dolestory1

Doly's Story (written 4/97)

I wrote at the beginning of "Mom's Story", about the medallions I carry with me in a shoulder pack. I mentioned that one of them was in my best friend's hand when he died. It is an NA infinity medallion, which was originally given to me by a friend who found it at the world convention last year.
My mom passed away last year on September 18th. A week later, my uncle, who had long ago been among her drinking buddies, also passed away from lung cancer. While still reeling from that event, I was informed that one of my longtime sponsees had relapsed, and suffered a drug induced CVA (stroke).
I was exhausted and in a lot of pain, and totally unprepared for the next blow. That was Doly.
...When I was 18, I landed in a small town in Northern California, where survival was not quite so tough, and the streets a little more forgiving. I was a fairly bent and bruised adolescent, having just come from a prolonged period of incarceration, and was hoping to find a place to lick my wounds and find something of a life.
I was lonely, and not too socially adept, and not altogether welcome in this tightly knit community, and wanted more than anything to fit in. I was tired of looking in from the outside of every social circle, and needed a sense of belonging.
Doly was a town hero there. He was a massive guy, very athletic, and amazingly talented as a singer / songwriter. He was intelligent, witty, and accepted easily into every situation. He was everything I wanted to be, and I grafted myself onto him like a hungry puppydog. I would listen to him play, then go off for hours trying to copy his every lick on the keys, note for note. If he told a joke, I would repeat it endlessly, I tried to adopt his mannerisms and figures of speech. Somehow, it never quite worked for me as well as it all worked for him, but he came to see me as something of a pesky little brother, and tolerated me when few others could.
We became sidekicks, and eventually I began to become a proficient enough musician that I could keep up, and we became a duet - singing for tips, booze, meals, and social access wherever we went.
Mutt & Jeff - I was a lanky hyperactive beanpole with no capacity to hold the drugs and liquor I took in massive quantities - he was the confident big guy, always in control, always hip, slick & cool.
Doly formed a band, and among it's members was a very wealthy kid that played guitar. We were in the part of the bay area where rock stars were as thick as potato soup, and to have talent, money, and connections was to be on the fast track.
Doly's band bought time in an upscale and notorious recording studio, and began the process of climbing the ladder. He seemed destined for all the best, and given the golden touch, when his disease began to rear it's ugly head.
Doly led a secret life - being small town hero and popular guy most of the time, but disappearing for periods of time, when no one knew that he was visiting the streets of Point Richmond, where he had been raised, to fire up dope with his homeboys.
His rich guitar player had outfitted the band with all the most cutting edge gear - bought drums, keyboards, backline gear, and vehicles for the band. One night while the drummer and bass player were off on a camping trip, someone broke into their house and ripped off much of their gear.
Unfortunately, Doly's massive profile was unmistakable, and he was fingered by a couple of people who had seen him loading the gear out of the house - ripping off his own band for dope money.
Doly's career and reputation never recovered from that episode, and he went from town hero to street character almost overnight.
In 1977, I had made the decision that a geographical cure was in order for me, and I convinced Doly to come back to Colorado with me, where we both might make a fresh start.
We came to Denver, and eventually got a house together on the west side of town, where we used, had a few adventures, and eventually got sick of each other's company.
Doly ended up going on the road with a crossover band, and I went to work in human services - playing music nights and weekends, and starting a family.
We saw each other frequently, and talked on the phone like close brothers, always staying abreast of each other's lives. My home was where he landed when coming in from the road, the place for holidays and familiar comforts.
About 10 years ago, Doly had been out of touch for a while, and when we finally spoke after an unusually long break, he told me that he'd found Narcotics Anonymous.
I wished him well, privately noting that it was good for him, but not the path for me - I was the hip, slick and cool one now.
Three years later, my disease had finally hammered me into submission. After spending the day with a friend in AA, who suggested that maybe I should give NA a try, I called Doly, who was the only person I knew who had any experience there.
I called him from my house in Denver, long distance, and from Melbourne Florida, he directed me to the guy that took me to my first NA meeting, and became my first sponsor.
Upon his return to the Denver area a few months later, we began a new level of our lifelong friendship. Having all the history of our using, (and believe me, I have abbreviated much here) we were now brothers in recovery as well. We knew each other's shit inside and out, and neither of us cut the other much slack.
Doly had some major reservations though - great difficulty with pride, and aloofness. Eventually, he isolated himself from the fellowship, and relapsed.
He contracted a systemic infection during that relapse, (from contaminated dope) that took root in his leg, distorting the skin hideously, and invading the bones of his feet and ankles.
He went from being a big and still pretty athletic guy, to a hobbling junkie - from extremely muscular to grossly obese.
He would come to my home and cry, then nod, and quietly leave in the morning to cop again.
He went through an experience with his own mother that was similar to mine - staying with her through her death from a terminal illness. But he was using, and in the grip. He inherited a healthy sum of money and many belongings from her. He bought the motorcycle that he always wanted (the VMAX that I ride today), and loaded up a truck with all these things, and headed back for Denver.
In Elko Nevada, he made an ill advised U-turn to avoid a sobriety checkpoint. The police chased him down easily, and popped him with several grams of heroin, and the morphine that his dying mother had not consumed.
His shame and guilt were enormous, as the police confiscated the truck and all of his mother's belongings - much of it never to be returned.
After spending $10,000 of his inheritance to bond out, he dragged himself back to Denver, where he fell into a deep despondency.
He asked me, half heartedly, to sponsor him. The phrase "be careful what you say to a newcomer - one day they might be your sponsor" rang in my head. I knew that a best friend seldom makes a good sponsor, so I told him that his first assignment was to start looking for a permanent sponsor. He never did. Eventually he went back to Florida, where he remained in chronic relapse. He would end up in the hospital with his infection raging and systemic. They would battle the infection with massive infusions of antibiotics, while simultaneously detoxing him. He would get things under control, and immediately upon discharge go right back to using, which started the whole thing over.
Before leaving Denver the last time, he had told me that if anything happened to him, that I was to have his scooter and his musical gear. As he drove off, I had the disturbing feeling that it was the last time I would see him.
Following another round of hospitalization, his NA friends in Florida decided to ask him once more if they could help him. They asked him if he would be willing to come stay with them while he recovered, and to try to get clean among his friends. He agreed. They hauled him from Fort Meyers to Melbourne in a bread truck, And laid him up in a back bedroom at a friend's home. There, he began to recover again. For the next several days, he went through the jones, and was loved and cared for by those friends. He was into his ninth day, when he perked up, began laughing, joking and interacting again. That day he seemed filled with the renewed life of a person in recovery. He told his friends that he had hope again. That one day clean was everything.
The following day, he suddenly went into cardiac arrest. After 45 minutes of CPR, he was placed on life supports in intensive care.
I was devastated to get the call on October 2nd, informing me that he was not expected to live. The following day, I jumped a plane from Denver, and flew into Orlando, where I was picked up by his friends from Melbourne.
I went to the ICU, where I spent the next three nights sleeping in a reclining chair in his room.
I brought with me the eternity medallion given to me by my friend, and taped it into the palm of his hand.
On October sixth, 18 days after the death of my mom, he passed away from what was later termed "anoxic encephalopathy due to chronic substance abuse", but the toxicology reports confirmed that he died with 14 days clean.
I was holding his hand, and in the room with his sister, and several of his close friends from NA when he died. The following day, we went to a nursery and purchased a Chinese Tallow tree, which we planted in a friend's yard followed by a small meeting. He called all dogs, cats and small children "Spot", so that's what we named the tree. I gathered up his things, and drove the long and immensely weary road back to Denver.
His ashes arrived at my home several days later, and so I wrapped the box they came in colored cloth, and have kept it on my piano these last several months as I have done battle with my own illness.
I plan to take a portion of them back to California at the end of next month, where I will burn a page from his songbook, mingle the ashes of it with his, and send them flying off a high cliff out above the ocean.
I picked up a white keytag for him at a meeting here a few days after his death, on which I keep the keys to his beloved motorcycle. I carry the white keytag and the infinity medallion with me everywhere - reminders of the price of this disease, and the value of each day clean.
One day clean is the greatest gift of recovery - and all any of us ever truly has. So be careful what you say to the newcomer...

To 'Doly's Ashes'

( Story of his Scattering)

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