Get your ass to Rehab already!!

The other night started off like any other, I talked to my neighbors wife about the "neighborhood" as I tried to inconspicuously look at her tits, openly wondered why any black person would support Condi "Aunt Tomasina" Rice, and went to the grocery store to grab a beer for the night. As I entered Food Lion(local grocery store) I see a guy that irritates the piss out of me whenever I see him, he's a nice fellow, just annoying as fuck. I grab my beer, pay for it, and I make a mad dash for the parking lot trying to avoid this dude like a bad case of the crabs. All of a sudden I hear, "Hey HumanityCritic!", dammit he caught me. I walk over to him and say, "Hey man, what's up?" "Nothing", he replies, "I see you are buying another beer." He then goes into a 2 minute speech, that I have heard about 49 times mind you, about how he was an alcoholic and lost his family in the process. It is really a touching diatribe, the first million times I heard it, now this shit is getting pretty fucking old. I said to him, "Listen, I am glad that you are sober and turned your life around, I really am. But don't you find it in bad taste to constantly tell me that "Lifetime" movie of the week every time I buy a beer. Cut that fucking shit out man, I'm not playing!" He smiled and said, "That's OK, I'll reach you one day!", as he walked away. I suddenly felt the sudden urge to not only curse him out, but smack the shit out of him. But, and I know I'm going to sound crazy here, what if that guy was god in the form of this grocery store employee trying to give me a powerful message? I can see it now, I accost the guy and when I die and get to the pearly gates Peter is like, "HumanityCritic, I'm looking at your sheet and it looks pretty good. I will let you in.." (God interrupts) God: Fuck that! That motherfucker once smacked the shit out of me and poured beer all over my body, and all I was trying to do was help that prick out. he ain't getting in! Delusions aside, I went back to my house and thought about the story that that grocery store employee had told me 49 times. I then reminisced about all my friends who all battled their addictions and the shitload of interventions I have been involved in.

Gambling: Jerry was a friend of mine that I used to hang with while I attended college. He was a dude that hadn't left his hometown of Little Rock Arkansas until he attended college in Virginia, so he was a bit green. Soon after his arrival I taught him how to play cards and before you know it we were frequenting every card game available in the city. I loved cards, but Jerry had an obsession with them, reading books and it quickly became the main topic of conversation whenever we hung out. He got to be good, better than me in fact, but he didn't know when to quit and that either left him dead broke, or left me having to fight dudes because they thought that Jerry cheated them. This one time he bet me that he could sleep with a particular young lady, and when he did in fact sleep with her he called me from her house and said, "I told you I'd fuck her, pay up bro!!" Crazy shit like that, and the numerous fights that I got into because of his bullshit I knew that I had to abandon this relationship because it was hazardous to my health. But because I was the one that started him gambling in the first place I thought I should be the one warn him about his destructive ways. I won't go into exactly what was said, but let's just say that if I had a dollar for the amount of times he said, "Fuck you!", I would be extremely wealthy. After that I would hear stories of him taking beatings, people looking for him, and the last straw was when I got a call from his sister saying that two big men in suits came to their parents house looking for Jerry.(I thought that shit only happened in the movies) After that I tried to reach Jerry and help him but he was too far gone, refusing my help whenever I offered it.

You know how life is, time flies and you tend to lose touch with people, that's what happened to Jerry and I. That was until I saw him in 2000, he had beaten his gambling addiction, and just got married to a lovely woman named Layla. I was glad that he was doing so well, because for the previous few years I felt that his "demise" was my fault, so his turnaround made me feel good for more reasons than one. As we all had dinner I made a wildly inappropriate toast: "This is to you Jerry, our renewed friendship, your new life, and your new wife. I BET you money that you will be together forever!!" They both gave me an irritated look, then I said, "Fuck you two, THAT shit was funny!!" OK, Maybe not.

Heroin: I realized at an early age that I would absolutely be a horrible husband. Granted, I would never cheat, I would treat my wife with love and affection, I would lose my porn collection(most of it), and I would keep my throat-chopping of black republicans to a minimum. I say that I would be a horrible husband because I am the last fucker on earth to notice any changes in a person, haircuts, new outfits, and type of shit like that. I went into that little spiel because it was also true of an old band-mate of mine named Nate that I had. He was a great guy, funny, and the best drummer that I have ever seen in my life. So it came as a surprise to me when another band-mate of mine named Glen called me and said, "HC, we need to have an intervention with Nate and get him into a rehab center." Me: Rehab center for what? (long pause) Glen: For what!!!! Are you shitting me?? For heroin you silly bastard! Me: Heroin? Naww? Seriously? Glen: You didn't find it strange that Glen would nod off mid-sentence, or fall asleep during shows? Me: I just thought he was real tired, or maybe narcoleptic Glen: Get the fuck out of here!! How about the tracks on his arm? That didn't seem weird to you? Me: Not really, he told me that he was a diabetic. Glen: With how he used to eat, you bought that bullshit?? You-are-an-asshole!

About a week later we confronted Nate at his house to do an intervention on him. It was the entire band, and his girlfriend at the time. It was awkward because every time I would add my two cents about Nate's addiction he would say some shit like, "How about your addiction to women?? How about that?" To where I would respond, "But that addiction doesn't fuck your bodily organs up, unless you don't wear protection and get a bad piece of "patch". Then he would say, "How about you and alcohol?" To where I would respond, "Yeah, yeah, my intervention is next week. This is your week motherfucker!!" We tried to get him to a rehab facility but he said that he would go in a week so he could go through the detox period in his home.(twisted logic I know) The next several days involved us baby sitting this motherfucker, watching him have the shakes, violently throw up, and turn as pale as a black man could get. I should have videotaped the process because that would have been the best anti-drug commercial for kids wanting to "experiment". Today, Nate is doing well and is a productive part of society, but it's fucked up because now he is a Vegan and gives me shit about eating "red meat". Damn, life is funny sometimes.

Cocaine: I had a lawyer friend named Steven that I used to hang out with to many swanky ass establishments around town. He was cool, he reminded me of Tom Cruise's character in "Jerry McGuire", a fast talking guy that was absolutely full of shit. During the brief tenure of our friendship we were living it up, hanging with these beautiful model chicks who looked like their main hobbies were looking pretty and vomiting. There is some truth in many stereotypes because most of those chicks dug cocaine, which I am against, but suddenly I become "for it" if it made any of those women inappropriately put their mouth on me. It threw me for a loop when I found out that Steven was also hooked on the "nose candy". The first time I saw him do it I told him that I wasn't cool with that and he assured me that he did it "once in a blue moon". But that "blue moon" shit was quickly debunked when I noticed that he always seemed hyper as fuck, and he snapped on me for no reason a couple of times to the point that I almost mauled that motherfucker. I guess the last straw is when he came to my house 4 in the morning, honking his horn 20+ times, dressed the fuck up, and when I angrily answered the door he said, "Why aren't you dressed? I thought we were going out?"(This jackass had lost all sense of time at that point) I had to let that friendship go at that point, so I grabbed a bat and said, "Get the fuck out of here before I pretend that I'm Barry Bonds with this motherfucker!!! Get some help man!" Recently I heard that he went to rehab and is living a clean lifestyle, which I am happy about. Maybe I shouldn't have threatened him with physical violence, because I sure do miss hanging with those model chicks who put their mouth on me under the influence of a drug that I hate.

Violence:(Very short entry) My band-mates, because of the many assholes that I have fought at our shows, have tried to sit me down and talk to me about my temper. They try to show me the error in my ways, but when I point out the specific reasons that I fought the men I did, they are left agreeing with me that the person's in question did indeed "deserve to catch a bad one." The topic is usually dropped and we move on to something else, until the next show that we have where I try to bury my shell-toe Adidas in the sternum of some load mouth asshole. I know that I have anger issues, that is why I have a therapist..i mean..a friend to talk to.



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