15 Days

The first time we learn to write either our

parents or our teachers usually teach us. We trust
these people and we are naturally born and bred
to believe they are supposed to take care of us.
When they put the pen in our hand for the first
time we trust that its not going to hurt us: its not
hot to the touch, not bright or obscene, just simple
and useful. By the 10,000 time we pick up that pen
we are doing it without consciously remembering
the power it holds, our personal responsibility for
what we do with it, or if its even a tool anymore or
just an extension of self it becomes totally familiar.
How many times have I heard that blaring roar
of an ambulances siren in the distance and paid no
mind to it? It becomes so familiar that we forget
that blaring is just a dirge without a symphony; a
dirge so familiar that it barely evokes curious
sympathy from those who hear it. Today was
different, I was 13 years old, doubled over in pain
and vomiting blood, little did I know that usually
distant and annoying sound, now personal and
frightening, would become the soundtrack to my
journey towards total defamiliarization with the
world I once knew. The dirge continued as the pain

intensified; both perpetually roaring for all 27 miles

down Rt. 287.
Like our teachers and our parents we are
taught to trust doctors they transcend our
naturally inquisitive nature of new people directly
into a position in which we entrust literally
everything to them even our most important
possession, our health.
Lyrics? 40mg Esomeprazole IV, 200mg
Cimetidine orally, 30mg Oxycodone TR orally, and
4mg Morphine IV as soon as possible the doctor
calmly ordered the ICU nurse in front of my mother
and I. I like to tell myself today that if she knew the
consequences of that order, that one decision, for
the 13 year old boy laying on the stretcher in front
of her or for the very same 22 year old man laying
on the floor covered in vomit and sweat of a detox
10 years from then maybe, just maybe, she
wouldnt have been so quick to prescribe pure
poison.
What a fucking iconic moment for this guy.
Like the first time we are taught to pick up the pen,
I was taught how to pick up my own destruction by
someone society molded me into trusting
someone I believed was supposed to take care of
me.

Lets skip ahead a bit: 5 years, an unusually

severe ulcerative colitis diagnosis, and around 60
monthly opiate prescriptions later to the only
words I cared about hearing for the past week
more lyrics fuck getting that letter that I was
accepted to my dream school, Rutgers, when is my
doctors appointment? Then the chorus (post co-pay
of course): Just like last month, 90 Oxycontin
20mgs will be enough, right? the doctor
nonchalantly asks a 17 year old in the cold
depressing professional setting of her New
Brunswick medical office. Who knew the stage for
my own familiar funeral song would be a doctors
office. I hear a familiar sound in the distance: an
ambulances siren pulling into the ER at Robert
Wood, Instant nostalgia, I remember the pain of that
day I first met this doctor bitch, but there is
something wrong. The pain I wake up with every
morning has changed my stomach doesnt hurt
anymore, that became familiarly numb. For the first
time in my life my pain came from somewhere
unfamiliar Im quickly snapped back into reality by
a threat to what I believed at the time was my
survival: An interruption to the song I know Danny
has an unusual amount of Ulcers and is in extreme
pain but like Ive said in the past Im worried about
how this medicine is going to effect him long term

 he cant even get out of bed without a pill and

hes not even 18 yet, how will he be able to go to
Rutgers with this current situation my mom
continues I want to get him off of this medication,
not get him addicted for the rest of his life
Is this the outro, the fade is the dirge complete? Of
course, of course, thats why were going to slowly
wean Daniel off this medication so the physical
dependency on the medication doesnt outweigh
the benefits of a pain free existence.
Did she really fucking say a pain free
existence? Man you were so lucky to have a doctor
like that my detox roomie continues to spew
horseshit out of his mouth while I try harder and
harder to tune him out while regretting opening
my mouth at all. Im laying here in a fucking
institution in some shit town in north jersey now 10
years later, telling the story of why I am
defamiliarized with life itself and this motherfucker
says I was lucky? Im hot, Im cold, my leg wont stop
kicking, I feel dead inside. I could write you 10,001
sad poems about kicking but theres no need:
unless youve been there you could never
understand.
I would say using opiates became as
unconsciously synonymous with my life as the

example of using a pen was but truthfully I picked

up a pill a lot more than I ever picked up a pen.
The 10,000th time you pick up a pill it is so
automatic, we don't think about doing it; and to the
extreme extent that we don't consciously think
about holding the pen anymore, it is as if we are
not doing it.
You want me to learn about the magical ability
of defamiliarization? Pluck someone out of their
little Dr.jeckyl suburban, typical, fratboy life every
12 hours into the Mr.Hyde world of withdrawal and
emotional numbness.. Every. Fucking. Day for 10
years and then try to see what they feel about the
polarizing power of defamiliariztion.
I have no idea what compelled me to write this.
Thats a lie: yes I do. Being habitually passive in the
perception of everything except not being dope
sick has made familiarization with being subhuman
a reality at one point in my life.
So what now? As your reading this I wouldnt
blame whomever for thinking Oh no, we have a
junky among us! Call CAPS! Call the cops! Call a
DOCTOR! Do not worry: defamiliarization is a
funny thing. Its almost absurd how powerful
admitting my powerlessness has become since I
left the hellish world of active addiction. Writing
this has done more for me than any ordinary

person would ever understand. This is step one:

admitting to living a familiar life where we were
enslaved. Then, through the very strange act of
saying I am powerless over the habitual numbness
an algebraic life of addiction can cause we, in an
act of sheer beauty, lift our feet to take a second
step.
You want to discuss beauty Shklovsky? The
unfamiliarity I feel every morning I wake up and
dont have to reach for that pen to write the same
shitty familiar poem is not only awe inspiring it is
the closest Ive ever been to divine intervention.
Did I really just hold hands in a circle with a
bunch of old drunks and chant: God, grant me the
serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the
courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom
to know the difference? Yes, I did, and it felt
fucking amazingly uncomfortable.
I wish I could somehow cleverly word how
incredibly surreal it is to feel when feeling, living,
and loving is as unfamiliar a feeling as it is when
you first start getting sober. Maybe Im really
starting to understand Shklovskys philosophy,
maybe Im totally not.
But one thing I know for sure is when the
ability to simply perceive automatically is taken
away; we are gifted with the need to put in effort.

Effort being the catalyst to think more creatively,

feel more intensely, love more insanely, and for the
case of this 22 year old college student: live more
incredibly defamiliar.