"Daddy, What Does Overdose Mean?"
11 min readIn 1996 I heard a great many car doors lock.
I had hair down to my lowest ribs, a nose ring, and a look in my eye that could only ever be interpreted as simply,”I hate life; you are alive, so I hate you.” I was a drug-addicted black belt who made his living in a very popular rock band in Dallas called Tabula Rasa that was known for its extremes: narcotic-usage, hatred on stage, violence in the crowd, political opinions and affiliations, etc. Therefore, as I walked down the sidewalk, I’d justifiably hear that familiar “shoop” or that completely uncharacteristic body contortion that happens when someone is trying to look like they are not doing what you know they are. I’d see ‘em pull away quickly with that very predictable nervous glance in the rearview mirror as if they were sure I was about to suddenly lunge on the back of the vehicle and peel back their rear window, jump inside, and CHANGE ALL OF THEIR RADIO STATION PRESETS!!! Who knows what they thought I’d do. I’d just see that faint glimmer on their plastic faux-silver Ichthus as they sped away and think to myself, “Oh ye of little faith.”
And that was pretty much my life: screaming a non-stop profane diatribe onstage to people who paid money fully expecting to hear me scream a non-stop profane diatribe and then step offstage and attempt to co-mingle with the very society that made me so uncontrollably angry onstage. I hated every aspect and definition that could possibly define the limits of reality.
Seemingly, my only escape was narcotics, and lots of ’em. I was a walking chemical science experiment consuming LSD four to five times a week for four years, frequently mixing it with ecstasy, hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine, heroin, and on rare occasions, opium. My frail theory was, “Can’t change your reality? Then dilute it.”
There was only one problem: I knew God.
I fully knew that what I was doing, what I felt, what I thought, what I occupied my time with, what I committed myself to, and the fruit my life was producing was all nothing more than accumulative sin. Hence, my anger. Every time I screamed that “every woman in this room is a @#!%ing whore,” every time I flipped off individuals then screamed that if they were still in the room when we finished our set I’d kill them, every time I discussed having a black boyfriend waiting for me at home simply to upset audiences in Mississippi, every time I introduced our band with names so offensive I am unable to even remotely hint at what was spoken, every time I berated conservative thinking, every time I encouraged masses to fornicate, or abuse narcotics, or blaspheme God, I knew it was wrong. Every time.
I’d lay on my futon for days at a time always coming back to the same prayer, “I wish I didn’t know.” Then I’d always hear that familiar refrain of Steve Taylor singing, “It’s harder to believe than not to.” There exists no creature more miserable than that of a backslidden child of God simply because they know too much of God to fully enjoy their debauchery and desire too much of the world to fully surrender and submit to the Lord. And that was precisely where I existed.
The problem was that I had a five-year-old daughter who loved me. She was my one and only reason for not slicing my arms repeatedly from my wrists to my elbows, wearing a dark long-sleeved shirt, and then stepping onstage to literally give them my all one last time. I frequently dreamt about it. But the dream always abruptly stopped with Mihstiegh explaining to our daughter just how her daddy had died.
Years before I’d been there. It was my Senior year of high school, I had bought my class ring only after my grandmother had told me how proud she was of me. I wanted so badly to quit my junior year, but she told me about how much it was going mean to her to see me, our family’s first high school graduate, finish. My grandmother meant the world to me, a small, frail woman who walked with hand crutches. She’d suffered a spinal injury at 15 in a car race with my grandfather – the car flipped and crushed her. She lived in constant pain, raised three daughters, and treated the Bible as oxygen that was necessary on a daily basis for her very survival. I never once heard her speak badly of another person. I never once heard her complain.
She practically raised me when I was little and it was such a privilege on Sunday morningss to sit next to her on the pew and hear her sing with all her fragile valor about what a mighty God she served and how one day this tiny woman who could barely walk to her car would ultimately “fly away.” Hearing her sing it with such passion, I believed she would.
My junior year, she submitted herself to experimental reconstructive spinal surgery. She told my Mom and her sisters, “If this doesn’t help, I’m going to kill myself.” The surgery was not successful. Two months before my graduation, she fulfilled her promise in the bathroom of the auto shop where my grandfather worked, with a pistol.
To this day, I’ve never felt so betrayed.
Didn’t she know I loved her? Didn’t she know I would have physically ripped my spine from my body and given it to her if only to hear her sing one more time? Didn’t she know that I’d want her here now to meet my wife, to see her great-grandchildren? To hear me tell her about the blessings my life has embraced because of her fervent prayers…didn’t she know?
And I simply refused to let Mihstiegh become my dad, who reminded me frequently,” God doesn’t help people! He lets them suffer their whole lives, and then when they need Him most, He lets them blow their brains out!” That was how I discovered the method my grandmother chose to commit suicide, and everytime I heard it, I cried.
My class ring is there in her casket, under her hand.
Knowing the emotional fruit that suicide produces, I could find no satisfaction in committing to anything that would cause these questions to manifest in the mind of my child. And still, I hated life.
I was surrounded by people, admired and followed in public by a group of college students that the band dubbed “Ezrasites,” and yet, nothing ever satisfied my hatred – except narcotics, and even then only temporarily. So, in order to counter the drugs temporal effects, I took them as frequently as possible. I never paid for anything because every town wants to let you know that they have better drugs and can party far better than whereever you were or whereever you might be going tomorrow. Regardless of how physically exhausted you are, or how sick you constantly feel with the strychnine in your system, every town expects you to live up to your reputation, and every night you oblige. I had stockpiles of free narcotics. Coincidentally, everytime I ever even considered getting clean, I’d see a documentary on PBS or read a magazine article detailing the fatal effects of heroin withdrawal and I’d hear the devil’s lying tongue say ,”If you try to quit, you’ll die.”
However, on a fateful overnight visit with my daughter, while traveling on I-35 in my ’68 Bug, the Lord used my five-year-old daughter to call my bluff.
Without any warning whatsoever and completely disregarding the context of our discussion on whether or not pizza should be recognized as a daily consumable food group unto itself, she asked, “Daddy, what does overdose mean?” I was furious. What monster told her this? Her Mom? Those freaks her mom works with? At that time, Mihstiegh worked at Kenneth Copeland Ministries – Kenneth looks like what would happen if Alfred E. Newman got saved. KCM had a huge christian biker ministry and there is nothing more terrifying to someone running from God than tattooed men on Harleys – sunburned, unbathed, with bugs in their teeth – who desperately want to talk to you about Jesus and are completely unimpressed about the size of the crowd your secular band is drawing. They were my ultimate nightmare, because all that mattered to them was character.
I’m trying to imagine which of these “beasts” had told my daughter that I might overdose. How dare they?!? The audacity! This is the question I never wanted to hear from my daughter’s mouth.
I’m still driving, she is still looking at me with her little eyes that are the most perfect type of blue God ever created, and she is waiting for an answer. I don’t remember exactly what my completely blindsided response was, but I think it was something to the effect of “It’s what happens to bad people.”
She then asked,” Do you love Jesus?” Okay, I’m freaking out!!! Why? Why now? Why ever? Does she have a hidden earpiece on and someone is feeding her these questions? I look closely at her ears…nope.
I put on my best “church” smile – you know the one that instantly materializes as soon as your front tires touch the church parking lot despite the fact that you are hoarse from screaming non-stop at your wife since exiting your driveway so you can shake hands with the greeters and ushers while on spiritual autopilot saying, “The Lord bless you real good.” Yeah, that one. Anyway, I had it on when I turned my head and manipulated my tongue and mouth to produce the word “yes.” Okay, addendum to “the question I never wanted to hear from my daughter’s mouth” – apparently, there were two.
She then asked, “Then why don’t you go to church Daddy?” WHAT?!? Okay, which Hitler for Jesus has brainwashed my child with these religious Nazi interrogation techniques? Inside of two minutes this child has asked me three questions that I would beat any other interrogator into a crying, bleeding fetal position just for asking. Okay, “church” smile in place. “Um, Daddy is really busy. I’ll go to church sometime.”
“Daddy, are you too busy this weekend?” I didn’t respond. But even after she left, immediately followed by a strident ear buffet of Slayer, Eyehategod, TOOL, and Crash Worship, I was still haunted by the soft timbre of her little voice asking, “Daddy, what does overdose mean?”
I was slipping; losing control even in an environment of psychedelic aggression, and my band was growing very tired of my behavior. Now, during this period of time, you wouldn’t have wanted a single member of Tabula Rasa as a character witness after their urine sample had been diagnosed, but my behavior was becoming so self-destructive to everyone around me that they had to respond. I was using so frequently, that I’d forget what I’d taken when and find myself repeatedly in the middle of nowhere just driving – no visible landmarks, hallucinating, and completely, totally, utterly, 100% lost. I remember Jason LaMarca, Tabula’s drummer, screaming at me in the van, “Why can’t you be normal?!?” Then I remember Steve Duncan, our guitarist, taking off his mandolin at a rehearsal and throwing it at me, fed up with what I’d become. I dearly loved these guys. I loved my daughter even more so and a point of decision was evident: either get really serious, abandon the opinions and expectations of everyone around me and risk the possibility of eventually overdosing, or die in an attempt to quit narcotics altogether.
I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Warren, my longtime family physician. Dr. Warren was so old that I always suspected that when he burped, dust would come out. He’d chainsmoke cigarettes outside the examination room while writing whatever prescription I’d advise him I needed. If you’ve seen Jane’s Addiction’s The Gift, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I’d merely say,” I’ve always responded well to (insert pharmaceutical narcotic here),” and he’d write it down and hand me some free samples of something, all the while puffing on his cigarette.
I came clean with my full intentions and he gave me the works. Advising me repeatedly against driving or operating heavy machinery. However, the only “machinery” I operated for the next four days was the toilet handle, where I repeatedly emptied my vomit bucket that sat beside my futon. Of course, that was when I didn’t just vomit on myself, the futon, the floor, or miss the bucket altogether.
I sincerely can’t adequately explain what I felt. I was in the ICU once for 10 days with Viral Spinal Meningitis – the fluid in my spine and around the lining of my brain was infected, and I had seizures where it literally felt as if my head was going to explode and at last reveal to all of my naysayers, “Yes, he has a brain.” I’d scream, kick the bed, flail, and press my eyes into their sockets while these seizures would happen. They’d last about 10 to 20 minutes, only going away completely after three days of torture.
In contrast to the suffering endured during heroin withdrawal, I’d choose the meningitis as a welcome reprieve anyday. Hollywood re-enactments (Trainspotting, Ray, Permanent Midnight) don’t do justice to the burning, euphoric sensations, or the involuntary muscle spasms and contractions, and constant vomiting. I prayed things that no normal human would, but most “normal” humans don’t abuse heroin.
Within two months of my daughter’s question, the girl I was dating discovered she was pregnant, my band dissolved, I got my first day job in years, and I was clean of all narcotic dependencies and habits. All within two months.
How quickly we fall when standing on kingdoms built of self. But there again, how clearly we are able to see when we succumb to Him and His preferences for our lives, that surrender only coming to some after God baits us with our own pride. Yes, “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). But how unspeakably miraculous that, from broken, fallen remnants tripped up by pride, the Lord can create living testimonies that continuously bring Him glory, and, where haughtiness was once a welcomed comfort zone, humility and thankfulness now reside.
Truly, being led by compassion gets you much farther than being driven by anger.
I know that any syllable suggesting repentance is a bitter-tasting solution to a mind that finds sin as comfort, but I now treasure every prayer, every bug-littered smile, every soft answer, and every tiny blue-eyed question seeing firsthand all that the Lord wrought from them. I write this today as a man who welcomes the gaze of no less than seven sets of eyes in his home and, at long last, has no fear of any question that they might ask of me.
Thanks be to God.
