Spiked Spine

Middle-of-the-night impromptu blog post:

I awoke from this dream moments ago. In it I was stopped by the police as I walked down Clayton street in downtown Athens with a spike (think: railroad tie) sticking out of my lower back, embedded in my spine. And even though they insisted I stand competely still and wait on an ambulance, the spike in my back wasn't why they stopped me to begin with. They stopped me because they believed I was drunk and in possession of drugs. While we waited on the approaching ambulance they wanted me to submit to a breathilizer and drug test. (I know, but its a dream so bear with them being so insensitive to my more pressing problem of that moment)

The ambulance came and I said I needed for them to wait just a few minutes while I stepped behind a building to get high before being put on a stretcher and transported to the ER for surgery. They told me one more step could paralyze me due to the position of the spike stuck in my spine. I told them I would take the risk and to please wait on me.

Then i woke up. You're probably thinking, "Well obviously that was just a nightmare. No one in their right mind would really take such a huge risk just to get high..." That would be insanity, right?

Right, no one in their right mind would make such a choice. It is an insane scenario. And, yeah it was a dream so perhaps a bit over the top in the details... but actually not THAT unrealistic when you're talking about addiction. My dream-self, hobbling along with a railroad tie jutting out of my back, didn't see the insanity of it at all. In fact, I'm willing to bet next year's salary that had I not woken up, and had the paramedics and police allowed it, I'd have slipped behind that building before getting into the ambulance. Pretty much guarantee it, actually. And I would have thought it a perfectly logical decision.

Step two: We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I’m Maze and I’m an addict.