Today is March 19^th, 2006. March 11th was my youngest son’s birthday, Todd Cody Hall. He’s been dead for quite a while now, but I still celebrate his birthday every year, silently in my heart. On January 28^th, 2006 (my middle son’s birthday), I was riding motor-cross bikes with my son Parker, nineteen, and my son John, the birthday boy at seventeen. There are few things on this earth that give you a rush like the one you get flying across the beautiful Arizona desert at eighty miles per hour, clamped down on a CR 450. Suddenly, I found myself flying through the air without my bike. I landed on my head and back. Then, when I came to, I couldn’t breathe. People have accused me of having a death wish, but, believe me, at that moment there was nothing more important to me than being able to gasp for air and stay alive.

Both of my boys were right on my tail when I bit it. They were both trying to figure out how to help me, taking off my helmet and goggles. The look in both of their eyes was shear panic and distress. I remember thinking, “They love me so much. Just look how worried they are.” I thought of how much I love them as well. It seemed like an eternity, but I was finally able to gasp for air, and the first words out of my mouth were, “I’m alright. I’m alright. Just settle down.” Simply hearing my voice telling them what to do, made them both feel a lot better.

I remember the power lines above me wobbling. I knew the wind wasn’t blowing, so I figured I better just lay there for awhile. However, I was soon overcome with a feeling that I needed to get back to the truck while I still could. I was in shock. I remember thanking God for the electric start on the new bike, because I would have never been able to kick start it.

I was back to the truck in ten minutes and to the hospital in twenty. I knew that I had broken bones because I had heard the sound of them cracking when I landed. After I returned from radiology, the doctor told me that I had two compound fractures of my sixth and seventh ribs on my left side. He proceeded to tell me how lucky I was that they broke out, opposed to breaking in, which would have punctured my lung. Yes, that’s exactly how I was feeling…lucky. I find it ironic that people are always telling you how lucky you are every time something bad happens to you. One time I was in the driver’s seat of my van and the person in the passenger seat shot me at point blank three times with a thirty-eight. Everybody told me how lucky I was then too.

Just as I was reflecting on how lucky I was, the nurse walked in with a bottle of morphine in her left hand and a syringe in her right. I know that most people experience anxiety at the sight of needles, but not me. I am a junkie. I remember it as a surreal ceremony as she took the delicious liquid and held it high in the air above her head looking for the right light, just as a priest would hold up the holy chalice filled with the blood of Christ before blessing it during sacrament. We both stare at the bottle as the syringe registers line after line of the source of well-being and instant gratification.

I haven’t used a needle to get high since 1996, but the thought of the rush still sent a whirlwind of pleasurable thoughts through my mind. One thing I know to be true is: once a junkie, always a junkie. I was already imagining how it was going to taste and smell as she filled my veins. In fact, I had already started looking for a good vein just in case she might need some help. Then, it dawned on me. Medical professionals rarely induce IV medication, and she was more than likely going to tell me to pull my pants down. Just then, she told me to roll over and show her my ass…so much for the taste and smell.

I was still hooked up to the vital sign computer and, being an EMT, I always pay close attention to those stats. Just the thought of getting high again had increased my heart rate and blood pressure. I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I rolled over. I knew I would have to wait twenty minutes until I would feel it, but that was ok. Just the thoughts of getting high in twenty minutes made me feel better, right then.

Most people with completely broken bones would be worried about relieving the pain, but not me. I was anticipating being able to get high without getting in trouble for it, feeling guilty, breaking promises to myself, or invoking demons. There’s nothing like a totally free high. This is what drugs were made for, and no one was going to stop me from enjoying every second of it.

The twenty minute wait spurred a multitude of thoughts. I found myself thinking that I am a junkie and I shouldn’t be getting so excited about the prospect of getting high. Then I told myself, “Wait a minute. I am a junkie, and that’s exactly why I am so excited about getting high again. What in the hell do you expect from me? Of course I am going to be excited, you know who we are.” Just then a song popped in my head. It was the song “Scars” by Papa Roach. The line that was going round and round was, “The scars remind us that our past is real.” Go figure. I looked at both of my forearms and stared at the large scars on them, a result of abscesses cause from shooting up. Yes, indeed, my past is real. I did have the most serious of drug problems, but that’s just it, it was the past. It wasn’t now. Not for three years have I been high on anything. So, I certainly don’t need to be hitting myself with this kind of guilt. After all, I am guilty of nothing but carelessness on a dirt bike.

I looked up at the clock and realized that I had been arguing/singing with myself for twenty minutes. Of course I had marked the spot on the clock where I was supposed to start feeling high. Immediately, I was overwhelmed with a false sense of well being. I loved everything. I loved the nurse. I loved the gurney and the pattern on the sheets. Then my son John walked in, and of course I loved him and told him that I loved him.

“I love you too, Dad. Are you all right?”

“I am great! How are you?”

One of the things they don’t tell you when you decide to start doing drugs is that they only work the first time you try them. I haven’t been high on anything for three years, and I haven’t felt like this for almost twenty-five. The first time I shot up coke at age seventeen I felt like this, but never again after, no matter how many times I tried. Sure I got high, but it was never the same as the first time. A few years later when I cooked up my first batch of freebase, I was able to feel the same way, but I could smoke and smoke and smoke, never again feeling the same way I did the first time. The same goes for the early nineties when I smoked my first bowl of meth. My God did that feel good! However, once again, three or four years of trying to recapture that first feeling was all for naught. Although, the love for your children feels every bit as good the first time, as it does the next time you see them. In fact, I think it keeps getting stronger and better. The only thing is, if you’re so busy trying to recapture that first high, you won’t feel love at all. The time I wasted doing this, of all things, is truly my greatest regret in life. The upside to all of this, and in fact the only thing that saves me from a guilt ridden existence, is that they never quit loving you, no matter how high you get. There’re just like a loyal puppy always waiting for you when you get home, no matter how long you were gone. I love them all, so much.

I need to backup a second. Loving my children as I do has made me realize that I haven’t mentioned my daughter, Chelse. The spelling of her name is wrong because I was twenty-one when I had her. I liked the name Chelsea, but I didn’t know how to spell it. So, when I was filling out her birth certificate, I spelled it wrong. She says she likes it that way because it makes her different, but she would say that even if she didn’t like it. I watched the movie Blow with Johnny Depp, the biography of George Jung, coke dealer extraordinaire. His biggest regret was the separation from his daughter. That’s it! They hit the nail right on the head. The absolute worst you can do in this life, is lose a child. It doesn’t matter whether it was through death or through disgusting behavior. It doesn’t matter because you still lost them.

Recovery denotes the ability to recover from addiction. Recovery to me meant that I was able to salvage damaged relationships. The top three on my list were the relationships I had with my children, and I am the king of recovery in this sense. By the way, there is no such thing as recovery from addiction. Your only hope is that you quit doing drugs.

As I am getting my discharge papers and prescription slips, still feeling the beautiful high of the morphine, I asked myself why I can’t feel love for everything the way I do now…without the drugs. There has to be a way to love and appreciate everything in its true sense, without judgment, without cause, and without drugs. If there is a way to feel like this without getting high, then I promise you that I am going to be the one to find it.