Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“But as I got deeper and deeper into my using, my surfboards went untouched on their racks in the garage. I lost interest. There’s something devastating about that, though I try not to think about it.” 

Throughout the memoir, Nic constantly recalls things that he loved to do and made him happy prior to becoming addicted to drugs, such as surfing. As he recalls them, he also tries to bury and forget them, showing the escapism that drugs offer him.

“But I was so scared of coming off the drugs. It was like this horrible vicious cycle. The more I used, the more I did things I was ashamed of, and the more I had to use so I never had to face that. When I reached a certain point with my drug use, going back just seemed like too far a journey. Accepting responsibility, admitting guilt, making restitution, hell, just saying I’m sorry—it had become too daunting. All I could do was move forward and keep doing everything in my power to forget the past.” 

Despite of but also because Nic is constantly haunted by his misdeeds as a drug addict, he continues to use. The drugs are a form of escapism for him, because though he recognizes the need to make amends, he would rather avoid it than face what he sees as a gargantuan task.

“But how can Karen respect me now? I am ashamed of myself and, for a moment, I can’t even remember why I’m doing any of this. What is the point? I guess it’s crystal meth. I mean, that’s always the bottom line, isn’t it? That’s the ultimate trump card for me. It is more powerful than anything.” 

Nic struggles with losing the respect of his stepmother, Karen, whom he values and respects immensely. He reveals the depths of his desperation and how lost he is as an addict, believing that crystal meth is everything to him. 

“I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me—this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit. I could control the external—at least, to a point. I could buy different clothes, or cut my hair, or whatever. The pit opening up inside me was too frightening to look at.” 

Though he does not refer to it as such, Nic reveals that he has struggled with depression his entire life, feeling sad, empty, and hopeless. He hints that this depression fed his escapism, choosing to address outward matters rather than dealing with his internal depression. 

“Honestly, I can’t see Lauren cutting it living in my car with me. I need her to have this house and access to her parents’ money. It’s not that I don’t care about her, but I’m just trying to be realistic.” 

Though Nic writes that he cares for Lauren, he reveals that he is mostly using her in order to maintain his lifestyle while he relapses. This passage reveals Nic to be selfish and callous when it comes to preserving his drug habit, willing to use Lauren and sacrifice her well-being for his self-preservation. 

“Still, for all the therapy I had, none of it ever really fixed that feeling of torn-apartness inside of me. I learned how to express myself, that was all. And, for whatever reason, identifying the room cause of my problem—like fear of abandonment or something-didn’t change a goddamned thing. I could see clearly why I acted a certain way, but that wouldn’t make me any different. I sought out craziness. I was attracted to it. No therapy could take that away.” 

Nic reveals that he has been in therapy for most of his life, particularly after his parents separated and his mother moved away, but that it did not help him with his depression. Though he learned to identify his problems, identifying them did not make them disappear, and he continued to cope in destructive ways.

“I know Glide Memorial Church from when I was little. In grade school, we used to take trips down there to help work in the soup kitchen…I can’t say what I thought about seeing those people having to be fed like that […] I know I felt sorry for them—men and women wrapped in blankets lying on the hard concrete. I guess I thought they were sick or something […] But one thing was for sure—I never in my life imagined being one of them.” 

Nic ruminates on his privileged youth, when he was a wealthy kid volunteering at soup kitchens. He expresses disbelief, shame, and embarrassment that he is now eating at the same soup kitchen.  

“It’s like there are seven candles lit in my stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven candles burning and smoking—lit—seven flames of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, waste, hopelessness, despair. They turn my insides black with soot and ash.” 

Nic ruminates on his most recent relapse and feels that he cannot keep living as he has been. He reveals that his depression continues to plague him and that, like a fire, it is all-consuming and he is unable to put it out. 

“The emptiness in my stomach—the well digging down—the nausea—the aching won’t leave me. It’s profound—consuming. I feel like curling up, serpentine on the floor, crying. I need a thousand pounds of heroin. I need to drown myself in methamphetamine […] Or maybe—maybe—I just need to get sober.” 

Nic starts to wonder whether the solution for his all-consuming depression is getting clean rather than using. He reveals the extent to which drugs have offered him escape from his inner turmoil but also that a part of him recognizes that they are not the answer. 

“Trust me, you only get to live this life once. I’d rather be blissed out for a short time than fucking bored and miserable till I’m like ninety or something […] I try to remember—was I happy before all this? The fucking tweak won’t let me think. It tries to tell me I wasn’t. Maybe that’s the truth.” 

When Nic tells Gack that he is leaving San Francisco and intends to get clean, Gack reiterates that he thinks this is a waste of time and that their way of life is worth it. Nic disagrees but is unable to parse out whether he was happier sober. 

“I looked at those riders and I told myself that I was better off sitting in the car, loaded out of my mind. But the thing was I had experienced some of the good life that the 12 steps had to offer […] I just hadn’t been willing to fight through the difficult moments with the faith that it would get better—that maybe, one day, I could have what Spencer had—a beautiful life.” 

During his initial detox, Nic goes on a bike ride with Spencer and ruminates on his relapse. He remembers seeing cyclists while he was high, but he has a different understanding of the situation once sober.

“I admit that I do feel very blessed, or lucky, at times and prayer does help me clear my head and all, but my rational mind always tells me that these are only coincidences. No matter how much I want to, I can’t actually believe that there is a power guiding me. It just doesn’t make sense to me on a deep, visceral level. I don’t believe in God—not really.” 

Nic reveals that one of his constant struggles in recovery is his inability to believe in a higher power. Because this is a crucial part of the 12-step program, he is scared that this means that the program will not work for him. 

“Our life together was definitely not conventional. I mean, I’ve had therapists in the past denounce how overexposed I was as a child. But, honestly, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I am proud of the way my dad raised me and I love him for it.” 

Nic reveals the complex and problematic relationship he has with his father and his dualist perspective of him. On one hand, he recognizes that his father exposed him to harmful things as a child, but on the other, he appreciates him for this and sees him as a hero. He does not hold his dad responsible for his drug problems.

“And that feeling is there, inside me—being small, with the confusion and worry and longing—but also the peace and safety—being wrapped in a blanket with my dad rubbing my back like that, singing. And now I’m here, giving that feeling to Lucy. She is an angel—light and sweet and delicate and lovely. That is so there in her. But it’s also in Spencer, in my dad lying with me as a child on the futon. It’s even in me. Sure, I buried it […] But that goodness is there, inside—it must be.” 

When Nic babysits Spencer and Michelle’s daughter Lucy while Spencer is hospitalized, he ruminates on his childhood and feelings of safety and comfort with his dad. He sees himself as a child, and for the first time, to ascribe some goodness and potential to his own person.

“Now that Spencer has pointed it out, I realize that the times I have known some sort of inner peace in my life, those have always been times when I focused on helping others more than myself […] I feel like the impossible has become possible, I feel a sense of completeness and satisfaction just being in my own skin. I am comfortable being me—at least, for the moment.” 

Nic feels elated after being able to help Spencer and Michelle and to listen to a friends’ problems. He understands the 12-step concept of “freedom from the bondage of self.”

“I’ve worked so hard on this 12-step thing I’m in, but still, I am the same. I am still just trying to fit in. I feel like a visitor—a guest. It hurts me. I want to be a part of their lives. I want to be accepted as one of them.” 

On a family vacation in Molokai, Nic realizes that despite all of the progress he has made in recovery, he still feels like an outsider among his father, stepmother, and stepsiblings. He notes that, ever since his stepmother came into his life, he felt rejected by his father. 

“I’m actually shaking from nervousness as I drive back to my apartment. It’s like I’m physically sick with it. All the little tricks and whatever that Spencer has taught me are suddenly all blanks in my mind. I can’t think of one prayer—one anything.”  

Despite all of his progress during his recovery, Nic unravels when Zelda reestablishes contact with him. He reveals the depth of his obsession with her through his visceral reaction to seeing her again and his willingness to risk his sobriety.

“If everything in life happens for a reason, as Spencer would assert, then surely this relationship is not accident. I use all his teachings to reaffirm these things—to validate them. I mean, if there is a God that’s all-knowing and all-powerful, then surely he has orchestrated this whole thing. Why else would I have been delivered to Zelda, as I have been?” 

As Nic’s obsession with Zelda grows, he professes to want to marry Zelda and be her savior. Despite the fact that he expounds in earlier chapters on how he cannot bring himself to believe in a higher power, he uses this to rationalize his behavior. 

“Is Zelda really worth this? Will I fall back into the same horror I lived out with Lauren? No. Zelda is different. I would throw my whole life away for just one more night with her. Besides, I have learned so much about sobriety and God and everything Spencer helped teach me. Surely those lessons will carry me through this. Zelda and I will come out stronger than ever. Our love will conquer addiction. Our love will conquer everything. It will. It has to.” 

When Zelda slips him an unidentified pill for a stomachache, Nic learns that she is not sober and has been using the entire time that they have been together. In his desperation to maintain the relationship, he convinces himself that they can stay together.

“I wonder how my life has fallen apart again and how—AGAIN—I’ve lost everything. It was all going to well. I don’t know why the ground falls away underneath me so fast. I never even see it happening. Or do I? Either way, all I am aware of right now is a longing to just get home and stick a fresh needle in my vein with whatever drugs are left in our apartment.” 

As his money runs out and his drug use escalates, Nic wonders how he managed to relapse yet again. On one hand, he is forlorn and feels that his relapse was sudden. On the other, he recognizes that this is far from the truth and that there were many warning signs in the previous months. 

“They say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Well, the problem of being human isn’t really so temporary and sometimes a permanent solution seems like the best possible way out.” 

Nic is forced into a detox program and undergoes a very painful detox process. Throughout, he contemplates suicide, thus revealing how acute his embarrassment and guilt at being a user are. 

“Suddenly I realize I can’t go with Zelda. I’ll just get high again and all these days of hell in detox will have been wasted. I also see an image, very clear, of Zelda and me sitting together in her car—dressed in our designed clothes—cell phones to our ears—both OD’ed—dead, cold, purple.” 

Nic’s clear desire to live is juxtaposed with his deep desire in the previous chapter to die. Though he plots with Zelda to avoid treatment, he realizes that he will only end up reusing. He lambasts their Hollywood lifestyles, painting them as tragic and deadly. 

“‘That’s just it,’ she tells me. ‘You don’t seem very comfortable with yourself. I think you use your sexuality to try to control and influence other people. That’s what you did as a sex worker, isn’t it?’”

Nic’s therapist at the Safe Passage Center in Arizona diagnoses him with sexual dependency issues and puts him on a no-female contract. Nic is incredibly frustrated and defensive, insisting that he is simply comfortable with his femininity.