The last hooray

**trigger warning**

There are some places in the world where only evil exists.

Those places are destined to wreak havoc until they are eventually destroyed. Some could say it's the spirit world intervening with mortal souls. Others will say that it's simply the balance of the world. Regardless, this place was the definition of evil.

The Motel 6 in Richfield Minnesota has since closed, but was one of the hottest dope motels in the city for years. I frequented that motel multiple times a month to set up shop and stay out of sight.

The last time I was there was December 2018, that’s where this story begins.

The motel was located on a corner with apartments on one side and commercial developments on the other. The location was great because it wasn’t in the middle of a bunch of residential houses, nor was it near any nosy neighbors. But ultimately it’s nearly impossible to hide dozens of drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes, and pimps from the outside world. The motel was the cheapest in town, only $49 a night.

The rooms were what you’d expect from a motel. Dirty, dingy, cold, and unwelcoming. Beds that might have bedbugs, bathrooms that might not have toiletries, and hallways that were never quiet.

It would start at around 3pm, when the lobby would fill up.

Familiar faces would stroll in looking all kinds of suspicious, trying too hard to appear normal. At this point, the motel staff were well aware of the fuckery going on in the hallways and didn’t seem to care. 2, 3, 5, and eventually 10+ people would fill the lobby waiting for that magic time, 4pm. At 4pm the rooms became available and you could book your room for the night.

They wouldn’t allow anyone to book early, and oftentimes all the rooms would book up before sundown. It was a heaven for drug activity, you could essentially get anything here. Most people came with exactly enough money to stay one night, then in the morning would leave and come back in 2-3 days when they rounded up enough money for a room + their fix. This time was different for me.

I had taken out a loan that was supposed to pay for my college necessities, but instead I started using it for dope. I had over a thousand dollars, and at this time I wasn’t selling dope anymore, so that was a lot. I was so deep in my addiction that I had lost almost everything, including my ability to keep dope long enough to actually sell it. This time I walked up to the counter and booked 3 nights.

I felt like a king.

Once they gave me the keys I went upstairs and found my room. I got settled in and the insanity began. My routine was the same in these motels. I’d load up my rig, give myself a big shot, and once I was able to speak again I’d wander out in the hallways and find some friends. When you have dope and a room you’re a hot commodity.

The objective was usually to hangout and smoke, sometimes fuck, sometimes getting too paranoid in the hallways and retreating back the room alone to roast bowls until the shadow people came out. This time I ended up seeing a familiar face, someone I’d seen around at dope houses when I’d go to pick up. We hit it off and went back to my room, spending the next 3 days smoking, shooting up, and trying to find a dealer that had the product.

Since I got the loan, I thought I could find someone that had some weight and begin my sales dream again. I would never sell my personal stash, and in the past few months the amount needed in that stash grew freakishly high.

When you’re on meth, time tends to fly because you’re never really doing anything productive.

Even if you’re hooking up with someone, it's rare you actually do anything other than sit there staring at your phones touching each other without even making eye contact. You’re always focused on something else, and you can’t seem to peel your eyes off it. The 3 days went by very fast, and before I knew it, it was time to check out.

He left early in the morning when he realized nobody had dope for sale. I stayed until 11am when the house keeper knocked on my door telling me to leave. They were savage here, they knew the dope heads would stay as long as they could. They’d come to the door banging on it saying “5 minutes or we call police”. That always worked.

I was running out of dope and in my head, running out of time. I had spent a few hundred dollars the past 3 nights picking up small sacks and smoking it with my friend. My illusion of having thousands of dollars in my pocket like the blow days was slowly fading away, and it infuriated me.

I caught the bus to go home, arriving about 45 minutes later.

I walked into my moms apartment and went straight to my room. I needed to plan. Luckily I had some dope left, and loaded my rig. I spent the entire day calling dealers and trying to find a bag. I was going to run out of dope in the next 24 hours and I was scared.

Every time I ran out the depression worsened. The feelings of hopelessness, abandonment, self pity, and despair intensified every come down. I would start to remember the stagnant excuse of a human I had become.

It petrified me to come down, and this time felt like there was resolution. Everyone was simply out of dope, it tends to happen like that. Everyone dries up at the same time. Then I got a text, my friend from the motel said he had some.

I was saved. Or so I thought.

Meth addicts lie like it's going out of style. Actually, drug addicts in general, but definitely us tweakers. I should have known, the signs were so obvious. He said he got some but wouldn’t say how much or where from, just that he wanted to come over as soon as possible. After my mom went to work for the night he showed up, and of course didn’t have any dope. He said his plug was going to drop off in the next few hours. The reality was he knew I had some left and was starting to run into a similar problem of coming down.

He asked if I could load his rig for him, and I honestly couldn’t. I had put a half gram in a new needle an hour before he came and it was sitting in my dresser drawer waiting for me. It was my last shot of dope, and I needed to make it last. He promised up and down that his plug was going to drop off some more, but I wouldn’t budge. After a few hours I was coming down so hard I forgot all about the drama with him and I pulled my syringe out of the drawer.

He didn’t even say anything, which should have also sent red lights flaring in my mind, but it didn’t. I pulled the plunger back and started pushing. About halfway through I stopped and pulled it out. My blood was in the syringe, but I knew it wouldn’t coagulate for several hours giving me ample time to reuse it later. The rush hit me and it felt good, really good. At that moment he told me his plug hit him back and asked him to go pick it up, and he would be back shortly.

My head was spinning as the dope filled my veins, and I could barely respond. I just nodded in agreement and off he went. The door shut behind him and he was gone. A few minutes later I realized what had just happened. The syringe I just used was gone. He had taken it. The son of a bitch took my last rig that was full of my blood and he was going to shoot himself with it. The things us addicts do to get high always baffles me.

We’re willing to risk so much, even our health.

I could have had HIV for all he knew, and he was about to load his vein up with it. I don’t have any diseases, and he was very likely fine after that shot, but it stunned me nonetheless. I was furious, and panic started to set in. Of course he wasn’t answering, and I already knew how this would go down. I would come down, that was the only option.

I opened my phone and aimlessly started scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, and twitter over and over. Then the sadness started. The self pity started, but this time something was different. It wasn’t woe is me on repeat, it was an internal plea to stop the madness. I opened Instagram and for the first time in my life, searched “drug addict” in the search bar.

I scrolled through a few posts and stopped.

What I read was too real, and it made me freeze. Something along the lines of “I never thought I’d become a drug addict, I never thought I’d become a slave to a spoon and a needle”. It was a post from Addict Chick, and I clicked her page. I spent the next 12 hours scrolling through all her posts and reading every one of them. On this day, her page was my tweak. I couldn’t stop scrolling reading the text, each post it became clearer. At one point, I said it out loud.

“I, Steven Hendrickson, am an addict. There’s no way I can drink without doing drugs, and there’s no way I can do drugs without drinking. I’ve tried to stop doing meth so many times but always start again once I get too drunk. The only answer is to stop doing everything”

Those words sank in me like the titanic.

I had never admitted to myself that I couldn’t control either drugs or alcohol, it was always that I couldn’t do one but could do the other. I always thought I was bigger than drugs, that I was better, that I was different. I thought even though I saw addicts everywhere I turned, I was not the same. I thought I could control it, I could manipulate it, I could live in harmony with it. This day changed everything. This day changed my life. 

I got a notebook and a pen and started writing.

I wrote the most meaningful letter of my entire life, admitting my addiction and unknowingly writing my first amends. I wrote how sorry I was for causing my mom to worry about me, causing my best friend to call me just to make sure I was alive. I wrote how I had lied to them all and ultimately lied to myself. I wrote how I wanted to fix everything, how I wanted to be better. I was so vulnerable, raw, and genuine, I started to cry.

After the letter was complete I sat in silence for what felt like an eternity. I thought back to the beginning, when I first started using it. When it was fun, when I was the cool kid for doing drugs. The memories started flooding. I remembered when I was bullied in school for being poor, I remembered when I called myself ugly, I remembered when I isolated myself. I remembered how dealing drugs gave me the ability to mask the financial situation at home because I was now making money.

I remembered when I would look in the mirror and tell myself I needed to lose 10 pounds and picked up the bubble. I started to understand the reasons behind why I did drugs in the first place.

Then I started to plan.

The impending doom feeling lifted as the hours progressed, I was in full withdrawal at this point but with the new realizations flooding my system I didn’t really care. I didn’t make a detailed plan at all, it was very simple. Firstly I promised myself I would never use drugs or drink again, that no matter what happened that had to be my reality. Secondly I promised myself I would get 10X wealthier than the rich kids who made fun of me in high school. Third, I promised myself I would take care of my body by committing to the gym and eating healthy.

I knew if I didn’t look absolutely stunning I would consider getting high to shed the weight. It was all coming together in my head, and it scared the shit out of me. But I was sick and tired of living the lifestyle I had been for 10 years. I was sick and tired of being broke, I was sick and tired of not owning a damn thing, I was sick and tired of feeling useless, I was sick and tired of the reality that my life was going nowhere. Me being me, I didn’t want to waste any product that was left in the house.

I smoked the resin out of the bubble and scanned the carpet for any crystals. I found a small one and got one last hit. I had a bottle of vodka in the house, and grabbed a cup and poured a few shots inside. I drank at least half a bottle in the next hour, getting drunk as hell.

I had been up for almost a week, and knew drinking would make me crash. And crash I did. It was one of the few times I consciously decided to allow myself to come down and go to sleep. It was one of the few times I peacefully drifted into slumber not dreading the next day. It felt serene.

I woke up 12 hours later, but only stayed awake for an hour before going back to bed. I got up, smoked a cigarette, ate a huge bowl of mac n cheese, then went back to sleep. I slept another 12 hours, and that time when I woke up I was stunned at how long I had slept. The booze knocked me right out.

It was New Years Eve, 12/31/2018. It was the first New Year in 10 years I was sober. It was magical.