So, it’s finally here. . .I graduate college in one week. . .to be what else but a teacher. . .I remember the first time I tried my girl. . .I was in Tokyo about a year ago now. . .I was with a bunch of people that I had just met and had no idea what I was doing. . .so, I smoked the pipe and actually made it to work the next day. . .it’s so funny how a single moment of innocence can change your life completely. . .my hands are shaking just thinking about the past year of my life and the rollercoaster I have been on. . .this drug is not evil and it has never caused me problems outside of my own health. . .sigh. When I came back to the states I somehow was magnetically drawn to every tweaker and dealer in my hometown. I smoked and smoked and smoked and just didn’t think twice about anything else. Like I said, this drug is not evil. When I was high, the only thing that I wanted to do was talk and discuss myself with people, share the insides of me. . .it’s strange how when you feel so good you are become so liberated and want to bear your soul.

Through months of surviving my binges, I came to so many realizations about myself. I used to have such a gusto for my life and success. I was never anything but happy.Here is just an insight into the cycle of growth and rebirth I went through during the past twelve months of my life. I was in a relationship for two years that was incredible and it kinda just fizzled out. . .you couldn’t ask me why because I didn’t know. . .it just did. . .I denied all of my sober feelings to hide behind this egotistical shell that so many of us gay men do. What else was there to do but run half way around the planet. . .Still subconsciously hiding all of my feelings, I had so many great adventures and made so many friends that were all to become puzzle pieces in figuring myself out. . .When I came home, as I said before, things just got worse and worse. . .AHHH, a light!

One tweaker to another, I met a great conundrum of a guy who gave me so much insight into repressed feelings that I had denied since I was a child. . .I lost my mind in pain and worry and just devastation as every fear and sadness I had experiences over a decade rushed back to me. It was time to take self-hate to a new level and I just let my body shrivel and weaken. I took no heed of how I looked or felt. . .the only time I was sober was to teach my beautiful and talented dancers. The rest of the time I would spend hundreds of dollars on T just to crash and burn and revel in the pain and anguish that I had become. You know what? It felt so good to just feel pain that I couldn’t hide or make an excuse for. . .the day it all changed is when my father came and woke me up from a binge and confronted me about my drug use. . .I thank the powers that be for such a wonderful and caring man and role model: he saved my life. I have finally started to forgive myself and understand why we all go through this struggle. . .we just want to be loved for who we are. As gay men we are taught to hide and fear the world. We are shown from jump that we are wrong for feeling the way we do. Is it any wonder we escape to a drug that will make us feel like real people again?

The only problem is that most of us never make the connection of being ourselves in reality to what we become on meth. I feel so incredible talking to other gay guys about their lives and being able to help them figure out why it is that they have unprotected sex, do drugs, hate their lives, want to run so far away. We can’t escape our problems because we will always carry them with us until we accept them and embrace them. They will follow us until we wear them proudly and know that they make us who we are. I have stopped doing meth all by myself. . .I almost died so many times. . .sick, hollow, and lonely. . .I am no longer scared to be alone; I know so many of us are. . .remember, we are never alone. . .we are in this together. Live consistently and never let anyone take anything from you that you don’t want them to have. . .let yourself cry. . .hurt. . .feel pain. . .let the old die and the new be reborn. LOVE. . .HELP. . .FIGHT for everything you deserve because you are special and beautiful. . .don’t fall into a heard instinct but pioneer your own way. . .

I graduate in one week and you know, I will never be the same again because I made it through the dark all by myself. I feel alive again, truly like a little child. I haven’t lost touch with not one addict that I have met in the past year. . .they are all like me and some of them are still smoking themselves silly and I love them so much and just want them to be happy. . .Like I said, do the drugs but, please, PLEASE, find yourself while your out there and know that there is at least one person out there who is thinking about you and doesn’t care if you are overweight, scarred, damaged goods, perfect, beautiful, or a genius. I think about you because you are me and I need you to make it through the woods too because if you don’t my own struggle is in vain. . .

In the Cathedrals of New York and Rome, there is a feeling that you should just go home and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is. . .

If you need me, I am here. . .Andy