Grotesque

THE DEALER TOOK SO LONG this morning and I was resentfully waiting wound up into ever such a state that, despite over 80mg methadone (which I've been on every day so it's well entrenched in my system) that I found myself vomiting yellow bile. Yet telling myself that I wasn't really "sick", just winding myself up. Bile-retching is a big part of the withdrawal syndrome. But I'm telling myself it also had a lot to do with barely having eaten yesterday, partially because I was sulking due to "no gear".

My head has been shillyshallying both ways between dead-set on not using and "if it was here I'd be doing it right NOW". On the one hand I can put a sustainedly "clean head" on for several days at a time ~ which used to be near-impossible for me. But on the other I'm recognizing more and more the chinks in my armour and the feebleness of my desires to stop. I don't know how I'm ever going to make it happen now; it feels forlorn.

My new year's resolution was one I thought worth working on and that's to say bye-bye to crack. I say little about it here because there's little to say. You go up like a skyrocket. You come down. Most people want more and more and more. I've succeeded in reducing consumption to one £10 rock, once a week. And even if I DO find I have money "spare" that could go on it days later, it does not. Most of this coke gets mixed into heroin, which candifies it up massively. But that means that when I DO have crack I can easily get through a gram of the other in a day, which is way more than I want to be using. And just to explain to non-users: it might be easy to assume that "a gram" means a dosage unit but with heroin this is not the case. In fact a gram of the local street heroin is potent enough to kill a (non-tolerant) family of four. Most junkies would get between three and ten hits from a gram depending on how much they're used to using. I hate the fact I've turned into an opiate sponge. Almost anything I take seems to get soaked right up and barely touches the sides. My aim with heroin, if I can't stop completely, is to use as little as possible. All things are relative, anyhow. The more you take, the more you need. So you may as well take as little as possible ~ then you'll need less.

I got fluorescent vomit all over my notebook, which means I'll have to copy my shorthand lists of "brief forms" and other contractions into the volume I set aside as my "secret diary" (except half what's gone in there has been posted up here!) My searches online have revealed to me that after Mr Gregg's death around 1949, rights to his shorthand were bought by another company, who, through successive editions of the manual, progressively dumbed it down till it was nearly useless. My "simplified" textbook from 1950 is the least dumbed down version but I'm working on converting to the 1929 "Anniversary" version, which is the last edition Mr Gregg worked on and used himself. Writing shorthand is one thing: you've gotta be able to read it back! Hence the practice. I've wanted to learn this art since I was very little indeed and I'm not giving up now. Who knows... Someday I might even get a job out of it..?

Back to my addiction "issues"... thanks for all the comments everyone. I'm just getting tired of all my own words. Fed up of hearing them. But still, I've readlized, I don't have strength enough of desire to turn away. I just hope that meanwhile y'all don't get bored to death!!

Last but not least, purloined from my friend Welshcakes Limoncello's blog (what a funky screen-name!) is this polyglot HAPPY NEW YEAR message!!