Addiction: Losing My Religion Part One

Chapter 1

Addiction: Losing My Religion Part One

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory. 

~General George Patton.

Jay screamed inside of his mind as he started awake. The time was about thirty minutes before his alarm would go off. Today he was going to war.

War.

Jay felt like he had been at war his whole life.

From birth.

To his teenage years.

To his twenties.

Which in his late teens and early twenties, he was literally in a war.

About cost him his life.

But he won that battle to stay alive.

And now, at thirty-seven, he was still fighting a war.

War.

No matter the weapons at his disposal, in the end it would be him that had to fight and win the war.

And there was war.

There was a war inside of his head. He looked at the line upon the car hood. There was no going back. Part of him scoffed that the idiots really thought a cop would not take the line just because they were a cop. The war was raging on but would be over in just a blink of an eye. There would be no going back. For as long as he was undercover, he would be expected to take the drugs. He flashed upon the last kid, barely thirteen, dead because the supplier cut their shit with chemicals that tore the baby’s lungs. He remembered their grandmother screaming as she lost her only grandchild. 

He bent and took the line.

He shook his head and looked at the guy. “So, when do we meet the supplier?”

Two Years Later

The gunshot rang out as the supplier realized he had been trapped. “Lawrence Police Department!” Jay yelled once the exchange happened, which caused the bullets to fly. “Damnit! Just give up, Rogers! We have you surrounded. You won’t make it out of here a free man!”

The man next to Jay was hit and down. Jay winced, as that man had been his informant. His CI had got him an in two years ago when Jay realized the only way to permanently stop the bad drugs from killing kids was to go undercover. So, Jay went undercover. He was good at it. Fifteen years on the force, he has been undercover on multiple missions for all but four of those years. This last undercover mission has been going on for two years. And it would be his last. He kept his mind on the shootout; the thugs were the worst. But nobody would escape. Jay had worked much too long for this moment. So, Jay fought.

Twenty minutes later, the supplier was arrested, along with a few other high-level bosses. There was a pile of bodies from their thugs. And they were lucky not to lose one cop. Though three were injured.

The last thing Jay remembered fully was the slap on the back by his captain, a bottle of cheap whiskey passed around, and walking down a dingy, dark alley. Could not throw a stick without hitting an alley like that in Lawrence nowadays.

He saw a homeless man and dropped some cash in a cup.

Then he closed his eyes for a moment and saw blood.

Death.

He reached into his pocket for his phone.

He felt the needle and balloon.

He gripped them into his hand.

Next thing he knew was blue eyes.

Then nothing.

Then a bright light, which would be the ER lights, fighting a tube, and then oblivion. 

Until he woke up feeling like he had been run over by a Mack Truck, backed over, and run over again.

Fuck. He barely remembered the first couple of days after waking up in the hospital. He knew he had a problem. He was not one to deny things to himself. Others, sure. Call it pride of a man. Pride. His greatest sin. He stood at the window smoking a cigarette. It was against the rules. But he would damned again if they took away all his addictions. He had nicotine, caffeine, and sugar left. He could hear the tap, tap, tap of the nurse coming; he quickly put the cigarette out and flicked it out the crack in the window. He turned to the woman as she walked in and glared.

“Seriously, you cops are all the same with those cigarettes. Think you would know better.” 

“Nurse Lily.” Jay did not try to hide the smell. But he was not that much of an ass to continue to smoke in front of the people who were forced to enforce the rules.

Lily crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “What is it with you and those things?”

Jay shrugged, “we see some shit. We have some vices that might kill us.”

“You have your first meeting. Here is your delivery of clothes. Don’t be late.” She put the clothes on the bed as Jay moved to the sink.

Jay looked into the mirror, his emerald hazel eyes stared back. Dead inside. Worn and weary. They reflected the demon within. The hospital gown made his skin look too pale; and the freckles he had been ‘blessed’ with looked darker. 

He fucked up.

All for the bust.

He knew he had the tendency to shoot first, ask questions later.

He also thought a million steps ahead.

He was not as dumb as he let people think.

After all, at only thirty-seven, he was the primary detective in Narcotics and Homicide.

And actually had doctorates in two different branches of psychology.

But he was the best undercover detective.

He was the primary in his field.

Fuck what people thought.

He may just be a detective; but that was something to him.

But it did not change the fact he fucked up.

Jay had not meant to get this deep into the undercover persona. He got in too deep. Became attached. At times he forgot where Jay Clossen was under the disguise of Jay O’Malley. It got blurred. But he won.

He won.

Now not only did he have to find himself again, but he had to kick a habit his job forced him to fall into. Oh, he could have said no. But if he had, he would never have gotten into the inner circle. He would never have gotten the major supplier. The ass getting kids hooked and then killing them.

He had not wanted to do the drugs that night.

He just wanted the images to stop.

For his thoughts, that always ran a million miles a minute, to stop.

And he certainly never meant to overdose. 

He does not remember much of that night once he shot that spike into his vein. Blue eyes, a long trench coat, kindness as the person hulled his odd ass off his back, made sure he did not choke to death on his vomit, and stayed there to stab him with that damn needle in his thigh every two minutes until the ambulance came.

And Jay knew he stayed to stab him in the thigh, because of the multiple little pricks in his skin, the giant ass bruise that covered the thigh, and most of all, Jay was still fucking alive.

Many would not have done that.

Fought to save some junkie.

But this man did.

Who was this man?

He knew as well that the guy had to be strong. He had left bruises on his arm.

And he could not get the blue eyes out of his mind.

He wanted to know who belonged to those crystal ice-blue eyes that glowed with a true kindness that Jay thought was destroyed by humanity.

He had signed the papers to stay and do a thirty day in-house rehab. And the bonus of it all, Jay finally got enough evidence to take down the crime boss that caused him to have this addiction.

Jay’s only wish now was to meat the angel that saved his life.

Even if it was only to get the blue eyes out of his dreams.

Jay splashed water onto his face. He had a meeting to get too, and he finally could get into his own clothes, and not this stupid hospital gown.

God, he missed his jeans and boots.

Lord knows he was not a fancy man. He did not wear suits, unless he had to; his best suit was his dress uniform. 

He shook himself free from his thoughts and dressed before going down to the session. He was also being assigned a shrink. Ugh! Dr. Robert William Rowen. They were suggested to him by his Captain. So, he will go and see him, twice a week, after his thirty day in-house rehab.

Jay sat down in the hard metal chair. He still had a hospital wristband on his wrist, and would for the next thirty days. He had a cup of terrible coffee and a stale donut. He snorted; cliches were cliches for a reason. He was a cop who could not say no to a donut. He loved sweet things. Pies and donuts were his favorites. Fruit pies and those old man donuts, the ones with a custard pudding in them, and then powdered; yep, he had his favorites. He settled in with his stale donut, which was for sure not his favorite type, and took a deep breath; he could do this, he could. He looked at the shrink. Yes, he knew it was not politically correct to call them that nowadays. But Jay did not like people who tried to mess with his mind. He had enough going on in there, things better left buried, and they just wanted to rip it all out and make him face everything. He had not been running since he was almost seventeen from nothing.

“Hello, I am Doctor Alton Tennant! The next thirty days will be one-on-one sessions with me and twice a week group sessions. Also, once a week you will leave here to go to the meetings that you will go to once you leave rehab. Some of you will go to AA, others NA. But we will expect you all to go to meetings. If you want to get your life back in control, the meetings may not seem like they are doing much at first, but they will become a lifeline for you. At first, you may need to go every day and then drop to a few times a month. Why will you be going during this time? You need time to find a sponsor. Your sponsor will be the one you can reach out to, the one that will be your connection to this new life. Now don’t worry if you don’t find your sponsor this month. It is a very important role someone will fill. You want to make sure you trust them. Today, we will be going around and giving our name. First names only. And why you are in here.”

Jay pretended to listen to the other people. In honesty, he just did not care. He did not have enough strength to care at this time. He only had enough to focus on himself and staying clean so he could get back to work in thirty days. And when it got to him. “Jay. Blow.” He was a man of few words. He was not ready for any type of connection. Only connection he wanted was sex. He liked sex. It calmed him. It released stress. What he wanted was some no string attached sex. With a very pretty person. He did not care about gender, he liked pretty. He was not talking about physical beauty, though there was that; he was talking about the soul. You can just tell if someone has a kind soul on them. He thought himself an excellent judge of character, but he was human and could be fooled.

“Hello Jay.”

Already Jay knew that these thirty days would be a test of his patience. Mostly because the shrink shot him a look that said he should say more about himself.

Jay sighed, “I am a detective. Head of Homicide and Narcotics. I was undercover. To not blow my cover I had to take blow, occasionally heroin. The drugs helped me deal with things I saw undercover. I overdosed when I finally took the suppliers down. I was saved. And now to go back to the job I love, I am here to get clean.”

They clapped and they continued going around the circle, and Jay checked out once more.

Jay had his first one-on-one with one of the shrinks the next day. “Jay.” He checked in with the nurse.

“Jay, come in!” The shrink came out and shook his hand. “I am Robert Rowan. I am actually the department therapist as well. We will get to know each other. I would have allowed Tennant to handle your first thirty days, but he is typically too happy and touchy feely for law enforcement officials. When you are done here, you are to have twice a week meetings with me. To make sure that you are still fit for duty. I don’t see why you won’t be. But after this long of an undercover mission with the consequences it has had, it is to be expected, at least for six months.”

“Yeah. I was told.”

“You are a man of few words.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, today is just to get to know the background of what caused you to be here. I only know it was a long undercover mission.”

“Yeah, I was after this drug dealer who was putting this bad blow out. They cut it with enough chemicals that it was killing kids. I was undercover for two years. To prove that I wasn’t a cop, I had to basically become addicted to the shit.”

“Happens a lot. You got him?”

“Yes.”

“So, why become a cop?”

“Not ready to talk to that, doc.”

“You were in the Marines before?”

“Yeah, joined the Marines to help pay for College. I wasn’t smart enough for scholarships, but I could get in. Then 9/11 happened. Did my four years, stayed over there. Came back. Went to college. Joined the department. Started in patrol. Worked my way up quickly. I love my job. I may see the worst of humanity, but I either get people their justice or I protect them. And I have a saving people thing. Not a hero complex, I would never put someone in danger to save them.”

“Yes, you do have your degree, doctorates you got over the years, in criminal and behavioral psychology.”

“And I use it to find the bad guys.” Jay smirked as he laid back and started to relax with the doc. “I could always read people. Always. Tell when they were lying, when they were hiding something, it isn’t like reading minds, it is reading the person as a whole. Their soul. Their body can’t lie. Their words can. Their actions. But those hesitations, micro-expressions? They can’t. It is why I was such a damn good undercover cop. I am going to miss that.”

“Even though you can make a fortune doing what I do, easy job, give out advice and pills?”

“I am not a high life man. Nothing against you, but I have to have something to challenge me, keep me moving. It is just the way I am, Doc.”

Robert smiled; “of course, you are a man of action. A good, honest man. A righteous man.”

“Don’t know about that, Doc. But I try to make sure the angel on my shoulder wins more than the devil.”

“You said you were going to miss being undercover. Why?”

“I am… Was… Good at it. Best in East, so to say. I guess I will just have to be satisfied with giving lectures, teaching, etc. Because this blew me right into the front pages of the paper. Being undercover… I don’t know if I can explain it right. But it allowed me an outlet for all the darkness in my soul. I took the worse parts of myself and turned them to the most desirable in my roles. It made me work through the darkness, and figure out a way once I left the undercover role to handle the darkness, and make my weaknesses my strengths.”

“That makes sense.” Robert smiled. “One last question.”

“Shoot, Doc.”

“Do you regret any action you took?”

Jay looked at him. The image of those that died during these two years. Those that were hurt. Some even by his own hands as he worked himself closer and closer to the elite circle around the supplier. Then he flashed upon all the faces of those dead kids. Telling their parents that a terrible drug killed them. How it was intentional. How he had to tell them their babies would never come home. He blinked his eyes against the tears. “No. Never.” He said with all the convection of his soul. “No.” He could never regret a single action that got justice for those kids.

“Well, this was a good first session. I will see you in two days.” Robert stood and shook Jay’s hand. “Don’t forget to find your meeting place. Here is a list of ones that have mostly cops, firefighters, etc. A random lawyer.”

Jay looked at the list. There were three next to his house. All churches, but that was okay. “Thanks, Doc.” Jay left and went back to his room. Maybe he would call his boss and ask to get a K-9 pup. Yes, a companion and partner. He prepared his argument as he went through his day and dealing with withdrawal symptoms. Sometimes he just wanted to forget. Pets are supposed to help. Right? He called his boss before he laid down for a bit. Withdrawal took a lot out of a person.

“Jay.” Came the honey voice of his captain.

“Danielle. I want a K-9 pup when I get outta here.”

Danielle Brooks sat back at her desk. “Well, this was not what I was expecting. I was expecting more of: “Boss, get me outta here. Now!”

Jay chuckled; that did sound like him. “I know I need this, boss. So…”

Danielle chuckled; “yeah, I will approve that when you get out we are getting a batch of eight-week olds. You can help train yours. I will shoot you some pictures, so you can choose yours. Better yet, come down to the station when you leave tomorrow to find your NA meeting location. You can pick your pup out.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“A pup will be good for your. Partner. Friend. And dogs are good to help with PTSD, depression, and overcoming addiction. So, it is logical.”

“Thanks. I will see you soon.”

“Rest Jay. You earned it.”

Jay ended the call and went and tossed and turned and got snippets of sleep.

Those snippets had him dreaming of bright blue eyes.

When he woke, he went to his next group session. For the first week there were sessions twice a day, meeting with the shrink, and food. Not much. It is boring as fuck.

Tennant looked at the group. “Jay! So, tell us about what lead you to this path.”

“What path? Drugs? I took an undercover op. That is pretty simple. I have seen a lot of shit in this world. I went from high school to the Marines. There I lost my religion. The shit you see over there is… indescribable. Never did I have the temptation to drugs. I did not want to escape my reality. Now you want me to confess what lead me to an addiction like it was something I did? Fuck you. I went undercover. To gain their confidence, I had to use the product. Keep your people addicted and they won’t betray you. What?” He scoffed at their shocked faces. “Too much? I don’t believe in sugarcoating shit. I am in the spotlight now. Cop gives up sobriety to keep kids safe. Wasn’t that the headline today? Look, I will do what I need to do to protect and serve. But you want me to be all praying, begging forgiveness, and apologizing for my choice to take that first line so I can get an in to a drug ring? Not gonna fucking happen.”

“Jay, that isn’t want this is about. We are not here to put blame on you.”

“Really, because it sounds like it. Only reason I am here is because I need to complete thirty days to go back to active duty. So, consider this, I was brought to my knees, brought to my lowest point, and now you want me to blab everything. AND then when I give my opinion on your methods, it is too much for you? Look, I am here. I will tell you the bare information. But, dude, I lost my religion and faith a long time ago. And more to the point I am ain’t going to spill my dreams and hopes to a bunch of strangers.”

Tennant sighed; “let’s try this another way. How about you tell us about your first day, you woke at the hospital after found with an overdose, and what lead to that?”

“I just made a bust of my career. I had some smack in my pocket, and some money. So, I went to celebrate. I kept taking shot after shot. I hit the bottle hard. I threw my keys to the bartender and just wanted to drink and not go home. There is nothing for me at home. And I had so much shit going through my head. Every murder, every deal, every fucking crime that I had to watch committed, or I had to commit myself, just so I can get the piece of shit that was killing kids. Look, I am human; you don’t fuck with kids. Then the bars shut down. I was alone. I looked through my pockets for a cigarette, nasty habit, I know, not gonna stop anytime soon though, when I found the smack. I looked at the needle, I looked at the amount, I didn’t want to go home. I prepared the whole baggie of it. I pushed the needle into my arm, the blood mixed with the drugs, and then I just pushed it all in.”

“Why?”

“Doc, you ever been addicted to anything?”

“Not unless you count my morning coffee.”

“Then you won’t get it. Blow and heroin, it has a power over you. I just don’t know that power even after feeling it. That feeling when you put a spike in your vein… I don’t know if I can explain it. For a moment the world stops. You don’t have to know your next move, you don’t have to worry about anything. It gives you this euphoria that makes you feel like you can do anything. It makes it feel, for just that moment you haven’t lost control of your life. But you have. Choices made when high, aren’t really choices. You run from the things you see, you run from the things you have to do, it brings you to the veil and back again. I just don’t know. It isn’t something that can be explained. Only experienced. And I wish that sometimes, I was born in a different time, a different world, and for a moment when that spike enters my system, I am not in this world of darkness. I am not chasing evil. And that night I just wanted to stop the darkness that played through my eyes. I just wanted the nightmares to stop. I just wanted to not think. My job is my wife, but blow and heroin were my mistress. And I don’t want them. I now have to find a way back to myself.”

“Very, good, and the first day you woke up at the hospital, what did you feel?”

“I woke up to pain. The night just playing in my head. It was like a hangover times a million. I was messed up. My mind was skipping like a scratched record. I was hungover and hard up. The pain was there, the sick feeling to my stomach. But my first thought was ‘Goddamn it, I am alive.’ I was relieved. I don’t, and didn’t, want to die. I just wanted to stop the images in my head. I just wanted to stop thinking about things, and just get some sleep. And instead, it almost destroyed my life. My life is being a detective. My life is fighting for the little guy. My life is helping people who need help, because nobody else will help them. I have a saving people thing. Not a hero complex, but a saving people thing. So, if you are asking me what I felt when I woke up in the hospital after my overdose? That is simple. I felt like shit, but happy I felt like shit because I was alive. After all, pain is just weakness leaving the body, right?”

“Marine. Yeah. Okay, good break through Jay. I will make sure the notes are sent over to your primary psychologist.”

Jay just nodded as he sat back and listened to others of the group. Good God, was he going to have to do this for the rest of his life? How often would he have to go to meetings? Would he always crave that oblivion that drugs gave him? Did he really just fuck up his life? He had at least twenty more years on the force. Honestly, though, given the chance, he would work until he died. Retirement sounded boring. Fishing for more than a weekend was too much. He liked his work. He liked his life. He was thirty-seven, single, with a string of exes that read like a bad porno script. Most of his exes were all sex and no substance. The only one he really thought about making it work with was Kate. But they were better friends. Kate. He really should call her and let her know he was okay. Maybe she would have some advice. After all, she was his best friend. He had come a far way since being the popular jackass jock he was when he was in high school.