Me, In america aged 20... 21. Ish :)
Okay! So welcome back for part 2 of the history of my substance misuse.. If your not quite up to date, please pop over to other blog entries to catch up! https://steemit.com/@legionwarriorjim
So last time i left off at matthew and jamie, The two lads who i thought were my ultimate best friends in the universe, Turns out i was wrong (But thats for later in the story), Between the age of 15-21 these two guys were basically the reason i woke up in the morning, My first instinct was to get out of bed, have a shower, get dressed - Head around to matt's and stick my face to the bong.. Of course my parents having no idea i was a serial stoner at this point, most of my time was spent there... at the age of 18 i finally got myself a full time job working in a care home, i suppose this was one of my higher points through the whole ordeal as looking after the elderly folks at the little care home in malpas made me feel like a good person, Not only did i get a massive pay check every week, I was caring for people who were completely incapable of doing so.. so to see the relief each time you performed the most mundane of tasks for them was a reward in itself. I must have held the job down for about 6 months, working almost 60 hours a week and doing extra work in the kitchens when they were short staffed.. Then it happened, Matthew started to poke around, Knocking for me when i'd get home about 7pm, Finally i started to migrate back around to his house on my days off.. This happened for about 5-6 weeks until finally i was back on the bud, Now buying my own and hanging out my window or standing out the back to have a puff when the folks went to bed.. As the days turned into weeks.. I started loosing interest in my Job, taking odd days off here and there to lounge around at matthews playing on the 360, ordering pizza with my hard earned cash and buying bud by the bucket load.. Eventually we got to a point that i was falling asleep there and waking up, Phones ringing "Where are you" "Your supposed to be in work", This didn't last very long and it was around my birthday (December time) that i took some annual leave, The day after my birthday i was due to work, So i attended to have one of the staff nurses lead me into the managers office, He was 'surprised' that i was there but insisted that i'd handed in my notice before i went on leave, Which didn't happen.. As much as i'd been stupid and messed them about, I loved my position there, i was working towards an NVQ level 2 in care, which would have put me on the path towards a nursing qualification (Call me stupid, I know i was..)..
So that happened, My Ego was smashed, My cash flow gone... I was lost.
Things after that took a turn for the worst and the weeks went by turning into months, Me - just sat there every night after coming home from matthews playing xbox and staying up late, One night around November i was playing gears of war when a girl popped up in a chat room on Vampirefreaks.com, me being the horny teenager that i was started speaking to her, from the get go we hit it off and eventually we added each other on Skype and started video calling each other, Fooling about and playing xbox together, We were really hitting it off, the only problem was she was from america, Now i didn't expect this too happen, but she actually came here to see me, She stayed with me for about 3 months at my folks house and guess what, She was a serial stoner too.. Just not quite as hardcore as us british folks with our super skunk and the likes, I remember it like yesterday, We went around to my buddy adams house and bought a 10 bag off of him, We sat there and had a spliff and as we were walking back to my folks house, She passed out!! She actually whitey'd, I was gob smacked! So i called adam and he helped me carry her back to my house, a few hours passed and she finally came too... But at this point i was smoking maybe 2-3 grams of super bud a day.. A Few weeks past and things got a little messed up with my parents and their mortgage, My mother had injured her back working for the NHS and my father was made redundant.. So we lost the house.. They weren't a big fan of chelsea and refused to let her stay at the half way house that the council provided for us, So i decided we'd camp for the last 2 weeks of her stay in the UK, I know that, it probably wasn't very fair on her, But it was my responsibility - I couldn't just pawn her off and tell her to make her own way home, So i did the best i could.. Eventually her sister managed to loan her the money to secure an earlier plane ticket as the camping polava just wasn't working out, it was cold, damp and no place for a woman to live (but i loved nearly every second of it, except for the whining..), but things were really bad... During the last few days she was here.. she begged me to come with her to the americas, me being the fool that i was, Decided to sell all my possessions and follow her.. So off i went, on a trip around the world!
I have to be honest, I loved being in america, but the company i kept didn't really like me, So as you can imagine things just went from bad, to worse.. The only exception was, Cannabis was now a lot cheaper! $60 an ounce, So spliffs were rolled pure and tobacco pretty much got forgotten about.. Things were.. to say the least bearable for the first two months of my trip, we stayed at her grans house in a little part of indiana.. but then it all kicked off when her mother came to stay, Chelsea and her mother clashed quite often and eventually i was roped into one the arguments, I was in a predicament in that.. her mother was trying to make me pick a side and i did my best to stay neutral.. Maybe this was a bad idea.. This was probably the best time to get out, but i had to wait another month for my return ticket.. I was stuck between a rock and hard place, Basically after the big argument, her mother kicked us out and we had to stay with a friend of hers (a couple), Who I actually became quite good friends with, Until she went and stole from them.. Of course that was the last straw.. These folks offered to drive me from indiana to chicago - and she sabotaged it for me, I had to leave with her, AGAIN from another place.. (I messaged them when i got home, told them all about what happened, we've been friends since..) But yeah, We went into a motel for two nights and it was literally the day before i was supposed to leave that her mother got hold of her and tried to work things out, I was SAVED! or so i thought.. So it came the day i was going home! I was so elated, but also sad, I spent 9 months with this girl.. Smoking everyday and generally having a good time, amongst the bad times.. So we all got in the car, It was me, Chelsea, Cassie (Chels' sister) and carrie, her mother.. Cassie constantly throwing dirty looks back at me..Eventually we got to the airport and i was quickly rushed out the car - I literally had two minutes to kiss chelsea goodbye, Forever.. Although at this point, it wasn't forever, I was to message her the first opportunity i got back.. I Shed a tear as i walked down the escalators towards the checking desk, and she was gone, they didn't even wait for me to check in.. It turned out my flight had left an hour previous, I was gob smacked.. Terrified, I looked at the clerk and said "What am i supposed to do, I have no money left, this was my only way home", After that they were phenomenal, The clerk picked up the phone, Muttered to what i imagine was her manager and managed to get me on a 2 stop flight back to manchester.. But it didn't leave for another 18 hours.. I had no food, no entertainment, No cigarettes.. Nothing to drink and no more money.. I won't lie - I was terrified - but fortunately i had a lighter and some papers! So i slipped outside and sneakily picked up dog ends off the floor broke them apart and rerolled them into rollups.. Finally! a release! I was FREE! I was going home, It was a goal... There was light at the end of the tunnel..
I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as i've enjoyed writing and if you've read my other posts too, THANKS! I'll be uploading the final chapter tomorrow, wrapping up my past - After that i'll be writing about my continuing journey towards my end goal.. The royal marines and my progress in the fight to stay away from cannabis for good. Stay tuned for more :)