Sony eReader

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to read. I'll literally read almost anything you put in front of me, and for years I was never without a book within arm's reach. Of course, reading for pleasure was one of the first casualties once my drug dependence became of paramount importance. Not only did I no longer seem to have the time to read, but the cost of books and magazines suddenly seemed prohibitive to me when there were other, better things to invest in.

Although its taken me a bit longer into my recovery than I had anticipated, I have finally returned to reading with the same zest and obsession of days gone by! One of the things that has really helped me has been the eReader which is is a line of e-book readers manufactured by Sony. It uses an electronic paper display. The reader uses an iTunes store-like interface to purchase books from Sony Connect eBook store. It also can display Adobe PDFs, ePub format, personal documents, blogs, RSS newsfeeds, JPEGs and can play MP3 files. It is so portable and light and it now goes with me everywhere. 

Currently, I have about 63 different book titles loaded onto it, although it is able to handle loads and loads more than this amount. Now I can easily juggle reading three separate books at a time, and not have to worry about dragging them all around with me weighing down my purse! I've got a variety of subjects loaded on my eReader currently so I'm never bored. There is always one that will pique my interest. The downside, though, has been my recent lack of sleep as I've been staying up to all hours reading!

If anyone else happens to have one and if you're sufficiently interested in the following titles, you are more than welcome to download one or all of the following. The files are all in zip format and once the file has been uncompressed the book is in PDF form. Even if you don't have an ebook, you can still download any of the files as they can be read directly from your computer. Enjoy...

On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine Nicolas Rasmussen

    *a fascinating history of the use and abuse of amphetamines

Bringing the War Home. The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies  Jeremy Varon

    *about the history of the rise and fall of Germanys Red Army Faction and the Baader Meinhof Gang

The Addict - One Patient, One Doctor, One Year  Micheal Stein

    *read the New York Times book review

Isn't it pretty?

The Oxycontin Express

I wish I could remember how I originally found this link, but unfortunately, I can not. If I got it through a fellow blogger's own entry, then please notify me so that I can update this post with all the proper and correct info et al.

The Oxycontin Express

Last night Jim and I watched an absolutely riveting documentary from Current TV's original documentary series Vanguard entitled The Oxycontin Express. From the web site:

"In this Peabody Award-winning edition of Vanguard, correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to South Florida--the "Colombia of prescription drugs"--to expose a bustling pill pipeline that stretches from the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale to the rolling hills of Appalachia. "The OxyContin Express" features intimate access with pill addicts, prisoners and law enforcement as each struggles with a lethal national epidemic."

If you've got an hour to spare, it is well worth investing this time watching this documentary. Frightening stuff indeed!

Vanguard airs every Wednesday at 10pm on Current TV.  

sickgirl

Most recent pic of myself that I could find. Here I am in all my glory at the ripe young age of 46!! Finally starting to feel comfortable in my own skin once again.

Barely 31, this photo was taken over 15 years ago at my brother's wedding. Hadn't quite gone off the rails yet! Barely seems that long ago. Had confidence to spare way back when...

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DECADE AND A HALF AND SOME ADDICTION ISSUES MAKE!!! INDEED...

10 Things You Should Know About Methadone

Found a great series of articles over at Recovery Helpdesk. It is a truly fantastic bit of reading with loads of realistic and relevant information. If you have time...

The first article of the series is entitled 10 Things You Should Know About Methadone (Number 1)

My Ship Has Arrived!

Well, thank you very much indeed! And what a way to start a long weekend. Have just returned from the regional office as I had been called earlier with the request I come by there at 3pm. Our Regional Manager was in town for a few hours today - he lives in Ottawa and I am in London - and wanted to meet with me. GULP!!!

No bad news, only good. He wanted to personally give me a cheque in the amount of $6600 to cover the cost of our prescriptions over a 22 month period that we had originally come out of pocket. Methadone here costs both of us $300/month so multiplied by 22 equals a whole freaking lot! When we went on WSIB originally the company cancelled our benefit coverage which they so were not supposed to do. By law, an employer must cover their employee for one full year from the date of the accident. Ooops. They didn't. My company went even further and covered the entire period that I was off as a gesture of good faith. Good faith indeed!

Right now we couldn't be happier.

peace, love and happiness...

sickgirl

Some Great Reward

One of the things that has been hardest for me while on methadone has been the weight gain that often accompanies it. For the past four years, this has been my biggest battle. Some days, I find it nothing more than a slight nuisance, while on others, I find it utterly soul crushing. I know many women on methadone suffer from this identical problem, and I know many that also stop treatment for this fact alone. As hard an adjustment as its been, this would never influence me to return to past bad behaviours or habits.

This weight gain many a time has ended up messing with my selfconfidence, especially as I had never, ever had a weight issue until I started MMT. It has been a pretty big adjustment just on its own, and there are so many days that I've allowed this to influence my overall mood. When feeling particularly frumpy or unattractive, it was so much easier to sit around all day in my baggy black tshirt and drawstring pants with unwashed hair and an unmade face. After awhile, it became easier and easier for me to use this as an excuse not to do much more of anything else.

About two weeks ago, I decided that I had had enough. No more. Just one more thing I was doing to remain a victim in one way or another that I needed to put an end to. It was now or never. As much as I wanted to return to my pre-treatment weight, I know that this was not something that was going to happen overnight so I decided to take a different approach than anything I had attempted prior. A large part of  how I was feeling was a direct result of not really having anything appropriate to wear to flatter my current shape so pretty much the only way to fix this was to start over from scratch - I needed an entirely new wardrobe! So far, I had been resisting buying much of anything convinced that one day I would be able to fit back into the clothes that were hanging in my closet. In the meantime, I had been trying to stuff my size twelve body into my size eight outfits with disasterous results.

Shocking indeed, that I never seemed pleased with any of my outfit choices or would be forced to put on yet, again, the same tshirt and pair of pants. Although it actually took me three full days to finish, I went out shopping and bought all brand new things - I literally replaced everything, everything except my socks! I got all brand new underwear. I bought myself a new raincoat and two new hoodies, as well as a new pair of sandles and runners for the summer. I got five new pairs of cargo pants and four new pairs of shorts. I got eight semi-dressy tops/blouses plus four dressier types of tshirts.

I've put all of the new clothes in the closet in the spare room and left all of my other clothes in my closet in the bedroom - we each have our own closet in the bedroom. Now, when I go to put something on, it is much less of an ordeal as I know that whatever I end up picking out will fit me properly. No longer will there be piles of discarded items as I struggled to find something to wear for the day! Already I feel a thousand times better about myself, not to mention so much more confident.

In some ways, I am mad at myself for allowing vanity to get the best of me, but it has and after four years, I know that this wouldn't go away on its own. I wasn't prepared at all for how much this weight gain was going to affect me. I'd been fortunate enough to go through my life never having a weight problem, so it was never an issue I had been forced to deal with. I didn't realize quite how lucky I was until it was too late. I think what has made it more of a struggle for me to get on top of this was the timing of my decision to start MMT. This just happened to occur while in my midforties, which is a time in a woman's life when her body starts to undergo a number of changes as it is. So the two combined together were a toxic combination indeed.