Dough. Sauce. Toppings. Oven. Box.
That is the typical routine for Daniel Donald when working his shift at Main Street Pizzeria & Creamery in Wilmore, as he now starts crafting my end-of-shift dinner.
It may seem simple, but, to Donald, there is hope and optimism in routine.
Transporting the fresh-stretched dough to the ingredients station, he evenly spreads sauce and sprinkles various toppings onto the pizza, preparing it for the oven.
Simple.
Throughout simple acts, however, the mind may wander and replay memories from the past.
He slides the pizza in the oven.
~
Donald sat alone in the passenger seat of a car.
Silence was the loudest noise, except for the low hum of the car engine.
A typical night drive with his father landed them at Edgar’s Pharmacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
The orange-hued streetlights dimly illuminated the darkness of the night. The young teenager impatiently repositioned himself in his seat.
After glancing at his father non-hesitantly shuffle in and out of sight through the store’s glass and eventually wind up at the front counter, Donald anticipated the end of the detour’s inertia.
His father exited the store with a crumpled bag in his hand.
Gently, with a barely audible click, Donald’s father shut the driver’s side door. Silence again.
The car lights slowly faded out.
Donald suffers from a past of over 22 years of substance abuse.
His history of illegal drug abuse started at the age of 15, but Donald was exposed to the ominous presence of drugs from as long as he can remember.
Hurt. Madness. Chaos. Those were the components of Donald’s childhood attributed to his parents’ misuse of drugs.
“A kid’s gonna do what their parent does. You think that’s how your life is supposed to be lived,” said Donald.
After later losing his mother to drugs, Donald sought after his father, who had abandoned the family when Donald turned two. He was aware that there was something strange about his father but failed to pinpoint it.
Until, one night, Donald and his father parked their car at Edgar’s Pharmacy and exited with a pack of needles.
“My daddy gave me my first shot,” said Donald.
It only escalated from there. At 16, Donald quit school and worked with his father at a construction site. Their weekly paychecks from the site allowed them to buy heroin. On weekends, they would go to houses that supplied “dope” and prostitutes. This mix of substances and sex resulted in many situations where Donald and his father would share women in bed.
Donald explained that after two years of this detrimental cycle with his father, even with his “crazy, drug-induced mind,” Donald knew it was time to part with him.
Addiction still remained. He chose to take it in what experts would call a “binge and crash pattern.”
Methamphetamine was Donald’s drug of choice, although he experimented with cocaine and heroin as well.
“People take methamphetamine in a form of binging known as a “run,” giving up food and sleep while continuing to take the drug every few hours for up to several days,” explained an article by The National Institute of Drug Abuse.
Donald once went 18 days without eating, drinking, or sleeping. His spine could be seen through his stomach.
He said, “I remember I thought that if you went to rehab, you were weak. It was for quitters,” but, early one morning, he had an encounter that rapidly changed his mind-set about rehabilitation.
After staying awake for over six days, Donald, with his sickly and paranoid appearance caused by the stimulant methamphetamine, crossed paths with his young daughter Layla.
Teary-eyed, Donald explained, “She looks at me like ‘something ain’t right with daddy.’ She didn’t even have to say a word and I knew, that she knew, that ‘daddy’s acting weird for a reason.’”
“There’s something wrong with my daddy,” he said. So, what happens when an individual hits rock bottom? For Donald, it was over four years of rehabilitation.
He went back and forth between illegal drugs and Mississippi’s “Home of Grace” rehabilitation center five times. The relapse was caused by a desire for the sexual excitement and performance caused by the stimulant.
“Methamphetamine creates a release of dopamine in the reward centers of the brain that allows you to feel pleasure,” explained Dr. Richard Rawson, a professor in the department of psychiatry at UCLA in a San Diego Union-Tribune article.
“That’s what meth does…it perverts everything,” said Donald when touching on his reasons for past relapses.
Flash forward three months and Donald has moved to Wilmore, Kentucky. He now works at Main Street Pizzeria & Creamery and is over 100 days clean. He goes out with his friends and attends a narcotics anonymous group. He proudly watches his children grow up.
Donald is rebuilding a normal life. Where do we go when the pseudo-euphoria dies out and surroundings get quiet? After all of the excitement, after the drive for a more thrilling perception of reality, where do we look to satisfy the insatiable hole that we have formulated in ourselves over the course of our lifetimes?
Donald has found hope and reliance in community relationships post-addiction.
“Since I’ve been in Wilmore, you could put a pound of s*** in front of me and I wouldn’t touch it. It’s the community. It’s who you surround yourself with,” said Donald while expressing his thoughts on another unlikely relapse.
He has created lasting friendships that hold him accountable in all areas of life.
Donald elaborated to me in the interview, “Don’t think if I was out and there was drugs there in front of me … Don’t think Madi wouldn’t cross my mind. You gonna let Madi down?”
“I don’t want to let these people down,” he added.
His drive still continues to remain clean from illegal substances. Donald has replaced fulfillment achieved through drugs with the everyday fulfillment of supportive relationships.
Although there are prevalent struggles with the after-effects of the narcotics, Donald continues to obtain tremendous support from those around him.
Hope is not just evident in Donald’s life, but is also evident in the lives of all struggling with addiction.
~
After a considerable amount of time, Donald, with a smooth scrape of the pizza peel, carefully places the finished product onto the cutting station.
With an almost rhythmic and patterned movement, he cuts the pizza, immediately slides it into a box, and gestures my dinner toward me, the box’s heat warming up my chilled hands.
“It’s a better life. It can be beat,” said Donald. “There is a way out.”