2 Eight Balls and an 1/8 of Weed

Is it just me, or does it seem like the interesting stuff I've been talking about lately revolves around Anthony?

Had another interesting conversation with him yesterday, although this time not so nice. I guess to make things a little easier, I'll give you a little background information.

When I first got sober 6.5 years ago, I was scared and lonely. Plus I think my mohawk was a little off-putting to some people. So I was trying to meet people that had some similar interests as me, other than getting clean. About 3 months into it, I met Anthony. He was around my age, I think he's 5 years older than me. And he liked metal and punk, like me. We had a lot of interests in common, and we hit it off really well right away.

I was a kid who drank too much, smoked weed, and didn't go to school. He was a guy who drank if he wanted, smoked a lot of weed, and did WAY too much cocaine. But we were both sober, and we grew close. For years he was, and still is, one of my best friends. We've done pretty much everything together. We've always been honest with each other; although sometimes not quite timely with that honesty. It took me months to tell him about my relapse, and it wasn't until this year that I told him I was gay.

The last couple months he's been having some money problems; not having enough for rent or groceries or whatever. So since I have a job and some extra money, I've been helping him out. He'd been losing some days at work, so it just wasn't there. It got to the point where he owed me around $500 when he started paying me back. Kind of. He'd give me a little here, a little there. But he'd always borrow more than he'd pay back. Since I'm still at home, rent free, it wasn't a huge deal for me. I knew I'd get it back eventually.

So yesterday we're hanging out at his place, and we're outside smoking a cigarette, when he says he needs to tell me some stuff. Usually, that's how he'd start off when he needed some money, so I just rolled my eyes and said it'd be nice for once to hear something good from him and not something bad. He laughed, but said it was still something bad. So I figured he needed some more money. I wish he had.

He then proceeded to tell me that for the last 5 months or so, he'd been doing coke and smoking weed again. And it wasn't just like a little bit. At first, his tolerance was pretty low, since it had been so long since he'd done it. But being the addict that he is, that didn't last long. He said it had gotten to the point where he was doing 2 eight balls of coke (3.5 ounces per ball, 7 ounces total. Which, according to my sources, averages to about $200 a ball) and an 1/8 of weed a day. Now I must say, at this point I was completely shocked. Anthony had always told me that if he started doing cocaine again, he'd die. And I can see that if he had continued doing it, he would have.

I was trying to process all of this, and then the thought popped into my head, and I made the mistake of asking, "How much of the money that I've given you went to coke?" Feeling my stomach drop as I asked it, and really, really not wanting to know the answer. And he replied, "All of it."

We continued talking about it, and he's been sober for about 3 weeks now, and getting back into the program full force, and all that jazz, which is good. But now I'm left feeling conflicted. One the one hand, I'm happy that he's sober again, and that he told me everything. The other hand, I'm sad that it happened at all. And I'm disappointed that it happened, and that he didn't come to me for help. And I'm hurt that he used me for money to get drugs. And I feel like I dropped the ball; that I should have seen or noticed something. I'd been seeing him every or every other week during the whole time. And I'm also fucking pissed that he lied to my face so he could go get high. It's so much, that I don't know what to feel. Being one myself, I know you can't really be that mad at an addict, because that's just how they are. They lie, cheat, and steal to get what they want. But I feel that because of the history we have, it should have been different. But I also know, that history doesn't mean shit.

I talked to my dad about it, who is also sober, and he understood all of those emotions, but didn't really have an answer for me. So I don't know what to do or think. Do I treat him the same, like nothing happened? Do I kick his ass? I don't want to lose him as a friend, so I don't want to just walk away. But I don't know how to react. I was used, and that is not a good feeling. I don't know. I feel so numb to it right now. Help?

143

_Kevin