I'M HAVING AN EXTREMEMLY LAZY DAY TODAY... even lazier than usual, so that's extreme! I could barely be bothered to take the cap off my methadone just now. Cooked food. Didn't want to bother fishing it out. Lazy lazy lazy.
Hey I slept 8 or 9 hours last night, so that's good (is it good?) I'm listening to Papua New Guinea below, wow. I like all the cool fresh air in the video. Switzerland! That's where the air is truly "Alpine".Do you know I thought back to my old dealer, from a few years ago when gear prices were low (£13,000 a kg supposedly; last year it was £20,000 at the beginning; £40,000 at the end ~ hence this "drought". And I'm using figures from BBC News.
So it just goes to show we all knew what was behind this Heroin Drought, a price hike due to lower availability.
Heroin takes at least a year to get from Afghanistan to London. I got that direct from the horse's mouth (so to speak) ~ Rebsie my friend used to serve up in the 80s and early 90s. She picked up from the Turks, who knew very well what was going on. She hasn't sold heroin in years (it's mostly black kids nowadays).
... anyway I thought back to my old dealer and actually wanted to score. I thought Gledwood how can you be this indulgent. Heroin is evil! Actually at the time I thought it would be quite nice. And what I really thought was "but I don't do gear any more". Much easier to think that way. "Just for today" and all that.
People sometimes describe heroin as like a lover, like a relationship, which in a way it is. But I never felt lost without any of my exes. To me it's more like being a small child. Being without heroin is like losing your Mummy. They often say the feeling of smack is "amniotic". A peaceful state, like before birth. No worries in the world.
And you wonder why heroin addicts can be a bit immature!
NA like to say or imply that you cannot grow at all emotionally when you're addicted to drugs. I don't think this is true. It's a partial truth. You grow less. And where does "drugs" stop at? Cigarette addiction?
I don't agree with everything NA say. That no addict can resist any drug is patently nonsense. If I found a strip of LSD I could resist it quite easily! Yes I like acid imagery, yes I have acid-memories. Yes I also DO NOT WANT IT EVER AGAIN.
None of the drugs I used to take at some time are temptations to me. Ecstasy I had 5.5 of when I got chucked out of my old house. I was ragingly addicted to heroin and didn't WANT to do E on the street! Or in my old room, which was like a full-on opium den by the end. So no I do not automatically want to take any intoxicating substance, and resent the idea being slipped into my head that this is what I would do if I relapsed.
Also the idea that if you take one sleeper you might as well go back to gear and crack because you've relapsed, I do not endorse. I'm speaking of a specific person I knew who did just that. He felt by taking one zopiclone (of all things!) he had lost all the years of sobriety he had built up. For this reason I'm not into day-counting. Just for today, yes. Counting days: No Way!
I still go back to NA, because as I said yesterday they do what they do and what they do keeps them clean. You don't chuck out a baby with the bathwater.
So these are my feelings on NA.
I will keep coming back because I want what they have. They have a Serenity I don't. They also have Recovery which means steering away from drugs and becoming a rounded person again. [On heroin I was a mere shadow of who I could be; I see that now.]
Here's the Narcotics Anonymous Serenity Prayer
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.
Thanks Jess for reminding me.
I miss the serenity prayer when I bolt out to avoid the Group Hug (then I come back in).
Anna Grace I'm sending the story Mid-Pacific Serenity to you. I'm sending it to you because it's about Hawaii and it's about drugs and it's about somebody who one day realizes: "It's over, you never have to use again." It also contains the immortal line: "Skid row is in the mind." You don't need to have used Everest-sized amounts or sunk lower than anybody else ever has to want to sort yourself out. You can drop drugs "Just for today" and try it from there and see
the link should take you directly there, but if it doesn't:~~~~~~~
look on page 128, it's the second full-length story (ie the 3rd article down) under Beginnings
THE ORB: LITTLE FLUFFY CLOUDS (DANNY TENGALIA MIX)
some beautiful scenery in this ...
FUTURE SOUND OF LONON: PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Lizzy I found the video!
i like the style of psychedelic montage here
cool, fesh air, reminds me of Switzerland, where I wanna live (one day)
on the back of that i found...
MICROSOFT'S VISION OF THE FUTURE!
14 comments:
Keep strong. x
Cheers, dear! x
thank u for the fluffy clouds,an all time favorite...mmmm lazy eh?i used yesterday for the first time in months(it was gear!) and i feel so shit today.but i don't feel like using again so thats good...this too shall pass xxx annie.
you are sooo right about day counting. I look at it as "I used to used 14 days a fortnight and now its just once". Otherwise you just feel so let down by yourself and think "why try, I'm back at square one"
What a load of bullshit that theory is. Since I've dropped that method I've gone from a raging habit to a dabble once every couple of months. Nearly there! this drought has been a bit of a godsend really...although I wasn't of that conviction when it started haha quite the opposite!
are you from london gleds? or did you grow up somewhere else? just wondering what accent you've got? I like to read blogs in the writers accent. I'm an accent/dialect fiend ha!
sienna x
There likely are some people who must want any escape and will take anything and everything. I think in your case, you are really self-medicating and searching always to find the whole you and heroin came closest for you. It could be a different mindset.
I have a friend who is an alcoholic but will only drink beer. Even if she's got none and there's a bottle of vodka, she won't touch it.
There are generalizations that always have their exceptions.
Sounding a little more optimistic today Gleds. I'm glad you're keeping up the NA, it's got to help in some small way. Sorry I'm late visiting, way too hot to be sitting in front of the PC at night this week. Chin up, you can do it with a little support. Good to see you supporting others as well. There's value in friends.
Great post!
hi gledwood,you are sounding good!hope you feel good?love reading your blog and all the great stuff down the sidebar.that doorbell drives me mad though!altho i guess its reassuring knowing im not the only one on here at ridiculous times of day/night!theres often others viewing at 5/6am like myself!maybe its just the time difference and its sensible oclock where they are?anyway take care ,you dound really positive just now.im gonna try to get my meth increased as im so sick of being at the mercy of these idiots.my problem is im on daily supervised so cant even split my dose so have to score first or drag myself to chemist feeling like shit.drug services here still in dark ages,posters in waitin room state "treatment is changing.abstinence is the aim.we aim to have you in and out of treatment in 16 weeks".gleds can i ask ?do u know if a gp can refer me to a drug clinic in a different area?somewhere more enlightened?used to travel to next county then all changed,so many changes just now ,just wondered if u know if thats possible now?sorry to go on so long.have a good day!
I kind of understand some of this. As you know, my house burned down almost 18 months ago from a candle getting knocked over. Everything that I had known for 12 years was gone in 12 minutes. I could have died. I spent the next 18 months trying to find peace.
I am still searching. I can't handle chemicals so alcohol and anything "chemically" have been out, but it has been through my art, writing, reading, and going to performances that is bringing me back to that state of relative sanity. I used to read you every day and I come after so long to see you talking about reaching for a certain state and I am like, "This is what I have been searching for!"
It is no small accident that I came back to see you today.
Annie: I always felt if you can not use you might as well not do it.
Way I see it I'm paying some bastard to be happy. I'd rather not pay and know it's at least what I feel rather than some drug. And it feels weird just to say that considering how deep I got into heroin.
On the other hand I cannot understand how I ever became a junkie it seems ridiculous who ME!!!
Hey did you manage to do all day? I used to find it relatively easy to do half a day but all day felt like all year!
Anon: I went to NA tonight I just don't have the attention span to really focus on it the way I want to.
I wish I could video the meetings and watch back twice, that would be way easier. Yeah there's a few things I find difficult about NA but they're the only place I've ever seen where addicts go genuinely clean with no excuses and I thought a no excuses place was for me, the Master of Excuses.
A number of days is something I used to get really hung up on. When I had no intention of stopping but lack of money forced me to (and I wasn't into going out begging any more) then it was just misery the whole time. Once I realized I'd been handed an opportunity on a plate because good gear just wasn't there I found it relatively easy (I was very distracted by my own mood swings that got so extreme I just wasn't on planet earth any more, so gear was the last of my worries).
I'm sure there is some magic way of detoxing or some magic treatment. I don't see that anyone should suffer at all, bar the suffering of repairing a broken life.
Physical withdrawals can be banished. Those people in Govt Drug Clinics just don't want to. I asked for anaesthetic detox and was told too expensive. Then I looked at prices and saw it's actually cheaper than a long rehab!
Sienna: ok my accent is a mixture of london non-posh (not proper cockney) with bits of posh and bits of blackney or Jafaican/whatever you wanna call it, mixed in
Jeannie: you make a good point. I always thought "self medicating" sounded like an A1 excuse (but no other medication than methadone was ever offered)... now it seems far more true than I ever wanted to admit.
Baino: too hot!! Wow. Your garden look amazing by the way. I hope there's no funnel webs there!!
NA are way better than nothing (at worst) and excellent (at best) so I'm sticking with them. NA seems to work well for those with genuine willingness
Taffeta: thanks!
Lynn: sorry GPs I know nothing about. The supervised dose is ridiculous. To me a way of ensuring people stay on methadone for ages because they cannot cut themselves and making it plain difficult to cut dosage. You shouldn't feel shit in the morning on a proper dose.
Then again they're asking you not to do gear. You want to feel OK. The supervised dose gives no control... Not good.
I wish I could help but I honestly don't know. Take care
Tea N Crumpet: I try hard not to go down the self-pitying route even though it might just sound like a platitude if I said that on certain days ... that manner and tone that makes people think you're saying "my life is the worst ever, nobody has suffered as I suffer"
My life hasn't been anywhere near as terrible as it could have been and there are lots of bad things that have not happened to me.
Really we're both in places where we can count our blessings. No matter how much that might hurt.
I hope you find what you need soon. If you can name what you're looking for I think you're closer to finding it. I know that might sound hollow but you don't strike me as someone who might waste too much time thinking not doing.
Take care :-)
I am glad that you want what NA has. It is a chance to get your life back on track. I am really hopeful that you will feel that serenity. It is possible.
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