Paranoid

Paranoid

I used the word paranoid in either a post or in the chat room the other night, and ever since then, I've been thinking about that word and what it means to me.
I had my first experience (that I know of), about 1964 in San Francisco. My older brother was a "speed" addict, at that time shooting up methadrine. Never knew much about it then, and in fact, not now either. It was the drug that his crowd used, among other things.
There was this little alley off of either Folsom or Harrison and 6th in San Francisco that they all hung out at. There was a garage under a house that was made into an apartment, if you want to call it that. There was one room and a small kitchen in back. The guy that rented the place was "Crazy Bob", and believe me, he was crazy. Crazy with the drug speed/heroin and anything else that would go up his veins. My brother took me there with him, as I was on my own in the big city. I did some drinking, but that was about it.
The paranoia was constant there in that garage, with people constantly hearing "noises", people "sneaking up on them", and were always looking (peeking) out the mail box opening. There was a constant traffic of "street" people coming in and out throughout the nights. Several times while I was there, people showed up with brief cases of dope, stolen from drug stores in the night.
Boy, that's when the paranoia REALLY showed, with one after another peeking thru that mailbox, while trying to figure out just what they had stolen. Like it really didn't matter, because nothing went to waste if it was "dope". The Stove was going constantly, "cooking" up dope to get another "geeze".
This was not only my first experience with paranoia, but my first real experience being around dope and addicts. I've never shot up, myself, but seen enough thru the years to turn me off from it. I used to think that I could never become an addict, and from that point of view that I was around, didn't. But, I became an addict, a different type of addict that hung around "Crazy Bob's" pad, but an addict just the same. I did everything they did, at one time or another in my life, just not mainline.
At the end of my drinking and drugging career, paranoia meant something else, besides looking thru mailboxes. It meant thinking that people were always talking about me whenever I couldn't hear them. Thinking that the bill collectors were knocking at my door every time I heard a knock, afraid of answering the phone, afraid of headlights in back of me at night, thinking it was certainly a cop, and he knew who I was, and what I had done, or was doing.
I guess what I'm getting at, and I'm sure there are plenty here that can relate, IS........... The life of drugs and alcohol is almost ALWAYS filled with that paranoia. It comes with the territory.
For me, today, I live in a new territory, a territory of peace and tranquility, paranoia FREE!!
How about YOU???
Just my thoughts as they came to me tonight.
Mike