Journal - If you scratch my back now I swear I...A personal struggle with addiction

[VincentVan]

[This thread was started before the self-incrimination rule. Please don't bad rep posters for self-incrimination. I have decided to leave this thread intact for historical interest too. There are some posts not indicative of what we expect from people here. Despite that this is a fantastic thread! - Dickon]

It´s my 8th day off the stuff . Nothing to be very proud of though since I´ve been helping myself with liberal dosis of methadone.

I´ve started with 80 mg. and now I´m down to 12,5 and I feel it´s getting harder and harder not to ring up my contact, get the car out of the garage and put an end to this misery.

Somehow I´ve got the feeling that If I could get in contact with someone in a situation similar to mineto cyberscratch each other backsit would all be a lot easier. Or at least not so freaking lonely.

In a moment of utter despondency I opened a topic somewhere in this labyrintine forum titled " the way it feels", and just writing that kept my mind busy enough to keep it from wandering into forbidden territory; and that gave me the idea of tryng to get in contact with some kindred soul to help one another to fight it out .

Is there anyone..? please?

[Apradavra]

yo dude, Im from the US, I know what your going through, i never been big into smack but I have sure done enough OC's, M, and Fetanyl to kill alot of people. Getting off and staying off once you know what it is,isonethe hardest decisions a human being hasto follow throughwith, just remember, everyday it WILL get better. And no matter how shitty everything seems, one more pill or shot is just going to put you back to where you began. In a way be thankful you have experienced what you have, not many other people will live to tell the stories you will. And be careful with the 'done, it can be worse than H to get off of. If you need any help at all, Ill help all i can over the net. Good luck and read the peter mcdermotts guide to detox...it has good info on after the intial bullshit is over....peace man

[VincentVan]

Thanx Apradavra
I apreciate it

well I´m still here. 9th day. I never spent so much time on line before and I start to have the feeling that the monitor would like to spit in my face. I have´nt been out in a week and I´m sure that look in my dog´s eyes means he is pityng me. He scratches the door to be let out and before going about his doggie business, he looks back at me as to say :" Ain´t ya comin´man? c´m on get a grip on you" and off he goes. The fucker.

I´m down to 10mg, but today is such a wonderful scandinavian day and I dont think I ´ll manage to stay nailed to this chair any longer.

From the window I can see the sun shining over the fresh snow on the trees and reflecting on the still waters of the Størebælt.

a blackbird stares at me from the top of my fence , but he probably does´nt like what he sees ´cause he flies off to some better place.

Denmark is dressed to kill today; I bet she does it to mock me.

The first thing I did this morning was to check the condition of the highway I would need to drive on to get to my connection. They are excellent. "Are you sure?" I asked to the operator. Perfect - he said-I drove that way myself a few hours ago" "Thank you " I said. But what I ment was Fuck you. Last night I made a list with all the reasons why it´s worth to go through this ordeal. It´s got 38 entries, but somehow this morning they don´t seem so convincing anymore. I need to go and see the smile of my baby daughter every hour or so to get my strenght back. I kiss her blond baby hairs and for some reason I feel like to cry. Yes, I know I´ll have to give it up , but why should it be right now for Christ sake? I just got paid for a few articles and there is plenty of dough on my account. The tank of my car is nearly full, and in such a day I could even drive with the rag top down. Slip a CD in the stereo and in less than an hour I... oh my God . What ´s wrong with me? My wife is back . I can hear her car coming up the diriveway. She does´nt suspect anything. She thinks the reason I´ve been locked up in my office for more than a week is because I´m very busy with my work. In reality I havent done anything productive for two weeks or so. I said to my publisher that I´ve got a virus,and he just bought it without a comment,and the school where I teach is closed until monday for some stupid scandinavian holiday. This is the ideal moment to shake the monkey off my back.Soon my beautiful wife will start to ask questions; of course,like every junkie , I´m an excellent liar; but in the state I´m in would I be beliveable? It´s now or never. Or is it?

[justin77]

what up maing, i know what you're goin through.....i'm day 8 off hydrocodone and percocet myself. i envy your determination cuz if i could have got more by now i would have. 2 days i will have more, and i havent slept in a week. my heart has starting beating very wierd i think from lack of sleep. i live in south carolina.....us, and its about 75 degrees F today in the middle of winter. summer like weather and all i can do is think about those damn pills and sleep. WHAT A GREAT CYCLE I'M IN

[VincentVan]

Hi justin

don´t you have anything to help? just raw and cold turkey? It seems that for the situation you are in a bit of benzodiazepines would be great help. A few drops of valium maybe? Unless the main reason you don´t sleep is because you are afraid to. As for my determinationthe idea that anybody can envy it really makes me lough. Where the fuck is it right now?

[justin77]

yea it was pretty much cold turkey. i had 2 10mg valiums when i ran


out and i've taken one of them. I did actually get about 4 hours of


sleep that night, and in reality i guess i have slept for about an hour a


couple other nights. it's funny you mentioned that about the valium


cause i usually keep some around but now that i need them i dont


have any. i have a paranoia about buying pills from people i aint


close to so i get my shit through . because of that i


cant get stuff whenever i want which is probably good but right now


it fuckin sucks.


Edited by: justin77

[justin77]

on a side note there aint no way i'm quitting......thursday will be a damn good day

[justin77]

as far as your situation, you are trying and that is all anyone can ask. the drugs are good man you cant help it. If its REALLY what you want, to quit i mean, then you need to drop this flirting with it, you have no chance if you keep that up. All you can do is all you can do. As far as I look at myself, I know I can quit for a week here and there to keep my tolerance down and for that i consider myself good people.

[Apradavra]

good for you justin77, your gonna get high off low quality pills, and then brag about it tosomeone who is trying to break a habit hundreds of times more powerful in both, the effect of the drug, and the effects of withdrawal. Imagine taking three hundred vic's and two hundred perc's, at once, youget that buzz in one huge rush, and then after the rush, youbegin to feel godly for a long amount of time.....well, that is the big H...Andit seems as though elio has a lot more going for him in his life to make him want to end his useage than you do. Sorry man, i have been where both of you are, and trust me justin77, you dont even know, but keep it up and you will.Your rhetoric and junky wisdom will get someone who wants a real end to a bullshit way of life, well... pointless info.....elio, YOU are doing the right thing man, i myself have a beautiful girl who knows nothing of my useage and even the idea that i have to lie to hide hurts.....you have wayyyy too much to live for man.....its now just a waiting game...again, you need any advice or anything, pm me...peace guys

[justin77]

first of all abracadabra you dont know what the fuck i got going on in my life, so fuckin shut your mouth about shit you dont know about. secondly in my sleep deprived state i thought he was talking about getting off pills too, HE NEVER MENTIONED HEROIN. What the fuck are you talking about brag? When did I brag? I was trying to give him somebody to swap messages with. But you a big person for getting on a message board and coming down on someone you have no clue about. THAT is beyond bragadocious lameness. And as a ten year crack addict before i even saw a pill, i know what the fuck it is to be on hard shit and not be able to get off. But again you opened your retarted mouth and know about who i am and all about my life from a few messages on a fucking message board YOUFUCKING PRICK BITCH

Reputation Comments on this post:

	its 4 years too late, but this is a prick response. you shoulda read the damn thread properly before you launced into yo...
	flaming

[justin77]

elio,


sorry man i didnt realize you were on H before and that is very serious stuff. people around here are given methadone for pills and heroin, so i stupidly assumed you were on pills. i hope the best for you man, keep up the great work.

[VincentVan]

WOW
cool down guys. As the black torpedo in Pulp Fiction says "let´s be like Fonzie. And how´s Fonzie?" You dont have to apologize man. Any experience with getting rid of any addiction has my greatest respect. Somehow I think is not so much the substance you are addicted to that makes it harder or easier as he toughness of your neurons , and mine right now seem have the consistency of rotten jello.

Probably somewhere there is somebody going through hell to brake his liquerice addiction.Tryng substitution therapy with IV cotton candy that of course is not like the real thing. Well ,maybe ,I would respect him too. Maybe. and thanx for being there guys. There somewhere. Thanx. You would´nt belive how much you all mean to me right now. Am I getting pathetic? Don´t care. I ama pathetic junkie. I´ve never been much into forums. I use the computermostly for work or occasionaly to write some code or hack a bit. But I don´t know what I would have done without this place to let some steam out. And hey ,another day is nearly gone. Go , go, get the fuck away from the calendar you miserable , useless collection of miserable hours, of painful minutes, and endless seconds.

The pink hue of the sunset on this northen sea reflects on the brilliant snow. The sky blends its blues and purples under the watchful eye of two clouds sailing fast towards the west. It´s so fuckin´beautiful. and soon I´ll have resisted one more day . Life is´nt all shit after all.

[Apradavra]

whoa....listen guys....i really didn't mean for this to happen. For one justin77 i assumed you were a young kid who just began the long road to opiate addiction, the bragging i was talking about was your claim of re-upping on thursday. Man, thats the last thing someone who cancop their shit at any moment, and chooses not too,butwants sound advice on how to stay away from the drugwants to hear at any time.... let alone during de-tox.


Justin77, You are more than right, I do now know whereyou have been, or what you have been through. I apologize for jumping down on you like that. It just seems as though elio really has alot going on for him, and he seems as though he isreally close to beginning a new life. And i felt like you were almost rubbing it in his face. Ten years on crack means you have experienced much of what i have not, I again apologize for jumping to conclusions.


I've been on large amounts of opaites and benzo's daily for several years. (H, M, fetanyl, Diazapam, Aprozolam, just about it all) Either way, elio needs some positiveinfluencesas of now,we shouldnt besaying shit to each otheron here like immature littlebitches, I know, my attitude began this all, and in the future, I will not let my myself jump to conclusions on this forum....





to elio, sorry about the drama man, i just feel that where you are right now is a place that needs as little bullshit and negative influnces as possible. Keep it up man, there are people there for ya....

[Apradavra]

also your message before my apology was wisely worded, I didnt see this when i posted my first post....apologies to all....


and its sad, but them damn drugs are pretty fucking good....too bad they fuck up lives as they do....

[justin77]

it takes a goodperson to admit whenthey arewrong and apologize, so thanks for the apology and i accept apradavra.........i was wrong in that i shouldnt have mentioned my re-up to another detoxer trying to quit. peace to all.

[MrFinger]

elio,

For what it's worth, is this past year I went through about 9 or 10 violent withdrawals. Vomiting the bitter yellow fluid for 48 hours straight, the anxious weakness(struggling just to make it up a flight of stairs), weeks of sleeplessness which led to bad delirium (not good) and at times even schizophrenic like hallucinations and countless other issues. I tried methadone for about a year before but ended up eventually switching back to heroin. Some of the withdrawals this last year were because of lack of any other option, completely bottomed out, sick and during utter poverty. Other times they were out of pure desire to move on with life and accomplish the things I originally had set out to do… things which my heroin and other opiate abuse seriously impeded. I have been clean for about 4 months now, clean off opiates that is, I continue to occasionally use various benzo’s, marijuana, alcohol, lsd and other hallucinogenic since my last bag of heroin but all of those are things which don’t demand daily use from me, or any significant habitual use.Be careful with the methadone, you don’t want to use it for too long if you are aiming to get completely off the opiates. If your body has time to acclimate to the methadone it can extend the time of your withdrawal a lot. In this last withdrawal phase I chose to go cold turkey, I wanted it to be horrible and horrible it was. I will never forget it and those memories help me stay clean when the opportunity rears it’s head. 9 days is a great accomplishment, things will get better and in time the endless hours will pass, sleep will come and things will slowly improve. I guess it’s different for everyone, everyone has there own issues to come to terms with, different levels of addiction, different true desires… I live in NY,USA and it can be pretty hard being a long term heroin addict around here. Inconsistent quality and inconsistent prices can make the idea getting a proper score everyday a joke(no matter who you are) but regardless some people manage to stay stuck with it for the rest of there lives… what draws that line isn’t clear, at least from my eyes it isn’t. For me the pain of withdrawal seems like less than the pains of a modern day heroin habit, the pains of not achieving my life’s goals, to not be there for the one’s I love… So far, I’ve been able to maintain a clear enough head to get by without it.I hope you can keep up with it. I think more people kick this stuff than the statistics show, I think a lot of people like to keep it as much of it secret as possible, I know I have… Best of luck. Hopefully at the least this post helped pass some time.

MF

[VincentVan]

MrFinger
my honest and heartfelt congratulations. 4 months off the stuff really is an achievement. And thanks a lot for the advice; but, you see this is not the first time I kiked the habit. Hell in more then 25 years of on and off relation with sister H I really can´t remember how many times i kiked the bitch. I did it with methadone , I did it whithout, I did it with pills, with morphine , with long trips oversea. I did it cold turkey , raw turkey ,sick turkey I fucked the turkey. The only thing I´ve never tried is being institutionalised in some community or clinic.

Too fuckin´proud I guess.Too public.Too humiliating. Even for a junkie like me.
The graphic description of your withdrawal brought back a few memories. If you got 3 minutes to waste try to read a topic I started in this forum called "the way it feels". Do you recognize those simptoms? , Those feelings?, Those thoughts? Or is it just me being an expecially sick fucker?

I often wondered about the scene in NY. I´ve got a sister living there. She married a Yank so now I´ve got two little american nephews about 12 years old and since I love them very much I kinda worry about them. I have been there myself a few times(short stays only) but I never tried to score. It seems so freaking... extream, if you know what I mean. A good friend of mine moved there about ten years ago. She was the very pretty daughter of a family of kenyan-italian millionaires. Within 2 and a 1/2 years she got AIDS and died. Maybe she had it before she went there but I doubt it. I dunno.
Read that thread of mine I told you about , I would really treasure your opinion.
And keep it up.

"...mais ou sont les neiges d´antan?" Francois Villon.

[MrFinger]

Hey,
While I was on methadone I met quite a few people who had been using for 25+ years and I must say that the things I learned from them are some of the things that sit on my mind now when I need to resist temptation. I think before this 4 months of clean I was about 5 years in the hole. Before that I messed around with weaker opiates but never had withdrawal symptoms. I've tried to quit a bunch of times, including going in-patient at a clinic outside of NY once which was a nightmare. I've heard that there are a variety of clinics out there and I'm sure there are some good ones out there, but not the one I went to. From what I can remember, on the night of my 3rd day there I had a lot of problems going to sleep, so they started loading me up with every type of psychological drug they could think of... I awoke that night on the streets. Apparently, they drugged me out of my mind and let me leave on my own will, who knows what happened after that. I don't think I tried quitting raw turkey... but for all I know I may have fucked a wild turkey that night. I read your other post and I can relate 100% percent with the thoughts you expressed, especially the phone call part... and also losing touch with the person who you were before the drugs, the person that the one's close to you may think you still are. Withdrawal is definitely some hard shit. New York can be pretty nuts, it will eat you up if you let it, it will take advantage of you just about anyway it can if you let it. I didn't not grow up hear and by the time I moved here I already had a heroin problem... for a while I didn't need to go cop on the streets, my neighbor sold dilaudids which got me by. Eventually I did have to hit the streets and that was pretty rough, but after a while you can adjust to just about anything... it was a lot easier finding it after i started going to the methadone clinic. I've squatted for a while here but this last year got a place of my own again... it's been a real trip on the love boat let me tell you. Anyways, I hope this chatting is helping you through your attempt at kicking.

MF

[VincentVan]

Oh yes, yes
it´s really helping an umbeliveble lot. Really it is surprising. I´m sure whithout you folks I´d never have managed to keep my mind busy all this time. The book I´m reading is very intresting( F. Argaud "On the origin of peoples") but I can´t stick to it for more than half a page. Strange because books helped me a lot in other detoxings. My guitar and my sax sound strange; and weird to the touch. And really I don´t know anybody I can talk to. Not about this anyway. My sweet ,sweet wife of more than ten years does´nt suspect anything and I really cannot break her heart. Not again.

She dragged me away from India some years ago, or I guess I would still be there. Buried in some indian cemitery probably. And she feels sure that after that I have been more or less clean, off the heavy stuff anyway. God how wrong she is. God what a shit I am.

So , thanks god for this place , for music, and yes for you guys.

" Death be not proud - Though some have called you mighty and dreadful - Thou are not so."

[VincentVan]

10th day. 7,5 mg methadone. Misery. Nervousness. And specially boredom.

That´s it. I´m outta here. Today my wife drove to her parents. She took my baby with her; unknowningly depriving me of my main source of strenght. I keep finding a lot of seemingly excellent excuses for my pityful weakness. I´m home alone with the cleaning woman. A most annoyng little tamil whose name is Cita, like Tarzan´s monkey. And she looks the part too. She barges into my office and starts dusting the shelfs of my library. "Are you OK?- you don´t look OK!- You work too much. You should go out a bit " She dusts some more, then she looks at the pinapple can I´m using as an ashtray. "Mind if I open the window?" she says opening the window. "why don´t you go take a walk with the dog while I clean up in here?" I light anoter cigarette: " Cita if you don´t let me work I will not be able to pay your wage. Vanish. please." " oh , that´s OK" she says " I´ll just take that instead" she says pionting at a plasma TV I can´t figure why I bought. She probably think she is funny because now she´s got a smile pasted all over her silly face. That´s it . I´m outta here. I should´nt have taken the 7,5 mg methadone. Now I´m gonna need an higher dose. Maybe this can be a reason not to go. No, not good enough. I´m gone. " Death be not proud - Tough some called thee mighty and dreadful - Thou are not so"

[Apradavra]

hey!!!!


come on man, your soo close to forgetting more of the feeling everyday...i dont know what to say, your being a very strong person, probably stronger than i could be in such a situation, but you have WAY too much to stay clean for. Your last post you said how much you cared for your wife and child, by getting high its just going to delelope that "dope mask" which will cover your every second of life. I just find it much harder to find real emotions, (love, happiness, anger, anything) while I'm using. I guess that is maybe why most people do use, to get that sheild or mask, you dont need it elio you seem to have a lot going for you.....good luck

[MrFinger]

Well, whatever you choose now don’t let it effect your long term goals. If you really want to quit you need to keep at it, don’t let one or one million slips keep you from getting to where you want to be. The stuff out by you is probably a lot stronger than around here, and easier to get at? That must make it difficult. Maybe you can try to score some of the buprenorphine pills with the Narcan in them, those seem to help people through detox stages. It took me straight year of stubbornly trying to quit and I know I'll always be facing temptation, I made attempts before but never kept trying for a whole year straight, some people are at it longer, keep with it, never stop learning from your mistakes. Try everything you can think of, even the things that don’t seem like they will work… you never know. If you keep at it and time doesn’t catch up with you, eventually the cards will start turning up in your favor. Visualize how things will be if you keep using, and how things will be if you quit… and never forget it. Things I’ve come to realize that you probably already know:
1. When your reasons for quitting revolve around making other people happy you are more likely to relapse. Just about everyone I know who has tried to get clean for the sake of someone else relapses, feels like complete dog shit about it and that feeling makes them want to use even more. A real nasty cycle. Usually those people you are trying to make happy don’t know how to correctly support you through these episodes anyways, so you should really do it for yourself first.
2. For me it is about 100X harder to get past the first stages of withdrawal with money available than without. It’s so easy to cave, the smallest thing can make you say fuck it. If your stuck, and to get something would be a long involved hassle that might not even pan out, it’s a lot easier to stay with it. The easiest withdrawal I ever had was in jail, there were no other options, period.
3. I think a lot of it boils down to motivation and determination. If you really want to quit and you’ve got things going on in life that your habit is messing up than you need to make a choice. If there’s something driving you to use, you need to figure out what it is and how to handle it another way. Figure out what’s stopping you from trying hard enough to get on with out it.
Ha, anyways, this is all babble you probably already know. Oh well, Best of luck,

MF

Reputation Comments on this post:

reading back on this, youve sure got some wisdom. i hope you managed to find a way out of addiction.

[VincentVan]

It´s terrible. I really am a spineless scumbag. I´m so ashamed . I´m even ashamed to tell this to you guys who have been so umbelivebely nice to me. Yes. I collapsed. Twin Towers style. Hit by something much more powerful than a 747. What´s left is a pile of ruins and a big gaping , smoking hole where once there was my heart. Something frighteningly powerful took control of me and drove me to those dreaded haunts I swore to forgo just moments before.

I jumped into my car tryng not to think about anything else butmy destination. Once I got there I asked to the pusher if I could shoot in his apartment so that I had to think as little as possible about what I was doing, and seconds later I was back into the the warm arms of my evil secret mistress. I payed and got back into my car.

The minimum amount this guy would sell is the equivalent of about xxxx US$. On his scale this buys you 1gram of white or 2 grams of brown.

I bought whe white. Driving on the way back home the full meaning of what I had just done hit me like a ton of bricks. Depression set in. I took the packet of Lucky Strikes where the rest of the dope was hidden and I threw it out of the car´s window. Inside there was about 4/ 5ths of my purchase and a few Lukies as well. I regretted what Ihad donealmost immediatly. But I had no choice . I really could not bring that shit into the house where my baby lives. There is a limit even to my meanness. But not to my idiocy it seems. MrFinger do you really think that if I want to quit for other people´s sake I´m bound to fail? Not great news. Because I´m afraid I do not care enough about myself. Why should I care about such a selfish cunt?

You are right : if I would not have money or at least so little that I would be forced to make painful choices , it would probably be easier to kick the habit. But what can I do? I have a family to feed, bills to pay, and , thanks God , a steady income . I even envy you your jail period. Do they give you something in Us jails to help you with withdrawl symptoms? In Euroslammers I have heard You can have methadone. But I don´t know. I´ve never been in jail. Sometimes I think I´ve been too lucky, andthis is the way destiny makes me pay for it. I don´t know if the stuff here is stronger . I never tried to score in the US. But I am pretty sure it´s much easier to get. Supplies and prices are very stable and the authorities much more tolerant.

Here in Denmark anybody can just walk into a pharmacy and get for free a governementsponsored bag with inside sterile syringes .needles, sterile water, a little container to mix your dope in, cotton, a plaster and a paper with a few advices aimed at addicts. When pharmacies are closed there is some vans going around junkies haunts to distribute clean tools. In Copenhagen there are also some kind of vending machines where you can put inside your dirty syringe and get a new one in change. Same in Holland and most other EU countries. When I found out how difficould can be to get a syringe in the US I really got surprised. What do they want ? widespread epidemies? In major cities usually there are areas where the police tolerate dealings to keep the junkies away from the nice neighborhoods and the eyes of respectable citizens. My pusher is always avaleble. 24/7. He has been for years.You just have to go to his place and he would happily provide you with anything you might wish.Tools included.Ring to him and within an hour he would come and deliver anywhere in town. A few timesI enen called him from my cell phone and he delivered in my office in the school where I teach. I´m so ashamed. My students look up to me. The headmaster sincerely likes me. But that did´nt stop me anyway. As I told you I am a prik.

I still have my methadone . From tomorrow I´m gonna try again. These nine days haven´t been totally wasted. My tolerance is diminished . Tomorrow I´ll start with 25 or 30 mg methadone. I really hope I´m not deluding myself again.

Thanks MrFinger , Apradavra and Justin. I owe you.

"Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven" Milton. "Paradise Lost".

[Apradavra]

Hey man, we all fall, its just a matter of getting back up.Maybe start small with the 'done. As long as you didnt use repeatedly, your tolerance should still be down a bit. Maybe try begining with 20mg's of methadone. Cause once that shit is in your system, the WD's can be worse then from the dope.... And like i said before elio, everyone falls sometime, its all about the getting back on the right feet at the right time....also, Man, your connections would make it hard as all hell to quit, so i can see where your coming from.And "they" say a user needs to stop using for themselves, not their parents, spouses, or friends. ButI believe that whena userstops using for themselves, all those other people will again fall into play, because once again, the user is "himself", not a maskwith dope-pinned-eyes and cotton candy emotions......i hope this makes sense....and oh,your not a prick man, you just happened toform a relationship with one of the most difficult experiences tolet go of....your doing just like millions of other dumbass humans do, one breath at a time.....

[MrFinger]

Originally Posted by elio

“MrFinger do you really think that if I want to quit for other people’s sake I’m bound to fail?”

Everybody is different; I think it’s harder for people who are trying to quit something for the sole sake of others because there is so much guilt involved when a relapse happens. And for many, guilt can be a real big part of why they continue to use. That doesn’t make it impossible though.
At the same time if you are quitting because you don’t want the people close to you to think of you as a bad person or you don’t want those people out of your life, than perhaps you are really quitting for yourself. There is a fine line there.
Tossing 4/5’s of a gram of stuff is an unbelievably hard thing to do, that is quite an accomplishment, you showed a lot of inner strength there. LSMFT!
I met a teacher once who was addicted to speedballs, he would load up a bunch of syringes in the morning for use throughout the day… that’s pretty bad, and I believe after awhile someone noticed. The US looks down real hard on teachers with drug problems. If that is also the case in your country, it must be a stressful affair. Maintaining two lives so different from each other is an overwhelming experience.

Originally Posted by elio

“When I found out how difficould can be to get a syringe in the US I really got surprised. What do they want ? widespread epidemies?”

In NY they have needle exchanges; they give out all the supplies you need and usually a meal too. First time in they verify that you are in fact a junkie and then give you an ID card. The card can help if you get stopped by the police with just a syringe. These places are few and far though. Also, somewhat recently most pharmacies will sell syringes here, you need to go to the pharmacist and ask for it, you must be over 18 years of age I think. They don’t give you anything else with them, so many will end up using tap water and cigarette filters, which isn’t so healthy. Because of this there a lot of Hepatitis, some AIDS and other things to worry about. So far, have avoided these diseases/viruses.

Originally Posted by elio

“Do they give you something in Us jails to help you with withdrawl symptoms?”

The jail I was in didn’t give methadone or anything else out to help ease withdrawals. Luckily, for me I had a valid prescription for ativan at the time and was able to get that which helped a little. I would save the days worth and take them all at night time so I could at least get a little sleep. Even worse, if you show signs that you are going to have a real violent hard-core withdrawal they will put you in the suicide watch section of the jail, which is pretty bad(dirty cells, urine soaked mattresses, you get some bad food if your lucky, insane angry inmates throwing there feces into the hallway, etc). I knew about that before I got taken in so during admission I played it as cool as possible to make sure I did not end up in there.

Best of luck, be honest with yourself, don’t forget about tomorrow, my green tea tastes like bad fish,

MF

"Human feeling. That's beyond my range. I'm rotten to the core." --- Jean Paul Sartre “No Exit”