All The While It was An Experience Worth Having

I was FORCED to be a Drug Addict: LONG before i Knew what a drug was...


I grew up in what would appear, from the outside, to be your standard American middle class family. At first my parents both had jobs and were able to provide for their children. We were by NO means rich, but what we lacked in financial security we have always made up for with Love from one family member to another. We Bischoff's always prided ourselves on being a very close-knit family.

I am one of three children in the Bischoff family. There is me and my twin brother, Jeff, and our older sister Erica. One could be forgiven for making the assumption that me and my brother, having been born on the same day, would be very much alike. When in reality ... nothing could be further from the truth. Physically we do not even look likewere related. I am about 1 inch taller than him, he weighs nearly 20 pounds more than me. i have long blond hair, he has short dark brown, almost black, hair. he has a full wolverine style beard, i can scarsley grow facial hair. and in-so-far as we look nothing alike, we also ACT nothing alike. starting from birth we had our differences. at first not overwhelmingly noticable, but the older and older we got, the more pronounced our
variances became. somewhere around 2nd grade i let my anger slip to the point i threw a chair at my teacher and kicked out a plate glass window. this decision would single handedly form the entirety of the rest of my life in one fell swoop. for better or worse, it all began there. For after that incident, parents took me to a psychiatrist, who proceeded to diagnose me with ADHD, AND I WAS IN-TURN, placed on ADHD medication. at the time being ritalin. later switched to Adderall. And Thus began my life-long affair with chemicals. and chemical dependency. over the years my
medications were switched around. added to and taken away. but at its core has always been 30mg of Adderall ( or similar stimulant) 3x a day. everyday. for around 15 years... (from 6-20) That is so
ridiculous to give that much pharmacuitical grade speed to a still developing child. who, in many cases, hasnt even BEGUN developing yet.


So yea, just as my mind and body began to develop. for the FIRST TIME. IN LIFE... suddenly all these ridiculously high grade stimulants are being forced down my throat. Really now, thinking about
it... I reckon its around 18 - 20 that the primary, most fundamentaly formative development of your most basic mental faculties begins to reach its conclusion. and me...having taken this ungodly
mentally corruptive narcotic, basically from self-awareness till college... well my brain Started, and for the better part Finished, the most Basic Formative Development a brain will ever go
through... on drugs. Speed. Meth basically.

I told my parents at least a thousand times growing up how much i HATED the way these pills made me feel. But they wouldnt have ANY of that. Because from their point of view, The Meds were Working.

Honestly, looking back on it, i cant really blame them for what they did: IM NOT SAYING WHAT THEY DID WAS RIGHT; BUT THEY DIDDN'T KNOW IT WAS WRONG... But truely, from a non-biased
perspective, what was done to me as a small child and all growing up, really couldnt have been good for any human in ANY condition. the way the meds effected me, and the way they were percieved
from the outside looking In... break down as follows:


FROM MY PARENTS P.O.V.- Ritalin/Adderall was a miracle drug. it took this Loud, Ornery, Rambunctious child, and turned him into a Quiet, Peaceful, Mellow Mannered kid. it was Ostensibly the Perfect
Med. Accomplishing everything the parents desired.


FROM MY P.O.V.- Everythign is SO FUCKED UP. Before being prescribed the drug, perhaps i was a bit unruley, what kid isnt? But whatever, anyway. After taking this stimulant, it puts my mind into
HARDCORE, UNREMITTING OVERDRIVE. Causing non-stop analytical impulses, which invariably (at such high dosages) lead to NEVER ENDING self OVER Analyzation. And NOT in a good way. these pills filled
me with relentless Anxiety, uncomfortablness, Fidgetyness, Nervous-Apprehensive-PARANOIA. That NEVER... WENT... AWAY... These Emotions would HAUNT me for YEARS AND YEARS at a time. So, being that
Hyper Apprehensivley Overanalytical of EVERYTHING you do or say out of Physical Uncomfortableness and Psychological Apprehension of being Judged brought on by Anxious Paranoia induced by
overmedication of Powerful Psycoactive Stimulants ... Causes you to SHUT DOWN... Totally. You dont speak because the apprehension and paranoia make it impossible not to feel judged. While at the
same time all these stimulants are making it impossible to shut your brain off overdrive.


So when you combine Relentless Hyper Active Thought - with Debilitating Nervous Apprehension shutting down your willingness to speak aloud


You get Overloaded System Malfunction-

- It would take a far more educated man than myself to explain all the intricate ins and outs of what in my brain suffered these malfunctions, or how to fix them

All i can say is that it caused me to grow through my childhood, adolescense, and early manhood, existing ONLY inside my head. A Pharmasuitically Enduced Introvert to the Unhealthiest of Extreems.

It became such an overwhelming problem that i actually had to teach myself how to &Come Out of my Shell& if you will...All i knew was what these drugs made me NOT want to do. And so i would
slowly figure out what the exact opposite of that would be. then occasionally not take my medication for a day, allowing me to function halfway normal for that day, and put these newly formulated
social hypotheses to the test. and see what works. clearly not everything would be succesful. but slowly, over the years, my furtive day long Adderall vacations allowed me to test my social
hypothesis and cognitive theories.

Overtime i learned what worked and what diddnt. Unfortunatly i couldnt put these practices to the test AT WILL. Because, as i said before, i suffered debilitating deppression, brought on by
Paralytic levels of of Nervous Fearful Apprehension of speaking aloud brought on by what what can only be  descibed as Pharmacuitacaly Enduced Paranoia triggered by long term involuntary
stimulant abuse. So no matter how much my short med breaks allowed me to learn how to interact and think normally, yhere was no way for me to put it to use in any regular manner with my mind in
permanent system overload/shutdown.

Keep in mind - all the syptoms i have described thus far. were all the predominant problems i suffered with from BEFORE my 13th Birthday...

As i got a bit older- the Insufferable Deppresive Paranoid Anxiety was still constantly there, but i began to discover ways of teaching myself how to figure out healthy ways of communicating,
without the day longvacations.


So around 8th or 9th grade i got a bit better at Knowing HOW to communicate with ppl. But i still COULDNT do it because of the Psychological-Pharmacuiticaly Induced Meltdown, my psyche never got a
moments break from.

Needless to say Junior High and early Highschool were spent with No Friends. My only comfort or satisfaction came in the form of video games, primarily &Deus Ex&


Entering my Junior year of highschool i began experimenting with drugs and alcohol again. The only other time being my 13yr old - one night- Extacy, Meth, and Beer adventure. brought on by my
sisters boyfriend, now husband. but i digress. as a junior i started smoking weed and drinking beer <2 deppresants> and  even though i was still on the Adderall, the pot and beer made it
easier to lower my inhibitions and get over these ridiculously unhealthy medicaly induced introverted isolation. so finally, at around 17, i was begining to be able to put all that social,
psychological knowledge i had gained through all those one day med vacations into practical use. and what i found was: the conclusions i had reached from age 10 to 15 proved by in large correct at
17. So junior and Senior year of high school- still medicated, but drinking and smoking, i finally began shedding a bit of that Depressingly Isolated skin. and by the end of high school, i managed
to use all of that self-teaching to elevate myself to a pretty popular, well-liked guy. I actually had some confidence in myself. For the FIRST time... EVER.


UNFORTUNATLY... the only way i was able  to achieve this, or so i thought, was  by getting innebriated. Theres a quote I will never  forget that Chelsea Bednarik said to me around my
Senior year of high schol. it was short. and to the point. and OVERWHELMINGLY Accurate.

&You dont like being Sober do You?&

It diddnt mean much to me at the time. because i did not yet think there was a problem. That I Had A Problem...


I went to College at Texas State in San Marcos knowing NOTHING about it. I quickly surmised that nearly every single person i ever met on that campus was getting High. All Day. Every Day. It was
wierd to meet someone who diddnt. So my first year there i started smoking ALOT of Weed and Drinking ALOT of Beer and experimenting with Extacy and Coke.

Then I went home for Summer...

when i was in my house, alone, i was looking around the living room for god knows what, but what i ended up stumbling onto was an old shoebox on the fireplace containg a myriad of pill bottles.
Innocently enough i began rummaging through them a little bit. they turned out to be all my dads medications, he had quite alot of medical problems, inducing great amounts of never ceasing pain.
Well one of the bottles i got my hands onto read &Oxyontin 40mg&. i had 0 ida what these pills were, i just knew i had heard them mentioned in a few rap songs. so i figured that might be
worth trying out. I popped 2 of them, drove to my best friends house. We sat in hid backyard, opened his laptop, turned onthe itunes visualizer, playing Daft Punk &Technologic&.  And
thats when it happend. thats when my life changed forever. Those 2 little Oxys kicked in, and for the first time in my life... I was in LOVE. Not with a woman... But with a feeling.


All my life i lived in fear of that little orange pill (Adderall) because i hated everything about how it made me feel, and subsequently live my life. Everything i percieved as negative in my life,
was instigated by a FEELING, brought on by a pill.

Well back to to Daft Punk, Oxycontin, and Technologic. All of the sudden i started sinking into my chair. the Paranoid, Anxious, Nervousness was immediatly replaced with a Warm, Mellow,
Comfortable, Euphoric BLISS!

I never knew such a feeling could exist.

but Now, 19 yrs old, all of the sudden- not only did i know this feeling DID exist. AND what pill would induce it.  but i had a virtually unlimited
supply of it just sitting there. right out in the open in the middle of my parents living room. No Lock, No Key, No Nothing... Not Yet...

Summer ended and I go Back to college and decide, &you know what. Enough is enough. im done with all day everyday Adderall Psychosis.  So i stopped taking them, except for tests and finals
time. a few days a month. and looking back on it now, i see that could have been the trigger that set my Mind, Body, and Spirit FREE.  I would have been off this life long poison, and knowing
what i know now, i would have realized that being truely happy, from within,  through total abstinance  of mind altering substances, feels SO much better than any type of Self-Medication
on the market.

Unfortunatly i had just discovered Oxycontin. and evrything i had ever experianced thus far in my life, led me to believe that this magic called Opiates, was the only way for ME to achieve the kind
of Physical Comfort, Psychological Stability, Intellectual Competence, and Succesful Interpersonal Abilities i had been yearning for since i threw that chair at my teacher...

Those are the things i always wanted. And those are the thing Adderall took away from me.

From experiance, i now know that had i discontinued taking Adderall, and given up getting high, BEFORE i discovered my Dads Oxycontin. That would have been the very key to turning my life around
before it ever turned to shit. like Real- Grown up- SHIT...

UNFORTUNATLY, i discovered oxycontin BEFORE i discovered the benifits of of abstention from Adderall and all other drugs, and alcohol. So unfortunatly  my slow, gradual, at the time
impercievable shift into Deeply Disturbed Drug User began to take its hold.

There is a transition every junkie goes through, whether they realize it or not. that point where they go from using their drug of choice recreationaly, just to catch a buzz here and there for fun.
to the point they are now ABUSING this drug in an Dependant way, as the only means to mask the pain and turmoil they feel inside. that is the path to Severe Drug Addiction.

I ended up getting kicked out of college after the end of my sophmore year due to various repercussions related to partying. And I LOST EVERYTHING...

I went from having:

- My Girlfriend I Loved - All my Great Friend I also Loved - Living on my own, among friend and my Girlfriend -Being in a City I Loved -At a School I Adored

...

To having to move back home with Mommy and Daddy

-No personal freedom -No friends -No NOTHING

My use of drugs and Alcohol Ultimately cost me EVERYTHING...

Whatever deppression i had before was now compounded exponentially. Looking back it could not be more obvious that this was my transition point from recreation to habit. The only thing that brought
me any solice now was Oxycontin. So i used the oxys now, not to combat the Adderall which i had now finally stopped taking.  but to alleviate the non stop physical and emotional heartbreak i
was experiancing every second of every minute of every hour of every day. Because of Losing my WHOLE LIFE. The Life it took me my WHOLE LIFE to Achieve.

So there I am, living at Home, with no one and nothing. save oxycontin. So i started abusing that Oxy like my life depended on it. Because in my mind, at this point, it kinda did... my life became
a monontinous routine of isolation and nothingness. There were several variations on the fundamental routine including probation, my dad getting a safe. that i would get into. and he would get a
better one. that i would also get into. back and forth. blah blah blah.

5 years passed this way... in the blink of a eye... I got high on myfirst opiate at 19 years old. Blinked my eyes, and was immediatly a 25 year old junkie. who has been effectivly comatose for 5
continuous years. For a myriad of reasons my parents had enough of it. They kicked me out of the house with nothing but my car, and only because it was in my name. a 2007 dodge charger. this was
the begining of my self titles "North-Side Junkie" Experiance.

Long story short, i was homeless on the North-Side of Houston for 4 or 5 months. I ended up getting arrested like 8 different times on something like 11 charges. But right at the begining of this
adventure, the first day in fact, i could no longer get Oxys, but an old probation buddy of mine just happened to hit me up for the first time in many years. he was stranded in houston and asked if
i could come pick him up. and it just so happens that he wanted to get some Heroin. By that time my internal situation had become quite bad, i was already smoking roxys, and smoking Fentanyl
patches. But now it was Heroin or nothing. And as far as i knew at that point Nothing wasnt an option. So Heroin it was.

I ended up getting myself thrown on Felony Probation in Harris County while i was on the Northside. but on that probation you only have to take a drug test when you see your probation officer. And
you only see your p.o. once a month. and they tell you at every appointment EXACTLY when your next months appointment is going to be. so that allowed me to get high on dope between visits. but
diddnt leave me enough time to smoke weed and still pass a drug test. I diddnt much care for uppers. and my psychological state was far to unstable to dabble in any hallucinogens. So Heroin/opiates
was my only viable option.I wasnt on Adderall much anymore, but the Misery that had progressivly built up my whole life was still there.

Before i got in trouble, my dad and I had set forth a plan for me to develop the life i always wanted. he was going to foot the bill for the first year for me to move to California and pursue my
life-long dream of Acting, or writing, or drawing. anything creative. That type of creative career is the only thing i have ever been passionate about, and it made me happy to know i still had a
shot, with my Best Friend//Father as my financial backer and moral supporter//motivator, but before we had a chance to implement our plan, i got put on that Felony probation. But ultimatly, despite
anything that came up or how mad at eachother we got, my dad and I stayed the course. All the while on my probation we were counting down the days till my probation was over, at which point i was
immediatly heading for hollywood. after 2 years had passed, my probation was almost over, just a few months to go, i went to one of my final court dates... and they locked me up on the spot. they
were tring to revoke my probation on something like 6 grounds. ALL of which i had provided documentation and explenations for and turned them in previously to my probation officer. and all of them
had been forgiven before i ever showed up for that court date. but regardless.. the way it went down was that they told me i was being placed in jail for a revocation of probation. my Dad was the
one who drove me to that court date, as he did with ALL my court dates. so he was in the courtroom when they placed me in handcuffs. i told him i love him and off to jail i went. I wasnt terribly
nervous about the whole thing. i knew with absolute certainty that every one of the grounds they were trying to revoke me for, had already been discussed and explained with my P.O. of which i
provided legal and medical and all other neccessary documentation. so i had very little fear of actually having my probation terminated and being sent to prison. so this was just a long hastle i
had to go threw and deal with. really the worst part was knowing that i was going to get severely dope sick while i was in there, which i did. but nothing more.

My first day in, I call my dad and ask if he can put commisary money on my books, which he says he will. The second day i call him and my mom answers the phone. She tells me they are all at the
hospital because dad is very sick. and unfortunatly he is now in a coma... this was pretty horrible to hear,but i certainly diddnt give up hope or thior anything. He had chronic medical problems
and had come back from a situation like this bef

I call back the 3rd day to learn to learn that he has crashed 3 times and everyone including my lawyer was doing everything in their power to get a rush order to let me out of jail IMMEDIATLEY!

I call back one more time...

My whole life up till this point had been nothing but a series of "The Worst Thing That Has Ever Happened to Me" ... So Far


My brother answeres the phone...


"He's Gone"


The only thing i could even think to utter was, "Well get him back"


"They Can't."


"We Can't."


"It's to Late."


"He's Gone"


I Broke Down Crying in front of 49 other inmates. Fuck Them who cares.

My rush order finally goes through and i am rushed out of jail in 45 minutes

To little, to late.

Hes been dead for hours

I didn't get to be there... I wasnt able to comfort him in his final time of need...

I Never Got To Say GOODBYE...

That was me Finally hitiing the proverbial "Rock Bottom"

Thats was the point where all these terrible things that had happened to me my whole life, Each one me thinking is the worst thing that could ever happen, Each one having fueled my drug addiction
deeper and deeper, came into focus as the comparatively trivial matters this unparraled devastation came to make me realize they were.

I have illustrated thusfar the serious of terrible decisions and actions and repercusssions that have defined my life. Each one being "The worst thing that could ever Happen"... Until The worst thing ACTUALLY DID HAPPEN. its astonishing how quickly all these life changing "trajedies" pale in comparison and fall by the way side in the wake of such overwhelming heartbreak.

That was the point I said "NO MORE"

I threw out any and all remaining dope. i told my dealers never to deal with me again.

And i Got Clean...

That is when I finally, at 28 years old, realized that not being on Adderall, not being on opiates, or other drugs, or smoking weed. Not introducing ANY kind of mind altering substance into my sytem AT ALL ...

Allowed my mind to function properly. I remember finally thinking "Oh my God, So this is what Life is like..."

Because my mind had been paralyzed by opiates for nearly 10 years, and Amped out of control from Adderall for 10 years before that, putting down the drugs AND not being on any Adderall, allowed my mind to function unadulterated for the first time since i had thrown a chair at my teach SO LONG AGO... I Remember noting that it was like my Mind was Waking Up. I spent my entire life learning HOW to socialize and think intellectually. But i was never able to utilize it due to one addiction or another.

Now drug free and having faced the worst thing imaginable... I had the know how, and the desire, to live Life AS a LIFE. And now I had the Mental Capacity Free of Drugs to make it happen. I
remember thinking it was like my newly awakened mind was seeing the world in 14 different dimensions. I had spent so long storing away little stockpiles of how to be human and think intelligently.
Now i had the non-sedated bain power to USE it. And I tell Ya.. being a smart, intellectualy driven, psychosocially capable person, and using it... Really is exponentialy better than any High I have ever Had.

Drugs masked the pain of the misery suppressing the happiness i always wished i had.

Now i actually have the happiness.

I wish like Hell it hadnt taken nearly 30 years of others making wrong decisions for me... Leading me to making bad decisions for myslef... Because of how i felt over all the circumstances that
affected my life... But were out of my control.

There were Wrong Decisions Made on All Sides.

But no one can EVER say that i totally and comletley brought this on myself

I was lead down a Dark Path before I was Self-Aware.

Ive done my best, and sometimes my worst. But always in an impossible situation.


My Name is Christopher James Bischoff;

and I have lived a Life that wasnt POSSIBLE to get Right...