me some of his pills also gave me weed pills that I used to return my body and mind to a place in which I could rest. It’s hard to describe it since it wasn’t prescribed and thus explained to me carefully. I know the pills have cannabis in them, and doctors prescribed them to patients who needed to bolster their appetites and reestablish their sleeping patterns. I took them, much like the Adderall, as some kind of suburban-ass high.
Adderall did not become a regular thing for me, but weed slowly but surely did. It started with the pills and then led me to buying edibles. I got edibles because I wasn’t ready to ask people to buy flowers. I also couldn’t roll weed, an embarrassment to family members and other loved ones who have sold weed and consumed heavily around me, so there was that. But then I discovered oil cartridges and vape pens, along with cones, which made it far easier for the clueless to put something together and smoke without pathetic failure.
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