Day 83 Night - The Four Crack Quartets: Remembering What I Did To Myself And Why I Must Walk With Dignity Today

I understand how tough these last few entries have been and how they hurt the ones I love because they worry about me and they feel helpless. I am sorry to be the source of more suffering. You must understand that I am doing this for a reason. I am not a poor soul who lost the genetic cancer lottery and was told by a doctor that there is a malignant tumor in my liver. I did this to myself, and I must take responsibility.

There will be no pictures in this blog except the one picture of me taken a few years ago in Mexico. The casual leaning on the tongue lashing my ass kind of fits the bill. It shows the remnants of the poser and the ultimately cool Hollywood guy that will always be lurking somewhere in me.

John Lavitt Posing with Graffiti in Ensenada, Mexico in 2007

Below are four poems I wrote in 1994 when I gave in to cheap desire and became a crack addict. As you know from past entries, it was one of the ugliest times in my life. And it truly frightens me when I realize that it took close to another decade for me to hit bottom and finally get sober. All that time with brief stopping points and geographical escapes, I was an unforgivable addict. First crack, then cocaine and heroin. Always smoking except the one time that I shared a needle and was infected with the Hepatitis C virus. It sound like extraordinary bad luck, but it seems appropriate to me that such actions result in such consequences.

I have placed the four poems under a single heading in somewhat twisted homage to T. S. Eliot and his celebration of wastelands and alienated losers. After all, the names of Eliot's first two quartets are Burnt Norton and East Coker. It seemed to make sense in a strange sort of way since the themes of the first two poems of the series are described by C. K. Stead as...


1. The movement of time, in which brief moments of eternity are caught.
2. Worldly experience, leading on to dissatisfaction.
3. Purgation in the world, divesting the soul of the love of created things.

Such themes when mutilated surely reflect the horror as expressed below...

           

the four crack quartets

how accurate

long walk in darkness and silence,

a deafening cry pounding inside,

flooding the chambers, cheap desire,

so much freedom given away so soon,

mutilated on her altar, unrecognized,

rotting, and i almost gave my life

away, almost sacrificed my life

for smoke, my life for smoke.

can barely remember how it began;

when bitterness rose like vapor,

expanding into a cynical answer.

how quickly it filled my life,

how little there was to fill.

i'm not scared of these sentences.

today is not trembling with fear.

is tomorrow a burnt offering?

we expose horror in routine.

through routine the smoke

rises, habits rising night to night

until vergil and the dark descent

is no longer a poet's metaphor.

i pass him by, taking no notice,

noticing now only and forever

how cold and damp my palms,

how accurate the shaking.

more

this is amazing!

i am killing myself

with each rising breath

of bitterness, sweet

bitter smoke rising.

it has stolen me flat.

it creeps and lies readily

and more often in night

amid the slow emptiness,

slowly demanding more

the dive into a wave of death,

youth cruising on the crest

of a wave breaking, breaking

into my soul and the good life

sinks, drowning in ashes

dark magic, deluded, blinded,

the journey down and deeper

into buried lies, obscured

by the smoke and she calls

and i come and i abandon

all whys to the wanting,

i fall, solitary liar falling,

without fighting, bereft

of doubt, ignoring all fear:

this is just a passing fancy,

a consumer on the edge

of hell, american hell perfect

where the soul shrivels black,

the crack they sell extracts

wanting, wanting always more.

away

i have seen what the smoke

can destroy, almost without warning;

how readily i ignore the danger,

tossing the worst outcome aside

even when the worst is sure to arrive.

the real cost multiplied: pound of lung

and the disfigurement of pride.

ask and you shall see what lies:

all the smart reasons why i won't die,

why i'll never sink with the suicides;

because this, this is a crazy adventure,

a youthful romp down the road to hell

where hope withers, love impaled

on the wanting, cheap and ready.

the smoke; ready with the answer

to a question asked so carelessly.

my god, i gave your gifts away,

sacrificed more than good, more than evil,

more than the first taste from the tree –

hell - i murdered the first possibility.

all my potential reduced to residue,

ambition drowning in wet hollow sighs

as the fire god ignites an empty life

and i forget why i needed to escape,

forget the notion of escape, my life

so readily replaced by smoke slipping

into glassy eyes, engulfing all dignity

as the dream shrivels and friends die.

really o.k.

even rain falling

falls into the delusion

of rock, thin wet flakes

lurking under my tongue

in reflections of tin foil

i watch the very best lies

gently rise into smoke,

rising past all potential.

cold fingers rattle now,

waiting forever for one more

taste of sweet heaven-scent,

sinking swiftly into more

waiting, struggle to remain

a little more high and i

will be fine, i'm really o.k.

if there's one more hit,

but stillness never comes,

only the desperate maintenance

of purgatory, soon exhausted,

shivering into morning light.

Day 55 Night - Kicking My Proverbial Ass Today And The Name Of This Game

Oh My! Wow! Crap! And several other declarations to boot. Why? Simply because I have come to realize that I cannot expect everything to be just fine and easy and smooth because this is a difficult process. The treatment kicked my proverbial ass today, and I lay on my bed in the early afternoon with my back cramping and my legs itching and my head spinning and wondering what the hell is going on. Okay, in truth, I know exactly what is going on, but it is a challenge to accept the side effects.

One shot of Interferon a week,  six pills of Ribavirin every day (three in the morning and three at night), and the two pills of the Protease Inhibitor in the morning. Mind you, both could be sugar pills or one could be a sugar pill, but I won't really know that for a while. Instead, I must stick to the regimen and bear the side effects with courage and even a touch of grace here and there. I like the verb "bear" in this context because it makes me wish I actually was a bear and I could hibernate through this treatment, receiving all the drugs intravenously. Plus bears seem to be so tough and willing to take the worse and keep trudging through the snow and the woods with the determination of survival.

In the past decade, doctors started administering an ultra-expensive high end treatment for heroin and opiate addiction, including all the prescription pills like Vicodin and OxyContin, where the patient actually sleeps through the entire detox process, never actually going into conscious withdrawal symptoms. When I got off heroin, I didn't sleep for more than 15 to 30 minutes for 10 straight days, and I thought I was going insane. Such a deluxe form of treatment seemed like a Godsend, but it was far out of my reach and not a realistic possibility. What's ironic is that it has shown to have middling to lousy results because the addict often relapses soon after getting clean. Since they have not walked through the pain of the withdrawal process, since they have glided into a rosy picture of health, it is so much easier for them to forget the cost and ignore past damages and embrace the insanity of a relapse. Still, despite this realization, I am not getting off of drugs and I have been sober for quite a while now and the idea of hibernating like a bear through this treatment sounds awfully sweet.

Alas, the evolutionary destiny of the bear is not mine to share, and I must move on and accept the long road that lies before me. Am I tired? Of course, I am. Am I worn down? Yeah, more than a bit. Am I beaten? No, not by a long shot. The name of this game is perseverance.

Day 1 Hepatitis C — Consequences of My Past Addiction and the Challenges of My New Reality

July 26, 2011

My name is John Lavitt and I am 44-years young and I will not hide behind the veil of anonymity and I will simply be myself in this forum of expression because this is my story, my reality, my life.

Since 2003, I have known that there were physical consequences in regards to my past addiction to heroin and cocaine beyond the external damaged I did to the fabric of my life and the pain I caused my loved ones. After going through a medical detox, I learned that I had tested positive for Hepatitis C. What was so ironic was that I only used needles once; I smoked the drugs because I was gun shy to say the least when it came to needles and blood. The one time I shot up at a friend's house in 1999, I stupidly shared a needle with a young woman, thinking that cleaning it with hydrogen peroxide and sterilizing the needle would protect me. I do not remember the woman's name, and I later came to refer to her in a cruel manner as the bitch who gave me this disease. I recall her as a desperate woman with two kids and a drug addicted husband on the run. I do not even remember her name, and I hope she is okay and sober.

Something I have learned in the course of my own journey is that nobody's suffering or misery does me any good or makes my life any better. I honestly wish happiness and success for everyone because such a wish realized would only improve and brighten the world. I made my own choices and so bitterness is not a desolate road that I choose to walk on today, cold and shrouded in darkness. I have so very much to be grateful for in this life, and I choose to embrace the beauty and wonder of a future imagined.

It is winter in the picture above and snow is on the ground and adorning the trees and there is a turn at the end of a road that leads into the unknown. This is my unknown that became a reality today.

So what happened today, you might ask, and I will tell you even though I still feel more than a bit shell-shocked and overwhelmed and downright scared. After having blood taken just under two weeks ago for a series of tests, I went to Kaiser Permanente and met with a liver specialist whom I now know will be my doctor and an essential part of a challenging journey that has just begun. Dr. Wu let me know that my liver showed signs of inflammation and the Hepatitis C viral count, the viral lode in my blood was elevated. Since I have been infected for about a dozen years, these two markers mean that I need treatment. The details of my treatment will come later and the many difficulties I will face, but it will not be easy. Even with the new cutting edge cocktails of new drugs, interferon remains the primary treatment and the side effects are brutal. These side effects include consistent flu-like symptoms, particularly during the first months, and a tendency towards triggering depressive episodes.

Since I have had a history in the past of clinical depression and take the anti-depressant Wellbutrin on a daily basis, these side effects can be quite dangerous given such a personal history. In addition, since I have genotype 1a, the treatment is least effective for me and the duration is extended and intensified. Although I have only a 60% chance of the treatment actually eradicating the virus from my system, I have to be on the treatment program for a duration of 44 weeks or eleven months. This means almost an entire year of being vastly under the weather without any guarantees beyond the flip of a coin.

Okay, I know I sound a bit depressive right now, but I am actually smiling as I write these words. I cannot change the reality of this reality. There are no do-overs in life and I must accept the consequences of my past actions and the cost of my addiction. I will do my best to be positive as I present a somewhat daily account of what happens next and the progression of this treatment process. Please forgive me if I veer into indulgence and ranting and absurdity because I know the fear will take me down those paths. But I will try to side with the spirit and embrace the faith that everything will be okay.

Sweet dreams on this first night and may we walk together, hand-in-hand, with grace and kindness, laughter and love, and the dream that one day you will hear that I am healthy and back on track.