Who me?

Been thinking about the me before gear. Have I forgotten who I am? What has a decade of emotional suppression and retreat done to me?

I remember being so fucked up that I forgot my name for half an hour, mad magic mushrooms. Escaped from the squat because the hippies were turning into animals and when I hit the street I remembered where I was and my name. Big fucking relief. Had to go back the next night to apologise to the hippies for being so fucked up. Anyway.....

Spent the last ten years removing myself from society, cutting social ties and retreating into my heroin soaked non existence. Everyday the same, every night the same, me, melted into the armchair, zoned out on TV I never remember. Hit after hit after hit, day after day after day. The wasted years, years and fucking years of it. Years I won't get back. Tears in a bucket, motherfuck it.

So now I'm forty and I'm clean and I'm not comfortable in the company of strangers, not comfortable with people full stop. I've spent so long fucked up on junk I need to learn whole sets of social skills. Your correspondent is a social cripple. I need to push myself into places I don't want to go, learn to engage, need to engage , must engage. Hold the tree of life and shake the fucker until my future falls out. I want a rich life full of the joy of living and the tears of loss. If reality is between my ears then life is other people. Push myself to engage and each time it will get easier, become like muscle memory.

What I need I can't have. Ain't that the fucking truth.

Got a bit cocky and didn't take my anti-psychotic last night. I felt good and thought I could do without. Woke up this morning with a minor case of the dry heaves. Used to plague me when I was drinking. I'd open my eyes and know that in getting vertical I would lose my stomach lining. Every morning in life. Through up in my hankie this morning. Got a bit worried, I believe that my guts are directly connected to my state of mind so I took the anti-psychotic this morning. Had a shower and some porridge and felt well. Was evening cracking jokes with my parents at the breakfast table. Visited a friend from my past. He has been clean for years and has his shit together in a big way. His partner is a drug and alcohol councillor and they have both been giving me a lot of support.

He lives on one of the islands so I got the ferry over and he met me. We had a look at a property he is developing and went to get something to eat. As we talked about scoring smack “just the once” the snakes started eating me alive. He said I couldn't think that “just once” would be all right. I'd be back to square one within a week if I did. The snake fuckers coiled tighter and tighter, the worst I have felt since detox. Ate as much as I could while just holding on waiting for the moment to pass. Tried to walk the snakes away on the beach and it did help. Went back to his place and lay flat out on his sofa. The snakes retreated but my back started to nip, a dull ache I've had since school boy rugby. Headed for the ferry and my back got worse and I started to feel uncomfortable in my skin. Minor withdrawal type uncomfortable in my skin. What the fuck? All because I took my anti-psychotic 8 hours late? No shit. Was it all in my head? Have I replaced smack with the doctors prescribed meds? Are they holding me together, holding a world of pain at bay? Is this real or psychosomatic?

Folks picked me up at the ferry and noticed that I wasn't walking right due to my back. Sat in the car and bounced between snakes in my belly and pain in my back. Mother suggested a pain killer and I was desperate so said ibuprofen might help. She gave me coproxamol. A fucking opiate! Truly the worst day since detox. Tried to lie down for half an hour as I was due to meet my brother for pool and a DVD but felt queasy within 10 minutes and had to get up. Mum offered the use of her bed and electric blanket as I was running a temperature and cold to the bone. Texted my brother to cancel and climbed into a warm bed. Out for a couple of hours and woke up with most of the symptoms gone, just a sort of queasy gut, like when you drink early in the day and it hangs on you. Like my gut was disconnected from me and at odds. Truly the worst day since detox. I held on and I'm coming round. Your correspondent is coming round. Fact that I'm writing this speaks volumes. Don't give a fuck how it works or what really caused today to be such a shitter, I'm taking that anti-psychotic tonight. Just hold on motherfucker. 

Snakes

Starting to realise this isn't going to be as easy as I thought. The euphoria of being clean is fading and the snakes have returned. The snakes in my gut are slithering, coiled tight and turning, eating me from the inside. The snakes in my gut are a manifestation of nerves and anxiety and worry. Killing the snakes drove me through alcoholic blackout and drug induced oblivion to bitter sweet heroin. And heroin killed the snake like nothing else. Drowned the fuckers dead. The snakes are the cost of doing business, the snakes are the cost of spending twenty years in an emotional black box. Fuck the snakes, the worm slithered cunts. Live inside of me and die, motherfuckers. I am stronger than you base animal, I am strong. Chill out, embrace the pain and grow.
I haven't been warm since detox and I'm still waiting for a solid shit. I'm sleeping five or six hours a night, with no dreams at all. Why no dreams? Am I not sleeping enough? Are the meds suppressing my subconscious? I'm on an anti depressant sleeper and an anti psychotic. But I liked being a little bit psychotic. You can't beat the soaring up of madness. Reality is between your ears my friends. I believe in balance in life, in all things, a universal balance. If you want to soar high you need to accept the deep down.
It's a dangerous game but I was hoping for a little bipolar up cycle psychotic confidence to see me through the first few months clean time. It's dangerous because you pay for the up with a down and the down could easy come first. I never had any control over the cycle, why would I now?

Is my state of mind within my control or do I take these meds and flatline emotionally? Is that not what I took smack for, to flatline my life?

When I look back on my life before heroin the falling in love always happened on an up cycle when I was exuding super confidence. By the time the depression came the poor lass was in love and had to deal. 

The sort of woman that interest me don't like flatlines. I'm a vain shallow cunt when it comes to woman, she has to be beautiful and beauty costs.

I will live drug free and that includes prescribed medication that dicks with my psyche. If I can I will. Take each moment as it comes, the moments will become hours, and the hours days.
Chill out, embrace the pain and grow. If I can't do that, then just fucking hold on till I can.

The Truth of My Life

Told my brother the truth of my life. Told him I had been using heroin for the last 10 years. The last 20 years give or take a few clean months. My entire adult life.

Told him I had taken the cure and gotten through.

For me. For a life. For an ordinary life. For a future. For an ordinary beautiful future. I told him because he is my blood. I told him because I need him to know I will stand, a human being not an addict.

We held tight, tear stained emotion.

Blood is blood and blood is true and blood runs deep.

He talked with wisdom of his own problems. Problems I was unaware of. He said that help will only get you so far, that you have to take responsibility for the decisions you make. Your decisions set your path and become your life.

Only I can change my mind.

Wide Awake Club

Always was fond of my bed and with the habitual use of an analgesic, I could get up at lunchtime on a weekend, take a hit and return to bed, till evening.

Not so anymore, considering the sleepless weeks I've experienced with past home withdrawals, I feel fortunate that I am getting a "normal" nights sleep. Just not used to being up and about at 6am on a holiday.

Find I can't even lie in bed and read. Guess this gives me more time to use constructively. Time I would have spent in my scratcher. So use it constructively, donut. Could easily spend this new time thinking about scoring or dwelling on the past. Need a bit of get up and go.

I'm going to class this blog as constructive and cathartic. 

Nobody ever died of lack of sleep and with 5-6 hours undistrubed sleep most nights, I should be very thankful.

13 Days

Sitting in my parents house, watching Xmas telly getting proper spoilt.

Appetite has returned and my internal thermostat might finally be settling down. Have never felt so cold as I have since leaving detox.

13 days clean. 

Think about scoring heroin. I do think about it. On occasion, when I'm alone, awake in the early hours. A junky on his own is bad company. 

13 days is 13 days and thoughts are only thoughts.

Home Alone

Been staying with a pal since I left the treatment unit.

Until now. 

I am home alone. Discovered a crack pipe and new works under the spare bed.

My pal cleared out all the drugs in my flat but I forgot about the spare bed. No drugs, just the tools to take them. Had a long look at the crack pipe. Crack pipe is the sort of thing you could scrape out and smoke. My stomach started to clench the way it can when you smoke crack.

All from just looking at it.

Put it all away under the spare bed. 

Tomorrow is a crunch day, a day I have to fill with not thinking about scoring heroin.

Tune in.

Who Knew?

I entered Detox5 on Monday 8th of December and was sedated until the Thursday. Got moved to another ward on the Friday as I was weak as a kitten and cold as a corpse. Left on Monday 15th and am staying with a kind friend who is trying to force the resurrection of my appetite and energy.

I felt no withdrawal symptoms. I have no cravings. The anti-relapse secret is an opiate blocker that you take for a year.

I have 9 clean days.

Don't want to sound too cavalier but who knew it going to be this easy?

Start Again

It's six months since my last post.

Six months with nothing to report, I'm still a heroin addict that goes to work.

I have arranged to take the next month off work and plan to use the time from now to the 5th January 2009 to get clean.

A close friend has recently found me after almost ten years without contact. This friend was a heroin addict and is now clean, healthy and happy. He has rebuilt his life and has a future he will share with a beautiful girlfriend.

If he can do it, I can do it.

Self Pity Post

It's been such a long time you would think this post would be full of interesting developments.

No.

Nothing to report. No change here. Time has past without effect. Your correspondent still has a habit.

I get up at six forty five am, make a cup of tea and cook a hit. Two hits. I take one to work and hide it behind the toilet. My lunch time hit. I leave work at five thirty, head home and cook a hit. Gouch (the mild state of unconsciousness experienced whilst under the influence of heroin) in front of the TV, cook a hit about nine, nine thirty and go to bed at midnight. My working week.

Hurrah it's the weekend. On a Friday night I do my weekly wash and ironing. I sit up late, maybe four or five am and rise late on Saturday. Maybe one pm. I'll cook a hit and either go back to bed until five pm or gouch in my armchair. The result is the same. Saturday starts in the evening. I sit up late, maybe three or four am and rise late on Sunday. I leave the flat in the afternoon and buy a few groceries and a paper. Sit in Starbucks for an hour and read it. Head home about five pm and cook a hit. Do you see a pattern? I have a weekly phone call with my parents at six pm on Sunday. We talk for an hour or more. Sunday evening in front of the TV and bed at midnight.

I go out socially three or four times a year with a friend I've known since I was clean and my parents come to spend the weekend three or four times a year. I take a fortnights holiday at Christmas and spent it with my parents. This is my life. Without variation. Nothing new happens. I watch a lot of TV. Well it's on while I gouch.

I could leave this life and it would be a quiet funeral. Low attendance.

I say to myself that the responsibilities of my job mean no chance for a change. I imagine the transition from dirty to clean will not be smooth. I imagine I would be unable to hold down a job during this period. Certainly not my current job. I say to myself that I can't let down my employer in this way. I kid myself. No one is irreplaceable.

The truth is that my performance is not what it was. My confidence certainly isn't. Without confidence it's hard to realistically estimate your performance.

Oh to be clean. To have friends and a woman to love. To be a father. There's a world outside my window and everyday it passes me by.

I think my life will magically be all it can be just by being clean. Being clean is probably going to make my life much, much worse in the short term. I'll be a bag of emotional spanners. Broken and lumpy.

Any journey is a series of steps and if I want a whole life I have to get clean.

I have to break me to fix me.

Almost A Social Life

Holiday tomorrow. I'm forty.
Justification for a Friday off.
I travel south to spend my birthday with my family. My Mammy is cooking mince and tatties and apple crumble.
Truly the finest apple crumble in the world. Out for a meal on Saturday night and heading back up north on Sunday.
Can you call hanging out with your parents at forty a social life? It's my birthday, where else would I be?

For many years I have had in my head that I would be clean for forty.
I have failed. But I will succeed. Eventually.
I have to as I can't keep writing "Procrastination" posts although admittedly, I have no progress to report.
Mad busy at work today and realised I hadn't made a doctors appointment at the back of five.
Excuses, excuses.
Tomorrow is the perfect opportunity to make my appointment.
How hard is it to make a phone call?

More Procrastination

Today my employer gave me my private health insurance form.
He mentioned that it was not compulsary. I admitted to being in two minds and he told a story about his health that should have made me keen go private.
For reasons I hope he knows nothing of, his story did not resolve my indecision.

I can play the socialist and refuse private health care, hopefully avoiding the medical.
A future medical may be compulsary and part of my employment conditions. I don't know.

I should deal with the facts as I know them and ignore the what if's.

Fact.
Avoiding the medical is a relief and I feel as if I've won a watch.
I'm kidding myself here as no impending medical dissolves the impetuous needed to do Detox 5.
I need to get clean. Full stop.
Sometimes I think that I'm pinning my future hopes on the magic "get clean" bullet.
If I was clean all would be well.
The truth is that getting clean is the first step on a long and winding road.
A road full of uncomfortable growing up type emotional obstacles.

That was a long fact.

Procrastination

So what did I do today to accelerate my plan?
Nothing. I went to work and allowed myself to become absorbed in my daily tasks.
I did as I do every day. I like that my work concentrates my mind and focuses my attention.
I like that I forget about my addiction.

But I need to act. Action is required.

The whole work issue is part of of what has brought my addiction issues to a head.
I've worked as a contractor all my life and have, to a lesser or greater degree been able to hide my habit.
In January I started a new job, a salaried position with greater responsibility and lots of perks.
One of which is private health care which requires a medical. A medical I believe I will fail.
If my new employer finds out about my addiction it could be the end of my career.

I have a Detox 5 referral form. Now I need to see a doctor.

The Plan

If I'm going to get clean I must have a plan.
So what's the plan?

Detox 5 is the plan.

They medicate you into a coma for three days and flush your system of opiates.
Three days gets you through the worst of the physical symptoms of heroin withdrawal.

This unfortunately, is the easy part. Any fool can get clean. The rest of your life is a long time to stay clean.

To this end Detox 5 gives you an opiate blocker which your health professional agrees to prescribe for a recommended twelve months.

Heroin is an analgesic. A pain killer. Physical and emotional. Heroin stops you feeling. No more tears and no more laughter.

When you stop taking heroin all those suppressed emotions explode uncontrollably.
You burst into tears watching the news.

I'm hoping Detox 5 will stop this happening.
As I was in a coma I won't remember the trauma of the withdrawal so perhaps I'll just come round feeling OK?
Unlikely but we'll find out soon.

I sent an email today asking for the Detox 5 referral form.

A Little History

When I say "got clean" that is positive thinking.
I am not clean. I am a heroin addict and using every day.
With that out of the way I shall set the scene.

Like most I get up and go to work.
Like most I pay my taxes and bills on time.
Like most I have a loving family.
Appraised of the facts, a cursory glance at my life would show what is sometimes called a "high functioning addict".
Unlike most I'm single.
Unlike most I can't travel.
Unlike most I have no social life.

The people I work with must suspect something is amiss as you can't hide a gram a day habit. You can try.
I live in fear of the whole deceit collapsing around me.
I live in fear of my parents knowing the truth about their professionally successful son.

I'm forty in a few days and it's time to get clean.

Post Number One

So why am I here?

This blog is a vehicle. A sounding board. A means by which I shall out pour the coming storm.

For there is a storm coming.

I am a heroin addict and this is the story of how I got clean.