MY LIFE REVOLES AROUND A COOKIE!

Linda Cohen 12/22/21

It’s true. My life revolves around an oatmeal cookie. The first thing I see in the morning after I wake up, when I go to make coffee, is a yellow sticky pad on my oak kitchen table near the fridge saying, “Take Out Cookie”, as I store the cookies (which I buy a dozen at a time) from Breads Bakery in my freezer. I’ve always had an addictive personality. I sucked my right thumb ’til I was nearly ten. But tastes change… And I later went on to indulge much more concerning addictions.

When I first began menstruating at age eleven, I had the worst PMS imaginable. All I could do was lie in bed with a heating pad for the first couple of days of my period, as my mother nursed me with soothing, warming blackberry brandy for the mind-bending cramps. When I was fourteen and my symptoms grew even worse, my doctor, internist Eric Cassell, prescribed Dexedrine, a form of “speed”, that silenced my second chakra tugging, pulling and tightening. Made me feel pain-free, light and wonderful, and additionally kept me up and awake throughout most of the night. I even began looking forward to the arrival of my period, since the accompanying medicine made me feel so good. Thus, my introduction to speed, which later brought me to scrumptious “black beauties”, a stronger version of speed which I could easily purchase on the street. So, from early times, I loved that prolonged energizing speedy feeling which both assuaged my cramps and offered me mega-watts of extra energy that lit me up.

But I would have to admit, my worse very long-standing addiction by far… was to Marlboro cigarettes. I grew up on Miami Beach. Everything started young there. I got my learner’s permit at fourteen and secured my first driver’s license by the time I was fifteen. I began smoking cigarettes, along with most of my friends, when I was eleven. I grew to adore smoking cigarettes. The deep breath inhalation, then the infused calming relaxing feeling of nicotine spreading throughout my body. Like a little vacation. From stress and nagging thoughts. Between the ciggies and the speed, my appetite was quelled all day and all night long. I never really cared much for food. And the accompanying heavy slow-down feeling food brought. I would even look forward to awakening in the middle of the night. So I could smoke more of my beloved juicy Marlboros. The first break I took from cigarettes was a pregnancy with my first child when I was twenty-four. I’d stopped for exactly nine months. Moments after my daughter Joanna was born, I asked for my Marlboros. Eighteen months later, with my second pregnancy, I only lasted four excruciating months… Without cigarettes. I smoked heavily until I was thirty-six. More than a pack a day. Many times, I’d thought about stopping. But I never felt ready. When I finally chose to quit, I decided to go “cold turkey” and stopped for good the very next day. And never picked up another cigarette. But it took me years to reach that decisive end point, with my children often begging me to stop. I finally did. My children could hardly believe I’d quit. After my first child was born, I also became addicted to Tab low/cal soda. I drank at least three cans of Tab every day. At the same time, I also became addicted to Kalua and milk which I’d carry with me in a sterling silver flask from Dunhill.

When I left my husband at twenty-eight to “find myself”, I started working for a recording studio on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, setting up microphones and doing sound checks. It was there, through Downtown Sound, that I was first introduced to “heavy drugs”. Many of the musicians and recording engineers used cocaine regularly. It was inevitable that coke would find its toxic way to me. From my very first snorted inhalation, I loved the high. SPEED! Such exuberant exhilaration! Up! Up! Up! and away. I went. Though “coming down” was tough and often required heavy doses of alcohol. Belvedere Vodka. Metaxa Greek brandy.

And please let me introduce you to Rowena Woodson, a higher-up in the Arica Organization which offered trainings in attaining higher consciousness, often using exotic drugs to explore and expand the “higher self”. A friend at Downtown Sound, where I worked, told me of this magic woman, initiator into higher realms, who possessed the highest quality agents of all manner of psychedelics. When I met lovely “Ricky” at her beautiful three-story townhouse on fourteenth street and Second Avenue, she took me upstairs to her exquisite jungle-wall-papered second-floor bedroom. She then offered me a large hand-painted jewelry box filled with the most enticing transformative magical substances conceivable. She opened her mysterious box of exotics and introduced me each one. Magic mushrooms. Ibogane. Yage. MDA. MDMA. LSD. She thought, since I had never partaken of any psychedelics, I should begin with MDMA, also fondly known as “Adam”. Today, a watered-down version of MDMA is known to many as Ecstasy, “the love drug.”

Ricky gave me specific instructions on how to take Adam. She told me to take a 125mg. little pure white capsule. I did that and soon my living room was spinning around me like a merry-go-round. Fast. I couldn’t get my bearings. When I called her (which was nearly impossible to do), Ricky advised me to take more! More? A “booster,” Ricky called it. This was a 50mg. tiny white capsule she said would quickly take me where I want to go. And yes, it certainly did. O girl! What a mega-intense psychedelic ride! When attempting to do a reading, my Rider/Waite tarot cards stood up and exchanged places on my pale purple living room carpet! My boyfriend Lincoln, who partook of the Eucharist with me, asked me to be careful and watch out for his tail! When I looked in the mirror, I viewed the fathomless black searching eyes and heart of a “preverbal beast” struggling to attain consciousness. And form! There were brilliant flashes of white light which produced many out-of-this-world visions. I witnessed myself as The Virgin Mary. And also, as the female Buddha Green Tara. A sage American Indian woman. Wild! The downside of Adam was that in exactly three hours… down! down! down! The come-down from MDMA was awful. Draining. Dehydrating. Debilitating. However, that didn’t stop me from exploring with Adam five or six times after that.

Magic mushrooms, which I mixed with organic clover honey spread on an Akmak cracker, were gentler on the body, lighter, yet also produced many heightened psychedelic visions. When I took MM with my eleven-year younger brother, Richard, as we walked in Central Park, he asked me, “Lin, where are the bottoms of my legs?” The schrooms were profoundly earthy, where I could easily feel my deepening connection to Mama Earth. Sometimes I would lie down in Central Park, flat on my back, in the grassy nulls of The Sheep’s Meadow, and feel my intense pull to the iron core center of the Earth. It felt as though I were a mighty elm tree, rooted deeply and profoundly to Mama Earth.

Ibogaine derives from the mystical rain forests of Central Africa. It is used in tribal rituals. When I imbibed Ibogaine, in the form of a hot tea, I soon felt and saw large female lions with immense lion-furry manes slowly circling me and my boyfriend Lincoln. He was so deeply pulled into this alternative reality that all he could do was lie on my bedroom floor and moan. We were in the belly of the jungle surrounded by big cats and enormous birds of flight. Some familiar echoing voice deep inside me told me to “be still” and simply listen to the many varied songs of the sacred jungle. Soon, the big cats disappeared.

Yage, also know as Ayahuasca, is a South American psychoactive brew used as ceremonial spiritual medicine among indigenous people of the Amazon basin. Yage induces wild visual hallucinations and altered perceptions of reality. Taking Ayahuasca put me in the deep beating heart of the Amazon Rain Forest. I could hear the splendiferously colorful Amazon birds calling to one and other. I could see gigantic allegators and deadly crocks and crazy-eyed lizards crawling in and out of the murky Amazon River. I “saw” myself and my boyfriend as the king and queen of a large peaceful Amazon tribe, on a huge river barge gently traveling down the Amazon. Next, out of nowhere, came a giant destructive obliterating explosion. I discovered in my vision, that our barge had been incinerated by an incendiary fire-ball sent to explode us… by my ex-husband!

LSD, Acid, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds… was far and away my favorite alternative-reality substance. When I took acid, I felt most like my real self. I loved each and every acid trip and never became fearful or disconnected. LSD allowed me to feel filled with radiant Light and boundless energy. When viewing myself in my magic mirror, in flashes of rainbow colors and light, I could see literally hundreds of different incarnations of myself flash by me. Now I would be an ancient Tibetan woman cooking rice over an open fire, which quickly morphed into a beautiful Indian princess dancing, then on to a Ninth Century stalwart Viking in full battle attire… And on and on, through hundreds of startling incarnations of… myself! Like FBI facial recognition software, faces and bodies would rush by me like single frames of a very long action movie. I didn’t have time to focus on any of them individually. I could only watch in wonderment as the endless parade of “yesterday’s” identities flowed by me so quickly. At one point, I was taking so much acid that I actually used it as diet pills, to stave off any hunger. The fact is, I never had a single bad reaction to any psychedelic substance. I loved the supreme other-worldly visions and exciting alternative realities that I adventured. I had no fear.

I did, very much, exhibit bizarre behavior during some of my drug-fueled escapades. I recall that when mixing cocaine with psychedelic substances, I had some outlandish antics. I recall, that for a time, I was connected to a group of people who were living a “non-toxic” lifestyle. I got so fed up and bored with their righteousness and strict food habits… One day I went out and bought a dozen hamburgers and French fries and soda and brought all my goodies over to the “ashram”. This provoked so much hostility and anger that I was asked not to come back. And there was also a time… When I would hear something, I would do it. If I heard someone say, for example, “drop it”… I would drop whatever I was carrying regardless of the consequences. Be it a vase with fresh flowers or a punch bowl filled with fruits and liquor! This certainly was not well-received!

By my thirtieth birthday, I had become addicted to cocaine and psychedelic drugs. By the time I was thirty-five, I was an inpatient at The Areba Casriel Institute (for substance abuse), where all of us patients chain-smoked and drank endless cups of bad coffee. I lived in this rather nightmarish facility on Tenth Avenue and fifty-seventh street, falling into a significant depression, for eight months. When the new light of spring finally arrived, I began to feel better and up to the task of finding a job and moving back into my apartment. Upon “graduating”, my addictions were healed/gone. Upon returning to my home on Central Park West and sixty-second street, I had to go about forging a whole new life.

For many years there were no further addictions until new doctors discovered I had a rather serious spinal condition and began prescribing Oxycodone for pain and Ativan for sleep. I was taking large amounts of Oxy every day. Two or three Ativan at night. And topping it off with some alcohol so I could sleep better. The effects got so bad, I fell and broke my right kneecap five times and had trouble negotiating even small tasks. I had no idea there was any alternative to Oxy for my pain. So I continued to take it. And take it and take it. After six years on Oxycodone, I had great difficulty functioning. When, at last, I told my children I had slammed my head, accidently, against a concrete wall in my apartment, I found out they had researched facilities for detox. At that point, I would have done anything to get off Oxy, as the quality of my life had diminished drastically. Less than a week from that pivotal time, I was an inpatient at Mt. Sinai where the entire sixth floor was dedicated to detoxing patients from all manner of drugs: alcohol, cocaine, crystal meth, crack, and every other addictive substance. I was fastest patient ever, to be released from Sinai’s detox floor. Three and a half days. I was out! And addiction free. For treating my spinal pain, I was now prescribed suboxone, a non-addictive opioid substance I’d never heard of for treating pain and also used for detoxing addictive patients from Oxycodone. I had no problem whatsoever giving up the Oxy. And the Ativan. As long as my pain was managed, I was fine. I had never sought Oxycodone for a high. Only for treating pain. That monumental detox was nearly four years ago… Three years ago, I discovered the best oatmeal cookies in the universe!

So, every morning when I rise to make coffee, there is a little yellow sticky pad where I wrote to myself, “Take Out Cookie”. This means I should take, from the freezer, one of the big, scrumptious, crispy, gooey oatmeal cookies I had frozen. I have a very disciplined routine, however, and always eat my oatmeal cookie at seven pm on the dot while I watch two to three episodes of Forensic Files. I pretty much look forward to eating my precious cookie all day. I like that it’s finite. One cookie and that’s it. By five o’clock I can almost taste it. As nothing could be as satisfying as my cookie. (But as we all know, tastes change. Before my fondness for these cookies, I was addicted to Lesser Evil Popcorn with Himalayan salt and coconut oil. I consumed one large bag each day. But the heavy salt got the better of me. And I had to let the popcorn go.) I remain strict with myself… no matter how much I want my cookie, I will never eat it ’til seven pm.

Then at seven, the ritual begins. I prepare a strong cup of Traditional Medicinal organic licorice tea to attend my cookie consumption. Then I take a small piece of the oatmeal/current cookie, put it on a fancy rose-painted dessert plate and break it up into small pieces. To ensure I will eat it very slowly. I continue breaking up smaller and smaller pieces of my cookie. I eat a tiny piece of cookie. I take a sip of the hot sweet delicious licorice tea. All in all, it takes me about forty-five minutes to actually finish my yummy cookie. And then I realize that my most delicious “meal” of the day is over :-( and I’ll have to wait another twenty-four hours to have another indescribably intoxicating cookie. With hot licorice tea.

But truly, compared with my much naughtier addictive past, a simple benign fresh-baked oatmeal cookie prepared by a bakery down the block from me… isn’t so bad. Right? So, I tell myself, regarding this savored cookie… It is not my guilty pleasure! No. It’s my never-feel-guilty pleasure :-) Who knows when this addiction will pass. And another replace it? What I do know for certain is… There will always be something “delicious”, I find immeasurably tempting and irresistible.