Strange powers

A confession is transformative.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they respond to the confessions of a crack smoker. Or, at least the most important thing: What kind of heart they’re packing.

Being able to know that about a person, right from the start, may be the brightest boon you could ask for in this world.

Drug addicts get that superpower by default. It’s just a matter of using it. Because everyone who tries to go clean, must, at some point, make a confession. Whether it’s to friends, family, neighbors, whatever. You can’t go clean quietly. Secrets are how you got in this mess in the first place. And that confession can transform hearts.

Which reminds me, I have few regrets in life. I know how that must sound odd coming from someone like me — someone who has left so much carnage in his wake.

The thing is, the regrets I do have are crushing.

Foremost among them? Internalizing my secret world. I kept my habit a secret from everyone I loved and I did that because I was terrified of the consequences. How could they ever look at me the same way again?

The concept of a crack smoker, you see, carries a certain baggage. You don’t have to use a lot of words to describe my unreliable, shifty, duplicitous nature.

‘Crackhead’ will suffice.

And so, like some alien fungi, I let my habit thrive in darkness. By the end, I found myself in a toxic relationship with only myself. And what did I increasingly turn to in order to salve those self-inflicted soul wounds?

The ever-present pipe.

The cycle kept spinning like that, ever faster, until it spun out of control. And then there was nowhere else to go, but clean.

When I did confess — first to my mother — the response was overwhelming. It was pure love and support. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so much of it.

I had discovered my superpower. And I decided to use it on everyone.

‘I’m an addict,’ I’d declare at Narcotics Anonymous meetings and bask in all the stranger love that rose up to embrace me.

Beautiful people.

But what about the neighbor? What about my aunt? What about my former partner’s mother whom I think the world of and couldn’t imagine disappointing?

In time, they would all know. And show me their beautiful hearts.

Recently, I even got an email from my ex-partner’s mom. She reads this blog. Do you know what that grand human being wrote?

“I am so proud of you.”

My heart swells with every syllable.

Emboldened, I figured it was time to extend these confessions to an even more uncomfortable space. My professional life. That’s an especially daunting proposition. You see, it’s one thing to feel renewed and whole again in the refuge of your mother’s house. It’s another to be a grownup living with your mother for the rest of your natural life.

We happen to live in a society where putting, ‘reformed crack smoker’ on your resume guarantees just that. The best someone like me could hope for would be physical labor — which would be fine if I wasn’t so clumsy and lazy.

Besides, these gym muscles were made for cuddling. Not construction gigs.

I decided to write to a couple of old colleagues, including my former boss. I told them the one secret I had held on to so tightly, it became a kind of rot from the inside.

And how did they respond?

“If there is anything I can do to help or support you, count me in,” wrote one.

The other: “Thanks for sharing this. You are incredibly strong to go through this…”

My heart.

The very next day, the three of us had a zoom meeting. We talked for an hour. We laughed a lot.

I’m not going to pretend that putting my name on this blog — as I must inevitably do — won’t have grave consequences for my career. But, honestly, what career? I had carved out the last one at half-mast — far from the colleague and friend I could have been.

I made mistakes. I blew that career. Consequences.

So what happens next? Maybe I’ll find a job where they don’t Google you before hiring. In any case, I’m determined to use this recovering addict’s superpower on the rest of you — and put my name on these confessions.

When that day arrives, I’ll be a little nervous. But not afraid. I’ve already seen enough of your hearts to know what beauty lies within.