February 26, 2025 • 44 mins
Mark S. King is in recovery for a Crystal Meth addiction that almost destroyed his life. Gay men are 4x more likely to use Crystal Meth than straight men. Mark reflects on what was at the root of his addiction and how he became sober.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
The Outspoken podcast Network. This episode contains frank discussion on
addiction and substance use disorder. If you or someone you
know is struggling with addiction, visit finetreatment dot gov. That's
fine treatment dot Gov. Hey it's Jordan with a quick note.
(00:23):
After this episode. We just have one more episode before
our season officially ends, and I have something to ask you.
If you haven't already, go follow me on Instagram or
TikTok at your underscore gonsolvice that's JR. Underscore g O
n s A l VS. For my next move, I'm
(00:43):
going to be producing a TV series called Unshaming, where
I interview people on the shame that they've overcome in
their life. And I want to stay in touch with
you and I want you to stay with me on
my journey. As always, I couldn't do this without you,
so thank you so much for the support. Now let's
get into the show.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I went to rehab, but I did my part and
tried real hard and was using before I got out
of the halfway house.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Oh wow, it was that strong, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I say that some of us got it bad. Some
of us just got it bad.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
You had a relapse before the recovery process was completed.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh yeah. In two thousand and seven, I was in
a documentary about Crystal Meth. I was the voice of
reason in that documentary, the talking head that had all
the answers, and only revealed to the director of it
as it was premiering in film festivals that I was
high when I made the movie.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Wow, it's kind.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Of like I just it was the devil. I knew
it's the devil. I knew. Recovery was so scary to
me because it had been so long since I have
had faced life on life's terms. It was so long
I didn't know who I'd be without it.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
In this episode, we'll meet Mark S. King, the author
(02:32):
of My Fabulous Disease, a book about his recovery from
Crystal Meth. We'll learn how gay men are particularly at
risk for crystal meth addiction and for Mark what was
driving his addiction. For My Heart podcasts, I'm Jordan and
Solve This and this is what We Loved. A couple
(03:15):
of years ago, I read an opinion piece in The
New York Times called gay men are dying from a
crisis We're not talking about. Before I clicked it, I
felt a rush of anxiety. I'd been learning about the
AIDS crisis and I understood the consequences. I thought, is
HIV having a resurgence or is this another virus that
(03:39):
is going to completely upend our lives. I took a
deep breath to quiet my racing pulse and click to
the article. But as I read, I realized the author
wasn't talking about any kind of virus. He was talking
about crystal meth addiction and how all gay men are
at risk. Crystal meth is a colorless, odorless man made
(04:03):
drug that creates an artificial feeling of euphoria by producing
large amounts of dopamine in the brain at once. People
who have taken it report feeling as though they have
no insecurities, no inhibitions, and a bigger sex drive. And
it's becoming a big problem in America, in nineteen ninety nine,
(04:25):
there were six hundred deaths because of meth, and in
twenty twenty one there were more than fifty thousand. That's
because increasingly crystal meth is being contaminated with fentanyl. The
federal government found that crystal meth usage is four times
higher in gay men than in straight men. And will
(04:45):
learn why with my next guest, Mark S. King, who
was one of those gay men. He's battled crystal meth
addiction for years and as a result, has found himself
at the center of violence, tragedy, and shame. There are
many causes for addiction. For many of the people I've interviewed,
they say it stems from an unstable childhood. But for Mark,
(05:09):
the root of his addiction would come later in life.
So Mark, tell me about where you grew up and
how you grew up and what you were like as
a child.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, I am a military brat. I'm an Air Force brat.
My dad was an officer in the Air Force. He
was Colonel King, and we lived on Air Force Bass
And I was the youngest and so my experience with
Colonel King was more limited than my older siblings. He
(05:46):
retired after many years when I was eleven or so,
and so I got to experience him as dad dad,
which was great, building geodesic domes in the backyard, building
the largest box kite that ever flew, always a project
going on. So I adored him. I have no complaints
(06:10):
about my childhood. I was treated well. I was encouraged
to be whatever it is I was going to be.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Tell me the story of the first moment that you
knew you were gay.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
For me, I was in community theater and I remember
I was in a musical when I was eleven or twelve,
and during one of the rehearsals, Patrick McWilliams, who was
quite outrageous, came marching in during a break in the rehearsal,
holding up Bette Midler's new album, her first album, The
(06:45):
Divine Miss m saying the Queen has arrived. I thought
he was referring to himself, but he was referring, in fact,
to Ms Midler and went on and on about her album.
And I looked at him and I said, I don't
know what that is, but I want to be that.
I want to have that confidence. I wanted to have
that outrageousness. I was so attracted to that.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
It's interesting because so many of our guests say that
the first time they knew they were gay was somewhat
of a sexual experience. But that wasn't sexual. That seemed
like it was an energy that you really connected with.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yes, yes, what I did do. And it is true
that out of you know, as a teenager, I did
seek out sex. And it is of course a topic
that is provocative and certainly up for debate within our
community about whether or not I was taken advantage of,
(07:42):
whether or not I was exploited, et cetera, et cetera.
But mine was not an occasion for exploitation. Mine was
an occasion for someone to validate, not just me, but
that this was okay, that my feelings were okay.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Like you didn't view it as being taken advantage of.
You viewed it and you still view it as a
chance for connection.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yes, yes, Now It's also true though, that the only
vocabulary I had to connect with them was sex. It
was the only vocabulary I knew. And in the meantime,
there were a couple of guys who were certainly older
than me. They were full on adults, and I was
(08:31):
a teenager. So make of that, what you will, but
who had conversations with me, who had meals with me,
who demonstrated that their lives were full and fulfilling and
they were not deviant in any way. And I got
(08:55):
to tell you that it was me, the horny little teenager,
who was driving the sexual activity, probably and it didn't
always land in the way that I intended it to.
I have a very very strong memory. It was. I
was in a show. It was a summer musical, I
(09:16):
want to say. It was Man of La Mancha, almost
all mail cast, very busy summer, and I was I
manipulated a situation. There was a man that he had
been kind of on my to do list. And I
know how this sounds at the age of fifteen or
whatever it was, but I was attracted to him because
he was so confident, and he was well liked and
(09:39):
talented and all of those things. And there was a
pool party after one of the matinate performances. I asked
him if he could give me a ride. I wasn't
driving yet, And then, of course, this says, we got
this car. I said, oh, I don't have a bathing
suit for the pool. Can we stop at your place
and get one? And I know how this sounds. I can't.
I feel a little ridiculous even recounting it. But the
(10:01):
point is is it led to a brief fashion show
of his bathing suits, and then an even briefer encounter
which I think I certainly instigated and that he clearly
had mixed feelings about, so much so that in the
car afterwards, we are driving to the pool party and
(10:25):
he's not saying much. Well, he pulls over on the
way there and he puts car in park, and here
he has tears streaming down his face, tears, and I
am stunned. And he said, you know, I'm twice your rage.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
He was thirty.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Oh, I guess I guess he was thirty. I remember
him saying twice your rage, so I'm assuming he was
thirty ish. I said, uh huh. I was perplexed. And
he said, don't you just want to be fifteen?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
How did that experience shape you?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I mean, I have thought about that scene in the
car countless times in the fifty years since I figured
out soon, Oh, I am a desirable and I can
use that to connect to these folks.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I want to fast forward a little bit, mark several
years to when you moved to LA after graduating from college,
and you know, you sort of had your gay coming
of age, and I wonder what that was like for you.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I moved to LA when I was twenty, but yes,
moving to LA and living in West Hollywood at that
age and throughout the next thirteen years that I would
be there was my gay coming out I suppose, you know,
my coming out party on the larger age as it were,
(12:01):
of West Hollywood, and discovering a gym membership and working out,
working out my skinny, little red haired body and finding
tanning products and steroids. I bought in to the entire
narrative of what it meant to be an a gay.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So you are young, gorgeous, muscular, and you're in the
middle of West Hollywood. So yes, you know, and this
is in the eighties' early eighties kind of pre aids
a little bit. So what was that lifestyle like?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I got to experience the last days, the last halcyon days,
you know, the last days where sex was truly safe.
It was five oh one jeans, tight T shirts, jim
body and if you had a scarf, it was a
handkerchief in your back pocket to let you know whether
you were top or a bottom. Oh sure you might
(13:01):
get an STD, but there was a shot for that.
It's important to remember that this was an era late
seventies early eighties in which we as a gay community
had We're discovering our worth, discovering our power as a
voting block, as a political constituency, as a portion of society.
(13:25):
You know. It wasn't until the seventies that the American
Psychiatric Association decided that we were not, in fact a
mental disease, and so it was a really exciting time.
I remember seeing gay men on the cover of Time
magazine and having a feeling that something's afoot, something's changing.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You're part of the last days of this golden age
of being gay, and then AIDS hits and you're still
kind of coming of age at that time, and I
wonder what that was like for you, kind of living
through the AIDS crisis too.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
My friend Leslie, we were in college together. We moved
out to Los Angeles together. Wonderful human being, had his
whole life ahead of him, working at the LA Museum.
Died in my guest room. Wow, because he had no
other place to go because he had been kicked out,
and it wasn't unusual if you lived in West Hollywood
(14:25):
and you had a guest room somebody died in it.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
And I remember being around Leslie's bed with a few
of his other friends, close friends, and not knowing if
he could hear us, and singing to him and talking
to him and reassuring him and watching him die. And
he may have been the first person that I saw
die in person, you know, in real time, and having
(14:52):
to keep checking because you're not sure if he's dead yet,
but you think he's dead.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Wow. And how old were you? Wow?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Twenty five? Run there?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Well, you know, Mark, around this time, you get your
own HIV diagnosis, And I wonder if you can kind
of take me to that moment and what that was
like receiving that knowing the consequences of that diagnosis at
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
In March of nineteen eighty five, the first HIV antibody
test was made publicly available. A friend gave me the
test after hours. He was a nurse in a doctor's office.
Because God forbid this should be on your insurance. You
could certainly be discriminated against and fired from your job
and kicked out by your roommate and just disowned by
your parents. And so he did it after hours and
(15:45):
he called me a couple weeks later, that's how long
it took, and he said, I'm so sorry. Your results
are positive. You have HIV. I'm so sorry. I remember
just being kind of numbed to it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
In the mid nineties, these incredible drugs come out that
sort of put an end to this despairing wave of
death around HIV. And I think the picture that a
lot of my generation gets is like that was when
the crisis ended. But I don't think a lot of
(16:22):
us understand what the aftermath was like, you know, to
then sort of live with all of these memories and grief.
What was that like for you? What was the aftermath?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It was like a war ending. It was kind of
like emotional whiplash. It was you start your life going,
oh my god, I'm gonna live forever because I'm young
and beautiful and immortal, and then you get struck with
something that says, oh no, you're not. You're going to die,
and you're going to die pretty soon. And so you
(16:57):
spend years living with that, living life and your increments,
waiting for the beginning of the end to begin. And
then they come out and say, oh, oh, guess what, surprise,
You're going to be Okay, you're going to live.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And you've lost all these friends along the way.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Oh yeah, they're all dead. And I've run up the
credit card and told them to the boss to go
to hell, and sold the life insurance policy, took the
trip around the world, and now I'm going to live. Wow,
you know. And I felt guilty that I didn't feel
grateful because I had emotionally prepared myself to die at
(17:39):
some point. Soon, at any moment, the countdown will begin.
It'll all start. And yes, I felt guilty that I
didn't feel grateful.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
How did you cope with that guilt and the grief
of all of the loss drugs?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It is not lost on me that the guy that
ran aid service organizations, that was a role model for
long term survivors gets past the finish line and is
now taking successful medications and indeed now has my whole
(18:21):
life ahead of me again. And I start shooting up
Crystal meth.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
What the fuck? What's the story of how you were
first introduced to Crystal?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Myth sex? You know, I'm a gay cliche. It was
introduced to me sexually by a trick.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Like a one night stand.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah. Yeah, he had this drug and I had done
coke before, so I thought it was like coke. It's
not like coke. But because it was introduced to me
in a sexual context, Oh do this, it'll make you
really horny. I adopted that. My brain heard that, it
processed it, and the drug to me meant.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Sex and it changed your life.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
It changed my life. It certainly did. In the years ahead,
I would have a lot of forgiving to do about
where I went, what I did, what I witnessed during
the crystal meth sex.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Mark had just tried crystal meth for the first time
during a sexual encounter. According to experts and many gay men,
this is the typical setting where crystal meth is introduced
to them on hookup apps. It's commonly called Tina or
party in play and coded with a diamond emoji. The
(19:54):
risk of trying crystal meth is also much higher for
gay men living with HIV. In fact, one study says
that sixty five percent of HIV positive men started using
math after their diagnosis. That's because the drug provides an
escape from the shame of being gay and living with HIV.
(20:17):
What was the feeling that it had given you the
first time you took the drug.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, I can certainly tell you that the first year
or so, because I'll have to look at it that
way in terms of like how it was, because there's
kind of this transitional process to doing crystal meth. You
might snort it the first time, and then before long,
if you keep doing it, you'll be smoking it out
of a glass pipe, and then not longer after that,
(20:44):
if you keep doing it and you're all all loving it,
then you're going to be shooting it up. And that
from soup to nuts took me about a year and
a half. So the feeling that I got during that
first year was excitement, extreme horniness, and a feeling that
(21:06):
I could do anything because crystal meth is kind of
like the great equalizer. If all of you in the
room are doing crystal myth, you're going to be less
judgmental about whether or not he's overweight or he's over
forty or whatever. You're all involved in the drug and
it's very exciting and happy and let's fuck.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Your inhibitions just sort of go away.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, yes they do, and they are replaced with new goals,
you know, to have a sex with as many minutes
physically possible, and to fetishize all sorts of things that maybe,
and this took me a long time to learn in recovery,
(21:50):
were not my authentic sexuality. That was a drug driven psychosis.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
The reporting shows that ther sort of alters your brain
and it can give you different needs and desires than
you would otherwise have as your sober self. And what
was that like for you?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
When I was actively using, and really using a lot,
I didn't have time to judge what I was doing.
That would have been too real. The only oversight I
allowed myself during those times was Okay, it's been three
days sleep sleep now.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
These vendors would last about three full days.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Three days something like that, Yeah, until I would literally
just collapse, and hopefully I would be home when that happened,
because nobody's waking me up for at least twelve hours,
and I would come to eat some cereal, drink water,
and go back to bed until I had kind of
(22:57):
repaired enough to be resentable again, and then usually the
process would begin again. I missed events with family, with friends,
I dropped out of friendships that were not absolutely required.
(23:19):
I didn't have time for regular friends. I did not
have time for anything that didn't serve the addiction. Ultimately,
what was.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Like an average day in the life you mean when
I was using Yes, I would wake up and, depending
on how I felt, turn the porn off that was
playing on the TV, because there's always porn playing and
get the serial, take the nap.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Call up friends that have probably been trying to reach me,
to make excuses or have conversations and sound super invested
in so that I could buy more time before having
to speak to them again, and then rest and then
consider my next move. It would be who on my
(24:09):
list of.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
To dos, meaning like who you wanted to have sex with?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yes? Who was I going to go get laid with?
And did they? Did they like drugs as much as
I did?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
That sort of thing, and your whole life had sort
of become revolved around oh yes, addiction.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yes, yes it did, and you know I again, A
lot of this is about forgiving myself for those things.
A lot of this is understanding that at some point
along the way, my choices were taken from me. My
choices now were were driven by my addiction and where
(24:50):
I would get more, what I would do for more?
And trust me anything.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Doctor David Fawcett, who is sort of one of the
leading experts on Matthews and Matthews and gay men, he
calls this drug an emotional painkiller. And for you, what
was the emotion that you were trying to escape from.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I think that for the fifteen years that I was
living with HIV with no escape route, and everything was
just a daily who's died, Who's died today? You get
a phone call late at night, you know immediately someone's dead,
but you don't know who, because you know, could be
(25:42):
anybody living under that sort of cumulative trauma. I don't
think that I realized what it was doing to me
because there was just so much work to do. There
was so much to get done in terms of taking
care of your friends who were in crisis, plus working
at an AIDS agency, which I did, you know, not
(26:05):
long eye after I was diagnosed. There was so much
to do that It's amazing, really we as human beings
can take on all of that in the midst of
our own trauma. I'll tell you that when it ended
for me, when that high trauma period ended and the
(26:25):
new drugs came along, I guess, you know, It's easy
to draw straight line from there to the Crystal Matthews
because I was self medicating, because now my body had
a chance to go, oh whoa, well that was something.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
That was bad.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And suddenly the things that I saw during that time,
and the deaths that I had to experience, I didn't
have time degree for them while they were happening. There
were too many. Everybody was doing it. And then when
it stopped, it chance to catch up with me and go,
oh my god, Don died, Oh shit, Ron died. He
stayed with you. He had so much dementia. He didn't
(27:08):
know who you were, and he was your best friend.
So I wanted to escape that.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
In your writing, Mark, you've described that you had an
alter ego named Marcus, and I wonder what it was like,
sort of balancing these two worlds, Mark and Marcus, and
when you sort of realized that Marcus was beginning to
take over.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, it was a name that I used for drug
related things. My dealer knew me as Marcus. A lot
of the fellow addicts knew me that way. And I
remember once being in a bar and playing pool. It
was with friends and it was my turn to play
(27:58):
pool and I, you know, you play the winner of
the previous game. Who is some dude I didn't know?
When he comes up and shakes my hand, says Hi,
I'm you know David. I said Hi, I'm Marcus, And
I did it without even thinking. I remember that. I'm like,
who are you?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Who am I? Today?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
You know?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Marcus had a persona to him that was different than mine.
You know, he had a strut that I don't really have.
It was all about this kind of hyper masculine, sexual
playmate sort of persona. And it's funny because I lived
(28:39):
there in that place for so long that when I
eventually went into recovery I had to practice speaking normally
or what is for me my normal voice, you know,
without doing this thing.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Like you had forgotten what your own natural voice had
sounded like.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I'd forgotten what it felt like to be authentic. Wow,
and to move through this world in an organic, authentic way.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Do you remember one friendship that you lost, for one
event that you missed that really kind of sticks out
for you.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I was high at my father's funeral.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, and during his illness, although I had managed to
go home and keep it together long enough to visit
him in the last couple of months he was alive.
And there's no reason why I couldn't have stayed. I
had nothing better to do. I could have stayed with
family for the remainder of his life. I did not.
(29:38):
I had better things to do. I needed to get
back home and left to my own devices, and so
I missed the opportunity to have been with him in
his final month or two. And I think at the
time that I got the call that he had died
(30:01):
and went home for the funeral, I was coming off
of three day Crystal Matthews, so I probably slept on
the plane. I probably slept as soon as I got
to my mom's house. Oh, I'm really tired and collapsed.
And so all that repair work, waking up again, drinking water,
(30:21):
having some cereal, sleeping again was all going on while
my family was trying to put together a funeral and
I was barely present. And then the rest of my
behavior people chalked up to grief. You know, we succeed
as addicts by exploiting people's perceptions of what we might
(30:45):
be going through. Oh he's grieving, Oh he's exhausted. Well,
you know, he has HIV. And don't down for a
second that I didn't exploit that one. That's what the
addiction does is there is nothing about you in your
stockpile of possible excuses for your behavior that you will
(31:06):
not exploit. All of that was just ripe fruit for
the picking to make excuses for my behavior when I
was a drug addict. That's where it took me.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
When we last left, Mark had been so immersed in
his drug addiction that he was emotionally absent for his
own father's funeral. The reasons for addiction are complicated. The
National Institute on Drug Abuse defines addiction as a chronically
relapsing brain disease and says that it's environmental but also genetic.
(31:50):
They say that drugs like meth literally alter the circuits
of our brain that manage reward and stress and self control.
Effects can last a long time even after someone has
stopped using, making addiction much more complicated than a simple
choice of do I or don't I. But recovery is possible,
(32:14):
and for Mark it's a journey that has had ups
and downs. In a lot of my interviews around addiction,
sometimes people will say there's one particular consequence that made
it real. Someone might say it was losing my job.
Another person might say it was losing my partner. That's
(32:37):
what sort of made me wake up and realize this
is really affecting my life and destroying my life. Was
there one consequence for you like that?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
No, it's kind of like I don't remember the last
time I used, and I thought that it would be
something worth remembering because it was so awful or overdosed
and there were cops involved, or who knows what. Then
that was the last time I used, and boy was
it bad. And I stopped after that. You know. Somebody
overdosed and died in front of me. Somebody pointed a
(33:12):
gun in my face. All of those things have happened
to me, and none of them stopped my addiction, none
of them. That's just not how it works. But I
will say that some of those things sank in slowly.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
What was the recovery process like for you?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I went to rehab. I was kind of forced into rehab,
But I did my part and tried real hard and
was using before I got out of the halfway house.
Oh wow, it was that strong, you know. I say
that some of us got it bad. Some of us
just got it bad.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
You had to relapse before the recovery process was coming.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Oh yeah, I was in an impatient facility for a month,
and then you go into a halfway house, which is
like sober living, where you're in an apartment complex with
a couple of guys keeping an eye on everybody. And
they didn't keep as close an eye on me as
they should have because I was sneaking out all the time.
I mean there's a curfew and stuff that I did
(34:13):
not respect and was out using. In two thousand and seven,
I was the voice of reason in that documentary, the
talking head that had all the answers, and only revealed
to the director of it as it was premiering in
film festivals that I was high when I made the movie. Wow,
it's kind of like I just it was the devil.
(34:34):
I knew it's the devil. I knew it. Recovery was
so scary to me because it had been so long
since I have had faced life on life's terms. It
was so long I didn't know who I'd be without it,
and it was like jumping off a cliff, and I
(34:55):
was scared.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
To jump off, Like you weren't sure what your identity
was without this drug.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Because I had so wholly internalized it. I remember a
good therapist. I mean, I said, oh my god, what
if I if I'd stop all of this and I
have to rebuild my life? I mean, who will I be?
And he says, Mark, you know, we are not our intentions.
We are not our best intentions. We are not our plans,
(35:24):
we are not our hopes and dreams. We are only
what we do. That's it. We are what we do.
So for the last many years, you lied and you
did drugs, and you were an exploitative person. Well, so
you were a lying, drug addicted exploitative person. Now you
(35:49):
are trying to stay sober and you are telling the truth.
So you are an honest person in recovery. That's who
you are. You are only what you do.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
How long did it take you to believe that?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
M I think it made sense to me right away.
It was harder to live by. I have to remind
myself I'm okay. Where am I right now? Or as
somebody used to say to me, where are your feet?
My feet are in a studio right now. I have
been eating munchies between questions. I am looking at a
(36:24):
guy who's concerned about this. I'm going to be on
a you know, glad nominated podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
How great is that you already are?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Well?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
What was the recovery process that actually kind of brought
you to this stage? Now?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I'm a twelve step program for crystal methatics, so I
go to what is almost exclusively meetings which are for
crystal methatics by and for j men. I am not
unique and I experienced the drug in the same way
as many other gay men, and so it's important for
(37:05):
us to have that.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
How long have you been sober?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Now? Mark, I have been going to meetings for twenty years.
That is not to say that I've been sober for
twenty years, but I did learn a lesson a long
time ago, and that is, don't tell them how much
time you have. Remember you were in that meth documentary
and you told him you had two years clean. Don't
make that mistake again. Or maybe you'll say a number
(37:30):
and then you'll relapse tomorrow. But I will say this,
I have had a very nice period of recovery about
which I'm really grateful.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
I notice that you identify as recovering from crystal meth
as opposed to having been recovered. Tell me more about that.
Why are you recovering and not recovered?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
I do believe that it realtered the way that my
brain thinks, even now, even after a period of recovery
and clean time and all of that. And that's why
I say I'm still recovering, because my crazy mind, oh
my goodness, it can still dream up things. And I've
come to see them those thoughts as as cloud's floating by.
(38:21):
It's like you look up there and you go, oh, Mark,
you crazy shit, look at that. You're thinking that, and
you know the cloud will keep going and pass out
of you. And so that's how I see it. I
believe that the drug has recalibrated me. I have made
great progress. All relationships in my life are no longer transactional.
(38:48):
I have drugs. What do you have? You know? You know,
when you live like that long enough, then you're always
looking for what's in it for me? What do you have?
You know? What do you bring into the chain? You know?
I no longer do that. I think I am the
best partner to my husband and this particular relationship than
(39:08):
I've ever been because I truly care about him as
much as myself. You know, life is a process.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
You know, when you strip away the addiction and the
thrill and the high and the escape that you were
chasing while you were using. If you take all of
that away, what do you think you were really searching for?
Speaker 2 (39:38):
What I really needed was not to become a drug addict, certainly, yes,
and was a way to process the grief and to
honor those who had died and to reaffirm that I'm
going to keep going. I'm going to keep going, and
(39:58):
I do it in their honor, but I a so
do it to honor myself and everything that I'm still
capable of. And I think that this period since I
have addressed my addiction has been the most productive of
my life and maybe the most rewarding.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
What did you learn about yourself on this journey of recovery.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I learned that I can be honest and I won't
die as a result of being honest. I can be honest,
and there's something on the other side of being honest.
You know, we don't fool anybody as much as we
fool ourselves or try to when we're in addiction. Nobody
(40:46):
can see what I'm doing. It isn't as bad as
people think it is. It isn't as bad as I
think it is. It's probably fine. All those lies we
tell ourselves, and so when we are then asked in recovery,
tell the truth, look at it, name it, tell the truth,
it is hard. So I think what I've learned is
(41:07):
that I can tell the truth. The world will not end.
And there's something on the other side of telling the truth,
and it's probably better.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
I'm going to guess that what you're implying is that
the opposite of telling the truth is shame. And if
you sort of bring about what you're ashamed of into
the light, you'll be okay.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yes, that has intersected every thing in my life about
which one might feel ashamed. Being gay, being HIV positive,
being a drug addict, all of those things are are
sources of shame and about which I have gotten nothing
but rewarded by talking about it. And I will say this,
(41:57):
so much of our culture is a lie. Is a lie.
We're told that we have to be this, we have
to be super muscular, we have to be tall, blonde,
sexually desirable, all of those things. It's a lie. And
by that I mean that will not make you happy.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
I am no.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Longer young or muscular or have a beautiful complexion the
way that I did when I was you know, twenty five.
I have none of that currency that I once did.
I have a different currency. You know. I have wisdom.
I have an ability to be okay with my place
(42:40):
in the world. Wow, I know what my place is
in the world.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
The title of our shows is called What We Loved?
What does that mean in the context of your addiction
in your recovery?
Speaker 2 (42:57):
We have a saying in the rooms of recovery to
come on in and we will love you until you
can love yourself. Because a lot of people walk in
and they don't. They don't think there's anything left to
love because of what they've done, choices they've made. And
(43:19):
so when I think of that title, I think of
come into a recovery room. You think that you've got
nothing worthy, But we loved, and we will love you
until you love yourself, And we're patient and will take
(43:40):
the time that it takes for you to come around
and see that you're worthy of that again.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
What We Loved is hosted by me Jordan and Solve.
New episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write
in to tell your story, email us. But we Loved
at gmail dot com, or you can send me a
message on Instagram or TikTok at your underscore again solves.
We are a production of The Outspoken Podcast Network and
(44:11):
iHeart Podcasts, but We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries.
Our producers are Joey pat Emily Meronoff, and Christina Loranger.
Our executive producers are me Maya Howard and Katrina Norvil.
Original music by Steve Boone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson
and Roquel Willis. If you loved this episode, leave us
(44:34):
a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify,
and thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
The Outspoken podcast Network. This episode contains frank discussion on
addiction and substance use disorder. If you or someone you
know is struggling with addiction, visit finetreatment dot gov. That's
fine treatment dot Gov. Hey it's Jordan with a quick note.
(00:23):
After this episode. We just have one more episode before
our season officially ends, and I have something to ask you.
If you haven't already, go follow me on Instagram or
TikTok at your underscore gonsolvice that's JR. Underscore g O
n s A l VS. For my next move, I'm
(00:43):
going to be producing a TV series called Unshaming, where
I interview people on the shame that they've overcome in
their life. And I want to stay in touch with
you and I want you to stay with me on
my journey. As always, I couldn't do this without you,
so thank you so much for the support. Now let's
get into the show.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I went to rehab, but I did my part and
tried real hard and was using before I got out
of the halfway house.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Oh wow, it was that strong, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I say that some of us got it bad. Some
of us just got it bad.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
You had a relapse before the recovery process was completed.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh yeah. In two thousand and seven, I was in
a documentary about Crystal Meth. I was the voice of
reason in that documentary, the talking head that had all
the answers, and only revealed to the director of it
as it was premiering in film festivals that I was
high when I made the movie.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Wow, it's kind.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Of like I just it was the devil. I knew
it's the devil. I knew. Recovery was so scary to
me because it had been so long since I have
had faced life on life's terms. It was so long
I didn't know who I'd be without it.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
In this episode, we'll meet Mark S. King, the author
(02:32):
of My Fabulous Disease, a book about his recovery from
Crystal Meth. We'll learn how gay men are particularly at
risk for crystal meth addiction and for Mark what was
driving his addiction. For My Heart podcasts, I'm Jordan and
Solve This and this is what We Loved. A couple
(03:15):
of years ago, I read an opinion piece in The
New York Times called gay men are dying from a
crisis We're not talking about. Before I clicked it, I
felt a rush of anxiety. I'd been learning about the
AIDS crisis and I understood the consequences. I thought, is
HIV having a resurgence or is this another virus that
(03:39):
is going to completely upend our lives. I took a
deep breath to quiet my racing pulse and click to
the article. But as I read, I realized the author
wasn't talking about any kind of virus. He was talking
about crystal meth addiction and how all gay men are
at risk. Crystal meth is a colorless, odorless man made
(04:03):
drug that creates an artificial feeling of euphoria by producing
large amounts of dopamine in the brain at once. People
who have taken it report feeling as though they have
no insecurities, no inhibitions, and a bigger sex drive. And
it's becoming a big problem in America, in nineteen ninety nine,
(04:25):
there were six hundred deaths because of meth, and in
twenty twenty one there were more than fifty thousand. That's
because increasingly crystal meth is being contaminated with fentanyl. The
federal government found that crystal meth usage is four times
higher in gay men than in straight men. And will
(04:45):
learn why with my next guest, Mark S. King, who
was one of those gay men. He's battled crystal meth
addiction for years and as a result, has found himself
at the center of violence, tragedy, and shame. There are
many causes for addiction. For many of the people I've interviewed,
they say it stems from an unstable childhood. But for Mark,
(05:09):
the root of his addiction would come later in life.
So Mark, tell me about where you grew up and
how you grew up and what you were like as
a child.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, I am a military brat. I'm an Air Force brat.
My dad was an officer in the Air Force. He
was Colonel King, and we lived on Air Force Bass
And I was the youngest and so my experience with
Colonel King was more limited than my older siblings. He
(05:46):
retired after many years when I was eleven or so,
and so I got to experience him as dad dad,
which was great, building geodesic domes in the backyard, building
the largest box kite that ever flew, always a project
going on. So I adored him. I have no complaints
(06:10):
about my childhood. I was treated well. I was encouraged
to be whatever it is I was going to be.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Tell me the story of the first moment that you
knew you were gay.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
For me, I was in community theater and I remember
I was in a musical when I was eleven or twelve,
and during one of the rehearsals, Patrick McWilliams, who was
quite outrageous, came marching in during a break in the rehearsal,
holding up Bette Midler's new album, her first album, The
(06:45):
Divine Miss m saying the Queen has arrived. I thought
he was referring to himself, but he was referring, in fact,
to Ms Midler and went on and on about her album.
And I looked at him and I said, I don't
know what that is, but I want to be that.
I want to have that confidence. I wanted to have
that outrageousness. I was so attracted to that.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
It's interesting because so many of our guests say that
the first time they knew they were gay was somewhat
of a sexual experience. But that wasn't sexual. That seemed
like it was an energy that you really connected with.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yes, yes, what I did do. And it is true
that out of you know, as a teenager, I did
seek out sex. And it is of course a topic
that is provocative and certainly up for debate within our
community about whether or not I was taken advantage of,
(07:42):
whether or not I was exploited, et cetera, et cetera.
But mine was not an occasion for exploitation. Mine was
an occasion for someone to validate, not just me, but
that this was okay, that my feelings were okay.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Like you didn't view it as being taken advantage of.
You viewed it and you still view it as a
chance for connection.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yes, yes, Now It's also true though, that the only
vocabulary I had to connect with them was sex. It
was the only vocabulary I knew. And in the meantime,
there were a couple of guys who were certainly older
than me. They were full on adults, and I was
(08:31):
a teenager. So make of that, what you will, but
who had conversations with me, who had meals with me,
who demonstrated that their lives were full and fulfilling and
they were not deviant in any way. And I got
(08:55):
to tell you that it was me, the horny little teenager,
who was driving the sexual activity, probably and it didn't
always land in the way that I intended it to.
I have a very very strong memory. It was. I
was in a show. It was a summer musical, I
(09:16):
want to say. It was Man of La Mancha, almost
all mail cast, very busy summer, and I was I
manipulated a situation. There was a man that he had
been kind of on my to do list. And I
know how this sounds at the age of fifteen or
whatever it was, but I was attracted to him because
he was so confident, and he was well liked and
(09:39):
talented and all of those things. And there was a
pool party after one of the matinate performances. I asked
him if he could give me a ride. I wasn't
driving yet, And then, of course, this says, we got
this car. I said, oh, I don't have a bathing
suit for the pool. Can we stop at your place
and get one? And I know how this sounds. I can't.
I feel a little ridiculous even recounting it. But the
(10:01):
point is is it led to a brief fashion show
of his bathing suits, and then an even briefer encounter
which I think I certainly instigated and that he clearly
had mixed feelings about, so much so that in the
car afterwards, we are driving to the pool party and
(10:25):
he's not saying much. Well, he pulls over on the
way there and he puts car in park, and here
he has tears streaming down his face, tears, and I
am stunned. And he said, you know, I'm twice your rage.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
He was thirty.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Oh, I guess I guess he was thirty. I remember
him saying twice your rage, so I'm assuming he was
thirty ish. I said, uh huh. I was perplexed. And
he said, don't you just want to be fifteen?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
How did that experience shape you?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I mean, I have thought about that scene in the
car countless times in the fifty years since I figured
out soon, Oh, I am a desirable and I can
use that to connect to these folks.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I want to fast forward a little bit, mark several
years to when you moved to LA after graduating from college,
and you know, you sort of had your gay coming
of age, and I wonder what that was like for you.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I moved to LA when I was twenty, but yes,
moving to LA and living in West Hollywood at that
age and throughout the next thirteen years that I would
be there was my gay coming out I suppose, you know,
my coming out party on the larger age as it were,
(12:01):
of West Hollywood, and discovering a gym membership and working out,
working out my skinny, little red haired body and finding
tanning products and steroids. I bought in to the entire
narrative of what it meant to be an a gay.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So you are young, gorgeous, muscular, and you're in the
middle of West Hollywood. So yes, you know, and this
is in the eighties' early eighties kind of pre aids
a little bit. So what was that lifestyle like?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I got to experience the last days, the last halcyon days,
you know, the last days where sex was truly safe.
It was five oh one jeans, tight T shirts, jim
body and if you had a scarf, it was a
handkerchief in your back pocket to let you know whether
you were top or a bottom. Oh sure you might
(13:01):
get an STD, but there was a shot for that.
It's important to remember that this was an era late
seventies early eighties in which we as a gay community
had We're discovering our worth, discovering our power as a
voting block, as a political constituency, as a portion of society.
(13:25):
You know. It wasn't until the seventies that the American
Psychiatric Association decided that we were not, in fact a
mental disease, and so it was a really exciting time.
I remember seeing gay men on the cover of Time
magazine and having a feeling that something's afoot, something's changing.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You're part of the last days of this golden age
of being gay, and then AIDS hits and you're still
kind of coming of age at that time, and I
wonder what that was like for you, kind of living
through the AIDS crisis too.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
My friend Leslie, we were in college together. We moved
out to Los Angeles together. Wonderful human being, had his
whole life ahead of him, working at the LA Museum.
Died in my guest room. Wow, because he had no
other place to go because he had been kicked out,
and it wasn't unusual if you lived in West Hollywood
(14:25):
and you had a guest room somebody died in it.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
And I remember being around Leslie's bed with a few
of his other friends, close friends, and not knowing if
he could hear us, and singing to him and talking
to him and reassuring him and watching him die. And
he may have been the first person that I saw
die in person, you know, in real time, and having
(14:52):
to keep checking because you're not sure if he's dead yet,
but you think he's dead.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Wow. And how old were you? Wow?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Twenty five? Run there?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Well, you know, Mark, around this time, you get your
own HIV diagnosis, And I wonder if you can kind
of take me to that moment and what that was
like receiving that knowing the consequences of that diagnosis at
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
In March of nineteen eighty five, the first HIV antibody
test was made publicly available. A friend gave me the
test after hours. He was a nurse in a doctor's office.
Because God forbid this should be on your insurance. You
could certainly be discriminated against and fired from your job
and kicked out by your roommate and just disowned by
your parents. And so he did it after hours and
(15:45):
he called me a couple weeks later, that's how long
it took, and he said, I'm so sorry. Your results
are positive. You have HIV. I'm so sorry. I remember
just being kind of numbed to it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
In the mid nineties, these incredible drugs come out that
sort of put an end to this despairing wave of
death around HIV. And I think the picture that a
lot of my generation gets is like that was when
the crisis ended. But I don't think a lot of
(16:22):
us understand what the aftermath was like, you know, to
then sort of live with all of these memories and grief.
What was that like for you? What was the aftermath?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
It was like a war ending. It was kind of
like emotional whiplash. It was you start your life going,
oh my god, I'm gonna live forever because I'm young
and beautiful and immortal, and then you get struck with
something that says, oh no, you're not. You're going to die,
and you're going to die pretty soon. And so you
(16:57):
spend years living with that, living life and your increments,
waiting for the beginning of the end to begin. And
then they come out and say, oh, oh, guess what, surprise,
You're going to be Okay, you're going to live.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And you've lost all these friends along the way.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Oh yeah, they're all dead. And I've run up the
credit card and told them to the boss to go
to hell, and sold the life insurance policy, took the
trip around the world, and now I'm going to live. Wow,
you know. And I felt guilty that I didn't feel
grateful because I had emotionally prepared myself to die at
(17:39):
some point. Soon, at any moment, the countdown will begin.
It'll all start. And yes, I felt guilty that I
didn't feel grateful.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
How did you cope with that guilt and the grief
of all of the loss drugs?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It is not lost on me that the guy that
ran aid service organizations, that was a role model for
long term survivors gets past the finish line and is
now taking successful medications and indeed now has my whole
(18:21):
life ahead of me again. And I start shooting up
Crystal meth.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
What the fuck? What's the story of how you were
first introduced to Crystal?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Myth sex? You know, I'm a gay cliche. It was
introduced to me sexually by a trick.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Like a one night stand.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah. Yeah, he had this drug and I had done
coke before, so I thought it was like coke. It's
not like coke. But because it was introduced to me
in a sexual context, Oh do this, it'll make you
really horny. I adopted that. My brain heard that, it
processed it, and the drug to me meant.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Sex and it changed your life.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
It changed my life. It certainly did. In the years ahead,
I would have a lot of forgiving to do about
where I went, what I did, what I witnessed during
the crystal meth sex.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Mark had just tried crystal meth for the first time
during a sexual encounter. According to experts and many gay men,
this is the typical setting where crystal meth is introduced
to them on hookup apps. It's commonly called Tina or
party in play and coded with a diamond emoji. The
(19:54):
risk of trying crystal meth is also much higher for
gay men living with HIV. In fact, one study says
that sixty five percent of HIV positive men started using
math after their diagnosis. That's because the drug provides an
escape from the shame of being gay and living with HIV.
(20:17):
What was the feeling that it had given you the
first time you took the drug.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, I can certainly tell you that the first year
or so, because I'll have to look at it that
way in terms of like how it was, because there's
kind of this transitional process to doing crystal meth. You
might snort it the first time, and then before long,
if you keep doing it, you'll be smoking it out
of a glass pipe, and then not longer after that,
(20:44):
if you keep doing it and you're all all loving it,
then you're going to be shooting it up. And that
from soup to nuts took me about a year and
a half. So the feeling that I got during that
first year was excitement, extreme horniness, and a feeling that
(21:06):
I could do anything because crystal meth is kind of
like the great equalizer. If all of you in the
room are doing crystal myth, you're going to be less
judgmental about whether or not he's overweight or he's over
forty or whatever. You're all involved in the drug and
it's very exciting and happy and let's fuck.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Your inhibitions just sort of go away.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, yes they do, and they are replaced with new goals,
you know, to have a sex with as many minutes
physically possible, and to fetishize all sorts of things that maybe,
and this took me a long time to learn in recovery,
(21:50):
were not my authentic sexuality. That was a drug driven psychosis.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
The reporting shows that ther sort of alters your brain
and it can give you different needs and desires than
you would otherwise have as your sober self. And what
was that like for you?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
When I was actively using, and really using a lot,
I didn't have time to judge what I was doing.
That would have been too real. The only oversight I
allowed myself during those times was Okay, it's been three
days sleep sleep now.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
These vendors would last about three full days.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Three days something like that, Yeah, until I would literally
just collapse, and hopefully I would be home when that happened,
because nobody's waking me up for at least twelve hours,
and I would come to eat some cereal, drink water,
and go back to bed until I had kind of
(22:57):
repaired enough to be resentable again, and then usually the
process would begin again. I missed events with family, with friends,
I dropped out of friendships that were not absolutely required.
(23:19):
I didn't have time for regular friends. I did not
have time for anything that didn't serve the addiction. Ultimately,
what was.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Like an average day in the life you mean when
I was using Yes, I would wake up and, depending
on how I felt, turn the porn off that was
playing on the TV, because there's always porn playing and
get the serial, take the nap.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Call up friends that have probably been trying to reach me,
to make excuses or have conversations and sound super invested
in so that I could buy more time before having
to speak to them again, and then rest and then
consider my next move. It would be who on my
(24:09):
list of.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
To dos, meaning like who you wanted to have sex with?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yes? Who was I going to go get laid with?
And did they? Did they like drugs as much as
I did?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
That sort of thing, and your whole life had sort
of become revolved around oh yes, addiction.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yes, yes it did, and you know I again, A
lot of this is about forgiving myself for those things.
A lot of this is understanding that at some point
along the way, my choices were taken from me. My
choices now were were driven by my addiction and where
(24:50):
I would get more, what I would do for more?
And trust me anything.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Doctor David Fawcett, who is sort of one of the
leading experts on Matthews and Matthews and gay men, he
calls this drug an emotional painkiller. And for you, what
was the emotion that you were trying to escape from.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I think that for the fifteen years that I was
living with HIV with no escape route, and everything was
just a daily who's died, Who's died today? You get
a phone call late at night, you know immediately someone's dead,
but you don't know who, because you know, could be
(25:42):
anybody living under that sort of cumulative trauma. I don't
think that I realized what it was doing to me
because there was just so much work to do. There
was so much to get done in terms of taking
care of your friends who were in crisis, plus working
at an AIDS agency, which I did, you know, not
(26:05):
long eye after I was diagnosed. There was so much
to do that It's amazing, really we as human beings
can take on all of that in the midst of
our own trauma. I'll tell you that when it ended
for me, when that high trauma period ended and the
(26:25):
new drugs came along, I guess, you know, It's easy
to draw straight line from there to the Crystal Matthews
because I was self medicating, because now my body had
a chance to go, oh whoa, well that was something.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
That was bad.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And suddenly the things that I saw during that time,
and the deaths that I had to experience, I didn't
have time degree for them while they were happening. There
were too many. Everybody was doing it. And then when
it stopped, it chance to catch up with me and go,
oh my god, Don died, Oh shit, Ron died. He
stayed with you. He had so much dementia. He didn't
(27:08):
know who you were, and he was your best friend.
So I wanted to escape that.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
In your writing, Mark, you've described that you had an
alter ego named Marcus, and I wonder what it was like,
sort of balancing these two worlds, Mark and Marcus, and
when you sort of realized that Marcus was beginning to
take over.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, it was a name that I used for drug
related things. My dealer knew me as Marcus. A lot
of the fellow addicts knew me that way. And I
remember once being in a bar and playing pool. It
was with friends and it was my turn to play
(27:58):
pool and I, you know, you play the winner of
the previous game. Who is some dude I didn't know?
When he comes up and shakes my hand, says Hi,
I'm you know David. I said Hi, I'm Marcus, And
I did it without even thinking. I remember that. I'm like,
who are you?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Who am I? Today?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
You know?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Marcus had a persona to him that was different than mine.
You know, he had a strut that I don't really have.
It was all about this kind of hyper masculine, sexual
playmate sort of persona. And it's funny because I lived
(28:39):
there in that place for so long that when I
eventually went into recovery I had to practice speaking normally
or what is for me my normal voice, you know,
without doing this thing.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Like you had forgotten what your own natural voice had
sounded like.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I'd forgotten what it felt like to be authentic. Wow,
and to move through this world in an organic, authentic way.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Do you remember one friendship that you lost, for one
event that you missed that really kind of sticks out
for you.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I was high at my father's funeral.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, and during his illness, although I had managed to
go home and keep it together long enough to visit
him in the last couple of months he was alive.
And there's no reason why I couldn't have stayed. I
had nothing better to do. I could have stayed with
family for the remainder of his life. I did not.
(29:38):
I had better things to do. I needed to get
back home and left to my own devices, and so
I missed the opportunity to have been with him in
his final month or two. And I think at the
time that I got the call that he had died
(30:01):
and went home for the funeral, I was coming off
of three day Crystal Matthews, so I probably slept on
the plane. I probably slept as soon as I got
to my mom's house. Oh, I'm really tired and collapsed.
And so all that repair work, waking up again, drinking water,
(30:21):
having some cereal, sleeping again was all going on while
my family was trying to put together a funeral and
I was barely present. And then the rest of my
behavior people chalked up to grief. You know, we succeed
as addicts by exploiting people's perceptions of what we might
(30:45):
be going through. Oh he's grieving, Oh he's exhausted. Well,
you know, he has HIV. And don't down for a
second that I didn't exploit that one. That's what the
addiction does is there is nothing about you in your
stockpile of possible excuses for your behavior that you will
(31:06):
not exploit. All of that was just ripe fruit for
the picking to make excuses for my behavior when I
was a drug addict. That's where it took me.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
When we last left, Mark had been so immersed in
his drug addiction that he was emotionally absent for his
own father's funeral. The reasons for addiction are complicated. The
National Institute on Drug Abuse defines addiction as a chronically
relapsing brain disease and says that it's environmental but also genetic.
(31:50):
They say that drugs like meth literally alter the circuits
of our brain that manage reward and stress and self control.
Effects can last a long time even after someone has
stopped using, making addiction much more complicated than a simple
choice of do I or don't I. But recovery is possible,
(32:14):
and for Mark it's a journey that has had ups
and downs. In a lot of my interviews around addiction,
sometimes people will say there's one particular consequence that made
it real. Someone might say it was losing my job.
Another person might say it was losing my partner. That's
(32:37):
what sort of made me wake up and realize this
is really affecting my life and destroying my life. Was
there one consequence for you like that?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
No, it's kind of like I don't remember the last
time I used, and I thought that it would be
something worth remembering because it was so awful or overdosed
and there were cops involved, or who knows what. Then
that was the last time I used, and boy was
it bad. And I stopped after that. You know. Somebody
overdosed and died in front of me. Somebody pointed a
(33:12):
gun in my face. All of those things have happened
to me, and none of them stopped my addiction, none
of them. That's just not how it works. But I
will say that some of those things sank in slowly.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
What was the recovery process like for you?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I went to rehab. I was kind of forced into rehab,
But I did my part and tried real hard and
was using before I got out of the halfway house.
Oh wow, it was that strong, you know. I say
that some of us got it bad. Some of us
just got it bad.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
You had to relapse before the recovery process was coming.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Oh yeah, I was in an impatient facility for a month,
and then you go into a halfway house, which is
like sober living, where you're in an apartment complex with
a couple of guys keeping an eye on everybody. And
they didn't keep as close an eye on me as
they should have because I was sneaking out all the time.
I mean there's a curfew and stuff that I did
(34:13):
not respect and was out using. In two thousand and seven,
I was the voice of reason in that documentary, the
talking head that had all the answers, and only revealed
to the director of it as it was premiering in
film festivals that I was high when I made the movie. Wow,
it's kind of like I just it was the devil.
(34:34):
I knew it's the devil. I knew it. Recovery was
so scary to me because it had been so long
since I have had faced life on life's terms. It
was so long I didn't know who I'd be without it,
and it was like jumping off a cliff, and I
(34:55):
was scared.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
To jump off, Like you weren't sure what your identity
was without this drug.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Because I had so wholly internalized it. I remember a
good therapist. I mean, I said, oh my god, what
if I if I'd stop all of this and I
have to rebuild my life? I mean, who will I be?
And he says, Mark, you know, we are not our intentions.
We are not our best intentions. We are not our plans,
(35:24):
we are not our hopes and dreams. We are only
what we do. That's it. We are what we do.
So for the last many years, you lied and you
did drugs, and you were an exploitative person. Well, so
you were a lying, drug addicted exploitative person. Now you
(35:49):
are trying to stay sober and you are telling the truth.
So you are an honest person in recovery. That's who
you are. You are only what you do.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
How long did it take you to believe that?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
M I think it made sense to me right away.
It was harder to live by. I have to remind
myself I'm okay. Where am I right now? Or as
somebody used to say to me, where are your feet?
My feet are in a studio right now. I have
been eating munchies between questions. I am looking at a
(36:24):
guy who's concerned about this. I'm going to be on
a you know, glad nominated podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
How great is that you already are?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Well?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
What was the recovery process that actually kind of brought
you to this stage? Now?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I'm a twelve step program for crystal methatics, so I
go to what is almost exclusively meetings which are for
crystal methatics by and for j men. I am not
unique and I experienced the drug in the same way
as many other gay men, and so it's important for
(37:05):
us to have that.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
How long have you been sober?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Now? Mark, I have been going to meetings for twenty years.
That is not to say that I've been sober for
twenty years, but I did learn a lesson a long
time ago, and that is, don't tell them how much
time you have. Remember you were in that meth documentary
and you told him you had two years clean. Don't
make that mistake again. Or maybe you'll say a number
(37:30):
and then you'll relapse tomorrow. But I will say this,
I have had a very nice period of recovery about
which I'm really grateful.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
I notice that you identify as recovering from crystal meth
as opposed to having been recovered. Tell me more about that.
Why are you recovering and not recovered?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
I do believe that it realtered the way that my
brain thinks, even now, even after a period of recovery
and clean time and all of that. And that's why
I say I'm still recovering, because my crazy mind, oh
my goodness, it can still dream up things. And I've
come to see them those thoughts as as cloud's floating by.
(38:21):
It's like you look up there and you go, oh, Mark,
you crazy shit, look at that. You're thinking that, and
you know the cloud will keep going and pass out
of you. And so that's how I see it. I
believe that the drug has recalibrated me. I have made
great progress. All relationships in my life are no longer transactional.
(38:48):
I have drugs. What do you have? You know? You know,
when you live like that long enough, then you're always
looking for what's in it for me? What do you have?
You know? What do you bring into the chain? You know?
I no longer do that. I think I am the
best partner to my husband and this particular relationship than
(39:08):
I've ever been because I truly care about him as
much as myself. You know, life is a process.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
You know, when you strip away the addiction and the
thrill and the high and the escape that you were
chasing while you were using. If you take all of
that away, what do you think you were really searching for?
Speaker 2 (39:38):
What I really needed was not to become a drug addict, certainly, yes,
and was a way to process the grief and to
honor those who had died and to reaffirm that I'm
going to keep going. I'm going to keep going, and
(39:58):
I do it in their honor, but I a so
do it to honor myself and everything that I'm still
capable of. And I think that this period since I
have addressed my addiction has been the most productive of
my life and maybe the most rewarding.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
What did you learn about yourself on this journey of recovery.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I learned that I can be honest and I won't
die as a result of being honest. I can be honest,
and there's something on the other side of being honest.
You know, we don't fool anybody as much as we
fool ourselves or try to when we're in addiction. Nobody
(40:46):
can see what I'm doing. It isn't as bad as
people think it is. It isn't as bad as I
think it is. It's probably fine. All those lies we
tell ourselves, and so when we are then asked in recovery,
tell the truth, look at it, name it, tell the truth,
it is hard. So I think what I've learned is
(41:07):
that I can tell the truth. The world will not end.
And there's something on the other side of telling the truth,
and it's probably better.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
I'm going to guess that what you're implying is that
the opposite of telling the truth is shame. And if
you sort of bring about what you're ashamed of into
the light, you'll be okay.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yes, that has intersected every thing in my life about
which one might feel ashamed. Being gay, being HIV positive,
being a drug addict, all of those things are are
sources of shame and about which I have gotten nothing
but rewarded by talking about it. And I will say this,
(41:57):
so much of our culture is a lie. Is a lie.
We're told that we have to be this, we have
to be super muscular, we have to be tall, blonde,
sexually desirable, all of those things. It's a lie. And
by that I mean that will not make you happy.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
I am no.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Longer young or muscular or have a beautiful complexion the
way that I did when I was you know, twenty five.
I have none of that currency that I once did.
I have a different currency. You know. I have wisdom.
I have an ability to be okay with my place
(42:40):
in the world. Wow, I know what my place is
in the world.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
The title of our shows is called What We Loved?
What does that mean in the context of your addiction
in your recovery?
Speaker 2 (42:57):
We have a saying in the rooms of recovery to
come on in and we will love you until you
can love yourself. Because a lot of people walk in
and they don't. They don't think there's anything left to
love because of what they've done, choices they've made. And
(43:19):
so when I think of that title, I think of
come into a recovery room. You think that you've got
nothing worthy, But we loved, and we will love you
until you love yourself, And we're patient and will take
(43:40):
the time that it takes for you to come around
and see that you're worthy of that again.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
What We Loved is hosted by me Jordan and Solve.
New episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write
in to tell your story, email us. But we Loved
at gmail dot com, or you can send me a
message on Instagram or TikTok at your underscore again solves.
We are a production of The Outspoken Podcast Network and
(44:11):
iHeart Podcasts, but We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries.
Our producers are Joey pat Emily Meronoff, and Christina Loranger.
Our executive producers are me Maya Howard and Katrina Norvil.
Original music by Steve Boone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson
and Roquel Willis. If you loved this episode, leave us
(44:34):
a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify,
and thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.
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