Saturday, 3 February 2007 - Day 72/54 – “Take me in your arms, Miss Heroin (by Anonymous)"
So now, little man, you've grown tired of grass
LSD, goofballs, cocaine and hash,
and someone, pretending to be a true friend,
said, "I'll introduce you to Miss Heroin."
Well honey, before you start fooling with me,
just let me inform you of how it will be.
For I will seduce you and make you my slave,
I've sent men much stronger than you to their graves.
You think you could never become a disgrace,
and end up addicted to Poppy seed waste.
So you'll start inhaling me one afternoon,
you'll take me into your arms very soon.
And once I've entered deep down in your veins,
The craving will nearly drive you insane.
You'll swindle your mother and just for a buck.
You'll turn into something vile and corrupt.
You'll mug and you'll steal for my narcotic charm,
and feel contentment when I'm in your arms.
The day, when you realize the monster you've grown,
you'll solemnly swear to leave me alone.
If you think you've got that mystical knack,
then sweetie, just try getting me off your back.
The vomit, the cramps, your gut tied in knots.
The jangling nerves screaming for one more shot.
The hot chills and cold sweats, withdrawal pains,
can only be saved by my little white grains.
There's no other way, and there's no need to look,
for deep down inside you know you are hooked.
You'll desperately run to the pushers and then,
you'll welcome me back to your arms once again.
And you will return just as I foretold!
I know that you'll give me your body and soul.
You'll give up your morals, your conscience, your heart.
And you will be mine until, "Death Do Us Part"
Day 72/54 – “Take me in your arms, Miss Heroin (by Anonymous)"
Friday's Quote!
Drug Quote for Today:
There is only one reason why men become addicted to drugs,
they are weak men. Only strong men are cured, and they cure themselves.
--Martin H. Fischer
Day 71/53 – “Drive-Thru”
Friday, 2 February 2007 – Day 71/53 – “Drive-Thru”
“How can I get drugs…? Let me count the ways…” I was always amazed at how resourceful a drug addict could be. No matter what the boundaries were they put up I found some way to get around it and score.
I haven’t specifically mentioned this before but my mom and I work together at the same company. Infact, we sit across from each other. This testifies to the cunningness I demonstrated while taking heroin all those months. But when it came time to get clean it worked to my benefit. Having a parent so close by not only to keep a watch but to listen and to comfort me – really helped!
I had a different approach to the recovery from what I saw in other people. Their responses to help were ‘Leave me alone. It’s got nothing to do with you. What do you know? What do you care?’ it was typical stubborn behavior of an addict that didn’t want to get clean. I did it differently. I wanted help and I accepted and appreciated it when I got it. I worked with the people trying to help me and not against them as many others did. But it was only to a point – to the point where the craving kicked in. Then nothing else mattered, all I wanted, all I needed from anybody was heroin!
And getting heroin, getting any drugs is easy especially in this small city. It is more of a mission to buy bread at the local supermarket than it is to get drugs. You make one call and conveniently get the dealer at the pickup point in the area. You don’t get out of the car – you just do the transaction through the window and done! No parking! No Car Guards! No getting out! No queues! Simpler than buying a bread!
So, as we explore reasons for my drug taking I realize that much of the use over the years were purely because of boredom and very much convenience. Sounds like two of the stupidest reasons to throw your life away – but hey, nobody said the reasons were supposed to be smart!
Thursday's Quote!
Blog world (or especially the 24.com blogworld) was crazy today. I'm sure the servers got close to crashing from all the posts. Let me do my bit and do a second post today...
Drug quote for today:
"Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs." - Lily Tomlin
ha ha... I found this funny... must have been somebody ON drugs!
T.B
Day 70/52 – “Seventy!”
Thursday, 1 February 2007 – Day 70/52 – “Seventy!”
I didn’t like it. The first time I smoked it, I didn’t like it at all. I’ve never been a big smoking fan - cigarettes, weed, crack… the whole smoking thing just never caught my interest. But I was then, as I am now, a curious and experimental person. I would try anything once. This was the time I tried crack cocaine.
I remember taking cocaine the first time – didn’t like it. I was a pill junky and anything that didn’t give me ecstasy high just wasn’t going to do. I tried it anyway. I don’t think it was a liking in it that made me try it the second time – maybe just wanted to give it another try cause everybody else was doing it (see the problem there). Soon, I was trying it 3-4 times a week.
So, when I smoked crack the first time I didn’t like it that much either. Again, very possibly because I was comparing it to my drug of choice – ecstasy. In true experimental fashion I tried it again and again and again. And as damaging and dangerous as heroin is – crack is just a vicious drug.
The affect of smoking crack rocks is not long lasting. Soon after you’ve smoked one you want another, and another, and another. I can’t even describe it. It is this purgatory where your only feeling is I want more, your only thought is how to get more and your only action is going to get more. But then again… that is what all drugs do to me!
Today, I've been in recovery 70 days... whoo-haaa...
The power in Pietersburg went out last night – thank you Eskom! I have to thank everybody for participating in the ‘blog couch’ question asking. I received so many questions it will take me the whole weekend to give them the attention they deserve – so look out for them on Monday. Receiving so many made me realize there is still a lot of questions that need answering – stuff you don’t know about me, stuff I don’t know about myself. But then again that was the purpose of doing it – so thank you!
Day 69/51 – “Form Follows Function”
Wednesday, 31 January 2007 – Day 69/51 – “Form Follows Function”
The most important question I could ask myself is if a professional therapist could help me find the direction I seek?! And maybe in that one question lies the reason for asking all the other questions. “Yes… No… Maybe… I just don’t know!” I’d like to think, yes. I’d like to think that there is help available, that perhaps somebody out there has an answer…
I have an obsession, a fixed idea that keeps driving me back to my drugs. I have a compulsion that causes me to be unable to stop at one fix, one pill, one anything.
I have a history of drug abuse. Through the years I have used and abused numerous different drugs and every time I managed to stop and ignorantly continue with my life until my obsession and compulsion drove me to the next thing.
Heroin addiction was the worst thing that happened in my life. It shot me in my knees and while I lay there bleeding it kicked me repeatedly until I hung but inches away from death… that is what heroin did because that is what heroin does. But, heroin gave me this – the realization that I am an addict, the clarity to see some of my problems and the determination to solve them before I end up on my knees again.
I have one quote I always remember, one line I believe in and try to live by: “When we know better, we do better…”. Perhaps my faults, which may or may not be many, is obvious to you and oblivious to me. That is probably the reason I am here then - trying to know better, trying to do better!
Day 68/50 – “A Beautiful Mind”
Tuesday, 30 January 2007 – Day 68/50 – “A Beautiful Mind”
Addiction, as typically defined, is a reliance on a substance or behavior that the individual has little power to resist. It is further described as a “brain disease” and a “chronic relapsing disease” in that there are visible alterations in the brains of addicted individuals and these effects are long-lasting within their neurological patterns.
My name is Christiaan, some of you know me as Tristan (TB) and I am an addict.
Sometimes I struggle to come to terms with it. There is a part of me that believes this is all a bad dream and when I pinch myself I will wake up with little memory of this traumatic nightmare. There is a part of me that believes when I wake up tomorrow I will be cured. That longing will no longer be inside of me and I master the act of stopping and stopping and stopping.
There are people out there that perhaps seem a bit perplexed by the idea of addiction. How it is that a person cannot stop at one or two or three when they so easily accomplish the supposedly insignificant task themselves? I ask myself the very same question sometimes, testing myself, testing fate (if you want) to see if I have learned to stop and to stop and to stop.
I find comfort in the fact that I am asking these questions and querying these situations. As I am reminded everyday by the people that keep me sane, that keep me positive, that keep me well – I am trying to be better. I am examining my life, admitting to my problems and trying to change them. I guess you can call that recovery – so at best I’m a recovering addict.
One is too many and a thousand is never enough. These are the words that addicts live by, because for them there is no stopping at two, there is no stopping until nothing is left: No money, no family, and no life! And for addicts there will always be that longing that need to start something, just once and just once and… just once!
The Blog Couch - Pilot!
I am trying something new on Thursday and hope that all my friends and devoted readers out there will participate. I’ve been on this therapist blog couch for the past 67 days and tomorrow I have been totally clean from heroin for 50 days. If you could ask me that question that you think would help me with my recovery, that would help both of us understand - What would it be?
Comment here or send your questions to tristanbailey@mailbox.co.za before Wednesday at 17:00
Day 67/49 – “I’m on the outside, I’m looking in!”
Monday, 29 January 2007 – Day 67/49 – “I’m on the outside, I’m looking in!”
“If I won a million rand tomorrow would I take heroin again?” I got asked that question in an e-mail this past week. I gave a smile when I read it. I thought to myself… if only everything was as easy as answering this question. “No… I won’t take any heroin… but I can’t promise about anything else!”
I am hoping that when you read these blogs you can see that I am improving. That the person I was 70 days ago is not the person I am today. But the reality of it is, that the person I am today, the person I have been for the past 7 years, 10 years, my whole life – isn’t much of who I am supposed to be either.
I know who I am inside. I know I am a wonderful person, with many talents, great strengths, a plan for the future, for his life. For some reason I can’t seem to pull myself together, follow it through. I have the strength to overcome heroin addiction but I can’t find the strength to head my life in a direction. I just drift aimlessly.
This recovery is about stopping and never taking any drugs or alcohol again. It is about finding the problem that keeps driving me towards the next high and the next one and the next one. It is about why I think I need drugs to accomplish something in this life or why I think I need them to have any fun.
“If I won a million rand tomorrow would I take heroin again?”
“No… I won’t take any heroin… but I can’t promise about anything else!”
So it seems my recovery is only starting!
Day 66/48 – “Poll/Discussion 3 (continued)”
Sunday, 28 January 2007 – Day 66/48 – “Poll/Discussion 3 (continued)”
The following week will be spent talking about Addiction a lot. Got a lot to say and sort out regarding that.
Remember if you want this blog e-mailed to you daily you can contact me at tristanbailey@mailbox.co.za and I'll send you a copy daily.
And if you have or know of stories of addiction, recovery, withdrawal or drugs you think should be shared with the world (and can't or don't want to publish on a blog of your own), please let me know aswell.
Lastly, there is one week left on the bi-weekly discussion. What do people do for fun, to pass the time, with their friends or their family when no drugs or alcohol can be involved?!
See you all tomorrow again with normal posting!
