Codependency generally affects its sufferers in varying ways, with dysfunctional behaviors ranging from being quite subtle to glaringly blatant. As one who has experienced this type of “relationship addiction” firsthand, I wanted to share how my codependency once led me to the latter, where I actually became a drug dealer.
This story begins way back in the summer of 1991, when I returned home from college after my Freshman year ended. The idea of now having to live at home for a summer under my mother’s rather rigid rules wasn’t all that appealing to me. I truly longed for the freedom that life had previously afforded me at my university and knew my only escape would be to get drunk as quick as possible, so I immediately called the one friend who had initially introduced me to alcohol during my senior year of high school. Upon reaching him, I was invited to a small get-together in downtown Poughkeepsie, which was the city I had grown up outside of.
When I arrived at this little party, it wasn’t in a very good part of town. In fact, it was in an extremely poor area I really had never stepped foot in, having always lived and hung out in the safe confines of a middle-class suburb. After embracing my friend, I scanned the room and quickly connected with the eyes of a heavyset black man who I found overly attractive, although at this point in my life, I wasn’t even in touch with my sexuality and was still a virgin.
A few minutes after taking a seat, a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor was passed to me and it wasn’t long before I was feeling pretty good and well-buzzed because of it. I continued to stare at this black man in my growing inebriated state, whose nickname I learned was Clee, and noticed the many gold rings he wore on almost every single finger, along with a large gold rope chain as well.
For whatever the reason, the universe brought he and I together that night through all the conversation and laughter that took place with everyone there. Upon getting ready to drive home, he asked if I wanted to hang out again, which of course given my attraction, I swiftly made plans to meet back up with him the very next evening.
From there my path launched into exceedingly dysfunctional codependent behaviors, all because I was so consumed with my attraction to him. I truly believed that the more I might become like Clee, the more he might also find me attractive. At first, those behaviors were on the subtle side, like when I started buying and wearing gold rings on each of my own fingers and dressing in clothing that was mostly hoodies, jeans, sweats, Timberland shoes and Nike sneakers. Then, my well-groomed vocabulary from my middle-class life began to turn into mostly slang and cuss words. I also grew a high flattop, put lines in my eyebrows and zig-zags on the sides of my head, and started walking around with this “gangster limp” because Clee was doing the same. But sadly, these dysfunctional changes didn’t end there.
My codependency to Clee then led to those more glaringly blatant behaviors like when I picked up a new addiction, that being to smoke cigarettes just like he did, which was a pack a day of Newport’s. It further progressed as I commenced buying weed and smoking it daily with him. Soon, I was stealing alcohol and cigarettes from the drug store I worked at during that time, all in the hopes that he would think I was cool and have the desire to be with me on an even deeper level.
You see, my codependent brain was absolutely convinced that Clee would only like and accept me if I became exactly like him. And that maybe he would even develop the same sexual feelings I had, the more I appeared a carbon copy of him. I was so completely oblivious to this relationship addiction though that things progressed even further into riskier and darker behaviors. Eventually, I was drawn into his small group of drug dealer friends who were making a good amount of money selling pot or crack. And that’s when Clee asked me if I wanted to go into “business” with him.
Of course, on some level, I knew I should have said no, yet I couldn’t, because my codependency had already taken me too far. I had “fallen” for Clee in a very sick way and thought I needed to do this to “remain true to my love”. And while I know this story might be a little hard for you to believe, know it’s all completely true and was something I felt ultimately powerless to stop back when it was happening.
Nevertheless, I ended up doing exactly as Clee wanted, I became a drug dealer, selling pot to others, all in the hopes that he and I would draw much closer together. As I fell into the hellish existence of paranoia that comes with the dealer mentality, I started carrying a knife around my ankle for protection, only because I had personally witnessed things I wish I could forget.
Then one day I suddenly woke up, in the literal sense, in bed, a mere three weeks from when I was going to be returning to college for my sophomore year. I glanced in the mirror and couldn’t recognize myself anymore and that bothered me a lot that day for whatever the reason. By that point, I had gotten fired from my job, after having been caught stealing, and was being forced to sleep in my car during the night, because my mother wouldn’t let me in her house anymore unless she was awake.
That’s when I decided that something needed to change, so I called Clee and told him I was “getting out” and going to stick close to home for the remaining weeks before I returned to college. Unbeknownst to me, that didn’t go over so well with him or the small little drug dealer gang I had become a part of. Later that day though, he called and asked if we could hang out one last time to celebrate before I left and even though I knew he was completely heterosexual, my codependent brain convinced me that maybe this was the night something might finally happen between us.
So, later that evening, as I waited in a very seedy part of town on a porch in front of a house he told me he’d meet me at, I drank some malt liquor, smoked a cigarette, and listened to a rap group called Leaders of the New School on my Walkman. A dark BMW pulled up not too long after that and a few figures emerged from the car. One of them then asked if I knew where a friend of mine was. Little did I know that this friend they were asking about had actually blown up their car the prior week because of some drug dealer warfare. As soon as I acknowledged my connection to this competing dealer, I was quickly pulled off the porch from behind and slammed into the ground, and repeatedly beaten until I blacked out. My last memory is of Clee driving me in my car to the hospital, blood falling all over my face and body, tooth knocked in, and vision obscured because of being punched and kicked so hard.
A week later, I found out the truth, that Clee had set me up to teach me a lesson, solely in an attempt to convince me to not return to college. I never did hang out with Clee after I learned that and I never did live another moment of my life in my hometown after that either. I’d also like to say that I became fully aware of my codependency at that point as well, but sadly I didn’t. Regrettably, I’d go on to live another twenty years of my life like this, going through dozens and dozens of friendships and relationships where I did similar behaviors, thankfully, none to this severity, but severe enough, where I lost sight of myself time and time again, all in the hopes to please and draw closer to the people I was attracted to.
I’m grateful I can safely report now though that I’m not that person anymore. I finally did learn my lesson when I attempted suicide back in 2011 over another crazy codependent relationship I had gotten myself involved in. Thank God, I lived to tell about it and that I’m honest enough with myself today to admit I used to have a very severe problem with codependency, so severe that it once led me to actually become a drug dealer…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
