I used to take the edge off overwork with alcohol. Sixty hours and more, Friday, a bar, a hazy Saturday, Sunday to climb out of it. Monday again.
A friend from San Francisco, well, where else, said:
Why drink? Smoke a bit, it lets go, and the head is clear in the morning.
It sounded reasonable. And it was true: no hangover, no weight. It felt like I had found a move.
He left out two things. Dose and frequency grow, and the line called "sometimes" crawls. And in Russia this is not a tip about a fresh head. It is a detention cell, a court, a narcologist.
Friday
They processed me and sent me to the cell. Three days. Not because the term had to be three, but because courts do not sit on weekends. Out on Monday.
Three days alone. A cell, four walls, time like chewing gum. No phone, no book, no window, no talk.
The first hours circled what to tell people at home and how to explain it at work. Then anger: at the police, at the law, at myself, at that man from San Francisco. Then it went quiet. There was nobody left to accuse out loud.
After the cell, court. Administrative. It did not become criminal. The hard part was still ahead.
The narcologist
A year of supervision. The harshest piece was not the cell and not the judge. It was the narcology center.
A shabby Soviet building. A line of people whose lives had already slid off the rails. Hands shaking, faces twenty years older, no job, no family. I sit among them. I have a job, a flat, plans. I got here on advice about a clear head.
Each visit is a look at the next chair. Not a lecture. Just the room that road leads to if you do not stop.
Then the pandemic started. They gave the center to an infectious hospital. I did not find a new place to check in on time. Result: another year.
Two years instead of one. Not for using. For paperwork.
Sunday
Time passed. A lot of it.
Five years without drugs. Two years without alcohol. Six months without cigarettes.
Overwork, stress, and burnout are not cured by weed. That is wallpaper on a crack in the foundation. It looks fine in a photo. The house still sits down.
On Sundays I go to manual therapy. They take you apart and put you back. Kneading, twisting, a crack as if something left. The body like a beaten dog, inside like dropping a pack of stones. A high without a cell and without that queue in that building.
Alcohol and weed take the pain off a fracture. The bone does not set. You walk on. It sets crooked.
In Russia they really do hold you three days for weed, then put you on a narcologist's list. Not everyone. They do hold people. I paid that price. I live without the chemistry now not because it is correct, but because it is better for me.
