A Man Don't Have To Die To Go To Hell (Excerpt)

This excerpt is from Chapter 21, A Man Don't Have To Die To Go To Hell.  I was in Washington, D.C. freelancing on camera covering the 2004 Presidential election.  I was a complete mess. My life was unraveling quicker than ever.  

The bottle of poison sitting on the counter was a stark reminder of the last 12 hours. It was sort of like waking up to a wallet that once had money but now was empty because the previous night all your money went to the strippers or to the bar down the street.  Brad Paisley said it best, “It’s a place down by the airport, where the girls dance just for you, and all you feel is drunk, and broke, and lonely when they’re through. It’s waking up with nothing but that old tobacco smell, you don’t have to die to go to hell.”  Paisley nailed those words.  He was exactly right. Hell was right where I was at the moment, and hell would also get hotter as time went by.  I also knew that the little amount in that bottle would only keep the withdrawals away for a short few hours.  I decided to wait to take it when I could no longer stand feeling the way I felt right then.  If I took it then it would start wearing off before lunchtime.  I would hold off as long as possible.

I managed to take a very quick shower, throw on clothes and make it to the van.  When Rudy and our camera operator saw me they looked at me as if I was the walking dead.  I had my sunglasses on so they couldn’t see my bloodshot eyes. On the way to the interview Rudy asked me if I was ready and properly prepped.   I lied and told him yes.  Quickly I grabbed my folder and tried a cram session.  There was so much that this guy had accomplished it all simply ran together.  I was in major trouble.  One good thing was I would have cue cards with bullet points on them.  I still had to know the stuff in order to play off the points.  Because I have been in front of people for most of my life I can “wing it” and make it believable.  This was way above my head this time.  I could sense the worry in Rudy.  This was very important to him and I decided that I wanted to at least do it for him.  I’m sure he had to be thinking, what has happened to this guy?  This isn’t the same person that I first met in Nashville a few years ago.   No kidding!   Surely he hasn’t fallen off the wagon again?  I hadn’t just fallen off the wagon; I had taken a major leap off the wagon!  

What Did I Do To Deserve This? (Excerpt)

The excerpt below is taken from Chapter 10, What Did I Do To Deserve This?  I was beginning to really experience life starting to unravel, although it was slow and almost hidden from my conscious.  The days, months and years to follow marked the beginning of the downward spiral.

One day at work near the end of the day I started not feeling very well. It felt like I was coming down with a cold and I was just very tired. I had taken the last of the pills the night before. I really didn’t think much about it other than the fact that I just didn’t feel good. When I got home that afternoon I mostly laid around the house and told my wife I felt like I was coming down with something. I actually took some cold medicine and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning I really felt bad. I even started feeling like I had a small case of cold/hot sweats. When I got to work I was lucky in the fact that I had no rentals going out that day. The more the day went on the worse I felt. I was restless, with the sniffles and I found myself yawning a lot. By 11 a.m. it was getting worse. I decided to just lie down on the carpeted floor in my loft and try to take a nap during my lunch break. I called my supervisor and told him I did not feel good but that I was going to stay the rest of the day. He said there was nothing on the books for rentals and even said, “Why don’t you just take the rest of the day and go home”. I said I might do that.  I just lay down on the floor on top of some packing bubbles I found.  I really just felt too bad to get up and leave.   

Next thing I knew it was nearly 6:30 in the evening! My wife had left numerous messages on my phone so I just told her I had been in meetings all day and wasn’t able to call. No one had even bothered to check to see if I was there or not since the building stays active 24 hours a day. Everyone assumed I had just left. One thing was certain though, I felt the worse I had felt in a very long time.  It was a different type of feeling though.  Besides the physical discomfort, which was bad, enough it also felt as if there was dark cloud surrounding me.  I felt more depressed than I had in a long time.  It’s even hard to describe it other than everything felt slow, dark, cold, and lifeless.  Even sounds didn’t sound right.  They were dull and sonically dead.  On the way home I didn’t even think about the pills I had been taking and if they had anything to do with the way I felt. However, I was really wishing I had some to take. When I got home my wife said “You look horrible, you’re pale and clammy feeling. I hope you’re not getting the flu.” I went ahead and decided that I would not go to work the next day. I decided I would call the doctor and make a visit.