David P Wichman

Introduction

The first time I ever took a hit of LSD was one of the most profound experiences of my life.
I was a sophomore at the time and living in a foster home with three other boys—all of us had been removed from abusive or otherwise untenable home environments. On this particular afternoon, I ingested a small square of gel I had picked up from a dealer at school and then hopped on a city transit bus on Mission Boulevard headed from Union City to Fremont, the city where I’d grown up.

A good hour later, just as the acid trip started to peak, I found myself back in my old neighborhood. I descended the bus steps and started walking. I rounded a corner to see the red-lettered Exxon sign above the gas station where I had sold candy bars for Little League to drivers lined up during the gas shortages years earlier. I strolled past an old friend’s house where broken-down cars were perched on cinder blocks in the front yard. And then I found myself standing across from my own family’s ranch-style house—my former place of imprisonment, the setting of my stepfather’s merciless abuse, the environment in which my spirit was tormented and broken until the day I escaped to the safety of foster care.

On any other day, the sight of this place would have filled me with rage and longing and the sheer agony of remembrance. But my acid trip had escorted me into a new dimension. My mind had opened to an experience of unending love and total forgiveness for everyone and everything that had ever harmed me. This love permeated the air; I walked in bliss. I felt as if a conscious being accompanied me, perhaps Jesus himself or what some call Christ Consciousness—a higher self that understands we are all connected and one with a universal force of love. In this sacred state of awakening, I could see forgiveness clearly, and I fully comprehended that every human being—no matter what they’ve done to others or themselves—is redeemable.

The idea that my stepfather could be forgiven for his cruelty overwhelmed me with relief. Even as I basked in benevolence and loving-kindness, I couldn’t grasp the concept that any one of my abusers could coexist alongside humanity in this enlightened space—and yet there in my core I found absolute compassion. Beyond mere forgiveness, this feeling was one of pure love and the acceptance of that same love in everyone. I lost all sense of self—I was part of everyone and everything, a cohesive organism, a fantastic tapestry of incredible, overwhelming existence.

My brain opened up to this well of conscious awareness, and my soul sensed this deep, undeniable truth. The hours spent in this heightened state of being awakened an inner knowing, one as ancient as the cosmos. The world so filled with war, suffering, and division didn’t seem ready for this profound message, and I certainly didn’t feel worthy of spreading it. So, the belief descended into the deepest recesses of my being, and as this enlightened, colorful state faded, my brokenness reemerged, the skies perpetually overcast.

I took LSD many more times—some trips were cosmic and others hellish—but no chemical substance ever opened me again to that same divine, all-encompassing, unchangeable love. And I believe most of my drug use in the years afterward—every drag on a joint, every snort of cocaine, every injection of crystal meth—was simply an attempt to get back to that place of higher consciousness. After some time, my drug use devolved into an ongoing mission to blot out the pain of not being able to find that freedom again and to escape living with the brokenness that I thought defined me.

Over the years following that peak experience, I descended into the deepest pits of helplessness and despair. I aged out of foster care and ended up homeless on the streets of San Francisco, not a penny to my name, no skills or education, no one to pull me up out of the gutter. I turned to sex work to survive. Outside the safety of a traditional family unit, I found my support in transgender street workers, gay hustlers on Polk Street, drug dealers, hookers, and misfits of all kinds.

I sought refuge in shelters such as the United States Mission and stood in food lines at Glide Church and Saint Anthony’s. Most of the people who fed me or gave me a place to sleep are now dead and gone, but they live on in my memory as family. Sometimes I found temporary jobs filing papers, answering phones, or sweeping floors, after which I returned to the shabby and squalid Delta Hotel on Sixth Street, San Francisco’s Skid Row. Many of these circumstances were of my own making; I was doing the best I could with the knowledge and maturity I had at the time.

My life pivoted sharply in September 2005, and after decades of struggle and failure, I found my way to freedom from my addictions, as well as an abiding gratitude for the wonder of my own existence. My spiritual journey revealed within me a state of grace—an inner peace and gratitude for each moment. The spiritual experience I longed for never needed to be “found” in the first place—I was already living it, but completely unaware.

My mentor and life coach, TJ Woodward, reminds me to ask what else is possible. He says, “What if these years of destruction, drinking, and using drugs were a brilliant strategy that just finally stopped working?” He notes that our younger selves, who were brilliant thinkers fighting to survive in the midst of trauma, found ways to endure unspeakable pain. As adults, we continue to use something outside of ourselves to fix something that feels broken within. The pain of unresolved trauma and my belief in my inherent brokenness often blocked my ability to be in the present moment and find joy. It’s hard to imagine that a loaded syringe was a brilliant strategy, but the more I discover about myself, the more I see how true that was.

Some people addicted to drugs or alcohol use those substances to seek oblivion and escape from their inner pain. I find it interesting that the solution to many addictions prescribed by 12-step programs is a “fundamental spiritual change.” In other words, a spiritual awakening. I believe that all of us, on some level, are seeking a connection to something beautiful and whole, and at some point or another, we will wake up to the truth of who we are. When we do, we will see this pure, priceless, immeasurable beauty, which is our truth.

The recognition may come and go. We may transform, shift, and expand, but the truth is always there. Our true identity, our innermost being, has been covered up by what our teachers, parents, peers, society, and religions have taught us for years. Many of us find out that this is the road to unlearning the illusions. The path to healing or the journey to enlightenment is not the gaining of new, more profound, deeper information about our soul’s purpose, but the discovery of what has been there all along.

My story is not merely about addiction or for people suffering from addiction—it’s for anyone trapped in loneliness and limiting beliefs about their worthiness. This story is also meant to illuminate and eliminate the shame and self-loathing that plagues communities across all demographics, borders, and socioeconomic lines. It’s about liberating our minds and hearts to give and receive love. We all need true freedom from shame—especially the self-destructive and often deadly shame of our complex sexual experiences, traumas, and desires.

This story is not happening to me any longer; it’s happening through me. I stand with it and carry it as my light. I believe we are all messengers, and we have come to share a message that brings us closer to love and closer to kindness as a way of life, where kindness becomes our first response instead of a reaction born of fear and self-protection. When our fears drive our actions, we pay dearly, passing on our toxicity and negative memories, our collective shame and learned behaviors, from generation to generation. The world is awakening to this realization. The shift has begun. I believe the essence of every individual is an immeasurable wealth of love and wholeness. It’s the truth of who we are. Our worst traumas neither destroy us nor define us. As we wake up from the brokenness and begin to live from this incorruptible place of being, we heal. We begin to live out our dreams and our purpose on this planet. We finally find an empowering sense of peace.

My hope is that anyone who reads this book might find liberation from the illusions of brokenness. We don’t always have to forgive the unforgivable or attain some unreachable ideal of empowerment, but we can come to a place of deep compassion and understanding for what happened around us during our storm—our traumas—and move it through us and out of us. We don’t have to claim it any longer as our staff of righteous survival. I encourage those of you who have awakened and emerged from your own darkness to continue to carry your message by being just who you are right now. Keep shining your light so others can find their way home.

Chapter 1

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SEPTEMBER 20, 2005

I swung my legs out from under the thin cotton blanket and rested my feet on the cold concrete floor. In the early morning, my cellblock remained still and dark. Despite the weariness permeating my bones, I’d barely slept at all. This was it—Judgment Day.

The Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, had confined me for the past nine months, but by the end of the day, I would know whether I was leaving jail at last or doomed to a federal prison for decades to come.

I stood up slowly and pulled out my prison uniform. For appearance in federal court, I had the right to dress in normal clothing, but whatever normal clothes I was wearing the day of my arrest had gotten lost inside the county system, so I had no civilian clothes at all. The best I could do was a clean, ironed, white T-shirt that José, one of the jail trustees, had secured for me from the laundry, a pair of red scrub pants, and shower shoes I’d been given during intake.

Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County is an enormous facility that houses more than four thousand inmates—typically convicted felons sentenced to county jail or those still awaiting arraignment, trial, or sentencing. The men in our maximum-security pod were under protective custody and segregated from the general population. Our group of inmates included informants, gays, transgendered women, and horny straight guys who wanted an easier stay—all rather harmless people at risk of being killed or maimed by the violent felons and gang lords on the other side.

Our pod also kept federal holds—guys like me facing prison time for federal crimes. My list of charges included possession of controlled substances, conspiracy to commit credit card fraud, fraud and related activity, possession of stolen mail, and possession of stolen identities—all of it the racket my then-boyfriend, Richard, and I had used to fund our relentless drug habit. Addiction owned me then, mind, body, and spirit. I wholly and completely belonged to the oblivion. As a result, I’d spent nearly a year in this hellhole with the possibility of many more to come.

Cleaned up and dressed, I sat tensely on the edge of the metal bunk bed, my hands clasped and my gaze down, when the cell door buzzed. The sound jolted me like a bolt of electricity. The next thing I heard was the deputy calling my name. It was time to go.

The deputies entered my cell to cuff my wrists and shackle my ankles for the transport to the federal courthouse in San Francisco. Hindered by the restraints, I could only shuffle between two guards out of my cell and through the ward. The cellblock had begun to come to life, but the other inmates, still drowsy from sleep and knowing where I was headed, spoke few words, mostly just offering a nod or a look that meant good luck. Tamica, one of the transgender women, yelled out, “Miss David!” I usually hated being called that, but she said it with love, and I needed to hear it that morning. “You gonna be fine—don’t worry,” she said, waving.

Outside, the transport unit—a motor coach with different sections of interior caging—stood ready to receive the line of us en route to court. The guards placed me in a seat within the locked cage for prisoners in protective custody before unshackling my arms and legs. I rubbed my wrists and stared through the tinted windows, seeing nothing. I thought back to earlier conversations with my defense attorney, Nina Wilder.

When I last saw her, Nina had asked me to be patient while the prosecution built their case. For much of my time in Santa Rita, I’d had little communication from Nina or anyone in the court system—no dates, no guidance, no news from the outside world. I had written letter after letter to the court asking for even one iota of a clue as to what to expect. It wasn’t until August that I finally had my plea arraignment, in which I agreed to plead guilty to one charge so the prosecution would drop the rest. But the morning of my sentencing, I had no idea what to expect. The stress of not knowing made me crazy.

On the bus across from me sat another federal prisoner, a handsome, muscular black man named Marius who had been busted with ten grams of speed. He too was headed for a sentencing hearing, but unlike me, he remained calm and at ease.

“Yeah, my baby mama gonna hit me up with some cash on the books, and I’ll do my thirty-six months and be outta there,” he bragged.

I didn’t know how many baby mamas he had, but even in his yellow jailhouse clothes, he was so sexy he could have had any baby mama he wanted.

Given the sentencing guidelines for drug possession with intent to distribute methamphetamines, Marius was looking at three to ten years. He had a girlfriend and a baby and a life on the outside, so he trusted he would get a lenient sentence. I wished I shared his confidence. Maximum sentences on the combined total of my charges added up to fifty-five years, though my plea deal reduced the probable jail time to something between three and ten years like Marius’s case. I could barely tolerate the thought of even one more day in that jail, let alone a decade.

After the forty-mile ride into the city, our transport unit pulled into a parking garage beneath the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Courthouse. The monolithic concrete and glass structure runs the length of a city block on Golden Gate Avenue in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center. One by one, we submitted our hands and feet back into the shackles and descended from the bus.

Fear coursed through my veins and rattled my bones. I felt weak, and the weight of exhaustion bore down on my whole body. I found myself in almost constant prayer to a god I barely believed in. Beyond a miracle, what hope did I have left? The only thing that consoled me was knowing one way or another, the waiting would be over. After such a long, harsh battle, the closure would bring a measure of relief, even as I dreaded the possibility of being locked indefinitely in a human cage.

A team of deputies led us through a system of tunnels, hallways, and secure elevators until we arrived at a large holding area on an upper floor of the courthouse. I waited there until my name was called, and then a guard escorted me down to a smaller holding cell outside of my judge’s courtroom. The cement cell had no windows—just an entry door and a side door that led to a glass conference room where inmates could meet with their attorneys in advance of their hearings.

In my holding cell sat four other guys, including Marius, all of us slouched on cold metal benches bolted to the wall. I stared at the floor, trying to piece together the years of my life and series of decisions that had led me to this place. I shook my head in disbelief that this was what I had become. If only I could start over again, do a few things differently—but it felt useless to hope or dream. The flood of stress and confusion overwhelmed me. I kept my thoughts centered on whatever I could. I needed to keep my wits about me—today was no day to fall apart.

When Marius’s case got called, I straightened up a bit and nodded at him. He smiled and gave a thumbs-up before following the bailiff out of the cell.

I wondered how he would fare in his hearing. This was no county courthouse. This was a federal institution where everyone dressed in their Sunday best on a daily basis to appear before the judge. And this was no low-level magistrate either. Inside the courtroom presided a stern district judge named Phyllis J. Hamilton who had been appointed by President Bill Clinton and made famous for her controversial decision to strike down the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act earlier that year. She followed the rules. Her court went by the book. That’s just how it was.

While I waited, Nina appeared at the glass side door; she was a small but fierce Jewish woman who spoke straight and sharp. I exhaled loudly when I saw her. She motioned for me to join her in the conference room next to the holding cell.

“David, you have to stop writing letters to the court! You’re not helping your case,” she said, straightening a stack of papers on the table. After a brief reminder of the plea deal she’d worked out with the prosecutors, she continued, “Listen, I have no idea what’s going to happen. This could go in any direction. We don’t even know what kind of mood the judge is in today. Just don’t expect any mercy. And don’t you dare go in there and talk about how you found God.”

After a bit of coaching on what I should say to Judge Hamilton, Nina released me, and I returned to my spot in the holding cell. I was staring at the ceiling, rehearsing my prepared speech, when Marius returned from his hearing.

The moment he entered the cell, the outcome was evident; his face revealed his devastation. He rushed to the corner, fell to his knees before the toilet, and threw up. When he finished, he slouched against the wall, exhausted and nearly catatonic. He’d gotten eight years, nearly a year for every gram he’d had in his possession, and he would have to serve 85 percent of that time, no matter what. The federal system had no good-behavior program, and though there were ways to get a sentence reduced or be granted an exception, such motions were extremely rare.

Marius shook his head slowly back and forth. The justice system isn’t kind to people of color, especially black men, who are routinely sentenced more harshly than any other demographic—a horrid fact of our system. For Marius, this fact was his new reality. We chatted a bit, making small talk to distract him from the world crashing down around him. He was still recovering from the blow when a deputy buzzed the door to take him back upstairs.

After his sentencing, I could barely breathe. He had been so confident he wouldn’t get sentenced harshly, but he did. I couldn’t conceive of spending eight years on the inside. I wasn’t confident at all about my chances before this judge. Even as a white man without an extensive criminal record, I couldn’t predict what would happen in the federal system. No one, not even my attorney, had been able to discern what would happen in my case. The judge might be lenient and give me the lesser sentence, or she might decide to make an example of me to deter other white-collar criminals. After what she had handed to this guy, my last ounce of hope dissipated altogether. I was fully convinced she was going to send me away.

My case wasn’t called until late in the day. When the door clicked and the bailiff finally said my name, I nearly jumped out of my skin. This was it. I took a deep breath and stood up to go. No matter what happened in the next few minutes, I knew only one thing for sure—my life was never, ever going to be the same again.