Saturday, 17 February 2007 – Day 86/9 – “A Poem by Veronica”
After a while you learn
The subtle difference between
Holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't always mean security.
And you begin to learn
That kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes ahead
With the grace of a woman or man
Not the grief of a child
And you learn
To build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way
Of falling down in mid flight
After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers
And you learn
That you really can endure
That you are really strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn and you learn
With every good bye you learn.
Veronica A. Shoffstall
Day 86/9 – “A Poem by Veronica”
Friday's Quote!
“I had someone at the Houston police station shoot me with heroin so I could do a story about it. The experience was a special kind of hell. I came out understanding full well how one could be addicted to ‘smack’, and quickly.”
- Dan Rather
Day 85/8 – “The Usual Suspects”
Friday, 16 February 2007 – Day 85/8 – “The Usual Suspects”
I have come to the following conclusion. I live in a train station. At night I sleep walk and trains hit me. That must be why I feel like this every morning! This morning has been considerably bad. Feels like the Gau-train hit me last night. It takes me forever to get out bed and make myself presentable. The sad thing is I was just getting better before I took again.
When I asked everybody to send me questions I got an interesting one: “Do you ever think that your addiction and the reason why you, as an educated, intelligent, well-raised person even got involved in heroin, was because you have a self-destructive streak.” Well, that is surely one to ask my therapist when I get one.
The longest I was clean before I started my recovery was 8 days. On the 8th day after my test I took heroin. Then when my recovery started and things were just getting better, on day 18, after yet another test, I took heroin again. Just before reaching Day 60, while things were looking better – I used yet again. It is asif I sabotage my recovery each time. I obstruct my efforts, alienate my friends – and this all when I’m not even using heroin. Jeez… I do have some issues!
If you’ve asked to be added to the mailing list and I haven’t added you then please resend the request to tristanbailey@mailbox.co.za. My SPAM checker is a bit eager at times and the most innocent of e-mails gets thrown out. And if you send me an e-mail recently and I haven’t replied – I do apologize, my juggling of multi-tasking it seems isn’t back to normal yet.
And the question I asked two weeks back was, what is your favourite drug movie? The usual suspects popped their heads in the answers. I hope somebody will surprise me with a new one before Sunday! Enjoy the weekend my friends! Chat to you all soon!
Thursday's Quote!
“The nice thing about being a heroin addict is that you either have no problems or one big one”
– Richard Schuldenfrei
Day 84/7 – “Good times, Bad times”
Thursday, 15 February 2007 – Day 84/7 – “Good times, Bad times”
I’m still not sure what it was that started me thinking – but I thought about it a lot last night. How you can’t experience, appreciate, sometimes even notice the good things that happen in your life if you haven’t experienced the bad ones. After all, it is the bad ones that essentially give definition to the good ones. If everything was just good times – we’d just call them ‘times’! It is the fact that we can experience bad times that make the good ones so much more rewarding, so much more real.
So, I ask myself the question. Would I take anything back? Would I do anything differently? You ask a recovering heroin addict that and you’d assume that ‘Yes’ will boom from his vocal cords while his head nod in unison. But I’m still not so sure what to answer.
I read a piece once how somebody compared the baking of a cake to ones life. How, if you offered somebody raw eggs or flower or sugar they’d probably just look at you funny. On its own the ingredients don’t make much sense. It is only when you put them together that you start to bake a cake. And with a cake you’ll tempt much more people than you would with raw eggs.
So, what I’m getting at is that I can’t begin to understand what all these ingredients in my life will end up as. Perhaps I’ve misjudged a few ingredients or skipped some of it completely. I can only hope that my bad times, in the end served for some better purpose, in my own or somebody else’s life.
It is an expensive price to pay, monetary, physically, mentally, definitely emotionally. And if it was the ingredients to something that would ultimately turn out as one of the ‘good times’ – then I shouldn’t want to change, should I?!
Wednesday's Quote!
"People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shit which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid."
- Mark "Rent-Boy" Renton
Day 83/6 – “Happy Valentine!”
Wednesday, 14 February 2007 – Day 83/6 – “Happy Valentine!”
Happy Valentines Day to all! This is not really a day I celebrate along with the rest of the world – being single and all but there is this festiveness in the air that just wants you to jump up and dance. And after my stunt last week I doubt I’ll be going dancing anytime in the next few weeks, but that’s the price you pay for stupidity, I guess.
Our office is moving in exactly a week. We are closing for three days and moving everything from the cabinets to the signs to the computers to the screws, so it is going to be hectic. The future of us all is still as unpredictable as a ‘M. Night Shyamalan’ movie which has everybody tense and stressed. On Monday the 26th of February I can finally relax a bit – with or without a job!
This past few weeks people have been asking me a lot how my parents and brother are doing and handling the recovery. Of course, the answer was different last week than it would be now. On my brother’s birthday last week it came out I used heroin. I felt terrible. For some reason I always drag him into it – unintentionally.
We had his birthday party on Saturday. One of our friends, also a recovering heroin addict, was also there. He has been clean for 4-5 years now and talking to him was probably one of the reasons I ended up so positive. The things I am going through or feeling, even the lapses, is something that happens to the strongest of people, even those that took the Rehab path, so I think I am still doing very well.
I especially want to say to my family sitting all the way across the country that I am doing pretty well and that they shouldn’t worry. It might not always seem that way and after weeks like last week, it might not look that way either, but believe me – I am making progress, I am getting better!
Tuesday's Quote!
I don't feel the sickness yet, but it's in the post. That's for sure. I'm in the junkie limbo at the moment. Too ill to sleep. Too tired to stay awake, but the sickness is on its way. Sweat, chills, nausea. Pain and craving. A need like nothing else I've ever known will soon take hold of me. It's on its way.
- Mark "Rent-Boy" Renton (Trainspotting Quote)
Day 82/5 – “Purpose”
Tuesday, 13 February 2007 – Day 82/5 – “Purpose”
There were a few times I thought of maybe stopping the blog. I guess you get those days you mistakenly believe that you are cured and that you no longer have the disease – addiction. As I didn’t want to mindless blabber on everyday on a subject that was technically over I considered stopping. But I soon found out that even a 1000 days from now there would still be me and my heroin recovery.
Writing this blog has been one of the most excellent things I’ve done in my life. On a personal level it has been my ‘therapist couch’. I get to lie here everyday and speak my mind, tell my story to the approximately 150 people that read it everyday, excluding the ones on the mailing list.
Imagine telling your story to a 150 people every day and hope that they can understand the methods you sometimes use or forgive you when you relapse. That they can be there for you on the bad days and celebrate with you on the good ones. I know I have helped a few people change their lives around, because they’ve contacted me to tell me. To think that even one person could have been saved from this hell because of my words is very rewarding.
As you know one of the issues I have been struggling with these past few weeks was a purpose. I’ve spent 6-7 years of my life mindlessly drifting around using drugs. Inside I knew I had so much more to offer but I always found myself on a service road somewhere overlooking the highway I was suppose to be on.
Marcy, I think even new people in blogworld know we’ve been friends from the very beginning. From my first entry that Friday afternoon you’ve been there for me. Chinouk, Pilgrim, Madmom, Spidergirl, Tin, Baardman, Kitten, MadamInDubai, AnarchyAngel, Amma, Pam, Richard, MTB, SammyJoe and Tracy to name just a few. I thank you all so very much for your support. I know there are many more out there that comment or read and I hope you’ll all continue to do so in the future.
I am not celebrating the 60 days clean I would have been had it not been for the lapse last week. I am not celebrating 80 days clean had it not been for the lapse on Day 18. But on this and my other blog I am celebrating 82 days with all of you – I am celebrating a purpose!
Day 81/4 – “One, Two, Three, Four...”
Monday, 12 February 2007 – Day 81/4 – “One, Two, Three, Four...”
Well, here we are. I made it past 80 days in my recovery which is very anti-climatic due to the contrasting 4 days I have been clean now. It is very strange reading the title and looking at a number which seems unnatural there. I’ll be reminded everyday of my ‘mistake’ as I read the title.
My intention on Friday was not to post anything this weekend. On Friday my mind was clouded and I was very confused. I just told my mom, still had to tell my dad and slowly as friends and family were reading the blog I started getting calls and e-mails about something I wasn’t really ready to talk about.
On Saturday morning when I woke up, after everybody that had to know, knew… I felt much better. I decided to start writing everything down that I was feeling. The original 7 page emotional outburst was reduced to the two blog entries of this weekend. It was strangely received, as well. I found myself amazingly positive over the weekend despite the setback – and most people’s response were that I needed professional help.
Not exactly what I wanted to hear – but the truth is what we tell on this blog. Unfortunately as far as I know there isn’t much support for ‘drug addicts’ where I live. I can’t just pop in to NA Meetings anytime of the week. But it doesn’t mean that I am not working on the problem and fighting to prevent future lapses.
Even today, I am extremely positive even with the slight withdrawal symptoms still lurking inside of me. Amazing what damage a little heroin does, one time and I feel like a zombie again with my insides screaming.
I am mad at myself as well, as I’m sure many are. I don’t take what happened last week lightly. But I also feel that as long as I can have regret about happened and the will to keep on fighting to make it better – everything will turn out okay.
Day 80/3 - "And then there were two... (Part 2)"
Sunday, 11 February 2007 - Day 80/3 - "And then there were two... (Part 2)"
I wanted it all to go away. This unsure butterfly feeling that hung over me like a storm cloud, I wanted it gone. I wanted piece and quiet in my heart, in my mind, in my life, at work… just… silence, emotionless, comforting silence… and the easy way out, the one thing that would take it all away, even if it was just for a few hours… was heroin!
And as much as you would like to understand as a non-addict and even sometimes as a non-heroin-addict, you probably can’t. You sit there reading this and can’t imagine how somebody that stayed clean for almost 60 days, could for any reason throw it all away.
You read this as one of the people that gave me their cellphone number, e-mail address or MSN address and you wonder why I didn’t contact you then if things were going that bad. Or you read this as a family member knowing how much this tore our family apart and you wonder why I would put them through it all again. I’m the addict here and I don’t even understand it!
There is a big part of me that still feel so guilty. I have taken a few steps back in my recovery. Everybody is a bit suspicious of my every move again and I can’t go out of the house without questions. I dented the trust I was already struggling to rebuild.
But I’m staying positive. Taking again is not something I want to do, even once, but it will or might happen and if it does I’m not going to sit in the corner and cry about it. I won’t let any of my friends or family members do either. It happened, its over and I’m moving on. The thing that scares me – is not the taking – it is the not stopping!
