Confessions of Survival in a Post Kurt Cobain Life

Kurt Cobain died 30 years ago on April 5th from a suicide. I was 18 years old, a senior at St. Peter Chanel High School, a place I desperately wanted to leave. I hated high school; in fact, I hated school. I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin ever, using self-deprecation and substance abuse to cover my disgust of who I was.

I identified in many ways with Cobain, more so understanding him later in life, but I felt a common bond. I had a few friends at my high school, but I was never close to anyone really. Most of my classmates were nice enough but I didn’t trust anyone. My friends were more like enemies, which might just be how guys were?

I never felt a part of their worlds outside the links of booze, music, and weed. I never had a girlfriend, I never felt truly accepted enough to approach the subject with anyone. Dating was not something I even understood or wanted. Sex was a scary idea due to religious trauma, sexual trauma, and the fear of AIDS that still gripped us all.

I had the normal rejections like any other teen. But the life lessons of putting myself out there helped my confidence with talking to girls. The thing I realized was I wanted to be their friends more than anything because I wasn’t comfortable as a typical boy. My queerness was undefined and not understood yet. I was just a disappearing boy trying to keep my shape enough to be noticed by the few that cared. Those friends still couldn’t see inside my very carefully locked heart.

I made mix tapes, wrote poems, and drew pictures. Most never saw the messages I was sending. The S.O.S. of a suicide king falling on his sword. From time to time I dabbled in criminal activity, hoping to find a meaning in my messy existence. Maybe I was searching for masculinity or just an excuse to fuck up bad enough to have to exit stage left. I loved many but expressed it to few and those I did never reciprocated so I became less willing to speak my heart to people, unless I was high. Then who knows what I was saying.

I was a lanky, awkward, guy in high school. A failed athlete. Though gifted enough to make teams only to quit or become academically ineligible. I was a poor student outside of art class and writing. I loathed the teachers who wrote me off over my appearance, my lack of understanding things, and in a few cases an apparent lack of Catholicism. Religion was a swirling mess in my head. My mother was an Evangelical and our church a bi-lingual Hungarian Reformed congregation that dated back to the early 20th century in Cleveland.

My high school was a Marist Catholic School where religion classes were taught by priests. That all seemed a bit strange to me. On more than one occasion this man chose to use intimidation with his words and, eventually, violent actions towards me.

Of course nothing would ever be done, because he was a beloved man of the clothe. He’s dead now, and I have no good words to offer about him. He is just another bad memory attached to the school which now is thankfully gone. Demolished a few years ago.

The church I grew up in is no longer in my life and the Evangelical faith of my mother never took to me as it did her. I survived it all, but at a price.

My life was one of constant anxiety, my stomach hurt every day I went to school from the 3rd grade until the last day of school. It wasn’t an ulcer; it was anxiety that began in childhood eating me up through adolescence into adulthood. I would learn later about Cobain’s own stomach pain and anxiety that plagued his short life.

When Kurt died, he was only 9 years older than me. I had seen Nirvana play that previous October on Halloween at the University of Akron. It was a special memory. Kurt was dressed as Barney the Dinosaur. That may be one of the most surreal live performances I can remember from any band.

Cobain and I shared another common bond—addiction. I became an addict early in life. It started with my first taste of alcohol at 8 or 9. Stealing a sip of a relative’s beer. I grew up having visitation with my father which meant going to the local moose lodge where he would drink while my brother and I would play on the arcade machines.

The smell of the old cigarettes, beer, and booze was like a scented candle to me. I wanted that smell all around me.

I would discover the pleasure of the drunk dive at a 4th grade birthday party where a jug of Lambrusco made its way around a circle of 10-year-olds. That was the first stop on my path of battling a disease that I wouldn’t get control of for another 27 years. I would drink my way through almost every social situation for the next several decades, but that was just the tip of my addiction.

The first time I did heroin was at a college party in Akron, Ohio. I was 17 years old, already a consistent drinker and pot smoker. I smoked weed regularly, dropped acid routinely and drink heavily any chance I could. So, my first college party as a high school junior was pretty much a rite of passage.

We arrived at a house just off the University of Akron’s campus in the early evening. The party was full of college students that seemed beyond my social skills to connect with. I was decked out in baggy jeans, an oversized t-shirt, Chuck Taylor’s, and a corduroy jacket. I was grungy cool for a teenager in 1993. These college students looked mostly like preppy jock types, but my friend Jack introduced me to the stoner crowd that was in the basement.

I remember the red walls, the lava lamp, and the huge speakers blasting out reggae music. The partygoers passed a couple bowls around. I pushed my way into the circle. I looked up noticing a rat crawling around on the pipes above us. I said “What the fuck? That’s a rat!” the one dude laughed and said, “It’s all good. He’s a friend.” I just stared at it as it moved around above us. “Was it a pet? Was it just a rat in a basement? Was I really that fucking high?” I thought.

I just kept smoking weed, listening to music, and trying to appear older than I was. After a while I was walking around the house, feeling the numb taking me over. People were a little blurry as they passed me, like ghostly shapes taking human form. They spoke but I was looking through them feeling completely incased in my high.

A girl who had chatted me up earlier in the weed circle walked over. She asked if I was interested in going upstairs? I thought to myself “is this it?” That point in the teen movie I get laid by a cool college girl? It seemed a bit risky, but I followed her up the steps into a bedroom adorned with band posters, a tie-dyed tapestry, and the smell of incense burning.

What I walked into wasn’t a teenaged virginity story but instead a leap into something far worse. In the room was this girl, a dirty blonde with a punk/grunge look about her. There was a spooky toothed guy who looked a little like the Devil, with jet black hair, a goatee and painted black nails. His girlfriend a tiny-framed heroin chic woman with a trendy pixie cut, gave me an almost sinister grin. The dirty blonde looked at me and back at the Devil, saying.

“He’s cool. He is into cool shit.” She was talking about our conversation earlier where we discussed bands, art, and other subculture interests. “He won’t freak out or be weird, I promise.” She said with a directness that made him nod in agreement.

He said, “You want to get fucked up with us?”

I just nodded, as I was plenty fucked up already. Almost in a state of suspended animation.

As he heated up the dope in a spoon. I had never seen this before in real life, nor had I ever thought I would. Heroin was what rock stars did and junkies in other places. Not high school kids from Cleveland in random college houses in Akron. This was surreal and for some reason I was okay with trusting these completely unknown people. The Dirty Blonde, The Devil, and The Pixie Lover seemed okay to me in my buzzing mind.

The next thing I knew my blonde friend was tying me off and looking for a vein like a nurse in an ER. I saw the needle, which made me flinch—she just stroked my hair saying “Shhh, it’s gonna feel so good. Just wait. Trust me!”

I closed my eyes as she stuck that needle into me, the prick was familiar from my childhood hospital days. The rush of the dope pulsating through me was better than a loss of virginity, hitting me like a freight train of euphoria. This was no socially constructed idea of becoming a man, it was a fucking bulldozer of emotions.

The ultimate orgasm without any need for a partner to get me there. It was the closest I ever felt to flying, almost supernatural. Dirty Blondie held me like a baby as we laid in the bed curled up with silent intimacy despite the raging party around us. The chipped paint walls began to drip as if freshly painted by Jackson Pollack. There was a candle glowing making the blonde’s face seem so briefly gorgeous until she began drooling.

I could hear the drug muffled sounds from the hallway and the bumping of bass coming from downstairs. The bed springs made a funny noise as I shifted my weight, creaking louder in my head than the party around me. I felt I was made of lead sinking into the mattress. I was syrupy with a heavy stickiness that seemed to be covering me up. I couldn’t fight it off, so I allowed it to take me.

Dirty Blonde was touching my chest with a light lazy hand. As my breath raised my chest her fingers would move so slightly and gave me chills. She seemed to be trying to comfort me knowing this was my first high, but she was also smacked pretty much out of commission. I was noticing everything. Every light. Every sound. Every smell. At the same time, I had no way to move or react. Dirty Blonde moved her leg against mine, I wondered if she was flirting or just involuntarily close.

Then she brushed my arm with his finger in a lackadaisical way getting my attention.

She said “Hey, you can fuck me if you want?”

I looked at her body lying on the bed next to me, but just stared, nodding into a nothingness for a bit. “I don’t want to that. Just let me feel this…I’m not into that”

She laughed “You don’t think I’m pretty?”

I mumbled “You are beautiful, I am just not like that. I don’t know if I ever want that. I am not normal.”

“You’re sweet…” she said.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“It doesn’t matter, just lay here.” She spoke.

The Devil who was slumped in a chair facing the now open door to the hallway, broke the moment apart by yelling “Holy shit! What the fuck is she doing!”

He bolted from the chair to the bathroom across the hall. I sat up with Dirty Blonde slumped on the bed, she mumbled but just rolled to her side. I got up stumbling out of the room where the commotion was coming from.

The Devil’s girlfriend was standing outside the bathroom window on a metal awning above the side door of the house. The old aluminum piece was not sturdy, but she wasn’t very heavy, so the suspense built with each of her bouncing movements. She was laughing and singing. People were begging for her to come back in as the metal creaked and popped. Then it crashed.

She fell onto the people trying to plead with her. The awning snapped from its brackets tipped forward.

Luckily the people below broke her fall, some without trying. Lucky for her, she was like 5’0” 90lbs or it might not have ended well. The Devil ran downstairs and was screaming at her. They fought like stray cats in an alley. My mind just heard the screeching of her voice which was like a drill in my slowed down mind. The party moved on from the show shortly thereafter as no one was hurt.

I returned to blondie who was sitting up, looking like a sedated bird. Her hair sticking up and her clothes disheveled, drool on her chin. She smiled and held her arms out, I realized she still was tied off. I removed her torniquet.

She said “You didn’t fuck me? You’re a sweet one.” Touching my face with a dead hand.

I said, “No, I didn’t.”

“Well thank you. I am sorry.” She spoke.

“For what?” I ask.

She said “For ruining your life. You’ll be the back for this. This shit is…”

She trailed off and just smiled, messing up my hair. I looked at her, but she had nothing else to say. I had taken the dive, but I liked it because I felt no pain for once in my life. This was the best feeling I’d ever experienced but there was a sinking sadness in me too seeing her there.

Just a numb shell of a beautiful woman, who was offering herself to a teenager. It would make more sense later as I realized sex on heroin can be a very pleasurable experience, still I had no real interest in finding out in that bedroom.

I just walk away, went downstairs to find my friends who were nowhere in the house. I was too high to panic but too disoriented not to begin to feel alone.

I was full of dope feels which created a monstrous emotional eruption that I felt was noticeable though likely all internal.

I went outside for some air. There was a loud burst of sirens nearby. People began to flood into the street in front the house. I wandered into the crowd like a pinball bouncing off shoulders as I moved closer to the red lights and commotion.

The smoke was very visible once in the road. It was a building, completely engulfed in flames. I remember it as a church, but in my state of being it might have been a house or even a bonfire. I wandered closer but a large, uniformed man pushed me back, yelling to everyone to stay clear. It was so hot, but the melting heat made me feel alive in my dope daze. I stared into the flames thinking of the Devil who gave me these drugs.

His face burned into my memory. I watched the burning building grow as the skeleton of its beams began to appear inside the flames.

Just a few months after this night I would be back in Akron for the Nirvana show just a few days after my 18th birthday.

I would spend the next 7 years fighting against this drug that grabs a hold so tightly. That grapple would be my own decent into maddening depression, suicidal ideation, and eventual attempts to take my own life.

I would barely graduate high school, just months after Kurt Cobain’s suicide. I’ll never forget watching the footage of the police at the house where he died. My mother’s face expressed empathy for him. She said, “I wish someone would have got through to him!” Which I took as “I wish he had found Jesus” not knowing her own son was sick with this fucking disease that was not even on her radar.

I was sick as any other addict and the years to come I would learn to hide even more from everyone, keeping them all at arm’s length while appearing to be an open book.

I would leave Cleveland after a few years of working retail jobs, getting high with strangers I met at shows, and drinking all the time.

Toledo was the first stop; trying to get clean without help. I joined a campus crusade group there, got a Christian roommate and thought I was good to go.

Within a few months I relapsed, I was shunned by the Christian group, and my roommate left without even taking his stuff.

From there I moved to Philly to attend a Christian university. I tried to be a good Christian with a bad habit. That would be my life for the next 20 years. Trial and error.

Lying was more omission of facts from most people. I told people I was an addict, but was better. Yet I was still deeply involved in my diseases slow kill of me. I moved around, failed out of colleges, burned through friendships, quit jobs, and launched a failed business venture.

I wrote for magazines and hung around music for the love and the drugs. All the while treating my growing mental health issues with a combination of Jesus, opiates, and alcohol.

I was trying to kill myself as slowly as possible whilst appareling to be just another 20 something slacker.

I twisted myself into a pretzel made of progressive Christianity, leftist politics, underground music, and art. Every day was a gut-wrenching experience to just face people. I preferred writing dark poetry in notebooks. I wrote sad country songs and angry punk rock lyrics. I went to shows to be brutalized and escape. My addiction was in control which made the double life an easy transition no matter where I was.

I lied a lot. I cried a lot. I wanted to die a lot.

My next few years would find me often freebasing at my Philadelphia vintage kitchen table and in various abandon homes in Kensington and West Philly. I would take the Chinatown Bus to New York often to hide from everyone I knew and get high in East Village haunts that now are million-dollar condos. I drooled up and down St. Marx Place, nodding off on park benches in Tompkins Square Park. I lived in my car at 22 hiding in parking lots around the Mainline suburbs of Philadelphia. I even squatted in a dorm room of the college I was kicked out of.

I played music, booked concerts, went to church, and had my own ministry ideas coming to light. All the while I was either smoking heroin, popping opiates, which were just starting to become available, and drinking nearly every day.

My roommates never said anything, my friends never seemed to see it, my family had no clue. I had been hiding from everyone since I was a child.

Thankfully all the deep cuts never bled me out completely and I can write this today with 11 years 9 months of sobriety and a long way to go with healing myself.

I grieved the loss of Kurt Cobain for years. It was a gut punch and a reality check. Unfortunately I was in a reality that was chaos. I was in the shit, chasing dragons and losing battles with demons.

I’ve lost a lot of people I knew personally to both drugs and suicide. Since Cobain I lose someone I knew almost every year. It’s in the 20’s now if I chose to do a body count. I’ve found out this isn’t normal.

I have a great therapist who has given me my life back through diagnosing my PTSD, treating it with EMDR, and just helping me further on my sobriety.

Its been 30 years since Kurt passed, I am still here somehow. I sometimes can’t understand it and still have moments of wanting to go. I understand why Kurt went the way he did, I get it.

The disease kills us, one way or another, and life doesn’t make things any easier. So while this piece wasn’t about Cobain, it was about all of us who share the struggle, the pain, and hopefully the grace that comes in recovery. I am grateful every day I get through another day sober and know I am getting better. I miss you Kurt, I wish you had made it.

Thank you for the music and for giving an awkward teen a soundtrack to navigate my own wobbly journey.

There are four ways you can do this:

1. Share this story with a friend and leave a comment.

2. Tip me! I need your support!

3. Become a Members Only Patreon! In the Patreon I will have unfiltered rants, exclusive content, free PDF copies of the upcoming quarterly magazine, and more.

4. Go to our store and buy the print magazine! It is art, news, and nostalgia that matters!

Thank you for your support and taking the time to read this.

Stay Totally Awesome! Stay true to you.