Hopefully it's spacious enough to pack in an entire drawer full of used needles. Blunt. Used and reused. I'm so looking forward to clearing out this crap (not).
As anyone with experience of IV drugs knows, accidental needle-sticks, particularly sudden and violently inflicted ones in the fingertip hurt; reused blunted needles hurt the most. The tiny wounds are irritating and go on and on bleeding.
It's not fun living in a house full of used works. I've had them in my fingers my hands. I've sat on them. More than once I've ended up with a bent 1ml insulin works wobbling out the end of my big toe. Lovely business, innit.
Yesterday I spent hours doing many many things I had to do. I came back after 5pm utterly exhausted, collapsed in a blue velvet armchair (my landlord's good taste, for once!) and was unconscious, just the same as when I used to come back and have a lovely great gloopy hit on the Brown. See I always thought I didn't need Heroin to oversleep. And sleep I did. In this chair, all evening, all night. For hours and hours.
Waking up late this morning. Glugging back the very last of yesterday's methadone then running straight to the chemist for today's.
I always get the methadone collection out of the way as early as I possibly can. Running there in the evening, imagining I've missed closing time was never fun.
Now it's not even remotely funny as there's no substitute anywhere. I'd rather kill myself than take heroin again. Rather die now and get the misery over with. On Monday Paddywhack and I were discussing lovely suicide methods. I was far more flexible in potential methods, pointing out if you want to go it's worth a minute or so of pretty gruesome "discomfort" in order to get drowned, suffocated... whatever. I think Paddywhacks wants a luxury death. Is there even such a thing..?
And no, I'm not really suicidal. I just make really good dinner party conversation!!
OK so it wasn't a dinner party. It was two old junkies knocking back the alcohol in the gloom. We're all on the drink now.
Just before I trundled home replete with Chinese chicken curry mix vegetable fry rice (yummyyumyummmm!!) last night, I bumped into a guy who couldn't even tell me how he knew me. I knew him. He's been in a nasty accident and lost his memory and consequently a huge chunk of his life. His life was a life of severe heroin, crack and drink addiction. But still, he's lost it. He knows he's only half-back now...... anyway he said the same thing I, and lots of other old people, say. Those "big time" drug dealers have messed up their business more than they know, trying to up prices, imposing a drought. In doing so they've lost many of their longest-standing customers. People who were fed up anyway have finally become fed up enough to stop. People who couldn't trust drug dealers (and who can) lost the tiny bit of trust that remained.
These are people on methadone scripts who were using (sometimes heavily) on top. Now they are happier to spend far, far less on bottles and cans we at least know the content of (unlike the last 2 batches of dodgy heroin I and lots of others got).
I'm being careful not to speak for them. Speaking for myself: I never want to go back. Perhaps some of those others will bide their time and buy the odd bit of brown, if decent Brown ever returns. If it doesn't (and we have years of experience plus a reliable level of methadone to judge against so we're not easily impressed), I don't think these, their longest-standing customers will be flocking back any time soon.
I'm far too old to con myself that me, my actions or attitudes might sway the behaviour of my old friends. But I hope for their sake they keep hold of the tiredness and jadedness and nausea and plain disgust and keep walking. Walking, trudging, stumbling. In the right direction. Away. And towards freedom.I for one never want anything to do with that nasty drug Heroin ever again.
Never, ever again.
I'm having a bash at answering my multitudinous piles of unanswered emails later on. Wish me luck, please. And please don't be offended if one of those emails if yours. As I say me+email=really crap. Can't explain why but I'm crap at them. Akh. SORRY everyone.
PS WHY did no-one tell me the X-Factor was over? I gazed vaguely at enough of it last Saturday night to see this. REBECCA FERGUSON performing BEAUTIFUL with CHRISTINA AGUILERA. Rebecca only came 2nd against some nobody. With 38% against his 44%. I found this out days later in The Sun newspaper. She's way better than Leona Lewis. And isn't she sweet. Why didn't she win?
And I must point out Rebecca's voice is tired here. If she sounds this good horase imagine how good she sounds normal. Aretha-like. I will post her best up if/when I can find it
Bloody things!
ReplyDeleteBe careful filling that sharps bin Gleds.
ReplyDeleteIts v inspiring to hear you say you'll never touch the stuff again. This drought really was a blessing.
ReplyDeleteI can picture you flat full of used works poking you every where. I've had the same problem in the past. Here the needle exchange only gives you a small red box for used works, they except empty laundry detergent bottles with works in them.
Nice dinner conversation. You and I'd be bells of the ball.
It's sitting on the chest of drawers looking like a yellow tower block. Taller than the one pictured, but narrower. I don't want to look at a syringe, much less handle one. But I spose it has to be done :-(
ReplyDeleteAnna: your comment overlapped the last reply so it looks like I'm ignoring you when; I'm not
ReplyDeleteyep I got sick to death of HeroinHeroinHeroin. Aversion therapy. Worked on me!!
Someone rang me today. Witheld number. I didn't dare answer. One of the dealers used to do that. One in particular. Who I don't want to see
I like that you don't want heroin. And glad that you are getting rid of the needles.
ReplyDeleteI have a funny story about a sharps box...
ReplyDeleteMy good friend Sophia had an abssess on her foot the size of a golf ball when she finally showed up at the hospital. She used a fake social security number, and they thought she had insurance when they admitted her. So she ends up in a cushy private room before they realize the extent of her insanity and fucking dope habit. They, of couse, are not giving her enough medicine to stave off withdrawl. Her abssess is draining, but its really, really infected. She is insane because they keep giving her meat, and she is a vegetarian. She is throwing food at the nurses, and screaming as her insanity and dope sickness begin to take over. She calls the strip club (where I am working...) over and over that night. She is screeching and begging for dope. When I get off work, I take a loaded needle up to her in the hospital. When I get there, the room has lettuce all over the floor, and she is agonizing in severe pain. Her pupils are huge, and her eyes are wild with insanity and the Sickness. I give her the syringe, as she unhooks herself from the IV. She goes into the bathroom, puts the point right into the port the doctor created for her IV...and bangs it. She comes out of the bathroom as her old self. We start to chat, and I give her the book I brought. Giggling, she goes and pulls the sharps box off the wall, and she starts digging through it, inspecting all the different types of needles in there. She even stashes a few in the drawer. (I guess she thought she could bleach them and keep them?) As she is sitting on the bed, with her hand in the sharps box resting between her legs, the door opens and a large, black, male nurse enters. He freaks out, panicking..."Oh, no, miss, don't put your hand in there." She quickly makes up some line about her ring falling in there. (Yeah, okay...) They tell me I need to leave, and I am escorted out of the building, with my heart punding because of course I am carrying tonight and tomorrow mornings bags on me. They were on her after that...And no one else dared take her dope after that, so she spent the next three days screeching and throwing food at the nurses while they drained her abcess...
Get rid of the fucking needles already, Gled. Don't make those old used motherfuckers your security blanket! (Although, I do understand....)
Thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteMay I say first I hope you get your book published. Don't leave that one out.
I know what you mean about a security blanket. I have at least 1 still sheathed. I will keeep that out of self-respect. Knowing what I would do without one... I will keep it. Then NO EXCUSES re picking up sour needles from the street//etc. You know how it goes.
As far as the towerblock full of idiot old needles goes: the box illustrated probably holds the same number. I've had boxes that size before and filled several (bear in mind in Britain needle exchanges are state-sponsored everywhere. Ask for 200 clean works and you get them. I usually got 60 to 120 at a time.)
I'm just getting rid. My only reservation now is not wanting to see, think about or have anything to do with IV drugs. I caught sight of my foot the other day and thought "I never have to inject there again"... I walked past the needle exchange and thought "I never have to pick up new works ever again" and it felt far more than anything else like a release.
People are meant to mourn the life they had. I did when I was in treatment or on programs before. Now I don't. I don't miss anything. Don't want anything back.
And I don't need drugs to be crazy. Simple as. Don't need heroin for anything it ever did. I always overslept. I had all manner of troubles. Heroin only made them worse.
I don't understand why I just can't face throwing mine away.. I think it's that 'well I might need one one day and I won't have any new ones'
ReplyDeletePretty gross really.. since this drought i've been through it all like ten times, looking for filters, my filters have been washed out at least ten times now, its psychosomatic.. or just plain psycho I don't know..THATS why I cant throw anything away... it is like a safety blanket..however the fuck used smack syringes can be a safety blanket..
I used to be expert at retrieving dregs from anywhere dregs can accumulate. Some of the methodds are pretty gross, involving injecting my own blood, which isn't exactly advisable.
ReplyDeleteThat is the only way I got a truly nasty dirty hit, by banging up a scabby filter. I mean literally scabbed with blood. It made me ILL.
That is ONE MORE THING that annoys me about the clinic. They have no conception what craving actually means. That leave it 5 mins and it passes works with nicotine, not heroin. Counting to 100 probably works with crack. When I craved heroin I craved it constantly, all day, every second of the day to a greater or lesser extent. It was the ONLY thing that made me feel OK. Fucking stuff.
The only good thing about the drought for me was it put me right OFF. And I am seriously pissed off with dealers who cannot even orchestrate decent gear to LONDON of all places. And the crap they thought they could get away with shoving into it! They have truly proven they don't know their arse from their elbow.