Functional Junkie: Revisited

In my post preceding this post called functional junkie, I gave my perspective and opinion as to whether or not a junkie can ever 'really' function while using. I thought I would come and re-write my perspective. It's been a while since I read that post, and I want to put out my thoughts in this secondary post so that I can compare the two and see if there are any similarities or differences in my opinion. 

I do not believe that it is possible to function normally on heroin, ever. Granted, I can only speak from the perspective of a heroin user who's first time included a needle. Having said that, I do not know how different it would have been for me had I snorted or smoked it before ever IV'ing. That is simply a viewpoint I will never have. 

I do believe that when I took pain pills I cold function in everyday life. Meaning I could hold a job, make appointments on time, and was able to accept and fulfill obligations during my pill popping days. So as far as my day to day activity I could operate. However, it was when the dope sickness began to set in, the bank account began to run low, the dealers were all unreachable, or the timing was so that my children would not be any school anymore and I had yet to score for the day. Those situations which were a direct result of my drug abuse, effected my day to day life. It stunted my ability to cope and function.

 To put it simply, I'd be impaired to do anything except score my pills until I scored them. Nothing preceded that. No obligation, job, phone call, appointment, meal needing cooked would come before my fix. Once I bought my pills and the effect started to kick in, life could resume. I did not however like to face any stressful situations that I may have caused due to my obsession with scoring. In most cases I would blatantly avoid any confrontation. Yet another way that the dope (pills) effected my normal functioning. 

 An individual might start out with an ability to function relatively normally from day to day. As a habit worsens, the inevitable happens, and daily life starts to spiral out of control. In my opinion, it IS possible for some people to somewhat function for a short amount of time, but I believe that it is impossible to maintain a healthy lifestyle until one is clean and sober. 

As drug addicts we know that most of who we are and what we do during those treacherous years of drug abuse is a fabricated lie that usually is posed to cover up another fabricated lie. Who are we kidding? The lifestyle of a drug addict boils down to nothing but a facade.  

Little Magic Pill

I found myself asking the questions that I have asked for years, how do people quit?  What is the key? Is there a little magic pill?

Finally a new answer came to light in my perplexed and overwhelmed dope fried brain. 3%. 5%. Less than 10%. These are figures in the past decade representing the people who have successfully kicked their heroin habit. The answer to my question was this: there is no magic pill! No one recovers. Well, 3%-10% recover, and to me that is about as close to no one as a statistic can get. If there was a way, I think it would be published. In fact, Methadone and now Suboxone are posing as what I believe to be answers to these questions. Since the recovery rate is so low, these medications have been developed as the next thing to try. Yes, the addict is still dependent on an opiate (a synthetic opiate if we are referring to Suboxone) but the needle has been put down and heroin is no longer the addiction to deal with.

Does this mean that  Suboxone using ex-heroin addicts are included in the recovery statistic, or in the 'still using' statistic.

My battle/ love affair with opiates has lasted well over a decade at this point.  Long enough to experience the ups and downs of the addiction many times over. Yesterday I read a blog post written by an ex-junkie who claimed that if an addict does not ever gets sober it is because they want to be an addict.  OUCH. That one stung, probably more so than most because it came from an ex-junkie. I immediately jumped on the defensive and thought to myself, "He must be too far removed from using--he forgets where he came from." I didn't even want to read what he said. 

I am glad that I changed my mind and read his post. Although I still hold to my initial judgement that he is far removed from active addiction, I believe his post holds merit. Whether I like his opinion or not, he is in a stage of life that every ex-junkie will hopefully make it to. 10 years clean. To a degree, I agree. Each individual must WANT to live a clean life. I do not however agree that junkies who never recover stay junkies because they want to. 

There is just so so much more involved in recovery. 

While there is yet to be a 'little magic pill', there are indeed recovered heroin addicts to model that recovery IS possible. I know that through my journey I plan to be in the 3%-5% of recovered heroin users. In documenting my journey there may be bits and pieces of a 'magic pill' that someone else can benefit from.  

If anyone stumbles upon a successful magic pill for heroin addicts...please do share. ;)

~J

This and That WTF?! The Sobriety Trap

WTF stands the choice phrase I use for almost any and everything. Cuz most of the time I just don't fucking get it. I feel like such an odd one out most places. I can't tell you how many hours a day I spend wondering why the fuck I was made an oddball, and a heroin addict. With a fucking IQ of a hundred zillion. I mean.... WTF???! 


One of the most exhausting aspects of the 'sobriety trap' (as I painfully mock it) is the perpetual back and forth between sober days and using days. Lying to myself as I carefully prepare my needle just so. I confidently tell myself, this will be the last time. I know that I can wean down after this shot...and the withdrawals won't be so bad.  Too bad this goal planning  was birthed after my most recent bump...less than five minutes ago.  Now through my optimistic, opiate induced haze, I am ready to rock the world!

When memory serves only as a precursor for the positive aspects of a truly negative situation              when you know that you will most likely be enduring the agonizing sickness sitting before you at the very moment. My brain feels tangled up in a fat, tight, wadded mess.  


Do I not understand what a 3% success recovery rate is? In my mind, as much hard guilt and shame I pile onto my conscious, I think I still hold out hope that good overcomes. That I can overcome anything, against all obstacles.The childlike faith -that- convinced me I could dive straight into the living room carpet using all of my body strength. I fantasied until I believed that carpet would be a big, dark ocean filled with mermaids and dolphins frolicking about.  I mean, this isn't a joke. I was the type of child who lived by blind faith that good would overcome. Believing it is seeing it. If you build it, it will come. Enough with the cliches.,.,..

As I ask myself weeks after weeks into years, what's the secret? What do people do to get through this?  They don't. People die from this because it is such a fucking nightmare. 97% of humans who try the shit will DIE from it.This includes IV, smokers, and 'monkey water' users.


This is the all over the place blog, that I will most def have to go back and sort through before I make it public. I am on the first day of shitty withdrawals. Voluntarily and wanting cold turkey, this is the route I have chosen to take. I'd say this is around the 20th time I started the withdrawal process in the last three years since I started using heroin. Prior to that I rode this same merry go round with vicodin, lortabs, and hydrocodone. A minimum of 50 times is what I would guess as the number of times I started withdrawal process during that decade.  I am referring to a life that was no joke, and still isn't. I am very familiar with how horrendous the withdrawals are. I know now something that I didn't know the first time started to go into withdrawals.   

Does it really matter?

I find myself curious the longer I avoid posting on my blog, as to whether or not my readers know what's up. It is kind of a useless thought, with the exception that it reminds me that it's never too late to write another post. I mean.....pretty simple decision; right?

I came to my own conclusion that if I regularly followed a blog like mine, and the blogger went MIA, I would certainly want to hear from them again, Regardless of the reason of absence, all of my days published or not, are what make up my life. 

I would like to take this next paragraph to invite comments and opinions. My absence from updating Blogger has been due to both positive and negative actions. The Suboxone taper...wow.... I did write most of those days, and knowing I have to read them again in order to type them up does NOT sound fun. Fear keeps me at bay. Fear keeps me hidden. So many days of the last 2 months I have given up all hope.

YET....

Here I am. I know there is still a shred of hope that flickers deep inside somewhere.  It lays dormant in that same place where the fearless, ambitious, hopeful girl used to dwell.  I hardly remember her, but I think about her a lot ore lately. 

My friends, my readers, fellow suffering addicts, do I lay out the last two months and all the ups and downs? My recovery is not dead until I decide it is. I want to keep fighting. Option 2 is not to blog anymore. I will not write this story if I do not hold my writing to a standard of truth. Option 3 is start over a fresh new blog where no one knows whats been going on. 

I have purposefully isolated and pushed away from all those near and dear to me. I have mentioned before, I write under an alias, but the stories and entries are real. I actually have allowed a few people I know have access to this blog. That also makes it harder to write.

I do want to. I want to push past the fear.

Please any feedback and advice welcome.

~J'Elle

Detox, New Friends, & Hope

Hey there Opiate Trap friends! Please check out my other blog @ http://suboxonestopping.blogspot.com.


I have been working hard on my Suboxone stopping and hope it reaches someone who might be in the same spot as me.

Thanks for every one's support, emails, messages, comments and for subscribing! It means more than you know. Both the encouragement and those of you trying to reclaim your lives.

I read so much on addiction and recovery and off the top of my head I come across maybe 25% that actually properly depict what it means to be an addict. Knowledge from scientific facts are great, but behind all those facts and statistics are real life hurting humans. We all have a story and we all deserve a chance! I love seeing the bond forming online between addicts helping addicts, family of addicts, and professionals!

We can't save everyone, but we can help someone!  One life doesn't seem like much, except when it's our own.

Also, any advice on how to merge the 2 blogs would be great! I do not want to lose any of my content or any of my new friends when I merge.

Thanks!

J'Elle

U Can Run but Ya Can't Hide!

Somewhere in the vicinity of 3am Tuesday morning and I find myself unable to sleep. Again. This time my insomnia is not brought on by annoying withdrawal symptoms, but by a mind that won't stop thinking. Plagued by thoughts of remorse that come along with the very thing I created for myself as an outlet for the stress and screeching voices hollering at me from inside the addicts mind. My blogs. Somewhere I have dropped the ball on reporting my progress (or lack there of), to a cyber world of readers that may or may not exist. 

My writing and enthusiasm developed into a rather consistent and productive outlet over the first month. The enthusiasm has not died, but my insides feel nauseated over the fact that I think I am not making enough progress. Am I a let down? As a day passed by and I ignored my online therapy I  allowed an onset of shame to plant seed in my soul. Each day that I did not write acted as the fertilizer that turned that shame seed into a weed infested guilt garden! My mind tells me that if I  mess up I mine as well give up.

If you struggle with addiction in way shape or form this concept will seem quite familiar. As I fight my insomnia I realize that 8 or 9 days does not a failure make!!! I mean, duh...right? The more I allowed my thoughts to unravel over the hours the more I realize that this is all still a part of who I am. A living breathing pattern of my addictive behaviors, and a very real part of my recovery. My goal is to not give up!

No matter how long I stay off the computer, or how many hours I sleep and want to ignore even the smallest set backs, my problems will not go away. 

SO, this is my attempt to grab hold of a new concept I will call- not running away from something so long that I make it irreparable by my own actions. Here on the early hours of day 50 of my road to recovery, I will not give up. I am still on the pills. A very low dose. A bit stagnant on the process. This last week has been different in my actions and in my thoughts. I have been journaling everyday, only on paper so that I could feed my silly fear of failure by logging onto google.

I am hoping this entry will help me to sleep a few hours. I plan to take my laptop to Starbucks and spend an hour or two going through emails, comments, etc and typing up my last week of journals. 

Until then... J'Elle

Heroin Won't Give Up- So We Can't Either (written in 2015)

Coming off of opiates for what seems like the ump-teenth million time is still MENTALLY as hard as the 1st attempt.  It's a tricky thing how it rapes you of any mental stability including good decision making. My thought is that the mental addiction parallels to the intensity of pleasure during our high, and our ability  to block out anything we don't wanna deal with.

The deeper our pain- the better the high - the worse our addiction.

 After my children were taken from me, I remember thinking why get up in the morning? What is the point of grocery shopping, cleaning, working, smiling, living? You get the point.It became easy to use cocaine again. I swore off trying heroin for 33 years of my life because I knew what vicodin, oxys, and other opiates did for me. My fear of crossing that line was because I knew that I was barely ok on the pills. Heroin did everything I imagined multiplied a thousand times!   My addiction quickly gave me the gift of 'eff it'. I was able to think about nothing else. (I wrote about my first experience with heroin in Shot in the Dark Right at My Throat post)

That was exactly what I wanted. I did not know how to even begin to face coping with the pain of my children being gone. So I bailed on life playing russian roulette with my entire existence. Russian Roulette with heroin doesn't last long before becoming an entirely different human being and that's if we are fortunate enough not to end up dead. Heroin will always win as long as we join in the game. Hell it wins with some of us who try to surrender! 

After stringing together some pretty crappy days resulting in a long list of self doubts and reasons I won't make it on the sober track, I finally get it. It's still part of the trap! All my negative thoughts and fear of failure. My inability to cope rationally with small things. Drugs are still trying to tighten the nuice around my neck. I can't let it. 

Hearing support and hope from addicts similar me helps. They prove to me it's possible to do what feels impossible.

I am not sure that my day today is any easier, but my brain knows these other addicts are proof that a good life is possible, and that helps me to hold on another day. 

I read an article about ex-junkies and what they had to say about Phillip Seymour Hoffman dying of an overdose after 23 years clean from heroin. It comes from this link if you wanna read it: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/37-quotes-heroin-users-addiction-and-struggle-stay-sober

I chose a few to share...

"When I first gave up heroin, I could never tell myself it was forever..."

"I live in real fear that I'll relapse..."

"No one sets out to be a heroin addict. It's not a lifestyle choice..."

"If you are an addict you are either using, clean or dead. There is nothing in between..."

"Every single time I relapse, my life spins out of control..."

"I wish people would understand that addiction is a symptom..."

"The 'War On Drugs' has been a dismal failure..."

"Once addicted, your life then becomes a dedication to your addiction..."

"The feeling is almost impossible to explain to someone who has never done an opiate..."

"Heroin encases you in a little cotton-wool house and nothing hurts anymore..."

"Sometimes I think I would like to shoot up water just to experience the whole ceremony surrounding the event..."

"Whenever I hear of a celebrity drug death, especially when it relates to smack (heroin), often the first thing that comes to mind is the hypocrisy which surrounds drugs and junkies..."

Each and every one of those statements stirred up things inside me. I understand all too well what they are thinking. The difference is that next to their names were lengths of sober time. It initially made me sad that after years of being clean the monster can poke...and then I realized what great insight that is. Tangible hope for us who are in early recovery, and those who want to recover. By speaking out they give purpose to their past... I think that is awesome!

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Ecclesiastes 1:9 NLT

I so happened to stumble on to that scripture today. Think about it, our stories may be unique- but I highly doubt my Higher Power is scratching his head wondering how he's gonna help me outta this one! My job is to not give up!

To quote a fellow addict's advice to me earlier today: Instead of giving the race up you need to just keep on putting one foot in front of the other. The rest will get sorted out.

Peace. J

The Missing Piece: Part 2

Continued from Part 1

The things I am going to write about are used in places like church at alter calls, and in government agencies such as the FBI. Merely tapping into strong emotions so to speak.

Now I am not saying my theory is the only way that people can permanently change. Everyone has a different background, a unique story. What I can vouch for is that after counseling with more than 12 therapists, more than 15 different doctors treating me for addiction, depression, anxiety, or symptoms related to, that this is the only rapid noticeable change I've experienced.

It's actually a pretty simple concept, and I will explain it the best I know how. Again, this is a theory I was taught-not medical advice!

Here is the simple version.

We will use me wanting to quit drugs as an example as the primary decision I'd like to change.

Step 1- I need to decide on a willpower level that I want to quit opiates and stay sober forever. Our willpower is essentially our motivation and decision to change something on a conscious level. 

Ex- I tell my doctor that I decided I want to be sober, and I will do whatever I can to accomplish and maintain that decision.

Sounds easy right?

Step 2: revise our willpower decision for loopholes. 

For instance, instead of 'I want' needs to be 'I will'. Another example is to eliminate the word 'try'.

Ex-I will work hard at real estate and earn 100k this year.

This guy ended up in prison 5 years. 

Loophole= I will work hard at Real Estate and LEGALLY earn 100k this year. (true example of a patient of Dr. D)


Step 3: We begin to practice driving our new decision into our unconscious. 

This can only be done in a state of high emotion! Anger, rage, sadness, etc. 

Ex: Any time I am in therapy and start to get choked up and upset talking about my traumatized and dysfunctional past, Dr. D will stop me. 

The 1st time I tried this was when I talked about my children and how what I've done has effected them, and how upset I was. I told him I wished I could tell them how sorry I was and that I wouldn't let them hurt anymore. He asked me how it would sound if I made that decision. 

It was very difficult for me to get that part out. I have conditioned myself to suppress tears and sadness. However, by the time I answered and he helped me revise this is what my decision looked like.

I have made the decision that no matter how I feel, no matter how much I want to be numb, I will remember how badly it will hurt you.I'll do anything and everything I can to be ok, but I will not use as long as I have you two. 

The doc asked me several times to repeat this. I was crying a bit and let me tell you, it was more difficult then it sounds.. for me at least. I have issues when it comes to facing hurtful things. Opiates and drugs are what I used to cope with some very tumultuous issues.  I am programmed on auto response to totally shut down emotionally when tears begin to brew. 

So far in my therapy the decision is the one I have done successfully. I am working on others and am able to make decisions on a willpower level but have not yet come into the high emotional state stage. I write down the things that I want to change in a small notebook that I carry with me. 

My decision' notebook (see link for details on how to start and use a decision notebook)

Step 4 is to begin identifying secondary decisions. These are things that backed up a life changing primary decision we make.

Let me recap for you:


Conception: we have good/positive thoughts in us

Birth: As we undergo the process of birth and throughout our lives, those thoughts change depending on our circumstances and experiences. What we decide about ourselves starts to change the course of our lives.

***As I stood in the mirror at 14, I started that new decision in a very high state of emotion! I audibly told my reflection that I'd show my Mom what worthless really was!

Willpower decision: Deciding you want something to change and saying it on a willpower level.

Writing down the willpower decision.

Find and change loopholes in our decision

Reciting the decision in a state of high emotion. Re-affirming as much as possible so as to drive the new decision into our unconscious.

Identify secondary decisions

I encourage you to give this a shot. It doesn't hurt anything. From where I am standing, I have changed more in the last few months than on 20 years combined. I have began to really forgive myself, I am making good decisions I never could arrive at before as opposed to the destructive ones. Something is different and I believe a large part of the reason for doing so is my practicing this.

This is not the only step to take to commit to sobriety. There are so many things for an addict to work on in order to maintain a stable and sober life. However, my doc started out 40 years ago surveying people on different things and using these ideas to arrive at this conclusion.  He refers it to destiny changing. and he himself is recovered and practices this still in all aspects of life.

I don't have any other advantage of sharing this aside from me wanting others to hopefully begin to find the missing piece that begins healing in your lives.

Feel free to comment or ask questions on the ideas. :)


Part 1 link: http://preventingrelapse.blogspot.com

The Missing Piece: Preventing Relapse Part 1

I have been on and off of drugs for over 1/3 of my life. My addictive behaviors started at 14 years old when I picked up my first cigarette. (at least to the best of my memory)

I am ashamed 21 years later to say that I stole 2 Marlboro lights out of a girl's purse in my 5th period choir class. I can still smell the tobacco stained cloth inside the little zipper that held my little vice in secrecy until I could get home.

As I stood in my bedroom hours later, staring into the white framed mirror above my dresser, I spoke words to myself through angry lips; hot and sticky from the crocodile tears that slowly dripped out of my eyes.

"You think I am worthless?! I'll SHOW you worthless!"

Choking & coughing up the very breath as it rejected the smoke filling my heavy lungs, I swiftly dipped the tip of my stolen cig into a half cup of water and watched the brightness turn ashy gray.  I re lit it in the steamy room where I ran a shower to mask the stench 2 hours later.

It took me 21 years to find a doctor that taught me that was one of the days where I changed my destiny. 

Quickly following that first smoke came my bulimia, high school lunches made of alcohol, pot smoking behind the tree between classes, and the beginning of my long journey through rehabs and shrinks. Good, memorable, and traumatizing experiences shaped me through the years as I battled pain, addiction, rejection, SELF rejection, shame, guilt, and a world swallowing me up in a sea of depression so deep that I knew by 25 years old I was implementing a slow painful suicide upon myself.

----BUT NOTHING HELPED----

In rehab you learn that in relapse not only do you pick up where you left off, you inevitably end up worse, and i was no exception to this rule. I in fact think I resemble quite the model poster child for a corrosive pattern of behavior.

What sucked me in deeper each time was the guilt. The incredible guilt induced the destruction and malevolence inflicted upon my mind. Daily. For what felt like forever. The shame of telling others I wanted to change and that I would be different after so many times of failure.


I did my time with counseling and different meds as well. Year after year eagerly approaching my issues and weaknesses with intensity, devotion, and optimism. Hearing time and time again how I must not have wanted to be sober enough!

I yearned for that missing piece. WHY do I always mess up? How do I allow myself to numb repeatedly in ways that harm myself extensively when I know better?

Knowledge.. I have it! Willingness, check! Medicine- yes. Support system...yes. Good Professionals, a few! Vulnerability and desire never lacked. Any normal person could pull their life together with these tools used conjointly.  Couldn't they?

Not me. Soon the vulnerability shut down, and the desire became shame.  Each relapse my addiction got worse. Hopelessness and loneliness lined the horizon of my miserable future.  I sunk into a hole so deep, I can still only deal with a small fraction of it.

The missing piece never showed up because I couldn't make it. I failed, and would always be a failure.

At the age of 35, I have learned this is not the truth. I have a doctor who has taught me about how we can put that final piece into a successful recovery.

See, when we are conceived we have thoughts ingrained into our consciousness. Thoughts such as I will be happy, I will love myself.

As we come into this world, those thoughts are often changed or transformed during times in which we are in high states of emotion. Fear, sadness, rage, anger, physical pain name a few.

Let me give you an example. I was conceived as a happy little being. My mother and father got a divorce when I was young. My mother expressed her pain in ways that effected me. She said things to me that eluded I'd be a worthless failure.  She told me regularly I was a 'f up', a worthless whore, and I'd never make anything of myself. I was an amazing kiddo at that time, but that soon changed.

The 1st chance that came available for me to rebel and prove to her how worthless I'd be was when I stole the two Marlboro Lights.

I spent 20+ years ingraining that thought and others into my brain so that I'd never be happy, and if I'd get close to happiness, I'd sabotage EVERYTHING and end up a failure. Please click on link to read part 2.

http://preventingrelapse2.blogspot.com

Vent Don't Use: Addicts Helping Addicts

I posted this on http://suboxonestopping.blogspot.com as well. It is important to me that one person who is hopeless and alone might benefit from seeing that they can reach out. It is worth the post if even one  person reaches out for help. I am only one person, and I lived through many nights where I was lucky to see the next morning. Seeing hope may have made a difference..? 


One of the things I dislike about myself is that when the going gets tough, I lose all motivation & stop doing the things I love. 
This was a hard weekend. I could barely bring myself to move let alone write... Boo Hoo right? 
 I will be the first to say I'll never change unless I CHANGE!

I mustered up the effort to post my feelings on an incredible recovery forum I've been a part of. My post for day 33 will simply be the content from that thread. 

Hope you enjoy!

ME: I am at the tail end of my Suboxone detox. Prolly only have a few days left.
I find on this Saturday night instead of leg cramps, depression and nausea, I'd prefer a needle or a pipe. No discrimination..I'll take whatever I can find. 

This is my attempt to start changing my dirty habits. 

I find that when I relapse it usually happens like this:

-have the thought of getting high
-obsess on it
-glorify it until I convince myself
-refuse to think of anything else except how to score until I do it

So, I know that in posting here I am forced to type it out which requires thinking about the millions of bad things instead of the one good thing. (the glorified 5 second good thing.)

For me, H has been the most difficult to put behind me. Thanks for letting mw vent. I think deep down I don't really want to.

Comment 1: No, DEEP down, You DON'T want to - it's just that crazy old mind song playing in the head again. But it's NOT you - can you see it play ? There's you watching it , hearing it, there's You and the old song playing- they're separate. Stay with the REAL you - find the quiet within, even for for a few seconds here and a few seconds there. Step out of the mind and find that quiet "space "within- rest there . Be at ease, breath.... It'll pass. Trust.

Comment 2: Type more than a couple paragraphs. Type out the whole story of your past using days. Do it in OneNote or somewhere if you don't want it online. You've got to remember how bad it really was instead of falling into the circular seeking behavior.

Comment 3:
Deep down you don't really want to


That's not you talking ........


Comment 4: I am glad you posted this. My thought process was pretty much the exact same, but I never actually wrote it out. It is great that you have identified it so you can do something about it. How do you plan to battle the cravings and to stop it before it gets to number 4 on your list?

Comment 5: How about interrupt it at #1 ? It is the thought of using which is the signal to intervene. What are you feeling just before those thoughts come ? Are you feeling overwhelmed by something in your current situation ? Are you feeling trapped in some way ? Or helpless? I read that addiction is only a symptom of an unlying feeling of powerlessness/trapped helplessness and for long-term soberity to stick, you need to identify the real issues driving the need to escape. Do you feel any of these emotions,friend ? If so, what can you change to lessen those feelings? What empowering action(s) can you take?


My Response: - I am really scared of screwing up again is at the root of it. Been 12 or more years without going a week clean.. I always get sober and relapse. Some minutes I feel great like I can do it this time, next minute I am like wtf why am I trying. 

I rented pay per per view and watched Netflix all night.. since I am sleeping little to none right now.. Stayed clean.


Comment 6: That's SO awesome - you rode it out and it passed !!! You should pat yourself on the bat - or at least do it for me ! Just take it one day at a time - that's enough. Don't worry about tomorrow - you never have to handle more than today. Forget the rest and when the mind story gets going , catch it and stop it. Keep reminding your mind that today is enough and try to see if you can find some ease in just staying present . It's a real challenge, I know, but it's a challenge that will help you on so many levels. And the more clean days you stack, the easier it'll be to do this and other other positive things. Just keep it simple - today is all you need to take care of. Keep moving forward,, Lady - you passed yesterday's test - you can pass today's!


To be honest, I have been lonely as hell during the last 2 years of using, and the longer I try to get sober the lonelier I get. I can imagine hell should be so isolating. I could count on one hand the people interested in what's up with me- and there was a day I had more friends than I knew what to do with. That's another topic though...hard for people to wanna be friends with a junkie loser.

Last night- those complete junkie and ex-junkie STRANGERS gave a crap enough to give me those no BS replies. I did not expect a response at all. I figured people would glance and roll through. 

Amazing that in the world we live in where junkies are trash and the sober people are 'good', that an addict cares enough to rise up and help a total stranger day after day! It's amazing. It was amazing not to feel alone when I logged on and saw that people cared if I never logged on again...

When You Lose the Things You Love

I did not initially lose my children to CPS because of drugs. They were taken on allegations that were not true. A never ending war my ex waged year after year to ruin my life. I had won each time this happened in the past, because I gave them no reason to keep my kids. This time was different. This time they got a warrant to take them before I had a court date, and I died inside. 

Had I kept myself together, I would have won the case and they may have come home. Instead I went back to drugs to cope with not having them home. I did not cooperate with CPS, and they still have them. I say I lose them, bit it feels like I gave them away. 

Now granted, they cheated and lied in order to win their case, but that is neither here nor there. In my right mind I would have had the focus and motivation to tear them up on my court date. All those days of self loathing and sadness led to more sadness. 

Today is Easter, and I find myself laying in bed mid-afternoon. It' days like this I miss them most. We always had an Easter cookout at our house after church. If I even think about these memories I breakdown. I know that the first step to getting them back is getting clean from Suboxone so that I am able to use my inner strength and not the fake strength the medicine provides.  Saying it is so much easier than doing it. 

I have spent so many days waking up only to wish the day was over so that I can go back to sleep. Will the opiate trap ever set me free? 

As much as I am hurting, I know my children probably hurt that much more. 

Another Suboxone Story

I felt this is worthy to share.

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It's Okay Not To Suffer?

I kinda want to title this one, "IS It Okay Not To Suffer?"  I mean, I AM a junkie, right? Getting clean is not supposed to be a walk in the park. We reap what we sow, and junkie life sows nothing but turmoil and garbage. 

Why would I reap anything besides turmoil and garbage if that's who I am?

SCREECH to a HALT!!!

Could this way of thinking be part of what keeps us in the opiate trap for years...decades even?  The thinking that has changed nothing. If the 1st rule of becoming different is to actually CHANGE, then we better start treating ourselves better than garbage. 

I know...I know... it doesn't feel normal. I know we can tell our brains to at least speak those words.  We can drudge through the motions and fake it. (which as junkies we know we can do) Our hearts could eventually catch up. 

Such  cliche, yes, but that does not make it untrue. 

WE all could have a PhD in faking and masking feelings, so faking the good kind is simply a minor alteration. The worst thing that can happen is we do not change at all. 
The payoff is we will begin to enjoy living again. For our own sakes. 

We are NOT garbage. We ARE worthwhile. We deserve happiness! We will cut ourselves a break! 

Junkies: say that out loud... even a whisper, I don't care, just get the words out of your mouth. If I can do it, You can. 
Alright. Now the first part is done. It came out of our mouths. So what's next? How do we begin to treat ourselves better than garbage?

Stay tuned...