35 weeks and 2 days

Since the 15th May, when I found out I was 6 months pregnant, things have changed dramatically in ways I never thought possible. My life is entirely different and it is still early days. Certain professionals around me at the moment (and believe me, there are a lot) are telling me to be cautious and prepare for a sudden dip in my mood & huge stress- both of which they see as triggers for drug use. And they are telling me to be prepared for the fact I will have no incentive to not use, as I will no longer be pregnant. It is hard not to become offended when they say such things. I know I shouldn't think myself exempt from relapse, or temptation at the very least, but what nobody seems to listen to is I had been clean since last year anyway, before the baby was concieved, so I had made changes before. I didn't just find out I was pregnant, then decide to get clean, or have a baby to push myself to get clean. I had enrolled in college, attended (and now completed; got my diploma and am off to University this September for my BA (hons) Social Policy)... something that would have been impossible if I were still submerged in the using culture. If you compare 7 years on, with 8 months off, it doesn't seem that impressive. But I can assure you, during those 7 years I never went anything near that length of time abstinent. Despite what it had done, and was doing, to my life the sickness that a user needs to develop; a sickness of what it does to you, your life, your family and friends, relationships, opportunities, your health was not yet there. But 2010 saw an ephinany of sorts, and I knew it was no longer viable to continue as I was. I really became frustrated, bored and tired with the life I was living and knew I had to do something- which was stop using. Simple as that. Though to suddenly turn your back on 7 years of well, not friends, but aquaintances, routine and living life in a way you had become acustomed to was hard. But easy at the same time, once you wanted it bad enough. Even though financially I had more income than I had ever had in my life at this stage I never once got tempted to use. And I could have done, easily, with more than enough money left over to live and pay bills. Using had run its course. So I try and explain to the professionals I am over and done with it, but they treat me as if I am exempting myself and have my head stuck in the clouds. I don't. I know how unbelievably tough motherhood is going to be. Once I found out I was pregnant, the life I had already put to bed was well and truly dead and buried forever, without exception. I have an obligation to my son to give him the best life I possibly can, and I come second to that now, regardless. I am not being silly, but I know I will not go back and use. Ever. It is done, its over and done with. It already was. But now this just reinforces that. The whole time I was sober, never once did I yearn to use, even when I had a really bad problem. When I found out I was 6 months pregnant, I didn't have so much as a cigarette, or a stiff drink to help with the shock. That moment, I just knew it was over. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I am not in some dreamworld thinking motherhood is going to be easy, and hell, I've seen the best of them break down in tears and say they can't cope. So will I probably. But it will pass, as it does, just not with the help of any substances thats for sure. I have complete faith and trust in myself. I could never ever drink or use when I looked after my twin nieces or nephew, as I knew that was a no-no, an inconceivable thing to do... so I certainly couldn't do so to my own child. What makes it so good is, I feel better than I have in a long long time. Before, the thought of being alone with myself, with my own thoughts and feelings without a buffer inbetween scared the hell out of me. Now, I am completely at peace being sober.

I have reduced my meth to such a level, which is uncomfortable (to put it lightly) but its something I wanted to do. There are many myths surrounding methadone use during pregnancy but the simple truth is it is extremely dangerous and 100% advised AGAINST to stop use. It causes miscarriage and early labour. My doctors were even apprehensive to let me reduce it even. They explained to me when you are pregnant, your level of blood doubles almost, so a lot of women need to increase their dose. This is why I am feeling so bad, my dose is decreasing when my body needs more. I know it can be dangerous, but I don't think I am doing it that way; by the time its the next day and time for my next one, I'm just starting to hit the gagging and puking stage. Saved just in time. Up till then, I am experiencing poor sleep, chronic toothache, bones hurt, sneezing, watery eyes. Its horrid, but the last thing I want to do is to go up. And I am not going to either. When he is born, I am going to carry on reducing, and switch to subutex. During this time period, I am going to apply to go into a detox or save up for Detox5 which is the private option. I wanted rid of the liquid handcuffs, and even moreso now I am to be a Mum. Obviously, I want the 5 day option, so my son can stay with my mum or sister (my family all have our 4 homes within 10 minutes walk of each other, i am the only one thats street isn't directly connected to the others). Though my son comes first, and maybe I shall not want to leave him for even that long, and I have to make sure I'm ok and well enough to look after him, so if that means leaving it until after my university degree (its 3 years long) then so be it. What is paramount is my son, and being well enough to care for him. Thats all.

I had my scan yesterday at 8am and basically, I have them every week. This was because my amniotic fluid dropped so low. Then, it went back up again and was fine. Then it went low again. The scan I had yesterday measures the fluid and checks the placenta and umbilical cords blood flow. Next week will measure babies growth. They don't do measurements weekly as the baby doesn't grow substantially enough each week to make a significant mark on the graphs they plot to determin adequete development. So, a really nice male doctor done my ultrasound, and I was with my friend Tom for support. Everything was fine; infact, the doctor said it was "fantastic". It was sweet, sweet relief. I had a clinic appointment in the afternoon at 4pm, which I was told I didn't need to go to as things were fine, but I thought I would go anyway. I did and the consultant had nothing to say- which was lovely, as previously, there was always some bit of bad news like "this baby will be coming early, prepare yourself". It was all positive. Well, the doctor said the baby is STILL breech and next week I shall be 36 weeks, so if he is in the same position they will try and turn him. This worries me slightly, as when there is low fluid, the cord is less buyoant and there is a risk the cord can get wrapped round the babies neck. So you have to be ready for an emergency C-section which is fine, but they are going to have to put a central line in my neck (which involves a local anaesthetic and them using ultrasound to find a vein to insert a needle into) before so if something does go wrong, they can give me anaesthetic RIGHT AWAY. So, I am wondering if they will. The procedure is called an ECV and is successful in about 50% of cases. I can feel the babies head still lodged well beneath my ribs. He doesn't want to move ANYWHERE! awkard little so-and-so.

Good news on the Dad front. I was really worried his Dad wasn't going to bother with him. I think I jumped to conclusions too quickly, as I didn't really take into account how shocking it must have been for him to hear the big news. It was a shock for me and I found it hard to believe and I was the one carrying the boy and could see it clearer than anything, moving around all day long! Of course, who knows how he will be when he arrives but he calls every day, has come round to see me regularly, and is due to again tomorrow. Its difficuilt for both of us, or well, not difficuilt; foreign. This is for both of us, our first child. Its unknown territory. I haven't asked him for anything- financial, psychological etc. but he has offered, given, supported and if he keeps it up after the boy is born then great. He treats his nieces like I treat mine, and has a very similar relationship. For all our shortcomings, we are fantastic aunts & uncles. I thought the worse, but I have a good feeling. I don't think he is the sort of person that could ignore his own child. I very much doubt it.

My belly casting kit came today :) I just need to find someone to assist me doing it!! I have signed up for another blog under naomicave.blogspot.com and I am just working on a layout. I decided to set it up as it will be from the birth onwards, and while I am not going to gloss over my past and my drug abuse history, I just want to use it also for pictures of my son and I and my life. For a long time after I stopped drugs, I still felt defined by them. Then I realised I don't have to be anymore. I wanted a career working with drug addicts, but then I realised I felt I should do it, as I had inside knowledge and experience. NOTE TO SELF: your past doesn't have to define you for the rest of your life. I will still have this one though. As much as I am not ashamed of what I have been through, I know a stigma is going to follow me for probably the rest of my life. A consequence of that is it will probably rub off on my son. It makes me laugh while simultaneously being angry when people judge me and look down on me for what I was addicted to. An example of this is an argument somebody had on Facebook with my sister. I responded, not offensively or anything, and the person began to throw insults at me like "junkie", "smackhead" and revelling in the fact my family had been hit with such a devestating drug addiction. I wouldn't mind, except, this person takes crack cocaine and has convictions as long as his arm. I've never even been arrested. Yet, in the hierachy of drugs, he is ok and I'm the lowest of the low. Its bizarre- I known coke addicts who have robbed old people and violently mugged others and they and others think its ok, but me... god, no, I am evil. Its a joke really. Cambridge is so incestuous, I just know there will be people who will enjoy telling their kids to tell mine what his momma used to take. By that point, I doubt I will care as I will be working with an entirely new life. I fully believe that. Well, I am 35 weeks and 2 days and boy, am I feeling the exhaustion! At the same time, I feel better than I have in years!

Finally, its happened.

I have been far too elusive, I know. Sorry for that. I have been clean now since late October. I would have posted, but to be honest, I didn't because I didn't know WHAT to write. I did not know why I was able to stay clean this time, and I wondered how I might respond if somebody asked me the magic question, "What's your secret?" Before when I have tried... its been an absolute failure, but perhaps that is because I had no real intention of doing it, and certainly did not have a plan, or the tools to do so. But having said that, it doesn't seem as if I have specifically gone out of my way to abstain from brown & white. When I get my money, before, I wouldn't have been able to resist going out and scoring. Then a little bit more, then just a little bit more... until my money had gone the day I recieved it. I had all the best intentions, and would genuinely believe I would start saving next week for whatever I had thought of next; my clean, sober life perhaps. But it never happened. Obviously, I was an addict for a lot longer than I knew the Ex, but he had also been an addict a lot longer than me, and he was financially supported by high amounts of benefits and significantly high amounts of money from his parents... so we differed a lot. He would spend his/our money in a day, no thought of budgeting, and once it was gone I would have nothing, but he could go and disappear and grab £100 a day off his parents until the next time I got paid and he would let his Mum or Dad off for 24 hours. Not putting any blame on him, but his drug of choice was different, and so I was in a dire situation (cocaine or crack cocaine) as that was so pricey, and I couldn't take his tantrums for money and I'd give it to him. Again, not blaming him, but its no suprise as soon as he went, I suddenly gave up drugs and can save my money. I believe what happened was as soon as he got his money, he spent it on himself, and when I got mine he would nag and nag at me for mine, and it would slowly drain away... and I resented this. He would blow his, and he expected to live off me, and when he scored and got high, it made me angry, so I would want to use aswell, albeit different ones. I wanted some of my money too, so would try to match him in what money he would use up. Terribly destructive. It is quite amazing how when you are with somebody, you firmly believe you love them, and you argue and split for a day and you can't imagine living without them, worry yourself sick how they might be without your care.... but as soon as I got rid of him, it took me about 4 days to realise how good it was. When I went to see some old keyworkers regarding my University funding, I came out to see my old friend Twin Beckie. She told me how happy she was I got rid of him, and she looked me up and down and said "just look at you.... just look at how much better you are," Simple things I didn't realise; him telling me I didn't need make-up, didn't need to wear 'those' clothes, didnt need to go out or do my hair, and god forbid I want to go out without him.... easy at the time to mistake it for love & caring, when really it is control and domination. I can honestly say I don't miss getting my books burnt, being held under a bathtub full of water, pushed, hit etc. etc. I never thought I'd be a "victim" of domestic violence and I hate to mention it, as when its been brought up people roll their eyes as if to say "oh how typical, what a cliche!" I have never felt so small or little in my life, but that is the point isn't it, thats why so many women don't leave or feel they can't.

So many improvements.... my flat is lovely. Got new bookcases to house my hundreds upon hundreds of books, done the whole place out, got my new sewing machine and have been working away. My stomach is still pretty bad, vomitting 5 days out of the week. I went to the pub yesterday and literally stuck to Appletize. That is the first time in about 8 years I have been to the pub and JUST drank a soft drink, its not me at all, so you know I have to be sick to do that! My drinking is slightly better, a bit up and down. I would never dream of walking down the street drinking a can of special brew now, but one thing I can't shake off is that evening drink! I live by myself (which I love!) and I just like to have that "wind-down" drink. It is so hard to stamp it out. Though I want to as I have put on so much weight, well, got a little chubby as I am just boozing and eating whereas on snowballs, I never had an appetite. However, I am telling myself "its ok for the moment, you have been an addict for years upon years, you are catching up on your eating. just join the gym and you'll be ok!" Gym is also good for the mind, all those endorphins it releases. Can you please motivate me to go? I don't seen to be getting myself there. I thought I might buy myself a fitness DVD but I have read reviews and its awkard to find a decent one. Though I know its best to go the gym. Its half term this week so maybe I should just do 10mile walks daily around Cambridge. It takes me 7.3miles back and forth to college alone! But as its been so cold and bad weather, I hitch a ride with my mum to her nurses job.

I have a UNIVERSITY PLACE! Studying Social Policy. I am just investigating the claiming benefits part etc. I want to work but it worries me as I used to work in Evans in the Grafton but my panic attacks & anxiety mean I can't even walk about the street by myself, so what hope do I have dealing with the public in an assertive manner? Exactly, I don't. Still, I'm just focusing on the happy news. When I joined college I was having to score drugs thus missing class, drink to get up, at lunch, at breaks and I had panic attacks if I had to speak infront of the class, literally, so bad even though I was on beta blockers (prescribed for high blood pressure). To think I went from that to this in such a short while.... I have been trying for years to turn it around. I prayed for it, begged for it... then all of a sudden, I just managed it. Not solely, but I do attribute some of my success to a) not having to go to the methadone clinic with all the other (mostly) significantly older clients b) not hanging about with ANY other users c) not going to places where I might see said users d) not talking to said users over the phone. I just got a new phone, so didn't save dealers or other users numbers but I had them right up until last week. I could have rung them ANYTIME but didn't.

On Monday I went for an assessment with addaction that deal with me for the methadone prescription, but as this was for alcohol, it was a different half of the staff. It was just going through the said form which staff roll their eyes at and seem to hate it more than the client, but as they say, it HAS to be done. It may seem a little impersonal to some but I understand why they have to do it. When it got to asking whether I had a criminal record and I replied "no, not at all" she gave me a whooping congratulations! and wow! thats so rare! brilliant! She told me she would present my case to the rest of the staff and they would decide what to do with me- i.e whether I am in need of treatment and if so, what kind, and who with. I hope I get something.

My doctors and case worker are very happy with me but I have been kind of pissed off with them, when I was off the rails they said there was no point in giving me any type of counselling, therapy etc. as I was intoxicated, well now I'm off it, they still won't give me a god damn thing. I think it is dangerously niave to assume I have cracked it all of a sudden, surely, they should be giving me therapy to try and develope the skills to cope me with the issues that cause me to use drugs and alcohol. I sometimes think alcohol is more dangerous, as when drunk, I lose my inhibitions and decide to go score, like I did when I was a few months clean from methadone, done a big snowball and ended up on life support. Still, nothing. I'm not acting as if I'm special, like I should jump to the top of the list but I have been promised help for so long, and it angers me my family have been dumped with caring for me. Yes, thats what family are for but there is a difference when they work full-time and have to dedicate every spare minute to you. Its so stressful for them, and I hate to do it to them.

Anyway..... as I always promise, I won't leave it so long next time.
Seriously, I will try not to. If i do, drop me a message on twitter or fb or something :)
I have noticed some of my old blogs I followed have become obsolete, if you have one, let me know.

Love Naomi xxx

Happy Christmas

I am quite aware I haven't posted for a long long time. I am at college now studying for an Access to Social Care Diploma (my topics are criminology, psychology & sociology) which is for 19 year olds + who take it for a year to bring them up to university standard. The day we broke up, we had a fantastic christmas meal and drinks. When I originally joined the course I was so nervous, I thought I wouldn't get on with anyone because I had been an outcast in society for so long. However, I have got on just fine. There is a real mix of people, a lot of older people with children, and a lot of people who have experienced problems not too disimilar to mine. Its a great supportive environment and we all get along great. I will be sad to leave. The last day of term was the deadline for our UCAS forms which are our university applications containing our personal statements (effectively, an A4 sized piece of writing telling your prospective university how fantastic you are and why it is essential they let you in. naturally, i found this part very hard. saying complimentary things about myself does not come easy). As I wrote it, I remembered a lot of things I had done previously, like volunteering at a mental health centre, doing journalism experience with the BBC and working for a charity. I have applied to take a degree in Social Policy. Fingers crossed I get in. My sister took the Access course, and later went to University. She graduated this year, her third term. A degree in Psychosocial Studies she now has. I don't know how she done it, after all, she had a baby last December and already had twin girls who were 8. Amazing job. Louis my nephew turned 1 years old on December 23rd. Here he is; I am now single, and all the better for it. If I have learnt one thing, it is I probably cannot deal with being in a relationship with another addict who doesn't have the desire or capability to do something about his situation. Life is good. I have my own little flat which I stay in, and I am going to decorate in the New Year. Get a new TV, paint the walls, get furniture... I don't know what scheme I am going to go for. I thought about a 50s style pad or 60s, or a pink and zebra print theme. Who knows.

In hospital November 2010

I saw the Manic Street Preachers on the 1st November with my sister. By this time I had a huge abcess on my arm (you can just see it on the right, I tried to hid it). The next morning I went to the doctor and they instantly rushed me into Addenbrookes. I had to have a general anaesthetic and I was in there for a week. I had to wait 3 days for the op and I eventually got into theatre at midnight. Obviously, if they have car wrecks etc. etc. and need to operate urgently you are put back. It didn't bother me, though, but I had to be nil by mouth so I couldn't eat or drink even water, and on the third day of having to do that from 9am-11pm I felt pretty crap. I had my own room and bathroom on the plastic surgery ward and the staff were brilliant. I have nothing but admiration for those people who work there, from the cleaners upwards. When you have an abcess they obviously cannot stitch it up as there is still potentially pus and bad stuff in the wound so it needs to be left open. The day after my op, the consultant came round and removed my bandages to look at it, it was the most biggest hugest hole I had ever ever seen. Very unsettling. I had to stay in for a week. I was put to sleep with gas before they gave me the anaesthetic as they would have to search for a vein and they didn't want me to get uncomfortable, well, more than I already was that is. When I woke up they had ripped my surgical stockings (To prevent DVT) and put it in my feet. This sucked, as I couldn't walk and had to be pushed in a wheelchair down to the concourse to the stores, cafes etc. Talk about milking it!!! I missed a lot of college which worried me sick, but I just had to study hard to bring myself up to scratch. The twins (Right) and my sister (their mum) came with my Momma to visit me.




Clean
I have been clean for a couple of months. My addaction worker is exceptionally proud of me as is my doctor. But especially, to top all of those, is my family. My nanna is 85 bless her, a wonderful lady. She loves a tipple with me and she has done everything for me and the rest of the family. It broke her heart to see me on heroin. Now, she is so happy. I feel guilty about all the pain I caused her but I just have to tell myself to focus on improving my life and keeping up the good work, not dwelling. Same goes for my mum. She is a fulltime nurse and she is just so much happier. I spend a lot of time with my sister and her kids, which I love beyond belief. Considering I don't really want kids at all (or is that because I just assume I cant have them and am trying to reduce potentially hurt at having to find out I cant concieve?) I love to spend as much time as I can with them. For some reason, I just suddenly got turned off heroin + crack cocaine (snowballs). As if overnight a switch was flicked and I went off it. Its been a long time coming though, believe me. Its been a great couple of months. In that time I have had shit loads of money now I no longer have to buy drugs. I take much better care of myself and you should see the amount of presents I got my family today. I haven't done that in years as obviously, drugs won over buying gifts. I am...dare I say it... HAPPY :)


I got a brand new pink and white laptop as an early christmas present from my momma and she took me to SCRUFFS, a hairdresser in cambridge Bridge Street. I saw a senior stylist for a consulation and she fixed my hair. I hadn't had a hair cut in ten years as in 2001 I chopped off my bumlength hair and I looked TERRIBLE. It wasn't what I asked the hairdresser, and as a result I both looked like Annie, refused to go out for 2 weeks and then developed a phobia of the hairdresser. Its actually a lot nicer than it looks here ---->
But the best thing is its no longer the frizz ball it normally is. Oh and, the REAL best bit was Scruffs the hairdresser served me beer as I had my hair cut. My kinda place for sure!

I am so glad I finally got another computer. I really need it for college. I got a new sewing machine too, as the ex stole it. His parents didn't want me to call the cops so they purchased me a new one, even though it was nowhere near as good as the old one. He was in intensive care after an OD of benzos a week or two ago. I'm not heartless but I didn't enquire about him or visit etc. etc. All contact is severed and I'm much better for it. Phew. Should have gotten rid a long time before!

Ok. I know this is a really, really long post but I had to touch briefly on some of the stuff that has gone on. Actually, shit loads more has happened but I probably need to go back and look at some diaries as I have probably forgotten. My drinking is still.... still.... there. It goes up and down but I have a very bad stomach problem, I puke every day and my stomach cant take alcohol. I always have to make sure I leave an hour and a half or more between drinking my methadone and trying to down a drink as I can't risk puking it up. No way. But the good thing is with this stomach problem, its harder and harder to drink and I can't like I used to on certain days. Still thats for the best I am sure as I never felt too clever going into classes with a raging hangover, shaking like hell.


Well I hope everybody is having a wonderful christmas day, or at the very least, one that is enjoyable as it possibly can be. I am at my Nans with my sister, nephew Louis, twin nieces who I haven't seen all day as they are glued to their Wii and my mum has just left to go do her final patient... she was on a ten hour shift (nurse) bless her. Her partner is here too and so is my grandad. I am having a glass of champagne... yes real, not cava. I will definetely try and write more frequently.

Let me know how you all are. BEST WISHES and if I don't speak before, all the best for 2011

Love from Naomi xxx

my neck, my back...

Kills. Absolutely kills I tell ya. Sunday was spent at my twin nieces house as it was there 7th birthday. Among their "main presents" alongside the Girls Aloud Concert Tickets (26th Sun) and hotel stay in London they got this absolutely wicked Trampoline. Their house is only about 60 seconds from mine so when I got round there the first thing I did was sling down their gifts, take off my shoes and join the 6 children that were bouncing on it already. I was afraid I was going to fall on one of their tiny little bodies but a quick suggestion that they go and get some ice-cream and they all vacated it pronto. Very cunning, Naomi, I thought. I preceeded to have a blissful 10 minutes jumping and attempting to perform flips and various tricks, which I could barely do, all I managed was to prove to myself how unhealthy and unflexible I am. When the kids got back on, I got off and was overcome by the sudden urge to vomit everywhere. The blazing sun (it was beautiful weather by the way, managed to hold up all day) combined with the exercise totally knocked me for 6 and everybody knew I didn't feel well as I rejected offers of wine, budweiser, cider even vodka... in favour of water and then cherry aid. Copious amounts of water, the first time I had drunk water in months. The day was lovely. We had Sarah and her boyf Ashley and their 2 children, my mother and her partner, my sister and her partner Andy (obviously as it was their house), my Nan & Grandad, Andys little girl and the twins little friends. Usually 7 year old party stuff; BBQ, overeating, loud pop music and Kiss Radio playing, booze, a few tears. I spent most of the day on the trampoline, convincing most of the adults to go on it. Sarah is over 25stone and I made her get on it. She was bouncing and she suddenly fell, and I wish the camera would of been on because when she did, I shot up in the air and came crashing down on her. It was comical beyond belief and had everyone laughing. Managed to get my Mum on there too, as well as my sister. When I woke up yesterday my back was stiff as it could get. In the afternoon I went to my sisters to paint with the twins and they got me back on the trampoline but god, it was so painful but they wouldn't let me off. If I don't lose weight going on it everyday then pffft, I give up!


My Mum is getting ready now as her and Dean are going to London 02 arena for the wrestling. Last time I checked she hates wrestling but I believe she got him the tickets for christmas. It finished about 11pm so she will get the train back tonight. On Sunday, we didn't really want to chance rushing to Kings X with the kids, who will be bloody tired so the plan is to set off, check into the hotel around 3, dump our stuff, try and get the kids to nap (like that will happen, so at least rest) eat and go to the concert. Next day we will go around London. They want to go to the Florence Nightingale Museum but I think the National History would be better. Oh well, we will see.
Yesterday was an adventure of sorts. I was really ill, my methadone wasn't holding me. I get into town and bump into Amy. Somebody owed her money so her and her friend couldn't score some brown. I know where you can get 2 £20 bags for £35 so I went off to get £20 so her £15 could get her and her mate a bag. He got really arsey and tried to take off with the bag himself. I didn't mind sorting her out but why when she has paid half should she get nothing, and why when I have paid £5 more for a bag have to split it in half. Last night, she was starting work as an escort. I arranged to call her at 7pm and she was to pick it up if anything was wrong. I rang at 7.10pm as the phone was already in use at mine. I guess she was ok as she didn't answer. I will ring her soon but I feel odd about it- I was a bit dubious about her doing it, worried, concerned, it didn't seem right to me... not right at all. This afternoon I am going to go to my COMPLEXCASES outpatient thing as I haven't been for ages. We are going to go out walking in the exercise group. Fun, eh! I better as I will be kicked out for lack of participation. I missed my hits yesterday and as a result, have a really bad swollen arm. I hope this doesn't mean another abcess as it was a bloody hit of white and brown. Oooops. No dope left and I can't spend my money on it tomorrow as I need to pay for London this weekend. Bummer.

This is the test

Whoops. I was thinking about my twin nieces birthday, which is technically now since it is 00:14. They are seven. I was thinking about the GIRLS ALOUD concert i am taking them to next sunday and the hotel we are staying in that night and the museums and places of historical interest the next day I & my sister, their mum, are taking them to. I was reading Shelleys blog, THOSE WHO DANCE... (its in the links) and thought, hell, she is coming off the liquid handcuffs. I came off the liquid handcuffs last year and as a result, I died (see last post) I can't believe what I just done. I just went outside into the garden while smoking my cigarette and squirted my last hit into the grass; £10 heroin and £5 crack. Just squirted it away. No chance of getting it back. Its in the grass. I think I realised there Is no JUST ONE LAST HIT. its bullshit. there is no ONE LAST HIT. you have to stop it. my doctor wants to put me back on subutex so come monday morning, that is what i am going to do. i wouldnt of done if i hadnt of squirted my snowball away but NOW I WILL. i go to my kids party tomorrow and i love them, i dont want them to see what i saw. i dont want me to do to them what my dad did to me.

Hep C, Ulcers, Jaundice etc.

I am on such a low dose of methadone it is rediculous; 40ml. My doctor announced that I was going to go back on subutex, I didn't have a say in the matter. I did stay clean for a few months on subutex but when I decided to use one weekend, I couldn't cope with going into withdrawals before going back on them (which you have to do) so as a result, I just went back to heroin, where I have been ever since. I haven't had a hit since Friday morning, and that was barely anything. Since it is easter Sunday, I didn't have to go to the chemist to get my methadone which I have to do 7 days a week. Good job I am not lazy or I would hate the 4 mile walk everyday. Actually, I have been sitting in all day and since I drink all my holiday booze (1.5 litre bottle of vodka, 5 special brews) yesterday that I only bought that morning to see me through until Monday, I have been going out of my mind. Bored, frightened. I don't know what of. I have been sitting in this house all day and have been going through the dredges of booze; the last of the peach vodka, 1 Tenants super, sherry, red wine.

As it is Easter Sunday my Nanna and Grandad went to church. They left around 9am and I had woken at 7am. Thank god their hearing isn't as great as it was because I spent from 7.15-8am hanging over the toilet bowl. She heard me being sick and ran to the toilet, I let her in and told her I was hungover. Then I turned on the TV, turned it up and left it loud while I proceeded to sit in my room with a bucket retching and heaving. I cannot explain the panic when this happens most mornings. I sweat, get faint as the pressure builds up in my head and begin to stress when it gets to the stage where there is nothing to sick up anymore- that means I just retch and bring up the bile and blood. This morning, I knew I had been sick for 3 days in a row already so I kept an ice-cream tub to collect the blood (if there was anymore- which there was) so I could show my Mum who is a nurse, or my own doctor. Since I hadn't eaten yesterday, I had nothing to sick up but a little fluid and the blood came up, as predicted. About 2 or 3 egg cups full. I didn't want to put it on my Mum again (last time, she cried, got hysterical, made plans to stop me drinking) so I laid down on the floor begging God not to let me die. I always want to die, until I actually think I am going to. Just like last April when I woke up after having died after I had a heroin overdose. Hooked up to loads of machines in the hospital with my Mum and sister at my bedside. When the doctor told me I had cardiac arrest I went into an acute panic thinking "shit, that was my life, over. gone." But as soon as they disconnected my oxygen and machines I left that hospital and yep, you guessed it, scored. And injected the drug that had just days earlier killed me, literally. TO THINK- THATS NEARLY A YEAR AGO! Anyway, I had to go into hospital to have my stomach looked at as the doctor pretty much diagnosed an ulcer, just, now I must have the camera down the old throat (again) to confirm it. While I am there, they are going to try getting blood again. The doctors in a&e couldnt do it but my psychiatrist insisted there are people there that can as I need confirmation that I do or don't have Hepatitis C as these bouts of jaundice I get (where I am as yellow as the sun, I swear) are going to be extra dangerous if its HEP C thats causing it apparently. Why? Because of my drinking, that mixed with Hep C and I apparently don't have a chance in hell.

I'm 21. Jeez. I cannot believe I have never had a boyfriend, or anything like that. It is pretty easy to understand why though. When I got on heroin, I was just a kid, and I have been on it ever since. As a result, I have never emotionally grown-up. Those years were just spent chasing a drug, nothing else. I never socially learnt to deal with people, have relationships etc. etc. I wouldn't have a clue how to behave with the opposite sex. It makes me laugh that I haven't had sex in over a year. I am so shy I can't look at a man. I giggle at the thought of somebody saying they love me or like me or asking me out. Will I ever get back these vital years in which one needs to mature? I don't know but I don't think it matters that much because judging by the bruises I have on my ribcage and my legs (i haven't hit myself, or fallen, they just happen) I won't be around much longer.

MY TWIN NIECES TURN 7 THIS MONTH! AT THE END OF IT WE TAKE THEM TO LONDON TO SEE GIRLS ALOUD !

same ol' same ol'

Monday, I got taken out to the pub by a beautiful, hot guy who seems to really like me. Problem? Well, no problem unless you consider a problem to be that he happens to be a heroin addict who is also sleeping with men to fund his habit despite being "straight". I have been avoiding him like the plague since we departed from our date. Why? I don't know why, it has nothing to do with what he does because I love him, but I am so fucked up, I am honestly asking myself how could I ever engage in a relationship when I am like this.

Tuesday: I went and actually got some money, £50. I rang up Amy, a girl who is 20, my age (nearly) and asked if she wanted some drugs. DINGDINGDING dumb question. She has no money, and no drugs so she wasn't exactly going to decline, was she? I got two £20 bags of heroin and one £20 of crack cocaine. I gave her one of the heroin, and gave her most of the crack since I don't really like it. I made it last from Tuesday till Thursday since I know I had my methadone to take, too. That and, I can't be falling asleep around my twin nieces and my family, otherwise they will know I am right back where I started.

Today, I had saved my money and not purchased drugs. I wanted to be STRONG. I had one pint of beer/cider (a snakebite & black; 1/2 cider, 1/2 beer & a dash of blackcurrant) and went to the doctors to get my methadone script A.K.A Liquid Handcuffs then proceeded to go back to my sisters and treat the kids to lollies and easter eggs. then i just went in, and drunk. and sat and thought about what i am to do.

trying not to fall asleep at the computer...

woke up this morning around 10am which is late for me. i thought 'urgh, another day' but that was soon replaced by 'hell yeah, you have a snowball ready made up and more gear' so I hopped out of bed, said good morning, picked up some water pretending i was actually going to drink it, took a pepsi from the fridge and returned back to my room to do my dig. very nice. was my second snowball in god knows how long. took my breath a-w-a-y. not this monday, but monday the 16th i went to the doctors and showed her my arm and she instantly told me to go to hospital. I insisted I would go, but my friend was waiting for me outside (was true) but even though he would of taken me right away, I decided with my £10 I wanted to get a hit before I went. After all, what pain relief would I get in hospital, being a junkie and all? So, by now, my arm was bigger than the day before and I was delirious and giddy and off my head. I bumped into somebody I didn't really know and had to take my chances he wouldn't rip me off (he didn't) and we took a stroll down town to score and nearly two hours later I was in a much worser shape. I fainted on the way back into the centre. Hospital was at the opposite end of town but I knew I couldn't get there on foot. I was going to go back to the doctors and take the offer of a lift in a ambulance car. After I fainted, I was sweating and began to be sick. It wasn't a dirty hit but could of well been. My legs could barely carry me and I was shaking violently. I was pale as pale could be. Then something odd happens as I am panicing thinking I am going to die. I see Laila, the girl who gave me gear for the first time. She began talking to me as she got off her bike and crossed the road over towards me, about Narcotics Anonymous and staying clean. She had been to Detox5 years before and had an implant, but replapsed and I think it was the recent police intervention (she got caught Nov/Dec dealing to an undercover copper) that managed to finally put her off heroin & crack. I couldn't concentrate standing there talking to her so I said I must go, and she tells me I look ill and asks me whats wrong. She assumes I am clucking until I pull up my sleeve. I tell her I need to call my Mum and she urges me to get to hospital. 'I am trying' I tell her. I see, well she did, a big blue taxi outside the Boathouse pub. I recognise the driver as the father of a boy who was in my class at secondary school. She tells me to get in the taxi, to which I reply 'I have no money'. She tells me she does and I tell her I can't accept it. While I go into a phonebox and ring my Mum, acting all fine and explaining I need to go to hospital to have it checked out (it being an infected cut, I didn't tell her it was an abcess), she talks to the taxi driver. As I put down the reciever she walks up to me and tells me she has paid the driver and I am to get in "Why are you doing this for me?" I ask her, "Because Naomi, I care about you. You are my friend," Nobody has ever done something like that for me before. Ever. I was touched. I took her number, thanked her, and got in the cab. I was so frightened I was going to be sick that I shut my eyes (the light hurt it anyway, and it was VERY sunny) and covered them, putting my head down. I was sweating so much that when I got out the cab, the seat was soaking wet where my back was. The journey seemed to take forever and ever so often I would peek out from behind my hands to see where I was, but every time I was much further away than I could of ever imagined. I didn't want to pay £50 for a clean-up fee if I were to be sick. We eventually got there, though. I felt much better in the a&E.

I sat waiting in a room full of people, one man opposite me had a long 3.5" nail right through his knuckle, the central one. It was making these girls next to me squirm and he enjoyed the banter he was engaging in with them. They asked why I was there and I pulled up my sleeve. The girl sitting next to me actually jumped up from her seat and went "Urghhhhhhhh!" before apologising and sitting back down. Eventually, after 2 or 3 hours I went to see the doctor. One wanted to put me to sleep, and have a plastic surgeon carefully cut it to minimise scarring and make sure he got deep enough to get it ALL out. The other South African doctor just decided to get a scalpal and cut it open, which he did. He lay me down and told me to look away. He just freezed it basically but when he sliced it open I could feel the pus and blood running down. I regret not looking, morbid as it sounds. He described it to me throughout "wow... the amount is unbelievable. Wow! There is even more! Where is it coming from? MORE! MORE!" When he got swabs to take samples he told me it would hurt and it did, he dug it right inside the wound and when I turned to look I was stunned by the size of this said wound. IT WAS HUGE! Like when I've self-harmed. Of course, he cut it open, of course its going to be huge but obviously, since it can't be stitched (need to make sure all the craps out) it seems so odd to be open and left. The hole was crazy and he placed a piece of packing in it to hole to make the sides come together and absorb some of the crap. He gave me an appointment for the following Monday and that was it really. I didn't go on the Monday because it seemed to have healed fine. It hasn't; doctor told me its healing over the top but there is still loads of pus in there that needs to come out. So I still have this big hole, too. Need to get it sorted, its weaping pus all the time and I didn't finish my antibiotics at all. Naughty, I know.

I missed my methadone yesterday and its 13:49 so I should get out of my pyjamas and get ready! Ha, I'm so lazy!!!!

methadone; cure or con?

One drug - a green liquid in a beaker - is an addictive opiate that takes users at least five weeks to come off. Another - a brown powder in a syringe - is an addictive opiate that takes users five days to come off. The liquid is methadone. The powder is heroin. One is legally prescribed by doctors. The other is illegally procured from dealers. What, they’re asking in Britain’s drugs capital, is the good of that?
By Mary Braid
Published: 19 July 2000


Alex Clark, a 38-year-old from Ruchazie, a run-down council estate on Glasgow’s east side, sits in Marco’s Gym and reels off a long list. They’re the names of neighbours and relatives, all smackheads, and all dead, ruined, or on the run. Alex’s cousin Danny, who has been on heroin since his teens, is the one on the run - somewhere in England, hiding from dealers to whom he owes money. In his case, flight was sensible. A few months back machete-wielding pushers put another cousin, Aldo, in the city’s Royal Infirmary for owing a few hundred pounds.
Alex Clark, a 38-year-old from Ruchazie, a run-down council estate on Glasgow’s east side, sits in Marco’s Gym and reels off a long list. They’re the names of neighbours and relatives, all smackheads, and all dead, ruined, or on the run. Alex’s cousin Danny, who has been on heroin since his teens, is the one on the run - somewhere in England, hiding from dealers to whom he owes money. In his case, flight was sensible. A few months back machete-wielding pushers put another cousin, Aldo, in the city’s Royal Infirmary for owing a few hundred pounds.
Meanwhile, Alex, after eight years on heroin, is seeking salvation through weights and stomach-wrenching sit-ups. It has been three months since he last shot up, and his abstinence has made his older brother Andrew, who is 39, proud. “What’s great is to see Alex with his two sons again, because for a while there he lost them,” says Andrew, whose skinny frame and hollow Celtic eyes are so similar to Alex’s that the brothers might be twins. “And it’s great to hear him laugh again. There’s not much laughing when you’re using.” Alex, still a little jittery, came off cold turkey, just as Andrew did two and a half years ago, following his own eight years on smack.
When it comes to kicking heroin, however, abstinence is not, generally, the Glasgow way. As in other parts of Britain, methadone, prescribed by GPs, is now the orthodox medical treatment for the 8,500 “jaggers” who have turned Glasgow into Europe’s heroin capital.
Widespread prescription of liquid methadone, taken orally as a heroin substitute, was introduced in the Eighties to curb the spread of HIV by needle-sharing addicts. But the strenuous promotion of methadone - an addictive opiate, just like heroin - as a medicine angered some communities, already drowning in drugs, and at least one in four Glasgow GPs still refuse to take part in the scheme. Methadone, none the less, has emerged as the treatment king.
Addicts, it seems, just can’t get enough. In 1992, there were just 140 Glaswegians on methadone prescription. Today, around 3,000 visit their chemist every day to swallow the sweetened green liquid provided by the state. There’s a waiting list to join the programme and Greater Glasgow Health Board has plans for further expansion. Last month a government drugs-advisory group held the Glasgow scheme up as a national model, after stricter supervision appeared to cut fatal methadone overdoses. This month, the first research into methadone in Glasgow sings its praises, claiming it reduces injecting, overdoses and crime.
Andrew Horne, of the Glasgow Drugs Crisis Centre, is among those who argue that methadone clearly reduces the harm heroin does, both to society and to the individual user. Dispensed in a non-injectable form, it is, he says, better for the health of addicts and also protects society from infection. “Methadone or heroin injected into the groin - which would you rather have?” he says.
Horne also argues that daily supervision of addicts on the methadone programme brings users into daily contact with services that can help them. There are no statistics to reveal how many addicts are helped by methadone to become drug-free. Horne says a large proportion of addicts simply grow out of opiate use, but he insists that the methadone programme does help significant numbers to kick their drug habit. “It is a stepping stone,” he says. “The best way to detox is to use a substitute drug and do it slowly.”
All of which would be dandy, except for critics’ claims that there is no evidence the opiate is actually doing what many presume to be its principal job: ie helping addicts to come off heroin and other drugs. Last year a record 152 people died from overdoses (mainly heroin) in the Strathclyde region, 52 more than the year before. Methadone, some warn, has now become just another dangerous drug swilling round a city infamous for “polydrug” misuse.
For their part, the Clark brothers hate methadone. Alex and Andrew’s brother-in-law, Davie, was prescribed it after five years of injecting heroin. It was supposed to ease his withdrawal and help him kick drugs. Ten years later, at the age of 33, he is still on methadone. It’s the same story, they say, with the rest of the old Ruchazie gang - at least for those who are still alive. Most have been on methadone prescription for years and - despite the scheme’s rules against using other drugs, enforced by urine testing - they continue to inject heroin and take other drugs.
The main difference between the opiates is that methadone, while it does not offer the intense high that heroin does, is longer-lasting. Addicts on the programme should not need to dose more than once a day, while heroin addicts come down much faster and need to “dose” at frequent intervals. But compared to heroin, they say, methadone is boring - a Volvo against the preferred Ferrari, and, therefore, treated just as a “top-up” to heroin.
“The health board would consider Davie a success story,” says Alex bitterly. “He does not inject or take other drugs. But he’s like a vegetable. He used to have a good head on him but now he just sits at home all day.”
Alex’s brother Andrew took methadone for four weeks when he broke with smack. “It did take away the aches and pains of withdrawal, but psychologically the benefits wore off in days - and coming off was worse than it was with heroin,” he says. It takes five days to come off heroin but five to 15 weeks to kick methadone, which is a consideration for addicts, with jail a constant occupational hazard.
Alex complains that drug centres never treat the individual addict but simply prescribe methadone to everyone. He relates how, three months ago, after 14 days without heroin, he went for medical help. “I wanted to stay off,” he recalls. “I had a house like the one in Trainspotting - there was nothing in it. A drugs counsellor took just 10 minutes to decide methadone was for me, though I told her I was already detoxed.”
Despite Davie’s experience, Alex admits he was tempted: “By then I was gasping for anything.” So he went along to his local methadone group. “There were 15 of them there, all slumped forward,” he says, now laughing. “I was introduced and - shit! - I realised I knew most of them.”
Alex made his excuses and left and finally gave into Andrew’s pleas that he join Calton Athletic Recovery Group, a hard-line abstinence group based in Denniston, in Glasgow’s East End, which was famous for a while as the technical adviser to the film of Trainspotting. Calton, which is bitterly critical of the methadone programme and currently embroiled in a funding row, is where Andrew came off, and where Alex is now trying to kick his habit. Some days are hard, but it was peer pressure, Alex says, which sucked him in in the first place. Now another peer group, he believes, can help rescue him.
Calton offers football, half-marathons, daily work-outs, and group-therapy sessions. Its controversial director, Davie Bryce - who is a hero to his fans and a bloody-minded svengali to his critics - believes exercise stimulates endorphins suppressed by years of addiction. As Bryce, a former heroin addict himself like everyone at Calton, earthily explains: “You don’t get better sitting on your arse.”
Calton is supportive, but tough. And Bryce, in track suit and trainers, is scathing of the suited professionals who blame addiction on poverty, giving addicts too many places to hide. Calton’s mantra is individual responsibility. “I used to blame social conditions and Thatcherism,” says Bryce. “I blamed everything and everyone, bar drugs.”
The health board, and a host of Glasgow drug centres, claim methadone helps addicts, as well as society, by stabilising them until they feel able to tackle dependence. But Calton bans all drugs - prescribed or otherwise - including alcohol. To Bryce, prescribing methadone makes as much sense as switching an alcoholic from whisky to gin.
“Methadone is not a treatment,” he says angrily. “It is a method of social control, introduced to contain HIV infection.” During the Aids panic, he says, the authorities had to reach the drug-taking population and methadone was the carrot that lured addicts in. Bryce reluctantly allows that methadone might have a very short-term application, if addicts moved off it before dependence set in. “But it’s not used as a means of getting people into detox,” he argues. Another Glasgow drugs counsellor, who does not want to be named, agrees. “You get these reports about methadone working miracles, but I don’t know anyone it has helped come off. Its an inexpensive way for the health board to look like it’s actually doing something. And no one takes the board on now because we all rely on it for funds.”
The study into methadone’s effect on the behaviour of Glasgow addicts - co-authored by Dr Laurence Gruer, public health consultant and the driving force behind Glasgow’s methadone programme - makes no assessment of methadone as an addiction-busting drug. Gruer’s fellow co-author Sharon Hutchison, of the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health, says that a drug-free life is the long-term goal of methadone programmes. But the study only covered addicts’ first 12 months on methadone - too soon, apparently, to expect long-term heroin users to become drug-free. But the question arises: if methadone brings such dramatic improvements to addicts’ lives, why are so many of them still relying on it, years after their first prescription?
Professor Neil McKeganey, of Glasgow University’s Centre for Drug Misuse Research, does not argue with the social benefits of methadone in curbing infection and crime. A £3m methadone programme looks good value when set against the £194m of goods that Glasgow addicts steal annually to fund their habits. It is generally accepted that given free methadone, addicts do steal less.
“But the big question has to be what effect, if any, is methadone having on heroin addiction,” says McKeganey. “And the truth is we don’t have any evidence either way.” McKeganey says that when psychiatrists were responsible for the care of heroin addicts - before Aids arrived and public health and infectious diseases consultants took over - they were largely sceptical about methadone as a treatment, as countries including France remain today.
McKeganey agrees that short-term use of methadone might stabilise an addict. “But stability is not an end in itself,” he warns. “Methadone should be the point from which other things take place and that’s not happening in Glasgow.”
From his own interviews with addicts, he believes that for some, the opiate may create an even stronger dependence than heroin. Professor Russell Newcombe, a drugs lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, argues that because of the longer withdrawal period, methadone may, in fact, extend addictions by years. Yet there are no studies into the long-term effects of the drug.
Meanwhile Calton’s members believe that, secretly, the health board has given up on addicts, convinced they cannot be saved, or that saving them would cost too much. Janis, who is 29, finally came off heroin five years ago. “I had sold everything,” she says. “I slept rough on the streets. Eventually I joined a methadone programme, lying that I wanted to kick heroin just so I could get more drugs.” It was a year before a urine test revealed she was still using heroin and other narcotics.
“My habit just got bigger and my life got out of control,” she says. “I thought the only way you got out was to die. That was all I was seeing around me.” Bryce laughs that the health authority likes schemes that are “non-directive and non-judgmental” when directive and judgemental are just what addicts need.
“I wanted someone to tell me how to get off and stay off, ” remembers Janis. “I didn’t want someone to ask me what I wanted to do. How would I have known, the mess I was in?” Fundamentally, she says, she needed role models to show what was possible. That finally happened when she saw a Calton presentation in prison.
Janis, understandably, wants more abstinence schemes. But even drugs counsellors who support methadone projects, warn that Glasgow’s expanding scheme is facing problems because of scarce long-term rehabilitation programmes. “We have them on methadone but we can’t get them off,” says one drugs-project manager who prefers anonymity because he, like most others, relies on health-board funds.
Alex, meanwhile, struggles on with the daily sit-ups at Marco’s Gym. “I worried at first that it was all too late to get clean,” he says. “But I believe now that had I gone on methadone I would be sitting in the house just like [my brother-in-law] Davie.”
http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article266397.ece

make or break

I guess you can pretty much say this is 'make or break time' now. I do believe for certain things and certain people, change can happen at any point. I have this gut feeling though, that if I do not turn things around now, I never will. I have already lost 8 years to drugs and I can easily see myself losing the other X amount, also. And if I carry on, nothing will be carved in stone except for the fact those X amount of years probably will not go into double figures. So, on the 25th September at 2pm I have an appointment with the doctor to be put on Subutex. I did not want to go on methadone- to me, it really was no better than heroin apart from the fact it was

1. free; so it kept me away from the constant need to find money any way and any how and
2. needed to be taken just once orally; no injecting needed
3. safe; no worries about purity, that it might be poison, etc. etc. 100% clean from a reliable source.

Though, obviously, as most of you will know, methadone has its downsides. People are heavily divided about it- both opiate addicts and their families, health professionals etc. When I was on my methadone maintanence programmes I discovered a lot of negative points and I really did not see myself progress in any which way or form. Like many others, I continued to use heroin and just used methadone as a safety net- it was there for when I couldn't get any heroin, so I didn't have to endure the dreadful ordeal that is cold turkey. These downsides consisted of

1. Drowsiness; I still carried on dozing off. Even when I lowered my dose from 60ml to 50ml.
2. Collecting; I had to pick up my methadone 7 days a week from Boots at the Grafton Center, along with god knows how many other junkies which meant we were all passing each other, just like we used to, but instead of going to our illegal dealer, we were going to the state supported one. We just tempted one another, and it was all to easy to approach somebody else picking up their script and ask if they wanted to go halfs on a bag. We couldn't leave the 'scene' behind.
3. Isolation; Once I no longer had to score heroin (which is, as we know, a full-time business) I got in with old friends and began to spend less and less time in the scene. But you had to go everyday to pick up your script, and drink it infront of the pharmacist, and your friends if you hadn't given them a good enough excuse for why they should wait outside. You couldn't with the money you saved from not having to buy heroin, go away for a weekend to say, Brighton. You needed to be in Cambridge to pick up your script.
4. Addictiveness; Methadone is a lot stronger than heroin and takes, obviously, a lot longer to come off.
5. Sugar; It took me ages to get sugar-free methadone, and this was only after complaining and comparing my teeth to everyone elses, or rather, the gaps where everyone elses used to be. My friend Becky is 32, her top teeth are rotted beyond repair.

I will have to go to the pharmacy everyday for my Subutex but the difference is, Subutex blocks the effects of heroin. There isn't much of a point in me taking it, not like with methadone. My sleeping patterns have dramatically changed; I get up at about 6am every morning now so my plan is to go to the chemist as early as possible to avoid everyone else (lets face it- if I'm not sleeping now I'm on heroin, what chance do I have when I stop it!?!). I will have to rattle for over 24 hours before I go to my appointment and collect my prescription for one Subutex. This is because, the first time you take it, if you have heroin or methadone in your system you go into an instant, violent withdrawal. No thank you. I can't cope with a normal withdrawal, so I'd had to experience that. Urgh.

I am really looking forward to this. May seem strange to say that, looking forward to feeling so damn ill when you know you could just spend £10 and rid yourself of that unbearable pain. But thats just it... you rid yourself of the physical pain for a couple of hours then you need to go and get more money to stop it starting again. And you do so much bad shit, you degrade yourself, abuse yourself, sell your dignity... all for something that doesn't even last longer than a few hours. Something that has helped destroy your life beyond repair. See what I mean about the make or break.... either I do it this time, or I just resign myself to the fact I don't want to change, and I will carry on my life of utter misery, disgusting behaviour and lawlessness. I just hope and pray I do it this time. This time... everything is resting on it.

CLEAN

I really didn’t have much faith in myself, I had good intentions, sure, you are ready to quit all the time, as long as its next Tuesday. I was 90% sure I would do it, but then this remainder was whispering in the back of my mind; “how the hell are you going to just quit something you’ve been submersed in for the past 7 years?”. I live in central Cambridge, and drugs & their associations are everywhere; the dealers, the users, the public toilets I used to shoot up in, the chemists where I would get my citric acid & needles. Urgh. I can’t believe I led such an existance for so long. Or let me rephrase that, I can’t believed I stayed alive for so long.
Anyway, I’m still clean. No methadone, no heroin, no nothing. Because of the withdrawal symptoms, my stomach has been awful. Couldn’t stop puking at first, so my drinkings cut down. Some days it is just down to a couple of cans. Considering what I was drinking, that’s left me feeling very clear headed and for the first time in years, alone with myself. Perfect for reflecting on what a cunt I’ve been to those who love me.
I wouldn’t of been able to do this without a certain someone. He has stayed around me every single day and waited on me hand and foot when I was crippled with pain. He tidied my house, collecting the 250+ syringes that were around, even though it made him feel utterly sick. He took me to Devon after deciding he would help me come off it. It was a very rash decision, quick. But I didn’t need much thought. I was on a methadone programme, trapsing to the BOOTS CHEMIST in the Grafton Centre each day, passing the same people I would pass and associate with if I was scoring. It wasn’t helping and there were days when I would see them, skip my meth and go do a shit load of snowballs instead. I was in the same drugs crowd, but expecting not to use, yet have it in my face all the time. Not blaming anyone else but myself, but it would be like doing a withdrawal knowing you had a stash of heroin hidden under a rock in your garden. Impossible. I wanted to meet his family. He means a lot to me. Bless him.
I am not jumping the gun, its been x days (can you do the math whilst refering to the previous post, I’m crap at calculating) and I know this is going to be a problem for the rest of my life. I can NEVER touch it again, and if I do, I know it will spiral into another dependance. I got a letter about finally, my psychiatrist. Problem is, I know it was a day or two ago, and I’ve missed it. I’ll get a second chance, but I feel like a git for missing it, having bitched about it for so long (or the lack of it).
Talking of missing stuff, I saw my docter Wynn the Thursday before last. She is going to put me on naltrexone all depending on my liver function test. Which reminds me, I need to get some blood taken, the nurses tried last time and they couldn’t get a vein. Makes me feel great about potentially being in a car crash; need an urgent transfusion, all that wasted time faffing around for a vein before going for my neck or groin. And also, naltrexone, it blocks the opiate receptors; so I couldn’t have morphine (Well, I could, but I wouldn’t fucking feel it) so what would that leave me? Nitrous Oxide. What a load of bollocks. So; go it alone, or take it? Either way, the NHS only provide it with pills and like my Dad on his antabuse, if he wanted to start drinking again, he would stop taking them a couple of days before hand, otherwise, if he drunk alchohol on them, he would violently become ill. So, surely if I wanted to ever do it again, I would just stop them? But for little out-of-the-blue temptations, its a godsend I am sure. You could take it, but you wouldn’t feel it. Oh I don’t know.
I spent a wicked day in the pub yesterday with Dylan. I was ill as fuck, I knew so because my first drink was a plain pepsi, and for me to be drinking a soft drink anywhere, let alone a pub, is fucking seriously out of character.
Oh dear, I feel happy. Hear that, happy. Christ. What’s coming over me? Maybe I have mistook this 7 years of addiction for simple teenage angst and rebellion?
Ha.

XMAS EVE

woke up pretty early, 7am. thats early for me. im just sitting here drinking jack daniels & coke. oh, how i love that it is socially acceptable to drink this early when its christmas! well, at least, at 10.30am onwards, not from 7am when i started. i got mugged of my brand new Samsung D900i last Sunday. a boy hit me and snatched it. i tried to fight him off but wasn’t strong enough. some lady in her house called the police and i was in the station until 4am in the morning making a statement. did they do anything? of course not. i need to ban the phone, by retrieving the incident crime number and ringing up 02. i don’t want that fucker to get anything out of it. its bright pink, so he will sell it or give it to his girlfriend/mum. i only had it a week, and thats £150 down the drain (my £50 memory card was in it).
my arms are dropping off, aching, dying. i went shopping on saturday for gifts and they were so heavy i pulled a muscle in my back and was just stuck on the spot and couldn’t move. in the busy shopping centre i had to buy a suitcase and put as much as i could in it, as nobody offered to help me (who does in this day in age; a couple walked past me hand in hand as i was getting mugged and done nothing, not even called cops) as i stood there unable to bend down. i had to kick all my bags along the floor into the luggage shop, which hurt bad enough. but anyway, important thing is, i got all the presents. i would write what they are now but my family will read this and then the cover will be blown. but my mum, who constantly slags me off, should feel proud of me that i had £250 that i spent all on presents when i could of gone on a crack and smack binge and got everyone a present worth £5 each. her presents come to £95 alone. hissssssssssss mum. she is being such a bitch, she is pushing me to the brink telling me i’m killing my nan, ruining their relationship. shouldn’t she know the only way i can change things is by not being here? what she want me to do, top myself?
im off to pick up my script. and get last minute presents.

stupid? yes i am

i let him round. i saw him on the street saturday and i let him walk me to score drugs. brilliant. i scored 5 bags of heroin and one crack cocaine. he didn’t ask for any of it, and he walked me back to my home, where he used to live until he beat me. he had no money left. he could barely walk, or talk, due to the amount of heroin/crack/alcohol he had consumed, but somehow he followed me home. i said to him, since the next day was sunday and he had no money, and Monday was the day after and he needed to go to work, I will give you a bag. So he came back Sunday and I gave him £10 to buy himself one. I knew he wouldn’t keep it until Monday morning so he would go to work well, but what junkie would? Come on! He came round tonight, Monday, and dropped off a sofa with his Dad. I’m supposed to give a clean piss test Thursday at 2.30pm and I hadn’t used today. He came in and offered me a hit of White and Dark (thats crack-cocaine & heroin for ya’lls that don’t know) and of course, I didn’t say no. I fucking hope i clear my piss test or mouth swab test on Thursday. Do you think I will? Jesus, I can’t live with methadone but I can’t live without. You get me?
I’m a vegetable on methadone. It is NO BETTER THAN HEROIN. I have no motivation, no nothing. It’s just the same with heroin. Though, on heroin, you have to get your next fix so you run around trying to raise the money. With methadone, you don’t need to. So you just sit and rot away. When I don’t use, I just lie in bed ALL day. I can’t get up, I can’t move. I want to, but I just can’t. Its CATCH 22…. go on methadone and you don’t have to run around trying to raise £100 everyday, or don’t and you have to earn that each day or youre severely ill. It’s crazy.
I look at Amy Winehouse… all these articles about her. I wish somebody would of tried to make me go to rehab, I wouldn’t of said NO, NO, NO. I ain’t got the money, and the state won’t give me it either, honey…. I wish they’d tried to make me go to rehab, I wouldn’t of said NO NO NO.

im a man of means by no means

I know every engineer on every train

All of their children, and all of their names

And every handout in every town

And every lock that ain’t locked

When no one’s around.

Dylan lovingly woke me up at 7am by continuously ringing my phone until I answered it. Even when I did, I was still half asleep I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Just caught something about him wanting to meet later, which might be a bit tricky as I have my appointment to get a repeat prescription at 2.30pm and after I need to see Danny about getting in touch with the police. Danny is my ECHG (English Church Housing Group) Support Worker and she is absolutely wicked. So lovely. Coincidently, she used to work with my sister when she was in a childrens home. She probably finds it no suprise that I turned out the way I did if she remembers anything of what my sister told her and how she behaved. My nanna is 82 and gets up at 5.30am in the morning, makes a cuppa tea and tidies up. I don’t know how she does it. She came in at 7.30am to see if I was up and suprisingly I was due to Dylan, but I acted as if I had arose all by myself. I didn’t hit the sack until about 3am. Managed to drift asleep at the computer and drop a can of special brew all over her wooden floor. I always do that. Did it last time I was here but at least it wasn’t all over her computer this time.

I sing,
Trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let, fifty cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road.

The reason I was so like that is because yesterday I was bored at mine and popped out for some cigarettes when I bumped into my mate Charlies Mum. Charlie lives near me and is also a user, alongside her Mum. Her Mum asked if I could help her score. I said yes. And decided to do so myself. I scored 2 x £20 heroin and 1 x £20 crack cocaine. I ended up doing both bags within 30 minutes of each other and straight after I had to go pick up my 60ml of methadone. THEN meet Dylan for a drink. I had a couple of vodka & red bulls to try and perk me up but I felt as if I was going to fall asleep. It was awful. I had to stand up to keep myself from dozing off. I had been using this great vein on the inside of my left wrist but on the second hit, I completely missed it all but because there was white in it I didn’t notice. What a waste. Never mind. I’m not a huge crack cocaine fiend and there is a little tiny bit left over.
I don’t know how the fuck I support my habit. My Momma says I’m one of these people that “Always falls into the shit but comes out smelling of roses” She is right. I do. I always find my feet and if I’m going cold turkey, I always come across money. I can’t figure out whether that is a good thing or not. Probably, otherwise I would have a criminal record the length of my arm by now.
My grandad is giving me a lift home in a couple of hours. I hope HE hasn’t been in my flat. I am petrified he will have stolen my TVs or even worse my sewing machine that cost a penny short of £1,000. That is my livelyhood. I hope not. I’m frightened to open the door. Or what if he is waiting with a knife to stab me? Snap out of it Naomi! If he hasn’t stolen my sewing machine I’m going to get cracking on some bags and some clothes, I need to make some extra cash for Christmas Clubbing Money. All those festive Do’s to go to… I can’t miss out.
Oh well. I’m going to carry on listening to oldies radio stations and dancing around the room trying to shed some of the many pounds I’m putting on. I dropped a lot of weight now my appetite has come back. Its probably natures way of keeping me well over the freezing cold winter period. Because as it stood a month or so ago, I was setting myself up for pneumonia said my mother, a registered nurse who is very well qualified to predict such a thing. Aparently, I was a prime candidate. I still am. Great. Just finished a pint glass of sherry and feel as if my esophogus is melting away from the excess stomach acid that is cascading up it. Know what I’m going to do? Pour another sherry? Are you crazy? I’ll have something less acidic, like a Special Brew.

drug addicted relationships

i got home, back to him, having not given a snippet away to my family about what had happened. when i take a picture, i will post it. of my phone (it was a samsung slide-y one, which he snapped in half, literally. and just for dramatic effect, the cracked screen is covered in blood where he ripped it out my hand), the big deep cut in my hand, etc.etc. ALL of which I blamed on myself. I invented some kind of stupid accident. Even though they were pretty good, they instantly translated the “i accidently” into “i was drunk and…”. When I got back from my Nans, after the last post, he was there. And he was a complete bastard. Not even remotely remorseful. He started again. So I did what I should of done and when my Momma rang I told her on the phone, and the only thing that stopped him from ripping that out of my hand and stamping on both it and I was she quite audibly said for his benefit “if you fail to pick up the phone i’m coming round with your sister as well as ringing the police”. I made him leave. I felt terrible. I still feel terrible. For making him go at about 10pm at night. But I couldn’t risk what would happen next.

His fury over the fact I am now on a methadone script and don’t need to score drugs to stay well caused him to be very nasty. Despite the fact I was on a script, I was being forced into getting money for his habit. How was that fair? It was as if I should never of bothered fighting to get on one in the first place. I worried about how, when I had kicked him out, he would support his drug habit. Since he was putting down a floor at mine, he had a key, which he supposedly left in his Dads work van. I am hoping he did, otherwise, since I am not at my flat, he could go in and steal whatever/trash it/wait in the shadows till I come back and stab me. I know he hasn’t gone to work, but has he really left it there? Or is it in his pocket?

The night after I made him leave, I heard nothing from him. However, my mate Dylan saw him coming down the stairs from my flat door. He didn’t knock or anything. But now I know why. At first, I heard that and thought he maybe just thought about knocking to reconcile, apologise etc. but got to the door and backed out. Why no, he went into my shed which is right next to my front door. From there, he stole my laptop, sold it, and proceeded to go back to the very same spot and cheekily do the drugs he had purchased with what should of been MY MONEY since that was my property he pawned. How perfect was my shed… out of the way of the harsh elements and even better, right as you open the door you are greeted by a lovely comfy chair that just literally screams to wandering, drifting ex-s “rest your weary bones”. What would of made it only slightly more perfect would of been if there was a working light bulb in there but, ha, there wasn’t. I realise now the git was shacking up in my shed until he found a place at the local homeless night shelter. I heard lots of noise but thought it was just my neighbours. No, it was him. He didn’t even have the sense to remove all the drug paraphenalia from there so he could at least deny he wasn’t in there, and therefore wasn’t the one who stole the things that were in there.

I’m rather bloody frightened. When I’m out walking, for example to the chemist, to my Nans… I’m looking around everywhere. The first night after he left I was walking back from the chemist when I saw him walking away from the direction of my house. My heart was racing. Not sure what I was quite scared of, I don’t think he would do anything in public, but thats it. Its dark at 5.30pm and not that many people are about in all the places I walk. I carried on walking and he chased after me “Two words… two words”. I looked at him, without saying a word. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Sorry” I just walked off. Tonight, while I was walking to the chemist, I saw him. I’m 99% it was him. From afar, the clothes were the same, the way he stood. It was. As I got closer, it was him. I started to worry why he was just waiting in such a spot. Was he waiting to see me go to get my script, so he could go to mine and do god knows what? I am frightened to go back to my flat and find out. Instead, after getting my script I met Dylan and had a drink in The Vine at the top of Burleigh Street. Quite a wanky place. Tries to be posh and in the heated smoking area outside, there were these complete tossers from a nearby company. A young Asian man, late 20s. Talking about his office cleaner to the group “Give her whatever hours. I don’t care if she does 4, 5, 6 hours just as long as I don’t see her. All I want to see is her timesheet, but not her. The last person I want to see or have to talk to is a bloody cleaner. So whatever you do, make her leave by 5 as I never want to set eyes on her”. Dylan had his back to this loud man and turned right around to clap eyes on him to see what such a prick could possibly look like. The man knew this and was quite embarrased. We weren’t listening in, his voice was bellowing and he was showing off. I wonder what company they were from…. double glazing sales? When I’m having a shit day, I love little snippets like this that remind me of just how really shallow and crappy the world is. I didn’t stay long there. After, I walked to my Nans. Stopped off on the way home and bought myself some Choco-Banana Pocky, Turkish Delight for Nan and a Walnut Whip for Grandad. He just picked the nut off the top and left the rest till later. I want to swipe it but thats greedy of me since I purchased it for him. I could justify it by telling myself he is diabetic and shouldn’t be eating stuff like that….?

My prescription has run out so I shall have to see my lady at the doctors so I can get another one. I did actually slip up the day after he left. My mate came round at about 10pm and I was steaming drunk by this time…. I celebrated my new found singleness by buying loads of booze, magazines & cigarettes (he never let me buy them as aparently they were a waste of money), yummy blackberries + strawberries and pizza. And she knocked and offered me a snowball. I said yes. I don’t think I would of done if I wasn’t so under the influence. That is no excuse, its my fault, but I refused one the next day when I was entirely sober. I felt very guilty actually. I feel as if I’ve let myself down big time. BIG TIME. No, come on, just a slip-up. Start again from now.

I do feel so guilty that he has to go and find somewhere else to live. I worry about so much. He is in the local homeless night shelter which he was in before. He said the food is excellent (and he said mine was crap so hey, in that department he will be ok) but the only downside is its open from 7.30pm-9.30am and your kicked out inbetween. Sucky, especially since Cambridge library is under refurbishment at the moment. I wonder what he does all day. I can’t see him going back to work yet. So has he gone back to a life of crime? Of shoplifting etc. etc.? He won’t kick his drug habit. I know he won’t. All I know is, at least now I don’t have another heavily addicted vein to feed.

life is good?

yes, life is good.
i went through an awful time a few weeks back. i was a witness in court alongside my momma and sis and a few others and it really took it out of me, physically and mentally. it was horrible. i dont know why i bothered. they got off anyway. i say i will never do it again but i couldnt just sit back and let them get away with it, even though they did in the end.
my arm. i have an awful infection from 3 weeks ago. the gear was awfully filthy with terrible black bits in it, and i actually skin popped as opposed to mainline so there was no blood in it. 7 days ago it started to swell, get sore, go boiling hot. my mum being a nurse checked it a few days ago and was so stunned. i went to the doctors and now im on 2 flucloxacillin + 4 penicillin 4 times a day. mum said i hope this teaches you a lesson. does it? yes, for once. i got cut off my methadone ages ago so i have to use, but im down to less than a ten bag a day. i use only when i get ill. for once, i am feeling good. happy even. i desperately want to get onto subutex as methadone still made me feel as if i was on gear… no motivation, lethargic. and i cant go through with cold turkey. i tried last week but lasted 2 days. i just cant do that without detox + rehab, not yet.
good news? I HAVE A FLAT! my own, again. but this time, im not going to fill it with waifs & strays and junkies and drug dealers. ive not told anyone. ive had a couple staying with me for 4 months, who have never paid me a penny in rent… and they are just expecting they are coming with me. are they? NO WAY. i think they know it. but i have done so much for them and i cant do it anymore.
anyway, this place is beautiful. its absolutely massive. huge bedroom, huge living room, huge kitchen, beautiful new bathroom, balcony. ive started to paint the ceilings white. i am having seychelle blue for the front room and lemon fizz for the bedroom. i have no money to get anything else so my worker has helped me apply for a community care grant so i can get a cooker, fridge, bed, sofa, carpets. i feel so positively happy i really do. this is make or break for me. my own little home. and it has the cutest little name too does my street.
im going to start writing again regularly. well, im off to buy more decorating supplies. im doing up most of the interior myself. ill show you pics later.

oh how us addicts justify our habits!

I have to see the doctor tomorrow at the Drug & Alcohol Dependency Unit. I haven’t seen him ever since I actually started a methadone script, so all he has got to go on is what I have told my keyworker whom since I now have a community script (I pick up from a pharmacy), I haven’t seen in bloody ages. And when I do see him he scribbles down a few notes- that are so unimportant. I know they are unimportant because while I do not lie to him, I do not tell him about certain things. Like when he asks about my heroin use i say “oh its fine, loads better. im not using as much” which is technically true, if you compare it to me old £80-120 a day habit. Now I’m only using £40. And when he asks about my drinking “still have a drink when you get up?” “oh no, i just drink normally now,” I reply. Which again, is technically true. I don’t drink when I get up, I drink when I wake up… I put my cans of Special Brew and my Vodka bottle and Grapefruit juice carton beside my bed before I sleep ready for when I wake up. Drink when I get up? Pfffft… I wish. I need 2 cans of brew and 2 triple vodkas before I can even muster half the strength it requires to get up and evade the inevitable vomitting fits for a little while longer. Then, by the time I’ve got up, its about 4.30pm and I go to the chemist then the pub for 5, which is where I drink socially with everyone else who comes in for a pint after work until about 9pm. Hahaha. It makes me giggle how us addicts can justify our habits. Ooooh, did that rhyme? But nah, this is the REAL big doctor. He should be just as easy to convince as his time is precious and he will wave me in and out and not care whether I’m telling the truth, or be able to tell if I am either. Not much I want… a reduction in my methadone- I’m on so much it’s making me go over (overdose) everytime I have a hit of smack that is about £15 worth and mixing with the alcohol, its making me constantly tired. AND I WANT SUGAR FREE METHADONE! I have no fillings and perfect teeth and I want them to stay that way. I was checking out a measure I use for my methadone and I noticed that since I forgot to wash it out, the little bit of methadone left in the bottom of the cup had crystallised into sugar and rock hard. Yum… no wonder so many junkies on methadone have rotten and/or missing teeth. If they don’t give it to me, I’m giving up methadone and going back on heroin full time. If my lifes going to suck, I don’t want to look like pure shit on top of it and have bad tooth pains. I don’t worry about sounding shallow, because I probably lead one of the most shallowest lives around. All I care about is getting money to get dope to please myself so I feel OK. Well, thats not strictly true but I can see how others might think that.
So I’ll post how that goes with the doctor, the bigwig. I’m worried about going to the clinic, passing all my old ‘mates’ and stopping to talk with them. I kind of miss hanging about with them, even though during the time I was sleeping on the streets mostly. Despite the fact we had no family, and we werent even particularly friends, we all understood what it was like to be in our position, and it felt better to hang around with people who knew than people who didn’t know or no one at all.

temptation

from original blog archive may 06 before i started my methadone script, and was using around £80-£100 a day. this post speaks about when i purchased some methadone off a friend, thinking i would be able to detox on it, as it was my twin nieces birthday and i didn’t want to be using on it, or at their party which fell the day after.

I spent the only money I had yesterday on 2 bags of gear. My last 2 bags of gear, or so I told myself. The day before I caved in at 11am, after having gone just over 24 hours without a hit. I woke up at 9am and was feeling fine. Probably because I didn’t get to bed until 5am and that was because I was smoking a .5 bag, which I started at 2am but couldn’t finish too quickly as I was gouching out, totally beyond my control. I was going to save half for the morning but I thought ‘fuck it- do it all and start your cluck tomorrow’. Funny cluck, because I planned to take 30mil of methadone daily. Decided the best thing to do was wean myself off gear using methadone- though I had no money to buy anymore so I was relying on my scripted mates to donate some here and there. Hopefully. Anyway, I had been staying at my grandparents house as opposed to my own home because… well, I don’t know. I just felt happier there I guess. Today the weather was beautiful. In England, the winter is so long and drawn out. January, February, March… horrible months. Dull, cold… its as if the spring will never get here. But today, like yesterday was gorgeous. I took my methadone and I felt great. I went to meet my CPN (psychiatric nurse) in the street to pick up a letter I am to give to the welfare office to support my claims for benefits. I am still without any income… funny really, as I keep on managing to feed my heroin habit which is damn bloody expensive. I want to cry when I think how much I have spent. Anyway, he told me I looked brighter, and I bloody felt it. It was a combination of the weather (aside from PTSD, opiate dependancy and severe depression I swear I have SAD- seasonal affective disorder) and the fact I had not taken gear. Never mind the fact I had not a penny to my name to buy it so couldn’t anyway… it was still an accomplishment because I always find a way to get money. And I hadn’t. I saw my sister and my nieces (whose birthday it is well, right now actually) and I felt so happy I was bouncing about all over the place. Then I got a call from my ex-workmates asking me to go to the pub where they would buy me a drink. So I went there and that was nice. One of them asked me if I had any cash yet and I said no, so they slipped me £40. Instantly, I nearly recoilled in horror and was ready to push it back in their face but fifteen minutes before that, I kid you not, I had a call on my mobile which I didn’t pick up in time from one of my many dealers. He always calls to let you know he is in town (he drives down from the capital to sell his wares to us filthy scumbags). From the moment I took that money, I couldn’t get away from the pub quick enough.
Cut to here. I rung up, asked for 2b and stood on the corner of my old street where I grew up for 50minutes, when finally the driver comes along and I hop in his motor. Admittedly, he did give me ‘da two fattest bags ni-o-me’ but still, it didn’t compensate for me having to stand on that corner for 50 minutes. It looked like I was either a) touting for business or b) waiting for drugs. It was horrible, and I saw so many people I knew. A good few knew what I was up to which made me burn red with shame. I quickly rushed to my grandparents to down the dinner she had cooked and then pegged it to mine so I could do my gear. It is funny, I was feeling fine. Not ill at all. Well, I wasn’t physically 100% understandably, but because I felt more positive than I had done in a long while, I didn’t feel the sickness. But as soon as I got that money, kaboom, my guts started going and on came that clucking feeling. Crazy. I often wonder how much of it is psychological.
Tomorrow… tomorrow… tomorrow. What have I got. Lots of things. Got to think of how I can get some money, because I need more gear. I can’t be sick at my babies birthday party, can I? Thats just not on. And I must go put in my welfare claims. I can’t even do it when I’m on gear, so if I’m clucking… god forbid!
This first post is a mess. I wanted to present my life in a really wonderfully written style like bella de jour at blogspot. Then it dawned on me, you’re not a semi-high class hooker, you’re a junkie. An 18 year old junkie who is going nowhere, worryingly and particularly fast. So yes, welcome to my junkylife blog. Here, if you remember, you will be able to read about what it is like to be a teen hooked on gear. God, why would anybody want to. The worlds depressing enough. Christ, I am babbling. I know its my blog but I don’t want to put potential readers to sleep. Talking of sleep, I’m going to do a bit more gear, which means no sleep for me, just catnaps here and there. In between gouches. I hate heroin. Best piece of advice I could give to anybody: don’t touch gear. I used to sparkle. Now… now… nothing. Haha. Right, I’m actually signing off now. Finish my gear and watching a streetcar named desire. I’ve run out of smokes. Bugger.

something i wrote

from a lined piece of paper i wrote on while having a drink in the park on friday. or was it thursday?

Been a bit of a silly sausage. Only the other week I was sitting in a meeting with my key worker at the DDU (Drug Dependency Unit), telling him how happy I was and proud of myself for keeping off heroin for the longest possible time in my life. Which as you know, is a pitiful small amount of weeks, so embarrassing it does not even nearly reach four. Four. Four? Pathetic I know but it is the best I can do. As I left, I handed over a sample tube of my lukewarm piss and was given a firm handshake and ’Congratulations- you look so well, keep up the good work!’.
I mostly owe it to them, actually. They decided after a few months, to put me on a community script. This means I pick my methadone up from a chemist and do not have to go to the DDU Monday to Friday between 8.30am and 12.45pm like everyone else. A few of the others there gave me a bit of stick when they found out. I do not blame them. Most have been going for years, some about ten or fifteen and they still have to go daily, even though they beg for a community script. And then I join up and after a few months I get handed a community script I didn’t even ask for!
So how do I owe it to them? Well, when I had to go everyday, I would set off around 12.15pm and go in and down my methadone. Then, as I would come out I would see everybody else that had just been in there congregating at the bus stop nearby having a drink. I befriended quite a few people and as a result, I started to sit there with them everyday for hours drinking and chatting. And of course, you would get somebody shout out “anybody want to go halves on a bag with me?” and at £5 for half a bag, it wasn’t that great a loss. I should know, I did this almost everyday. It was so easy to do. The staff at the unit were not dumb, and knew I was hanging about with the others, who lets face it, were in most cases at least about 10-20 years older than me. They decided that I would recover better if I was away from other junkies and alcoholics. And you know what? They were actually right. It is so much easier to stay away from something when your nose is not rubbed into it.
But me being a silly sausage, I got back in touch with the girl who first gave me heroin. Or rather, she got in touch with me, to borrow moneny. I decided to get a bag with her. We went into the pub and I bought us a couple of drinks and while I downed my pint she went in to toilets to do her hit. The hilarious thing about the toilets was, the lights were on a scensor, so you really had to rush with your hit if you wanted. She came back after her £10 hit and saw me borrow £20 off a mate as I had no money left after buying our drinks. She say there and began to whine and get tearful for another £10. I explained I really couldn’t do it because of my need to buy alcohol and pay my rent. However, I am a soft touch and she threatened to leave so I got her another bag. It was horrible, really. When I went to do mine, it took me about 2 hours and by the time I found a vein, the plunger had bust. You just couldn’t push it down without dislodging the pin. If you keep on pushing and pulling back the plunger chances are it will stiffen up and fail to expel the air/contents. It just slides upwards. That was a bummer. A waste of £10, too.
This didn’t particularly make me want to do heroin again. I was unfazed by the experience. So, the next day, I did not go near it. But by the next I got a call from the dealer Joe, who drives up from somewhere in East London with bags of crack and heroin. £20 each or two for £35, three for £50. What a deal! Since they would meet me merely 3 minutes from my home, I thought, ’Why not?’ and went and met them. But instead of getting a twenty, I thought I would get 3. And these are good bags, about point 5. I had to see my sister that night and while I was sitting drinking a crate of beers with her, they were burning into my skin from the pocket in my jeans. I couldn’t wait to get back to mine where I tried to get a hit. 40 minutes or so later and BINGO. It knocked me out straight away. Maybe it wasn’t wise to do over half in a pin when I hadn’t used for long. I didn’t wake up until gone 5am, having done it at midnight. God I felt rough when I did.
Winter depresses me. It is just so… so…. Long. Cold and dark, drags on far too long. I have been in a lot during the days, then going to the pub about 5pm until kicking out time. When I am at home, I listen to music. Like Lou Reed, for example. And watch films like Trainspotting and Sid & Nancy and read books like Christianne H and Junk. Heroin is just so romanticised. I found myself, while consuming whatever piece of media, drooling and getting almost rushes of sexual excitement. From somebody that has not had an orgasm in over a year, I find it amazing I still can get a feeling like that. Even if it is when I am fantasising about heroin. So, when you are bored, what do you do?
TAKE HEROIN OF COURSE! So, I went and got some more. Took it, had to do it in my groin which was a big mistake. After a few hits in the same spot it started to really ache and my thigh swelled and hurt when touched. BACK TO SMOKING. Which is never as good, but smoking it the other day, I did vomit. Just like I used to vomit when I first took it. God, that was so good. You will never get that first rush back, but little bits of it is just as good. It is the closest you are going to get.
I am laying off it for a while. Even though I have £180 in my pocket. Off to the pub I think. Then to score after, I suppose. Silly sausage that I am.
The past few days have been particularly bad. Physically, that is. I had to stay at my Nans house because for the past couple of weeks my old condition returned. Ever since around two weeks into my methadone script, I started to get really bad heart palpitations, dizzy spells and fainting. I must say, I have been on it for months now and at first I just put it down to being physically addicted to alcohol. Turns out its not. According to my doctor, it has just caused a minor problem- arrhythmias. Luckily my Mum is a nurse and is therefore 100% clued-up when it comes to medical terminology. Hang on, am I that lucky? I strolled away thinking, “ECG? Maybe that is the name for a swanky new blood pressure monitor,”. Errr, no. She tells me what it is and explains they wouldn’t waste their time doing one if they were not pretty concerned. Heart problems scare me; my aunt had a heart attack at 34, her sister has angina, my Dad had heart disease, my grandad has had a triple bypass. I just know I am going to die of heart disease at an early age due to my excessive smoking and drinking. If heroin doesn’t kill me first. Or something else attributed to my disgracefully wreckless behaviour. I have been vomiting all day every day for the past four. Yesterday I had an awful attack and thought ‘I feel a bit weak’. Before I knew it I was waking up with my cheek stinging like hell with my Nan standing over me, trying to haul me up. My heart beat seamed to slow down and I had very slow, dull, painful beats in my chest, and it hurt (maybe the pain is from panic?). I suddenly felt weak and dizzy and I just fainted. Not for long- about 3 minutes? Nan heard my fat ass hit the floor from 3 rooms away. I DON’T LIKE THIS. I was up until 5.16am this morning, as my chest meant I couldn’t sleep. I just couldn’t. It is probably the methadone, alcohol and heroin combined that is doing me no favours. Ha- No Shit!
and next week I have to go for a appointment at the cardiology department for outpatients, which includes an ECG