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Publication: Sun
Sentinel
Date: 02-22-04
By Noaki Schwartz
Miami Bureau
The scars are still there. The
rectangular mark in his arm where he installed a hospital
drug port to more easily inject the speed. The crease
on his upper lip from crashing his car while high.
Worse is the damage that people can’t see: the
disease coursing through his veins.
Dane Benson has been using methamphetamine for 20 years.
For the last four, he has tried to quit, largely without
success.
For the past nine months, though, he’s been living
in a Miami halfway house, sober. The 35-year old who
once worried mostly about where he’d get his next
fix now dreams of getting off the drug completely, finishing
his computer classes and becoming an actor.
Benson was born in Tampa but grew up in the Bible Belt,
north of Atlanta. For years, he said he was terrified
that he would go to hell for being gay. Instead he numbed
those nagging thoughts with meth, all day and every
day.
“Meth was my best friend, my lover, my mother,
my father and my higher power,” Benson said.
For a time he snorted the drug. It would make his head
tingle and he felt like it was melting his senses. It
was like drinking 1,000 espressos and taking a whole
packet of Sudafed, he said.
Benson once went without sleep for 21 days. During that
time, he was in a car crash and fled from police while
trying to protect the meth in his possession. When they
finally caught up with him and took him to the hospital,
he told authorities he was Satan.
“I’m convulsing, my eyes are trembling,”
he said. “Here I am dying and I’m loving
it. I wanted to die as high as I could be.”
But even after going to the hospital, he continued using,
stealing from people and having run-ins with the law,
he said.
“You don’t forget your inhibitions,”
Benson said. “You don’t have any. You have
no concept of risky behavior. This moment is the only
moment that exists.”
Eventually Benson contracted the HIV virus that causes
AIDS and also became infected with Hepatitis C.
In the middle of the chaos, someone started taking Benson
to “these meetings” he recalled —
even if he was high. The friend came everyday and took
him to 12-step meetings.
“And then something clicked,” Benson said.
“I looked around one day and realized I wanted
to live. I changed my phone number, moved and got a
sponsor. For the first time I was willing to do whatever
he suggested.”
Now he doesn’t even drink caffeinated drinks or
use mouthwash.
But the real miracle, Benson said, happens when he has
the urge to get high. He picks up the phone to talk
with a friend instead. |
