October 16th, 2008

We pull up to the treatment center, there’s a black Maserati parked outside, the two-door Granturismo. The guy gets out of the car and hugs me and The Mad Russian with a big smile. He’s tall, like 6-foot-3. He’s wearing really tight designer jeans and an Ed Hardy shirt. He has a Breitling Navitimer on his left wrist. He has this big chain on. He even has Ed Hardy shoes on. I can’t help but judge him. The Mad Russian introduces me and we hug. His name is Taylor. He’s an actor on a TV show down here or some shit. He was The Mad Russian’s first sponsor. He told me all about him. Whenever he would teach me something he’d say, “I learned this from Taylor…Taylor taught me this...Taylor saved my life… Taylor is the fucking man!”

I DID NOT EXPECT HIM TO LOOK LIKE THIS.

I kept thinking, “Who is this douchebag?”

We walk into the treatment center, show IDs and walk into a big cafeteria where 60 court-ordered men sit. They clap when we walk in and make a bunch of noise. They love the Mad Russian. The guys in there hand us cups of water and start doing the NA readings. I keep looking at Taylor and can’t help but think how he doesn’t fit in here. All these convicts and drug addicts and he’s this big-jaw, perfect-hair, Maserati-driving pretty-boy actor.

The Mad Russian starts the meeting and introduces Taylor as the speaker. They hug and Taylor stands up and walks up to the front of the table. I have never seen someone stand before when they speak. He starts telling his story and the first thing he says is:

“There’s two things that can get you high! Two things! Everyone has an opinion on recovery. Everyone is going to tell you a bunch of different things; AA, NA, CA, church, a lot of different information given to you guys, but I’m going to give you the secret! You ready?! There’s only TWO things that can make you get high,” he lifts both his hands up. “And that’s your LEFT HAND and your RIGHT HAND.”

People started laughing and I did too. He went on to tell his story and it was incredible! He talked about smoking crack for years and years. He said, “I remember my mother visiting me in jail. You know what that’s like, you know the jail that smells like shit. I was in the bunk right next to the toilet, weighing 115 pounds soaking wet, I had been arrested 17 times, my mother came to see me. No matter how many times I fucked up she always came to visit me. You know how embarrassing it is to be in your 30s and your mother still taking care of you…I remember she came to see me and talking to her through the plexi-glass — you know, the one with FUCK written across it. Tears running down her face, begging me to tell her this would be the last time.” He talked about going to jail for eight months and then doing a county-run program just like this one and talking to his counselor. They were trying to get him into a halfway house and a job. He told the counselor there’s no way anyone would hire him with all his felonies, but he got a great idea and said he should be on disability. He started laughing, “That’s what I thought. I literally thought my best chance at life was getting on disability, maybe doing construction. No ones going to hire a fucking crackhead. I have no work experience, I have all these felonies. I told my counselor there is no fucking way I’d get a job. I got into a halfway house, rode a bicycle for a year and I got a job, I got an actual real job making eight bucks an hour, then I got another job, and another job, and another job, and I stayed clean. I worked steps, my life got better, I started to feel good about myself and my life changed. I started acting. I always wanted to be an actor and people told me how hard it was, but some people encouraged me, I did a few commercials and did some modeling and then I went and did a casting in LA, now I’m a real fucking actor. I drive a fucking Maserati. I get in my car and I can’t fucking believe it — this fucking crack head ex-convict who couldn’t put together five minutes clean has a fucking acting career. I don’t say that to impress you guys, that shit impresses me! You can BE anything and you can DO anything”

He just kept repeating that over and over again

“You can be whatever the fuck you want, you can do anything and you can be anything.” 

Everyone cheered and clapped when he was done. It was so awesome. 

I keep thinking about that…

You can BE anything.

You can DO anything.

Who am I going to be?

What am I going to do?

…

Still haven’t spoke to my dad, he said the stuff in my diary is disgusting. Motherfucker shouldn’t be reading it then.

Ashley Stone messaged me on MySpace when she found out I got suspended. Wow. 

She said she doesn’t hate me, “despite all the awful shit you’ve said to me.” She thought I got expelled but I’m only suspended. I know she only wrote to me cause she feels bad for me. Maybe she wouldn’t have said anything if she knew I was only suspended and not expelled. 

She’s a really nice person though ya know… we were friends when I was little. 

I don’t know why I liked her so much, but I always did. I still remember the first time I saw her, I was in seventh grade and she was holding Colton Rodriguez’s hand, but we became friends. She used to message me on AOL Instant Messenger, haha. My screen name was “bryansscreename.” Hers was “beachbabixo” or something like that. We hooked up a few times but we were always more of friends than anything else, which was really rare for me. People won’t believe me, but I’m such an introvert. I always had a ton of friends and was super popular but I never considered people my friend. I always felt like there was a huge wall up with everyone I ever met. Ashley Stone had a special place in my heart since the very beginning. I hate people but when I like someone, I know I like them from the very beginning. She was just different.

I remember I would steal my parents’ car and go over to her house and just blow lines of coke. I’d have an eight ball on me, turn off my headlights and park down the street, then sneak through her window. There came a point when she would tell me that she didn’t like that I was doing drugs and that if we hung out, she didn’t want me to be high. I would promise her I wasn’t going to come over high anymore and I would come over high as fuck. I was fucking up and getting arrested, she would get mad at me that I was doing coke all the time. We stopped talking and a few months later, I got sent to military school. But she messaged me when I got sent away and I remember thinking, like, “Oh, I got sent away, you feel bad for me so now you want to be friends.” So I started to hate her. I hated her perfect life. She was popular and everyone loved her. I envied her life and hated mine. I hated who I had become. I was so miserable all the time, I would get high and text her mean shit… I don’t really know what happened, but my life went down the toilet so fast and I would do pills and get real emotional and hateful, going through my phone texting her random shit, telling her she’s getting fat, making up stories about us sleeping together and all this shit, for no reason whatsoever. On pills I get so weird and agitated, I wanted her to feel a bit of the misery I lived with every day. I felt like I lost my only friend, when I needed one the most… 

This one time, I think it was sophomore year, I heard she got into a car accident. I felt bad and texted her, “Hey, I know you hate me, but I heard you were in an accident, I hope you’re okay.” She said she was okay and that she was with her friend. I told her I wasn’t doing Roxys anymore and had been clean for a while. My boy Jimmy was having people over so I invited her there. She said she was going to get a ride over. As I hung up the phone I was upstairs in Jimmy’s room. Jimmy was a few years older than me and a good friend of mine. He always had people over. I crushed up a few Roxys, snorted them and told him Ashley was coming over. When she got there I was so pissed, I was really bipolar on pills. I told Jimmy she had to leave. Jimmy looked at me, saying, “Why bro? She’s cool, I’m not gonna kick her out.” I made a big scene, and I told Jimmy again she had to leave. “Get her the fuck out of her! Get her the fuck out!” I went back up stairs, snorting pills and doing coke, and Jimmy kicked them out. 

That was the last straw for her. Since then she’s always hated me. I don’t blame her for hating me, I would hate me, too. 

My old sponsor, Gio, has been shooting Roxys.

I shot you down,
BANG BANG,
you hit the ground,
BANG BANG. —Nancy Sinatra

Abigail is coming over tomorrow. I’m gonna try and not jerk off for a whole day so I can save a nice wad for her. 

Why did Ashley Stone message me? I just can’t stop thinking about it. 

“Man I feel like mold,
it's prom night and I am lonely.” —Teenage Dirtbag

I feel disconnected with the program. I want to jump back in it. I’m not going to a meeting tonight “because I had to do homework,” but I’m not even doing my homework. I’m just writing and listening to Eminem and Wheatus.