Chemicals Don't Mess Me Up... This Time

This post was written by TNG co-founder Zack.

Original illustration by Ryan Blomberg.

I sat at my dining room table, bleary-eyed and sweaty. Seconds ago I had pulled my own hair and dug my nails into the flesh of my forearms just to force my eyes open. It was 10 in the morning but might as well have been the middle of the night. I couldn't concentrate. The couch called my name. The bed yelled even louder. My minds' eye shot through my apartment building, picturing every soft surface in every home within it. "I could lie down on someone's rug right now," I thought to myself. "I could curl into a ball in a pile of leaves in our courtyard."

I was trying to quit the other Columbian export. The brown dragon. I had had the espresso monkey on my back for far too long and wanted it off. I was sick of the jitters. The fetid breath. Running full tilt across the Ellington bridge because I was about to go to the bathroom in my pants and a homeless man occupied the sole secluded spot in the adjoining park, leaving the Open City cafe as the only thing standing between me and a very public Oreo Explosion. So I switched to decaf. But it didn't work. I spent a whole week irritable, exhausted and utterly ineffectual. So I went right back to giving daily metaphorical blowjobs to Juan Valdez for a very real fix.

"So this," I thought to myself, "is what it feels like to be an addict."

I'm a gay man with a mild family history of substance abuse. These twin legacies provide a host of reasons to monitor, if not stem, the number of chemicals that work in symphony to facilitate my daily routine. We already know that I can't quit coffee. What else is in my box of Mother's Little Helpers?

Back in December I sat in a therapist's comfy chair being informed that anti-anxiety medication would probably do a lot of good towards helping me stop feeling, all the time, like I had left a stove on but couldn't remember where. I've told you this already. He kept his dog - a pony-sized English lab -in his office. This was either because it could sense patients' feelings and help put them at ease or my doctor didn't trust his local dog walking service.

It's part of my daily routine now. The pills are expensive and occasionally produce frustrating (but pleasant for my boyfriend) sexual side effects. I once told my dentist that I was on them because I thought it might help cure the ferocious teeth grinding that had worn through five nightguards and the top layer of my back teeth. He replied solemnly this was a good thing, but that they were just a pill and I shouldn't start thinking I needed them to get through life. I was tempted to point out that the first time I met him it was on Halloween and he was dressed like a french maid, but this was more defensive than it was relevant so I left it alone.

I got a different bottle of higher-powered meds for the days that things get really bad. This one scares me, and I don't like to admit that things might ever get really bad. I took them once and felt floaty. It was not a pleasant sensation.

I recently discovered the wallet-saving phenomenon that is generic Propecia. I'd been taking the real stuff since I turned 22 and my sister pointed out how big my forehead was getting. I (and most people, I suspect) will drop a couple extra dollars in the name of vanity. About a year ago I discovered the buzz cut and decided to quit cold turkey. Now, though, my jew-fro is back and I needed to research some cheaper options. I save a ton of money, but the cheap stuff comes in quadruple-sized pills that need to be quartered in a pill cutter. It takes fucking forever and makes me wonder if its worth it.

It doesn't require a prescription, but whiskey is quickly replacing Bud Light as my overindulgence of choice. Maybe it's frugality in the face of economic hardship, as any bargain shopper would tell you that one shot of Jim Beam is a better deal than three beers. And it saves me so many trips to the bathroom. And I really, really like the way it tastes. Luckily this habit is still relegated to Saturday evenings. If you ever see me at brunch somewhere, nursing a Denver omelet and Maker's Mark, call up the Washington Post and let them know that I've officially become a disgusting person.

It used to be that I couldn't dance unless I was stoned. I like to think that my renewed dedication to yoga has undone that little reliance. Or maybe the whiskey's been helping.

Last time I got sick I did everything possible to avoid taking antibiotics. They're the one group of chemicals I don't trust. No matter how many nascent sinus infections I suffer through, I still think there are few problems that can't be cured by a cup of tea and a good night's sleep.