I used to be weary of the ātweakersā - the sleep-deprived, illusional methamphetamine addicts who have been up for days on end. Their presence stirred up fear in me, maybe partially because I was smoking it myself and I didnāt want to end up like them. But, my fear came true after a while, as it does for anyone who gets too tied up into the meth scene. I became a tweaker myself, and eventually, I fitted in nicely. I started to mirror the behaviour I was originally afraid of, the very behaviour I used to frown upon. My eyes became shifty like theirs, my movements became swift and uncoordinated like theirs, my speech was disorganized and intangible like theirs, my feet and hands were twitchy and shaky like theirs. But I didnāt just resemble them physically, I also resembled them financially, mentally, emotionally, socially, psychologically and so on. I started to see myself in them, and they started to see themselves in me, too. I slowly felt more at home with this crowd than I did with my own family.
The more I associated with tweakers, the more I was able to gain glimpses and insights into the future path I was heading down. Initially, I did despise this, as it was plain disturbing and discomforting to say the least. But in a weird and unfortunate way, at the same time I also didnāt mind that I was slowly morphing into them, and I didnāt exactly shy away from learning from them and copying their ways. I went from not wanting to be like them, to not caring that I was inevitably turning into them. To an extent, I even started to accept and embrace my likely future. A future that ultimately looked pretty damn depressing, dreadful and deathly. I lost my ability to see clearly, I was blindedĀ like the others. Maybe I just wasnāt wearing the same glasses I had worn in my innocent days, or maybe I was still wearing them, they were just too foggy from clouds of exhaled smoke. I attribute this increased lack of care to meth itself - just one of the many ways it takes over.
It felt like we were all on the same mission, with the exact same goal in mind: to smoke more meth, and make or find money to smoke more and more, and more. We helped each other out in this sense, although only selfishly, because we wereĀ only ever in it for ourselves and only ourselves. We would invest together, assist each other in crime, and reassure each other that itāll be worth buying another bag although we already owe thousands. But teamwork isnāt always the case with tweakers like us. Because, sometimes when we invest together, one of us secretly slyly taxes the bag and saves it for our own selves later, or one will claim they lost the bag on the mission back when really itās right in their back pocket (we know all the tricks in the book). And when we assist each other in crime, weāre actually going to be telling the police anything and everything to save our asses if we get caught, even if this means narking on each other when we swore an oath not to. And when we reassure each other to get when we canāt afford it, weāre secretly looking for validation and a justification or excuse, which maybe isnāt the best of teamwork, is it? Thereās always gotta be at least one of us who gets too greedy and too desperate that we resort to ripping each other off and making fools of each other by blatantly lying, stealing, using and abusing each other. Even if only one of us is caught in the act, secretly all of us have been guilty of the same thing, and secretly we all do it to each other repetitively, but we are quick to point our finger and blame anyway. Perhaps we do this to keep the attention off ourselves, to keep everyone thinking that we arenāt the bad guy, although we all fucking are.
We usually keep each other company for nights on end, sometimes doing the same thing for hours and hours. Associating together in one of the many local crackhouses we inhabit, jumping from one to another mostly depending on whoās loaded the most - or even worse, the one that has the most stuff in it to steal and pawn off for meth. But, we will try everything in our power to make sure we donāt get caught stealing offĀ each other. Unfortunately, itās easy to do so when weāre so fried that we do stupid and thoughtless stuff such as steal an item and then try and sell it back to the very person we stole it from, completely forgetting it was theirās to begin with.
We sometimes like to think we are building friendships and meaningful connections with each other, yet in reality: what is meaningful about sitting in different corners being glued to a meaningless, silly task or activity such as taking apart an electronic device and putting it back together again? Maybe thatās what weāve always wanted: to be loved and to love, yet we havenāt seemed to feel that truly, which is why perhaps we are smoking meth in the first place.
We have these types of conversations sometimes, these deep and thoughtful reflections about ourselves and life itself - but we donāt really hear each other because most of the time we talk over each other, or we are too twisted to take it in, or sometimes we do actually listen - but we donāt properly process what theyāre really saying. I mean, who can blame our brains for that? Weāre fried and sleep-deprived, which makes it too easy to mishear, misunderstand and misinterpret. Even if we want to listen, often whoever is talking is speaking too fast anyway that we canāt keep up. Or, words are jumbled and mixed around so much that we canāt make sense of it at all. Sometimes, listening and talking becomes too much so we just sit there and pick our skin instead. But mostly, we just donāt give a damn because we are too self-absorbed in our own world.
These similarities in the ways in which we act and behave draw us together and create a sense of unity and familiarity. We donāt fit in other parts of society, but we fit in with each other, in our own destructive way. Us tweakers know that deep down inside we are all addicts who are slaves to meth, so it feels relieving and reassuring to be around others who are tied down by the same evil demon. This way, we donāt feel so alone and alienated, because being around sober people makes us feel like we are on a whole other planet, a planet that is shunned and judged by majority of others.
So, we are good for each other in a way, but more than anything, we are bad for each other. We encourage and influence each other to keep being slaves, to keep falling further down the slippery slope. We cause each other pain that we donāt need, pain that will push us to smoke more meth. Our relationships with each other revolve directly around meth, and any relationship built on this foundation is nothing but trouble at the end of the day. But, whatās trouble to us anyway? We have lived and experienced so much trouble in our lives that we haveĀ became desensitized to it. Over time, we have internalized trouble as a normal way of life, and we expect it, accept it, and seek it even. Thatās the saddest thing about us tweakers. Yet, no one but us will ever truly understand that.
stormborns
2087
izzy806
romaincrisis
gracieabrams
tangentwithtanner
