MMT

I know that I haven't written in a long time but something that I read tonight has prompted me to do a brief update. I really do not understand why methadone is not a solution. I was a hardcore heroin and opiate user for more years than I even want to remember. I spent almost $3000 a month on my habit and there was a point in time where I never believed that I would be able to stop.  

And yet, here I am, almost a decade later. I do not use opiates. Yes, I think about them almost daily but I now know that I won't relapse.   Methadone truly saved my life. Yes, I am still taking it but I get my carries so I only have to see my doctor weekly. I wish that I didn't but that is the price an addict must pay sometimes I guess. Yes, it is certainly better than using. Maybe, it is not a perfect solution but it is definitely a solution. It certainly is preferable than the other. 

Now, I work full time and am a  positive, contributing member of society. I am no longer a burden to anyone or anything and for this, I will be eternally grateful

Tuesday, Tuesday

FROM THE JUNKYLIFE ARCHIVES | 2006-01-31 

Well I am halfway through my day at work and I have to admit for the first time in a really long time I actually feel OK. Yesterday was my first dose of methadone and as luck would have it, I also ended up being moved to permanent days on the exact same day. Suddenly with little to no warning I will be working permanent full time days for the first time since March 1996. Combined with starting to go to the klinic on a regular basis, I am pleasantly surprised that I am not as stressed as I thought that I should be today!

I finally got my 20mg dose of methadone yesterday around 5pm. It had been a rather long, painful day waiting for it but within an hour of taking it, I definitely felt its effects. I had increased energy and the aches and pains in my legs slowly subsided. I also got some rather good news during my intake interview. My doctor said that there must be an angel sitting on my shoulder because my body does not appear to show any of the normal signs of such an abusive lifestyle. All of my bloodwork as well as my EKG came back with excellent results. Who''da thunk that I was actually healthy? So much for being a hypochondriac! Obviously I am thrilled to bits with this news cause it will just end up making me more determined to follow the MMT program to the letter. If I have managed to get to near 42 without any real serious health issues, I would like to kind of keep it this way.

I did a pill around 10pm last night and one around 2am but for the most part, I didn''t experience the normal aggitation that I should have been knowing that I didn''t really have a supply. I also knew that I would be waking up unusually early for me. Not only was I getting up early but I was going to have to be instantly mobile to go to work. Normally this would flood me with fear but as the klinic opens at 7am on Tuesdays, I decided that the best thing to do would be to dose just prior to work. It has now been four and a half hours and I am happy to report that I am feeling relaxed and not experiencing any normal sickness. If I can maintain this until 4pm, I will be thrilled. Yes, I plan on copping at that time but I think I am still making fantastic progress all things considered.

Once I have reached a stabilized dose I plan on taking my methadone at the same time every day. I am just slightly freaked out right now because of my whole move to having to be in the office during normal business hours something that I have managed to avoid for nearly a decade! All in all though I am feeling positive for the first time in a really long time! Yeah for me!    

It's No Good

So now we're well into the fall. My Employment Insurance has been approved with no waiting period - so to speak - as I am on a Temporary Lay-Off which means that I've only lost my job for the time being and will be called back once the company can afford me. Pretty straightforward EI claim as they've got none of the normal verifying of the reason why an individual is applying. In Ontario, this means that if you are implicated and found even partially responsible for your job loss, EI can deny your application. This also prevents people from quitting their job just 'cause and then apply for EI. Both of these situations automatically disqualifies the individual. At that time, 2005, I was entitled to 60% of my salary but as next to no taxes or deductions were subtracted, it was almost the same amount as my normal salary with all of the required taxes etc were calculated. In my near addled junky mind, all I could think was "Sweet!" Business as usual.

And it was for the first couple of months...sweet, that is, but like anything else, this didn't last. One of my friends ended up becoming our dealer after we ended up having a falling out with our original one. My friend was, and as far as I know, still prescribed massive amounts of narcotic analgesics.  On the first Wednesday of each month he receives/ed 720 8mg brand name dilaudids prescribed by his family doctor.  I had filled this prescription many times in the past for him, and as he was/is not on any sort of drug plan, it cost him about $320CAD every month.

He received these due to some injuries he had sustained during a work accident. As far as I know, him and two other workers somehow ended up being literally buried alive for a large part of one of their work days. When they rescued them all, he had broken both of his legs, some ribs, his right hand and one of the fingers on his left hand. I know that he also sustained some nerve damage in one of his hands. As far as I remember, he ended up being in hospital close to six months. Anyway, initially he never actually used any of his pain meds as he quickly learned that they were much more valuable to him if he sold them outright. Before greed overshadowed everything, he sold his pills at 10 for $100,  though this didn't last very long, or 2 for $25 or $15 each. Do the math. He made a shocking amount of money from this endeavor and as he didn't even use the pills at that time himself, it was all gravy.

Kind of ironic, but as long as there were pills easily and readily available, life continued on, and with it, the feeling one didn't have so much as a care in the world. Not surprisingly, this illusion could disappear in an instant and with no warning. The first time you woke up only to discover that the well had gone dry wasn't so bad. You hadn't yet trained your junky mind and body to go into automatic and painful withdrawal at this mere suggestion. Not yet, but very soon. By the end of this first day without the ready availability of pills, you actually managed to finally hookup. The moment you fixed, you felt returned to normal. Two weeks later when the same situation presents itself, your mind and body are less forgiving and understanding. Start to feel anxious and nervous the longer the day stretches with no sight of relief. Well into the evening, you impatiently wait but you're really incapable of doing anything much else as the waiting taxes every fiber in your body, and now it had started to become more and more frequent and difficult to find opiates on a daily basis.

After a short time, our bodies started to go into withdrawal when no opiates could be located, and this wasn't pleasant. This had started to bother me as obviously having to endure ever increasing periods of withdrawal was by no stretch enjoyable and I started thinking more and more frequently that there had to be something more than this. Also, our main connect had started to lose track of the picture, and had begun treating us with disrespect, and had begun to take us for granted. For the most part, Jim and I tried to buy these pills in bulk. There rarely were no more than maybe a half a dozen smaller purchases throughout the month. Now, one would thing that if one of his customers was buying 260 units monthly that perhaps he would be able to cut them a bit of a break, but sadly no. He charged us groups of ten - sometimes on the very rare occasion groups of twelve - which translated into 26 groups of ten units each, charged at $100 per group, which adds up to $2600 each and every month!

When I say that we were regulars, I truly mean that we were indeed that. I am in no way attempting to inflate our use, and in fact, am extremely ashamed and embarrassed even sharing this info, as it paints a pretty distasteful picture of what we allowed our addiction to become before we were finally able to put the breaks on it. Now for just over 24 months dealing with him, we never deviated far from this number. We almost always paid in advance, and always paid cash - no bartering or asking for them up front, etc. If we did have to request a front, it was rarely for more than a few days. Now, I get why he didn't want to cut us too sweet a deal as he had begun to rely on our money each and every month. Who wouldn't want to receive this amount, especially considering there was no work needed at all whatsoever in getting it? No hustling, no nickel and dime sales, less traffic coming and going to his house because he didn't need a dozen or so more customers minimum to replace the two of us.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Barrel of a Gun

The summer that my Mom and I ended up having our falling out certainly turned out to be a quite a bit more than a mere convenience for me as it turned out. While there had never been any question that we both had been heading down this path ever since my Dad passed away, I most definitely made the most of the opportunity when it presented itself to me and did nothing much to prevent its derailment. Even though we'd been at odds in the past over issues more serious than the one that I finally used as my excuse to sever our current relationship, by this point it didn't matter. Definitely the proverbial straw for me, as there were a number of very legitimate reasons why we could not, nor should not, continue on with our current relationship as it stood.  

At the same time, I knew that I was also motivated by the fact that there would now be one less potential distraction interfering with my current usage. By this time, I was having a difficult time balancing my active addiction with my work and social responsibilities, my family obligations, as well as dealing with the general day to day mundane stuff one tends to encounter as we drift through our lives . So with that stress gone for the time being, I was able to refocus more of my energies on what was becoming increasingly more and more important, and I don't mean work.

Ironically, about a month or so after my blowup with my Mom, I ended up receiving a temporary layoff  notice from my employer stating that I would be required, immediately, to take a leave from work of between 12 and up to a maximum of 16 weeks. At that time, I had been working for my employer, a software company, for a number of years. By the time I received this notice, our office had been reduced to a staff of just over twenty from a high of near a hundred and fifty employees less than a year prior. Even though I knew I was still a valued employee, I also recognized the financial duress the company was currently experiencing.

Plus, talk about timing. Bloody pathetic on my part, but reality none the less. One less distraction yet again. The writing was so on my wall and yet...

TO BE CONTINUED... 

clean

Where has the time gone? Seriously!!! Nothing like the mundane of everyday life getting in one's way, successfully obscuring what is actually going on right in front of them, never mind all around them, that's for bloody sure. Combine this with "if it ain't broke..." it is fairly easy to see how we are able to become pretty complacent, soldiering on without giving too much thought to our actions.or ultimate destination. It's certainly pretty, darn easy, of course, when one is on auto pilot. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't help notice that this was exactly what I have been guilty of doing these past months regarding my recovery et al.

In less than a flash of an eye, I find myself rapidly approaching the five year mark since I started MMT - Methadone Maintenance Treatment. When I initially started I had no idea nor intention of being on it anywhere near as long as I find myself today. My original goal had been to get to an adequate enough dose so that I felt comfortably stabilized. For any laymen out there reading this, this is the magical dose/amount of methadone that an addict requires so that all of those unpleasant feelings of withdrawal disappear, as well as any and all cravings to use opiates manage to vanish. This dose will be different for every single addict. This is not where one size fits all will even begin to succeed. Obviously, there are all sorts of factors that ultimately end up determining what final dose a recovering opiate addict will end up needing in order to be successful.

How many years of active addiction? How much? How often? How old? How healthy? How tall? How heavy? How many other drugs involved? How much drink? I could continue...but the combination and permutations are literally endless. For me personally, I required a dose of 90mg of methadone daily before I really and truly felt stabilized. There were lower doses that took away my cravings. There were even lower doses that eliminated those unpleasant side effects of withdrawal. Lower doses even still that flooded those pesky opiate receptors in my mind so that even attempting to continue to use opiates had no noticeable effect whatsoever. There was adequate methadone in my system that I was no longer capable of even getting a bit of a high from using that to try to continue was utterly and completely pointless, not to mention, a complete waste of money.

All fine and well indeed, but at any dose lower than the 90mg, there were more days than not where I couldn't escape the feeling that something just wasn't quite right. Was I restless? Was I ill? Was I manic? Was I apathetic? What? I never really could pinpoint exactly what wasn't quite right with me, until it was no longer there. Even then, it took me a couple of days before I seemed to notice that something was different, something had changed. The methadone was working. Unless I was consciously thinking about my addiction and recovery, I had seemingly started to forgot about heroin and dilaudid and morphine. No longer did they rudely force their way into my every waking thought.It was near nirvana.

A number of factors kept me at this fairly high dose of methadone longer than I would have liked. Fear of failure was the big one obviously. Security blanket of methadone still a way better option than the alternative that's for sure!!! Getting hit by a moped a year and a half into treatment and breaking my arm severely certainly didn't help either. Even after two major reconstructive arm surgeries and four attempts at resetting my arm's bones, I only used my methadone dose to manage my pain. For a brief time, my dose did increase to 105mg daily but the doctor allowed me to divide this dose in two so that it was more effective in relieving my pain so the higher dose was very much required. The whole time I didn't take anything stronger than two 200mg ibprophens when it hurt - not even a Tylenol 3, thank you very much. You know what? I managed to somehow survive this ordeal opiate free. Who knew?

Just when I thought it was safe to...Jim and I get attacked and he gets stabbed more times than I care to count, and again, our timing sucks a bit! With all of this added stress, it just didn't seem like a good time to try to start tapering down our methadone dose - yet, anyway. But, this was now over two years ago, and both of us are well on our way to recovering from this violent and savage attack on our lives and sensibilities. Still getting treated for PTSD, and probably will continue for some time yet.

Now, about six months ago though, I started to notice or feel kind of out of sorts. That restless of old seemed to be rearing its ugly head once again. This time it was different. It wasn't a restlessness born out of any desire to use again. No, not at all. I felt like I was starting to experience diminishing returns from my MMT, or at the very least, my current dose. So, I decided I would try reducing my dose by 5mg to a dose of 85mg daily. After a few weeks, I reduced this dose again by another 5mg. And so on and so on and...today I am at a current dose of 30mg, and in all honesty, I feel no better nor worse for wear than I did when I was at 90mg. In fact, I feel pretty darn good.

No overwhelming cravings or uncomfortable feelings of withdrawal currently, nor have I experienced either one through this entire tapering down process. Now, that I am starting to feel truly confident I can succeed once my security blanket disappears once and for all, I am actively working towards reducing my dose to zero so that I will no longer be receiving MMT. That's not to suggest that I'm now going to blindly reduce my dose recklessly with no thoughts of potential consequences. Perish the thought. I do, however, now have a goal and a date by which I'd like to reach this goal.

No later than early spring of 2011 is now my ZERO methadone goal! I think that I will be able to comfortably reach this goal, and who knows, I may even be able to beat it!!! It's now time. In the next year and a half, Jim and I have family obligations that will not be remotely conducive to MMT. For one, we've got to go to the Philippines - his Mother's birthplace - for at least six to eight weeks with both his folks and sister and her soon to be husband. No choice either as his folks will be picking up this entire bill so that we'll all be able to celebrate in style and together their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Won't hear any complaints from me either, as this will no doubt be a trip of my lifetime!

peace, love and happiness...

LIQUID LUNCHES

I've managed now to maintain a journal of one sort or another online now coming up on eight years. Initially I was so self conscious about exposing anything about myself, but after a short time, I forgot that I was actually writing on a public forum, and wrote just for the sake of writing - for an audience of one so to speak, moi! With my first journal I did nothing to hide my identity in anyway, but, I also ensured that I made no mention whatsoever of my alternate lifestyle, so to speak. While it was true that everything I wrote about was 100% honest, the mere fact I completely avoided addressing a substantial part of my life was nothing more than me lying through omission which by definition is equally as bad as if I were lying. I wasn't really being truthful or at all. Conundrum!

At the same time, I certainly was by no means ready to expose a very private side of myself or my husband, or at the very least, risk the chance that someone reading my journal would be able to put two and two together and figure out what we had fought and worked so hard to remain secret and separate. Ah-ha! A secret identity was in order. Why not? I thought. It works for super heroes now doesn't it? So with the anniversary of my alter ego in mind, I guess you could say that I've been maintaining a journal online, with my entire life 100% exposed, for near seven and a half years now. While I still chose to keep my real name and my families private and hidden from anyone doing a general search of me, anyone that knows me intimately is familiar with any of my online writings now, my daughters included. More than anything else now, my innate shyness and general self consciousness are the main things that stop me from going any further.

One thing I've not been able to help but notice is how much change has occurred in those writing about addiction. There seems to be far more relatives of addicts writing now than the actual addicts. When I first started out, I can't remember anyone other than addicts or addicts in recovery writing or keeping a personal journal. A point of view that I can't help but consider now, was never a consideration in the past. Nary a glimmer. Keeping current with the ever growing number of this niche keeps me honest, and never forgets to remind me that my recovery no longer affects only me, but any number of people close to me who care about me and my welfare - obviously, there are many other things working away in the background, but each and every time I read one of the relatives journals, I can't help but feel humbled. I also can't begin to say enough about any one of them and the suffering they must endure each and every day. Their writings should be mandatory reading for any drug education course in the school system, the penal system and any other type of system out there!

For anyone new to my writing, I first off, would like to welcome one and all. Secondly, I wish that all of my online writing was accessible to everyone. Currently I have approx 200 plus entries from a former site that I have yet been able to upload to this site. It had been maintained by another and for some reason, about three and a half years ago, it disappeared without warning. Miraculously, he did eventually return everything to me in the form of a .sql file which is a file I've no clue what to do with. I can open it one of the more sophisticated alternatives to notepad but that's pretty much it. Buried deep within all of the stuff that stares out from my computer monitor, I can make out my original entries. On days when I feel particularly ambitious, I've copied and pasted individual entries into this journal with the entry's original date stamp. With over 200 though, I've never quite felt that ambitious! Maybe one day soon - or maybe an idiot proof method of getting this file incorporated with this site will appear miraculously for me! Never, ever say never!

In the meantime, allow me to share one of the few original stories I managed to write while knee deep in addiction. May be a little graphic for some, but it never fails to make me suitably uneasy every time I force myself to read it, reminding me of how important my recovery and sobriety is to me and mine. This story is way too autobiographical for my liking as I seemed to spend many similar days to the one I wrote about than I cared to admit.

LIQUID LUNCHES - a short story

 
I like to call myself a functioning addict or a responsible junky - an oxymoron if I have ever heard one. You ask what makes me so different or special from other junkies or addicts? Well, nothing really except the amount of work involved. It is much harder to be a functioning addict. You are forced to live two very separate and distinct lives. Your public face is the only face that anyone is allowed to see. no one can be allowed entry into your private world. This you keep very well hidden from view.

 
No one can know that your half hour lunch is not sitting down at the nearest coffee shop consuming today’s special washed down with a couple of cups of coffee. No, instead you have quickly headed over to the local public library and have locked yourself in one of their bathroom stalls. Once you are safely behind its closed door, you carefully remove a brown eyeglasses case from your purse only you don’t have a spare pair of glasses in it. You place a strip of toilet paper across the back of the toilet bowel and gently place a spoon on it.  

 
You grab one white pill out of your baggy and place it in the centre of the spoon. With the end of your lighter, you carefully crush it until it is a fine white powder. Next you rip the packaging off of a new syringe and open your small bottle of sterile water, placing the tip of the syringe in it to draw up 50 units. Carefully you fill the spoon with water.

 
Lifting the spoon up into the air, you flick your lighter and aim the flame so that it is centered beneath the spoon. The water starts to bubble and the fine powder dissolves. Breaking some cotton off the end of one of the many q-tips you have, you drop it dead centre into the warm liquid. Quickly you suck the liquid out of the spoon into the syringe. Sit back for a second to breathe a sigh of relief. No clumsy accidents. So far, so good. Taking some more toilet paper, you wipe your spoon clean before returning it to its case. You make sure that your small bottle is properly capped and your baggy zipped up tightly. You crumple the syringe’s wrapper up tightly and place it in the case also. You will have to dispose of it later.

 
Enough time should have passed so that the liquid had cooled. You perch your rear at the edge of the toilet seat making sure your feet are square to the ground. Taking a look at both arms you decide which one to go for this time. The left looks as if it will yield the best results. You tap your forearm a few times and flex your hands. Carefully you remove the cap from your syringe. Taking a deep breath you stick the needle into your skin gently pulling the plunger back a fraction. A rich red floods the barrel. Bulls eye. With as steady a hand possible and a silent plea for them to remain that way, you depress the plunger at a uniform rate until all of the liquid has disappeared.

Bliss. Now not too quickly, you remove the point from your skin, firmly pressing some tissue over the bloody hole. Once the bleeding has stopped, you qrab the point of the needle with your bloodied tissue and twist it until it snaps off. Throwing both into the toilet, you flush them down the drain. You recap your now empty syringe and return it to its place in the eyeglass case. Wrap two elastics around the case and return it to your purse. You certainly can not be too careful. You want no rude surprises should you ever drop purse with contents spilling everywhere. Too big a risk to take for the functioning addict.

You gather your stuff and exit the stall, stopping to wash and dry your hands. Look for your comb to run through your hair. As everything went smoothly, you still have time to freshen your makeup. Touch of lipstick and a brush of powder and you are good to go. With one final glance back at the mirror, you open the bathroom door refreshed and satisfied by your half hour lunch break.

Methadone Pretty Indeed!

The following is a reaction to a debate - somewhat heated to be sure - that I recently got into with someone who once had been one of my dearest friends. Finally after a decade and a half of a pretty hardcore opiate addiction, he decided to go on methadone and has been on it just shy of two months. Already, he is spouting the rhetoric that I hear so very often from the majority of methadone patients at the clinic that I attend, and once again, I found myself frustrated. If some of what I am about to say doesn't make complete sense, I apologize in advance as I was on a bit of a tear when I typed most of this!

I know that Methadone Maintenance Therapy and its success/benefits can certainly be a hotly debated topic on any given day within the opiate addict community. I certainly can understand why it is something that can get both the for and against sides worked up into quite the lather. There are many times when I wish that there was at least another solution to MMT rather than cold turkey and abstinence available to me, but unfortunately, in southwestern Ontario, Canada this is pretty much all that I've got right now.

Quite often, the meth program in my city can be a very negative experience. The few doctors that are part of it often stress only the negative - the high recidivism rate if you were to actually complete the program or the likelihood that you would spend your entire life in treatment. There can be little to no counciling, plus often they push and push you until you are on an almost unmanageable high dose often prescribing amounts way above what was your true blocking dose. Then they discourage you when you want to start to taper down and decrease your dose. I refused to go any higher than 95mg once I felt that I had stabilized and am now currently on a dose of 60 that I find is more than adequate.. My husband stopped increasing his at 145mg and is currently on a dose of 90. A lot of the other patients were encouraged to go on doses that were at least double our amounts. No wonder they all felt like crap most of the time, not to mention feeling rather defeated.

Never mind all of the talk of methadone's side effects. This alone can defeat you before you're even given a chance to get started. How is it possible to imagine a life in recovery, if you're never given the required encouragement to attempt to even get there? I think that a lot of methadone''s side effects are in reality urban legends. Now after spending three and a half years on it - round two for me also, as I spent almost the same amount of time on it a decade ago - I found many of the supposed possible side effects or reactions never materialized unless you literally "willed" them upon yourself. I found that those that bought into and blindly believed and accepted all the garbage that our doctors were feeding us actually developed exactly what they were told they would develop. Self-fulfilling prophecy really.

For many this became their license to not have to work or even look for work and justified their desire to eat any sweet thing that passed remotely within their line of vision and pound on those extra 70 pounds. Suddenly they felt completely justified in needing a previously unprescribed prescription for Ritalin to keep them going. While many of the people that I met while I was in treatment fell firmly into this category there were some that could just not settle into the program and found meth treatment to be an unfulfilled painful step of their recovery process. For these unfortunate few there were real and valid issues with methadone.

Yes, you definitely feel more exhausted and it is hard to focus at times. Suddenly you feel as if you have developed ADD. No doubt years of opiate abuse combined with meth's assault on our bodies throws our metabolism right out of whack and we all seem to pacify this with an increase in our daily sugar intake. Obviously a weight gain will soon follow. But is this weight gain solely from the meth or are we no longer running ourselves into the ground constantly searching for our next hit? Once the hunt is removed we immediately become more sedentary. Combined with the fact that each and every penny is no longer being spent on illegal substances we find that for the first time in a long time we actually have a well stocked fridge and a full cupboard. We can finally get rid of that jumbo jar of peanut butter and $.99 package of plain crackers.

With this kind of philosophy from the clinic it was no wonder that the majority of the patients felt as if they had traded one losing card for another. Had there been a little bit more positive feedback from the doctors I think that they would have seen entirely different results. I talked to so many that were also suffering from constant low level depression while in treatment. Because I felt that I was being prescribed my true stabilizing dose, once there, all cravings for opiates disappeared. Honestly

SHAKE THE DISEASE

After running into our old friend and dealer the other day, it suddenly occurred to me the number of females that we know who found themselves pregnant in the past two years, have given birth, and yet do not currently have custody of their newborn. Ashley was just the most recent of at least a half a dozen, or even more. Of all of these women, I am aware of only one of them who was able to leave the hospital with her daughter, who remains with her to this day, almost two years later. All of the others automatically were involved with Social Services. One of their representatives was literally waiting there in the birthing room to remove the newborn from the mother the second that this could safely be done.

This is frightening on a number of levels to be sure. Obviously these females were still abusing one, or more, illegal substances throughout the pregnancy. If she was unable to quit, or at least get on methadone - if opiates were the issue - the moment she found out her condition - and once the decision was made to continue with the pregnancy - she made it abundantly clear how very selfish, and negligent, she really was. Obviously, no serious consideration was given to the potential damage she could cause for her unborn child with continued substance abuse. Without exception, all of these women did nothing at all to even curtail or reduce the amount or frequency of their substance abuse. For me, personally, I had an extremely difficult time even interacting with any of them while they were pregnant, as it was near impossible for me to refrain from comment about this abuse.

Last week when I ran into Ashley, I simply could not keep quiet, especially as she was the one to introduce this topic into our conversation. Since the birth of her daughter a few months ago, her use has actually escalated, not to mention that she has now introduced speed into her daily doses of 8mg dilaudid pills. I am sorry, but WTF? Currently, her and her boyfriend do not have an apartment of their own. They've been rotating staying at various friends pretty much on a semi regular basis. The baby is currently with her mother, and by the look of their current situation, will most likely stay with her for the foreseeable future. She mentioned that the Social Worker was giving her six months to get her act together.

She was given a guideline of sorts as to what was expected of her to accomplish in order for her daughter to be returned to her. She's got about six weeks maximum now before she has to meet with Children's Aid. At this hearing, she ostensibly is to present to them why they should return her daughter to her care, Obviously they're going to want to see that she is serious about her recovery which means that she should be on MMT at the very minimum by this time. She is also going to have to prove to them that she has a permanent address with the appropriate amount of space, or rooms, for a newborn to be adequately maintained, never mind flourish. I'm also guessing that she'll need to prove that she has all of the proper furniture, accessories, food, et al for the baby. No doubt there is considerably more things that will be required for her to do and have. CAS is certainly not going to hand the baby back to her in a cavalier manner. They will look at every last detail under a magnifying lens is my best guess.

So far, she's not done any of this. Nothing. In fact, about the only thing that she has really done is ensure that now her boyfriend also has a hardcore dependence on opiates. What a pair! I told her as much. I said that she needed to get serious right away, especially if she really and truly wanted custody of her daughter. She maintains that she does, but I don't know anymore. I look at all Of the women whom have gone before her these past two years, and all I see is the writing that is already on the walls. What's really gut wrenchingly sad is that in the end, it is the children who will suffer because of these women's ultimately selfish attitudes and choices. If they've decided that they are simply incapable of cutting drugs from their life no matter how hard they try, what they really need to do is remove themselves completely from their child's life, because in the end, the inevitable sporadic contact with them will damage these innocent babies immensely. Do the unbelievably unselfish act of severing ties completely so that their child has a chance of finding a family who will nurture and love and be completely involved and committed to them. Otherwise these babies barely stand a chance, and they might as well admit defeat before they even have a chance to get started!

NO LONGER NEED - OR WANT - THE CHAOS PART THREE

OK, so the original reason that I started my rant the other day regarding my former dealer was the fact that we unexpectantly ran into him and his girlfriend, and this meeting was still fresh in my mind. Considering the size of the city that I live in - just shy of 400 000 - it's surprising, but by no means disappointing, that I've managed to avoid them these past three years. Yes, while it is very true that once we decided to clean ourselves up, Jim and I moved to a completely different part of town as well as severing all ties with the members of this lifestyle. Essentially, we isolated ourselves, and made sure not to leave any forwarding address.

As this town in reality is only so big, it was a matter of time before we ended up running into them, or at the very least, a mutual acquaintance - I hesitate to say friend. Also, as he was one of the primary dealers of pills three to six years ago, we were bound to run into some of his former customers as they, too, attempted to quit the pills, and clean up. Of course, as is normal amongst these types of cliques, gossip can run rampant, whether its actually true or not is an entirely different issue! So, for the past six months, I couldn't help but hear what was being said about them, especially as they had recently had a little baby girl. There had been some pretty gruesome stories floating around about her especially.

She never did manage to quit the pills while she was pregnant, and in fact, while she was in the hospital delivering her daughter, she still somehow managed to continue to use. Apparently, so the doctors and nurses would not notice any track marks along her arms, she had been shooting into her neck. Naturally, she tested positive for drugs so right away, the social workers took her baby away from her. Luckily, her daughter was given into her mother's care so she is able to see her as often as she wants. Now, whether or not,, she actually takes advantage of this situation is another matter all together. I guess she was given six months to get herself all  straightened out if she wanted custody to be returned to her.

Now, if her mother has the baby, then at least she will be denied nothing. She will be given every creature comfort imagined, especially lots and lots of love and attention. Her mother and step father are exceptionally wealthy and will be able to well provide for their grand daughter without any difficulty. Of course, their daughter could also live at this same standard save for the fact that she has messed up far too many times for her parents to continue to indulge her each and every whim. Those purse strings have long since been severed. She's her own worst enemy. Her parents have given her far more chances than she should have had considering all of the things that she ultimately did to them. they've been way more patient than I think I would be. I say this from complete first hand experience as I have had frequent as well as extended interactions with both of her parents, as well as her older sister. Her mother, is in fact, a year younger than myself.

There is so much more detail that I could go into, but I will have to save this for another day, as I don't really have the time right now. So to whomever made the comment about our dealers not really being our friends, this particular situation doesn't quite apply to that statement. Yes, I am aware that no dealer is ever your friend. Its business plain and simple. This particular arrangement was slightly different as I mentioned a few posts ago, that in fact, one of our friends of longstanding - just over twenty years - ended up becoming one of our dealers by virtue of him having a product to sell that we wished to purchase.

Anyway, I've somehow managed to lose my original reason for this post so let's see if I can somehow get myself back on track. OK, so we finally ran into them the other day. They were in pretty rough shape as both of them were pretty sick, and it didn't look as if they were going  to have any luck locating what they needed.  As a last resort, they were going to grab a bunch of speed in the hope that this would help with their withdrawal. I'm thinking not so much, but I'm so not an expert in this particular area. Anyway, she and I chatted for a bit about her current situation, and she expressed that she did want her daughter  to be able to live with her, but that she didn't think that she would be able to give up the pills, or more importantly the chaotic lifestyle that she has come to know as normal.

Its a really sad and tragic situation to everyone involved.

NO LONGER NEED - OR WANT - THE CHAOS PART TWO

One of the questions regarding my previous posts had to do with my friend that was, and as far as I know, still prescribed huge amounts of dilaudid. He received, and receives I guess, 720 8mg brand name dilaudids on the first Wednesday of each month. It is his family doctor that prescribes these o him. I have filled this prescription many times in the past for him, and as he is not on any sort of drug plan, it was about $320CAD the last time I picked it up for him over three and a half years ago. He receives these due to some injuries he ended up receiving on a work site. As far as I know, him and two other workers somehow ended up being literally buried alive for a large part of one of their work days. When they rescued them all, he had broken both of his legs, some ribs, his right hand and one of the fingers on his left hand. I know that he also sustained some nerve damage in one of his hands. As far as I remember, he ended up being in hospital close to six months. Anyway, initially he never actually used any of his pain meds as he quickly learned that they were much more valuable to him if he sold them outright.

Now, as far as I know this worked nicely for him for years. He was able to pay his mortgage plus keep himself in as much speed as he could possibly imagine. All was good in his little world. That is until he met his current girlfriend, who also just happened to be half of his age. She played him beautifully. He chucked out the old wife and brought in the newer and younger model who just happened to have a raging pill habit. A match made in heaven, n'est pas? Pretty soon, the young lass found herself pregnant, but with no plan on attempting to clean herself up either. By this time, he had managed to lose most of his customers, not to mention friends due to his new love and her ever growing influence on him. Seems that wherever she went, you could be sure to find you were missing things. She was also a major thief. I also had the pleasure of being on her receiving end of this little trait of hers to the tune of near $1000!

I've just been informed that he now has a raging pill habit worse than hers, and is fast losing every little thing, including his brand, new daughter. He either does all of the prescription he gets within two weeks, or sells more than he needs to, but word is that by the middle of the month, he is begging anyone that will still listen to help him.

So, my hat goes off to you indeed. Had you not become so insufferable a few years back, I may never have tried MMT out again, but you did, and so did I. It has been a massive success, and I know that I wouldn't be sitting here today, rubbing my hands in karmic glee without you!

NO LONGER NEED - OR WANT - THE CHAOS

One of the first things that Jim and I did once we had both reached our stable dose of methadone, after paying off all of our outstanding bills, both legitimate and not, was move as far away as possible from the locale that almost proved to be the scene of our undoing. Just as quickly as we were able to move, we both got rid of our jobs, and found brand spanking new ones. Obviously, we felt very strongly that the only way that we would ultimately be successful with our recoveries was to make a complete break from the lifestyle that ended up getting there. We, literally, needed to start all over again from little more than nothing, other than our strong belief that we could succeed with this in the end.

Surprisingly enough, this ended up being easier than we expected. Paying off our rather large debts that we had managed to collect over our most recent habit, ended up not taking as long as I had thought this would. Its bloody amazing how much disposable income we ended up having available to us once we no longer needed to spend anywhere from $1800 to $2600 each month to feed our habits. I started MMT in February 2006, while Jim followed me about three months later. By October of the same year, we had managed to pay each and every last penny off that we owed.

Without exception, all of the legitimate businesses that we had outstanding debt with were thrilled to accept our money. In fact, so were all of our dealers - we rotated through three separate individuals at this time in order for us to purchase what we needed on any given day. For the most part, all three were pretty dependable connects although around the time that we both started MMT, London was in the middle of a bit of an opiate drought. Even with these three, it had started to become more and more frequent and difficult to find opiates on a daily basis. This had started to bother me as obviously having to endure every increasing periods of withdrawal was by no stretch enjoyable.

Also, our main connect had started to lose track of the picture, and had begun treating us with disrespect, and had begun to take us for granted. For close to two years, we had purchased from him 240 8mg dilaudid pills - a third of his legitimate script - each and every month, without fail. Now, if we take the time to do a brief bit of math, this translated into a substantial amount of money. He sold his pills for $15/piece if one was to purchase them singly. He would give you a bit of a break when you bout a couple, selling them at two for $25. Now if you happened to have $100 at your disposal then you could get ten pills for this amount. Now, obviously, for the most part, Jim and I tried to buy these pills in bulk. There rarely were no more than maybe a half a dozen smaller purchases throughout the month. Now, one would thing that if one of his customers was buying 260 units monthly that perhaps he would be able to cut them a bit of a break, but sadly no. He charged us groups of ten - sometimes on the very rare occasion groups of twelve - which translated into 26 groups of ten units each, charged at $100 per group, which adds up to $2600 each and every month!

When I say that we were regulars, I truly mean that we were indeed that. I am in no way attempting to inflate our use, and in fact, am extremely ashamed and embarrassed even sharing this info, as it paints a pretty distasteful picture of what we allowed our addiction to become before we were finally able to put the breaks on it. Now for just over 24 months dealing with him, we never deviated far from this number. We almost always paid in advance, and always paid cash - no bartering or asking for them up front, etc. If we did have to request a front, it was rarely for more than a few days. Now, I get why he didn't want to cut us too sweet a deal as he had begun to rely on our money each and every month. Who wouldn't want to receive this amount, especially considering there was no work needed at all whatsoever in getting it? No hustling, no nickel and dime sales, less traffic coming and going to his house because he didn't need a dozen or so more customers minimum to replace the two of us.

Towards the end of us dealing with him, he started to act illogically and then some. Paranoid much. He started to see people in his bushes and trees in his garden, and all that tends to accompany this sort of mental breakdown. Funny what a hardcore amphetamine addiction can do to you! And he had a raging one at that. Old story of him starting to spend more money on this than the amount of money that was actually coming into the house! He still was getting our full funds and obviously still more from other sources, but it never seemed to be enough. He actually was about to raise his selling prices - which one tends to have to do when your new girlfriend is pocketing a couple of hundred of your units on a regular basis! This starts to add up and negatively affecting one's bottom line! I was prepared to even deal with this, but when he started to get mean by holding our addiction against us by playing little games of pretending that he was down to his last two pills, etc, well I quickly started to lose my patience. Suddenly, the thought of him even fronting something to us was no longer going to be an option, and when he did decide to be all magnanimous, it literally became a joke. On a number of occasions, in the dead of winter when our truck was in the shop having a new engine installed, he had us walk 45 mins to his house, and when we got there, he was prepared to front us no more than three pills. WTF? Proverbial straw, anyone?

What I ultimately found utterly repugnant in dealing with him was the rude and disparaging way in which he had started to treat us the last six months of our doing business with him. In hindsight, I know now that this treatment wasn't specifically directed at us alone, but that also, is so not the point because I felt that we should never have been lumped into his "loser pill popping" customer that he had always loathed and despised. Firstly, he wasn't someone that we had just recently met, but an actual friend of ours going back just over two decades. We also were in no way associated with his brand spanking new 21 year old junky girlfriend, who he had gotten when he traded in his high school sweetheart, who was also the mother of his three daughters. Ashley sure knew what side her bread was buttered on thats for sure. She played him beautifully, especially seeing that the prize at the end of his tunnel was his monthly script of 720 pills each and every month. Just her presence meant that each month, it could literally be assured that a good 200 pills would come up missing. You could also be assured that she would hotly deny having any knowledge of where these missing items might happen to have ended up. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math on this one, that is for sure! Anyway, long story short, both Jim and I got ourselves to MMT tout suite! Didn't even take the time to look back, either.

At least he has now gotten his karmic reward, three years later. No time like the present is my saying and as I've mostly been a pretty patient person, I had been in no rush for him to get his just desserts. As I mentioned earlier, another reason for his anger and bitterness three years ago was a direct result of his massive speed addiction. This would most definitely still be an issue today for him, if he was even able to afford it to be! Unfortunately, his lovely girlfriend has managed after all these years of getting him good and hooked on his pills. Prior to this, he never, ever bothered to touch them as they had been his means to an end for him being able to buy piles and piles of speed!!! Now as many of you are all too aware, once both partners in a relationship start sharing an opiate addiction, it replaces pretty much anything else of importance. As its an expensive addiction, once hooked, some decisions need to be made. Most people find it hard to carry out two addictions full time once opiates are thrown in the mix, and its really not much of a surprise that rarely anything else is able to beat opiates. All or nothing generally.

Anyway, this is pretty much all that I'm able to type tonight so I'll try to finish the rest of my story before the end of the weekend cause its just too, too much. Briefly, we ended up running into the darling couple a day ago, and to say that both of them are in grave need of choosing a different path to take, would be the understatement of this century. He was beyond sick with withdrawal and to be honest, I'm not even sure why unless he's already managed to go through his monthly allotment of pills. If true, then this would truly suck, as I know from years past that he'll not be able to refill his script until February 6 at the earliest, still a good two weeks from now.

TO BE CONTINUED...

I WANT A NEW DRUG

I ask that you bear with me a moment or two until I am able to get my bearings, as I am literally still spinning from yet another attack against Methadone Maintenance Treatment from someone who doesn't have a bloody clue what it even is or entails! Grant me patience, now. First of all, I live in southwestern Ontario, Canada, and because of this location, I, as well as any other opiate addict also residing here, have very limited options available as far as recovery from this insidious addiction goes. Suboxone and its ilk is currently not available for prescription in this country. I will confess that it is more than possible that I may not be completely accurate with this declaration, but the last time I asked my doctor at the clinic about availability, I was told, not yet. Perhaps there are test studies being performed even as I speak, and sooner, rather than later, opiate addicts will actually be able to choose their poison!

Short of going cold turkey, to be properly detoxed and rehabbed from opiates, MMT seems to be an addicts only viable option if one hopes for a successful recovery. I absolutely am convinced that this treatment can and is, highly effective in keeping the addict away from abusing opiates. I know that there is the school of thought that maintains the addict is merely exchanging one addiction for another, but I find this argument simply too simplistic and terribly narrow. MMT does far more than exchange one of the same for more of the same, and I know that anyone reading my journal is well enough informed with what I am alluding to here that it isn't necessary for me to regurgitate all of this once again.

Even to my own ears and eyes, some of what I am about to say sounds like a huge series of rationalizations and this may very well be true - after all, one must never forget that rationalization may be the addicts only real true friend and if not friend, most certainly companion! When I first started MMT in the fall of 1999, I was in pretty rough shape.

We had been doing heroin and some pills for a solid two years, and pretty much had been dedicating all of of extra money and time towards our addiction. Pretty much from the first time that I tried it, I was hooked. I certainly had found what I thought was my nirvana. It was wondrous and it didn't take long to develop a tolerance for it. Thank heavens we knew someone that could get us heroin. He was out of town three out of the seven days and he happened to be working in a place that was literally drowning in it so every Thursday night right after getting off his bus, he would drop by our place with our weekly package. Sunday night we would wave him goodbye as his bus left town, our money in his pocket. This went on for over a year.

It started to get quite expensive as all habits tend to but this one also felt different. Where before, I may have been a bit of a bitch if I couldn't get blow or speed, I could get by at least but not this time. When I was without I hurt, I felt sick, I was in severe pain. I couldn't or wouldn't want to go to work and I had always prided myself on never letting any of my vices interfere with work and to be honest, life in general. Suddenly I had become single minded, nothing else mattered but not feeling sick anymore. I had to have a hit no matter what. Came close to bankrupting us. Sad but at least we had a house to sell to get us out of debt. And selling this one, our favorite, meant that we still had two others left although they were nowhere near as nice and they were in a much rougher part of town but that didn't seem to concern us so much anymore. We moved. We had to. We had someone else very important in our life now that very much needed to be accommodated. I had never lied before but suddenly I found myself doing just that. When my family doctor confronted me I couldn't admit it at first. I was every which way of denial until I couldn't take it anymore. This drug eventually wears you down, strips you of every vestige of dignity and self respect. I fessed up and when he started talking about getting us into a methadone program, I pretty much said yes just to humor him plus he said that as soon as we were on the list, he would be able to help us out and get us from having to buy our dope on the street at ridiculous prices.

I had never actually intended to follow thru with the methadone. The moment we were accepted our doctor wrote us each a prescription for 30 dilaudid a week. It was as if we had hit the jackpot. Between us we had 60 pills that would normally have cost us almost $20 each - quite a savings. He said that he could keep us supplied until we reached a high enough methadone dose that could sustain us on its own. I figured that we would ride this out as long as we could. Looked like it would be at least eight weeks that we could get our prescription and I figured that was long enough for us to get our finances back in order. We would in theory save a lot by not having to buy opioids for a two month period. As it was we were spending about $700/week and that was barely keeping us from getting sick so I knew that we were living on borrowed time if we continued spending at that rate. We were long overdue for a financial break.

But a funny thing happened while we going to methadone. It started working. I stopped grieving for any of the others. I went a day without a hit, then two and then a week. A week turned into a month and then two and three and we were still going. Suddenly two years had passed and I no longer did anything except for my methadone. I didn't even drink anymore. I forgot about heroin and dilaudid and morphine - oxys had yet to make their appearance but that was only a matter of time. The methadone made me so very tired though even if it did seem to work a small miracle. I would start to nod off at the worst possible time something I rarely did while addicted to the others. I needed to stay awake. So slowly, we both started to taper down our dose and as we did this, the constant state of tiredness also started to seem to decrease.

Suddenly twenty seven months had passed. We were starting to get tired of the daily grind of having to grab our methadone. Yes, for the most part normalcy had returned to our lives. We fell into our own little routine. Gone were the hours upon hours dedicated to finding that one hit that would take away the pain. I could go back to work full time, we both could. Methadone gave our life structure once again. My credit card debts were now paid off. We had sold the other two houses and purchased a three story apartment building. Our self confidence and esteem had returned. We didn't want or need methadone any more. It was time to say goodbye. I had two weeks vacation at Christmas 2001 but a week before my vacation started I got a terrible flu. I was down to about 20mg of methadone a day. I felt so sick that I just didn't feel like grabbing my methadone one day and the next and the day after that. I just stopped going and when my flu ended, any withdrawal that I may have been going thru had also ended. It was hard to tell one from the other so I kept telling myself that there was no withdrawal just crappy flu symptoms.

Both of our tapers turned out to be successes. By the time that we had stopped taking methadone on a regular basis, our bodies had repaired themselves as best that they could. After  two and a half years, we were also able to beat the mental cravings as our bodies had essentially trained themselves. So, now both the physical and mental cravings seemed to have been put to rest. I knew that when I woke up each morning that the first thing in my mind would not have anything to do with opiates and so it continued for a number of years after we had finished with methadone.

I wish that I could say that we returned to abusing opiates because of some body and mind crushing craving and longing, but that is so not  true whatsoever. It was actually nothing at all, something so utterly innocuous in the end. Boredom and availability.

TO BE CONTINUED... 

Mainliner

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2005 07 29

OK it has been a crazy day at work which kind of sucks for a Friday as I tend to like to ease into my weekend. I apologize in advance to anyone actually reading this entry as my thoughts are all over the place plus combined with the fact that I am also working I suspect that this entry will have absolutely no flow. That being the case,  for some reason there are a few things kind of bothering me today that I need to vent about and this, I guess, is the place that I can do it.

Went to my girlfriend's before work today cause I owed her a little bit of money and I wanted to get that out of the way. Not only is she a good friend but she is also one of my dealers, one that I am ever slowly fazing out because it is getting harder and harder for her to separate work and business and as a result I am now having difficulty also so...Slightly veering off topic now. Told you there would be flow issues. I was a late bloomer so to speak as far as drugs are concerned. I never actually tried any until a few months before my twenty first birthday when I smoked my first joint. Now I am fairly confident that I have made up for lost time. And except for a six year period about a decade and a half ago when I didn't use or abuse anything except for cigarettes and alcohol I have pretty much used some sort of drug every day since my first joint.

This being the case, I also want to state that I think that the reason(s) I still use and abuse and don't seem to have this overwhelming guilt about my usage is that I really haven't had any dignity stealing experiences relating to my use. By this I mean that I have never had to use my body in any shape or form to acquire whatever happened to be my poison du jour. I know alot of female addicts who suffer terrible self-esteem issues because of some of the things that they may have done to get that much needed fix. I am not judging. I know how lucky I am to be in the position that I am in. I was lucky. I have never stolen to feed my addiction - well, I didn't return all of my father's painkillers to the pharmacy after he had passed away but I rationalized that one away. And I did bring back the majority of the stuff that my Mom had given me to return so...

Now I know that this seems to be going nowhere but trust me I have a point. OK so I have never had to sell my body or my firstborn or my husband but over the past year I have been loaning my vehicle to my friend to use while I am at work and for the use of it I usually get some sort of tip. Call this a rental charge. Now as we are first and foremost friends she tends to take a lot more liberties with me than I suspect she would with someone else. I know she does. She has become sloppy in what I think her responsibilities should be when she has my truck. Like I will ask it back at a certain time and she will show up three or four hours later or she won't be here to pick me up when I am done work or even better she will end up giving some lowlife creep a ride in it and then suddenly $750 worth of my husband's tools are missing. And she tells me that she only left it unlocked for about five minutes while she ran into her house to get this guy looked after. Yeah well that is all his friend, who was literally waiting in the bushes, needed to grap everything that was in our backseat. Then she says that this could have happened to anyone. Well, no that is not true because scum like him would never have been in my truck so he would have no idea what goodies I had stored there. Plus she doesn't think that she should be held financially responsible for these items yet the outstanding bill of $385 that I have with her has to be paid immediately or else.

Or else what? I won't get any more of your crap dope? I won't be left standing outside for an hour and a half at night in a rainstorm waiting to be picked up by my vehicle? I won't have stuff that my husband, not even me, uses to make a living stolen from my truck while you are looking after it and then don't do crap about it? I won't have to put another $1200 in repairs into the truck a day after you have had it for a three day period in which you towed a trailer that I specifically told you not to tow? I have put $5200 in repairs into the truck since Christmas plus have also paid the $440 a month we have to pay to get the stupid thing insured.

Anyway it is times like this that I end up getting kind of depressed about my habit. I feel dirty or compromised or something that I can not quite articulate. I resent my usage I guess. Like I said I think for the most part I have been really lucky. I have never had to pawn all of my worldly possessions. In fact I have only been to a pawn shop maybe twice in my life and the visits were totally not related to dope. I have never been homeless or even jobless. I have never been really hungry. Like there have been lots of times that I haven't wanted to eat but I pretty much have always been able to eat.  I sometimes shudder when I stop to think about the shear amount of money that I have probably spent over the last twenty years but it is not as if I can take that money with me either so I can usually shake that thought pretty fast.

Again I am not entirely sure what I wanted to really express today. I was just mad and what actually set me off is that when I went to pay part of my debt she of course was out of pills - so, yes I am actually at work having not gotten anything prior which is a minor miracle in its own right - so I said that I would grab a bit of speed instead. I just wanted a quarter so I gave her another $30. She said that she didn't have any broken out that I would have to take a half but that I could use this as a down payment towards the next time she needs the truck. So I look at it just as she is hustling me out the door and I say to her that there is no way that this is a half and she said that I would have to weigh it at home. Now she knew that I was on my way to work and that I did not have any scales at home so I don't know what game she was trying to play. I said no that it was a quarter and that she in no way was going to get the truck and say that she had already given me something. Yuck, feel gross just writing/typing this out. 

the change

This entry was actually first written 2006-01-18 22:39:03

I can not describe the change I have felt in myself personally since I finally made the commitment to return to methadone. A proverbial weight has most definitely been lifted from my very overwhelmed shoulders. I feel as if I have somehow been released from a life sentence and suddenly I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Psychologically I am feeling empowered, liberated and even near invincible. I understand that this is not truly the case but what a change from the previous three months and the suffocating melancholy that I felt would never disappear. I still have twelve days to wait unless by some miracle there is a cancellation but at least now this is actually going to happen. Not just talking about starting or getting down there to register. Now on the 30th of January at precisely 9:30am I will willingly present myself so that I can begin the long road back to freedom - freedom from addiction, freedom from debt, freedom from esteem issues, freedom from depression/anger/frustration.

A number of events in the recent past have certainly contributed to my sudden eagerness to clean myself up the least of which is the sheer cost of sustaining not one but two fairly healthy addictions. Now to be fair the actual cost is not actually my prime motivation in attempting to clean myself up but simply one of way too many to mention right now. On that note I would like then the subject of this entry to focus on the financial end of drug addiction. I would also like to clarify that for me it is not, nor has it actually ever been, so much the actual cost of the addiction but the way my supplier treats me and my money in regards to my dependence. Even reading the last two sentences back knowing what I am attempting to convey, I am still kind of fuzzy so I am fairly confident that I am not being as clear as I would like. Bear with me then and accept that I have recently reached the point where I am finally so sick and tired of my dealer’’s cavalier attitude towards the amount of money I spend each month that this has forced me to started resenting my addiction and the unreal amount of money spent in my crazy attempt to maintain it that it has provoked me so hard to want to quit.

While I made the decision to commit to methadone a few weeks ago, events from last evening absolutely convinced me that not only had I made the correct decision but also ensured that nothing and I mean nothing will cause me to waver from this. When I look at the big picture this will and does sound ridiculously petty but to me it did nothing but illustrate the regard in which *** actually holds me. It has been tough around this city since about last Friday when 300 of his pills disappeared. There are not a lot of alternates if you want 8mg dilaudid. Yes both morphine and oxycontin are reasonably easy to get but from my point of view a very poor second and third. As it is it is not uncommon for *** to be out of dilaudid for four to five days of every month but to his credit he usually ensures that his hardcore regulars are not left without anything. Generally I don’’t experience too many problems hooking up with him but over the last two months there have been a towards While I made the decision to commit to methadone a few weeks ago, events from last evening absolutely convinced me that not only had I made the correct decision but also ensured that nothing and I mean nothing will cause me to waver from this. When I look at the big picture this will and does sound ridiculously petty but to me it did nothing but illustrate the regard in which *** actually holds me. It has been tough around this city since about last Friday when 300 of his pills disappeared. There are not a lot of alternates if you want 8mg dilaudid. Yes both morphine and oxycontin are reasonably easy to get but from my point of view a very poor second and third. As it is it is not uncommon for *** to be out of dilaudid for four to five days of every month but to his credit he usually ensures that his hardcore regulars are not left without anything. Generally I don’t experience too many problems hooking up with him but over the last two months there have been a couple of little things occurring while trying to hook up that have caused me to pause and question his actions. The amount of money I spend each month has forced me to start resenting my addiction and the unreal amount of money spent in my crazy attempt to maintain it has provoked me so hard to want to quit.

He is a dyed in the wool speed addict. There is absolutely nothing in the world that he likes better and sometimes he can tweak a little more than I care to witness I suppose and on a few occasions I would describe his behaviour as irrational at best. I am beginning to think that he may have more of a bill than he can manage with his dealers and if this is the case I am beginning to resent having to suffer for this bill. Anytime he gets something for the few that he continues to supply if he runs out, he never requests money in advance. Normally he would grab what he thinks he needed and we would pay him once we got over to his house. We never had to give cash in advance for him to go pick up and then for him to deliver later in the day. And if this is the kind of service that I have to endure then *** is oh so very replaceable. I went over yesterday and the only thing that he had were two 40mg oxycontins for $20. I grabbed them from him. He mentioned that he should be getting two more any second and should he grab them for me.

8:24pm OK I need to vent right now. Grrrrr....*** just hung up on me in the middle of our conversation. This after Jim had relayed a message to me at work to call ***. The man is an utter idiot and then some. We did him a favour on Saturday and for some reason he has this dillusional idea that we are somehow trying to screw him over. I am sure that most of you know a pretty decent amount of fellow users that have managed to screw themselves as far as having such luxuries as say legal bank accounts. I don’’t know too many in our circle that bother to even maintain a bank account. Now without one it can be difficult to cash cheques. Both Jim and I have two accounts that so far we have managed not to mess up and it utterly stupifies me the number of people that think nothing of asking us to put what we are more than aware is a completely bad cheque through one of them. This occured on Saturday and against our better judgement we agreed to try to cash a second party cheque thru our bank machine. By this I mean we attempted to deposit a cheque that was made out to someone else and "endorsed" by them and then endorsed by Jim. Very few institutions accept this kind of deposit normally and we explained this to him but he wanted us to continue. We also explained that there would be no guarantee of Jim being allowed to automatically withdraw funds from his account until this cheque cleared. Now if this cheque is bad then there is a very high chance that it is going to bounce also.

What galls me more than anything is ***’’s demand a few minutes ago to either give him his money or get the cheque back to him. OK now first of all technically it is not your money. The money actually belongs to the lady whose name appears on the cheque. Second it is also not your cheque. Again the cheque belongs to the name that appears after Pay To The Order. Now magnanimously offering us half of this cheque for doing this favour is also supremely flawed because the funds are actually coming directly out of our account so at this point technically it is already our money and if the cheque does get returned we are the ones that have to cover the amount that was returned. Like *** is going to step forward and replace these missing funds. Yeah of course he is. No we will be stuck holding the bag. The only time that I ever lose my grip on reality and actually contemplate doing something like this is when I am so low on funds that even entering into this type of soon to be very expensive venture is still better than the alternative of no funds. I always do this with the full knowledge that this little caper ultimately will cost us dearly. I am very good at convincing myself that actually all that this really is is nothing more than a very, very expensive cash advance. Now for doing this favour, Jim and I normally are allowed keep half of the value of the cheque. To this, I say oh you bloody morons how very generous you are with what is in fact our own money. Your ignorance is incredible and some days I can barely fathom how you are even able to function out in society. I don’’t understand their inability to recognize what is actually occurring. Jim and I are really giving them a loan that they will never actually have to pay back and this loan is fascillated with the help of our bank account. Our reward is the fact that we now have money that we previously did not have access to. Look on this as a really twisted cash advance or messed up overdraft I suppose. Automatically, I end up writing the other half of the cheque off as a loss cause attempting to explain what is actually happening always seems to be out of the individual’’s realm of comprehension and more bother than it is worth!

I just called Jim to ask him to do me a favour and please explain to this lunatic that there is no sense harassing and threatening me because I did not put it thru my account but thru Jim’’s. I think he is having a problem because I physically deposited the cheque after borrowing Jim’’s bank card. This was also the only time that I have ever done so much as a transaction with this account. Regardless of me telling him repeatedly that this is not my account nor is his precious cheque currently lanquishing in my bank account. I can do NOTHING concerning this matter. Talk to Jim you bloody moron.

8:58pm Wow I feel pretty amazing now that I have completed the above rant. Unfortunately this rant only served to end up diverting my attention away from today’’s entry and as I am done work for the evening I am now forced to abandon my entry midway through it. C’’est la vie! I guess TO BE CONTINUED AT A LATER DATE

Liquid Lunches - A SHORT STORY

I like to call myself a functioning addict or a responsible junky - an oxymoron if I have ever heard one. You ask what makes me so different or special from other junkies or addicts? Well, nothing really except the amount of work involved. It is much harder to be a functioning addict. You are forced to live two very separate and distinct lives. Your public face is the only face that anyone is allowed to see. no one can be allowed entry into your private world. This you keep very well hidden from view.

No one can know that your half hour lunch is not sitting down at the nearest coffee shop consuming today’s special washed down with a couple of cups of coffee. No, instead you have quickly headed over to the local public library and have locked yourself in one of their bathroom stalls. Once you are safely behind its closed door, you carefully remove a brown eyeglasses case from your purse only you don’t have a spare pair of glasses in it. You place a strip of toilet paper across the back of the toilet bowel and gently place a spoon on it.

You grab one white pill out of your baggy and place it in the centre of the spoon. With the end of your lighter, you carefully crush it until it is a fine white powder. Next you rip the packaging off of a new syringe and open your small bottle of sterile water, placing the tip of the syringe in it to draw up 50 units. Carefully you fill the spoon with water.

Lifting the spoon up into the air, you flick your lighter and aim the flame so that it is centered beneath the spoon. The water starts to bubble and the fine powder dissolves. Breaking some cotton off the end of one of the many q-tips you have, you drop it dead centre into the warm liquid. Quickly you suck the liquid out of the spoon into the syringe. Sit back for a second to breathe a sigh of relief. No clumsy accidents. So far, so good. Taking some more toilet paper, you wipe your spoon clean before returning it to its case. You make sure that your small bottle is properly capped and your baggy zipped up tightly. You crumple the syringe’s wrapper up tightly and place it in the case also. You will have to dispose of it later.

Enough time should have passed so that the liquid had cooled. You perch your rear at the edge of the toilet seat making sure your feet are square to the ground. Taking a look at both arms you decide which one to go for this time. The left looks as if it will yield the best results. You tap your forearm a few times and flex your hands. Carefully you remove the cap from your syringe. Taking a deep breath you stick the needle into your skin gently pulling the plunger back a fraction. A rich red floods the barrel. Bulls eye. With as steady a hand possible and a silent plea for them to remain that way, you depress the plunger at a uniform rate until all of the liquid has disappeared.

Bliss. Now not too quickly, you remove the point from your skin, firmly pressing some tissue over the bloody hole. Once the bleeding has stopped, you qrab the point of the needle with your bloodied tissue and twist it until it snaps off. Throwing both into the toilet, you flush them down the drain. You recap your now empty syringe and return it to its place in the eyeglass case. Wrap two elastics around the case and return it to your purse. You certainly can not be too careful. You want no rude surprises should you ever drop purse with contents spilling everywhere. Too big a risk to take for the functioning addict.

You gather your stuff and exit the stall, stopping to wash and dry your hands. Look for your comb to run through your hair. As everything went smoothly, you still have time to freshen your makeup. Touch of lipstick and a brush of powder and you are good to go. With one final glance back at the mirror, you open the bathroom door refreshed and satisfied by your half hour lunch break.

Methadone

I was having an awful time trying to edit my previous entry so I basically said bugger to it all and decided at the rate that I was going, I might as well just start a second entry concerning my recent site recommendation. Just seemed to be the faster solution. May I say that often times I find the Blogger editor that we use for our entries rather irritating and arbitrary. Whatever. This particular entry spoke to me specifically on many levels.

Prior to me starting back on MMT, I was hooked hardcore to dilaudids and just for me to maintain at a reasonable level, I required at least ten 8mg pills on a daily basis. This certainly doesn't mean that I got them everyday because even at this level, the best price one could hope for was $100 which actually meant for us $200 - there were two active addicts involved in all of this insanity after all. While we did manage to come close most days, at our worst we were still spending on average approx $2600 monthly.

I could have practically written this piece myself the similarities are so eerie. Again I encourage everyone to visit this site. This entry and the previous one will be cross posted to The Write Thought as well - hopefully some time tonight but absolutely tomorrow.

methadone

When I get up in the morning, I don’t grab a coffee. I go to the fridge for my 100 ml bottle of methadone. After that my day is just like yours. But I wasn’t always like this. Life was a lot harder, a lot rougher. Every morning I would be sick as / like a dog. I’d crush up a couple of 8mg Dilaudid tablets and boil them in a spoon, then I’d fill a syringe. Tie my arm off and plunge the cure into my arm. And then I was good for … 3 or 4 hours. Wash, rinse, repeat. I couldn’t work.

Dilaudid is illegal unless your Dr. [gives you] a prescription. With a few phone calls you can get them for about $20 each. I used at least 10 a day. 10 to keep the sickness at bay, 10 to 20 more if I wanted to get high, and usually, I did if I had the money. It’s not easy to come up with $500/day for pills/medicine, but its gotta be done - or else the sickness – it’s always there. As soon as the pills begin to wear off, its banging at the door. Cramps, chills, sweats, diarrhea, the shits, nausea, chronic anxiety, insomnia – that’s just the beginning. Soon comes hallucinations and deliria, and unimaginable suffering. It all goes away if you take another pill, just one more. Then there’s methadone, a synthetic opiate, if you can get it. In most cities it’s easy, but not quite so in Charlottetown.

For @ 5 years my life revolves around Dilaudid and Oxycontone, percocil, morphine, codeine, etc. If I had money and pills were available, everything was fine. But I wasn’t always fine. I can’t count how many days I’ve lost to the sickness, how many times I’ve been to the treatment center. And a waste of time that was. They’d give you 2 or 3 mild sedatives a day for 3 days and then try to put you in god’s hands. It didn’t work – after the week, or 2, or 3, was over, I could suffer no longer. Straight to the dealer. It doesn’t help to tell me “everythings gonna be all right. You’ll feel better tomorrow”. Anybody who says / tells you that doesn’t know what this drug is about (why I take it).

But I had always heard about the mainland, where they gave you this drug, methadone, that took away the suffering and made you feel normal, not high, just normal, like I used to be … yeah, like it used to be, I miss those days.

I did the drugs for 5 or 6 years, but and I sat by and watched, as friends and acquaintances died one after another, month by month, because they couldn’t get the help they needed. I’m sure the doctor (at Detox) noticed too, but it didn’t matter [since] we are / they were expendable. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t handle the sickness. The detox couldn’t help. They didn’t have a clue. They would have nothing to do with methadone (methadone is addictive. You have to take it every dad or you get sick just like with the drugs, but it’s prescribed to you, you can have ready access to it. You never have to be sick again, you don’t get high on it, but you can live an ordinary life, like anyone else.

Finally, I scraped up some money, packed up my bags, and left for Alberta. All I had was a change of clothes, $500,and enough pills to last me 3 days, it was a gamble, nothing was lined up / set up - I was on my own.

But it worked out. Before 48 hours were up, I was in a doctor’s office getting a prescription for methadone. It was such a relief, such a good feeling. No more days spent looking for drug dealers, no more searching for a private place to inject my drugs, and no more waking up sick – I was human again. I got a job, an apartment, a car, and a normal life.

But I always wanted to come home again. I have children in PEI. What good am I to them if I am 3000 miles away? A few years went by, and I became used to feeling normal again and not needing drugs. I had seen on the internet that PEI was starting a methadone program. This year I came home. It was great. I missed PEI. I could see my kids, my family, my friends every day and I wasn’t sick all the time like I used to be. It was different now. Better. It seemed too good to be true.

It was. Sure I could get methadone now and I felt good … physically – but mentally? When I go to the pharmacy, I don’t go to the counter like anybody else, I go around the back, into the office, where no one can see me. I don’t feel different, but I am. The pharmacists are ashamed of me, or ashamed for me. Does it make a difference? I began to understand / grasp what life must be like for a black person, or these days, an arab, from their perspective. I don’t like it.

And things have changed at the treatment centre. They now have a methadone program – but they still don’t understand – they don’t get it. I came / went there with a perfect record from my doctor in Alberta. I gave urine tests every month, and never once did I fail only once in 4 years. I thought I had proven myself but no. It starts slowly, but within 3 months, for some reason, I realize that I am not like other people. I’m a drug addict, a junkie. I don’t feel like one now, but at the Detox, it is clear that is how they see me. I am a liar, a cheat, a thief, a dirtbag, scum of the earth. I know I’m clean and sober, with the help of methadone, but that doesn’t seem to matter – I’m a liar, a cheat, a thief. I must be if I’m on methadone. In PEI, it seems that only thieves, cheats and liars use methadone. In the rest of Canada, there are factory workers, plumbers and carpenters on meth[adone], as well as lawyers, and even doctors taking methadone!

But, my god, it is different here. I hate myself for having to do this. It didn’t bother me in Alberta, there I was treated like anyone else, but here, no. I’m walking on eggshells every time I go to the pharmacy, or the doctor, especially the doctor, I don’t know what to expect. On one day, I was asked twice for urine tests. Apparently, they thought that as soon as I gave the first sample, I was going to go and get some drugs. I live in constant suspicion and fear, even though I have done no wrong. Its just that I didn’t realize I was a cheat, a liar and a thief and as such I must be closely monitored. I am not on drugs, but they think I am. All drug users, past or present, are liars, cheats and thieves – that’s just how it is in PEI. They’re going to get me, to catch me, it doesn’t matter that I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s who I am I’m a thief, a liar and a cheat…

It’s Not a Habit…

I started methadone August of 1999. By then I was a solid year and a half into a pretty heavy opiate addiction. It had started with dilaudid but as soon as we were able we had moved on to heroin. We live in a funny city. While it is reasonably large with close to half a million, it is near impossible to find heroin here. Except for a time in the 1970's - so I have been told - it is one drug that does not seem welcome. Very white collar town so there is lots of pot and cocaine. Crack has had some effect as has speed but not like those other two. Because this is also very much a university and college town, there is also lots of ecstasy and its ilk. By the time I had even given a dilaudid a try, I was about two years deep into a large coke and speed habit. Funny can't even remember what that was like but I know that we were using every day and had been for a long time. Then along came a little yellow pill and it was as if nothing else existed. It was wondrous and it didn't take long to develop a tolerance for it. Thank heavens we knew someone that could get us heroin. He was out of town three out of the seven days and he happened to be working in a place that was literally drowning in it so every Thursday night right after getting off his bus, he would drop by our place with our weekly package. Sunday night we would wave him goodbye as his bus left town, our money in his pocket. This went on for over a year.

It started to get quite expensive as all habits tend to but this one also felt different. Where before, I may have been a bit of a bitch if I couldn't get blow or speed, I could get by at least but not this time. When I was without I hurt, I felt sick, I was in severe pain. I couldn't or wouldn't want to go to work and I had always prided myself on never letting any of my vices interfere with work and to be honest, life in general. Suddenly I had become single minded, nothing else mattered but not feeling sick anymore. I had to have a hit no matter what. Came close to bankrupting us. Sad but at least we had a house to sell to get us out of debt. And selling this one, our favourite, meant that we still had two others left although they were nowhere near as nice and they were in a much rougher part of town but that didn't seem to concern us so much anymore. We moved. We had to. We had someone else very important in our life now that very much needed to be accommodated. I had never lied before but suddenly I found myself doing just that. When my family doctor confronted me I couldn't admit it at first. I was every which way of denial until I couldn't take it anymore. This drug eventually wears you down, strips you of every vestige of dignity and self respect. I fessed up and when he started talking about getting us into a methadone program, I pretty much said yes just to humour him plus he said that as soon as we were on the list, he would be able to help us out and get us from having to buy our dope on the street at ridiculous prices.

I had never actually intended to follow thru with the methadone. The moment we were accepted our doctor wrote us each a prescription for 30 dilaudid a week. It was as if we had hit the jackpot. Between us we had 60 pills that would normally have cost us almost $20 each - quite a savings. He said that he could keep us supplied until we reached a high enough methadone dose that could sustain us on its own. I figured that we would ride this out as long as we could. Looked like it would be at least eight weeks that we could get our prescription and I figured that was long enough for us to get our finances back in order. We would in theory save a lot by not having to buy opiods for a two month period. As it was we were spending about $700/week and that was barely keeping us from getting sick so I knew that we were living on borrowed time if we continued spending at that rate. We were long overdue for a financial break.

But a funny thing happened while we going to methadone. It started working. I stopped grieving for any of the others. I went a day without a hit, then two and then a week. A week turned into a month and then two and three and we were still going. Suddenly two years had passed and I no longer did anything except for my methadone. I didn't even drink anymore. I forgot about heroin and dilaudid and morphine - oxys had yet to make their appearance but that was only a matter of time. The methadone made me so very tired though even if it did seem to work a small miracle. I would start to nod off at the worst possible time something I rarely did while addicted to the others. I needed to stay awake. So before we knew it we were back doing speed but this time we vowed that we would keep our spending under control and we did for a long time. Speed wasn't the same anyway now that we were on meth. Yes, you could kind of feel it but you never felt as if you were way out there. Oh well, it was still better than nothing. And we were spending about half of what we used to spend on the other.

Suddenly twenty seven months had passed. We were starting to get tired of the daily grind of having to grab our methadone. Yes, for the most part normalcy had returned to our lives. We fell into our own little routine. Gone were the hours upon hours dedicated to finding that one hit that would take away the pain. I could go back to work full time, we both could. Methadone gave our life structure once again. My credit card debts were now paid off. We had sold the other two houses and purchased a three story apartment building. Our self confidence and esteem had returned. We didn't want or need methadone any more. It was time to say goodbye. I had two weeks vacation at Christmas 2001 but a week before my vacation started I got a terrible flu. I was down to about 20mg of methadone a day. I felt so sick that I just didn't feel like grabbing my methadone one day and the next and the day after that. I just stopped going and when my flu ended, any withdrawal that I may have been going thru had also ended. It was hard to tell one from the other so I kept telling myself that there was no withdrawal just crappy flu symptoms.

Fast forward three and a half years. I am once again severely dependent on that little yellow pill. Well now it is the little white pill. No more #4s for us, we now need #8s. We are back spending ridiculous amounts of money and are consumed by abject fear whenever we find that we have run out or that none of our dealers is holding. It is no longer pleasant. But what of the intervening three years you ask? Well that is obviously a story for another day...TO BE CONTINUED