Dirty Dishes in a Drug Addict's Apartment

Okay, so I'm not sleepy tired - just bone weary brain hurting tired. It's hard to shut the brain down enough to get sleepy tired. Especially at night.

Yay! I emptied the dishwasher and put half the dirty dishes in! I picked up the garlic peeler thing that fell out of a cupboard and has been on the kitchen floor for about 5 days. I can reward my strong work ethic with more time in front of the computer! Yay!

Actually I'm a little bit more sensitive to dirty dishes since I went to Berkeley the end of October. My husband, Eric, and I had to go do the save the family thing again. My daughter Andrea is in jail. This came as quite a shock that day in October when she was found guilty of 2 felonies and was put in jail until sentencing. No time to go home and feed the cats! No time to go home and shoot up one last time!

We went to save her cats. She has 3 cats and they were alone in the apartment and mommy was in jail. We flew across the country to save her cats. I wonder what happens to all the cats and dogs and fish and birds and guinea pigs that live with people who are sent to jail. Judges don't seem to care.

We also wanted to save some of her stuff, since she was being evicted from her apartment. We knew it would be a mess since that is definitely an inherited trait, but I didn't know it would make me cry at what her life had turned into.

The kitchen - this is the part about dishes. Her tiny little apartment kitchen was piled high in dirty dishes with rotted food and mold and growths, with gnats circling like vultures. I had ordered her food the week before and she had wanted paper plates. Much easier than washing dishes!

The dining area - a small square table in a corner with 2 folding chairs. The table was piled high with mail never gone through. The main purpose of this table was obviously not to eat on, but to sit with a buddy and mix up stuff, heat it in a spoon with 40 packs of matches, and then shoot that instant forget reality tonic into your arm, leg, toe, finger, hip...anywhere there's not too much scar tissue.

On to bedroom number 1 - Ah! The harvest room! Andrea got one of those great California prescriptions for medical marijuana. She got her own baby plants to nurture and love and tenderly urge to maturity. The babies grew up and yielded a bountiful crop! Huge stalks and piles of leaves were being sorted into ziplock bags. For medicinal use? Nah - not with the profit you could turn (which was carefully calculated on multiple envelopes and pieces of paper around the apartment), which could be spent on the GOOD STUFF! Boy, if I could only get this on the plane and take it home and sell it to get back some of the thousands of dollars spent to keep Andrea safe and sound in this apartment!

Okay, bedroom number 2 - Ah! The GOOD STUFF room. Half of the room was piled with a mix of dirty and clean clothes, including brand new with tags things I had sent with her in September after a visit to good old home. I am talking PILED! Let's say an area about 12 feet by 10 feet by 2 feet high - clothes, shoes, towels, papers - oh.....and needles!

Needles needles everywhere, and not a drop to drink. And boy could I have used a mug of red wine at this point. Yes, I cried. I cried at the intensity of her addiction. I cried because one desk drawer was packed full of empty prescription bottles for buprenorphin - the nice alternative to methadone for stopping urges for heroin. She had had her cake and eaten it too!

At least the kind folks in Berkeley thought about the possible health problems that might be caused from using dirty needles. There was a nice big box of brand new individually wrapped hypodermic needles, courtesy of some shoot 'em up safe clinic. There were even two bioharzard containers for used needles! How thoughtful that she had filled both containers before randomly tossing used needles all over the room. Let me just venture a guess - oh I'd say maybe I picked up 120 or so used needles on the floor, under the bed, mixed in the clothing, on nightstands, in the closet..... I was on a quest to get every last needle and tiny piece of cotton used to strain that magic juice through! I didn't want to leave any evidence that might get good old Andrea in trouble!

I'm on a roll! But then I've had my mug of red wine and started my second!

What else does one find in a drug addict's GOOD STUFF room? Well, I found lots of little metal thingies that I still don't know what they are. I found empty condom wrappers and empty packs of morning after pills. I found her birth certificate and pictures she had drawn and letters and CDs and tapes and brochures and advertisements for musical groups and raves in the bay area. I found half-eaten food and trash and empty water bottles. Boy I had a lot to do to sort the saves from the save-nots in the 3 days I had in Berkeley!