Introduction to "Dancing With Tina"

I danced with TINA for over a year. Sometimes to a soothing waltz, more often than not to a frenzied Charleston that would have made Fred and Ginger cross-eyed. A sensual tango would occasionally unfold with any number of dancers, but at the end of it all, I was left with the slow, side-to-side swaying of emptiness. Of course, TINA always led. All one could do was follow and hope to keep up with her steps.

This is basically a story of three things. Co-dependency, coming out and drug abuse. By walking away from co-dependency, I realized I’d never completely explored gay life, even though I’d been out for sixteen years. I thought I’d been around the block, but not really. The drug abuse was an offshoot that helped my inhibitions disappear and brought on all sorts of adventures. Eventually, I came to see that my co-dependency to the drug was as serious as that to people.

Let me make it clear that the Crystal Meth world depicted in this memoir is a sub-culture of the gay community in Chicago (and hence, most other gay urban cities), not a reflection of the gay community as a whole. One acquaintance of mine, a rather odd man obsessed with Bob Mackie of all things, negatively made the comment that I shouldn’t even be writing about these experiences. He thought they depicted all gay men in a bad light and shouldn’t be discussed. Well, until something is faced head on with truth, it can’t be dealt with or even understood. To hell with sweeping such things under the carpet and ignoring them — they exist.

One thing that concerned me was I didn’t want to be crass. I say live and let live as far as anyone’s sexual desires and adventures go, but I do think there should be an element of class in people. To be honest, the gay Meth world consists of orgies, three ways, a virtual fantasyland of sexuality. Fantasies that actually happen, which is part of the reason Meth is so addictive and destroys many people. I know I certainly lived out desires I had always wanted.
Still, as “worldly” as I mistakenly thought I was, I wasn’t prepared for some of the things I saw or experienced at a Crystal Meth sex party. I’ll try to put some of the things in words, but others I don’t know how to. Keep in mind most of the things I write about I probably have done at one time or another. Crystal Meth is not an inhibiting drug, it gives you the confidence, or perhaps the stupidity, to do some fairly “out there” things. Maybe some are better left unsaid, but we’ll see. I think the only way to open people’s eyes is by honesty. I know through all this I wished there had been a Gay 101 book out there or a TINA for Dummies. I’m not trying to be funny with that, if I had known about things I’d eventually experience I doubt I would have picked the pipe up.
Hence, this is not simply a “laundry list” of my sexual encounters and is certainly not erotica. Anyone who refuses to analyze the sexual side of gay Meth use has no business even talking about the subject. Sex and Meth go hand in hand, becoming a circle of addiction. None of these adventures are meant to sensationalize, impress or shock people, so you’d better be open minded when you read it. I actually believe I was one of the “less active” participants within the Chicago scene, but that’s a matter of context.

I’ve changed all the names of people I came into contact with, for obvious reasons. Some of them would have a hell of a lot to lose, even if a few probably would deserve it (Bitter, party of one?). But, I really wouldn’t be that cruel, either. No matter how badly someone would ever treat me, I would not be the type to purposely get even or open up anyone’s private can of worms, not in the long run. It’s not in my make-up, and I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me either, although several have. Self-preservation is one thing, as is standing up for yourself, but revenge quite another. There are only six people whose names have been retained. The criteria were they have nothing to lose and gave me permission to use their names.

This piece started out as a therapy exercise for me, but once my therapist found out about it he thought there was a market for this sort of memoir. I haven’t seen many books out there about Meth usage specifically in the gay world, yet I’ve seen hundreds of posters and stickers exclaiming, “Say No to Meth!” “Meth free zone!” I know from experience there’s a hell of a problem out there, certainly in the little world I walked into, on purpose I might add, which I suppose was a stupid thing to do. Not in hindsight, though, as I’m wiser because of what happened. I can’t change the past, but I can at least learn from it and there’s no sense whining and groaning about how awful life was. It wasn’t completely awful, which is a component of Meth use many gay men are afraid to admit, that they had fun with it. You don’t do something because it makes you feel bad, you do it because it makes you feel good. Therein lies the danger of abuse, when your world unravels and you fight to maintain your sanity, Meth sneaks up like cheese on a mousetrap. When the trap snaps shut it does so unexpectedly and overwhelmingly. But if you don’t acknowledge the good times, how can you possibly understand the downfall?

I have tried to be extremely honest with this memoir and some of the events that occurred I admit I don’t have all the answers to. What caused them? Who caused them, what really happened, were they drug-induced? All I can say is everything I write about did happen. I’m not making any of this up or lying about what I observed. Why the hell would I want to? Some of my adventures were terrifying at times. I have certain suspicions about what happened at certain points. You hear rumors, you see behavior, you notice friends trying to protect you by what they say, then by what they don’t say. You also let a lot of oddballs into your life.

These are my experiences and I don’t mean to give the impression they are absolute. I don’t want to make blanket statements and assume everyone in the Meth world responds to the drug the way I saw people respond. For instance, not everyone barebacks, but almost everyone I met in that world did. Not every porn star uses drugs, but every one I knew did. Those observations are not meant to pigeonhole others, they were simply things I noticed. I don’t want to imply it holds true for everybody.

I began writing this book in June 2005 a few months after I walked away from Crystal Meth. I was driven to write it just to heal myself. I think as human beings we sometimes forget the tiny little moments that occur within the big picture and as time goes by we are in danger of repeating those same mistakes.
It was my therapist who suggested I consider having the memoir published since he thought I could possibly help other gay men who didn’t realize the progressions within the Meth world. Although this story is specifically about me, the stories told are similar the world over. Wherever you have a large concentration of gay men the Meth scenario exists.
My personal way of healing was to write about my experiences, usually through emails to friends in the hopes of clearing my head. I wasn’t necessarily looking for advice or even a reply, but as I printed out stacks and stacks of emails I discovered an entire period of my life in a sort of “diary form”. Actual word for word conversations that took place during encounters were right there in front of me. Usually written 2-36 hours after the occurrence, I realized I had been compiling this section of my life all along.

I finished the majority of this memoir by December 2005 and at that time was trying to detail the “what” in the hopes of finding out the “why”. At that point the memoir reflected October 2003 through October 2005. Since then I’ve waded through what I call the “vaudeville of recovery” and learned even more about myself and that roller coaster period. I’ve expanded the original healing (and a bit naïve) piece with new prose to flesh it out. However, I didn’t want to change those original writings much since I was in a very specific (and honest) mindset at the time. Once a few years pass by and you calm down and wise up, hind-sight brings in that thought, “What the hell was I thinking?!” when reviewing past adventures.
I don’t want to judge my initial reactions too much since they were authentic at the time I needed them to be.

As I started writing I realized it wasn't all about me anymore, since I cared for many of the people whom I met within that world. If I could perhaps educate gay men to make a more educated decision, then reliving the past was certainly worthwhile to me. There is no reason people should have such a tragic thing happen to them as drug abuse if it can possibly be avoided.
Notice I say "drug abuse", not "drug use". Although drugs aren't for me now, obviously, I will never judge anyone for what they are currently doing. Choices are up to the individual and who am I to judge when I haven’t been in their personal shoes? I did encounter a few people who could handle Meth and still maintain normal productive lives.

In the end, the “why” formulated like this in my mind. That drug abuse is never about the drug itself, it's almost always about something deeply emotional and psychological within the user. With me it was co-dependency, which was a product of the abandonment issues I had as a child, coupled with my own natural need to pull away if someone wouldn't let me be who I wanted to be.

I don’t have any answers on solving the Meth problem in the gay community. I simply want to tell my story and let it go. I wish it was a perfect world and that HIV and Meth could be controlled easily, but it isn’t, and they can’t. So many people want life to be all black and white, but it isn’t that easy, there is just too much gray area. Not everything is right or wrong, good or bad. It’s up to us to figure that out for ourselves.
It takes work, and I have no clue what the campaign would be to accomplish that. I’m not an activist, I’m not a therapist, I know me, that’s all.

And just to get this out in the open and show you there are no “happy endings”, only “hopeful sobriety”…yes, I have fallen down a couple of times since I initially walked away from Meth. Recovery is an ongoing thing and while I did beat myself up about it initially, I realize all one can do is learn from such moments, chalk them up to experience and use them to move forward. The difference this time is that you aren’t naïve when you fall down, you’ve been there before and are wiser because of it.

I hope nobody thinks any less of me for even having been in that world, but I’m a better adult because of what I went through and saw. I will say ... I never, ever tried to purposely hurt anyone. I was never overly dishonest with people, and some of the biggest things I need to account for are the times I backed away from someone or a situation without any explanation.
Some of the people involved probably deserved an explanation. It was self-defense on my part. I never meant to hurt anyone’s self-esteem or scare them by doing that. Once you’ve been bit in the ass once, you stop putting your butt to the dog.

Well, this is my story and I need to let it go. I soooooo need to let it go, which is what I’m doing by writing it. I held onto hurt, hatred, guilt, paranoia, embarrassment, low self-esteem, overblown self-esteem, love, you name it, for far longer than I should have. Now it’s time to forgive myself and everyone else. I walked out of that rabbit hole but I do want to write all this down and lay the past to rest.

So, this writing is closure for me. Get the hell out of here. Get off the cross because somebody needs the wood. Of course, I could also supply the replacement on that cross pretty easily, but we aren’t bitter, no ... never.