I have a Secret Stash

One of the first creative non-fiction pieces I got published was “Secret Stash” in Yale’s The Perch.  I wrote it in a weekend when I found the call for the “Substance” issue in order to meet their deadline for submissions, though I had been thinking about it for a month or two.  Looking back at the piece, I can see the roughness of it, the need for more editing, but the “plot” of the story I was trying to tell is all there.

I had been working on my memoir and was writing about my past struggles with addiction, how I had gotten myself clean, and how proud I was of that.  When I finished the first draft of the essay, pleased with myself for my “stopping drugs” story, I was sucker punched by my mind.  I had been lying to myself.  I was still in fact an addict.  I had just conveniently told myself to not think about or include my recent daily use of oxycodone as part of my addiction journey.  This was a new “habit” I had picked up after my father’s death and while looking after my terminally ill mother.

So I wrote the story of how I came to use oxycodone, why I stopped, and the truth of where I am now in my mental and emotional dependence on getting high if “needed” in my addiction journey.

“Secret Stash” can be found on page 159 of Yale’s The Perch “Substance” issue.