My Top 10 Signs that I am Using Heroin...

Of course being an addict, when I am in active addiction, or if I relapse my #1 priority is to hide my addiction at all cost. This usually comes from a deep seeded feeling of guilt that I have let not only myself down, but my partner as well. The funny thing is that most addicts are very smart, well, I am very smart, and therefore if I was really, really, trying to hide my use, I would do a much better job at not leaving any "clues." But I believe deep down on a subconscious level, I want my partner to know. Yes, I realize that this will cause all kinds of problems, but they are nothing compared to the day to day guilt I feel behind using and sneaking and lying. So, I am going to give myself up, here are my secret ways that I attempt to hide my use, or actually the "signs" that I leave that I am using. I am a shooter, but for a long time on this last relapse I smoked, so there are various things to look for. There is no particular order; I am just doing the David Letterman thing.

1. Missing tin foil (perhaps cleverly marking the foil to tell if any goes missing), or missing spoons, or spoons that are bent at weird angles. Also check the bottom of spoons for black residue, sometimes they are hard to clean.
2. I don’t smoke so there is no need for me to ever have a lighter (regardless of what stupid excuse I give for having one)
3. Spending a lot of time in the bathroom (taking a shit). I am probably not taking 3 or 4 shits a day. Also sometimes I tend to be sloppy and leave black marks from the bottom of a spoon on the counters, or if I am feeling “smart” the floor. Also cooking dope in a spoon will sometimes cause it to “splash” over, leaving tiny little round heroin specks on the counter. Also a little dope squirted from a syringe will cause the same affect (watch some csi).
4. Obviously money issues. The key dollar amount is usually $20.00. So if I am unable to suddenly pay my bills on time, or the rent, or my spending habits have changed in anyway, that’s a major clue. Also if I ask to borrow money say $20.00 for something at the store, and come home with $5.00 worth of shit, and no change. Bingo!
5. Touching. When I am using, I will refuse to let my girlfriend touch my upper arms, or my ass. This is because I am shooting dope inter-muscular (meaning in my ass or the muscles of my arm), this tends to cause “hard spots” which can be both felt and visible, so no touching or seeing these areas. This also means no more joint showers, or getting completely naked during sex. Also when I was shooting IV (into a vein) there are obvious track marks, so I would usually wear long sleeves even in the summer, or use my legs or feet.
6. Cell phone. My cell phone is the number 1 place I usually mess up. I usually will forget to erase my connections number, or will do something “smart” like make up a name for my connection and save the number. Going through my recent calls might reveal calling the same number several times a day, etc. I have been busted by this more than once.
7. Frequent trips out for short periods of time for no reason. You know a quick trip to the store that lasts for 45 mins, or the trip to the gas station that takes 30 mins instead of 5. These trips will usually be followed by either a trip immediately to the bathroom when I get home, to take a shit or shower, or when I return there will be a noticeable change in my attitude and body language. I will have gone from being really ancy, pacing around the house, to coming home relaxed, kicked back, eyes heavy, etc. which takes us to #3.
8. The eyes. Usually a dead give away for me. There are a few things that happen to my eyes besides the old pinned eye test. The problem with the pinned eye test is often the quality of heroin is not actually good enough to fully pin my eyes (make the pupils really small). But a good test for this is whether or not my pupils dilate when exposed to dark. Generally when you enter a place with little or no light, your eyes dilate letting in as much light as possible, with an addict, such as me, there will be little change from dark and light. My g/f would use a flashlight to test this. But it’s not 100%. Also my eyes get heavy and very glossy, they will often times become reddish in color, almost like I had been smoking weed.
9. Nodding off. This should actually be #1, because there is no way around not getting caught for this one. Eyes get heavy like I mentioned, and I begin to loose focus on the TV, or reread the same page in a book 20 times before “falling asleep.” Heroin itself isn’t usually enough for me to nod off, unless I get a real good dose, because of the quality, like I mentioned before. But when you mix heroin with a pill in the benzo family (Valium, xanax, klonopin, atavan, etc), I will definitely nod off. This also works well with mixing either alcohol or a muscle relaxer (soma). Heroin is never enough for me, because I have done it for so long, in order to capture that “high” I need some sort of kicker.
10. Home drug testing kit. This is the final test, this was the one thing I could not lie myself out of, and when my g/f finally got smart enough and $30 to buy one, I was through. Sure I sat there and lied right to her face, telling her no matter of all of the evidence she had found in 1- 9, I wasn’t using, and yes, I would absolutely pass the piss test, just give me a few minutes to have to pee. Lol. YA RIGHT. The test is still in the box unused.

Luckily we have gotten all of this nasty business out of the closet, she knows all my little secrets, all of by addictive behavior, and even knows how to collect the evidence with the best of the CSI’s. But when confronted, I will still sit there and lie to her face. It’s what I do. I lie and I lie, and I lie some more. But if I am going to be transparent, and say that I am not using, and she pulls that drug test out, WHAM! I know I am busted, so I lie some more, until I finally admit that I can’t take the test because I will fail. The truth always comes out in the end. Each time I have relapsed she has found out quicker and quicker, and even though she has the evidence, she has me busted cold; the thing I notice about her is that she doesn’t want to believe it’s true. After all, I swore I wouldn’t do it again, so even faced with a mountain of evidence, she will often put it off until she cant take it anymore, probably because she doesn’t want me to sit there and lie to her when she knows the truth, but mostly I think it’s because she doesn’t want to feel the disappointment that I am using again. But the one thing she never knew was the guilt I felt day in and day out, living the lie. I hated myself for it, I could hardly look her in eye most of the time (another give away). And even after all the lying, once the truth did come out, as painful as it was for her, I felt relief; relief that I didn’t have to keep lying, keep hiding, and hope that maybe this time I would take some action, but that’s a whole other story.