Lost And Lame.....Floating Around Again....

Just an update and explanation as to why it's been so long since my last post. I was hoping to let everyone know beforehand that I couldn't deal with the physical symptoms of coming off the methadone so fast and was at rehab for the last week. I guess it's Wednesday here in the states and I got out on Monday and went in on a Monday so I was there for a week. But just in case anyone is thinking of doing what I did - DON'T! They won't keep you there long enough to detox unless you are like a billionaire and can pay out of pocket to go to Betty Ford or something. So basically I came out more sick than I went in and then there was a snowstorm here and all my aftercare appointments cancelled on me.... And long story short I'm basically only writing this post because I'm waiting for the only person I know in this towm to answer his fucking door so I can get high. Yeah, I know I suck, I'm weak and broken and I can't appologize or admit I was wrong enough for anyone in my life. I am getting back on the methadone program but I can't get in until Friday. This is like the most complaining I think I've done on this blog since I started. I'm just so lost and fucking confused and don't know what to do. My "boyfriend" who I may as well just call my roomate, and I, hate each other at this point. I hate where I live, what I do, how the world is and that is that. I feel like such a failure and loser. Whatever, that's the story, that's where I've been. I'll start posting regularly again soon. I have to go back to work on Sunday night, I just didn't want everyone to think that I fell off the face of the planet.

Constantly Cold..And The Living Is Hard.....

Probably nobody wants to read the following unless you are a sick, cold, ambivalent, angry person at the moment as am I. I haven't used but it's pretty much always there, whether it invades the entire space of my mind or is just a tickle in the back of it. I feel like I would be murdering part of myself to say that I would never use opiates again; but as long as I tell myself I will again one day, it just doesn't have to be today, maybe I can go on like that for a while without feeling like I'm totally denying myself an integral part of my soul.
I thought that because I was on methadone for so long that this would be easier. I was always a pretty well-functioning addict. I always worked, payed for my high(with US currency), you know, most people never knew until I told them. Anyway, for five years I've used only methadone through various clinics but all in a row without any lapses, I have always and will always smoke buds, but I've considered myself pretty much clean. I go to school, have a full time job, we've always had our own apartment. And they tell you that if you have all this shit in order and friends to support you, that your success rate is all that much higher. Well, if that's true, I feel so bad for anyone who has to detox methadone under less desirable conditions.
Sitting still unless sleeping is nearly impossible; the physical symptoms creep all over you if you're not moving and if you let your head have just a moment it could drive you mad with all the frustration. I just want to be over with this. I don't even know what it's like anymore to get through my days without a runny nose and dripping eyes, stomach in knots and hoping I make it to the bathroom before I embarrass myself. It's just so hard to wait it out, let yourself suffer when you could end it all so perfectly. I'm a heroin vampire.
I just keep trying to tell myself it will be so great when it's over. But what about the anxiety, the anger, the violence, all stuff that dope satisfied, will all these demons come back full force?
Anyway, it's SO COLD here, like the highs for this week are like 1 degree F, feeling like -10 or something and I have to go in and out of the cold all night long for work. Cool in the summer but no right now. I'm so irritable, I feel so bad for all the people who have to deal with me. Except for all the fuckin pervert truckers who we serve here. They show up here, never seen me before in their lives and you probably would totally believe how they behave but it's uncool. One guy really pissed me off one night cornering me and shoving bestiality pictures in my face. Now don't get me wrong, my dream in life is to open a head shop/sex shop, so I'm down with most shit. But they key is that it was not INVITED, no warning and not my choice of sex buddy, sorry old man. Anyway, I'm ranting now. Thanks to everyone who has so quickly given such thoughtful advice and please comment if you want but don't get all offended at what I write. IT"S MY OPINION, I'm nobody so who cares, chill out.
N.

Judgements and Closed Minds.....

Thanks to all the positive people out there who leave constructive comments. To anyone I may have offended, angered, pissed off, whatever...sorry... but there is a warning about my site. And please don't get so angry if I leave you a comment, I try to be as tactful as possible but I don't know everything about you and try to initially state that as a disclaimer. We're all just people doing the best we can and I currently interact almost entirely with folks in a similar situation as myself so we can exchange knowledge, not insults.

Angry, Crazy, Going Madder Than A Hatter....

Hindsight is always twenty twenty, eh? Man, I've made so many bad choices in my life and I'm not that old. Actually, I turned 30 on Jan. 9 and I feel so fuckin old. I've accomplished, like, hmm, NOTHING! Depressing.
I want my own house so badly. We're thinking about buying a piece of land over the winter and then as soon as the snow melts just living in a tent for the summer - Mike (bf) can build a little, or big, house; we can only afford little, maybe. But anything would be better than living above some fucking crackheads. I know many people are thinking "pipedream", eh? Maybe, but we work our asses off, like almost 60 hour weeks, I worked 58 hours last week. And since I'm not paying rent (I hope they rot in hell), I should save a shitload of money up. I've lived w/out electricity and running water for a winter in a cabin before and it's not so bad (actually it's hard as hell but rewarding) and if I knew it was mine, I'd do whatever it may take. I'm definitely going somewhere after winter, maybe I'll stay in Vermont but I grew up in Boston so VT was cool at first but now it's desolate feeling and I'm in the south near Mass.
Do you guys ever find people you used to know or do they find you? They block me from so many sites on my work comp. I can't get onto MySpace or YouTube or any of that. I miss a lot of my old friends from way back when, found an old picture album and Everything makes me cry these days.
So I'm down to five mg. and feel like shit but I'm eating valium like candy and don't forget California Poppy extract to all those in withdrawals - you may have to drink the whole bottle and you won't feel high but it fools your body. It's not a papaver, it's Eschscholzia califonica - it sounds like I made that up but I didn't. You should be able to find it at any natural food/co-op near you. Seriously, it helps. I should be getting NO sleep, but I get about three or four hours a night which is a miracle. Folks out there, let me know what you felt like when you went from your lowest methadone dose to nothing. That's what I'm freaking out about. How bad is it, is it better if you came down pretty slow? Will I be able to work? Everyone at my job knows I'm on the done and they know I'm getting off so they're pretty supportive and I don't care about puking and what not as long as it won't be like every ten minutes and my nose runs all the time already and sweaty, yeah, sweat is like my constant companion, even when freezing cold. Will it be worse than it's been going from 5-10 mg in two days? Please - want to hear from you!!!

Just Clarification

I just realized that I wrote something in my sidebar that makes it seem like addicts cannot be productive members of society while actively using. I just want to make it clear that I don't think that is true. There are many, many people who maintain habits and a life at the same time. Many of these people enrich our society and and my favorite argument of all is that some of us just need opiates; why are they here if not for a reason, if not for us to use to our benefit. Maybe poppies were created to comfort those of use who are less than expert at comforting ourselves.

How Did I Get Here, Where Am I Anyway?

Where does all the time go. Weeks, months, years have gone by and I don't remember them. Shouldn't I have more clear memories of the people I loved. I look at pictures and it seems like they were never really there and it's just a weird picture that came with a cheap, crappy frame. Do they think of me, do they remember me, what are they doing, where are they, do they still feel love for me like I do for them even though I can't see their faces in my mind.
I got home from work today, a twelve hour shift, four days a week. It seems like for those four days that I'm just in a daze, waiting for my real life to start on my days off. But then those days come and I'm so tired and have all this shit I should do. Pay bills, pay tickets, try to get my license back so I don't need to beg and ask for permission to go places from Mike. One thing that almost always makes me feel better is to drive around alone with my music, and I can't do that without looking over my shoulder because I'm in a vicious cycle and there's never enough money to pay for anything. I walked in the door and just fell into my bed. I didn't care that my dogs shit on the floor or that I'll never get out of my shitty apartment and own my own house if I don't call realtors and try to get loans, I work fuckin hard enough that I should be happy when I get home because I own it. I shouldn't come home wanting to smash the faces in of my crack head landlords. They fuckin lied about heat being included and when we moved in we realized they lied and they wanted us to use electric heaters to heat the place which is just STUPID. Who in the hell would do that, besides them (idiots)? Do you have any idea how much that shit costs, each heater is like 1500 watts and to make matters worse they jump the breaker all the time and steal our electricity. I HATE them!!!!
I haven't eaten anything all day, maybe I'll be able to force down half a sandwich when Mike comes out here for lunch, honestly I'm happy to be sick for hope that it will make me lose weight. If I feel like this now, imagine how shitty I'm going to feel once I'm on NO methadone. I hear it takes a long time not to feel like shit. Yay! I just want to be skinny again, I feel like I never appreciated my body enough before and I want it back so i can appreciate it. I used to be so strong and fit and now I'm flabby and it makes me sick. But obviously I have no will power so unless I can't eat, I will eat. I hate to cook which is weird because I used to like to cook, I used to do a lot of things and now I live in a void of time which seems unreal. I feel like this big piece of heavy mass just taking up space and air. I make the worst choices, or maybe I'm just not made for this time, I just don't fit in, everything we do as humans in this world just seems so forced and unnatural. All work, no pleasure. Shouldn't there be more time to simply enjoy our existence?
I fell asleep at about eight AM and I didn't take my methadone first (we had storm take-homes) and so I woke up at about noon feeling like a piece of shit, all weepy and dejected feeling and then I couldn't fall back asleep and so now I'm at work trying to keep my eyes open so someone doesn't rat me out for sleeping on the job. Want to hear something funny? I work as a security guard (hey it's a fuckin job, right?) I only found out about it because my boyfriend worked here first in the warehouse. Really, I don't keep anything secure, I just wave employees by and check in trucks on a computer program. Mostly I just sit here messing about on the computer or watching movies on my laptop which I'm technically not allowed to do. What they don't know can't hurt them. I hate security guards and I am one. I hate the police and really authority figures of all sorts make me uncomfortable. I hide my "uniform" (which is just an ugly black jacket and a black hat that reads 'Security') when I'm not at work.
I wish I could just scream, I could, I do sometimes but it doesn't help. Just fuck the snow and the cold, the cold that goes all the way down to the marrow in my bones, even when I'm sweating profusely at the same time. Fuck my car with no heat and all my warrants and fuck all these nasty perverted truckers. Do they seriously think that I'll be all cool and friendly when they say shit like "oh, you'd be so pretty if you fixed your hair" (I have dreads)? Fuck You you fat, nasty, smelly, sweaty, pig - I AM PRETTY, DREADS AND ALL! FUCK YOU!!!!! I wish I could just say, "Yeah, and You'd be sexy if you weren't so fucking disgusting."

My Glass Is Half Full of Shit...

I feel like I'm full of all this shit - mentally, physically, chemically, emotionally. You name it and I feel it these days; from minute to minute my state of being changes. I can go from seemingly perfectly comfortable to dripping sweat and feeling like I'm going to have diarea in my pants before I can get to the bathroom. Nausea is a constant companion. As much as I want to lose weight and have my body back, I'm not sure I'm prepared for it to happen like this. All I can eat is soup and popsicles and baby carrots, sometimes fruit if the moment is right. I'm told I will start puking soon but I wonder if I already feel like that only it affects me on the other end of my bodily waste system. I'm still on 15mg for the second day, which means the clinic will "allow" for me to go down another 5mg when I go tomorrow. I really want to get off but I'm not sure I can take the physical discomfort which will occur without a doubt if I go down again so soon. I seriously cannot afford it. Right now, at $15 a day, I'm paying a dollar a milligram. That for sure is more expensive than H. And money is why I got so fed up in the first place, that and I finally got caught. I just want this shit out of me, I want to feel what it feels like to not be on opiates. But I'm scared I will be totally insane with no opiates in my system. Obviously methadone makes you feel totally different than other opiates. For one thing, if I had never stoppped booting dope I never would have got so fat. (I may not be fat, fat to some people but considering I've always been like a hundred pounder I feel like a whale with fifty extra pounds. That alone makes a renewed habit look appealing. I know what you're thinking, I'm screwed, right, I'll never make it. Yeah, well, I already know that...but it won't be right away. I don't know if it will be a month or ten years but I will get high again before I die.
See, maybe I'm just not done yet. I never stole from innocent people like old ladies or my family; in fact, I only believe in stealing from large corp. like Wal-Mart or something. I never prostituted myself for dope though as a female it's a constant option. I always had a job or sometimes two, even while driving fourty-five minutes each way every day to get my shit. I think that there can be such a thing as a functioning addict; and not every user is destined to become a bum living on the street. Many amazing people have made astounding contributions to this world while high almost the entire time. And although some of their lives may have been cut short, I for one would rather live a short and amazing life over a long and tedious one.
Whatever happens, I can no longer live in this suffocating methadone haze. I'm willing to risk it to have myself back. No guts no glory, eh? I think I deserve some credit for suffering through twelve hour shifts while experiencing withdrawals. FIY: If you are ever in this same situation, California Poppy extract helps a bit. AAAHHHH!!! Fuck This, I can't deal anymore!!

What The F**K Is This Life?

Why are we here? There is no real answer no matter if you believe in everything or nothing there are no real answers because nobody really knows. And I'm sick of religion because even as obvious as it may be that there is something else out there, we don't know what. We call it this, that and the other thing but it's all the same thing, this God. Some power, some influence, but most of us ignore it because it's scary to think about.

As I get off my methadone dose I feel like I'm coming back to life. I feel like I have been locked in some vault within my own body for five years. As the methadone seeps out of all my bones and fat cells it's like a shell is cracking within me and the person who I was before is coming back. There are many bad things about that girl but there are so many things that I miss about me that I want back. I realize how sedated I was on the dose I was on. You get there so slowly and usually you are so grateful because you think you can't get off dope any other way. I had got off dope myself once or twice and then gone through rehab but I always started using again as soon as the money was flowing again. But now I think the best way to quit dope is to go to a private rehab for months or more until you really feel life differently but that is not possible for me and most other people. I checked into how much private rehabs cost and it's like at least $5,000 a week and that's a low estimate. Who the hell can afford that? Movie stars, the independently wealthy? So the rest of us have to feel the pain, every moment of it and withstand it mostly alone and pray we make it through and can go back out there in the world without finding the nearest heroin to take the pain away. You just know it's out there shuffling through the hands and veins of so many people and it would be so easy, just so easy to feel so sweet. And that's your primary memory, will it be forever? I know all the people on the firmly sober side of the fence would say I'm in danger of using and I shouldn't come off my methadone. Maybe you are right - but I think I'll always be in danger of using and what am I supposed to do, just stay on legal shitty heroin forever? I'd rather be crazy and energetic and free and deal with the constant pain rather than sedated and zombified wearing liquid handcuffs.

You have to remember that methadone clinics are FOR PROFIT businesses. They are there to make money primarily and if they happen to help some people in the process, well, all the better I guess. I do think that there are individuals who sincerely care and want to help but they are forced, by threat of losing their job or license to practice, to conform to the impersonal care which is currently the norm. I've seen a lot of those folks get frustrated and burnt out. Is it really that difficult to see how methadone clinics are essentially legal heroin dealers? They make you jump through hoops to get your dose, just like all our dealers used to do. Instead of wait in the rain for three hours, show me your tits, get me some cigarettes....it's be here every morning within a specific two hour gap (maybe more if it's a big clinic), don't talk to us in any way we don't like or we won't dose you, don't get upset, don't smoke weed, no you can't go down, see the doctor.....and if you do all this, we might give you your dose. The major similarity: We pay, We are the customer, They work for US, and they dictate the rules. How does that go down, most of us are at clinics voluntarily for our OPIATE abuse issues, not for smoking herb, or to go to redundant AIDS education meetings when we don't have AIDS and know all about it anyway. I know a lot of it is federal but like that makes it legit, the feds are the ones waging the war on drugs, again, FOR PROFIT. The best interest of the addict is not the foremost thought of anyone of these organizations.

If for some reason you cannot pay for your methadone, they will detox you faster than you can say, what the fuck? But if after years and years of being clean and you decide you want to go down, they will make it so extremely difficult and frustrating to get your dose lowered. You will have to see the doctor, the director, your counselor, fill out paperwork, oh yeah, and beg. So you see the issue I hope, if it's in their interest "There is no danger in dropping 10mg a day. The physical pain of withdrawal is all in our heads". But if we want to go down 5mg every three days, well then they need to monitor us for heath and mental stress and make sure we are not endangering ourselves. That's crap. Stand up for your rights, we signed paperwork coming in stating that this was voluntary and we were allowed at any time to stop treatment of our own will, even if we were openly stating that our goal was to go out and use, that is our perogative. Would you still shop at CVS if every time you went in the told you that you could not buy anything without first buying a $15 bottle of perfume? No you would not. But that's what the clinics do to us, they force us to continue paying $15 a day when we want to get off while we are waiting for the proper "paperwork". BE WARY.

On a more positive note, I am down to 15mg - that's SO close for those of you who don't know. But I do hear it's the worst once you are down to zero, like the second or third day I've been on zero I think I'll be feeling it the worst. But I did discover something to help...it's a secret though until later. Please leave any comments you may have. At this point I even welcome those who really think I'm wrong, just let me know what you think.

Aside From Addiction, There Are Other Problems Too

Seriously, I suck at this blog shit. I swear it will get better with time, I hope. I even bought a book about blogging for dummies or what not, I get bored reading technical crap like that but I really want to make an awesome blog eventually. I also really want people to find me and make some comments or whatever.....give me some suggestions on how to make things better. I don't have a lot of friends because I've sort of secluded myself since I got on methadone. My boyfriend Mike and I are pretty co-dependent and keep to ourselves. Also, everyone I seem to meet is a complete ASsHole. I have one best friend, Katie but she is about as blog literate as I am. I will figure this out....But visit me anyway and make fun of how crappy my blog is if nothing else.

I've spent way too much time trying to sort throught this tonight. I know I say I hate my job, but I've had jobs I hated a lot worse. This job is actually pretty easy, I've been screwing around in the blog world since seven P.M. and now it's one-thirty A.M. and all I have to do for work is to get up every once in a while and check in a truck. I do have to go inside and then back outside all night long and the Northeast winter is not the best time for that sort of thing so don't feel too envious. As if. But at least I get paid $10 an hour to do mostly whatever I want as long as I can bring it to work with me. I never thought this is where I would be at thirty years old, but here I am. I know we all have unlimited potential and it's all about the effort and commitment we put in to what we do. I know I have the potential to be more in control of my life.

Nobody Ever Said There Would Be days Like This...

Maybe they mentioned it and I just don't remember; what my memory serves up is that my parents tried to make me and my siblings think life was a fairytale, at least at first. When we were little, and I think a lot of parents do this, they tried to shelter us from all the shit which must have been hard at first before they had a lot of money and we lived in East Cambridge when it wasn't so posh as it is now. Don't get me wrong, by the time I remeber anything we were probably better off then a lot of American families, my father did very well starting his own public relations firm. But when my parents got divorced we sort of got a crash course in the way most of the country lives and my life has stayed like that since. I wish they had had the gumption and forethought to really talk to us kids. I hope if I ever have kids I can speak frankly with them and I pray they understand things that I was so naive about until I experienced them by accident.

I love my parents and I would never trash them for the things they did. Everyone always does their best even if their best sucks. Ten years ago I would not have had such feelings and this blog would get shut down for the anger that came from me I imagine; but eventually we have to realize that life happens the way it does for a reason and we're all just human and we all have no idea why we are here and that's confusing and makes people do strange things to try to figure it out or forget about it - but it seems like no one really wants to talk about it - and for me that's a big reason I love heroin is that it makes those questions seem a lot less terrifying. Nowadays I even feel love for my dad who has pretty much gone his own estranged way since I was sixteen or so; I can't say I feel no resentment towards him at times, but it is no more than I feel towards myself for all the bad decisions I made. Point to all this rambling: PARENTS, talk to your kids, not in metaphors or by skirting the true issues, it will keep them more connected to you. And don't check out, ever, not until you die, they need your support. If my parents had not got divorced and been so busy with their own pain to see ours perhaps all four of us would not have become drug addicts, then again who knows.