Friday, 20 April 2007
Day 147 / 71 - "Changing Tactics"
Next week I’m changing the routine of my life a whole lot. I am strangely excited by the prospects of a week that isn’t a typical week in TB’s life.
I am staying with a friend for three days while her ‘better other’ (as she calls him) is out of town. This means the daily routine I’ve been accustomed to will change considerably from Sunday to Tuesday. Waking up at different times, different place, different people and different way to work. Luckily she is a blogger aswell and they have internet – so at least I can keep you updated! Apparently I have to use my non existent cooking skills to prepare her something the weekend. How long do you microwave ‘two minute noodles” again?
Next week would have been a 4 day work week for me, but I decided to extend my long weekend even longer and take an extra day off on Thursday – just because I can! So, my work week will be 3 days. I would have liked to take off next Monday making my weekend a stupendous 5 days – but regrettably month-end is next Monday and there is no way I can miss that.
For some reason everything decides to go wrong when I take off on a month-end day. And then I spend the one half of the day over the phone and the other half back at the office. I’d rather save myself the trouble and stay at the office!
I decided that next week I’m switching my days and doing things everyday I wouldn’t normally do on that day. Even this weekend, I am thinking of doing something I wouldn’t normally do on a Saturday or Sunday. At this moment I am still clueless as to what that might be, but I’m sure it will make for interesting writing next week.
I’m guessing by the 1st of March I’m going to beg for my old borring routine life back again. Who knows!
Day 147 - "Changing Tactics"
Day 146 - "Hindsight"
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Day 146 / 70 - "Hindsight"
I did a post a while back, probably in the first 50 days, about how foolish I was to start taking heroin. And it sounds like a dumb statement, because any person that tries it, is pretty foolish. But I was foolish because around me I had so many signs warning me of how dangerous it was.
My friend was a heroin addict at the time. The kind that was living for one thing and one thing alone – his daily fix. I didn’t get to see him a lot of the time, because he felt too bad to do anything. A feeling I would myself perfect in the months to follow. I saw him everyday at the mercy of a drug dealer’s little baggy of powder. To think that small amount of anything can bring a person to his knees. I wouldn’t completely understand it then – not as I do now.
I got a book from him, a book which he read before. He even met the author, Steve Hamilton. The book is called ‘I want my life back’. Which is a true story (to the best of his recollection) of his life as a drug addict and more specifically a heroin addict. Reading it sent chills down my spine. His life was so real to me, because I was living it through my friend.
I read the book from start to finish. It was the only book on Heroin Addiction I read before I started to inject heroin. I was already occasionally smoking it at that time. And still after all I saw everyday and all I read about the dangers of it – I still fell into its trap.
I know my stories have helped a few people and I thank those that let me know exactly how it impacted their lives. I guess there are people out there that will read this and know it will never happen to them. They know the dangers and they stay away from it. But there will be the few that will say, maybe I can try it once, I just want to see what it feels like, I just want to see what the fuss is about. Somebody like I was!
“One is too many, a thousand is never enough!”
Day 145 - "Message in a bottle"
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
Day 145 / 69 - "Message in a bottle"
My good mood still continues. I find it almost like a ball rolling down a snowy mountain. The more turns it makes the larger it gets. My good mood seems to multiply and it wants to expand till I want to explode. One bubbly burst of breezy fun. This is how I remember myself. I finally found myself again and the mere fact that I know this – improves it even more.
I thought last night how I would definitely recommend blogging as a recovery tool in addicts. It is a shame that not all people like to read or write. But I guess that’s why they have people to talk to in Rehab as well. I figure it’s like putting a message in a bottle and let it drift out to the sea. You put your emotions out there and the knowledge that you shared it makes you feel so much better.
I don’t think there is a better way to put it out there, than writing about it. And the thing about a daily blog is, it’s not the summarized version of your recovery. It doesn’t have all the juicy details that sell award winning books. It is the daily ups and downs and sometimes it’s just like a soap that doesn’t quite get to the climax of the story. So, perhaps I might still turn the whole story into a book. Of course, it would be a story of recovery and I’m still pretty much in the middle of it.
This coming Monday I will be on Day 150, which is technically 5 months in recovery. And I think I can honestly say these have been the longest 5 months of my life. I really hope in this 5 months there has been at least one day every person has read this, where they realized the destruction of heroin, the control it gets over your life and the grip it has on it forever.
My bottles of messages are drifting in this ocean and people are getting them. With each one heroin’s grip on my life is loosened. With each one another life spared from the same fate. That’s reason for a good mood!
Day 144 - "Getting up"
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
Day 144 / 68 - "Getting up"
This weekend I thought that after a day at the office things might turn out different. That maybe the optimism I felt this weekend was short lived and that I would return to my depro, negative self as soon as the week started. I am extremely pleased to announce – that was not the case!
I said what I had to say yesterday and I’m hoping that even in my blogging the excellent mood I am in is clearly visible. I want to stand on top of the world and shout ‘Hooha…’ or something less Al Pacino.
I finally went to Mugg and Bean on Friday night after weeks of delays. I love the place. Once again I find myself totally mesmerized with restaurants, new places and people. One of my favourite things to do is stand in Menlyn mall and look at all the different people around me. You get the strangest characters sometimes. I love that about Gauteng. In Polokwane everything is weird. The slightest deviation from the normal and people check you out like you have the plague.
And of course Polokwane is small enough so that word gets around. People I haven’t seen or spoken to in years suddenly know I’m a heroin addict. People start to say ‘Did you hear?’ when my name is mentioned. Did you hear he is a heroin addict? Did you here how bad he looks? Did you hear he took again? Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear?
And where most will probably not take the time to find out how it is actually going, the most important one of them all will never forget! They say that failing is not in the falling down, but in the staying down. If that is so, then I have one thing to say: “Did you hear? I have fallen but I have gotten up!”
Day 143 - "Half full or half empty"
Monday, 16 April 2007
Day 143 / 67 - "Half full or half empty"
“Is the glass half full or half empty?”
I always figured myself as a ‘half full’ kinda guy. Somehow no matter what life threw my way I found the silver lining. I believed there is good in everybody and everybody should be given a chance – a slightly gullable quality I later realized. And the person I was 2 years ago, even though not pleased with the circumstances and lack of meaningful activities the city provided, would have found the silver lining in every situation.
The person I was 2 years ago would have written the blog on Friday and my defining optimism would have been engraved in every line. The truth is I am not that person any more. And for a long time I didn’t think I would ever be that person again. And by ‘that person’ I don’t mean clean from heroin, we are way passed that. I mean, happy, content, alive, in love, wacky, crazy, funky… all those things that used to be me. All those things that on the worst of days you could still find somewhere inside of me.
The worst thing in the world is knowing who you are inside and out, but you can’t seem to be that person again. You always feel like you’re standing on the wrong side of a glass wall. You can see who you are, you can almost touch him, that’s how close you are – but something is still keeping you.
For the first time in ages, I am sitting here and I don’t really know where to start or where to end. I found something over the weekend. Something which I had all along, but it was staring me in the face from the other side of a glass wall. And if I knew what it was that brought it back to me, I would bottle it up and sell it to the world, because every one deserves the chance to find themselves again.
You see, I used heroin for a very long time before I got to the day where I decided to try and stop. It didn’t come soon and it didn’t come easy – but I believe it came at the time it was meant to be. For more than 7 months after that I tried every single day to stop – and every single day I failed. And one day, 143 days ago, I woke up and said “this is the day”. It didn’t come easy and it didn’t come soon, but it came – at exactly the time it was meant to be.
This weekend I woke up and that huge weight on my shoulders disappeared. And no, it is not heroin or cravings or depression. I know those won’t just magically disappear over night. It’s that pessimism that have been running through my vains as heroin used to do. It is that feeling that you’ve reached your peak and it is all downhill from hereon. Its that thing keeping you down when everything else in your life says you are doing good, you are doing better! It’s gone!
It is a difficult thing to explain to somebody that hasn’t been involved with heroin, but perhaps there are still many that relate. For something to have a hold on you, even when its long gone. You feel it’s grip every single day, no matter how well it might be going with you. And then one day, at exactly the time it was meant to be, you find it has loosened it’s grip on your life. Your glass is finally half full again!
