(Content warning: Incarceration, addiction, drugs, law enforcement, suicide)

Dictacted 11.24.24 from Dane County Jail, Madison, WI

Dear Mom, 

As promised in my last post, I want to tell you more about what transpired between walking to the grocery store to buy heroin, and my arrest shortly thereafter. And yes, I’ll get to the alcohol.

You see, Mom, my headstone would have read 9/11/88-11/15/24 if it weren’t for the cops. I walked into the store after I completed the “transaction” that took place behind the building. (If it helps at all, I did buy a nice Caesar salad as well.) When I walked down that liquor aisle I grabbed the bottle of vodka off the shelf without even slowing down to pay attention to what I was picking up. I was revisiting the unconscious habits of the past, just going through the motions.

Let me tell you something about that vodka. In my head, there were some reasons I might as well grab it on the way out. Truthfully, over the last year, sometimes I buy a bottle just to set it on the counter and know that I can avoid it, not drink it, and walk away from it until I dump it a few days later. It’s empowering to resist it. That’s part of what was going on in my head. I might want that moment of empowerment, if I did manage to survive what I was doing. 

Another part was that if you look at the research, some of the actual endorphin rush from using any substance is the mere act of picking it up, and I was in a bad place. That segment of my brain said, “Hey Eli, just go buy some; maybe it will be enough of a pick me up from old times that you’ll snap out of this?” A big part of me didn’t feel right dying without my oldest friend-turned-nemesis in the picture somewhere, even if it was completely irrelevant, and I had no desire to drink it whatsoever. And I really didn’t want to die drunk. What was the point of the last high if I was going to die too drunk to notice? 

(I just chuckled saying that out loud, and I think that illustrates my sense of humor quite accurately.)

But there it is. I bought that bottle without any intention of drinking it, so when I left the store to walk home and saw an unmarked squad car sitting there, my brain just about imploded wrestling with the idea that I was going to go to jail for the crime of possessing alcohol that I never intended to drink. 

Here’s the real kicker, Mom. Every other time in my life I’ve bought alcohol, even when I could legally do so, I put it in a damn paper bag, like any self-respecting member of society, and I didn’t just walk around with a freaking bottle of vodka clear as day, as if I’ve given up all hope on life. But on that day, I skipped the bag. On that day I had given up all hope, and I looked at the paper bag, and I said to myself, “Well, universe, if you’re looking out for me in any way, stop me. I dare you.” And it’s the weirdest thing because as I walked out of that parking lot to cross the street and saw that cop staring at me, I clutched that fully-visible bottle of forbidden Svedka and wondered what the hell he was doing there, before remembering that I was carrying far more illegal contraband. 

If that’s not the universe shouting at you, I don’t know what is. Actually, I do know what it is. I remember turning around, walking back into the parking lot, sitting down, and finding (*ahem*) somewhere safe to put $80 worth of heroin. Thus prepared, I tried a second time to exit the parking lot of the grocery store that I’d shopped at for 10 to 15 years … as a number of police officers took flight, landing on top of me. 

It’s enough to make a guy question if, perhaps, there was an easier way to access suicide intervention, divine intervention, any intervention. Maybe one that didn’t involve faceplanting into concrete at the bottom of a scrum of badges and bodies. 

Elijah C. Misener, Died November 15, 2024, the headstone would have read; but apparently this was not to be. Beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to intervention at this point in life, and was an intervention. 

So there you have it. It took about a week to get my head out of that spot in the jail, Mom. It took a week of debating whether I was going to hang around or if it was worth fighting for anything. I hardly got out of bed. That was partially because my broken ribs made it physically impossible, and on top of that, the concussion and the fever made getting out of bed hard to even contemplate. I laid there ruminating on the meaning of life and death and my desire to be a part of any of it or all of it and which one. 

And then, one day, the fog cleared. And you know what surprised me, Mom? Now I kind of like jail, at least as much as one can like jail. I’m alive. And I’m actually pretty happy I am because there’s some stuff that needs to get done, and like I said, Mom, it’s going to get harder before it gets easier. But you taught me well that we can do hard things. 

I miss you and love you, Mom.

Still me,
-Eli