the far far away land of recovery

the way i see it, on earth there are three planes of exsistance….”the world of the using”,
“the world of the normal” and “the world of those in recovery.  you can visit each place, and maybe stand with one foot in each rhelm for a while, but in the end, you need to pick one and live there.

now, the world of the normal, a place i’ve never been unless on a day pass.  people who can have one drink and not need to get blind drunk, or kids who can roll at a rave, and just go home and go to bed, as apposed to copping an eightball, cuz who goes to bed as the sun comes up? people who pay their bills, live in their own apartments, have real jobs, and for more than a couple months at a time. people who don’t know which prison has the best hotpots, or which detox doses methadone prn, or which halfway house you can hook up or get high in without getting booted. people who have never been on foodstamps, don’t have a probation officer, and have never been investigated by dss.  people who go on vacation, have never worried about what was in the car when they got pulled over.  people who live each day just to make a good life. normal people.  not me.

and then you have the world of using.  i have been a long time resident, but am currently staying in another part of town. in this place, normal takes on a whole new meaning. it is normal to have hep c.   if you don’t, it actually damages your credibility as a junky.  normal is trackmarks, prison time, lawyers, p.o.’s and social workers. normal is psych meds and piss tests.  normal is getting up in the morning to stick a needle in your arm so you can roll out of bed, commit a couple felonies, and score, once again.  normal is selling your foodstamps to get off e.  normal is forging checks, selling jewelry, and hustling gift card scams.  normal is asking if your roommate is stipulated by the courts, or out on parole.  normal is comparing track marks and clean time.  normal is watching the kids around you relapse, seeing their pictures in the paper a week later.  “died suddenly at home”  normal is never seeing the sun, living like a vampire, except coke is your life’s blood. and it’s sucking you dry.

now, in the land of recovery, you are in a suburb of normal, but you will never live there. you are always surrounded by other recovering addicts.  you talk drugs and recovery all the  time.  normal is meeting after meeting followed by a ride home of glorifying use, not even on purpose, but just because it’s familiar.  and you still have to watch people go out, relapse, but now there is nothing to mask the pain, and you need to feel all that shit. recovery is not easy.  most of the time i hate it. but it’s where i’m at today. living in the land of the half-dead and hopefully recovering.

mistakes i make sober

i can’t even begin to explain how much it sux to have to look at my life sober. all the things i did wrong, and all the things i continue to screw up. cuz i am still just as much of a retard, except now i have to realize it. but i don’t have time right now. soon. i promise.

my last day out

i look back about two months ago….the day before i hit detox this time, and i feel so detached from that moment. like i was watching an episode of intervention. “what the fuck is this girl’s problem?  the insanity of this shit.

casey and i had been “living” in this shooting gallery downtown.  it was a mess. i hated the people there, i hated myself for being there.  every day was a struggle, just to get up, get off e, and maybe get to work (but not often) i was barely sustaining an exsistance.  i had been tossing the idea around for a couple weeks.

“i think i’m gonna go to detox.” i said, as i loosened the belt around my arm, passed it to lynn, the  chick whose subsidised apartment i was squatting in.  she tied off and looked up at me with a smirk. “sure you are, after you pay me some rent.” what a bitch. i was getting her high for the fourth time that day, and still it was never enough. 

(this chick beat me for a chunk of change on my birthday, but that’s a story for another session.)

i just kept telling myself ”you’re going to detox, as soon as the money runs out.” and that was the plan.  but for some reason, i couldn’t bring myself to quit hustling. i knew in my head, once i was broke i was hitting the ’tox, but i just couldn’t stop getting high. i wanted it, but i couldn’t help myself.  standard junky procedure.  so i got my last check, casey got his last check, we did our taxes, got instant money loans (rip off) we did some minor b&e’s, sold some antiques. utter madness, and  all for what? so i could milk this last pathetic run for all it’s worth.

but to be honest, i was sick more often than i was straight, as it always is at the bitter end.  never had enough money, never had enough drugs. if i had coke, i wanted dope, if i had dope i wanted coke. if i had both i needed more. and so on.  and i watched myself falling down the rabbit hole, and just kept telling myself ”you’ll go when you can’t run any more.”  well, that day came, alright.

casey had been calling detox’s for about a week, and getting nowhere. it was still winter, and in new england, everyone wants to get clean in the winter.  looking for three hots and a cot….stay out of the weather.  so getting into detox is like getting front row tickets to some killer show. everyone wants in and there’s just not enough to go around.  i hadn’t even started calling, cuz we still had some cash. we hustled up about 300.00, and it was a friday.  we got a call from kristen, one of my pseudo-dealers (the make money to get high kind) and she was stressed.

“i’m pissed cuz dss won’t let me see my kid.”

“that sux.” i said ”wanna party?” seemed like the logical answer to me.

“come over.” her as well, it seemed.

casey and i made our way over to her house. we copped an eightball and a gram of diesel, and decided to make a night out of it. i remember thinking. “this isn’t so bad, maybe i really don’t need to hit up treatment. i mean, we are getting by okay.”

halfway through my fifth coke shot, i came to a conclusion. “this coke sux.” i tossed my set of gimicks on the table in disgust and walked over to the tv. i hate it when the coke sux, because you don’t get the high you’re looking for, but you will stick yourself six times more than you usually would, attempting to capture that ellusive feeling. stupid. just as i was about the articulate this point to casey, the phone rang.

it was lynn. “you assholes.”

“well, hello lynny, what’s all the ruckus about?” i asked. i always get cocky when i do coke.

“i hear through the grapvine you made 200.00 today, and you didn’t bring me nothing.” entitlment stained her voice.

“it was actually 300.00, and what the fuck do you mean, i don’t owe you rent.”

“i let you live in my fucking house and you don’t even get me high?”

“i got you high twice today.” i was getting pissed. i don’t understand this mentality at all.  the addict behavior of something for something. you can have a glass of milk, sure, for a dollar. and nothing is ever good enough. you totally forget about getting a ride to cop at six in the morning, and lose your nut when the same kid won’t bring you to hustle cash after lunch. everybody owes you. 

“well, you either come home with money, or you don’t fucking come home. i’m sick of being used by you.”

you crazy bitch. “sure, whatever lynn. we’ll see how you feel about it tommorow, when you are dopesick, and calling my phone, begging me to make some money.” and i hung up.

now i really needed to get into detox.

but not till these drugs were gone.

the rest of the night was pretty standard. intravenous narcotics, you know the drill. around three in the morning, kristen and her boyfriend had gone to bed, and me and casey were up talking about our plans.

“well, i’m gonna really put the effort in tommorow, you know, detox and all.”

“okay, me too.” he said, eyeballing the half gram of dope on the table. “and if that’s the case, we might as well polish this off.”

who saw that one coming.

“okay.” was my simple answer. it didn’t occur to me that maybe we wouldn’t get in, or if we did, it would be well after the “sickmark” and we would be in need way before the bed was ready. besides, there’s no way in hell i was going to detox sick. you gotta be jammed. it’s junky law.  but none of that came to me. when you are running, one this is stone simple in a sea of complicated. if you can get high, you do. as soon as you can, no questions, no consequences, no concience.  so that’s what we did.  we smashed the rest of the dope and went to bed.  he held me, but it didn’t feel like he was even there. that close to the end of a run, you are alone at all times.  there’s this heroin buffer between you and life, and even though he told me he loved me, we both knew that was inconsequential….

we woke up the next morning, defeated and dopesick. out of money, no beds in detox, no idea how we got here, or what we were gonna do.

i called my mom and worked her over. “i’m going to detox, i need money for stuff.”

“what stuff,”

“shampoo and shit. come on mom, don’t you trust me?”

“i’ll let you borrow the money, but PROMISE me it’s not for drugs.”

“i can’t believe you’d even ask that, hello, i’m going to detox.”

soulless.

so i told kristen my mom was gonna lend me some money for toiletries, and she should really front us two grams to get off e.  she agreed, but in true junky fashion, it took her two hours to cop. i was kickin and flippin all over her living room for the duration, cursing myself and that last shot of the night.

how do you do it over and over and never learn? you’re not stupid. you know how it happens, you feel the agony, you live the nightmare, but as soon as the pain subsides, you set yourself up again. maybe this time it will be fun again.

finally she got back and we split a gram at that moment. now i won’t lie, i wanted it bad, and it was fucking incredible.  that first shot after being sick is like liquid bliss. it’s all the bullshit that follows it that brings me down. but in those brief moments after i licked the blood off my arm, i was at peace. or at least what i thought was peace.

we went back home to collect the money so we could pay kristen before we *hopefully* hit detox. we went to casey’s mom’s house, and as he burglurized for more money “just in case” i called a detox in the city. my first call, i didn’t expect much.

“can you be here in two hours.”

“um, yeah.”

everything happens for a reason, i truely believe that. and there was my out. my bed. my chance to free myself from this prison i put myself it. this hole i dug myself. this grave.

“i’m in.” i said, looking at casey with pure surprize splattered on my face.

“what?” he mouth gaped open. “i’ve been trying for a week, you call once and get in?” i don’t know if he was pissed, or please. cuz now all the money he stole could go in his arm alone. funny how junkies think like that.

so, needless to say, my first thought was. “better bang the rest of this out.” i was psyched.

i sat in the bathroom, and i can hear casey’s nephew running around upstairs, and i feel guilty.  if only these poor people knew what i did with their kid in the next room. soulless.

so in perfect junky karma, the dope would not suck up. i sat in there for twenty minutes. cotton after cotton, my face getting red and hot, so god-fucking-furious. ijustwanttogetoffwhatthefuckisthisbullshitsuckupyoufuckingbastard.

finally i got the shit in the set, and i tied off. i remember looking at the shot and thinking. “this is it. my last dose. for  while anyway. better be good.”

i missed.

my whole arm blew up, the vein i use often, was just not the right choice that day. fuck fuck fuck.

i came out of the bathroom, tears streaming down my face, in full melt down. my arm was red, and it was itching and burning.  i scratched and scratched until blood came. casey had to hold me down.

at the time i thought i was so upset because i missed my shot. my last rush, my last good high. but now, looking back on it, it had nothing to do with heroin. it was me breaking. it all came down on me in that last push of the plunger. my life truely is unmanagable. i am a complete mess, i hated everything and everyone in my life, especially me. i spent my days hustling and being hustled. never feeling anything but that longing.

i was in the car on the way to detox in an hour….the first step is always the hardest.
 

little bit of shimmer

i can’t put into words how much i’ve missed this site. i’ve been so many places in the past months, without really going anywhere at all.  i am so psyched that people on here can relate to my experience, i don’t want to feel isolated anymore.

i did just what i said i was gonna do. (for once) i went to detox in the city, followed up by a month in a holding facility, while waiting for a 1/2 way house bed in boston.  i really didn’t know if i was gonna be able to stick it out, but to my surprize, here i am.  i’ve been in boston for a little over two weeks now, sober almost 50 days.  if you are a addict, you know that’s a big deal.  if you’re not an addict, let me enlighten you; it’s a big deal.  this is the longest ammount of clean time i’ve put together in my life. i feel good today.  so much has happened, and i want to spill my sober guts all over this keyboard, but i just don’t have time right now.  i am actually busy, doing normal people things, like looking for a job, going to therapy, and getting coffee. two months ago, coffee was a luxury i could not permitt myself, cuz that was 2.50 closer to my next bag. how crazy it all is.

i just wanted to say hi, and i’m not dead yet. and for today, i feel good. i’ll get back with some gripping drama from the junkbox in recovery….me.