A Hunger

One of the most difficult things for me, as one who has a bit of recovery, is trying to clean up every area of my life that was affected by my addiction. In other words, it is coming to grips with the fact that I have an addictive personality. While my main substance was alcohol, I discovered that it was helping me hide the shame I felt from a tendency to develop "love" relationships that weren't healthy. In sorting through my addictive past and in my recovery, I am learning that love isn't anything what I thought it was. But that doesn't mean the desirous part of me doesn't want to give in and "possess" another to comfort myself at times. When some time is acquired without the drug of choice, at least for me, it becomes less of a focus. Yet, my personality still has a tendency to want to get a "high" off something or someone.

I was also a dual relationship person. I always had one serious relationship and one "boyfriend" on the side. And that was true when I got sober. I had been seeing someone on and off "on the side" for two years before I got sober. And it remained true until I got through the really tough initial phases of sobriety. Then, my world came crashing down because I knew I couldn't have this new life of so much promise and keep living a lie.

So, ultimately, I am where I am today, with one person. And happy...but happy in a different way. A stable happy and a peaceful happy, not a temporary happy or a "high" happy. They are different, and I prefer the peace and serenity. But some days, I do long for the elation. Some days, I want to do what is wrong because it feels so right "for the moment". But I don't because I know my relationship with my higher power is developed and strengthened in resisting, and that has given me peace.

But I miss him. I miss him, and I hunger for this man I had to give up. Sometimes the grief almost overwhelms me. If true love is honest, which I believe it is, then I couldn't have loved him because this was not an honest relationship. But sometimes what seems like love masquerades as true love, and it is all so complex and painful. Why do we have the tendency to long for what we cannot have? Why does he seem so perfect for me? Why can' t I seem to let his memory go even though it has been awhile?

Such is the life of an addict still trying to come to terms with life.

Welcome Tanya Marie

Hey peeps. Please take some time to go check out Tanya Marie at "only one way up." She joined The Write Thought, too, but her blog isn't listed yet, just her name as a writer. She is a young woman and mother, addicted to heroin, and trying to recover like the rest of us. Please reach out, visit her site, and support her recovery.
Currently she has asked for some feedback regarding continuing relationships with people who mean a great deal to her, but are still in active addiction. I left her a comment, but ya'll know I'm ill and I don't have much energy right now to leave her much. There's so much more to say...I thought I'd take what I have left in me and post a request for ya'll to check in on her and reach out with your own experience, strength, and hope.
It's what we do here. And we're all pretty damn good at it -- humbly spoken, of course.
I love you guys and hope to get back to posting soon.

Thank you...

Yes it’s time to say thank you to each one of you for helping me in aiding another. I wish I could describe to you the gratitude this family has for each of you that helped by either reposting, by commenting, and of course those of you who were in a position to donate your hard earned money.

I knew this would raise controversy, I know there were risks involved in putting myself out there on the line by taking personal responsibility by tackling the idea of asking others to help one of our own. But I was deeply surprised by the overwhelming positive response that I received from so many people. I also have deep respect for those who spoke their minds regarding how they felt about what I was doing.

I can tell you with tremendous gratitude and respect that every penny was well spent keeping our friend’s family warm, helped them to keep their electricity on, and for them to be able to take hot showers and warm baths. This act of kindness from each of you has restored my faith in human nature, in a time where most people look out for themselves, in a society that shuns and looks the other way as American families are left out in the cold on the streets, hungry and without shelter.

This was a deeply spiritual and amazing experience for me. Yes, you and I, helped another, that in itself felt amazing to do. But there was more to it for me. I was able to give something back to the world I have spent a lifetime ripping off. It’s not about Karma, or trying to do the right thing, it was about doing what I felt needed to be done. In this case, not only was that accomplished for myself, but also one of us, one of our families was helped in a time of need, and I think it may have restored their faith in human kindness as well.

But don’t stop now. No, I am not asking you for more money, but just pay it forward. Practice random acts of kindness simply because it feels good to do so. Next time you see that homeless man with his sign sitting on the edge of the off ramp, give him a dollar. Or gather your old blankets and jackets that no longer fit your growing children and drop them off at your local homeless shelter. Ring bells for the Salvation Army this Christmas season. Let’s get the ball rolling folks. We as a community, one who has been shunned by most of society, labeled as substance abusers, junkies, drug addicts, can show that we too have the capacity to do good things, to have compassion towards others, and most of all, we are capable of selfless acts.

I can’t thank you enough!

With love to all,

Ej.

The Nickel And Diming Of My Perspective or Change is Cheap.

This is my everyday view. It's right outside the bedroom where I am staying. I do not own this view but as long as I am here this is what I get to see each and every day. It is an extraordinary view. The picture does not do it justice.

No matter. I take it for granted for it is what I have seen every day (and night) for almost a year. It was there yesterday and I know it will be there tomorrow. Rarely am I wowed by it despite it being such a beautiful vista to have any time I like.

This got me to thinking (Uh-oh).

San Francisco is an unbelievably beautiful city with many, many beautiful vistas. Despite knowing that, I rarely avail myself of such scenery. I remain mostly in this one place with this one view that, as I have stated, I take for granted. What if I changed my perspective every now and then? What if I looked at the same city from a different place? What would I see?

Below are just a few of the sights I would see if I would just consider a different point-of-view. There IS a message here and that is how a change of perspective will change what we see. And we need not look at the same thing all the time from only one perspective and in only one way. If perception is reality then are we not able to change our individual perceptions and, thusly, our reality? Makes you think, huh?



Something I ask myself more and more these days—Who knew?

A Question For All You Recovering Addicts Out There

I have just posted an article on my own site called Addiction Recovery: What Have We Become. This article is more of a question posed to all my fellow recovering addicts/alcoholics out there.

I want to know what are some positive things that you find yourself liking, seeing, doing since entering into recovery.

I would love if everyone could take a couple of minutes, head on over to What Winners Do , and just give an example of something that you are interested in now that you never thought you would be while still in active addiction.

I think it will be fun and positive to see some of the good that comes out of addiction recovery. I've already listed mine in the post so don't use the excuse that you don't want to be the first one to comment...I've already taken care of that for you.

Erin

It’s Not a Habit…

I started methadone August of 1999. By then I was a solid year and a half into a pretty heavy opiate addiction. It had started with dilaudid but as soon as we were able we had moved on to heroin. We live in a funny city. While it is reasonably large with close to half a million, it is near impossible to find heroin here. Except for a time in the 1970's - so I have been told - it is one drug that does not seem welcome. Very white collar town so there is lots of pot and cocaine. Crack has had some effect as has speed but not like those other two. Because this is also very much a university and college town, there is also lots of ecstasy and its ilk. By the time I had even given a dilaudid a try, I was about two years deep into a large coke and speed habit. Funny can't even remember what that was like but I know that we were using every day and had been for a long time. Then along came a little yellow pill and it was as if nothing else existed. It was wondrous and it didn't take long to develop a tolerance for it. Thank heavens we knew someone that could get us heroin. He was out of town three out of the seven days and he happened to be working in a place that was literally drowning in it so every Thursday night right after getting off his bus, he would drop by our place with our weekly package. Sunday night we would wave him goodbye as his bus left town, our money in his pocket. This went on for over a year.

It started to get quite expensive as all habits tend to but this one also felt different. Where before, I may have been a bit of a bitch if I couldn't get blow or speed, I could get by at least but not this time. When I was without I hurt, I felt sick, I was in severe pain. I couldn't or wouldn't want to go to work and I had always prided myself on never letting any of my vices interfere with work and to be honest, life in general. Suddenly I had become single minded, nothing else mattered but not feeling sick anymore. I had to have a hit no matter what. Came close to bankrupting us. Sad but at least we had a house to sell to get us out of debt. And selling this one, our favourite, meant that we still had two others left although they were nowhere near as nice and they were in a much rougher part of town but that didn't seem to concern us so much anymore. We moved. We had to. We had someone else very important in our life now that very much needed to be accommodated. I had never lied before but suddenly I found myself doing just that. When my family doctor confronted me I couldn't admit it at first. I was every which way of denial until I couldn't take it anymore. This drug eventually wears you down, strips you of every vestige of dignity and self respect. I fessed up and when he started talking about getting us into a methadone program, I pretty much said yes just to humour him plus he said that as soon as we were on the list, he would be able to help us out and get us from having to buy our dope on the street at ridiculous prices.

I had never actually intended to follow thru with the methadone. The moment we were accepted our doctor wrote us each a prescription for 30 dilaudid a week. It was as if we had hit the jackpot. Between us we had 60 pills that would normally have cost us almost $20 each - quite a savings. He said that he could keep us supplied until we reached a high enough methadone dose that could sustain us on its own. I figured that we would ride this out as long as we could. Looked like it would be at least eight weeks that we could get our prescription and I figured that was long enough for us to get our finances back in order. We would in theory save a lot by not having to buy opiods for a two month period. As it was we were spending about $700/week and that was barely keeping us from getting sick so I knew that we were living on borrowed time if we continued spending at that rate. We were long overdue for a financial break.

But a funny thing happened while we going to methadone. It started working. I stopped grieving for any of the others. I went a day without a hit, then two and then a week. A week turned into a month and then two and three and we were still going. Suddenly two years had passed and I no longer did anything except for my methadone. I didn't even drink anymore. I forgot about heroin and dilaudid and morphine - oxys had yet to make their appearance but that was only a matter of time. The methadone made me so very tired though even if it did seem to work a small miracle. I would start to nod off at the worst possible time something I rarely did while addicted to the others. I needed to stay awake. So before we knew it we were back doing speed but this time we vowed that we would keep our spending under control and we did for a long time. Speed wasn't the same anyway now that we were on meth. Yes, you could kind of feel it but you never felt as if you were way out there. Oh well, it was still better than nothing. And we were spending about half of what we used to spend on the other.

Suddenly twenty seven months had passed. We were starting to get tired of the daily grind of having to grab our methadone. Yes, for the most part normalcy had returned to our lives. We fell into our own little routine. Gone were the hours upon hours dedicated to finding that one hit that would take away the pain. I could go back to work full time, we both could. Methadone gave our life structure once again. My credit card debts were now paid off. We had sold the other two houses and purchased a three story apartment building. Our self confidence and esteem had returned. We didn't want or need methadone any more. It was time to say goodbye. I had two weeks vacation at Christmas 2001 but a week before my vacation started I got a terrible flu. I was down to about 20mg of methadone a day. I felt so sick that I just didn't feel like grabbing my methadone one day and the next and the day after that. I just stopped going and when my flu ended, any withdrawal that I may have been going thru had also ended. It was hard to tell one from the other so I kept telling myself that there was no withdrawal just crappy flu symptoms.

Fast forward three and a half years. I am once again severely dependent on that little yellow pill. Well now it is the little white pill. No more #4s for us, we now need #8s. We are back spending ridiculous amounts of money and are consumed by abject fear whenever we find that we have run out or that none of our dealers is holding. It is no longer pleasant. But what of the intervening three years you ask? Well that is obviously a story for another day...TO BE CONTINUED

Life Jacket Anyone????

I am not posting on my other blog. Not yet anyway. I just feel that it is wrong to post there. I talk about this love we have, this bond we share, as if it is some fucking fairy tale. Well, there is nothing fairy tale like about prison, there is no happily ever after. There is nothing romantic about prison visits, nothing to brag about my husband being a convicted felon. Let alone his lies-God only knows how long they have been going on. Nothing pretty about another woman being involved in my marriage, in my fucking husbands private life. PRIVATE LIFE---IN PRISON!!! It is totally embarrassing that my husband can find time for someone else in prison, its fucking humiliating.
I am not sure what to say, or what to write. All I know is that I want to write, I need to write, even though nothing is making any sense at all, my words are mixed up, my thoughts are not even sentences, so please forgive me. I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to physically hurt someone. I want to go and get a nice bag, snort my brains out, and go numb. I want to go and get some wonderful pills, pop a bunch and just forget that I am alive. (NO RED FLAGS. I'M NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING. just being honest about how I feel) I want to do anything to stop this sickness inside of me. I want this horrible feeling to go away. I cant even describe it. It is like my entire body, inside and out has razor burn. Even when the wind hits any part of my skin, it hurts, it burns constantly. My heart is hurting unlike it has ever hurt before. Shit, everything hurts in me now. I am sick. I can't eat, can't barely sleep, I don't want to do anything at all. I hate getting up in the morning, I hate getting ready for work (i barely do that even, everyone there is so politely pointing out the fact that I have looked like shit all week). I don't want to cook, clean, or do anything with the kids. My poor Noel has been doing Nick's homework with him all week. I don't want to exist right now. I want to hide, to run away. So far away from here, and find a safe place to go, so i can just totally melt down. I have never been a weak woman. I don't cry really. I don't fall apart. I don't think about choices in life, I simply do what I have to do to survive. I have never depended on anyone, but myself. Especially since Joe has been in prison. I have been doing things all by myself. No one financially helps me, mentally helps me, emotionally helps me, or spiritually helps me. I get no support from my family. I get conditional assistance with the kids once in a while, with constant reminding of it. And now, things are just falling apart, and all I want to do is find someone to run too, someone to just take care of me and my kids, I just want to climb into a bed, and stay there for about 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years knowing my kids are taken care of. I am drowning and I am searching for a life jacket, because I am just to tired to continue treading these damn waters. So quickly things fell apart. It took me so long to get all that I have, which is not much, but to us, it is the world. I have always focused on the love my family has, how lucky we are to have that. Now, I am just losing everything around me. I don't know how this happened to us, and the thing that is killing me, is that with my kids and me, it is all my fault. I feel like with Joe, it is my fault also. Like, he is going to someone else, because I am failing him as a wife. I am not providing for him the way I should. I should be working two jobs like I used too. I have a family to provide for. And I am failing at it. I am drowning, and taking my kids with me. I just can't stop this, I am trying, but I feel like the fight has left me. I just want to quit now, just give up. I have never wanted anyone to do anything for me, hell, I never let Joe do anything for me. That is just how I am built, and now, this whole mess with him, it feels like it has just broken me. Another woman. God. After all he has put my family through, another fucking woman. Unreal. In prison, another woman. I just can't get over this. I keep reading that letter, over and over again. Throwing up, and reading it again. Crying, putting it down, washing my face, then picking it up again. Why would he hurt me like this? I have tried to be a good wife to him, since the day we met, he knew he was loved every single fucking day. He knew his wife was here, caring about him, devoting herself to him. Yet, there he went, ANOTHER WOMAN. Not to mention the entire parole thing. I wonder, what did he tell her? Would this continue once he is out? Would he sneak around with her, calling her, seeing her?? Then have the nerve to come up in my bed at night?? Oh God, WHY WONT THIS JUST STOP!!! I want to shut my mind off, shut my heart down. I want to sleep. No- I want to eat a real meal, keep it down, take a hot shower, and sleep. Sleep for days and days. Preferably in someones arms, and at this point, I don't want Joe's arms. I just want that safe feeling to come back to me. I feel like a small child, lost, wandering around.
I need to thank all of you. Letting me go on like this, not making an ounce of sense. I needed to get that out, and probably will need to do it again. You are all so great, trying to help me through this, someone you don't even know. That is amazing, and I really do appreciate it. I am grateful to have all of you in my corner. Sorry for this long post. But thanks for listening.

A Little Something I'm Passionate About Lately

For anyone who checks out my site at all you might have seen that back in May of this year I decided to stop taking Cymbalta. It just felt that it was time to experience the world on my own and not under the influence of a mood elevator.

To my surprise, I was told that I could not just stop taking this medication but that I would need to taper down. Ok, not what I was planning on but I wanted to be successful at coming off Cymbalta so I followed my doctors advice.

To my dismay as soon as I started taking a lower dose my body started to go through withdrawal from Cymbalta. I couldn't believe it. I thought that when I was in rehab detoxing and withdrawing from Oxycontin it would be the last time in my life that my body would be sick due to not having it's drugs. I was wrong.

My doctor didn't prepare me for what I was going to experience. I had flu like symptoms, canker sores, bone pain, total malaise (I was taking a four-five hour nap each day), explosive anger and worst of all...brain zaps. For anyone not familiar with this phenomena a brain zap is an electrical jolt feeling in your brain. I was getting those a couple of times a minute. These symptoms lasted 19 days...19 DAYS!

Suffice to say, since my doctor was "unaware of Cymbalta causing withdrawal" I was convinced I was dying. That was until I googled the term Cymbalta withdrawal. Although there was no "official" information on Cymbalta withdrawal there were message boards filled with people experiencing the same thing as I.

I posted my frustration on my site in an article I lovingly called Cymbalta Withdrawal Sucks. The response I got to this post was astonishing to me. I have hundreds of comments from people going through the same thing that I was. And what was the common theme? They were never told upfront that Cymbalta had the potential to cause withdrawal and even worse their physicians were unaware of this fact.

To put it mildly...this has me really fired up. I started thinking that I need to do something, I need to get the word out there. So I am proud to say that I have done a couple of things to spread the word.

1. I have started an Online Cymbalta Petition addressed to Eli Lilly which is essentially a demand that they make any and all information regarding the potential for Cymbalta to cause withdrawal. There is also some stuff on their about their drug reps informing physician offices prior to giving them free samples to hand out like candy. I am urging anyone and everyone who would like to see a drug company disclose complete information on a drug so that patient's can make an informed decision about their drug sign this petition.
   
2. I have filed a formal complaint with the FDA and through my website am urging those who have suffered through the Cymbalta withdrawal with no prior knowledge of the potential for this withdrawal to file a formal complaint with the FDA.
   

I have also started to email information to local and national TV News channels and Newspapers and so far I have gotten some interest in this story. All of this is in an effort to enact change. I appreciate all of you being patient with me ranting about this subject to no end.

Take Care
Erin

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!!!

This can not be real

I got this letter today. From an old celly of Joe's. He told me that my husband, the one I have waited for all this time, the one I blog about how much I love, and how much he loves me, the one I believe in my heart of hearts to be my soul mate, is writing another woman. He also has this woman put money on his books, and she visits him during the week while I am working.
I am simply devastated. This can not be real. I do not understand this. I can not accept this. My Joe? Why would he do this to me, to our family? How could he do this? What the hell is going on with my life? Why is everything falling apart?

I feel like a complete ass. Like this has all been a joke or something, like he is making a fool out of me. What do I do? How do I handle this? How can I stop this awful pain in my heart? I can feel it shattering, just completely shattering, a million pieces. I can't stop this. I can't handle this. I am so lost right now, I just don't know what to do. So, I am reaching out here. The only place I have. The place I know to get some truth, some reality, some grounding. Please, help me. I really need it. I can't handle this one alone.