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    Black Koi Tattoo: Chasing the Dragon, A Memoir
    Black Koi Tattoo: Chasing the Dragon, A Memoir
    Black Koi Tattoo: Chasing the Dragon, A Memoir
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    Black Koi Tattoo: Chasing the Dragon, A Memoir

    By Christopher Padgett

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    About this ebook

    Addiction is recoverable. Take the dark journey with author Christopher Padgett to explore the depths of this illness. Black Koi Tattoo: Chasing the Dragon, a Memoir journals the attempts, failures, and success of gaining sobriety after years of abusing, and being addicted to, alcohol. Features two new short stories.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristopher Padgett
    Release dateJan 2, 2015
    ISBN9781310691010
    Black Koi Tattoo: Chasing the Dragon, A Memoir
    Author

    Christopher Padgett

    Christopher Padgett grew up in Alton, Illinois. When he was 21 (in 1996), he met and married his current wife. Since then, they have had three kids. They have been exceedingly fortunate to live abroad for a number of years. Much of the material he writes is set in either Germany or Korea, both of which he has called home. Mr. Padgett currently lives in Clarksville, Tennessee with his wife, three kids, and pug.

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      Book preview

      Black Koi Tattoo - Christopher Padgett

      Black Koi Tattoo:

      Chasing the Dragon

      A Memoir

      By

      Christopher Padgett

      Copyright 2015 Christopher Padgett

      Smashwords Edition

      Names of people in this book have been omitted to ensure their privacy.

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

      All rights reserved.

      Cover design by Tatiana Vila

      Published 2 January 2015

      as a gift to myself for my 40th birthday…

      Table of Contents

      Forward

      The Army Years

      Life as a Civilian

      Back in the Army

      From Afghanistan to Addiction

      Morning Coffee

      Detox Journal

      Rehab Writings

      Return from Rehab

      Afterward

      About the Author

      "Addiction will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer

      than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay."

      Forward

      The title, Black Koi Tattoo: Chasing the Dragon, refers to a tattoo I got in the summer of 2014. It's a black koi swimming down my right arm from the shoulder. In traditional Japanese folklore, the koi swims up a waterfall where it turns into a dragon. Tradition says that when the koi tattoo swims down, it represents a struggle or life obstacle that has been overcome. In my case, it is my successful rehabilitation from addiction to sobriety. The second meaning of the title, Chasing the Dragon, comes from my morbid compulsory pursuit of the perfect high. Unlike the koi, the transformation to a dragon never occurred. Although the demon in the bottle did create a monster, it is one far more dangerous than the mythical dragon.

      This book is in no way an attempt to glamourize alcohol abuse or to justify the things I have done. It was a struggle that came close to costing me my life. Just as the koi fish struggles to swim upstream, I had an uphill battle against an enemy that had me completely surrounded. Not only did the drinking attempt to kill me, trying to become, and staying sober ran me through another gauntlet. Even though the deadly struggle is over, the daily challenges will never completely end. My koi swims down my arm, breaking free of the surrounding water, as I have broken free of the poisonous waters of my addiction.

      I was a slave to the demon in the bottle. Every aspect of my life revolved around my next drink. Hours, days, and maybe even months of my life have been completely lost in absolute blackouts. Every part of the mind functions during those periods except for the memory. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I woke up and had no idea how I had gotten home from the night before. Much of what I know of my blacked out periods came together from clues – i.e. damage to my car that wasn't there the day before; no money in my wallet; the foul stench of bar clothes mixed with the unsavoury scent of a freshly soiled bed; or bruises, cuts, or other damage to my body. Imagine coming out of a blackout to realize someone stabbed you in the neck. With no memory of it, there was no way to pin blame on anyone. Other times, my wife would tell me how she found me sitting up naked in my bed, crying like a baby, completely out of my mind. These were near the end of my drinking career, when I had lost any semblance of sanity relating to my ability to drink like a normal person.

      Seven weeks after I checked into a German hospital for detoxification, I entered an addiction facility in the United States. During those seven weeks, I attempted sobriety the way a blind man attempts to see. The first couple weeks went by with white-knuckled success. Then I had my first slip. A few days later, I had my first post-detox binge. I was losing the battle. The dragon's fiery breath was again in my face. I would do my best to stay clean during the week just to indulge on the weekends. This awful cycle continued until someone stabbed me in the neck. I found two German police officers in my dining room asking me questions I could not answer. That was three days before I checked myself into the Eisenhower Residential Treatment Facility in Augusta, Georgia.

      The book includes two short stories. These stories round out my experiences of being an addict. Morning Coffee tells the story of needing to go to a treatment facility. Return from Rehab discusses the struggles of emerging from the pink cloud. It is a disjointed narrative that reflects the still broken psyche I suffered at that time. This is followed by The Army Years, Life as a Civilian, and Back in the Army. It shows the progression of my drinking from being controllable to the point where rehab was necessary. Detox Journal and Rehab Writings comprise the middle parts of the book. The Afterward discusses my post-rehabilitated life.

      The Army Years

      I didn't just wake up a drunkard. The signs were there for many years before I finally realized the breadth of my problem. Aside from the typical adolescent stupidity, my alcohol use as a teen was pretty normal. It started to change after I joined the Army, and went to Advanced Individual Training at Fort Gordon, Georgia in 1997. After the first couple weeks of being on lock-down, the drill sergeants allowed us to go to the on-post sports bar on the weekends. Sharing in the unofficial Army past time of throwing back a few amongst fellow soldiers became the norm.

      From Fort Gordon, I went straight to Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, South Korea. It was a twelve month unaccompanied tour, which meant a full year away from my wife of seven months, and my five month old daughter. I was twenty-two at the time, had never lived on my own, and was now in the real Army. Korea was a disorienting experience. Life was fast, alcohol was cheap, potent, and plentiful, not to mention the language and cultural barriers. When I first got there, I didn’t enjoy getting drunk. I still believed that we should be respectful to our host nation. The dangers of getting butt-raped in a dark alley, or dying in our sleep from over-indulgence were real possibilities. Those ideas went away over the next few months. By the time I boarded a plane for Dallas to see my wife and daughter for a couple weeks in 1998, I was already a seasoned drunk.

      My first encounter with the demon in the green bottle, soju, was almost my last. I drank seven glasses of soju punch at a bar. Everything was fine until I stood up. I sat back down and immediately wondered how I was going to walk the two miles back to my barracks. By the time I walked the ten feet to the exit, I was already wobbling, the world swaying in a technicolour swirl. I only remember parts of the walk back, including trying to fight a tree, and losing

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