sickgirl finally says hello

I originally requested to be part of The Write Thought some time ago but have not yet had a chance to contribute anything until now, even though I've been following the site religiously since its inception. I think that it its an amazing place for those of us battling opiate addiction to be, regardless of what side of this addiction you find yourself. For two years, I had been a regular part of junkylife.com, which was similar to this endeavor. I had a journal there which was entitled Why Do Anything When You Can Forget Everything? but unfortunately it is no longer there, deleted I guess.

I say I guess it's been deleted because I honestly don't really know what has happened to my site, a site that I spent two years pouring out my guts, agonizing over my addiction, etc. None of my emails sent to the webmaster of junkylife.com have ever been returned, nor have any of the comments made to him on his own site been answered. I know that I never requested its removal. I do know that many promises were broken and even now, almost three months later, I still feel sad over what occurred.

There is a silver lining to all of this, now that I was able to discover everyone here. Up until finding this site, I'd been feeling extremely lost and adrift and alone, but most especially, frightfully disconnected from what had become for me, my support group of fellow opiate addicts. I look forward to being part of this project and thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to be part of it.

So for my first entry, I'd like to recount what has been happening to me these past two and a half days or so because it hasn't been terribly pleasant and no doubt there will be many here that can relate.

Well, after barely enduring the past 48 hours, I certainly have a new found respect for methadone that's for bloody sure. Maybe respect is not the most accurate description, but I do know that this will be the first and last time that I'll ever take my MMT for granted. I see now how easily I've allowed myself to become complacent about my treatment. Never again I say!

For the first time since I've returned to MMT, I missed going to the clinic to get my scheduled dose. Circumstances were such that I just could not make it there yesterday. I honestly thought that it really wouldn't be much of a deal as I'm only on 80ml and have been taking my dose since February of last year as well as been stabilized on this dose for the last nine months or so. I had taken my dose on Tuesday at approx 1pm and figured that I would be fine until this morning at 10am.

I got through the majority of yesterday without incident. Work was fine. I noticed in the afternoon that my stomach was unusually unsettled and that I had a few uncontrollable sneezing bouts, but I simply put this down to picking something up from the kids, as Sara had been complaining since the weekend of being really congested, plus having a sore throat. By about ten last night though I started to really feel like crap.

My stomach was still unsettled and my nose was running constantly, plus my body started to ache all over and my head was pounding. Great, I thought. As it had been what seemed like a near eternity since I had been dopesick, I'd allowed myself to become somewhat cavalier about the whole thing. How soon, and easily, we (can) forget. As there wasn't really a whole lot that I could do at this point, I basically decided that probably the best thing for me to do was to try to sleep through this whole ordeal, so that when I woke up in the morning, the first thing I'd do was drag my sorry ass to the clinic.

It has now been an hour and twenty minutes since I took my methadone and miracle of miracles, I feel just fine. My stomach is no longer bothering me, although now I feel absolutely ravenous, plus I've stopped sneezing and my nose is no longer running. Soon I imagine, the last of my body's aches will also disappear.

Obviously this illustrates what a powerful tool methadone can be in our fight against addiction. It sure is no lightweight. And yes, this also illustrates how addictive the solution to the problem can be and how yes, we may just be trading one evil for another with no great improvement ultimately in our "prison sentence". So what's an addict to do?

For me personally, I know that MMT is the best solution. Where I live, suboxone has not yet been approved so it can not yet be legally prescribed. Cold turkey is for the birds, literally! A decade ago, I spent just over two years on MMT and was able to stop it by gradually tapering down my dose. Once I had reached about 15ml, I just stopped taking it and except for about seven to ten days of mild discomfort, I didn't suffer much at all. All of my cravings by this point had also been eliminated. For another three years, I continued to remain opiate - and methadone - free. Going back to them is a story for another day.

Obviously I'm not yet in a comfortable enough place to even consider weaning myself off of this treatment but I also know that I'm not necessarily condemned to a life sentence although, if worse came to worse and I was, I'd eventually find a way to deal. Right now, all that I know is that I don't ever want to feel even remotely dopesick again if I don't have to.

I'll not be so cavalier in the future either, because at the end of the day, its also bigger than simply feeling dopesick. Obviously, my mood would end up affecting my family and my work, and not in a positive way. I've made far too much progress in the past year and a half anyway to mess it up. I'm also glad that I rode out the sickness rather than taking the easy way out by medicating with some other type of opiate. Let me tell you that around 4:30am this was a real possibility that I'm glad I didn't follow through with.

I wish that I had more time right now, but unfortunately, work is beckoning me. Now that I feel almost like normal - whatever that means anyway - I best get my day started! Cheers!!!