I’ve always been, you know, sickly. Ever since I was a kid.

Say, “quit your bellyachin’!” but I will not! I’ve a very sensitive stomach, see. Most everything I put in my body makes me ill. The world poisons me.

Enter the medication . . . thick liquids, candy handfuls, little pinpricks . . . a quick second to sickness. My only childhood friend.

Who could wonder at the state I’m in?

Learned to love cough syrup early. It didn’t take me long to make the connection between a few swallows and feeling like I could melt into the mattress. It felt so damn . . . good.

Better than burning out my eyes and mind on electronic screens.

Better than my fumbling pre-adolescent attempts at getting myself off.

Better than anything, really.

Better, at least, when a stumbling weak-kneed search finds the bottle’s hiding place atop the bathroom cabinet, and shaking hands can finally get enough.

Except that there’s never, ever enough. Not when it comes to drugs. Not really.

And so, a junkie is born.