I AM GOING up Morrisons for Baileys or Baileys substitute. I know I am not supposed to be drinking but I tried the one litre cyder. It's all gone. I tried eating, it makes me feel sick. Not literally food-nausea, more I don't want to eat it so it's like forcefeeding. I slept from 8pm till 1am last night. Thought I was doing really well on no sleep. First thing I went to the chemist. Gulgged a bit of (methadone) juice. I have more to glug. I'm thinking of glugging it now as I'm so down.
I entertained the thought of heroin for nearly 5 minutes today. But it never made me happy. Also I don't even know where there's any good stuff. Totally off the circuit. As far as I know the drought is almost as bad as it was before.
Most of today I was asleep. From about 10 till 4:30. Complete exhaustion. I don't know what to do. My friend is feeling really crap. We are holding hands across the Atlantic. She is on Suboxone and not enjoying it. Subutex (also buprenorphine) made me feel really "clean". Very much wide awake all day. Sense of smell about ten times more acute. Which probably all sounds good but not everybody is ready for that. On methadone I feel "normal" drugs-wise.
Methadone never intoxicates me. Taken at night it can help you sleep, but it's not like a sleeping pill, that, taken too early, would make you feel drowsy. It's not in the slightest bit a "state-sponsored high" as Anne Widdecombe MP wanted to believe. Addicts hate methadone because it DOESN'T make you high at all. Most say it leaves them flat and empty. For the vast majority of hardened addicts, unless they're ready to be clean, methadone doesn't work. They use and use and use on top, invariably. The reaction I had, if methadone played any part, was extremely unusual (never met anyone else who experienced that).Now I don't know whether to go supermarket or not. Re O'Grady's/Carolans/Morrisons Own Baileys substitute it's more the sugary gakkiness putting me off than the alcohol. Akh. I think I'm going. I hope those big drug dealers importing lorry loads get really broke. Between them, they cannot even orchestrate a reliable supply from Afghanistan to the street. Far as I know, there's still a drought. I hope some supply chain from Burma and Colombia starts up. I would never in a million years have gone near #3 Afghan Brown Sugar (heroin base) if the proper #4 China White (heroin hydrochloride salts) had been available. Makes me angry to this day just to consider the matter. All that nasty vitamin C and citric acid I banged into my veins. No wonder they're gone. I'm telling myself I'm only using China White from now on, but that felt no different from good brown. So I wouldn't bother. Been there. Had enough to last a lifetime.
I'm not interested in heroin-assisted treatment for myself, but I think it should be dished out liberally to others. Contrary to what you might assume, people on HAT take a level dose, which means they are highly unlikely to overdose unless they have liver disease (which affects drug metabolism) or have been drinking or using sedatives heavily on top. All these can be easily tested for at a clinic, as can street heroin, which has a totally different signature from pharmaceutical heroin (narcotine, codeine other stuff is in street heroin). Numerous trials (e.g. RIOTT, link below) rating injectable diamorphine's efficacy against injectable and oral methadone have shown it more than twice as effective as methadone syrup and a lot more effective than injectable methadone amps.ADDICTS HATE METHADONE.
Here's the Heroin Therapy link: http://www.actiononaddiction.org.uk/news_and_campaigns/news/187_supervised-administration-of-injectable-medical-heroin-leads-to-larger-reductions-in-street-heroin-use-than-injectable-or-oral-methadone-riott-trial
Illustrated: lovely gakky Baileys; about 20mg British 1mg/1ml green methadone; Swiss Diaphin pharmaceutical grade injectable diamorphine 100mg/1ml. It's mixed up with water a day or two in advance and must be used quickly, otherwise wet diamorphine degrades into 6-monoacetylmorphine (hence the legendary heroin "dry amps" given to a v select bunch of gear-heads in this country)
DIDO: HERE WITH ME
This tune has been going round my brainbox. I had no idea what it was called until just now:~
18 comments:
So is that now 9 days and no gear? If so, you're doing well and hey, if you're asleep, you're not feeling bad so it's all good. Keep in tough with your Psych and drug worker. And if you don't feel like eating, try a shake or a protein drink or something. Baileys isn't a food group and it's expensive.
I never got the Baileys in the end. I got Barcardi Breezer 700mls 4% alcohol. Akh, all this alcohol-counting is doing my head in. Only teenagers and reformed alkies ever do it. Yup and Baileys is dead expensive. I think it's £14 for 700mls.
Is it 9 days? It's v hard to work out as the last hit was watered down crap, or blood. I hadn't scored for about 2 days before even that, which made it seem like AGES.
No I just worked out, if it's not 13 days it's 12. I didn't use all last week and before that it couldn't have been later than Thursday or Friday very latest. Friday would have been a non-hit. i don't think I actually bought any after Tuesday or Wednesday that week and I don't want to look back, not at this moment.
In brief: what is this NA thing, "jsut for today" and yet counting every today??!?
I understand that the accumulated time brings a sense of power. I also have seen how devastated people are to relapse and reset that time to zero. I've also seen people run back to gear and crack because a sleeping pill is "using". These are the flaws in the NA system as I see it. And people being told psychiatric meds are "using". People with no qualification whatsoever, no experience or understanding of mental illness outside the ordinary (very profound) junkie suffering are assuming somebody else's experience is their own and putting another in a dangerous predicament. Thankfullly they've written a special leaflet on that v issue to clarify. Being on methadone basically means you can't do the NA programme. My old sponsor expected me to come off in a fingersnap. My old sponsor was cuckoo anyway. My door was literally being broken down and he was more interested in prattling about being clean than me opening this door and demanding What the hell is going on? PEOPLE. Akh.
The reason so many methadone patients in the UK "use and use" on top of their methadone is because the UK woefully underdoses methadone patients. The average dose required by most MMT patients is 80-120 mgs--some need less, many need even more. However, the UK's average dose is 30-40mgs--less than half of the minimum effective dose for most people.
For this reason, many patients go into withdrawals in the evening as their dose wears off prematurely, and end up using opiates to stave off illness. This often leaves them feeling as though they have merely added another monkey on their back instead of receiving real treatment for their illness.
Additionally, patients who receive a proper blocking dose--80 mgs or more--usually experience the blockade effect if they try to use opiates on top of their methadone, in that they will not feel any high or euphoria from taking other opiates, thereby erasing the purpose of doing so. But, again, doses in the UK are so low that this does not occur, leaving the patient tempted to use, knowing that they will feel it if they do.
I never reached that blockading dose till past 150mg, which is a long story to do with drinking my dose in the early morning, then the clinic wanting me to drink the next dose supervised within 4 hours ie 2 days' juice in one morning (I like to save the dose till bedtime or a couple of hours before getting up, so I don't crave a morning hit; the clinic are fine with this). On less than that I could really feel a tiny dose of IV heroin, not that it conked me out, but that it whooshed in, as if filling the gaps left by crappy methadone.
The doses you mention are ones they used to give out a few years ago to a lot of patients and as you say they just do not work as maintenance therapy unless you have a tiny habit.
I remember being in a therapy group where someone stood up and said categorically that 50mg will hold anyone 24 hours. I was so angry. I had taken 60, 70 and 80 mg when not scripted (physeptone pills) and it just would not hold me all day. I was sweating heavily, couldn't eat etc etc so this idea that 50mg holds everyone is utter crap. I know methadone needs time to go into the system. That's the problem: it also takes way too much time to come out!
I once read something from America (it was v old) that said 20mg methadone will stave off severe withdrawal symptoms in everyone. Where?? On Mars?? The situation internationally has changed a lot though. Old British junkies still trot out this phrase "Americans always overdose". They remember the 1980s when American street purity was 5-10%, while British was 40%. American purity is said to have skyrocketed after the Colombians took over in the 1990s. I heard at one time there was street gear with 90%+ purity doing the rounds. Here the average purity has remained 40-50% for over 25 years. Except recently, when the big dealers have damaged their trade more than they seem to understand. I'm not the only person saying I won't go back.
I want off methadone as soon as I can. I split the dose, I think that works way better than going 24 hours on one. You only have to look up dosing for coughs and pain to see it's given every 6-8 hours, to attain a flat-line. How on earth you can reduce if dosing once, I don't understand. On a split dose it's easy. You just reduce the daytime one and keep the nighttime one the same. Your body shouldn't notice any difference. After all, on street heroin the exact dose alters every single day. I can go 5 hours or more without feeling any deficit, then I do feel it slightly. I once forgot to drink it and woke in heavy sweats not knowing what was wrong. Took the juice, woke up 3 hours later fresh as a daisy!
I want to add one thing, a big reason why I don't like giving methadone doses: to anyone with a new (less than 2 years) or small habit who is tempted to buy methadone on the street you need to take extreme CARE, bearing in mind this drought has cut everybody's tolerance. You can probably hold yourself on way less than people say. Using methadone illicitly can be very dangerous. The only advice I could give would be to get your own script. And don't let old junkies panic you. A 20 year IV habit and a year smoking will have vastly different tolerances. Please be safe! Go to a clinic and do it properly
Hey Gleds,
At least you're getting some sleep this week.
How many things in life are better than sleep?(unless you have night terrors)
Hope the worst is over for you.
A drink here and there is relaxing. Sometimes you just NEED it.
Anyway, I hope you stay off the stuff.
It may not feel at all like progress now, but sometime soon, you'll be awfully glad to have gotten off it and live life to the hilt and feel so alive.
Always wishing the very best for you,
j.
You know, I never hated methadone. The first clinic I went to was all about upping your dose as long as you claimed you were still sick. I took 250mgs, but they dosed people as high as 500mg. On 250mgs, I got high. I nodded out in the morning, and felt pretty damn good most of the time. On a lower dose 80mgs, in New Orleans, I always supplemented my dose with xanex. Add Xanex to it once you have become adjusted to it...and you get pretty high. They say its dangerous, though...no more dangerous than shooting dope though. It was easy for me to buy more methadone and also xanex, so I just took more pills and got really high, sometimes. I liked it because I wasn't sick all the time...I wasn't ready to be clean, but hell, I was living in New Orleans, and we drank all day. We took pills, and we did a lot of coke. Methadone smoothed out the edges, and I could take a break from the grind of dope. Eventually, though...I always got off methadone to get back on dope. Let my veins and mind rest up a little, and then back to the shit again. Damn, I am glad I am out of that, now.
And you talk of China versus the brown...well, I guess you have never used the fucking Black Tar we get in some parts of the United States, huh? Talk about dirty...I used to think the brown powder was the shit compared to fucking Tar. Not to mention, Tar wrecks your veins...
Another question...what is a lorry? I have read this term with Irvin Welsh, I believe Terry in "Glue" was a lorry driver? It delivers soemthing right? I get the picture in my mind that it is like an old school milk truck...
I have been clean for over four years, getting closer to five. I have to say, that NA was not for me. I hate to really dis it because it works for a lot of people, but I just found it to be cultish, and there were too many whiners for me. I guess my situation is different...my life changed drastically from experiencing Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans...nothing was ever the same after that, and I realized how precious life is...and i was just wasting it getting fucked up at the bar...It was really hard at first, but it gets easier and easier...
Taff: no I'm glad to be off that shit. I tell myself cravings are the worst self-deception. Craving emptiness and nothing. Heroin never did anything much I couldn't do for myself. It just disables you. Also it neve felt more than a 4/10 in strength. (Niceness was a different matter; on niceness it might get a 9). Even when I ODd the heroin was still a 4. How pathetic is that! As I say I don't need heroin to look gone out. People always thought I was on drugs when I wasn't taking any. Sometimes I was in a good mood; other times I was tired or just thinking about something, haha!
BMelons: those are gargantuan doses! They once offered me 300mg "if you need it". I do believe the dr was joking. Well I hope so. I'd hate to come off 300mg. I get barely over 100mg now and I think that is far far too high. One dr said what I had was a lot until I slapped her down with how much gear I used to take + a methadone equivalence table I looked up. I took a good 300-600mg diamorph on a half decent day and at 1mg-1mg equivalence (the highest I saw published) that's quite a lot of methadone. Shut the dr right up, that did.
In the 1990s there were still a lot of private drs offering injectable methadone amps. You could sometimes get them on National Health, free. They generally scripted 250-300mg a day in 50mg 1ml amps. They're little stronger than drinking methadone (so I hear) but supposedly soothe the needle craving. They're not that common these days.
When I went to rehab I found out there wa a large contingent who use more on crack than heroin. All my friends were like me, heroin addicts using relatively small crack on top. That made detoxing really hard.
Xanax is alprazolam, right? I tried that but it never did it for me like Valium which works really well. Yes you're right about benzos and methadone. Probably dangerous, but hits the spot enough.
Tar sounds absolutely gruesome. I never thought I was a drug snob till I was reminded of China white vs Afghan brown and Afghan brown vs tar!
A lorry is just a truck! I keep forgetting 60% of English speakers wouldn't know! I try and be careful mentioning dozens of things, e.g. floors in a house. Ie if I live on the 1st floor I'm upstairs! (Downstairs being the ground floor.) I think I know most of the UK/US differences, but wouldn't always remember in the moment :-(
Do you know you hit a point with Hurricane Katrina that I was going to write a post on. It's to do with what makes people finally stop. Addicts hate having decisions taken out of their hands. Which seems to me why prison never got anyone clean who I know. But the final very last straw in a lot of people's addiction very often is an outside event that as an addict you use to your advantage to get the hell out of a situation that has gone on far far too long and you just want to be free of. I'm thinking of 2 other examples from drug memoirs. I used a heroin drought. You used a hurricane. Others have used other events. It just shows how you can be more willing than you ever knew when circumstances conspire to help you, however much damage or devastation they've caused elsewhere...
Hey Gled, read your comment on my blog, cheers mate. Over 10 days w/o heroine right? So it can be done afterall. I'm proud of you for that. I'm glad you skipped the Bailey's. I hate that stuff. Yuck.
Be good mate!
Yeah it's something like 11 or 12 days. Weird actually that I never counted but it's meaningless to me as I said "just for today" and one day at a time. Then COUNTING all these todays. I never quite got that one and it seems almost hypocritical now. Saying a day is no big deal, then making the biggest deal out of numbering days, because they give out keyrings. The only one I've had is white "just for today"; there's also 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and a year clean. There's one year 2 years and so on... Can you imagine ME ever gtting one of those..!!
Did you ever think you'd get a message from me talking about being Off Heroin that wasn't complete lies> i didn't. In fact I'm sure I'm lying or even more whackocracko than I thought I was..!
I've gotta go Vince. I've got some mysterious Turko-Greek bread with cheese in the middle. + I never slept last night and I need my hummus dips for my sanity.
Have a good read of the past 2 weeks if you want to know the ins and outs of a nutnut pinging off the rails haar haar.
I'm orf now ;->...
This was an interesting post, Gleds. I suppose methadone works differently on different people, like every other drug.
Hang in there,
SB
Your methadone is green ours is pink. You just go to the pharmacy(chemist) we go to a methadone clinic.
I would get high on my methadone if I mixed Fenegren an anti nausea pill and Xanax, Valium, Clonazepam. Either one of those three in a mildly high dosage.
I'll blog about my meds today. Thanks for the comments. They always cheer me up. Lots of love to you. Hope your holidays are better than mine.
Btw, you brits have a totally different idea of pudding than us American.
Congratulations, my very dear friend! It sounds like you are doing well in spite of all of the side affects.
I know about methadone. A few years ago I assisted a friend in going from Crack to methadone. She had also been doing Speed, so the methadone had a lot replace. To yhe best of my knowledge, she hasn't returned to either crack or speed, so the methadone must have worked.
You remain in my thoughts and prayers. I'll check back again more regularly.
Many blessings, much hope, peace, love, and joy of the season to you!
That title had me worried I thought you must have been sampling some new cocktail! Are you able to get stuck into a good book when you wake at 1am?- hours disappear quickly when you can get lost in a story ... or your eyes get tired (like mine) and you fall asleep with the book collapsed across your face ;)
Keep shuffling forward*!*
Hi:) i'm from crappy norfolk. We't bin in drought for as long as u. But i thought xmas had come early two wks bk yo we got gr8 stuff everyday all but 80 quid a g! Eek. But now my guy z its gonna go wel dry agen. Y? How? V wel one to u gled:) now v scared about xmas. I'm on phystone tab but not enough:( xx
SB: yeah. I would love to know why precisely that is. I heard people have different opiate tolerances bc we all have a blockading compound in different quantities. Some people's bodies are literally destroying the morphine/etc as it is taken!
Anna: thanks for the meds post. American drs sound crazier by the day. Either sadists at one extreme (ie they work in detox) or glorified drug dealers on the other!!
Pudding means 2 things here.
1. desert in general
2. xmas pudding, sponge etc are cooked in water in a bowl (too complicated for me) but what I do know is you eat 'em covered in custard (or vanilla ice cream: yumyumyumyumyum!!)
Nick: thanks. I never quite understood methadone for crack. That's almost like giving heroin for crack. Which is strangely how a lot of addicts self-medicate!
Bimbimbie: I was going to put "no" before heroin but thought that would sound really boring. I can't believe I'm crazy enough not to take heroin. That's how I knew I was off my rocker. Not taking heroin is truly barking mad. I think the craziest thing of all was trying it in hte 1st place, it has to be said...
Noroflk: I know Norwich. The decent gear there was always slightly better than the best London usually had. But much smaller, it has to be said. Also it tended to be a certain light beige shade, I came to associate with Norwich. A hit never looked dark brown, kind of warm orangey if I remember right... this making any sense? On foil it didn't look as dark as London gear either. We got one lot that was really really nice. The dealer knew this and the next day it was the "same" but mysteriously weaker. I wonder how that happened!
Well the drought it STILL meant to be raging in London. I've not bothered for 12 days bc I have had enough now. I know not everyone has. I have a friend who smokes it. He just can't be bothered either. I think smoking leaves some of the weird stuff behind on the foil as the effect it had on him seemed to be totally different to what it did to me injecting. "Weak" it was not. Weird, yes. I'm not that into memory loss (strangely!!)
I hope it all gets better for you. I know how miserable Xmas is without strong drugs. Un-do-able, innit!
ps I heard (by reading the EDP online) that Norwich is full of London dealers now, does that mean the £10 a point prices have come down?... I bet not! £80 a g is what it cost a few years ago. It used to cost that in London up till the mid 90s. I got into it just after the prices came down, but basically it was £10 a point here too
So Mrs F says - "Can you go up Tescos and get the Christmas food and stuff on Thursday?" Of course being I'm not working it is least I can do as she runs from school play to governors socials etc.
"There is booze on the list you ok with that?" "I'll see how I am at the time" She still doesn't get a response like that, but given probably 2 years ago I would have instantly said no things are moving on - Alcohol is for the moment a past in my life if Alcoholism is still very much in the present.
Anyway - I come back with the shopping - no pork pies and the wrong type of shortbread but overall a success. She pulls out the bottle of Baileys (her favourite). I said "That cost £15 - good job you only drink it at Christmas". She looks at me - "I only drink it at Christmas and it is only me in the family. Why did you get a 1 litre one, the smaller would have done." Ooops - I'd pick up the little one and thought "Well that isn't worth opening" So dug about for the big bottle at the back...
moral of the story.... don't send an alcoholic to buy the booze for Christmas ! LOL!
Urgh. Baileys.
I did buy a bottle a day 2 days in a row. It was cheapie Irish Mist or Meadows or whatever it's called.
Nonalcoholic Baileys would be almost as good.
Come to think of it Yazoo chocolate milkshake is the best. And a cup of tea's not bad.
Did you ever get to the point of giving up nonalcoholic drink altogether? I keep forgetting normal people drink tea etc. At the food handout tea is ultra popular. Someone asked why and I hit the nail on the head even back then: this is the only place they ever drink tea! It's White Star, Super Skol and Special Brew the rest of the time.
Hi:) norfolk here. Stil in throes of drought,had phy.-pils put up as i share dem wit my otha half! Got a fez teeny's last wk-but at 90 i didn't mind an it was nice so s put up 3g for sat! Lol:) to be honest most gear comes from london... Norwich dry as nun's fanny but it always used to be gr8 in good old daze-mid nineties wen i started lol... I'm a tooter as luv to boot but haven't had a dig since birth of my first son 5 yrs bk, or touched w fiveir. But i luv gear. U doin so wel! wel done bk to eighty a g now :-( stil at least xmas smoke safe as my mum lookin afta it for me-she's v understanding lol keep writin luv luv luv this blog
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