"“My life started to derail. I thought that by changing my life completely - the friends, the city, even the language and the country - I could leave those habits behind,” Ariel said in Spanish about his decision to leave Tekax. “But my reality was going to be very different.”"
"After a promising start, Ariel's life in the Bay Area took a turn one night when he asked his cousin's friend to get him some weed. “Under one condition. You take a line with me, just one,” the man told him. After a few minutes, it became clear that Ariel hadn't snorted pure cocaine. “I gave you crack,” Ariel recalled the man telling him when he asked what the drug was. Ariel was hooked."
"After being kicked out of his cousin's apartment for his drug use, he spent three years jumping from single room occupancy hotels to co-workers' couches and friends' apartments. During this time, he missed rent payments, stole food, and did sex work to keep up his habit. He lost nearly a dozen jobs during the same period of time. Ariel remembers spending about $120 on drugs every two to three days."
"“I felt tired, anxious, lazy. I'd fight with my co-workers and I just couldn't get the work done,” he said. Ariel would cry seemingly out of nowhere. He'd move too fast, make mistakes, and act easily irritable at work. Eventually,"
Ariel left Tekax, Yucatán, hoping a new city, language, and country would help him escape drug habits. He arrived in San Francisco in 2017 and worked in restaurants while aiming to become a chef. His life changed after he asked for weed and was given crack instead. He became hooked and was kicked out of his cousin’s apartment. Over three years, he stayed in SRO hotels, on coworkers’ couches, and with friends, missing rent, stealing food, and doing sex work to support his drug use. He lost nearly a dozen jobs and experienced anxiety, irritability, crying, and difficulty functioning at work.
Read at Mission Local
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