Then Of Course It Must Be True

I’m not exactly sure when the dynamics of my relationship with my daughter actually changed but this much I do know, it is not remotely the same and for this, I am pretty devastated. We’ve always been fairly close and I’ve been lucky enough to have been allowed to enjoyed her company on many occasions. While she tends to be a social creature by nature, hanging out with groups of friends most days, there are many a weekend night that she has ignored her friend’s pleas to go out to spend a quiet evening with her mother. Plus, I’ve never had to prompt her to do this as she is more than happy to do this all on her own.

I am fairly certain that this most recent, ugly behaviour of hers is also very much a direct result of my prior treatment of her. Right now, more than ever, I am also very much aware of the high cost that is just now resulting due to my previous excessive over-indulgence of  her every whim basically.  In the past, I’ve been guilty of spoiling her rather excessively and would most likely still be spoiling her except for the fact that she now seems to have developed a serious attitude that no matter what I attempt to do doesn’t matter cause then this gives her the   . Obviously, this was very much driven by my guilt over my selfishness with my opiate addiction and the cost of it on this family

Black Dog On My Shoulder - A Short Story

OK, lying in bed watching the second hand slowly tick by. Come on, come on you think. Almost eight in the morning. Banks will be open soon and that cheque that has been on hold for the last week should now have cleared. About bloody time. You are not even sure how you have managed to make it through these past two days.

Throwing the covers back you put two unsteady feet onto the floor. Your muscles tighten then twitch. You are now dancing on your toes into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror you shudder. Last night's makeup is now streaked across your face. It takes ever effort to run the water. You make a feeble attempt to make yourself more presentable but who are you really fooling? Do you honestly care? No, you just need to get to the bank. Look down to see what you are wearing. OK, your shirt has definitely seen better days but the slightly ripped cutoffs will do. A bra wouldn't hurt but that just sounds like too much work and you have places to go. Now.

OK, where did you put the keys yesterday before you fell into that restless sleep willing the next day to arrive quickly? Think. Think. You were angry and sore and feeling tremendously sorry for yourself that you put them...?? Right, tossed them at the old man who now is sleeping deeply and not worth the trouble of waking up because he certainly won't be of any help and this would not be the best time to argue. You can easily tell by glancing around the bedroom that it has been a couple of days without. The laundry that you frantically started the last time you were feeling normal has not been put away. Instead all of the hours spent sorting, folding, piling have been for naught. Soon to be dirty laundry again is strewn from the en suite bathroom door out into the hall. Stumbling across it, you shake pieces to see if your keys will suddenly free themselves. Hah! There they are. You scoop them up in your hand, tripping head first out your bedroom door.

You pull your aching body into your vehicle. Before you even have the keys in the ignition, you are throwing your car into forward and screaming down the now busy street. The morning rush hour is upon you and your frustration starts to build. Don't even have a smoke to drag on. Broke, remember? Quickly, quickly, get to the bank before the lineup becomes unbearable. As you reach the top of the incline, you can see the green and white sign to the left indicating the bank's parking lot. Flipping your turn signal so it flashes left you manoeuvre your car into the left hand turning lane and quickly scream into the parking lot narrowly avoiding the oncoming cars. Barely stopping to shove the car in park and remove the keys from the ignition, you are bounding up the steps two at a time.

Struggling to open the heavy bank door, you slide on through and immediately take your place at the end of the line. Tap, tap, tap your foot goes. You can barely contain your legs from shaking so you try to distract by withdrawing your wallet from your purse, aimless flipping through it looking for your bank card. Finally it is your turn and you thrust your card into the face of the smiling teller. You mumble the amount that you want to withdraw and silently keep counting to ten in your mind so that you don't end up losing what precious little sanity you have left.

"Anything else that we can do for you today, Ms S?" the teller asks in a grating voice. You look at her and silently shake your head not trusting your own voice. You practically snatch the stack of $20 bills from her hand and shove it carelessly into your purse. Throwing it over your shoulder you rush out the glass doors jumping once again into your vehicle. Halfway there. Mission almost complete. Another twenty minutes of this annoying traffic and you will be in a much calmer, peaceful space.

You push down on your accelerator risking the chance of being stopped for speeding. Willing to take this chance today so tired and sore your body. Finally you are in front of your dealers house. You park your vehicle and bound up her front steps, knocking loudly on her door. Usually asleep at this time, she absolutely promised that she would make an exception and wake up for today's visit. No answer. Frantic you knock a little louder and a little louder again until you finally hear her dog barking. You hear some shuffling behind the door and the sequential unlocking of enough locks to protect Fort Knox. She waves me in. I quickly close the door behind me, locking all the locks abruptly. I stagger up the stairs behind her tossing a pile of twenty dollar bills on her bed in front of her. She counts them, puts them in her wallet and then counts out the required amount, dropping each pill carefully into a small, clear baggy.

I pocket them and casually look around her room. I know that she hates anyone to do anything at her place but decide that I can't wait so I mumble something about having to go to the bathroom before I head out promising that it is only the toilet that I need and nothing else. I race down the stairs and lock the bathroom door behind me, frantically searching through my purse for everything that I need. Quickly crush my pills in the spoon that I have laid on the back of her toilet, draw up sufficient amount of water through my syringe and fire it into the center of my spoon. I search through all of my pockets until my lighter is located and then quickly set fire to the underneath of the spoon. Just as the liquid comes to a boil, I remove the flame from the spoon. Stirring the now dissolved mixture, I then proceed to drop a filter into its center and quickly suck up all of the dope until the filter squeaks that there is no more left.

I sit down on the edge of the bathtub and lightly tab my forearm looking for that sweet spot. Located. With as steady a hand as I can muster, I line the syringe up with my arm and gently jab it into my skin. Drawing back on the plunger, I see the barrel fill with crimson color. With measured speed, I depress the plunger until there is nothing left in the syringe and gently remove it from underneath my skin. A small drop of blood forms as I drop my head forward, sighing. My breathing slows to barely a whisper. Raising my head, I inhale deeply while at the same time throwing everything into the top of my purse. I run my arm under water, flush the toilet and quickly exit the bathroom happy now that the last three days are all but a faint memory.

COPING WITH URGES

I came across another article today on the web that I thought was fairly interesting and also most probably pretty relevant for a good few of us. Personally, I have found that MMT has been fairly effective for me in eliminating my cravings or urges, once I'm on a stable dose of course. Now, this is not to suggest in any way that MMT helps eliminate the desire to do dope, cause I don't think that this ever really does go away once you've been insane enough to taste it but then that is an entirely different ball of wax, so to speak. This desire ends up being more of a psychological one anyway rather than a true physical one. While a good solid dose of willpower should be enough to keep one's desire in check, personally I need any help that I can get with the other. It's just too tangible and real and all where as the other is the opposite.

Anyway, on to the article...

Habits and urges go hand in hand. In fact, many people in the throes of an addictive behavior problem, whether it is overeating, drug use or alcohol abuse, claim that they derive no pleasure from their habit--that it is nothing but the relentless craving that fuels ongoing addictive behavior. What is usually most difficult for people when changing a bad habit is coping with the sometimes relentless urges. The initial days of a habit kicking plan can be exhausting as urges dominate thinking and interfere with daily routine. Many people give up change efforts because they feel that there is not way they can function without their habit as the urges interfere too much with quality of life.

It is important to remember that urges, in and of themselves, are normal. We experience craving in varying degrees every day. And because your habit has been important to you for a long time, it may be unreasonable to expect urges to vanish completely. What is hoped is that you will come to experience urges with less frequency and that when they are experienced you will be able to react in a way that avoids relapse.

The "three Ds" can be helpful in coping with urges and craving, whether these urges are related to alcohol or drug use, overeating , tobacco use or any habit you are attempting to change. The Ds stand for Decatastrophizing, Disputing Expectancies and Distracting.

Decatastrophizing
Especially early on in your change efforts, craving can seem excruciating. Your daily routine has been altered by the elimination of an important part of life and now you can't get your mind off it. Everything you see reminds you of your habit. If you smoke, every room you enter may bring to mind the image of a cigarette and associated pleasure. The inability to satisfy the urge can lead to frustration and inner statements like, "I can't stand this!" or "There is no way I will be able to live without giving in. I'll just go crazy!" Statements like this can be overwhelming. So much so that people often give up efforts.

As is the case with anxiety, catastrophic thoughts can lead to a great deal of arousal which can, in turn, make things seem worse than they are. If you believe that you are completely out of control, your emotions will follow. What is important to remember is that urges are normal and typically decline in intensity as you continue implementing change. To combat catastrophic reactions to urges it is important to remind yourself of times in the past when you have successfully changed habits (think now, we all have done so at least once or twice!). Do you still experience urges? If so, are they as intense as during the initial phase of your change efforts? Probably not, right? Furthermore, think about other people you have known who have undergone significant change. Do they seem haunted by urges such that they cannot function? If not, who is to say that you cannot accomplish that also?

Try to take some of the power away from a black and white adjective like "horrible" or "unbearable." Belief in horrible extremes only makes you feel worse. Just how unbearable is your urge right now? To accurately answer this you may need to conjure images of what other types of suffering reported as unbearable are like. Is this as unbearable as getting stabbed in the stomach? Or better still, what have you endured which was worse than your current urge? Was that unbearable? If so, does it follow that your urge is less than unbearable and perhaps only "very uncomfortable."

Disputing Expectancies
Craving is, in essence, the activation of expectancies. Beck and his colleagues (Cognitive Therapy of Substance Abuse, 1993, Guilford Publications) believe that there are three beliefs associated with "the acute decision to engage in substance abuse." They are Anticipatory, such as "I'm gonna be Mr. Wonderful after one line." Relief Oriented, such as "I won't have to think about work if I drink this bottle of wine." and Facilitative or Permissive, such as , " I've been good all week, I'm entitled to an evening high." Though Beck and his colleagues presented these fundamental beliefs in reference to substance abuse problems, it is this author's contention that these beliefs can function in any habit urge.

Since we rarely think about distant consequences when craving, bring them to mind deliberately. Bring to mind the negative emotions which may be experienced at a later time due to engaging in your habit. Urges are "myopic" in that they can only see advantages. You must shed some light on your craving in order to effectively control it. Ask yourself questions like:

* How will I feel later if I give in to my urges?"
* What consequences might I suffer if I give in?"
* Will the negatives outweigh the positives in the long run if I give in?"

Another way to cope with urges is to imagine that someone very close to you is voicing the very urge you are experiencing. How would you go about convincing them not go give in. Sometimes distancing ourselves from our urges is imperative before you can subject them to any scrutiny.

Your ability to conjure vivid images can be used in your favor when you experience craving. In the presence of a strong urge, try to imagine a very negative outcome. The more negatively graphic the better. The more true to your life the better. For example, if you have a problem with alcohol and experience a strong urge to walk down to the convince store and buy a bottle of Vodka, imagine the worst hangover possible. Imagine vomiting all morning. Better still--imagine someone very important dropping by, someone you really want to impress, and seeing you in that condition. It is amazing how powerful our own imagination can be in fueling and impeding behavior. Use it to your advantage in your habit change efforts!

Distracting
Some urges are so relentless that talking back to them is insufficient. You still can't get your mind off your habit. Good old fashioned distraction is sometimes the only medicine that can pull your thoughts away. Distraction can be cognitive, in the form of some mental exercises, or behavioral, in the form of activity. Certainly the latter is going to be the most effective, in that urges tend to occur in environments with are the same or similar to those in which the habit occurred in the past. If you are trying to quit smoking, and you have previously smoked at in your office all day, being in your office is going to elicit a strong drive to light up. Certainly if possible, taking your work into a conference room, or taking a break and walking outside will often be enough to decrease the urge to a manageable level. You must evaluate your schedule and determine which situations evoke the most intense craving and create as much flexibility as possible so that you can "escape" if necessary--especially in the initial days of your change efforts.

Cognitive distraction can be very powerful. Certainly imagery has been used as a means of helping stressed people learn to relax. You too can use imagery to take your mind off an urge which is dominating consciousness. Conjuring a pleasant place like a beach or on a raft in a lake can help you not only take your mind off the urge but relax as well.

However, "relaxing" images are not helpful for everyone. Some find that if they relax when craving they will only want it more. This makes sense as we have discussed that many habits are associated with relaxation and pleasure, and evoking these feelings in places previously associated with your habit can strengthen urges tremendously. I recommend that you find some mental task that will be very difficult to finish but which is interesting and consuming that you can activate in response to an urge. I like to refer to these as Mental Tapes. Some examples of tapes which have been helpful are:

* Writing the perfect epic novel or screenplay.
* Planning the perfect vacation.
* Creating the ideal money-making business
* Interpreting a dream from the night before
* Picking an acquaintance and trying to "figure them out."

Certainly what you choose will depend on your interests, but the key is to make it something that will be easy and perhaps interesting and fun to do. Choosing to think about all the mistakes you've made this year and how you could have done things differently is not going to prove a good distraction tape as it won't be enjoyable. In fact it may increase the power of your urge, especially if stress has precipitated your habit in the past.

It is sometimes best to try one urge control technique at a time so that you don't get overwhelmed. These techniques work, but they also require a great deal of mental energy and conscious effort. The aim here is not to make change excruciating or extraordinarily taxing, but to provide you with some tools which you can add to your armory at a your own pace.

Robert Westermeyer, Ph.D.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Deeper and Deeper

Well, after barely enduring the past 48 hours, I certainly have a new found respect for methadone that's for bloody sure. Maybe respect is not the most accurate description, but I do know that this will be the first and last time that I'll ever take my MMT for granted. I see now how easily I've allowed myself to become complacent about my treatment. Never again I say!

For the first time since I've returned to MMT, I missed going to the clinic to get my scheduled dose. Circumstances were such that I just could not make it there yesterday. I honestly thought that it really wouldn't be much of a deal as I'm only on 80ml and have been taking my dose since February of last year as well as been stabilized on this dose for the last nine months or so. I had taken my dose on Tuesday at approx 1pm and figured that I would be fine until this morning at 10am.

I got through the majority of yesterday without incident. Work was fine. I noticed in the afternoon that my stomach was unusually unsettled and that I had a few uncontrollable sneezing bouts, but I simply put this down to picking something up from the kids, as Sara had been complaining since the weekend of being really congested, plus having a sore throat. By about ten last night though I started to really feel like crap.

My stomach was still unsettled and my nose was running constantly, plus my body started to ache all over and my head was pounding. Great, I thought. As it had been what seemed like a near eternity since I had been dopesick, I'd allowed myself to become somewhat cavalier about the whole thing. How soon, and easily, we (can) forget. As there wasn't really a whole lot that I could do at this point, I basically decided that probably the best thing for me to do was to try to sleep through this whole ordeal, so that when I woke up in the morning, the first thing I'd do was drag my sorry ass to the clinic.

It has now been an hour and twenty minutes since I took my methadone and miracle of miracles, I feel just fine. My stomach is no longer bothering me, although now I feel absolutely ravenous, plus I've stopped sneezing and my nose is no longer running. Soon I imagine, the last of my body's aches will also disappear.

Obviously this illustrates what a powerful tool methadone can be in our fight against addiction. It sure is no lightweight. And yes, this also illustrates how addictive the solution to the problem can be and how yes, we may just be trading one evil for another with no great improvement ultimately in our "prison sentence". So what's an addict to do?

For me personally, I know that MMT is the best solution. Where I live, suboxone has not yet been approved so it can not yet be legally prescribed. Cold turkey is for the birds, literally! A decade ago, I spent just over two years on MMT and was able to stop it by gradually tapering down my dose. Once I had reached about 15ml, I just stopped taking it and except for about seven to ten days of mild discomfort, I didn't suffer much at all. All of my cravings by this point had also been eliminated. For another three years, I continued to remain opiate - and methadone - free. Going back to them is a story for another day.

Obviously I'm not yet in a comfortable enough place to even consider weaning myself off of this treatment but I also know that I'm not necessarily condemned to a life sentence although, if worse came to worse and I was, I'd eventually find a way to deal. Right now, all that I know is that I don't ever want to feel even remotely dopesick again if I don't have to.

I'll not be so cavalier in the future either, because at the end of the day, its also bigger than simply feeling dopesick. Obviously, my mood would end up affecting my family and my work, and not in a positive way. I've made far too much progress in the past year and a half anyway to mess it up. I'm also glad that I rode out the sickness rather than taking the easy way out by medicating with some other type of opiate. Let me tell you that around 4:30am this was a real possibility that I'm glad I didn't follow through with.

Dave Gahan - KINGDOM

Angel of the Morning

All things considering. my teenage daughter and I have a fairly fantastic relationship. I trust her judgment for the most part and feel that she is quite mature for her age. I respect most of her decisions and do my best to be supportive of her endeavors. There certainly have been times when I’ve had unilaterally veto one of her plans but this is the exception rather than the rule.

Now all of this being said, sometimes I find her behavior is more than enough to drive me completely, absolutely certifiably insane. It always seems like it is the little things that end up pushing me over the edge also. Yesterday evening and today would be classic Sara - and Katie - stuff. Before they were able to do anything yesterday, they had to pick up the massive pile of clothes that had been growing on their bedroom floor for the past week and a half. Combined with the clothes was an odd assortment of other crap, so much so that one could no longer see their carpet. I felt that this was a more than reasonable request.