Saturday, 14 April 2007 - Day 141 / 65
Sunday, 15 April 2007 - Day 142 / 66
Day 140 - "Mundane"
Friday, 13 April 2007
Day 140 / 64 - "Mundane"
Planning to go out consists of a serious of questions I ask in my head long before I even consider asking my parents. Anything that will warrant an explanation is normally skipped, as I’m really tired of fighting, explaining or rationalizing my actions. Activities done with certain of my friends is normally okay, but should I wish to go out alone or with somebody they don’t know it usually creates issues again.
If I actually do go out, I have to be picked up or borrow my mom’s car. After the accident earlier the year, they think I’ve lost the ability to drive, and always fear I’m now suddenly going to have an accident every time I go out. If I’m 5 minutes late – I have to hear, how they were worried something happened to the car. The car!
So, I stay at home. No issues, no worries. In the best of times in Polokwane, before the whole addiction I found myself bored out of my mind. I just wanted to break away to Pretoria or Jo-burg, hell even a trip to Tzaneen was a change from this place. In the words of Casper De Vries, think Zimbabwe divided by 3, and then you’ll have some vague idea of Polokwane.
I miss going out and just being somewhere, I miss meeting new people, and I miss a life that isn’t just a bunch of replicated behaviors. It is like I keep to this tight schedule of activities that barely keeps me sane, weekdays, weekends, public holidays – everything has become this mundane task. Am I falling out of the buss here or is this what other people experience as well?
Don’t get me wrong. It is not boredom. I have enough to do at home. I can keep myself busy for weeks with whatever I have around me. And in that lies my problem – “the around me”, my surroundings, the few walls I’m able to be! It is Friday and perhaps the reason again for feeling to strong about this today. Yet another Friday, yet another weekend, yet another set of tasks with only minor deviation!
Day 139 - "9 Lives"
Thursday, 12 April 2007
Day 139 / 63 - "9 Lives"
Over my child and adult hood I have had one pet. We’ve had a lot of dogs and as much as they were part of the family and we loved them, my cat was MY PET. She is a bright white wild Persian cat that we got while we stayed in Phalaborwa. For many years in her life I was her owner and she hardly let anybody else touch her, stroke her or get near her.
I liked that quality about her. Like we belonged to each other and nobody else. Nobody would ever take her away from me and nobody would ever take me away from her. She is now more than 16 years old and although slightly slower than she was in her earlier years there is nothing wrong with her. She sleeps, like most cats do a lot of the time and still loves to come and sit next to me doesn’t matter what I do. If I’m typing on the keyboard, if I’m writing at the table, reading on the bed, lying and watching television – she always comes and lies right smack on top of me or on top of the stuff I’m busy with.
She was sick for a while. She could hardly walk or eat properly and I feared the worst. This happened round about the time I was just 2 weeks clean. I didn’t even want to think of losing her, especially then… I don’t know what would have happened if I did lose her. I was afterall still very much an addict – ready to dull any emotion with heroin
Lately she hasn’t been well and we took her to the Vet today. She was last at the vet 2 years ago with roughly the same problem. Because she is a white cat she gets cancer quite easily. Her ear really looks bad because of it and she has cancer in her nose as well. She is staying overnight and they will be cutting a piece of her ear and try and relieve the blockage in her nose.
Having to face this sickness, possible death or even death – it’s not something one want to think about, but that doesn’t make it go away. At the best of times I find myself with that slight longing or craving towards the thing that made it all better – heroin. I have to say that the thought of losing somebody close to me is just the worst thing I can imagine to happen. I fear the emotions, the sorrow, the pain – but most of all I fear what I’ll do to get rid of it!
Day 138 - "Cravings"
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
Day 138 / 62 - "Cravings"
I don’t really get cravings any more – at least not like I did in the beginning. The dreams, the nightmares, the thoughts of taking, that longing for heroin – all of it is pretty much gone. On occasion I get a day where it hits me. It doesn’t have to be when I’m walking past a place or see people that I used to connect to heroin. Sometimes it happens in the most unlikely of places.
It happens and this overwhelming part of me… wants it, needs it, and longs for it again. I wish I knew where that part of me was, what it was that triggers it. I just know that the slightest gap I give myself on those days I will fall.
The scary thing is that there is nothing anybody can ever do to prevent it. No matter who I have around me, how much they check up on me – it all comes down to me. Nobody can watch me 24/7, I don’t except them to. It can happen at any time, at any moment and it can all happen in my head. A choice between two little words: Yes or No!
What I have learned from my repetitious behavior over the long period I have used heroin is that after you’ve made that choice – there is no turning back. Once you’ve answered yes, you will lie and betray and steal to get heroin. Just one choice, one little unspoken word and you’re back at Square 1.
I try and remember that I started this Recovery broken, hurt, depressed – weak. And as each day passed that I said No once again I grew stronger and stronger. I get days where those two words squeals in my head and I am so thankful that I still find it somewhere inside of me to say “No”. As you all know, on occasion I made the wrong choice and even then in those darker days I am eternally grateful that the mistake stopped at once.
I guess I cheer myself up with the thought that I’ve made amazing progress – even if I say so myself. Progress, perhaps further than most have managed at this point in their Recovery. Temptation lies around us all at times when we least expect it. But our true strength lies in the ability to say “No”, even those times when everything else says “Yes!”
Day 137 - "Bargaining with the Devil (remembering)"
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
Day 137 / 61 - "Bargaining with the Devil (remembering)"
Originally posted on 16 January 2007, here is “Bargaining with the Devil”…
I hurt myself with a knife today.
Deeper marks different from the way I would normally play.
Marks to prove I was still alive, I could still feel the pain,
which after all of this bleeding I still contain.
I am dangerously close to stepping over this line.
This line of things and of people that I would normally decline.
Things I would never even dare to discover,
lying in my reach… in undecided hover.
I remember the feeling. I remember the time
when doing these things were a much bigger crime.
Perhaps not by law but by moral degree
were those substances we now too often see.
Dulled by habit and expensive addiction.
Fuelled by issues and dayly friction.
Kept alive through instigation.
Drugged to forget our obligation.
Organs damaged beyond restoration
to dance and dance till dehydration.
Calling the devil for my assasination.
Today it is me the devil is greeting.
After countless years of avoiding this meeting.
It is fate that has brought me here to accomplish my goal.
I am here to sell my soul!
To try the things of which I”ve always pondered
and to get the answers of which I’ve always wondered.
I am being chased by the dragon across the line
shaking hands with the devil for one last time.
There is no turning back from this poison I spray
While I hurt myself with a knife today!
Day 136 - "Where are you now? (remembering)"
Monday, 9 April 2007
Day 136 / 60 - "Where are you now? (remembering)"
Originally posted on 26 February 2007. This is to my friend… before any of us were addicted!
Where are you now, my friend?
Why don’t you see me sitting here crying? Would your new friend even allow you to care? Look at me! Look at me! Please… I need to make you understand!
Where are you now my friend?
Someone is lying here next to me. Their green eyes remind me so much of you. They are hazed eyes, clouded eyes staring back at me. Hazed, yet not confused at all. The world seems so clear to him and so confusing to me in an apparent balancing effect. He has the flawed perspective of a perfect world and the theoretical equation to achieve it. Today he has all the answers and yet he has lost everything.
What are you feeling now, my friend?
Someone is lying here next to me. His experiences lies new to me now, to me forever. I feel closer to him now than anybody ever before, but nobody has ever been more of a stranger than he is to me now.
What are you hearing now, my friend?
Someone is lying here next to me, listening. But he can’t hear my pleads. He is listening to the calling of something much louder and stronger than I can ever be. Shall I try harder, shall I scream on the top of my lungs or shall I prepare myself for the inevitable “I told you so!”
Will I ever see you again or will this stranger be my new company? Will we ever be friends again or have you replaced me with hurriedly hurting heroin.
Where are you now, my friend?
P.S) Back on Wednesday
Day 135 - "Happy Birthday"
Sunday, 8 April 2007
Day 135 / 59 (59) - "Happy Birthday"
Well, it is Sunday and I’m quickly popping in to say Happy Birthday to my Dad, who turns 50 today. I think that before this whole heroin thing he probably looked a lot less like a 50 year old man and my actions no doubt aged both my parents by quite a number of years in the past few months.
They prove everyday just how lucky I am to have them as parents. I can not ask for anybody better. And while I write this, they are out of town and will only return tomorrow (Monday) showing once again the trust and faith they have in me.
Enjoy the last day of your long weekend tomorrow!
P.S) Back on Wednesday
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