A Sober Person (My Husband) And An Addict (Me) Have The Best Relationships

PLUS: SASSY, JANE, XOJane reunion at Jane's house! Your non-exclusive invitation is here!

Hello fresh people!

I have SO much to say but I am going to keep it lite (you are very welcome, Andy and Charlie and others who prefer my shorter introductions). For those of you who are either new here (welcome! I am thrilled that you found us!) or undecided about the great More Jane Writing or Less Jane Writing debate, I will point out that not all of my long intros are about heavy things like my miscarriages. Sometimes I even deftly derail things here with a story of sweating on my hugest Bachelor Nation crush. So let me know what you want from me in the future and I am here to please.*

One thing before today’s featured story: Because I am so excited that we have so many new folks here all of a sudden who were Sassy, Jane and xoJane readers, it feels like an excellent time to have another Zoom party with former readers and staffers of all those defunct publications. The day after the last party, my stomach was actually hurting - either from the cold pizza that was left outside my door while we went almost an hour overtime or from laughing so continually hard with Andrea Linett, Christina Kelly, Mary Clarke and all of you beauties who came. I can only imagine how uproarious it will be now with even more of you and all the memories you will bring. So if you are interested in being part (virtually or otherwise) of a gossipy gathering at my place with staff and readers of all of these annoyingly-largely-Jane-themed titles, including AJPT, let me know in the comments that you are in and also what timing works best for you. And if you came to the other parties, you had better return or I will be highly insulted (Morrissey tickets for the day we decide on are probably not going to be an issue, Alyssa and Robin, because… you know).

I am very close to today’s story (and every AJPT story), having worked with Kris on it sometimes until crazy hours over these past weeks, so I am ready for anything you want to say or ask and my favorite part about publishing here is talking to you about it. Kris is also up for discussing anything. We want to hear what you think about her argument and whether you relate to her story - or not. It's all worthy. So let’s do that in the comments. I sure do love you.

Jane

*I do want to prepare you that tomorrow’s email will include a story from me about Jane magazine’s involvement with America’s Next Top Model. I’ve been talking to my Jane and xoJane Fashion Editor (and favorite person) Eric, who was a judge on Cycle 2 (with Janice, Nigel, Jay and, of course, Tyra) when Jane (the magazine) was the publishing partner for the show. And because ANTM is SO back right now, we wanted to tell you what we experienced. So stay tuned (or tune out) for that coming up.

By Kris Rose

In 1965, Neil Simon premiered his play The Odd Couple on Broadway. It was a hit, later developed into a movie and TV show. In the play, two friends, Oscar and Felix, share an apartment although they are in many ways opposites. In particular, Felix is tidy and fastidious while Oscar is messy and careless. Oscar is cool; Felix is not.

In 2006, I shared a microscopic studio apartment in San Francisco’s filthy and disgusting Tenderloin district with Dave, who would later become my husband, in a similar arrangement…except for Oscar’s “mess,” read my “drugs.” I had done every drug, and still did, in addition to being a committed drinker and chain smoker. Dave had, and still has, done none. No drugs. None.

That’s me in Austin, Texas in 1997, high off my tits on heroin, supposedly from Gibby Haynes’ same dealer.

Usually it’s the other way around–a “nice” girl who barely drinks and has never done drugs falls for a “bad boy” with a checkered past, but that’s not my story. I’m the “bad” one. My husband tried drugs three times, pot twice (each time with disastrous results), Vicodin once for a toothache, which led him into an ill-fated long-term relationship. Perhaps due to his autism, his brain just isn’t wired for substance use. I can barely get him to take ibuprofen when he has a headache. I, on the other hand, have taken just about everything with the exception of no-nos like angel dust and ketamine, or peripheral drugs such as “wet daddy” formaldehyde-dipped cigarettes, paint huffing (though I have looked into it enough to know metallic colors give the best high), bath salts, or krokodil. I mostly stick to your basic drug groups: alcohol, amphetamines, psychotropics, benzos, and opiates.

When I first started hanging around Dave, at age twenty-five, I had just come off of the worst opiate addiction of my life. I was recovering in the way that all Tulsans recovered from anything, by drinking a constant supply of half-strength beer. Oklahoma was one of the few states that restricted the strength of beer you could buy cold. The strong stuff you had to buy warm at a liquor store; they closed at nine pm and weren’t open on Sundays. I guess it was supposed to be punitive, but all it did was force us to get used to drinking our beer warm, which was disgusting not because of the temp, but because we could only afford the cheapest, shittiest brands of six point beer. Piel’s, Pig’s Eye, Lost Lake, Hamm’s, etc…

Me at age 19 with my cat Ratso Rizzo waking up on a bare mattress with empty soldiers from the night before at the punk house locally known as “The Crackhouse,” though no actual crack was ever consumed there to my knowledge.

I organized an art show called “3.2 Blues Sunday,” because the beer you could buy on Sunday could not exceed three-point-two percent alcohol.

So there I was, day-drinking near beer and fully into the euphoric “pink cloud” phase of recovery from opiates when my two best friends, Janet and Nadine, got crushed out on this guy from a band. We were all going to go visit him in Fort Smith, an hour and a half away. I had met Dave before, when my best friend pointed him out to me at a punk show at the park. He had managed to smash his knuckle while playing blast beats for a hardcore band and we brought him whiskey and sympathy as condolences. I tried to get him to stay the night that night, in service to my friend who was smitten, but he managed to escape our clutches and slipped away to try and untangle a disastrous relationship with a recent ex. I would see him a few times over the next year or two, but because I was constantly moving to Chicago or Los Angeles or hiding out amongst my opiate-loving friends, I wasn’t out and about as often.

But that day, I jumped into Janet’s car and off we went, uninvited and unannounced (it was 2003 back when you just showed up at people’s houses without them knowing, it was wonderful) and ready to drink.

.

Myself and “Lil’ Amber” (RIP) at ‘The Crackhouse’ circa 1998 enjoying a 40 oz. of malt liquor. [If you notice a sad number of RIPs in Kris’ story, that’s because, as she told me, “Unfortunately I’ve lost like, 30+ friends over the past few decades, so that’s a common theme with me. Girl with all the dead friends.” -Jane]

Dave was not a big drinker, but he was never judgmental or critical about our drinking. He thought we were fun and delighted in our drunken banter and antics. (He will testify to this day that he loves me no matter what and would support me not drinking too, but that a Kris lubricated with a few drinks is a good time, full stop.) Since my two friends were already starting to have weird tension over their shared crush, I simply removed myself from the equation by dating another bass player who lived in Portland and who I had met when his band came through town to play on the rooftop of a downtown parking garage. He was younger, and I wasn’t looking for anything beyond our one night together, but he kept calling me each day trying to convince me that we could make it work.

“At twenty-one years old, one of my dearest and most favorite people was told that one more drink could send him over the edge. Unfortunately, Tulsa was the worst place for anyone trying to quit anything. He was found dead in our friend’s garage apartment, seemingly from liver failure.”

My drinking was no secret from anyone, especially not my new Portland boy. He made it seem as if it was no big deal, something I’d discover was just him telling me what I wanted to hear. Dave and I also started writing regular emails to each other. Since we weren’t trying to engage the other romantically, we just sort of let it all hang out. We told each other all the gross embarrassing parts of our lives without shame or guilt. Something I’d really appreciate as things progressed with Mr. Portland, who soon moved to Tulsa and started having major issues with my lifestyle.

Granted, I knew I was drinking an excessive amount, but I was still such an open wound, not just from the recent opiate addiction and withdrawal, but because one of my dearest and most favorite people had died that spring. Chris and his older brother Eric had been like family to me, in fact, his older brother had died from suicide just eight months prior to Chris’ own death, something which I have always suspected played a part in Chris’ choice to keep drinking even after a doctor had cautioned him against it. At only twenty-one years old, Chris had a failing liver and was told that even one more drink could send him over the edge. Unfortunately, Tulsa was the worst place for anyone trying to quit anything, but Chris loved his friends more than he loved himself, and on May 7th of 2003 he was found dead in our friend’s garage apartment, seemingly from liver failure, but possibly from a heroin overdose since several people had seen him with heroin the night before his tragic passing. His death sent me down a dark path that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to escape, but somehow I did. Barely and by the skin of my teeth.

With Chris at a wedding

Chris camping

Unlike some I knew who had addiction issues, I usually tried to be moderate in my insanity. If I was using opiates, I abstained from alcohol and especially benzos, as the combo was often deadly and vice versa. If I was in a drinking phase it meant I wasn’t taking opiates. Things like LSD, mushrooms, weed or amphetamines were just occasional dalliances for me. If they were available, free, and the situation seemed right, all aboard! However I didn’t go out seeking these things, they literally had to fall into my lap. That wasn’t the case with booze and opiates.

Myself and my late drinking buddy Tracey (RIP) in Caz’s pub Tulsa, OK in summer of 2006, right before I left to go on tour with Dave.

As the years went on, Portland and I became more serious, and Dave and I stayed in touch via email after he moved to Bloomington, Indiana to become a star on the indie label Plan-It-X Records. I moved with Portland back to his hometown of San Francisco, enrolled myself in City College, and started trying to clean up my act for real. The Portland guy made me feel like he was superior to me because he had never struggled with drinking or drugs. I had somehow internalized the idea that sobriety equaled some moral high ground. It sounded reasonable when he asked me to cut back on going out with my girlfriends every night to the bars, because he wanted me to spend time with him. Everything he asked of me seemed reasonable, so I did it, but there was an underlying theme of isolation and control that I couldn’t see until I was already halfway across the country from my home heading towards my new life in SF and legally married to the guy.

Fast forward to 2006, I’ve left my unhealthy and abusive marriage, I’m still going to school full time and working full time, and drinking a moderate, but not insane amount on the weekends when I go out with the few friends I have in this new city. Most of the people I knew there were somehow connected to my ex husband, who made sure to always appear to the public eye as a goofy affable dork, and a darling in the punk community there. Through school I had met a friend who was definitely more of a drinker than I was, so I didn’t have to worry about any judgement there. Dave then invited me to go on tour with him and play my original songs. Considering that my ex husband wouldn’t even allow me to step in and play second guitar for his band outside of tour, I was more than happy to have somebody ask me to play music again. I was especially honored because I liked and admired Dave’s music, not to mention his one man act (Dave Dean’s Musical Forklift) in which he displayed his hand drawn signs depicting cartoons to accompany his songs. It was music and comedy and art all in one, and I was thrilled to be asked.

Fat Dracula playing in Fort Smith, Arkansas, at Cousin's music in 2024. My husband Dave Dean is on bass and I am on drugs….I mean, drums.

It was on that tour that we fell in love and realized that we had probably been in love with each other for ages, but were way too dysfunctional to admit it. I of course was terrified to get into another relationship with another non-addict guy who could and probably would start judging me as soon as things got serious. Outside of my ex husband, I had only ever dated other drinkers and/or addicts. I thought I needed to in order to have somebody truly understand me as a person. It never occurred to me that somebody without this history would accept me as I was, and to be honest, it wasn’t always easy for Dave.

After the tour I went back to SF where I was still in college and he went back to his life in Bloomington where he was still on the label. I won’t get into the weeds about it, but after a lot of needless drama and back and forth he ended up moving to SF and we eventually got an apartment together in the Tenderloin. It was around this time that I had a trip to the emergency room for a ruptured ovarian cyst. It was so painful that no amount of morphine in the ER could numb it. I managed to recover but not without some strange new symptoms such as muscle weakness and a burning sensation on my skin. I took opiates again to try and mitigate the pain, not to mention offset the fatigue that would lay me out. I couldn’t afford to lay around, I had a nanny job, a daycare job and full time school. The only reason I could even afford our studio apartment in the Tenderloin was due to student loan money which would dry up the minute I left school. All this was a lot for Dave to take on board. Especially since no doctor seemed to know what was wrong with me. It was as if I had been mysteriously stricken with some biblical plague out of nowhere. Things got so severe that we decided to move back to Tulsa in order to focus on my health.

I then started getting doctor-prescribed opiates for the constant and unbearable chronic pain. I have to say, taking opiates recreationally and taking them for actual pain are two different things. Part of the reason I had liked opiates in the past had been the energy they gave me because I had always suffered from random bouts of fatigue and achiness. I now know that I have had thyroid disease all this time and these symptoms could have been controlled with thyroid medication, but because of the changing way medicine is practiced (mostly due to the insurance industry, which is an entirely other topic for another article) I was given one single test to determine if my thyroid was working properly that wasn’t specific or sensitive enough. It wasn’t until I did my own research and asked for a full thyroid hormone panel test that I discovered that I was hypothyroid. Ironically over the years each new doctor would say to me, “you have all the symptoms of hypothyroid disease but your TSH test is in range.” Let me tell you, “in range,” is just a made up number taken from mostly white dudes because most medicine is tested on and for the benefit of white dudes. Women and minorities get left behind and thrown into the same basket, despite the fact that women’s hormones are totally different from men’s and we require specialized treatment.

During this horrible time when no doctor could diagnose me, I was in constant pain and Dave suddenly and out of nowhere announced that he was going back to San Francisco without me to keep working his job at a private school for an undetermined time. This was devastating news to me. I had never wanted to move back to Tulsa, and I had loved City College of SF, but Dave had made me think that we were moving back together, so it would be different than other times I had lived in Tulsa. We weren’t breaking up, but I was definitely breaking, emotionally, physically, mentally.

All ages audience and local Tulsa punk band Junfalls playing at 7pm at Bound for Glory Books circa 2018

Without him there, I was lost. I was terrified to be left alone to my own devices. I was having a hard time finding a pain management doctor. I was still taking the long term pain meds that I had been prescribed back in SF, which weren’t enough, so it only made sense to find a stronger longer-acting opiate since I’d be facing down a handful of opiates per day otherwise, full of acetaminophen which I knew had helped destroy my late friend Chris’ liver on top of the drinking. Taking twelve pills per day versus taking two with no Tylenol seemed like a much better choice for my health in the long term, so that’s what I did and I stand by that decision today.

I was suffering from all kinds of abandonment issues, friends doubting if I was even really sick in the first place, other friends using drugs in a reckless and dangerous way I had never seen before, and anger at my inability to keep up with other friends at the bars. Would I fall back into old bad habits and start using unprescribed opiates on a regular basis to kill my emotional pain? I couldn’t allow Dave or anyone to dictate how I treated myself. Eventually Dave came back with his tail between his legs, asking to give it another shot. Since I had been given a second chance by him before, I decided to give him the same in return. He had one more chance to not fuck this up, but he had to get on board with what was actually happening with me, and that is exactly what he did.

Dave performing at Whittier bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2022.

Over the next few years I gradually started drinking less and less. I was so desperate to feel normal and healthy that hangovers didn’t really feel worth it to me in the long run. I’m not saying making the adjustment from social drinker (meaning I always drank when I was out socially) to sober person was easy. It was something I literally had to practice. Smoking cigarettes was also something I had been doing since I was thirteen. But when I decided to stop drinking for my health, I also decided I’d give not smoking a try too. Luckily I was able to call a number and get sent a kit with enough nicotine patches to get me off of my half a pack a day habit (a habit that lessened considerably when I quit drinking booze). Dave never even realized I could be a non-smoker - he was surprised and overjoyed. He had never asked me to quit anything and I was in the mindset of doing it for my own benefit and health, and not trying to please or appease anyone besides myself.

Perhaps if I was an ugly drunk he’d feel differently, but since all the ugliness of my drinking is contained to my vital organs, he sees no harm.

Being on pain management, I got piss tested regularly, so using marijuana for pain was never allowed. That was up until it was legalized here in Oklahoma in 2018. I hadn’t been a huge pot smoker back in the day simply because I had started to get paranoid and anxious instead of giggly and fun. What I realize now is that I was just getting too fucking high and that my tolerance for such things is luckily quite low. I have no idea why people think it’s a good thing to have these enormous tolerances that cause you to have to spend more money and more time trying to get to the same place I get to for cheap and toot suite.

Dave had never seen me high before, but he found it delightful, almost like the good old days when I was drinking my small beers in my flip flops around his house in Fort Smith. By this point we’d gotten married and had bought a house. Dave had stopped trying to pretend he liked having even one beer in social situations and I became a full on pot head. We owned and operated an independent bookstore and hosted bands there at reasonable hours. Our guarantee was that our shows were over by ten PM on the dot. We allowed a BYOB type of atmosphere and I’m pleased to say that our all ages shows never had an unruly or overly sloshed attendee or performer. I think we set the tone for how we wanted our guests to behave and Dave set the best example by not drinking at all. I was still learning how to navigate my new weed habit, so occasionally I’d have to sit out in my friend’s car watching humorous youtube videos away from the crowds, but we managed to create a sort of punk rock mom and pop reputation that we apparently still have to this day. We modeled moderation, without the superiority complex and even hosted my friend’s non profit harm reduction group so that they could organize important resources like Narcan training and needle exchanges.

In 2022 Dave and I started playing music together again, him on bass and myself on drums, since I had started finding it too difficult to play guitar with all the muscle pain in my arms and back. Weirdly playing drums was much easier on my body and I also really enjoyed the challenge of coming up with drum parts for Dave’s eclectic bass lines. It was recently that we were driving home from a performance at a local bar and I was just thinking about how grateful I was that I never had to worry about him being too drunk to drive. It was just a non issue. I didn’t have to worry about him drinking too much and making an ass out himself, or a million other problems that come along with being with somebody who imbibes.

Dave often used to tease me that he was waiting for the day when I’d run off with some heroin chic dude riding a motorcycle. That honestly might have been the case when I was twenty-four, but it sounds like a total nightmare to me now. Dave freely admits to having his own issues with his own fucked up brain, but addiction isn’t one of them. His biggest addiction is eating an entire sleeve of sandwich cookies in one sitting and then passing into a sugar coma for half an hour. We don’t trade horror stories from the “bad old days,” either, although he’s definitely witnessed a few doozies thanks to my friends, some of whom never got off that train. He’s been to more than a few funerals too, for people that I loved and he liked, but who took too many risks and didn’t slow down. I’ve even collected some mushrooms for microdosing purposes and Dave takes it in stride. He tells me that he knows that I know what I’m doing and he has no authority in that department. He trusts my judgment because he knows I don’t have that hair trigger to self destruct like I used to, thanks in part to being loved and accepted exactly as I am, a now sober drug user.

Me wearing my friend’s “It’s Lake Time” hat at a BBQ while Dave makes himself comfortable washing the dishes of our host instead of socializing with other people

I know that I am also an outlier, and that there’s a few things different in me than the average addict. My brain is different, whether from PTSD or nature, or both, who knows, but I’m an outlier in quite a few categories, so what works for me might not work for everyone, or anyone. I quit alcohol in 2009, but I occasionally drink here and there just to make sure I still don’t care for it. I don’t know if my chemistry has changed or just my perception of what it feels like to have alcohol in my system, but it just doesn’t do it for me anymore. To clarify, I have had one beer, maybe two at the most in these experiments, and I wasn’t impressed, not to mention half a glass of wine gave me a three day hangover once and that alone was enough to prove to me that it just wasn’t worth the price of admission. Dave never gives me the side eye when I do these tests, nor does he gloat when I’m groaning and miserable the next day or two, he simply says that he trusts me, and I can make my own choices in this matter. Perhaps if I had been an ugly drunk, he’d feel differently, but since all the ugliness of my drinking was contained to my vital organs, he sees no harm. I don’t believe in punitive programs where one drink erases years of sobriety. I think people can use substances in a moderate and healthy way, and they can be “sober” in an unhealthy, almost addictive way too.

“I’m not sure I would still be here if I had forced myself to ‘raw dog’ life.”

As for opiates, I still take some amount to mitigate the chronic pain that I have. Unfortunately the crackdown because of the opiate crisis has left many of us chronic pain patients in the position of always looking over our shoulders, waiting for the next “common sense” measure or law to take away the few rights we have left. It seems they’d rather us suffer and die rather than risk people using opiates recreationally. Now there’s even more deaths than ever, and you can’t trust anything that you buy off the streets. They’ve made the problem worse because of the severe judgment they have towards people who take drugs. The only thing I’ve ever seen work is harm reduction, and it’s what has worked for me personally. The ugliest deaths I’ve witnessed have been from alcohol addiction, something which is completely legal and readily available. There are friends of mine who would be a hundred times better off on drugs than drinking. I dream about being able to have access to the drugs that would actually help my physical pain. I live in pain every single day in order to make some nameless able bodied person who lives without chronic pain feel better about the opiate crisis. Ain’t that some shit.

I also want to say that there were times when I was so mentally down that I was close to self harm in a major way, and that I needed to numb the emotional pain more than I needed to be sober. Luckily, and because I took precaution in the amount and combination of drugs I imbibed, I survived. I’m not so sure I would still be here if I had forced myself to “raw dog” life. Self-medicating is frowned upon by the “professionals,” but I have to say that those so-called “professionals” have a major blind spot when it comes to actual drug use and abuse, and the difference between the two. So many people want to reduce things to binary, right/wrong, black/white, good/bad, but life is more complicated than that, and so is addiction. What we’ve been doing the past few hundred years isn’t working. You cannot wage a war against drugs, only drug users, and most of us are good people who struggle. If my first marriage taught me anything, it’s that a person can be sober but that sobriety is no compass for morality. No matter what people want to tell themselves. An addict doesn’t always equal “bad,” and sober doesn’t always equal “good.”

Myself and Dave on our way to do our pandemic era pirate radio show for K-NO1, “The Pvlse of Tvlse.”

I wish there were more Daves in the world. People who abstain for themselves without making the rest of the world subscribe to their way of doing things. I respect his choices not to drink or use drugs and I would never pressure him to be otherwise. I love and respect who he is and that for him doing those things isn’t fun or needed. I’m also so glad that he saw a few sketchy things and despite all that decided I was worth the ride. Like the late Cookie Mueller once lamented, it’s not as if she’s looking for drama, but drama seems to find her all the same. I have to say having a stern looking sober husband at your side helps persuade a lot of that drama to go looking elsewhere. I wouldn’t have it any other way.