Please laugh at my jokes

Addicts leave their audience in tears.

Is ‘too far gone’ a thing? I mean when you’ve crossed crack’s Rubicon, when there’s just no going back to being the human being family and friends once knew — the person who was once actually a little pink baby.

Of course, my mother pointed this out. Only a year ago, she was convinced that her once-darling boy was too far gone. She loved me. But boy, did she ever dislike me. I had been declining for years. When I was using, I was always in a hurry to get somewhere. If you held me up — especially with inconvenient questions — I got grumpy. Basically, people would find me in one of only three states of mind: high, sour or extremely sour. Even more alarming, at least to me, my precious jokes had been consistently missing their mark. I wasn’t funny any more and it almost killed me.

But by following the tenets — very loosely — of a 12-step program, and having an honest reckoning with myself – and also drinking various potions concocted by my mother – I’m starting to feel like a comeback kid. I now have a rainbow of moods, and very sour isn’t even one of them.

Most importantly, I feel like I’m this close to being funny again.

Of course, there are a few things that I may have truly lost along the highway. I don’t mean to bring anyone down, but doctors are still puzzling over pictures of my interior. I may have broken something in there.

And there’s something going on with my face.

You see, this drug almost always bestows a physical oddity on her acolytes. Call it the Mark of the Crack. As an addict, you might wake up one day with a twitchy lip, or worse, a twitchy body. Some people suddenly develop a terrible lean. Or their back becomes a right angle, forcing them to scan spit-stained sidewalks for the rest of their life.

I got lucky, I guess. Crack gave me her boon. But it was a lesser tic. I suddenly began taking great joy in puffing up my cheeks to maximum capacity — and just holding it like that. Even now, I recall how good it felt to aerate every pocket of my mouth.

If you’ll just give me a minute…

No, no. I worked hard to de-program my face over the last year. No backsliding! It was getting pretty bad. In the early days of this tic, I stashed my puffed-out cheeks behind a book on the bus. Or you might have seen me really absorbed in a restaurant menu. But I wasn’t mulling over the martini list. I was blowing up my face.

It got to the point where I’d turn away from a conversation and immediately go squirrel face. Then, it got even worse. I was blowing up my cheeks midway through the conversation. Fuck how freaked out the other person must have felt. I couldn’t wait any longer!

Since then, I’m pleased to report that I’ve tamed these cheeks. I have, however, developed another, somewhat more mild, facial hobby. I like sticking out my bottom lip to maximum capacity. My mom calls me on that all the time. I’m working on it, I swear.

I guess the crack tic has to go somewhere. So maybe it’s true. It is possible to be ‘too far gone.’ At least, when it comes to my face. All things considered, though, I do feel like I got lucky in that department. I even got a joke out of it. Imagine trying to have a conversation with a full-grown person with fully inflated cheeks.

So, did you laugh? Come on! I know you did!

Or… did you? If you could let me know in the comments, I’d really appreciate it.

A simple yes or no will do. Anything but silence. That would well and truly kill me.

Mom?

(EDIT: I just heard you laughing downstairs, mom. IT WORKED!)