I Don't Sleep, I Dream

When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep-And your never really awake.

FIGHT CLUB

So the cold air is all around and warm sun seems just so far away(well I only have a month until I can see the sun everyday thank goodness). But what do we do when these times come along? Go to bed at 6pm because It's pitch dark out and it seems like the right thing to do? Sit and stare at walls while listening to your own downer mix(if you don't have a downer mix let me know and I'll get one right out to you. I rock at mixes!), or the worst.........your therapists gives you a fucking sunlamp that you are to sit in front of for 30 minutes twice a day so you can fake you find into thinking your in the tropics. That lamp went flying out my window within two days. We may have issues with seasonal depression and insomnia but that sure as hell doesn't make us dumb enough to believe a light is going to make everything all chipper cheery!!! Now I've been through this before. Actually starting in High School(but I tend to think that not sleeping for a night was either I had a big day ahead of me excitement wise......ohh you know, sitting and talking to the boy you like, big pep rally, high school musical or any play performance. Now those are exciting things to stay up about and your 17 so who the hell cares. The world is yours to take. I could give a f about sleep. Now if I don't get sleep you would think something drastic had occurred because I alert the media and cry like a baby about it. Maybe it's just cause I've lived with this for soo long that I no longer believe any stupid drug can fix this problem. It's just you gotta let it ride out. Surprisingly you can get much accomplished during a night that you sleep and dreams have disappeared. Here is my absolute favorite quote about insomnia:

It's at night when perhaps we should be dreaming, that the mind is most clear, that we are most able to hold all our life in the palm of our skull. I don't know if anyone has ever pointed out that great attraction of insomnia before, but it is so; the night seems to release a little more of out vast backward inheritance of instincts and feelings; as with the dawn, a little honey is allowed to ooze between the lips of a sandwich, a little of the stuff of dreams to drip into the walking mind. I wish I believed, as J.B. Priestley did, that consciousness continues after disembodiment or death, not forever, but for a long time. Perhaps that's why some of us insomniacs; night is soo precious that it would be pusillanimous to sleep all through it! A "bad night" is not always a bad thing. -Brian W. Aldiss

Those are very much my thought exactly. Although I may often complain and only sleep here and there when I can-I do believe the creative mind evoloves in the time. I don't know if it's the darkness, the loneliness, and the feeling that even though you're not asleep.......you're dreams are still talking to you and giving you idea that you would have never thought of if you hadn't had that "bad night". I learn so much at night because your true true interests that you fascinate about come out. Where would by eight gorgeous poem books be if I would have never not been able to sleep and began to write? Or the choreography that just comes to you while exhausted. These grande ideas are what keeps us afloat and maybe some of us have a pinch of insomniac in us to let our minds be free with us, for us to discover out next dream.

So as I have been in bitch mode, I will tell you a little secret. I discovered a lot over the past two weeks while unable to rest and have a lot of new work I wish to use and hopefully others will use as well.

As for any advise I could give you all that are and have struggled just like myself. Well to tell you the truth I have pretty much worn out my welcome on all sleeping meds. My psychiatrist and i were going through a list today and I was like "hated it, didn't work, made my mouth taste funny, I'd have to take like 20 of those to do anything" I've given them all a chance. But when you REALLY can't sleep there is NO cure. No amount of whatever is going to do it. Ex: my gorgeous Heith and my Pop King MJ, all the way to Eminem who thankfully was saved after 5-6 years of sedative abuse(main problem being Ambien). I did the sleep concoction drug route, I did the sober route, I did the drinking a bottle of wine route. None work so my advise to you all is use these extra 8 hours to discover new dreams, new fantasy's, and try things you never though you could before. It will all be worth it and in 3 weeks to 3 months you'll be sound asleep again....

Peace&Insomnia

S

Start the Car and Take Me Home

This has been one of the most irritating days ever so I really need to find a way to relax at the end of it all, which I am going to make 10pm. It wasn't just one thing about today that made me want it to pretty much be over as soon as I practically awoke, but it seemed that after one thing was smoothed over another problem erupted leaving me thinking of guns and a shooting range. BTW.....I've never done the whole shooting thing before. Does it relieve stress? Now, although I am not currently suffering from any kind of crazy stress/anxiety/panic that I do sometimes, I truthfully just need to chill the f out from the pandemonium I believe the day carried. I have a few tips on how to do this. Usually work for me so next time you feel like going insane and hitting up a shooting range, you should totally give this method a go!

1. Grande Vanilla Latte with an extra shot of Espresso from Starbucks. It can heal any type of pain you are feeling. I've given these lovers up but I still treat myself once a month instead of 3 times a day. They do cost $4.35 I believe....insane I know. I love my coffee at night so if this isn't for you then do a decaf. Avoid alcohol.

2. Bath. A longggg Bath. A long bath with latte in hand and your favorite candles lit around you.

3. Music. (Okay this is starting to sound like I am planning a pleasurable night in for 2. And you know what some of this you can totally include with your significant other, but if your like me after a dayyyy sometimes you just want the music to be the only thing speaking to you.) Tonight I am going to play "Just Tonight" on repeat by the Pretty Reckless. I posted the video last night so if you haven't checked that out yet, do so. Very relaxing/kick ass at the same time.

4. Body Butter. A good body butter can dramatically change the tense level in your muscles I believe. And you feel so fresh and so clean clean! I use and love "Blood Orange and White Pepper by Bliss". It's divine.

5. Now light up all the candles in your room. And only use dim lighting.

6. Music once again must be played. I usually put on the same album I was listening to and sometimes(aka all the time) the same song. And tonight it will be, like above, "Just Tonight" by the Pretty Reckless. If you don't have a particular song or album in mind at the very moment you can ALWAYS do "Nirvana Unplugged". Does the tick everytime like clockwork.

7. Write. I have about 30 notebooks laying around with poems and lyrics I write. I find it relaxing and a great way to get out everything I'm feeling at the time. I was just writing a friend last night and told him that for some reason I have been writing a ton of love songs lately. Like happy in love, love songs. It's my hopeless romantic coming out. If you don't like to write then reading always does the trick as well. Try to make it a point not to turn to like the "Jersey Shore" to calm your crazy ass down. All television does is hype me up and make me want to shoot the TV. Wow....it's a good thing I don't own a gun.

8. Lavender Oil. It's a wonderful oil that you can place on your wrist, on a small pillow that you keep in your bed, or just anywhere you want it. I learned this trick at my favorite hippy store about four years ago. It's supposed to be a great way to lower your anxiety and bring on the calmness. It's great and I definitely highly suggest it. One of my favorites that I am currently using is "L'Occitane's A.O.C. Lavender Essential Oil".

And now it's time to lower your eye mask and drift into beautiful and haunting dreams for at least 8 hours. By the morning you should feel brand new and super fine. Take my word. Okay off to Starbucks I go!

Peace & Love
S

Recovery YO Pt. 3

Em taking a nap on Proof while on tour bus

Inserts out of a Vibe Magazine

Interview from 2009

It’s no secret I had a drug problem. I just don’t think my fans knew how bad it was. When I went to rehab in 2005 I went in for a sleep problem, or I guess a sleep problem is what I thought it was. But it was a drug problem and I wasn’t ready to admit it. I was taking Valium, Ambien, and Vicodin. Valium, Ambien, the numbers got so high I don’t even know what I was taking. I barely made it through that Anger Management 3 tour [Summer 2005]. I got by on the skin of my teeth. I had a rehab doctor that was seeing me through to where I could just take enough to not get sick and be able to sleep at night. The whole idea was, Get me through the tour, through these last couple of weeks, and then I’ll check myself in.

When I went into rehab everyone else was ready for me to go, but I wasn’t. Rehab was a really bad experience for me. Just being a celebrity and s**t, I felt like a fish out of water. It was like, I don’t have a problem. Everybody else has a problem. I’m a grown man, I should be able to do what I wanna do. That’s the things that addicts go through in their mind. I stayed in rehab for probably two weeks—then I checked myself out.

Needless to say, I relapsed. I started taking Vicodin the week after I got home, so I was probably clean for three weeks. Then I started back with the NyQuil. I had a problem with NyQuil even though it’s an over-the-counter thing, it’s a serious trigger for me. I’d try to knock myself out but sometimes if you drink too much it would have the reverse effect and keep you up. So I’m right back on the phone with the dopeman trying to get Valium or whatever I could to sleep.
The problem was bad already, but when the Proof thing happened, it got really bad. It’s not an excuse to use drugs, but man, if I ever had a reason…. It was an excuse for me to just say, f**k it. I just went all out with it. It got worse and worse to the point where I was getting it from anywhere I could. I had friends—or so-called friends—that were using the same s**t that I was. They’d give me s**t and I’d stockpile it.

So one day, this was right before Christmas of 2007, I got ahold of some pills. Somebody gave me some pills that were blue and they were shaped like Vicodin. I went to him looking for anything with codeine in it—Tylenol 3s, 4s, but they gave me these blue pills. They told me, Take these, these are just like Vicodin, only they’re easier on your liver. I remember taking one in the car on the way home, and I was like, Whoa, this is f**kin’ great. I didn’t even ask what it was. I’m like, This makes you mellow and it’s easier on your liver? I got a new drug of choice.

Within a day or two I was back askin’ for more. This time I probably got 15 to 20 of ’em. I think that day I took half. Toward the evening, I remember not being able to get out of bed. I literally couldn’t move. People said that I was actin’ weird that day—actin’ real slow and s**t.

I think I slept from 3 in the afternoon ’til 10 o’clock. That’s when I remember waking up and I couldn’t move. I was like, f**k it, I’ll just lay here. I woke up the next day at noon. I literally slept all the way from 3, 4 in the afternoon ’til noon the next day.

So I get up and I’m like, Okay well, I’m straight…I’m gonna take more. I took half the first day, then I took another half the second day. And the last thing I remember is trying to use the bathroom. I remember standing up to take a piss and I just fell over backward. Smack my back on the trash can, break the trash can. And I get up again, and this time I fall over the other way, to the side. I remember that the bathroom floor was cold. And I remember trying to crawl over to a rug. I got to the rug, and that’s the last thing that I remember. There are some things I have to keep to myself when telling this part of the story for personal reasons.

I woke up in the hospital. The doctor told me those mysterious new pills were methadone, which is used to wean heroin addicts off dope. Had I known it was methadone, I probably wouldn’t have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can’t even say 100 percent for sure.

I wasn’t only depressed about Proof, I was depressed about my music in general. All I was taking was downers, strictly sedatives. My mood made my music depressing. And in turn, the depressing music made my mood depressed. My brain was thinking slow. My flow, my cadence, everything was just slow. Every record that I made was, Woe is me, and my life is so f**ked and everything is wrong....

I overdosed, and I was in the hospital for a week detoxing. My doctor told me the amount of methadone I’d taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin. Even when they told me I almost died, it didn’t click. I was pretty much in a coma for two days. All I remember was just peacefully sleeping and waking up in the hospital like, What the f**k is going on? There’s tubes in me, there’s all kinds of s**t in me.

When you’re told you almost died, in an addict’s brain, this particular addict was thinking, Well I didn’t die, so I’m okay. WHEW! I got lucky. Thank you, God. God, please just please get me through this and I’ll never use again. But lo and behold…

The official word was I had pneumonia. Thing is, I really did have pneumonia; I had taken so many pills that my immune system wasn’t functioning right. They told me that if I’d gotten to the hospital two hours later, I would have died, because I f**ked my kidneys and liver up so bad. My kidneys had almost completely shut down. They were ready to put me on dialysis. -Eminem

PEACE

S

-Just as an FYI incase you didn't know because I didn't until I got Relapse last summer that in the mist of all of his drug use he had lost his very Best Friend from childhood, Proof. They both resided in Detroit together, grew up together, and worked together since they both started rapping in their teens. They also were in the group D-12 together. If you listen to every interview, every mag article, a lot of songs on Recovery, that Eminem is still horrible grieving I feel and states that Proof that was the only person who got him. Feels lost without his Best Friend who was tragically killed in 2006.

Eminem spoke at his best friend Proof's funeral where he said "without Proof, there would be no Eminem, no Slim Shady and no D12." The service sheet said the two men shared the "friendship of a lifetime."

He also dedicated the album Relapse to Proof but only mentioned him a few times in the album, unlike Recovery where he is mentioned heavily in almost every track and even if he's not mentioned in a track you can still feel that this album is his therapeutic way of trying to still figure out life without him.

Relapse Album Dedication to Proof-

Proof,

No matter how much time passes, not a day goes by that I don't think of you.

If it weren't for you, I would not be where I am today and we both know it.

I tried to write song for you but nothing was good enough,

so I'm dedicating them all to you-and you'd be happy to know that I spazzed out

on 'em gain! I know you wouldn't have it any other way! Fuck 'em all--let's get 'em!

P.S. I'm sober now, I know you'd be proud.

I love you Doody, I'll never forget you.

Love, Doody