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.