And Then...

FROM THE JUNKYLIFE ARCHIVES | 2005-10-06

Well I am at work so I guess that this is something positive. Feel like crap even though I just did a pill. Spent the last of my money until next week on it so am feeling somewhat bittersweet about no longer feeling sick. Always leaves a bit of an aftertaste in my mouth when I use the last of our funds on straightening me out. I was able to reason the expense though in that as we have no real income until my next payday which is still eight days away, that $20 was really not going to benefit us to any great extent. Not as if we could exist for over a week on a $20 budget so figured I might as well be broke a few hours earlier than I was going to be anyway. Pffft...Whatever.

I guess it didn''t help that we had to hand over $1320 for first and last month''s rent on Monday. Obviously had we not have had that expense then things would have been entirely different. I was trying to encourage Jim to go ask for an advance on his pay today but I doubt very much that he will do it. He didn''t seem to be giving me any positive feedback so no hopes up I guess. I could cross my fingers and hope for a miracle but that too would only end up being fruitless. I guess though that I am in a decent enough mood. It is still ridiculously hot and humid in southwestern Ontario, kind of unusual for this time of year. Probably a good thing as I have no idea where my warmer clothes are. Packed most definitely. I did manage to get all of our clothes out so it is just a matter of opening the correct garbage bag!!!

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...

I WAS WRONG

It would be a full two and a bit years after my Dad's death before my Mom and I would actually have our falling out. Our relationship just seemed to get progressively worse over time. My Mother had always been a bit harsh although often I barely noticed as I had gotten used to her treatment over the years. Usually, it was only after someone else took the time to comment to me about it that I would give any serious thought to what I should do, at least that had been the pattern in the past. Once my Dad passed, I seemed to have become more sensitive to any of her criticisms, and increasingly found it near impossible to stand.

My Mother always seemed to have something to say about my looks, my hair, my clothes, my job, my hobbies, you name it and she could find fault. I never really knew why either, nor could I understand why she always seemed so dissatisfied with me. Growing up I had been a straight A student and had received numerous scholarship offers to university upon graduation from high school. I was never in trouble and even maintained a part time job all through high school so that I could support myself financially. In fact, I was able to buy my first car in cash just after my seventeenth birthday and paid for my entire trip to the British Isles the summer I turned 21.

For the near six months that I drove my Dad to the hospital five days a week, she reminded me each and every day at least three times not to be late, and not in an absent minded sort of way. She was very insistent and quite mean about it too, even though I did not once show up late to pick them up for the hospital. And so on...

Now I can't put all of the blame on my Mom's shoulders for our falling out as I was dealing with some serious issues of my own the summer of 2005. I was easily at the height of my addiction, and I was finding it increasingly difficult trying to conceal it from everyone. No one at home nor work or anywhere knew what I was hiding and this secret was starting to weigh me down. With each passing day, I found it harder and harder to keep all my balls in the air.

By this time, we were spending on average well over $2000/month attempting to support our habit, and by then, this was barely covering its maintenance. Obviously our personal finances were starting to suffer because of the amount we were spending. No amount of additional hours at work seemed to prevent our bills from starting to pile up. My nerves were wearing thin and I was starting to become careless at work. I knew a meltdown was imminent and felt at a loss at being able to prevent it. 

I needed to share my burden with someone and I thought at the time, that my Mother might be the one, but once I had, I quickly realized how desperately wrong I was. Initially, she seemed so very empathetic but this lasted barely 48 hours and then all hell broke loose. It had taken so much to confide everything and she had promised that this would remain between the two of us, but it didn't. Almost instantly she was on the phone to her sister telling her what an awful daughter she had and who knows what else. She actually told me all this the next time we talked. I was shattered. When I asked her why she did exactly what I had asked and she had promised she wouldn't do, she really had no defense.

I remember mumbling something to her during that call that I couldn't do this anymore with her, that I needed to get well and the longer she was around to poison everything, the longer it would end up taking me to get healthy again. I quietly hung up the phone and from that moment on had no communication with her for eighteen months. I didn't look back and in many ways, these eighteen months ended up being some of the happiest and relaxing ones of recent memory. Even though this fracture looked as if it was irreconcilable, in the end, it turned out to be the complete opposite, but another year and a half was to pass before I was able to find out.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Grass Is Never Greener

I love my brother to death and am so excited that he’s able to come home for a quick visit thanks very much to the generosity of our Mom. He arrives home tomorrow evening and will be spending a week in Ontario before he has to return to work down east in Nova Scotia. This time though his family will be following him a week later as they all finally are able to make this permanent move. He found a nice four bedroom semi-detached house to rent which he says is pretty reasonable etc. This is a tremendous relief to him as he has spent the past year stressed out to the max drowning in an every increasing debt load with no apparent relief in sight. I guess after spending the past ten months or so trying in vain to convince his wife that they were in an incredible mess financially, she has finally accepted this most unpleasant fact. Of course, only since her father sat  her down to talk to her a week ago does she believe any of this. WTF? After listening to some of the things that my brother has recently told me, plus some of the things that she has been saying, I now strongly feel that their living well beyond their means is something much more serious than an inability to stick to a budget. She seems to have an addiction of sorts, an illness it would seem.

Besides the $200 000 mortgage that they have, she has managed to accumulate close to $150 000 in personal debt alone. How is this even possible? They’ve got three lines of credit alone that total almost $103 000, plus about a dozen or so credit cards all maxed right out to their limit. They may own more for all I know as these were the numbers that my bro quickly rattled off to me the other night while we were on the phone. I kind of have the feeling that this is but just the tip of the iceberg. This almost seems worse than a drug addiction. She obviously is incapable of practicing any sort of self control either. He says that all she ever worries about is what her friends or neighbours would think if they didn’t have this or that or whatever…

I knew that she was the type of individual that always seemed envious of what others had. She rarely seemed satisfied with her lot in life nor was she shy in letting others around her know  how she felt. I also knew how very important it was to keep up with those proverbial JONES, apparently at any cost. I knew that she was concerned with appearances but I had no clue the depth of this behaviour. I know my bro has spent the past 15 years providing for his family like few other men would be able to, and yet, she continues to find criticism in what he does.

She was the one that made him take this job out of province. She applied for this job on his behalf, sent out his resume to the company that he now works for as well as arranging his interviews, etc. Like the obedient husband he is, off he went to a strange province with no benefit of any sort of family or real support, and for the past four months  has worked and lived like a dog with nary a word of complaint. Literally every penny he makes is sent back home, and how is he rewarded? Every night, he has to listen to her sob and cry and carry on about how hard it has been since he left, how she has to do all of the housework and gets no break at all from the kids. I guess she berates him and goodness knows what else – this according to my Mom who has been told all of this directly from the horse’s mouth herself! Apparently, she says a whole lot worse stuff but I’ve not got the stomach right now for all of that garbage.

Nor do I think any of this mess has really registered with her properly as just the other day she was telling my Mom that there was no way that she would live in a rental less than $3000/month, nor would she live in anything but an immaculately maintained home – this from someone who hasn’t a clue how to even do housework! She said that she wouldn’t take anywhere that already had carpet as she didn’t want anyone else’s dirt near her. Only hard wood or laminate would do. No townhouse or apt either. Goodness gracious. Wonder how she’s going to react when she sees the $1200 beauty her husband has rented for her? And, who is she kidding? The only reason she is accepting anything right now is she has run out of time. She is literally getting out of Dodge the day before the bank seizes her home, vehicle and then shuts down all of the utilities - this will happen when you fail to pay any of these bills for months at a time!

Karma. It’s a bitch. Not saying that she deserves it this bad but she did make this mess pretty much all on her own. Again, its my bro and nieces and nephew that don’t deserve any of this and yet, they’re the ones that end up suffering over and over. It is really so very, very sad.  

Don't Drag Me Down

Talked to my brother for the first time in over three months. It was so sweet to finally get to talk to him. He’s finally got a phone so he’s now able to keep in touch with his family in Ontario while he slaves away all by his lonesome in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He had to move out there at the end of March for work as he had been unable to successfully find anything suitable here. Last August, after having worked at the same company for over 21 years, he found himself without employment when his employer went bankrupt. No owed vacation pay, no severance pay and now, apparently, none of the monies he’d been contributing for his retirement for the past two decades! For this last one, his former employer is now under investigation for having used his employees benefits illegally for other stuff that he shouldn’t have. Imagine that!!!

My brother has been finding it pretty rough all by himself, and I certainly don’t blame him. He had to leave a wife and four kids behind. They’ll be here until his house manages to sell as they can’t afford to join him until and unless it does, and unfortunately, right now it doesn’t look good at all for them. First off, they paid way too much for it when they bought it five years ago, and even though he has made more than $100 000/year for close to a decade now – plus his wife also works – they don’t have so much as a bean saved up between the two of them. Never mind the fact that neither one of them bothered to put some money away for a rainy day, they’ve also managed to max out four or five credit cards, have a line of credit with the bank which is outstanding, as well as a car payment that all had been a challenge to meet financially while gainfully employed. So now, things are looking bleak indeed for them.

I really feel badly for my brother and the little ones cause they’re all more or less victims in this situation. They have all been at the mercy of my sister-in-laws neverending nor never satisfied quest of keeping up with the Jones. She is incapable of being thankful for what she has right in front of her and has spent the last fifteen years constantly criticizing one thing or another. Its so tempting to remind her how absolutely and utterly terrible she treated me back in 1999 when I found myself in a bit of financial trouble. The names she called would make your toes curl, and at times, I’d love to throw all of this back in her face, but to what end? I know I wouldn’t end up feeling any better, in fact, I’m guessing I’d feel worse. Won’t accomplish anything either. Just knowing I could do this is powerful enough for me – plus, she has finally shown her true colours to my mother after years of subterfuge that I even have someone to talk to about her ridiculous behaviour and treatment of others!!!

If you’re interested at all you can get some background if you start HERE, then read THIS next and finally take a look at this ONE. This should give you a better understanidng of what I am ranting about at the moment, plus saves me a boatload of typing especially cuz I suck at typing!

Victim Impact Statement

If anyone is interested, the following is my Victim Impact Statement which I read to the court the day that two of the three accused were sentenced. One of the attackers received 8 years while the other received 7 years. Very emotional day to say the least.

"To completely articulate the impact that this attack and stabbing of Jim has had on us is really most overwhelming and near impossible. You would think that twenty one months would be more than enough time to complete this task, and in my head, I’ve easily written my victim impact statement at least a thousand times now, but when it finally came time to get serious about it, the task felt daunting at best. I wondered how I would be able to adequately convey the physical, emotional and financial traumas we were forced to suffer because of this event. The physical, emotional and financial impact that this attack ended up having on me has forced me to live a life I barely recognize anymore and become a person I don’t know.

In Sept of this year, Jim and I will have known each other thirty years – he was 14 and I was 16. For most of this time, he has been an integral part of my life. Both of our personalities just clicked and in no time, we had forged a strong friendship. Right away I knew he was someone that would always be an important part of my life. He made me laugh and cry and angry like no one had before or since. He was someone I knew I could always trust and depend on him no matter what. He made me feel safe and secure and gave me self-confidence and poise as a result of this. To me he was fearless.The day of the attack called all of what I believed into question. Everything I thought I knew was ripped away. This fearlessness, boldness, audaciousness that made up a large part of Jim and myself was torn from us that day. We are, and continue to be, in therapy because of the attack. Since the attack, I have had feelings of total loss and disparity. I have not really slept a full night. I require medication to assist my sleeping. I now have panic attacks and flashbacks that causes me to freeze. I have a fear of people in general. I will cross the street, rather than to meet and face people. I now have fears of something terrible happening to another family member, and am fearful for my safety and the safety of my family.

The attack itself was frightening but them to have to wait for hours to hear how Jim was doing was doubly so. He was so severely injured that he required over six hours of emergency surgery. I didn’t get to see him until close to 1am the next day. He was unrecognizable hooked up to all of the hospital’s machines. His body was bloated and initially he was unable to breathe on his own. He looked like the Frankenstein monster with staples all over his upper body, face and head. It was just short of a miracle that he even managed to regain consciousness and then finally return home. His physical recovery has been slow to say the least, but I will let him speak to this.

It has been our psychological recovery that is taking its time and toll, as well as the financial difficulties that have resulted because of the attack. In many ways, this has been harder than the physical and emotional recovery especially as none of this financial duress was a result of our own making. For something we had zero control over as well as nearly having to sacrifice a life for, it has been unduly stressful. It certainly has been a very bitter irony that one of the more dramatic consequences of the attack has resulted in affecting our family’s bottom line. While it is fairly easy to give a dollar value to our loss of income over these past twenty-one months, it is slightly more difficult to calculate other monies lost as a direct result of this attack.

As the attack occurred while we were fulfilling one of our job duties, our immediate supervisor was able to submit the appropriate forms necessary for us to qualify to receive Workers Compensation. Its another issue entirely though that the company we work for delayed almost three months in actually doing this. As neither Jim nor I were able to immediately return to work, we both began to receive Workers Compensation benefits which equal approx two thirds of our normal salary. Now, as part of our compensation package with our employer, not only did we receive our own two bedroom apartment, we also had our telephone, cable and internet paid for by them. Once we started to receive WSIB, our employer no longer covered the cost of the above. It was now our responsibility. So suddenly, not only were we receiving about a third less pay than we were used to, but from this reduced amount, we now had to cover these additional expenses of over $1000/month. This added stress is just one more thing that we’ve been forced to deal with because of the attack.

It hasn’t been just Jim and myself that have suffered because of the attack. Both of our daughters were teenagers at the time of the attack and as much as we tried to shield them from its effects, this proved impossible. They ended up being greatly affected because of the emotional and financial stress weighing heavily on me. While Jim and I attempted to adjust to each new change as it presented itself, I found myself getting increasingly angrier and bitter with our circumstances, and these feelings were then that much more difficult to hide from the girls. I was overwhelmed with feelings of self doubt and started to feel that I was failing them as a parent. I started to fall into a depression especially as relationships with my daughters started to change.

I have also just recently discovered that I may face yet another obstacle as a direct result of this attack. Currently, I have no job to return to as it has just been phased out of the company that employs us both since the beginning of the new year. Once again, we are victims not of our own making. Certainly, this will no doubt present another fairly large financial challenge to us – now just one of many. I really had begun to believe that we would soon be able to start to put all of this behind us, to make it a thing of the past. Yet, this seems near impossible as we seem to be faced with additional obstacles far too frequently.

Certainly the therapy that I continue to receive for my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at Victoria Hospital has greatly benefited me, and is starting to alleviate a number of my symptoms. Jim has also started therapy with a different therapist and I believe that he too is finally starting to feel some benefits. Still, this offers only small comfort. Yes, we are all starting to heal, but in the end, this attack has fundamentally changed me as a person as well as the way that I now look at the world. I no longer recognize my reflection in the mirror and am not the person that I once was, or will ever be. This experience has so altered my life forever, as well as how I view life.

"

I Can Almost See Our Ship On the Horizon...

In another couple of weeks, it will be two years since Jim ans I were attacked, and Jim stabbed. In many regards, this event seems like it happened a lifetime ago, while at other times, it feels like only yesterday. To say that its been a challenging two years most certainly is an understatement. Yet, at the end of the day, no matter what we've had to go through, both of us are still standing and standing fairly darn strongly! Whew...anyway.

Financially, these past two years have certainly been some of our hardest, and there have been so many times when I have absolutely felt utterly gutted by it all. So, what does one do? What can one really do but soldier on? Apparently, this was the right thing to do, and when they say that good things come to those that wait, they may very well be spot on. Found out today that WSIB made an error in the disbursement of some of Jim's benefits and that they have corrected this error by putting a cheque for $6 500 in the mail to us as of yesterday. YES!!! We also found out on Wednesday that the company that looks after group benefits for the company we work for also made an error and will be correcting this very shortly - this was a $6 900 error by the by!!! So by the end of next week, our bank account will have over $13 000 more than it did this week. Thank you very, very much.

Don't get me wrong. No amount of money will ever be able to erase the events of two years ago, nor even begin to compensate us for what we've had to endure. This is so not the way to go about receiving money, but at the same time, I've not got so much pride that I'll refuse it either. HELLO??!! All this means is that we'll be able to finally start replenishing our savings account that we were forced to drain while waiting for our WSIB to kick in - thank heavens we ended up having a bit of a cushion to deflate back then as we would have been so royally screwed.

So, starting our weekend off on a bit of a high note floating through the rest of my Friday.

A Pain That I'm Used To

Some things stay the same, some things never see to change. As the months pass by since Jim's attack and its savagery seems to fade from some people's minds, the more difficult it seems to become for us regarding our work situation. Immediately after it happened, everyone from the office staff here in London right up through to the VP of Operations in Toronto couldn't get to us fast enough with promises for our physical, emotional and financial security. Now that three months have passed since this incident almost all of their promises seemed to have fallen by the wayside. The only thing that I am not really worried about - yet - is our physical safety. We still have a beautiful roof over our head which we do not have to pay for as well as having all of our utilities looked after. Right now that is all that we seem to have. This fact is disturbing to say the least.

All of our forms were to have been filed and completed, etc for a Workman's Compensation claim for what happened to Jim and any forms that we were responsible for have been submitted. When I last spoke to the head of Human Resources of the company about a week ago, she mentioned that the company would no longer be paying us but that WSIB would be taking over from no on. Now when I spoke to WSIB earlier today, they advised us that our claim had been rejected because our employer had not submitted a series of forms. Fit to be tied at the moment mostly because I wasn't able to actually speak to someone at WSIB but had to leave messages on two separate answering machines there. GRRRR. Of course when I called through to Toronto, I could only reach voice mail in the HR department. Oh how very, very typical.

I wouldn't be quite so insane about all of this if something awful hadn't happened here in London with my Regional Manager almost three weeks ago. Shortly after Jim's attack, we moved into our current apartment because no one in my family was feeling terribly secure living on the ground floor of the apt building. Now since Jim was still recovering from near life threatening injuries, he obviously was unable to move any of our furniture or stuff up here. Naturally, one of my daughters managed to break her arm barely a week after Jim's attack so she was also unable to offer much help or assistance. That left just me and Sara who barely wears a 100 pounds on a good day! Naturally, it was tough carrying some of the heavier stuff for us so a few items were left behind in our old unit. I advised the office of this and apparently it wasn't much of an issue until the time came when they needed our old unit.

The weekend after I was notified that they were going to need our old unit, I moved everything except for one couch out of it. This left behind couch was a monster to move so I had to leave it. When I talked to my boss she said that was no problem that she would get some of the maintenance guys to help. I waited for a number of days and no one came to help. One day Sara's boyfriend was over and we managed to get it upstairs and into the hall of the fourth floor. could not get it into our unit no matter what I tried. Finally the head of maintenance showed up to help me but no matter what he couldn't get it in either. This couch just also happened to be near brand new. We had had it only a month. Looked like we were going to have to trash it which was a darn shame. Because I had been waiting to get this couch inside before I moved a few more of our other articles in, I stashed some of our stuff in an empty unit which just happened to be located directly beside our current one. This is also standard practice if you happen to be a Building Manager of an apt building - you tend to take advantage of empty units and store stuff in them on a regular basis. This is done by near everyone and is not remotely unusual.

I had mentioned to the office about this furniture being there in the empty unit also but for some reason my Regional Manager decided to take it upon herself and have the contents of this unit emptied into the dumpster out front of our building. There was a lot of stuff of value there also. Why she didn't mention that she was going to do this so we had a chance to move it into our unit or get rid of it ourselves, is a mystery to us. Even after talking to her about it, she had nothing to say regarding her reasoning. I am so sick of everyone telling me that whenever I need help while Jim is recovering to just let them know and then when the actual time arrives, nothing at all. It is beyond insulting. What is really terrible about the whole thing is that when we went to check the dumpster not all of our stuff made it there. Any of our electronic equipment seemed to be missing. When we asked about this, we initially got a whole bunch of different answers until someone obviously started to feel a little bit guilty cause somehow some of this stuff was located - sitting in the paralegals office getting ready for her to take home!

Excuse me? How awful is this? You're stealing from someone not only that you work with, but also from someone who has already had a series of horrific stuff happen to them, someone who's interests that you in your position should be guarding. Insane. I wasn't going to get the police involved but on our last visit to the specialists we mentioned what had happened and one of the doctor's took it upon herself to call the police. I guess that she is a fairly good friend of the detective handling the attack. The police feel we have a fairly strong case for theft, etc. So far I have given a statement but I haven't had them approach anyone in the office yet regarding this although after today, I plan on giving the go ahead. I've also given everyone enough time to return all of our electronics and even though I've received assurance that we'll get them back, we still have not.
Following is a list of the items that we ended up losing - that I can remember so far cause I know that there is more but probably won't know something is missing until I go to get it.

1. antique sewing table w/antique Singer sewing machine
2. walnut dresser w/five dresser drawers
3. all components to construct our bed frame i.e. slats/foot board
4. Sklar Pepplar arm chair
5. creme coloured leather love seat
   
6. creme coloured leather arm chair
7. 20" tv set
8. 17" flat screen computer monitor
9. 17" computer monitor
10. dvd player
11. large collection of various types of cables for use with computers
12. digital camera w/case
13. laptop computer w/leather case
14. collection of electric helicopters plus their accessories
15. all of our winter coats - four individuals for a total of eight coats
16. six fabric laundry sacks of clothing primarily Jim's winter clothes
17. all of Sara's bed linens including comforter, three double sized blankets, set of curtains, sheets, pillows
18. two extra large Rubbermaid storage containers w/hinged lids w/contents removed
19. misc hand held tools
20. two basic desk chairs

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

Downward Spiral

Jim and I are halfway through a nice quiet holiday Monday without the children. Both of the girls left yesterday afternoon for Toronto as they have tickets to see Nine Inch Nails on Tuesday at the Molson Amphitheater. Lucky ducks. We saw NIN way back in 1994 when Marilyn Manson was the opening act, and then in 1997 saw Trent Rezsnor when he toured with David Bowie. Guess the torch has now been passed! They managed to arrive safe and sound last night which was obviously a huge relief to their very worried mother - I know3 that a repeat performance of that horrible incident out west last week would not be repeated, but still...They were traveling by Greyhound after all.

The girls had been counting the days until this show, both of them working as many hours as they could. Katie, unfortunately broke her arm about two weeks after Jim's attack, so she didn't get to work as much as she would have liked to have worked this summer. It's been a nice break for us though, not having to support them both 100% especially as our income has been drastically affected since Jim's attack - more on this later as this has been one of my pet peeves this summer.

Right now we are tucked inside our apt as it is pretty hot outside. We may go swimming later on this afternoon. I have managed to get Jim in the pool a few times so far this summer under the guise of it being good physio for his physical recovery! All in all, he seems to be coming along fairly nicely considering the massive amount of abuse his body was subjected to earlier this spring. He still has quite a way to go but the specialists are all pleased with the progress that he has been making so far.

Both of us have also been slowly tapering down our methadone dose without any negligible side affects. I am now at 60 while Jim is at 90. We've been decreasing approx 5 per month so nothing too drastic, just nice and moderate. I've definitely been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to Jim's attack but am trying to deal with this without any help from medication. So far, so OK. Just going to see how I am as the summer comes to a close and will re-evaluated after Labour Day.

Take care, one and all. Enjoy today if you are a Canadian and have today off of work!!!

gorgeous poverty of created needs

Wow what a crazy day today turned out to be. I had a few errands to run this afternoon. Took me about an hour. I was home about an hour when Jim's Mom phoned to let us know that the roads were unbelievably treacherous and to stay off of them unless we absolutely had to go out. I couldn't believe it as it had been barely an hour since I had been out and there had been no hint of bad weather. We live on the eighth floor so when I looked outside once she had called I could not believe how crazy the weather was. Snow was blowing everywhere and the roads had filled with snow in no time. Cars were swerving all over the place. By the time I had to go to work, the storm had been raging for about 3 hours so the roads were pretty bad. Snowploughs had yet to appear. It took about an hour to get to work which was about 45 minutes longer than normal!

I don't know how I feel right now. I was so depressed last week that I am still feeling the residue of it this week. Don't really know the reason for my apathy but it is rendering me useless. The house still looks fine but I know that I should be vacuuming and dusting. The laundry is piling up and I still need to put all the Christmas decorations away although my daughter wants to leave the Christmas tree up - a la Garden State. I think that it should be packed back up but as I am not feeling too inclined to actually do this, it remains untouched in the living room. At least it is artificial so no imminent fire hazard. My daughter still troubles me but I am pretending that all is well with the world but I dread her first report card. I know that she has slacked off and my not constantly harassing her to do her homework and assignments will surely have a negative effect. I hate not having money. This pay to pay is truly breaking my spirit. At least we still have a beautiful roof over our head but I wish that we had more food in the cupboards and fridge and wish that I had some rainy day money but right now I am finding it hard to find an extra dollar to even buy a coffee on my break. I know that I should do my tax return from last year, and the two years prior to last, as I would have a huge amount of money just from the Child Tax Credit and GST but again my apathy prevents me from completing something that would so obviously help not only me but my whole family.

Oh whatever is wrong with me...

Been Caught Singing The Post Christmas Let Down Blues...

Well the good news is that I am at work right now - four days in a row and counting. The bad news is that the apathy that I seem to be suffering from since New Years does not seem to be abating. Tonight has gone by reasonably quickly. For the fourth night in a row I was rushing out the door in an attempt to be on time to work. I don't know why I have had such a tough time this week. I mean I don't even start work until 7pm at night.

OK I actually started writing this entry about four hours ago and because it has been so slow tonight, rather than update, I have been aimlessly surfing the net. I would actually really like to go home early today but there doesn't look as if that will happen. Oh well...OK now it is almost 1:30am so I really only have about a half an hour to go so...Just feeling so tired I guess. Want to go home to sleep and sleep lots and lots...I have been so lazy this week that I haven't even gone to the bank to get the money together to pay the rent. Jim is going to freak on me but now I might as well wait until my paycheque is ready at 3pm tomorrow to do all the banking. It is not as if he rushed out to pick up his pay today and it was ready. He must be grabbing it tomorrow so I shall just wait and make ony one trip to the bank...