Jason Yamas Recounts Drug Addiction and Dealing in New Memoir

Queer writer and entertainer Jason Yamas grew up in a supportive, middle-class family and had a promising career as a multimedia producer by the end of his 20s. However, a downward spiral of drug addiction and dealing would change everything.

With painful honesty, Yamas recently released his memoir titled Tweakerworld, where he recounts his battle with crystal meth, the sprawling ParTy n’ Play (PnP) subculture of San Francisco’s gay community, and ultimately becoming one of the city’s top drug lords. Yamas crafted a landmark narrative that isn’t only a personal account, but a portrait of a vulnerable, largely undocumented community of people who, for many reasons, have been marginalized to the point of invisibility.

As readers follow Tweakerworld, Yamas also educates them on the growing epidemic of crystal meth addiction and overdose that is currently ravaging the queer community.

OFM sat down with Yamas to talk more about the book and his story, how drugs pose a particular problem in the gay scene, and more.

Let me begin by asking, what made you want to write this memoir and tell your story?

After the year I had with crystal meth addiction and living in San Francisco, committing crimes, pretty much becoming a paranoid schizophrenic, and essentially living in a full-blown psychosis for several months, after I escaped that, the nightmares would not cease. They were very bad. I would return to Tweakerworld, and I had to get it out of me. Whether it was going to get published or not, I had to put it down, and it had to leave me. I had to make this into a story so I could see it as something other than just my traumatic history.

So, number one, for those cathartic reasons. Secondly, because I entered this world of ParTy n’ Play (PnP) subculture without having any clue about how deep or dark it goes. It was always a punch line when it came up in my life as a queer person. I find myself to be a pretty self-aware individual and in touch with different facets of culture, so if somebody like me could be that deeply ignorant, then I can only imagine how the rest of society is understanding what’s going on there.

Can you talk more about how this journey began for you? How did you fall down the rabbit hole into this world and ultimately become one of San Francisco’s top drug dealers?

Oh, where to begin? (Laughs). I was a stimulant addict far before I was a crystal meth addict. I dabbled with cocaine throughout my years in New York, justifying it as, “Hey, it’s what NYU people do! It’s what artists do.” You’ve seen the old days at Studio 54. You glamorize and try to justify it, and you believe in the moment that doing cocaine in New York City feels a little different than doing it at some dive bar in the middle of nowhere. I deluded myself in all these justifications.

At a later point, once I got myself away from cocaine because it had become all-encompassing, I made my way over to Adderall, which was a nice transition. I wasn’t up all night like I was while on cocaine, but it allowed me to be the productive producer that I wanted to be, as well as a contributing member to the creative community. I derived a lot of pleasure from becoming an Adderall addict, but then that got out of control. I slowly increased it to the point where I was doing 120 milligrams a day, which makes my heart rattle just thinking about it.

Then I ended up really going on a crystal meth binge. Not to say I hadn’t tried it before, but I really went on a crystal meth binge when I ran out of Adderall and had to get through a few tough days of working with a very intense, demanding boss that I was producing a project with in LA. I ran out of all the different supplies where I was getting all my different Adderall connections. None of them were able to come through with how I needed it, so I opted for buying crystal meth, which is easy to do in California as a gay person. Sign onto Grindr and know a little bit of jargon that’s used.

As to how I got into drug dealing, there’s so many ways to answer that question. Logistically, the reason I ended up choosing to be a drug dealer was because I drove my car for a rideshare service, and a drug dealer asked me to drive for them. I found that I was very good at being a liaison to other drug dealers, and I was going to these sex parties at night, meeting people, then introducing new clients to these drug dealers and building their rosters.

Then when the drug dealer would not be able to come through, because drug dealers are not the most reliable people, I was somebody who got shit done. I wasn’t too far gone in my crystal meth addiction at the time, so I was like, I could do this better than any of these schmoes who have no idea what they’re doing. I treated this service like it was Postmates or Amazon. I kept seeing ways to improve it, as if I was doing a startup. It just grew from there. I went to having a delivery service, and once I had a delivery service, it just blew up, and the ball kept rolling.

What was the ‘aha moment’ for you when you realized you needed to clean your act and turn your life around?

There wasn’t one. It was never about cleaning up and turning my life around. As Tweakerworld kept pushing me out, my psychosis kept redirecting me to healthier choices, and my family and friends were trying to intervene. I was desperately trying to claw my way back into the addiction, the crime, the business of it all, and the game. I ended up desperate, and I lost everything. I had no way to get back, and that’s what happens. You fucking lose everything.

I had no vehicle, no money, and no credit. I had nowhere to go,; nobody trusted me. I couldn’t make my way back, and even after that, I still wanted to go back. I went to rehab, escaped rehab, and almost went back one more time, but it was my relationship with my father that ultimately stopped me the very last time. He had threatened to cut me off, and I believed him. It wasn’t an empty threat. I knew my dad, and I knew he would do it.

Writing Tweakerworld, what was something you learned about yourself during the process?

As a writer, I learned that I think like a filmmaker, which wasn’t a huge surprise. The first few drafts of the book were mostly dialogue and action. Very little physical description, at least of the spaces. I would physically describe the people, but I wrote it almost like a screenplay at first. Then I went back and kept coloring in it and asked myself deeper questions.

As for something I learned about myself, I learned that I’m a thrill junkie. Yes, I was a crystal meth addict, a cocaine addict before that, then an Adderall addict, and even a crime addict. My addiction kept shapeshifting throughout my time in San Francisco, and I became addicted to the game itself. Really, at the end of the day, it’s about thrill seeking, jubilance, and feeling as much as I possibly can. That’s what I was looking for, and I’ve now found it in other ways. You don’t need to find it chemically.

Why do you think hard drugs are so rampant in the LGBTQ community?

I believe it’s because members of our community have been marginalized and othered for so long by broad parts of society that it manifests into a crisis of shame. It’s more than just hard drugs. Alcohol is just as rampant. There’s a lot of pain, and I hope less and less for Gen Z and the generations that come after it. Some very much do, depending on where you are geographically, but many don’t feel that they need to hide who they are. They don’t have to push their identity down and away. What a horribly painful experience it is to be asked to hide who you are, just so you can feel loved.

That’s just in regards to coming out, and then there are those who have come out, and they are being attacked, and continue to be, within our own community. That pain doesn’t go away just because we get legislation passed. It doesn’t go away overnight. It’s going to take generations, and in the meantime, people choose to numb that pain because it can sometimes be all-encompassing to persevere through. I know that’s personally why I found myself to be an addict, especially of hard drugs and stimulants.

Do you believe the drug epidemic in our community is getting better or worse?

It’s definitely getting worse. We have the internet and apps like Grindr and Scruff, and I’m not opposed to the apps in general, but I’m disenchanted with the lack of policing they do when it’s really out in the open of how the exchange of drugs is happening. I think that speeds everything up and makes it more accessible.

It’s very bad right now because of fentanyl. Crystal meth is a dangerous drug that can kill you, but if I was doing crystal now, I like to think I would have more of an urgency to get out because I would be terrified that the next bit I snorted or ingested would be laced with fentanyl. I hear about it constantly, and people are now giving it the cute nickname “fenny.” I’m used to the cutesy nicknaming of drugs, but for some reason, nicknaming fentanyl rubs me the wrong way. It’s like giving a serial killer a cutesy nickname.

Ultimately, what do you hope readers take away from Tweakerworld?

It is an absolutely wild, beguiling experience to try to communicate, understand, and be with your loved one who is suffering from addiction, so I really hope people will read this book and truly understand the kind of toll and anguish their loved ones are suffering from. There are also some negative things to take away from it. You can’t ever trust somebody on crystal meth. They lie, cheat, steal, and delude themselves. I go through the book as this naïve boy from the suburbs, who thought he could trust people everywhere.

People continue to tell me, “Don’t trust everybody.” I’m like, “No, this person is alright!” But every person I trusted fucked me over, and I’m sure I did as well to a degree with other people. I never stole from people, though. I did try to keep some integrity, but who knows how I would have changed if I stayed longer than I did. I wasn’t there that long. I was only in that world for a year, so it was really a microdose. I know people that have been there for 30 to 40 years, and I write about some of them. People ask why they don’t try to leave, but this is their whole world.

In addition to the memoir, you are also a working actor and producer. Are there any current projects would you like to talk about?

Right now, I’m developing Tweakerworld into a series. I’m in early development for it, and as for acting, I’m not doing anything currently because I’m going back to training. I took a hiatus and was a producer for many years, and then I was obviously a drug dealer and then spent the last several years writing this book. So, I’m back in Los Angeles, and I’m studying at the Sanford Meisner Center, which was created by Sandy Meisner back in the day. I’m studying his technique, and I intend to get out there and start auditioning. I just want to do it all, and you can do it all these days!

Stay up-to-date and connect with Yamas by following him on Instagram @jasonyamas, or visit his official website, jasonyamas.com. Tweakerworld is available to purchase on Amazon and all other major book retailers.

Photos courtesy of Jaclyn Campanaro