I really don't know where to start on my feelings about crystal meth...I have never been what is termed an addict, but regarding meth I am not sure I would know what a typical, friendly user would look like anyway. I have known some guys who say that they are weekend partiers and that, for them, the drug is entirely manageable. Maybe it is...or maybe they are at dead center of a problem that they can't gauge reality. Guys who go to great lengths to devise these meta-supplemental recipes to make the post-party mental torture less devastating...why not just fucking quit? Because it feels fucking amazing. The high is great, the self-confidence is ungodly. And the sex is outrageous fun. Tweaking, I am nothing less than King Kong unleashed, with my scrunched-up face and humongous nose, sniffing around all the other big, smelly monkey asses. Mmmmmmmmmm....Grrrrrrrrr......
No sane, non-using person would ever believe me if I told them how just how goddamn good it felt to fuck on crystal. But doing crystal makes me quite insane - nothing like the person I am in real life. I am a nice guy, a very nice guy - sensitive, empathic, and intelligent. Well, who needs that??? Like so many gay men, I have been so unsure of myself for so long - my masculinity, especially - and when it comes to my sexuality as a potentially aggressive male, I just never fucking learned how to. So after having overdosed on GHB at a circuit party in February of 2002, I got myself into therapy. (I came home wearing scrubs because I had soiled my club clothes and had to be cut out of them, I scanned Gay Chicago, I set up the initial appointment and slept for three days straight.) I have started to look for reasons why I love using crystal meth. And I do love it, more than any other party drug. But it turns me into an unfeeling, self-absorbed monster. I have allowed ways to deal with underlying issues to evolve, issues that probably took root while I was a little boy. Feeling that I wasn't a real man, feeling like I didn't have the right to include myself with other men, sometimes with people in general, is just about the hardest feeling anybody could conceivably endure. Lots and lots and lots of shame most gay men have to go through. Where are we supposed to learn to be sexually confident creatures? I grew up in a small Midwestern farming community. A night with Tina wipes years of that shit all away. And for the first time in my life, I feel my sexuality in abundance. I never even beat off until I was 19 years old because I didn't know how to do it because of the deep layers of shame and doubt functioning in our household. And now I am at the gay beach, walking around with an uncontained erection. And when I go to the bathhouse high on crystal I realize that I am actually double-jointed in all areas of my body, including my neck, eyes and asshole... and I am speaking in tongues...it has been three two months since I have used and I know that if I never use again, I will quite likely never have amazing non-human sex again. But I also know that if I refrain I will be preserving my mind and my spirit. (I met a guy at a CMA meeting a little over a year ago who was suffering from intense mother-stress, went on a crystal meth binge, became psychotic and mangled 30% of his tongue beyond repair. I wonder if he will last???)
What have I done to deserve to feel this way about myself? Absolutely nothing - though I didn't always know it. If anything, crystal meth fosters shame and self-doubt because it tells us guys that we are unable to go forth and be self-sustaining and be confident in ourselves as men and enjoy ourselves as men. Crystal shows us that only when we are sticking Miss Tina up our noses, our veins and our assholes can we feel like men. We no longer feel driven to being kind, sensitive, self-effacing, under-privileged gay boys. Do a couple of bumps, one for each nostril, and go out and be fearless. Have a great fucking time, a great time fucking... I am tired of having to rely on an agent that may or may not contain battery acid to facilitate positive feelings about myself. If you think this isn't the reason why you do crystal, then I would be very scared to be you. Right now, I am looking within and I have begun to flood myself with resources which I have allowed to come my way. I have allowed myself to be wrong and to be vulnerable and to take huge risks. And I have begun to be fearlessly honest with myself about who I really am. I also have a wonderful new boyfriend who makes so much sense to me that I can't believe it's just now happening. Once a person can start to do that, the fear leaves. And that's what crystal meth is all about: running away from yourself because it's too fucking scary. And all you really have is yourself, really. So it's my choice; everybody's choice. Either be a glamorous, self-destroying machine, a la Marilyn Monroe, or be something real.