I became hooked on crack cocaine at the beginning of 1987. From the start of my addiction, I knew that the consequences of my habit would be the total subjugation of my life to it, the wreckage of all my hopes and dreams, the demolition of my computer hardware career, and everything else conducive to a wholesome and fruitful life.
I allowed the weakness of my mind to transform me into a slave in bondage to my own desires. I knew that if there was any hope of me getting my act back together that it must start with the complete abstinence from my drug of choice.
Now, I felt that I was looking at myself from a remote place that I once inhabited. Everything was surreal and lacking any sense of genuineness as I muddled along in the grip of my drug craving. I cried and I prayed for the strength to get out of the ghastly predicament that I had foolishly placed myself within. I was ashamed of myself and kept as far away from my family as possible because I did not want them to see what I had done to myself.
At this early stage in my addiction, there was a faint ray of hope that I would be able to strap my groans and get it back together because I had the desire to do so. During the following year of 1987, this tiny ray of hope was given a death blow when I was told that I was HIV positive. I was informed of this diagnosis at a blood bank that I frequented to get funds to support my habit when I was unable to find work on that day.
Needless to say, this news was like being shot in the head with a cannon. At this time, in the middle eighties, the common consensus was that a person who had HIV had from six months to a year at most to live. I believed what I was hearing about my illness and based on that information I utterly gave up on life.
What was the point in being drug-free when I only had six months to a year at most to live? I isolated myself even when people were all around me. The only thing that I had to look forward to was becoming very sick and dying miserably.
For nine and a half years I waited for the moment of my demise while living in the wasteland of a drug controlled life. With every cold, I prepared myself for the coffin as this was the knowledge of the consequence of my scourge that I had. I placed my confidence in the wisdom of mortals and wallowed in my death garment as I went about making money to support my drug habit.
Now my cries and my prayers were two-fold, that I gain my freedom from drug addiction and that this wicked plague is taken away from me. Nine and a half years of an already brief moment to experience physical life was shattered by the use of drugs because I placed my confidence upon the carbon-based, and did not cement my cries and prayers with celestial faith.
For nine and a half years I lived as a vagabond, as a vagrant in my disease infected body, as a drifter in my loathsome mind, and as a wandering lifeless spirit because of my lack of knowledge.
This is not an epitaphic discourse concerning physical existence in spiritual death, because it is most laughable as a fool and his or her aspirations are quickly disjointed when they place all their assurances on maggot food such as they are, and not look towards the true knowledge base that surpasses the breath and make void the shovel.
For nine and a half years, the count is finished and the hours are a complete waste because a little knowledge is a grand destroyer, and if the knowledge that one does have is not seasoned with wisdom, time becomes a looter, but only if one surrenders and does not stand up and fight against the odds and the general consensus.
