Back to NA

IT'S NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS TONIGHT. NA hold meetings every night and every daytime and as far as I know most mornings in London, but tonight is one of my favourite ones, so I'm going.

I'm thinking of just telling them how I feel about being (as I see it) misunderstood. Then, if I am misunderstood I'm sure somebody will feed something back to me. But if I was understood all along I'll find out that too, so it's win-win.

I have no word to "yell in their face" as I so delicately put it; and more than once, if I remember right... If I were that wound up then I would yell it too, but I'm striving to avoid over-confrontational behaviour, even if I'm merely confronting the Group rather than a person in it... If I had an issue with one specific person then I wouldn't share that to the group, I'd tell that person alone.

What I will tell them is that I'm going to a dual diagnosis group and that I feel better understood there because the dual group accept that I walk in every week hyped up to a greater or lesser extent and the specific culprit drugs that tend to make hyper (cocaine and amphetamines) are ABSENT from my wee-tests. (I love the word "wee"; it reminds me of being four and saying "a wee and a poo"!)

I will have to tone myself down if I do feel amped up and I have felt amped up for most of today. I don't want a repeat of the time when I was raging angry and sent a very tangable jolt round the circle. A jolt of bad-feeling. The woman next to me, who is an itsy-ditsy-smiley-happy former pot-addict nearly jumped out of her skin and I only wish I could find her again to say I'm sorry. (As an ice-breaker.) There's another NA member who gave a fantastic chair (which means a 20-minute potted history of your using and how you got out and stayed out of the chaos everyone comes to NA to crawl out of)... I went and made a mess of the meeting my very obviously hefting up my loud rustly carrier bag full of stuff just as he was cruising towards the finish line.

I wasn't trying to communicate anything to anyone, but that's how it must have looked and I feel guilty because he looked at me a few times as he made his points and I just want to say I'm sorry ~ again as an icebreaker. I don't feel ridden by guilt and I don't feel he's desperately pissed off with me, but if I could speak to either of these two again I think they're both fascinating people to be friends with. Both are brimming over with their own distinct spirits. I suppose I feel bad for having given out bad vibes that it's obvious both have felt and I don't want to go around emanating nuclear radiation. I want to radiate Serenity, and charm. If I am charming now it's very much by accident. I feel most people pick up the vibe of precisely how I am, even though they sometimes misinterpret it. If it's "drugs" it's a distinct lack of, rather than a presence they're picking up on!

It's obvious to me that I'm nearing the end of an over-long story drugs-wise. Because as I said earlier, if I'd done gear at any other time after a break I'd probably have gone on using it until I was penniless and then had to stop (because I wouldn't go out and graft up money these days). I'd use the days without drugs to reset my priorities, then by the time I got paid again I had willpower not to use. This only happened on one occasion, some time in January. I went through four phases with heroin.
Phase one: I only used what money I could "afford" ~ usually £10 a day, though I still got into trouble, running up debts. When the shit finally hit the fan I went hurtling into phase two, where I begged up as much as I possibly could every single day of the week most weeks. I never took a day off at weekends when I already had money. I made as much as I could when I could, and nearly all this money went on heroin, not crack. Crack was only ever a minor part of my using, apart from one binge I indulged in for several weeks. I considered myself addicted because the small amount I did use was very important to me. Eventually I reduced to one day a week and from that to "nothing" ~ I probably lapsed on crack about eight times since giving it up "for good" for new year 2009. And I'm well aware how pathetic "eight times" sounds in conjunction with "gave up for good". I had my last ever toke on the crack pipe in early December 2010. I couldn't go near crack now. Considering how high I get without it, I'd go so far out of the stratosphere on it, I doubt I'd ever come back!Stage three was me as a "giro junkie"; this is an addict who only uses money paid by the state for sickness or unemployment. The final phase is now: no heroin at all bar a couple of lapses, which were me being depressed enough not to care any more. I only crave gear when I'm very low and down in mood or a methadone dose is overdue. If I can manage not to get depressed like that again, I cannot see why I'd turn to heroin. It never did much except salve my pain.

In the fifth and final stage I'll finally have kicked methadone. And I will never have anything more to do with Drugs ever again.


God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the Courage to change the things I can ~
and the Wisdom to know the difference.


Illustrated: apron representing 15 years clean and serene (other items of clothing, including underwear, are available) I wish I could wear something representing some vast number of years clean and sober and for it to be true. But the truth of that matter is down to me ...