“We’re creatures of the underworld; we can’t afford to love..” - Moulin Rouge

Only time will tell. For the first time in my life, I look towards the future with joy.

My mother told me as I left to finally come to Australia to meet Peri, actually it was in the pre-travel arguments, that if things were to work out between us it would be a “great romantic story.” Indeed, I have one hell of a romantic story.

And I wish to share it with all that may not have followed it from the beginning.

My ex-wife left me the end on March, and I used it as an excuse to get in a drug-induced haze. I met Peri the end of May, and while we had our ups and downs in a short period of time regarding that, she helped me come through it alive. Truly, she has saved my life.

We were both at a point in our lives where we didn’t truly care whether we lived or died, and had no hope for the future, committed to being alone the rest of our lives.

I cannot put words in Peri’s mouth, but as I watch Moulin Rouge, I will share a quote I think she would identify with.

“All my life you had me believe I was only worth what someone would pay for me. But [he] loves me, and that is worth everything.”

Forget about me, Peri has had one hell of a life. Her parents have her truly believing she is only worth what someone would pay for her. They abused her horribly. Her ex-husband abused her until she had to leave, and despite her *still* fighting for the relationship, he was unwilling to travel to Australia, took a bunch of pills, and did himself in.

Need I say more? Guilt has been what has driven her mad the past two years before she met me, but something wonderful happened.

She allowed me into her heart.

I have no idea why. All I know is I am so extroadinarily lucky. I am not one who believed in either fate or soulmates, but now I have no doubt of either. By some marvel I met her, and we had the most amazing chemistry. We a happy relationship; a long-disatance one in which we never met.

And then something nasty happened. My father in his infinite wisdom compelled by a social worker who committed malpractice at best and deserves to be locked up, fired me so I may not be recieving any assistance (”enabling”) from him to obtain drugs. Denial is not just a river in Egypt - but things work both ways. It’s quite often impossible for someone to think there to be alternate explainations of things or that someone could use drugs without spiraling out of control - and my father was consumed with the thought that he was enabling my death, me being an out-of-control drug user.

So he fired me and through me in a psych ward as a bullshit tactic to try to force me into deciding to sign up for treatment in an inpatient setting - something I still have no doubt would be a spectacular disaster. And I was left without work, without a penny to my name, and rotted for over two months locked up in my house he could not keep me out of, the only thing that I still had. (I have since given it up to him to “settle the score” for all the money he spent getting my problems sorted out.)

At this point I was ashamed, apathetic, anhedonic, among other things. This is where our relationship truly met it’s hardest test. But she loved me, she truly loved me, and she was unable to come to the States and see me because of a re-entry ban for overstaying when she was previously married (largely due to her widow and his abuse,) and had she been able to she would have without hesitation.

The only thing that kept me going was that I could eventually finally be reunited with her.

And indeed I was. After much back-and-forth with my mother, I took control and booked my flight that she bought me as a birthday present but was dangling in front of my face like a carrot through this whole drug-tough love debacle.

And finally, towards the end of August, I came and met my beautiful and wonderful Peripat.

And despite the doom-and-gloom predictions of my mother and others, that we couldn’t love each other having never physically met, I can assure you that such a notion is wholly incorrect. We loved each other just as much as we did when we met if not more. And slowly, she continued to open her heart to me. Meeting was stressful, but once the introductions were over things very quickly warmed up. In more than one way at that, if you get my meaning

About a week ago we were finally married. I stayed here in Australia as long as I could, but due to my previous marriage not having a finalized divorce I was forced to leave or relinquish my lawful status. When I returned the end of February, I was very shortly after awarded my divorce, and our one-month waiting period for marriage began (we could have filed it earlier, but…it’s not important.) I have filed immigration paperwork and should be able to work, finally, shortly. I hope.

We’ve each had a hell of a life. And finally, we can look towards the future hope and motivation instead of fear and apathy.

Come What May (Moulin Rouge)

Never knew I could feel like this
Like I’ve never seen the sky before
I want to vanish inside your kiss
Every day I’m loving you more and more
Listen to my heart, can you hear it sings
Telling me to give you everything
Seasons may change, winter to spring
But I love you until the end of time

Come what may
Come what may
I will love you until my dying day

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace
Suddenly my life doesn’t seem such a waste
It all revolves around you
And there’s no mountain too high
No river too wide
Sing out this song I’ll be there by your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide
But I love you until the end of time

Come what may
Come what may
I will love you until my dying day

Oh, come what may, come what may
I will love you, I will love you
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Come what may
Come what may
I will love you until my dying day

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”. Indeed, truly the greatest thing. I am sure most of you have no idea what I am talking about. I hope one day you will.

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Things have gotten very screwy very fast for me, and it is going to be very hard for me to get out of this one. I am so thankful I am with Fiona, I truly love her with all my heart, yet I am so worried that I have and continue to hurt her rather than help her.

Let me get some nice good news out of the way - I am finally divorced. I may now marry her, and am going to look for a celebrant as soon as I am finished writing this.

I am in a country that isn’t even my own, and slowly running out of money. I have enough to get us in a new apartment, but a new development has occured. The last time I was here I rented a car and immediately proceeded to bash the front, something that alone is a cause of massive embarassment to me, and having not been able to afford insurance I owe the rental company $3k. My mother thought it prudent to make some sort of payment arrangement with them, and obviously gave them her card number although she seems not to remember it. Out of the blue they called my new cell phone number, I have no idea how they got it, in order to pretend to ask me to pay for the damages. I told them quite simply that I didn’t have $3k, and they would have to live with some payment arrangement. They told me that wasn’t good enough and they were charging “the card on file”. I have no idea what card that even originally was, but it turned out to be my mother’s as they told me, as bizarre as it sounded to me, that the payment went through. I had a fear in the back of my head this was the case. I told them I would call them back to figure things out as I was in a store, and they called me back twice not taking no for an answer and then called Peri, and she gave them the address not knowing any better, so they can make things seem legitimate I assume, why else would they badger me for my address after already getting their money without my permission?

Anyway, my mother thought I “stole” her card, of which I don’t even know the number nor would I dream of using it to pay a debt to some real hardened assholes at ace rent-a-car. She threw out some really, really nasty things at me, and I am not sure even an apology at this point would work. I am tired of being accused for everything under the sun, and this is just so out there it’s crazy. I told her not to bother with them, I told them they weren’t willing to deal, and now I am royally bitten because of what she thought it necessary to do with *my* problem.

How exactly is this a problem? Well, first of all, she is sitting on the remainder of my pay for when I was home, which is what I need to get myself in an apartment and to a new job (which will take about a month from right about now; I hope.) Not only did she say she wasn’t giving it to me as I “stole” her credit card to pay off a debt I at this point could care less about and having them be nothing but assholes to me in every way have no intention of working with them as they have no intention of doing so with me, but I doubt she has it to give me after this. Not a nice way to start my credit history here but oh well, at home it’s royally screwed and I am sure that info will find it’s way here anyway.

And now I have a new problem: a few days ago I ate two of Peri’s mother’s little desert cups, you know like one of those pudding cups in the fridge aisle of the supermarket, and she had a stroke screaming and slamming things, and we couldn’t stay there anymore. So despite it being very very hard to find an apartment and not having any backing as we don’t even have jobs, I need one immediately.

The more I think about how screwed this situation is the more cross-eyed I go. I can only hope we will be married soon enough for me to get work or me to bring her home properly with me.

I should have about a thousand more dollars (Australian) than I do, but I spent about that much on fucking drugs. I can’t tell you how disgusted at myself I am, and how much I don’t even want to see the shit again, again fully realizing its destructive ability and overall uselessness. Sex is more euphoric at this point. It’s just so easy to take that simple solution, and it digs you in deeper every time.

I surely am not touching the shit for a long time, but I am left hanging out (i.e. feeling like shit.) If I was alone it would be unbearable. But Peri is worth living on the street for, and I truly hope it doesn’t go that far. A thousand Au isn’t make-or-break type stuff but it’s money I could have sorely used, especially with this situation. Now I’m fucked.

Sorry for the shitty read but it fits, what can I say.

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Almost exclusively due to bi11i’s delusions, albeit I was planning on moving shortly regardless. Read about it here.

I was posting this little snippet as I was being deleted:

2nd (or 1st, depending on the source,) biggest blizzard in New York City recorded history. Boy am I happy I don’t have a car. I’ll be leaving in just over a week. I can’t wait.

This whole “holiday” has taught me one thing: my only real home is in Peri’s arms.

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It all started on a Wednesday Night this past August. I had an appointment with my psychiatrist and drug addiction therapist at the time, followed by a compulsory (from my psychiatrist) 12-step oriented group meeting. My psychiatrist, as he always did, wanted me to take a piss test. I could not pee. Of course, he wasn’t buying it (although he said "no big deal" at the time, lying through his teeth) - which, combined with many, many other things, makes me wonder if he’s ever had a true junkie never mind helped one (to those who haven’t used heroin/methadone/buprenorphine, it causes urinary retention.) He wrote out another laboratory test script for me to get done at any of the Quest Labs scattered across the city and surrounding area. As I was in the cab going from my psyciatrist’s office way uptown to my group (which I don’t think I could make using a jumbo jet in the 15 minutes,) I realized he forgot to give me my prescription for my Klonopin (Clonazepam), addictive tranquilizers with life threatening withdrawals and a prescription he can’t phone in either. I went back to his office and could not get him. Frustrated, I went home.

Thursday I was without my benzos (clonazepam), and found myself very sick as I had none since Monday. He kept giving me these 2-week scripts that always created problems, and I don’t know why, perhaps he thought I was sad enough to stand on a street corner and sell my very necessary medication. I couldn’t go to work that sick. Everyone in the office knew I had a heroin/drug problem. Of course my dad didn’t understand. My shrink called my parents without my permission and without decent cause (except that I missed my last drug test,) to announce to them his infallible yet incorrect diagnosis that I was still on drugs. My parents didn’t even jump to conclusions at that point, just asking me to take the drug test he gave me the day before. My ORAL agreement with him (at that time), that he insisted he needed to have in order to treat me despite the fact that I am an adult - was that he could call my parents only AFTER discussing it with me. He didn’t even call to tell me afterwards. I certainly signed no waiver, I was pushed into it.

Friday, when I called him from work to ask him why he would go behind my back illegally and without reason, he for one used the excuse that I didn’t go to my group. No shit I didn’t go to my group, I was trying to chase you down to get my necessary medication YOU forgot! It bounced right off him. I then said I was about to take my drug test. He then said, and I quote, "the results are meaningless, they only show you haven’t used anything in the past three days."

At this point the mixture of anger and dispair was insurmountable. This guy, my psychiatrist, had been such a prick during my short-lived therapy with him, that he made me WANT to use drugs. He couldn’t help me - he was certain I would fail, and just seemed to be waiting for the moment he could proclaim it. When I told my parents I couldn’t continue therapy with someone who was positive I would fail, they didn’t get it either. They, assuming I had a serious drug problem due to my (now former) psychiatrist’s diagnosis, and my two work absences (the first was when, I swear on my life, my checkbook with my money in it was stolen on the train as I slept and I was stranded up in the country suburbs where I lived as I had no car and now no train ticket either - and my parent’s didn’t buy that one either.)

At this point I really gave up. As I said, I fired my psychiatrist (not to be confused with my group leader/social worker whom will be mentioned shortly.) Not able to get my benzos (clonazepam) until Monday when it came in the mail, I was lucky enough my mother had the same prescription, otherwise I might have wound up in the hospital or worse. With a giant feeling of "fuck it", which of course was in the end my own responsibility despite my situation, I proceeded to get nice and high on the weekend. My friend "J" let me stay with him one night when I had nowhere to go, and lent me $10 so I could get the prescription Monday morning when it came, as well as subway fare. Knowing how little he has this did mean a lot to me.

Meanwhile, while I could obviously tell my parents were up to something but didn’t know what, they were being coaxed into having an "intervention" with me by my group leader, a huge guy who resembled Antonio Banderas, and a 12-stepper all the way. He told me parents in a very serious way that "(I) WILL die" and other horrible scare tactics that forever turned them to the "dark side." They planned for the so-called "intervention" on Friday, and due to that treated me wonderfully during the week so as not to make me run away or something of the sort. Since I though I was finally free from all the bullshit, I had a very productive and happy week at work (although my father (and boss) still to this day refuses to acknowledge it). Little did I know what was in store for me.

Friday afternoon my dad wanted me to "help him on a job." He took me to an upstairs unoccupied room where the rest of my family and my social worker/group leader were in wait. And he promised results - he said he did thousands? of these and only failed twice. Well add another one on there. This pissed me off to no end, cracking the shell of the good week I had and making me feel like pushing everything and everyone away. They first pleaded with me. My social worker told them there and then I wouldn’t listen to them. So what was he doing then? He was just going through the motions to follow through with the backup plan that he was the mastermind of.

And his backup plan? Bullshit. Literally. He took lines off this blog and changed them in order to threaten me with being institutionalized. For example:

"I think my days are numbered (literally.) No, that is not a suicide reference. But I can’t say as I can’t see the future in such detail. All I get is the sinking feeling my days are numbered…I think, finally, whatever intervening force has let go and I am whithering away."

became 

"I am going to kill myself", 

and "Unfortunately, I was used to measuring coke with a knife, and a knife I did not have, so I had to pour it out in guesswork. Looked good, I thought, only a little more than what I did before, and a pretty normal hit. After all the preparations and again the beautiful sight of the blood running back, I took the hit, and whipped off the tourniquet…. holy. fucking. shit. too. fucking. much."

became

"I intentionally had a cocaine overdose".

So, he threatened right there to call the police and have me institutionalized as a danger to myself (suicide - yeah, perhaps after this kafka-esque situation was over.) The other alternative was one month of inpatient rehab. I said that I would not be forced, and that I was definitely not going for a month of rehab right NOW. So he did it - he called the cops. I told them he was full of some nasty smelling hot gas. I asked one if I could go, and he said yes. The "social worker" forcibly, in what I would call assault (causing me to drop and break my phone as well, and he wouldn’t even pay me for that,) stopped me long enough to insist to the cops I was a danger to myself and needed to be checked out. So they took me to the local hospital’s psych ward, and told them the same bullshit. He then proceeded to tell me the same bullshit he implied before - that he is having me forcibly put into the hospital’s rehab. Little did he know, although my mom did, that I wasn’t stupid and knew they couldn’t force me into rehab. They did proceed to hold me for nearly 24 hours as they couldn’t figure out why I was there and called my mother for essentially permission to let me go. They also wouldn’t let me go without blood work. Talk about incompetent psych wards. When my blood tests came up fine, they finally let me go. HOWEVER, they took a piss test, and someone informed my parents of the results - which were positive for something - I don’t even know for what (I used the weekend before as I have told you.)

Doesn’t fucking confidentiality mean anything to ANYONE? That’s right, I am just a junkie, what can I do. Apparently more than they think. Read on.

So what happened then? My parents essentially tried tough love some more. The social worker insisted I should be left without even food. My parents at least weren’t that cruel - as I WOULD have starved to death. I was left to rot for months in my house - AGAIN (I complained about it plenty the first time around). I do believe I am suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from the whole ordeal. I can’t tell you what it’s like to be locked up in your house for months, not in any way that does it justice. I did drugs ONCE during that whole three-month period - by getting the last of my cash out of the bank and getting high on my birthday, a birthday that besides my beloved Peripat only my parents even acknowledged but I turned them down on a superfically happy/massive denial birthday dinner. Thanks anyway.

So what happened in the end? Well, even my parents are filing charges against him, and I have a pro-bono lawyer suing him as well. It will be a very happy day for me when I see that bastard stripped of his license. I should file charges against my former psychiatrist too, but I didn’t. At least he offered his help when I needed meds/a new doctor. And I found one - a regular general practicioner who just asks me how I am doing and such and hands me my prescriptions.

Next Episode: How 12-step systems are (relatively) garbage, including this "social worker’s" group.

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The Past | 1 Comment »

((Pics moved to pics page, they were screwing up the layout.))
 
We hope everyone is having as happy a New Year as we are, and your New Year will be joyful and pleasantly surprising.
 
The weather here is sunny, warm and humid – as is usual for Brisbane at this time of year. (It is Summer for us, after all!) Christmas Day saw Nephalim and Peripat celebrate seven months together, (a little over two of those actually “in-person” as we met on the internet, and Nephalim came down to Australia in late October.) We are blissfully happy together, and plan to marry soon.A word or two about the photographs above: they were taken yesterday (the last day of 2005!) by a very good friend of ours, Jamie, and edited by Nephalim. All of this was done on Nephalim’s new digital camera, a Christmas gift from his mom (thanks, Mom!)

Again, we hope everyone has a happy and wonderful 2006.
 
Best Wishes,
Nephalim & Peripat   

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Well, my nephalim.org email is down. Again. Please temporarily send any emails to nephalim27@aol.com. If you have emailed me in the past 2-3 days I may not have recieved it, kindly resend if possible to the above address. I will post again when it’s fixed.

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Ok, ok, I called her my wife as she called me my husband, but we are in real life now and things are different. And now, we are to be officially married (*cough* as soon as I can get a fucking divorce *cough*). Anyone from JL is welcome to attend. I am hoping to get her into New York in January, where we can be married somewhere I hope she’ll adore. If not, it’ll have to be here. Perhaps we can have a little online codification of our vows or something. Obviously, things are just wonderful, except all the stress of what we have ahead of us that is. I honestly don’t know what else to say right now. My beloved slipped something on my screen that she was tempted to post that she is the luckiest woman alive. Isn’t she a doll? We are *both* quite lucky indeed. (in case anyone hasn’t caught on, I am in Brisbane. Home of the shittiest & most expensive dope on the planet )

UPDATE [Nov. 15th]: It looks like at least we will have two ceremonies, one here and one in the states. We don’t want to leave out all the Aussies, especially considering it’s my new home!

Love you, Fi.

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The Present, The Future | 12 Comments »

I just wanted to share this little bit with you, this last little bit, as it is quite ironic. After promising that of the hundreds of interventions he’s done only three failed, and that he was sure I was in the “winner” category, and that I would surely die without it, a certain social worker whom shall remain nameless as he faces charges of malpractice, assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress (and I have been punched in the face by a security guard once for doing nothing and didn’t even pursue legal action, it’s just not me) - and having his license surely stripped - has turned his sights on someone else - my parents themselves!

Now apparently my parents, more specifically my mother, are filing their own complaint against him, after he has threatened in nasty ways (putting a lien on my mother’s car, for example,) to get money for his unfullfilled promises. Both my parents are very angry at this jackass, and they have learned the hard way what this type of garbage is really all about. Even my shrink, whom was really only marginally better, isn’t viewed with much higher regard. At least he made veiled offers to give me scripts when I ran dry and was looking for someone new.

And that’s all I have to say about that. The end of me whining about my parents, long overdue.

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The Present | No Comments »

Well, it looks like it’s time to open the old war chest. I have already lived several lifetimes with all I have experienced. And I hope to live several more - and I hope to experience them this time with the one I love.

Actually, despite our age difference, since about 1996 me and her have been doing pretty much the same thing - heroin - even chipping and having problems at about the same times. Interesting. Our childhoods were both torture, but in very different ways, and she got a full one, mine was over at 14. But it was one hell of a ride. But I doubt you want to here about that. You want to hear about what happened 14-19.

Since I have already written a bit of a teaser from my other blog, let me share it with you here - several snippets put together.

When I finally got into treatment, I was in France. My supply of heroin ran dry, and I was left in withdrawals with no hope of heroin. My mom, the blessed soul that she is, even tried to find some heroin for me she felt so bad - those withdrawals were truly the worst in my life - and I have "kicked" hydrocodone (what is considered a weak opiate, although in some people such as myself has a much stronger reaction similar to oxycodone[oxycontin], and one of the most commonly prescribed medications, on more than one occasion, and even did it undetected - attending work and all!) She went to the hospital to find me a doctor. Thank my lucky stars I was in France, where buprenorphine was pioneered as a drug treatment and readily available to those in need, and I got on buprenorphine - and continued to be on it until it was approved via participation in research programs and trips to France.

Why should I "thank my lucky stars" I was in France and got buprenorphine? Well, the important thing here is that if I didn’t, went through the withdrawals, and went home, I would have been back on heroin within a week. It’s extremely sad to admit, but there is no doubt in my mind - in fact I even used some, one bag I had left over my family didn’t find - right when I got back. And thanks to buprenorphine, it did little, and I kept with it. I haven’t used illicit drugs in over 3 years now, and don’t plan on it, and have only used them about 3 times during my entire 5 years in maintenance.

There’s another reason I should be thankful, and that’s because methadone, in comparison to buprenorphine, is a terrible alternative. I will get in to this later.

The main point here is that, even though I wanted to quit - hell, I intended to quit during that trip through tapering (which proved to be impossible,) I still would have immediately relapsed. Yes, this is but one anecdote, but it’s my anecdote, and one that needs to be told. It happens all too often.

…

I want to quote a comment from my first diary:

 

Rumblelizard: This drug is evil. And I will never, never understand why a person will think that they, out of all the thousands and thousands of people who have done heroin over the years, will be the ONE PERSON who will be able to "handle" it and not become a junkie.

This is the type of programmed thinking that is just plain incorrect - and leads to false assumptions - which leads to many different things. I don’t mean any offense Rumblelizard, hell if I didn’t study the matter ad nauseum, I would probably think the same thing. But, sad to say, it’s wrong.

Did I ever tell you about the first time I used heroin?

Ahh…everyone loves these stories. Some sort of sick fantasy, I don’t know, but the movies sure do good! Then again, in the movies they all wind up in the gutter, only to get clean or die at the end. I want to mention the movies, but this is going to be so long to be unreadable. Let me just say that the other day, watching the Basketball Diaries, the story of Jim Carroll’s Life, not only was it one long rock-bottom (lower than I have ever hit,) implying the whole thing is rock bottom (it isn’t,) but at the end they vaguely show him in some group therapy thing, clean, implying that was the end of the story. But it wasn’t. He went on another drug rampage 4 years later. Hollywood really is insulting in their attempts to…Hollywood-ize…something as personal as drug addiction.

Anyway, the first time I did heroin. I was with a group of friends, about 7 or 8, and we managed to get heroin - which was no easy feat. We didn’t go out of our way - I did, by getting a tip these 2 people were junkies, and having them get me some. Well we all did it. I brought some home and finished the bag, sniffing it. It was paradise - that virgin high I will always be chasing - it was never, ever the same. It was like everything was….exactly as it should be. Everything was perfect. With waves of euphoria. I can’t describe just how wonderful this is. But, anyway, the point here is that I all of a sudden found a way to solve all my problem within minutes - and eventually to be seconds. My heroin habit didn’t quite develop yet at that point, as I was ripped off by the first two junkies I meet - how typical and cliche.

Now, there is a much more important point here. All 7 or so of my friends did the heroin with me. They all had extensive histories of drug use - heavy drug use. They all loved the experience. So, you would expect them all to become junkies, right? Nope. Not one. Even with my evil whispers: "hey, you want to get some more tomorrow?" - I was responded to with a resounding "no thanks."

So why did I, in the face of all the clear evidence of the hell that would likely become my life (and largely did,) throw all that into the wind? I simply didn’t care. My life was bad. It wasn’t bad in that I was being beaten, I was poor, my life was in the gutter. It was bad because I was unhappy to the depths of my soul, and that wonderful feeling that heroin gave me - I didn’t think about it much, your brain just says "MORE!", but what little I did - I thought it was worth it.

Why was I so different? I said how I was depressed, anhedonia is more of the word. But I suspect there was brain chemistry involved, both in my depression and in how well heroin fit the key-hole. So, in short, while I do feel, especially in my case, that brain chemistry plays an important role, and when it does getting clean is all that much harder, the most important fact here is that I was using heroin to solve a problem. No, I wasn’t trying to escape - I was simply trying to feel good, to feel "reward", to feel all those things I just didn’t feel my entire life.

…

I guess I should finish the story. But first, another anecdote. The very first time I saw heroin. I was living with a roommate, a guy I didn’t know from beforehand, who was from California. One day I came home, and to my shock found a spent spoon (Spoon? Who uses spoons?) and needle on my night table. I had never seen a needle before for that matter. He says to me "I took the "H" train" with a smile on his face. I was shocked someone, who I never saw drugs before, could be so nonchalant about it. I was interested - even though at this point I hadn’t "tasted" it - and asked if he wanted to get some more tomorrow and do some with me. "No thanks," once again. He didn’t do heroin again in the rest of the time I knew him.

I started a heavy pill habit, hydrocodone, which I mentioned earlier. I managed to get some morphine, don’t remember how, and since it works so badly orally, I knew I had to shoot it. But I didn’t know how. I was hanging on to it a few days when I happened to run in to someone I didn’t know, and I don’t remember how, but heroin came up (something that almost never came up…fate, I guess, or perhaps it was me seeking for assistance.) He mentioned he had done heroin before. Boy did my ears perk up. I whispered to him that I had some morphine, and a pin (needle,) and boy did that get his attention. He did, for me as I didn’t know what I was doing, my very first IV. Sadly, he took the very same needle and followed after me. Luckily, I didn’t have any communicable diseases. (I have never, ever, shared a needle - that is, used a needle that has been used by someone else.)

So while the guy was currently clean from opiates, me being the bastard I was, having a heavy pill habit and needing something stronger, without much pushing, got him to take me to brooklyn, and get us all some heroin. He took me two or three times, at which point, I learned how to get it myself. And that’s pretty much it. I IM’ed it a while (muscle shot,) as I didn’t know how to IV, but eventually learned - it really isn’t that difficult - but you’d be amazed how people screw it up (and screwing it up is what causes the injection problems, for the most part - another reason why addict education, aka harm reduction is so important.)

That acquantaince didn’t go on to form a full-fledged heroin habit. He was a junkie before, used for a week, and stopped. He DID use again after that for a while - along with his wife, who insisted I take her to get heroin once (because her husband was opposed,) and boy did I feel like crap for exposing her to that - I would never do anything like that again….she was just so insistent…sigh.

There’s more to this story, but I don’t have the room to tell it. Even though the wife wound up institutionalized (due to severe mental problems I wasn’t aware of,) and the husband wound up in jail (unrelated offense, shoplifting to buy food, they were quite poor,) neither developed a serious heroin addiction and are now living a normal life together. Let’s hope it sticks. I think it will - their lives are very different now than they were. But, to be completely honest, I haven’t spoken to them in a long time and don’t know the entirety of their current story.

(About 10-25% of those who use heroin go on to become addicts. That’s definitely not a suggestion that you try your luck.)

From Treatment for heroin/opiate addiction: Advanced Edition

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Reflections, The Past | No Comments »

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I have been held prisoner, I am chained to a bed in a cellar of some sorts, someone please help me…

Seriously though, there is so much going on, and me and Peri have both had this fucking bloody nasty cold that will not go away.

We are happy.

I shall give you more later.

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