Bite Me, Spank Me, Make Me Write Hot Checks

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

She felt like Bukowski if she drank at any point while writing.

Oh, Arkansas. What a friend, what a feeling of belonging, one that she’d never experienced anywhere or any time else.

Quick stats: Somewhere in 2021, random anonymous drug testing was done on all urine samples received by doctors across the state, and 30% were positive for meth. And meth users don’t even typically make or keep doctor appointments, so what does that signify, do you think?

The year she lost her husband, but gained a family.

The year she lost an abusive family, but gained a handpicked one. You can pick your nose, and you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your friends’ noses, or whatever.

The year she slept outside in her own hometown, but elsewhere found a home.

The year she gained the motherlode of drug and alcohol tolerances, but shed a drug and alcohol habit.

The year she lost her partner, her buddy, her best friend, but gained independence. Gained an identity.

The year half of her friends went missing, but she found camaraderie amidst the anxiety.

The year of whiskey.

The year of getting lost, over and over again.

The year of beautiful photographs.

The year of two-headed cows.

The year of her most abusive dating relationship, and the year she learned to never again date men of that weak caliber. The year the lesson stuck.

The year of self-flagellation. The year of self-discipline. The year of changes. The year of miracles.

High doses of psychostimulants are associated with cognitive impairments, including poor working memory, inattention, impulsivity, and delay discounting. Such cognitive impairment significantly contributes to relapse and the escalation of drug intake and results from drug-induced dysfunction of the dorsolateral, ventrolateral, and lateral prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex. For example, working-memory impairments have been associated with higher levels of alcohol, methamphetamine, and cocaine use in both humans and rats.

She felt like Bukowski whenever she drank while writing.

The year of drinking while she wrote.

Other individuals may quickly develop a pattern of chronic and heavy use that is caused by either conscious or unconscious attempts to self-medicate existing negative emotional states. Such individuals often have preexisting conditions that generate powerful negative emotional states, such as posttraumatic stress disorders, sexual abuse, major depressive disorder, or anxiety disorder, and will use drugs to obtain relief from these negative emotional states. However, chronic high-dose binge-like patterns of drug intake can cause the development of negative emotional states and ultimately drive self-medication of a state that is created by the drug itself. Ultimately, both the binge/intoxication stage and withdrawal/negative affect stage will contribute to a pathological state of compulsive drug seeking and taking.

Lined up like Bukowski’s women were the men in her wake.

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December 10, 2024

chasing whiskey with beer,

i'm going to fix my life today

chasing weed with cigarettes,

i'm going to fix my life today

chasing the meth bong

with ethel cain,

i'm going to fix my life today

---

Furthermore, use is higher among low-income and unemployed young white males. In depressed or economically vulnerable rural areas and small towns, young white males who have little hope for economic improvement may turn to meth, which is more readily available and less expensive than other illicit drugs.

Meth is highly addictive and because it is not metabolized as rapidly as other stimulants, such as cocaine, the rush or euphoric state lasts several hours. The adverse physiological effects from meth abuse include convulsions, dangerously high body temperature, stroke, cardiac arrhythmia, tooth loss, stomach cramps, shaking, and, with prolonged use, brain damage. Acute and long-term psychological and behavioral problems from meth abuse include paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, rage and violence.

Over the past few years, 38 U.S. states reported that methamphetamine was their greatest drug threat. From 1990 to 2005, methamphetamine seizures increased by 562% compared with 49% for cocaine and 75% for marijuana.

Meth use is higher in rural areas, and a recent study finds that rural users have more medical and psychiatric problems that may inhibit recovery than their urban counterparts. Rates of psychosis, for example, are approximately 1.5 times higher among rural meth users.

The perfect set of conditions had to all come together to create the culture and mores that we have here today-- and nobody'd ever know it unless they maybe got stranded there, if their car broke down, if they lost their phone and debit card, or left them behind at one of the 18 residential faith-based free labor camps- pardon, I meant "rehabs"-- because god knows, nobody who isn't from here ever moves here. Why would they? To drive through it, it looks like nothing. Some fields, a river. Closest store of any kind to Oil Trough is a 30 minute drive. They don't even have a mailman. There is no ambulance, no sheriff, no firetruck, no medical care- not there, and not in all of Thida, not in all of Rosie, not in all of Salado, not anywhere down Blackland Road; But you know what there is? 

A few hundred fighting roosters. Gorgeous black asils, ready for sparring, perched atop their blue buckets. Throughout the day and night, a chorus of their voices repeatedly rises up to a crescendo: "Fucking help me!" they crow. "Fucking help me!" And on Rooster Road, they always begin at 3:45 am. Never any later, never any less. 3:44, 3:46, at most. They never miss their bus, I take it. 3:42am, outside in the pitch black peaceful autumn silence for a cigarette? Not even the hum of a highway can be heard this time of night on Rooster Road, and no light pollution along the horizon from neighboring cities, as there are none- But what's that? You jump plum out of your skin with alarm as you hear a shrrrieeekkk so loud it's as if it's in the chair next to you. Fucking help me!

Since bootleggers and moonshine, rural areas have produced illegal substances. However, methamphetamine is vastly different from moonshine. Meth is manufactured by mixing several ingredients, some of which are toxic: pseudoephedrine, ether, paint thinner, freon, acetone, iodine crystals, brake cleaner, drain cleaner, battery acid, and anhydrous ammonia, a nitrogen fertilizer common on many farms and ranches.

—the relationships between local economy, agriculture, the lasting impact of the civil war, out-of-date government infrastructure, out-of-touch court system, very low population density, lack of surveillance, generational poverty, lack of educational opportunities, geographical isolation (with no one moving in and no one moving out), distrust of law enforcement, distrust of government, distrust of big corporations—

Methamphetamine has exploded across most of the country, explaining at least in part, the 5-fold increase in death rates due to methamphetamine since 2010. Deaths associated with methamphetamine have increased 5-fold since 2010, along with increasing reports of methamphetamine confiscations by law enforcement.