I'm a 28 year old college grad. My college years seemed to be the high point of my life and in some ways I never grew up in the traditional sense. I have a history of depression and a long list of anxiety disorders that I've struggled with since childhood.

I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home going to schools of same traditional outlook (teachings, practices, restrictions). My father was abusive - when not distant and neglectful, he was full of rage and violence though my older brothers got most of the physical abuse. Still I had my fair share. My mother, though at times would hit us, was overprotective towards me most of the time.

I always had this terror of responsibility, and when the pressure would build I would crack. When I was younger this usually involved tests and homework etc... I obsessed ad nauseum and despite my reason telling me how nonsensical the obsessions were, I would cry, worry, complain and otherwise act out. My mother frequently would intervene by speaking to my teachers arranging for my grades (which despite being convinced of failure always were stellar) would not count against me. At times I would stay home for long periods of time.

On top of my other issues i had always been painfully shy. Making friends was very difficult as was talking to people in authority and to strangers in general. This social phobia is one of my biggest problems. It prevents me from meeting potential mates, fiends, jobs, etc...

My parents divorced when I was around ten though I have never associated this with my emotional problms too much. I have been in therapy and receiving "treatment" for as long as I can remember.

I went to college at around 18 though I still lived at home, since my school was in NYC. I was able to express myself in class and my professors were mostly fond of me, but outside of class, I was miserable. I watched the various cliques, fraternities, sororities, and most of all couples hanging out talking loudly, and just seeming to be enjoying life. I would sit alone hoping someone would take notice (though when I look back I can't imagine what I thought would happen). It was so bad that at one time I hung out with a group of evangelical Christian missionaries who were visiting the school even though I knew they wanted my "immortal soul" not me. But the fact that someone was interested in spending time with me was enough.

Every day I would go home and wallow in self-pity. Crying, lying in bed, doing nothing to help myself. As winter break approached (my sophomore year I guess) I knew what would come. Being home alone all day without even the distraction of class. A friend of my brother's was a seasoned backpacker and we planned to take a trip across Europe. However he backed out.

Determined not to find myself in the predicament i foresaw, I planned to backpack alone cross-country. Various family members suggested that I go to Israel instead. Though I had no spiritual feelings or interests at the time I went along with it.

I landed in Tel Aviv planning to go to a hostel I had chosen out of the 'Let's Go' book that was my guide. Upon reaching the place, with a huge backpack behind me, another smaller one in front, it struck me that I was out of my depth. I was in a filthy room with bunk beds, ainhabitted by Australians who welcomed me by showing me my bunk. "You got the cleanest sheets. they was washed only seventeen years ago!" Judging by the stench, the people laying in pools of vomit...  this did not seem too far fetched. Sying I'll be back later I left.

Well now I had done it. Thousands of miles from home, a foreign country, no place to stay, all alone I thought of going right to the airport. I had an open ended return ticket so I could use it whwnever i chose.

Cathing my breath, I remembered a place someone had mentioned that was in jerusalem. With the Jewish Sabbath starting the following night, I decided I would see how the weekend went before leaving. Israel is a tiny country with a topography that changes over very short distances. You can drive from green mountains to lifeless desert to tropical paradise within a day. Furthermore there is a bus system that can get you to any point on the map for very little money. A bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is no different time-wise or in availibility than taking the subway from my home in Brooklyn to the Bronx. Okay I'm exxagerating. But only a little bit. It's also more comfortable and more scenic (to a foreigner such as myself).

I found this place in the Od City of Jerusalem. It was clean, the people were friendly and it was free (it got contributions from Jewish istitutions as it was geared towards people with little or no background in Judaism. I guess they assumed based on how I dressed and the fact that I was not observant - I forgot to mention that part. I had rejected my upbringing and other than on holidays and when around my family did I practice at all). I went to the Western Wall for friday night prayers ("Welcoming the Sabbath"). There were groups of people from all walks of life partaking in countless different prayer groups of all styles. In Brooklyn the Orthodox communities live in what I would call ghettos for lack of a better word. They practice an extreme form of Orthodoxy that seems variable from within but having experienced the things i have over the years there is very little room to maneuver. I was taken to strangers' homes along with about 50 other travellers for the meal that night.

I ende up staying in Israel for three weeks. Using the hostel I was at as a base I would decide on a destination from the "Lets Go' book and hop a bus either on my own or with people I had met along the way. I had to figure out how to navigate, communicate, find shelter, and ask for help when I had to on my own. In a place where English was not the native language. I had lots of adventures and no regrets.

I also smoked marijuana for the first time in my life.  This would become significant.

When school started again I was in a class with a girl that was very friendly and apparently rather well-known among the various groups that would gather between classes outside the entrance to Boylan Hall. One side dominated by the "greeks" (frats/sororities) the other by other cliques and random loners. She happened to be a greek (though strangely enough she had Chinese parents- go figure). Anyway I would have some discussions with her before she was called away by her various other friends.

One day she mentioned that lots of people were smoking weed on campus. Being rather naive, and the fact that this was a small campus being in middle of the city not having any dorms etc..., this came as a shock - and a pleasant one. Because despite my brother being addicted to heroin crack and pcp as well as using any and all other substances, I had nothing to do with him, despised him at the time. Having no friends I didn't know where to get any weed something that I had wanted to try again since that first time in Israel.

Unfortunately I really hated the frat boys. They all looked like carbon copies of each other, were loud, obnoxious, and were getting laid and I wasn't. One day Some guy comes up to my friend and asks if she has any rolling papers. I didn't recognize him. He definitely was not a frat boy, he seemed more hip hoppish but not straight out of a magazine. A creature of his own design. I offered a cigarette which we could empty and replace the tobacco with cannibis. This was acceptable to the two of them and off we went to the middle of the quad to smoke.

As we passed the joint around some other people came along and joined our little party.

The guy that initiated this session soon became my closest friend. He had a group of friends that always hung out together. Despite some initial hostility from some of his 'boys,' most of whom had grown up together and shared a history of skateboarding together (they had outgrown the skateboard but still would go snowboarding, neither of which I could do) I eventually befriended some and was acquainted with the rest. I had 'boys' of my own.

Well scool soon began to revolve around amoking trees. I'd get there and smoke a blunt before class. I'd get out of my first class and smoke another. There was always someone going to smoke, so even if one wasn't part of a particular crew temporary allegances were made. I had numerous 'smoking buddies' as did everyone else in our counterculture. There were even some greeks (they were very different from the rest. They were more individualistic,  avoided as many functions as possible, generally disliked the others even members of their own fraternity) involved. So there was rarely a time when I couldn't find anyone to smoke with. There were times when there would be twenty five people passing around seven blunts with people from every corner of our counter-culture. There were numerous spots to go as well each with a name that we all understood.

One of my aquaintances from a fraternity somehow became president of the Inter-Greek Council even though the guy didn't even pay his dues. So during his brief term we had our own office where upwards of fifty people would cram in. Ross didn't last that long as president but he became a very close friend later on.

I developed an interest in psychedelics though most of my friends who had done them in the past were no longer interested. Mine was an intellectual curiosity at first. Despite the endless marijuana smoking I was getting A's in every class and I believe studying the 17th century philosopher Benedict Spinoza especially as explained by a philosophy professor I had become very close to, we were practically friends outside of class treating each other as equals to a large extent. He was young, a fantastic teacher, and an anarchist,not as the word is used commonly to describe a violent, chaotic psychopath, bent on destruction for its own sake, but simply what the word means. A (against; no) archy (rulership; ruling body). As monarchy refers to a political style where ther is one person ruling. Not having a ruling body does not necessarily mean not having rules, but refers to where the rules are generated (or not generated. Anarchists are as variable in beliefs as are Protestants). He advocated a system of independent communities where every member in the community participated in how the community would operate. A direct democracy (not like the Athenian system which only included free men of property. no women, slaves, or peasants) but real democracy (the US is a republic where we presumably vote for our representitives who then make all the rules).

Spinoza was a rationalist to the extreme. His main work, "the Ethics" is written in the form of a mathematical proof. But he tried to demonstrate that one should increase his/her power. This involved having 'adequate knowledge' which seemed to mean increasing one's ability to perceive and to be perceived.

My perceptions were forever changed. I was now open to any and all possibilities. I have come to the conclusion that nobody has a monopoly on truth. Nor is there a system of thought that is the one and only way. I don't see ideas that seemingly contradict one another as problematic or mutually exclusive. I neither reject nor accept anything as true or false. I have what I call my Credibility scale which assigns probabilities to ideas as well as a corresponding value scale. It is not a fixed scale but is in constant flux, depending on mood, suroundings, social environment, time of day etc... My behavior reflects my wants and how much probability I give some idea taking into account that certain wants require me to act against certain ideas and other values because of social pressures which are less flexible.

I realize that understanding of concepts frequently comes onlt through experience. All the reading and talking in the world will not give me an inkling of what certain things are like or what they mean until some experience allows me to relate all those otherwise meaningless symbols (words). The rules that guided what I could and could not think were destroyed by my experiences with psychedelics. What is real, logical, meaningful

needed restructuring. Something could now simultaneously be x and -x. I cannot explain it but have experienced it. Later I would discover the same concepts in numerous systems of thought including quantum physics, as well as mystical traditions from around the world throughout history.

Unfortunately my brain still works according to a western model which only allows for single approaches deeming others false. So important has the exclusion of all traditional or unconventional ideas become that whenever the paradigm that is the convention meets others, the others are seen as opposing forces and must be eliminated. This has repeated itself throughout history. Catholocism once established, created the inquisition requiring that all people under its dominion must accept it or be eradicated. Communism seen as a necessity because of dialectical materialism (and distorted by megalomaniacal leaders like Stalin and Mao) to the exclusion of any social order including religion (which it becomes) which must be erradicated. Because of the 'necessary' laws of supply and demand (which will bring prosperity to all because of "the invisible hand") does the same so that all cultures, nations, resources, must accept this model or the "market" will make them suffer. Natural philosophy now called Science develops a system of learning about 'reality' and displaces systems of thought as 'unscientific' rendering it obsolete and superstitious. attempts to suggest ideas derived by means other than those of the 'scientific method' (a conveniently elusive term) or not arriving at the conclusions accepted by the 'scientific community' are automatically rejected. So demons and spirits are replaced by new constructs just as inexplicable and mysterious, and unobservable by definition but real and irrefutable, unchangeable despite constant revision, as opposed to the superstitions of old and of primitive cultures. Such cultures must make way for scientific advances. 

Oversimplifications but the point is that the result of retaining the notion that an idea cannot allow others to exist often leads to more than attempts to stamp out the 'opposing' idea but those who hold those ideas.

It would take time for these new ways of thinking to manifest in my life, but new ideas were more easily accepted. And in time information which would otherwise have been disregarded as "illogical" or preposterous, or meaningless can now be incorporated and understood to various degrees.

Anarchism was an idea that I could not even entertain no matter how much material I read. It would take experience to figure out the problems of hierarchy and uneven distribution of power. The first time I was arrested I learned what it meant to be in a hierarchical society. I had been sitting in a car with a friend unaware of the unmarked van lurking in the shadows. My friend rooled a joint, lit it, took a few hits, passed it and no sooner did I take a few hits when five squad cars suround us shining lightsand blinding us. Police barking for us to get out of the car "don't touch that joint! Put your hands on the car!" Up against the car as I was frisked and found to be in posession of a plant. Not the dangerous tobacco, that was fine. Handcuffed I was put in a van with a metal floor. Hands pinned behind me in tight bindings biting into my skin, trying to maneuver into a less uncomfortable position on that steel floor.

There were other victims already in the kidnapper's vehicle. "we were watching you the whole time. didn't you notice the van? they were waiting to get both of you. how stupid can you be?" Never having had this problem before pretty stupid I guess. These kids had already been in the van for a couple of hours as the heroes of the NYPD trolled for other dangerous villains to bust once the crime had benn comitted.

For three hours we searched for more. Finally a teenaged girl was caught with the terrible plant. That done we returned to the precinct. Stripped and searched we were then fingerprinted so that we could be entered into the database of criminals who are all the same. Everything was nice and computerized so that a scan of each finger the entire hand each part of the finger on both hands could be available to all.

As we waited to be carried off to Cental Booking the cops were having fun with the young girl. "Young blonde girl like you gonna have to be real carefull when you get to Central. They're gonna love you" one guy was saying as she cried miserably.

We were taken downtown and put in one cell. Then another. The night was young and though there was no place to sit because all of the benches were occupied the night was young. They kept coming. Time was at a standstill. Nothing to do in that cage. absolutely nothing but watch the co's enjoy themselves. As the cage got more and more crowded. Who were these people? "I was rolling dice", "I had an open bottle" "I was smoking weed" most of them said. I tried to find some space on the floor to try and sleep. Contorting my body into an impossible shape I managed an hour or so before the cell shifting began. Through the night and following day I was moved from cage to cage. Finally I saw my attorney. I saw some guy across from me saying something at breakneck speed none of which I understood. A veteran explained I was supposed to plead guilty and I would be released on probation. Charges would be dropped if I didn't break any laws fo the next year.

This was something I experienced. No amount of theory, books, stories, movies could provide me with the meaning of powerlessness. Of somebody being able to take me away, put me in a cage and be completely at their mercy because he had a badge and gun and I did not.  Suddenly anarchism moved from incomprehensible nonsense, to a socio-political necessity. The hows are a mystery to me, maybe it's not possible until we completely destroy ourselves with war, environmental destruction etc... leaving a tiny population that could form a non-hierarchical, egalitarian way of life. I do not mean to say that I desire this but with western culture and imperialism spreading at such an alarming rate, erradicating every culture, ecological community, unique phenomenon of any sort creating a monolithic ideology that leaves no room for any variety, some globally catastrophic event or series of events seems inevitable. Whether it is nuclear holocaust, some pandemic, climate change, global crop failure (because now every crop is a monoculture leaving them vulnerable to some parasite or other condition that they lack immunity to to destroy all), depletion of resources etc... 

Again, I do not look forward to such an event. Being as sensitive (probably pathologically) as I am to suffering and destruction this is merely the horrible outcome that in my estimation (and I do not claim to be anywhere near correct in any of my views, and my pessimism is a large contributor to my depression, so I simply am expressing my ideas of what is probable) is awaiting humanity (as well as numerous other species).

Having said that, should there be a vastly reduced human population, I wouuld see anarchism of various types being feasible. And 'anarchism' being a label that refers to a huge variety of socio-political ideas and movements none of which I necessarilly advocate even if feasible. My point is that it is only because of certain experiences that I can even entertain such ideas. whereas prior to those experiences it was all meaningless words.

Why I went on that tangent I don't know. But getting back to my story. At some point I started working in a medical lab where I was able to support further adventures, and I developed a pattern of working for several months, saving about half of my earnings and then taking an epic vacation. Most of those were in mountainous, or otherwise wild areas where I began to enjoy camping and other activities involving the "great outdoors."

It is in these places where I feel truly happy and at peace. In my element. i developed a feeling of imprisonment whenever I would return and would need to rejuvinate a few times a year.

Upon finishing college it would not take long for life to take a nose-dive which I am still trying to pull out of. I went to a feeding behavior lab in Brooklyn College for experience to put on a grad school application thinking I would go into experimental psychology as a career. I got a paying job.

After half a year or so one friend moved to Las Vegas. My best friend in fact. Soon there-after another friend (the ex-president of the IGC) called me asking for the number of my friend in Vegas. He had gotten himself into a situation in which staying in New York would result in his murder.

At the time I was still full of life, spontaneous and adventurous. I told him to get a two bedroom apartment and that I would join him in a couple of months which I did.

I didn't want to go to Vegas for the reasons people typically have. The strip was a place I went to only when friends came to visit. I mean this was consumerism on steroids. But I always wanted to go to the Southwest. Vegas is in a narrow section of Nevada that is very close to a number of other states. California is an hour west,  Utah even closer, and Arizona not far either. The Grand Canyon is a few hours away and the parks of southern Utah closer. But you don't have to drive longer than fifteen minutes out of town to see jaw-dropping beauty.

Red Rock Canyon is right outside city limits. I remember my second day in Vegas I got my first glimpse of nature gone nuts. The bright red jumble of rocks was very difficult to wrap my mind around . there seemed to be no natural pattern... no pattern at all. the twisted jagged colorful formations didn't match my database of landscape features. Neither rugged peaks, nor sloping rounded mounds. Random formations sprinkled over the landscape of mesas and buttes. There was so much flora i was unaware could exist in the desert. Within an hour's drive were mountains, retaining snow as the temperature in the lower elevations exceeded 100 F.

I had planned to stay for a year or more. apply for grad school later on but live there for a while. I arrived in May. The public transportation was not easy to use. Blocks could be a mile long. And buses were few and far in between. In Brooklyn I can hop a train or bus any time get to any location in NYC without waiting or walking. But as summer closed in and temperatures were reaching 115 F and I had no car, getting a job was a tough prospect.

With my roommate working (and only riding a motrcycle) and my other friend's car in bad shape and no gas I found myself languishing in the apartment all day.

By the time money had reached a low point, i decided I would have to go back with my tail between my legs. Still I had enough for some travelling. First I got an unlimited Greyhound pass for a couple weeks. I travelled up and down California down into Mexico and back to Vegas. Then rented a car and took some friends to Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon national parks. Those weeks were some of the most enjoyable times in my life. But then back I came.

I tired of psychology once the application process was under way. REturned to undergrad to finish a major in philosophy with the plan of getting a phd and becoming a professor. But that became loathsome soon enough. It was so difficult to get the degree let alone a tenure track position. Besides it was boring now. Perhaps when something goes from interest to responsibility, I grow to dislike the thing.

I got a job in a residence for mentally and developmentally disabled adults. The work was tough. I pretty much had to do everything from therapist to referee to chauffer doing shopping, laundry, teaching skills, holding the residence together. There was a case manage ment team of social workers, doctors etc... but they made up what the people in my care needed to do and have done for them while i was the one who had to make it happen. So if the doctor who saw the client for fifteen minutes a month said he had to do x,y, and z I had to get him where he would do it show him how day in and day out but that was only once i could convince him to do it. but all these guys wanted to do was sleep (they were mostly heavily medicated). Then there was records to keep, reports to make, medication to administer (records, inventory, ordering, blood pressure, weighing...).

My young helper was not much help. I was the "senior counselor." He didn' much care if things got done, didn't have to do much of anything for that matter. One day he was replaced by Chava. We are apart for a year and a half and I still cry every day. I still go to bed alone and am very much aware of her absence. My life is a living hell. But she is always the most prominent reason not her, but missing her. Wishing I could do things differently. Wishing She wasn't on the other side of the world. Wishing...

I was not attracted to her. Didn't talk to her much at first. One day she invited me to her apartment. I said "maybe" without any intention of coming through. But she had read an essay I had written. Something really out there. Not easily digested by the average reader. but she was hooked. Had I found somebody who got me? She asked why I hadn't come, and I who hadn't said I would agreed to the next week.

We ppracticed the Kama Sutra from the part where seduction and the rest ends and the good stuff begins, otherwise cover to cover. She was madly in love with me from day one. I on the other hand liked her, in bed and out, but was not looking to be tied down. I was a free spirit. Was. She was undeterred. letters, trinkets, presents, sex day and night, but I was not ready to commit to anything. Still I enjoyed her company. we could talk for hours. Hung out all the time worked together. And I saw a lonely person who wanted to be more alive. That's when I decided to take her on a trip to Maine. She had never done the kinds of things I loved to do. And I wanted to show her a world of wonder, of freedom, of spontaneity, of adventure. There was no turning back.  

At the time I had recently kicked a Vicodin (hydrocodone) addiction. I was still unhappy since my ability to produce endogenous opiates or endorphins (endogenous morphine)  which is essential for the ability to experience pleasure and joy had diminished while using artificial sources. But on our trip I was happier than I had been (much happier) and in addition to enjoying the activities I was enjoying spending time with Chava.

I was planning to begin graduate school in social work the following fall. My plan was to shoot for an easier degree in order to have something under my belt to launch a career and to further my education later on once I had ammassed some money and experience. I had chosen the State University of New York at Stony Brook to study. I thought I would drive to Stony Brook a couple times a week since it is in Long Island and not too far from Brooklyn while living at home for a while. In fact it turned out that there was a branch in Manhattan on weekends where I would take half of my classes not needing to leave the city at all except for one day a week.

In addition to classes there was field work I would have to do. The places available in the city were very limited however  since the main campus was in Long Island. I managedto get a placement in Brooklyn in an AIDS day treatment program. There I was the only white staff-member and none of the clients were white either. I was afraid that I would not be trusted or that people would dismiss me as unfamiliar with their problems especially since I had to get dressed in professional attire (something I avoid at all costs).

It also became clear that I was dealing with just about every aspect of the profession whereas most students focus on a single topic. I had to deal with death, disease, poverty, race, substance abuse, mental illness, etc... The icing on the cake was the fact that the woman who was to be my supervisor (who would direct me, review my work, help me with difficulties etc...) had quit the week before I started. So I found myself having to ask different members of the staff all of my questions. Nobody reviewed my work and told me if I needed to do something differently or how to approach a particular problem. Furthermore everyone took the liberty of dumping their excess caseloads on me. On class days I had to drive an hour and a half each way. I had about five hours between classes. I frequently drank between classes to pass the time.

I was becoming increasingly frustrated with my field placement and desperately wanted to change it. After numerous meetings with my placement advisor she found me a placement in the emergency room of a major hospital in the Bronx. Taking the subway from home at the southern end of Brooklyn meant going through Brooklyn continuing to southern manhattan still going north exiting the north end of manhattan continuing to the north end of the Bronx. A 2 1/2 hour trip at least. Driving would not help because I'd be caught in countless traffic jams and probably take longer.

Now I was working in a chaotic, frantic environment, where I had a supervisor. Only he was the opposite extreme of zero supervision. Constant reports. Reviews. Assignments. Even home work (i was under the impression that field work was in the field. homework i got from class). Before I knew it mid terms were approaching and I had barely opened my books.

One morning I woke up having to go to my field work and I grew hysterical. Paralyzed by panic and fear. Hating what I was doing. I was screaming, crying, racing around like a headless chicken. Chava told me to take the day off. I did. And I never returned. Somehow I completely fell to pieces in one day, and I am still trying to put them back together.

Chava had become my entire world. I felt completely dependent on her. When she had to go to Israel for her sisters wedding, and left for two weeks I became so depressed I did not leave my bed at all while she was gone. I began taking various pills to keep me asleep. Some were prescribed, others I got from foriegn pharmacies over the internet. I needed stimulants to counter the effects of all the depressants whenever I had to do something.

Then I made a new discovery. A store that sold dried flowers. Including dried opium poppies. I would crush up a dozen bulbs and make a tea out of them. My brother had used this tea in place of heroin for extended periods, so this was not a mild buzz but a serious narcotic. I'm talking in place of two bundles a day habit (a bundle is 10 bags of heroin).

Once again I was addicted to opiates. This addiction would be much harder to kick than the vicodin. Over the course of three weeks Using oxycodone I tapered it down a pill a day (oxycodone is the narcotic in percocet/percodan and oxycontin. much stronger than hydrocodone). I refused to go to a detox. after being arrested a few times the idea of being locked up in a hospital or anywhere was unthinkable. The agony was tremendous. Already prone to anxiety, panic, depression and other emotional problems the withdrawal made them exponentially worse.  The physical symptoms paled in comparison. I wanted to jump out of my skin. clawing at myself, at the walls. nevr a break. i could not sleep so it was twenty four/seven.

When it ended I was a shell of a person. Amazingly (to me) Chava still loved me.

She decided she wanted to move to Las Vegas (based on my stories I suppose, and it was near California where she had family but not in California). However she could never hold onto a job for long and she wanted to take all of her posessions (a lot of stuff) with her. Getting a u-haul trailer to take cross country was close to 2000 (really sucks it would cost 50 or so if we were moving in the same city and they always get somebody coming with stuff so us leaving wouldn't leave them with no trailer till it could be returned. People move to new york every day dragging a u-haul) we also needed a car able to drag the trailer. We found a Ford Explorer that would cost around 4,000 with repairs. How did we get the money? I had always been good with my credit cards... until then. Maxed out one card. And away we went. 2000 miles later up and down the Rockies we arrived. Having served its purpose the Explorer died.

So we got an apartment paying first and last month's rent and security deposit. We also needed another car. So another card bit the dust. I had always been a drinker but it was usually a side dish for some other substance. But on Vegas I had no connections. Being in a perpetual state of depression and anxiety i always had a half gallon of Absolut in the freezer. I would wake up and have an 8 ounce eye-opener saying that's it for today. But somehow by the end of the day the whole bottle would dissappear.

There wasn't a day that I did not drink. Chava would come home to find me passed out there would be a mess. Sometimes I had completely blacked out the events of the day. Like when the toilet was cracked in two and the apartment flooded in three inches of water. I have no clue what happened.

Despite all I had put her through, Chava stayed by me. More she decided she wanted to marry me. Perhaps she was under pressure from her parents because we were 'living in sin.' I did not feel ready and again put up some resistance. In the end I gave in.

For all the hell I put her through I always desired her happiness and had delusions about how much I was affecting her and everyone else I knew. Friends no longer wanted me around but I attributed it to different things.

Always going above and beyond to please her (drunkenness aside). Everything I did was original.Planned. A demonstration of my love. The gifts, the trips, intangibles. Nothing prepackaged, everything had a message thought out, a difficult decision.

One day I could not hold down anything I ate or drank. I began to feel pain in my upper abdomen. As things intensified I called my brother who was a resident or intern had finished med school at any rate. He said it was probably pancreatitis. It turned out to be accute pancreatitis that was so severe infection had spread to my lungs and other organs. At first I didn't comprehend the severity of my situation. The pain had not reached a fraction of what it would be in the coming weeks. Eating and drinking would cause further inflamation and I had to by hydrated, and recieve nutrition via iv drip. I was delerious from alcohol withdrawal and understood nothing. I kept pulling the needles out of my veins and trying to get some water for my parched throat. The catheter was something more difficult to undo. I didn't know how it worked all I knew was that pulling at it caused intense pain and bleeding from my penis.

Eventually they ran out of veins to stick. They threaded a tube through some vessel that led directly to my aorta. I had a demerol drip for the pain. Synthetic morphine around the clock. Still the pain was enormous and with the alcohol withdrawal getting worse I recall a time wheremy bones ached so bad I couldn't press the button to give me a demerol injection. Another time the ultrasound guy was prodding and pressing and as far as I could tell he was giving me the beating of a lifetime. Oxygen masks, albuterol treatments five times a dayand this tool to build my lungs up again where I had to inhale and keep the balls in succeeding compartments each requiring more pull each containing one more ball than the last, I couldn't even lift the first ball in the first compartment at first.

I did not eat or drink for a month and a half in the icu all that time. Pancreatitis comes from drinking or gall stones. i didn't have any gallstones