Manhunt understanding fear.

Here I come to another time line. By Friday I'll be dope free. New motives. New relationships. Perhaps a new improved approach.

As I sit outside my bedroom window; grasping my sweaty cigarette I begin the desperate manhunt! Tips to beat the depression is what set  this hunt in motion.

My fear of being unable to fight the depression without the fickle comfort of my loaded syringe. Fear.. Fear. Fear.

Fear is something I speak of often. I believe with all certainty that fear resides as the obstacle I've yet to overcome. Recognizing, understanding, and my fears will indeed b the last step before my full recovery begins.

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: 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

It's Not That Simple

Drug addiction is not a simple problem. We are a world that stereotypes. It's easy to group certain types of people into a box. We can toss drug addicts together in a population of bad people who only care about themselves. How could a we shoot heroin, smoke crack, drop acid, if we loved our family? If we cared about our friends why would we do that to them. Do we not care enough about our own children enough to stay clean?

These are all questions I have been asked. I have been publicly accused of caring about nothing but myself and my next fix. Sometimes the rage that cranks through my body when I hear words such as those targeted at me enrage me to the point where I must choose to say nothing in defense of myself. For if I respond in any other way I might lose full control of myself. Consequently, that brands me even more selfish. Now I flat out don't give a damn enough to even justify an answer.

Here is my question. How on earth is that fact that these drug addicts are actual. real people escaping the minds of the perfect? When asked in Elementary School what I wanted to be when I grew up, I did not say, "A Junkie!"

I had no idea I was headed down that road. My very first 'addictive' behavior was a simple act of defiance against my mother. She herself was in so much pain that she drank into a stupor night after night. Telling me I was worthless. I'd never amount to anything. I looked like a whore. (at 11 years old) I hurt so badly, all day every day, that I could barely breathe sometimes. 

So lighting up a cigarette at 14 while she was passed out downstairs seemed like a way to channel the hurt. All I wanted was to feel. To feel loved. To NOT feel lonely. To make my mother happy. Which as a child I had no idea that was impossible. She didn't not lash out at me because I did anything wrong. If only I had known that then. She DID love me. She DIDNT mean those things. She herself was in PaiN. Would I be different? I love her so much, would I have made her proud?

Would I have gone down the same roads year after year? Hurting then numbing then guilt then hurt myself more to extinguish the guilt? Rinse and repeat. Worse every time. 

I am not the only person like this. Every. Single. Addict. Has. A. Story. A story filled with pain and suffering. I'd bet my life that most of us wanted better for ourselves. By the time we were old enough to understand what was happening, our destructive paths were already well on there ways.

Are you this person? Is someone you love this person? Do you need to understand someone like this? Please follow my blog on the right. Subscribe. Follow me on Google. Shoot me an email and comment. I want something good to come from my past, pain, and stories. I want something GREAT to come out of my recovery. 

Eenie-Meenie-Minie-Moe

Eenie meenie minie moe
Pick a vice to kill your soul
any vice will kill u slow!

Eenie-meenie-minie-moe

I never like to think of myself as a 'bad person'. Unfortunately drug users get that wrap. Even if a person won't say it to you- 9 times out of 10 I am willing to bet they are discouraged I am on drugs and unable to free myself from addiction. 


I am firm in the belief that drug addition rarely stands alone. It always runs hand in hand with something else. Eating disorders, depression, sex issues, anxiety, low self esteem, breaking the law, bad relationships, childhood trauma, rape. 

The list could go on. The frustration sometimes eats me up inside that some don't understand how much is involved in becoming an addict. Resulting in the difficult path necessary to quit. Some people just don't understand. I have to accept that. 

The Obsession with Obessioning

I remember over a decade ago when my first thought as I woke was a pain pill. Followed by thoughts of how to take less that day. More thoughts of how to prolong that first pill. Obsessing over every aspect of using, and not using. 

It was less than a week into my first shot of Heroin in which my first awakening thought questioned how I would get high. Where would the money come from today? How about the gas? All the plotting and planning to stay even. Only to go rock that score and start the planning over again. 

Mindless and endless hours of obsession. 

This is what I refer to as the opiate trap.

Today I find myself waking up to question how many suboxone do I have left? I am running low. How can I make that one last? Should I order more from the pharmacy? Maybe today is my last day? Thoughts dive straight into fear. Will I get dope sick?! 

And slowly my mind tells my brain to shut down so I can focus on my actual day. 

When there are no more drugs to take, no more pills for withdrawal, no more schedules or tapers, what will my mind obsess on my first waking thought of the daylight?