Hello again! Thanks to all the readers for the fantastic feedback in getting this support group off the ground. An anonymous recovering marker sniffing addict from Georgia (the U.S. state, not the war-torn nation, LOL) told me that he found this page right at the time he was really coming into terms with everyone he had affected during his days "on the pen" and that as soon as he was finished here he was moved to run back to his local Office Depot and apologize to the shelf-stockers he had terrorized over the last two years. Believe me friend, we all have had similar experiences that are humiliating and humbling once it comes into focus the ones we took advantage of. And apologizing to those who we hurt is often the hardest part of this all. When I spent a summer in Wichita, I myself found a gateway to a constant marker-fix in the local OfficeMax. I won't get into too many details about this particular time in my life today, but the short story is that I threatened (and tried-to) break the neck of the floor manager on one particularly ugly afternoon. When I went back there to apologize when I got clean recently, they actually tried to have me arrested and it was an unnerving reminder that not everyone else has yet to come to the understanding which is necessary to begin the forgiving and healing process, which with respect to this particular instance I can completely understand their lingering pain. Undoing the damage years of marker sniffing can do will undoubtably take us a lifetime, but we can take daily strength in the fact that we're going to stop at nothing to spend the rest of our life trying everything we can to undo those very mistakes.
But for now, I'd like to use this space to vent a little frustration with our society around this certain time of year which happens to be known as "Back to School." It should more aptly be described as "The Annual renewal of Kids falling into the sitting traps of a life ruined by an addiction to sniffing markers." For this year's Back-to-school blitz I've planned on setting up at the local Target store with an informative booth letting kids and parents know just how dangerous those brand new markers they just willingly placed in their kids hands really are. The scars across my face from a continuous Sharpie shoved up it can be a very persuasive tool at a time when many parents are unaware of what they're doing. And do you want to know why they don't know? - Because there's no warnings anywhere on any of those markers letting kids and parents know that if you inhale the contents of this marker, then you have just as good a chance of winding up dead in a Staples store as you have of leading a successful life.
This year my fears, struggles, and horrors have been brought to an entirely new level with the advance of two emerging products from Sharpie: the Sharpie Mini Permanent Marker and the Sharpie Retractable Permanent Marker. The 'mini' is marketed as "Small enough to go anywhere" which fits in very conveniently with a life as a slave to the inhalation of permanent ink. The 'retractable' also fits in with this theme of abusing your victims to the point of complete resignation on the retractable's ability to be stored in purses, pockets, and bags without the fear of spilled ink marking your continued reliance on the sweet smell of black ink. I liken these developments in marker technology to the equivalent of Camel installing a cigarette-dispensing toothpaste holder with lighter, so that trapped Smoker can light up a cig just a little bit easier every morning like they're inevitably going to do anyways. Why even give the chance to the Smoker to break themselves of their slavery every morning? Just help them out a bit! /sarcasm
And I'll have to go into this more on another entry, but it is offensive and a downright crime of the continued presence on the marker market of scent-markers. Crayola executives especially should be sentenced to death for their marketing of these scent-markers to children in grade schools, completely powerless to the temptations of a life of marker sniffing. Here's another idea for kids, how about a Coors Light Jr.?!?! We'll cover the bad taste so they love it! That way when they grow up, they'll be completely hooked on the life that Marks-A-Lot has laid out for them. I had an unfortunate time a couple of years back when I was starting to come to the realization that the Markers had a hold on my life, and when I was walking out of Wal Mart on a back-to-school shopping evening I went up and ripped the scent-markers out of a kids hand. The security of the Wal Mart mistook me for trying to kidnap the child, but once I told the mother about my story and about my life she agreed not to press charges and thanked me for keeping her child from harm. You have gateway drugs and then you have drugs that are literally trying to get you to take them. HELLO! SCENT-MARKERS! Give the helpless public a break!!!
I'm sorry that this particular entry is a little more anger-driven and perhaps a little less tactfully presented than my normal composure, I just have a hard time when I think about how many kids are holding a ticking time-bomb in their hands in the form of a seemingly harmless permanent marker.
I promised you another personal experience today and it goes along with the theme of Back to school. My very first year at Undergrad at the University of Kansas State in Manhattan was a year of my life filled with high highs and desperate lows. In my first month in my dorm, I was trying everything I could to hide my addiction to marker sniffing from my roommate, Dan, who I had just met upon moving in. But through the stresses of a day of classes where I was already limited on the amount of time I could commit to huffing, I couldn't even come home and open up a pack of Sharpie Silvers and just take it all in. I had to make frequent visits to the bathroom and study closets where I could only take one marker with me as to not arise suspiscion with any of my floormates or RA. So following a night out drinking with some new friends, when they offered me to join them for Mexican at Coco Bolos I instead returned to the dorm to find the floor asleep or absent. In bad need of a marker binge, I ran through the floor ripping off all of the dry-erase markers attached to each door-mounted dry erase board and hastily binged on each marker I had obtained. The binge caused me to crash before I could make it back to the room, and I awoke at noon the following day covered in blue, red, and black ink, slumped between the drinking fountain and trash chute. When I awoke I panicked, afraid that my dirty secret had been exposed to the floor, and worse, to my RA who could potentially report me and land me in some serious trouble. When I returned to my room my roommate burst out laughing, telling me that I had passed out on my way back from the bathroom, and that some guys on the floor must have found me and written all over me as I was passed out. I was so grateful that my secret was safe I just crashed to the bed and laughed so hard I cried. I wouldn't find out until months later that my roommate suspected that something was wrong with me but by then it was too late. So I'd like to close this entry by telling any of those students moving into the dorms this weekend that if your roommate thinks you've passed out and been written on by someone else when you know the truth that you were the one who consumed all of that marker ink: Tell him the truth. It may be scary, but it might save his life, and maybe yours too.
Regards,
Dodge
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