A Raging Addiction and No Job? How I managed Daily Drug Use Part I

I Managed Homelessness in Honolulu Indoors

When I first started using drugs I was young and beautiful. Not to everyone of course, but to enough people that I could get some mileage out of my looks. If I had known that youth would not last forever and that I was never going to be as good looking as I was then, I would have tried to marry well. But I didn’t know which is why youth is wasted on the young. I used my looks to get the attention of other drug addicts who had apartments. Usually they were disabled guys who lived in some form of subsidized housing. Guys who were addicts and had nice places to live were in the process of losing their homes as their addictions progressed, unbeknownst to them. These guys were still trying to kid themselves by going to work from time to time. trying not to hang out with other addicts every single day, ultimately pointless efforts. Low income guys had stabilized in their apartments. The rent was often handled by a payee so they couldn’t blow all their money on drugs. The rest of their checks went up in smoke within a day or to after Social Security disability paid them for whatever ailed them. The rest of the month they exchanged access to their place for dope. I caught their eyes, but pretty wasn’t enough. I had to come up with the drugs to trade. In the year 2000, thereabouts, a working girl could get a date in under a minute 24/7, the only slow day being Superbowl Sunday. My pattern: leave whatever apartment I had stayed in until the drugs ran out