Heart Medicine: a True Love Story

Heart Medicine: A True Love Story -

One Couple’s Quest for the Sacred Iboga Medicine & the Cure for Addiction

by, E. Bast

EXCERPT:

Preface & Chapter 1

Preface

“Are you sure you want me to write about... that?” I asked Chor. “It’s really fine if I use a little ‘artistic license’ to keep that one hairy detail... private.” Private meaning censored. Surely we didn’t have to air all our dirty laundry in order to share our story.

“No!” he said firmly, with a clean-burning fire in his eyes.

“Tell everything. Tell the truth. The whole truth. That’s the only way.” He spoke from that great well-spring beyond his own small self.

“Ok then.”

He was right. The ruthless truth seems to have given this story a soul. So we give you the truth, as best as I can put it into words.

June, 2014

Chapter 1 : Welcome Back

He missed his flight into San Francisco that night.
He never misses his flights.
His travels usually flowed with military precision.
I have to tell him. Tonight’s the night. I can’t hold this secret in anymore, I told myself. My secret had become oh so heavy after a few years.
He was able to catch another flight into Oakland airport, arriving at midnight. I was exhausted. My journey to pick him up was stilted by a traffic accident and then a factory fire. Cars backed up. My body ached. So tired. So stretched thin. But there were no shuttles running at that time. I just had to go get him.
Resentment simmered as I sat in traffic. He couldn’t save me like this if the situation were reversed. I was the one with the car and the insurance. So I had to do all the driving. I was the ox in the family. Or so my story went.
I simmered often, I realize now.
I pulled up, drawn to his favorite siren-red hoodie like a homing pigeon. Broad shoulders slowly swayed side to side, readying to pounce into our car. The stuffed military backpacks he’d been carrying rested by his feet. His long, loose surfer shorts exposed a few inches of this skin, teasing me. I longed to get my hands on his tired body. Chor’s travel-weary face looked up. For the first time since we’d met, he’d grown his beard out a little. It was well groomed with thick chops and sharp lines. He looked a little rough around the edges. He’d been working so hard. His once golden skin appeared to be enshrouded in grey smoke. The strong bones of his face were hidden under subtly swollen flesh. His gaze was softer than usual; it floated over and through me. He got in the car and leaned in to kiss me—a tender, full kiss on the lips. Wow.What a strange treat these days.
He rarely reached for a kiss anymore when I picked him up from a trip. When he did acquiesce, he’d rush through it, never fully “landing.” His homecoming kisses had become about as romantic as an automatic car wash. “Let’s just get out of here,” he’d grumble, already leaning toward the cave of home. I would be left shivering like an excited puppy panting for pets.
It hadn’t always been like that. Once upon a time he planted kisses on me that penetrated my whole being, rooting me to the core of the earth as my mind flowered into the heavens. “Feel how deep this kiss goes,” he’d whisper, enveloping me in ecstatic stillness.
The past couple years, I often found myself longing for him to sink into the present with me and stop time—even for a moment. I could feel his subtle resistance and relentless momentum into an abstract future that never seemed to arrive. Always something more important to do. Always another text to answer. “Just 30 seconds,” I would tease, to melt any fear he had of being consumed indefinitely into my vortex of insatiable feminine desire.
“OK, now get off me,” he would half-tease me in his tough-guy tone after a few seconds of affection, and then he’d rush back into his inner rat race.
So it went that kisses were harder to come by, timelessness was tough to schedule, tenderness was lost in the shuffle, and a quiet chasm grew between us. Yet, he still routinely professed, “I love you. Yes I DO. You are AMAZING, my queen, star-berry juice LOVE-ness.” I clung to those words like a life raft.
Patience, Elizabeth.
•
I could taste the heavy cloud of booze and cigarettes on him that night.
He’d started drinking and smoking heavily during his work trips the past three years. Before that he’d been sober for a decade. And before that...well, that was a different lifetime altogether, I thought, a different person even.
I’d met him in his sober phase. Militantly sober. So sober, I couldn’t imagine him being any other way.
Lying in bed one night, in our early days, we melted into a kiss. He recoiled from the taste of my lips. “Did you...drinkalcohol?” he asked, aghast.
I had gone to a girlfriend’s birthday party that day. We’d had a picnic on the beach.
“Yes, I indulged in half a glass of champagne,” I said, straight up.
His face pinched. “But you never drink. I didn’t think you drank. No one needs to drink. It’s poison, all poison.”
“I know you don’t drink, love, so I never drink around you,” I responded calmly. “I rarely drink. I partake in wine or champagne maybe a handful of times per year. It’s a sacrament for me. I do not abuse the spirits. These rare libations are good for my heart. Yet, I understand that alcohol is not good for you. I support you in your path. We are not exactly the same. I hope you can accept this. I do.”
He quieted down. He didn’t really agree with me, but he swallowed his judgment and loved me “as is.”
Chor had been so radiant in his sober days—pure and focused like a laser.
He was a righteous man without religion. An urban prophet slinging truths: “There’s only one emotion: LOVE!” This was one of his favorite catch phrases.
“I am so grateful that you are in my life!” He’d often say to his nearest and dearest, mirroring his sage grandfather.
“Everything...is everything!” he’d laugh, affirming the great cosmic play of oneness.
He kept his body clean. His skin glowed. He spoke the language of love with his words, eyes, and gestures, no matter the subject. He might have been an inch taller, too.
He’d lost some of that light when he invited alcohol back into his life. A cynical scowl now permanently adorned his brow. Though he’d left a trail of brilliant accomplishments in his wake, he rarely seemed truly peaceful.
I accepted him, for he was still my love, albeit a little dusty. My heart led me back to him daily, and I trusted that inner compass.
•
After that long, sweet, exotic kiss at the airport curbside, I took a good look at him. What had come over him?
He looked especially weathered that night. Heavy bedroom eyes. His expression, somber. He was living his dream, apparently. Painting the world.
He’d been on the road for most of the past two months. I knew he was overdoing it, burning the candle at both ends. He’d been working himself to the bone, literally, with no sign of slowing down.
His scent was different that night. Strange, sick, synthetic, cough-syrup sweet.
“I think I’m coming down with something,” he muttered.
We made it home, and he immediately faded into sleep. I would have to delay my determined confession.
The next day, he lay placid around the house without his usual drive and energy. Generally he was the unstoppable train of doing.
Must have been the flu.
That evening as he lay smeared on the couch, he pulled me to him. Deep, painful breaths. Heavy silence. Then, “Baby, I can’t party like that anymore.”
“Yeah, love. I can feel it’s taking a toll on you.”
“Elizabeth....”
More silence. A long sigh. Staccato breaths.
I could see that he was struggling inside of himself. He wanted to tell me something. I coaxed him.
“Love,” I said gently, “you can talk to me. I can feel you want to. I’m here for you.”
“I...I didn’t just drink when I was down in San Diego this time,” he said ominously. My heart sank.
“What else did you do, Love?” I asked softly.
“You know what I did.”
No.
“Say it, Chor. I need you to just say it.”
He looked away, into some other world.
“Heroin. I did heroin.”
I fell back on the couch next to him, stunned. We lay looking at the ceiling. The sky fell.
How could this happen? He had left that dead-end road over 13 years ago, long before he met me. His greatest fear had been relapsing. His greatest hope had been staying clean. He had vowed to never return.
“So...do you intend to heal?” I asked. “Are you going to stay away from that shit?”
“Yes,” he said desperately. “I NEED to. I can’t go back to that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I feel so ashamed.”
“Did you inject it?” I asked bluntly.
“Yes,” he answered, soft and open.
“How many times did you use?” I asked.
“A few.”
“Did you use clean needles?” I probed with urgency.
“Yes!” he answered emphatically. “I bought them myself.”
Then his words grasped, as if for a life raft. “I won’t use again. I promise.”
Famous last words.
“Do you still love me?” he implored, with all the power and pride drained from his face. A frightened little boy lived in him. “I need you. Don’t leave me. I love you. Please, Elizabeth—don’t leave me.”
“Of course I still love you. I love you unconditionally,” I paused, pensive, “but living here and being with me does have some conditions. I need to keep this home safe for my son and for myself. I will always love you, but there have to be some boundaries here.”
I was a mama lion. My son, Kyle, was just 15 and lived with us part time. I had to protect his heart as well as his safety. He looked up to Chor. He respected Chor’s public stance against drugs. I didn’t want him to see his hero like this. What if Chor couldn’t stop using? What if he brought drugs into our home? What if...what if? A million tragic scenarios ran through my mind. Chor was standing in avalanche territory. This could be really bad, to keep Chor in the home right now.
I’d always thought, I would never tolerate drug addiction in a relationship. No way. Not me. That would end the game, if anything would. But instead I listened to that still, small voice inside of me.
Pray.
Wait.
Listen.
“You must get treatment,” I said desperately. “Of some kind. Immediately.”
We collapsed in pain and confusion for a while. Breathing. Thinking. Feeling.
I rose up and straddled him, looking deep into his dulled eyes. I formed my hands into eagle claws. I roared in whispers as I raked the air above his heart in long, slow, sweeping gestures. I combed this invisible demon off of him and shook it away into the abyss behind him. Chor just looked at me with wide eyes and indulged this unusual gesture.
You won’t take him, I vowed silently to the demon.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and we fell into a deep sleep.
My confession would have to wait yet again.