Though I 'd not taken any drugs since the day Allyson left, my depression was so severe at this point that, as hard as I tried to gather my wits, I accomplished very little except to become increasingly paranoid and afraid. The task of moving seemed too huge even to contemplate, though I knew I must. On the following weekend, Allyson and Ariana returned. We talked, and she indicated that she would stay and try to reconcile our differences but, if there wasn't a lot of progress in a hurry, she was taking our child, along with whatever else she could carry, and leaving me. I agreed, but asked her to consider that I was in a fairly advanced state of deterioration which might require some time to correct. To which, she replied that we had run out of time.

     A few days later, I had fallen asleep while in the garage packing up the inventory of my business, and was awakened by sounds in the driveway. When I came out, Allyson had the car packed to overflowing and was putting Ariana's car seat into the front. When I questioned the situation, she told me that we were washed up, and that she was leaving with our daughter. I asked her to reconsider, saying that, for everyone's sake, we should not let this happen. She screamed that she would call the police and tell them that I was making drugs if I tried to interfere with her plans. Asking why she would lie, when it was obvious that I was doing nothing more than packing for a move, she informed me that, due to the circumstances, it would be her that was believed, regardless of right or wrong, and I knew that she was correct.

     I was clearly strung out, I had prior drug arrests, I had a great deal of scientific apparatus associated with my business, and I was on probation from the incident in Minnesota the year before. However, I could not force myself to just stand by watch this happen. I knew that I was going to have to go into treatment in order to figure out where I had gotten stuck and get back on track, but I also knew that this wouldn't take forever. Of at least one thing, I was fairly certain from all that I had read – a child is unlikely to grow up OK if both parents are not in the home and secure in their relationship. As Dr. Ross Campbell points out in his book How to Really Love Your Child,⁽¹⁾ the strength of the marital bond is the single most important factor, affecting a child's emotional well-being throughout that child's life.

     At the first sign of resistance from me, Allyson had Lana from next door call the police. They arrived and watched while she physically tore our child out of my arms, as I cried openly in my grief and impotent frustration. She got in the car and drove away with Ariana.

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     I felt both angry and frightened over this development, and not knowing what to do, I called my father. He informed me that his wife, who actually owned the house, would be bringing the sheriff by, within the next few days, to throw me out. Uncertain where to turn and in a continuous state of panicked confusion, I tried desperately to gather and box the remainder of our things. Ravaged by drugs and in an advanced state of malnourishment, my mind refused to perform properly. I had large sores on my arms where, in my delirium, I had tried to inject improperly prepared solutions, I was extremely weak physically, and I could only work about two hours at a stretch without needing to sleep again. Having planned to rent a truck with the $60 coupon I'd received in response to my complaint to the rental company about the way I had been treated on my trip from Minnesota, I was quite annoyed to discover that it had gone missing. I soon found out why.

     The next weekend, Allyson returned in her stepfather's truck towing a huge trailer that she had rented with the pilfered coupon. She burst into the house, demanding that I allow her to take anything she wanted or she'd call the police. I tried to reason with her as best I could, but she became angry and called the police anyway. This time the ploy backfired when they took my side, saying she, not I, had decided to leave, and that she would have to find another way to settle the matter. Again, I asked her to stay, saying that we could work things out, but she was far too angry. She left shaking her fist at me, and screaming that she would see that I paid for the inconvenience that I had caused her. As it turned out, she need not have been concerned on that point; the ill wind of my fate was already brewing for a terrible blow. This was the middle of May 1995.

     It required three days to accomplish what should have taken six or eight hours had I not been so impaired, and even then, I ended up with a job poorly done. It seemed that I took two steps backward for each one forward, though, in about a week, I had most things boxed and collected, either in the living room or out in the garage. The sheriff had come gone, having worked out an agreement between all parties to allow me a few more days to finish the move. On May 23, I rented a storage unit out on the highway and called St. Francis Hospital to arrange to go into treatment as soon as the move was complete. Next, I called my father and told him my plan to store our things, go into the hospital, and then to try to sell off my scientific equipment to repay what I owed him.

     Unannounced, he arrived the next morning, driving a pickup truck and accompanied by his stepson, Joey, who was, himself, a Memphis police officer. I told them that, unfortunately, only the things in the garage were ready to go at the time, and this angered my father to the point that he left without doing anything other than grabbing a few items that he had loaned to us previously. Shortly thereafter, I called and left a message at his home, saying that I was sorry that I had not been ready, but that I soon would be and really needed his help. He returned the call sometime later to say that he would be by around 5:00 p.m. to help me move. Upon learning of his intentions, his wife asked him to show a house for her at that exact time, because "something had come up" that required her attention. She then met with her son, the police officer, and had him swear out a warrant for my arrest. In the mean time, my father had left the message that he would now be delayed by about two hours.

     Frail and exhausted, I succumbed to the irresistible call of sleep only to be awakened by a loud crash and the sound of men screaming around five o'clock. I was hauled out of my house, at gun point, by agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, shouting that they were executing a search warrant. I tried to explain that I had no drugs, and that I was in the process of moving my personal possessions and my scientific business into storage, and that I had arranged to enter a treatment program the next day for the addiction from which I suffered. There was, of course, little sympathy for my plight among those gathered there that evening, and I spent the next nine hours handcuffed in the back of a police car as they systematically ransacked my home and confiscated (stole) tens of thousands of dollars worth of my possessions. They even took from the walls family pictures and my diplomas and honor certificates which I had yet to pack.

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     When no legal grounds to arrest me could be found, they decided to fabricate a charge. I was told that they did not believe I had a prescription for my medication which is a controlled substance. This, of course, was absurd, and, when I asked to be allowed to produce the prescription, they refused, arresting me for the unlawful possession of Dexedrine tablets. I was given a list of the confiscated items the next day, and the prescription bottle itself was listed right there on the sheet. The arrest was improper; they knew this, of course, but once again, too much police time and effort not to make an arrest, and absolutely no consideration was given to the destructive effects of their actions upon my family and our home. I had been intentionally misled by the agent in charge, saying that I would not be arrested, provided that no drugs were found. As I had told them, there was nothing to find, but, at 3:00 a.m., without even informing me of my rights or giving any further explanation, I was hauled downtown and dumped in the bullpen of the county jail. The next day I was transferred here to the federal holding facility at Mason, Tennessee.

     Because of the L-dopa I had been taking and the fact that I had been off of the amphetamine for nearly three weeks prior to my arrest, it only took three or four days of balanced meals and sleep before my mind began responding normally again. I was twenty pounds underweight and had sores on my arms from the drug mixture I had been using, but I was spared the usual two to three months of confusion and depression which precedes the restoration of proper mental function after heavy stimulant use. This time, I would not make the mistake of continuing the medication in jail and passing up such a propitious opportunity to cleanse my system this poison. Having already decided that I would have to find another approach to my excessive sleepiness, since the medication was definitely perpetuating my addiction, I prepared a letter to my neurologist to the effect that I had developed a severe dependency, and would have to discontinue amphetamine therapy.

     I also realized that it had been a terrible mistake to rely solely upon my family for support. Shell-shocked from the past experiences and possessing an understanding of addictive disorder bordering on superstitious nonsense, no member of my family would accept even a single telephone call from me. Already facing dire consequences, and with the much more serious charge of controlled substance manufacture yet to be filed, I was without any support whatsoever when I approached the Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous,⁽²⁾ which held meetings within the facility. After hearing of all I'd lost over the years, the tenacity of the problem, and of my fierce determination to find a solution, despite the fact that it had eluded me to that point, members of the group came forward to offer support. I began to serve as a focus for others who also wanted a better life but weren't sure where to begin, and I sensed that, if I succeeded in finding a way to help myself, it would be very important to me to try to be of service to those who still suffered in the future.

     Having mentioned that I had heard rumors of a new therapeutic approach to addiction and wondered what this might entail, I was given a copy of Scripts People Live, written by Dr. Claude Steiner.⁽³⁾ In it, I found the grail for which I had wandered in fruitless search through several tortured years. I found the promise of a permanent cure for even an addiction as severe as mine. The price is time, ruthless self-honesty, and hard work. Time, I seem to have in abundance just now. It is the latter two requirements that will test the mettle of my resolve.

     After reviewing this tale of woe and horror that has been my recent life, and still suffering the pain and loneliness of being separated from those that I love, I have made a commitment to myself that, no matter what it takes, by this time next year, I will be well on the road to being cured of this evil and debilitating affliction forever. The remainder of this book will serve to record and systematize my efforts to heal myself through the self-application of transactional therapeutics, and to journalize the results of this endeavor.