Journal - Screaming in the night air. Help emotional and technical for methadone withdrawal

[Dickon]

The following myth about an ex-junky is not among the oral traditions of any known Papua New Guinean Tribe.....


Sleep. No. I pretty much gave that idea up just after midnight. I have just returned from a boiling hot bath, and guess what? It's half-past the hour!! Which means I can pencil in the first hour of day 7. Only 23 to go!

Christopher (or do you prefer Chris or C or anything else? I don't mind Dickon or D], have a good chat and walk.

My wife bless her just came down to make sure I wasn't hallucinating going weird and psycho or falling asleep in the bath! Bless her. I think a caring companion makes all the difference at least in the first few days of a cluck [w.d. - do Americans use the word cluck?]

Hey guess what: I could stand up from the bath without going all weak. The clonidine must be leaving my system. What a relief. I loathe that stuff, as much as I love that stuff. I love it for its ability to help the worst of w.d.s but I hate it for it's lethargy-induction, mouth-yuckifying effects. It's a sort of unter-largactyl. OK that's an exageration, but it's something of a liquid cosh in the physical sense.

So I've really made it into day 7. When this ones been scratched off we've got two (maybe 3) more major goals, day 10, and day 14 (maybe day 28). I'm hoping that by day 14 I'll be out of the woods, and all but back in the land of the living.

It would be nice to see some people in here, but I am being somewhat of a force of nature right now, and maybe not an approachable fluffy thing. I'm glad at least Christopher knows how friendly I really am!

Well, I might just give it one last chances, and go and lie down. The bath might have helped. Back in 30 minutes to say I got no sleep most likely.

Smiles and hugs

Dickon

[christopherc]

It has been known to be called fiction when ChristopherC speaks:

Let the Lies Begin!

Christopher is fine D, Thank you. My walk was not as fast paced as usual. I just couldn't get in gear. The missing IPod combined with a phone call from a friend who thought she was having troubles in her life (Having an addict describe WD's usually puts life & all it's amusements in perspective). Kind of a morose half hour. Now I'm back here and wondering when the Hell I am going to be "normal" again. My hands still tingle and the shaking makes it difficult to type and even function when I need to be articulate in my gesticulation. The inclusion of Eminems "lose Yourself" into my IPod really did get me moving a little faster this morning. It should also be mentioned that another whopper of a lie is that I have switched to beer. The pints help with the trembling and taste like water.

[Dickon]

I am Lucifer, the deceiver, mother of all lies, and I proclaim.....

er...that's a bit strong. Oh that horrible rambling wannabe emo has right gone and lost the plot this time, think's he's Satan does he. Sad fucker. Er....but Lucifer would never announce himself thus, ergo I am not Lucifer,....except in the metaphorical-cum-literal sense of a Light-bringer. I hope in this sense I'm bringing my little torch into the darkness of addiction.

One of my all time favourite motivational quotes is : It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

You're house is shitty, wash up a tea-spoon.

Christopher, have you considered quitting the booze for a while. I know I was drinking all the way through my reduction, but stopped when I stopped the Methadone. I think it's really helping. It's just a thought. If you want to be "normal again", I really urge you consider giving up all drugs and alcohol at least for a period of time. Give that much abused body a rest. Take a week off everything, and I'd wager a dollar to a doughnut that you'd feel much much better. 21 days or so off opiates is a massive achievement, and I all but promiss you that if you make it through the next 7 days without other chemicals you will feel like a man reborn. Maybe consider taking some milkthistle too to help your liver detox. When I was about half my age I quit my first mini-habit and started drinking 8 pints a day. I'd just replaced one addiction with another. Be careful even if my suggestion doesn't suit you.

Ah.....preaching over......I've got to that maximum break in snooker hours .... 147......Well yes you could make a 162 break if your started out by giving 155 points away in fouls to your opponent, start your break on a free-ball, and take a colour, with the black, do the 15 reds and blacks and the colours, win the toss for the respotted black because the game is now tied, and pot that. Not very likely. 155 however is a definite possibility, and I'd put a small wager on a 148+ break happening somewhere (not nec. in competition) in my lifetime.

Dawn has come with pinkish hand to raise my spirits. Hopefully this somewhat stupid self-enforced sleep-deprivation night will help me become sufficiently shattered to get a good nights sleep tonight. Every day the odds stack up more and more in my favour. I get tireder for one thing, and I get less junk-sick hour-on-hour for a second. I suppose I've extended my deadline to 14-days, which I've nearly broken the back of. I'll have done so in 21 hours. I think it all but impossible that I'll run through all 14 of these nights without sleep. But I'm going to try to gird my loins for the possibility. Yeah, you and I both deserve the praises of the vast majority of people in this opiates and addiction forum who are asking the questions that we have managed to answer. Yet we sit in here night after night, I even get cunted for cleaning up, because I'm gassing, pretty much alone. But heck you cheer me up, and I hope I do likewise! The miserable ones can go to hell in a handcart. I don't know about you, but do almost anything if I thought I could help someone get through a w.d. Call me a rescuer or what-not, it's just I feel having done it, I can speak with authority on the possibility of doing it! Don't you? And although I don't think either of are lives are back to happy-fluffy-bunny-land yet, they will be a damn sight quicker than my doppleganger of 42-days previous who comes in here (well he might have in a parallel universe) asking for help in getting off 225mg methadone!!! It's a good game. Think yourself back to when you were on 90mg methadone, and imagine how much you-then would give to be you-now. It's a good psychic trick, especially if you're feeling lousy.

I'm going for another half hour lie down. I need to be horizontal at least so many hours in 24, sleep or no. I guess it's quite late there, and you are getting 6 hours sleep! Lucky bastard - sticks out tongue and does one of those thumbs on ears wiggling fingers jestures at Christopher.

Health, wealth and happiness to all, even the wrong-uns.

D

[christopherc]

D Good Night & God Speed. . . A lie of course..lalalalie lalalalie.......

All lies! Everything I have ever written has been a lie. Its funny that SWIM (I am TRYING to use some sort of board-etiquette.) should mention the abstinence from all vices. I have smoked cigarettes (FAGS for you there over the pond) for over 18 years and my catatonic state SWIM spent the first week of WD's I didn't smoke. There were a few close calls with the whole pills+champagne thing. . . nothing I'd call an official OD but enough to get my heart racing if it weren't for the fact that the pills slowed my respiratory down enough for one eyebrow to lurch upwards and a sort of "Uh-OH" to escape my lips. But I digress. . . Or just flat out lie when I say that one of the benefits of H was it's amazing ability to rid me of an alcoholic tendencies that might have been lurking around the corner hiding in some cheap Pinot or Cab. I do think that some sort of cleansing is in order. I am looking into skydiving and homeopathic cleansing s. . . .not a lie. . . REALLY! Anyway I am looking towards the future; a future free of dope and stupidity. SWIM even plans to finish out his College this winter. Eight years and finally a degree! Then I will tear up the Sociological world with my ramblings and dribble! I'll be the rock star of Sociology and abnormal Psych. I'll write essays and get grants to support my work in studying deviant behavior in popular culture. Funny, I was focused on that particular line of study when it all went a muck in my world....Swims world. Now I'm older, less wise and lying on the internet. Such is life. Pity my wife.

[Dickon]

In a galaxy far far away a small gnome was muttering to himself the following.....

I don't know if this will work for you, but it seemed to have a huge effect on my drinking, and that is mega-dose vitamin pills. I think I've read somewhere that it's one of the B-vitamines that's responsible. A lack of it makes one crave alcohol. I usually take this stuff with a pinch of salt, but when I stopped drinking on the last day I took my 5mg methadone, it was entirely effortless. And the days I'd been drinking before seemed much more take-it-or-leave-it. Before I began the supplements I was gobbling down the booze in an addictive way. Try it maybe, it made drinking no longer an imperative for me.

I am so tired of this hour counting (148 now), and can't wait until I sleep and arise on top of the world(Il tombe enfin ....et se releve roi! as Victor Hugo was wont to remark)

An absolutely exhausted but unable-to-sleep Dickon says goodbye for now to all.

Dickon added 204 Minutes and 2 Seconds later...

No one should believe a word of what follows.....

Hour 151 is upon us. 150 hours, that's a number to conjure with. It sets me up nicely for 200 hours! Lets hope this half-century will provide me with the resolution of my ability to sleep problem. I've gone out for a 3 mile walk, and sat in a nice park. I feel fine when up and about, but when I come back I lapse into lethargy. I passed the time reading the begining of Magick in Theory and Practice to which I refered earlier. It's totally stupid if you ask me in that the introduction is an absolutely brilliant piece of consice and clear exposition. Then when the thing starts properly it goes straight into mumbo-jumbo, requiring within the first page or so a full understanding of god-knows-how-many esoteric books and papers. Let me try to give you an analogy.

"Numbers are what we count with. When there is a whole number of things there is an associated number that corresponds to that number of things. So one can count the numbers in order assigning one uniquely to each thing and the number one assigns the final thing is the number thereof.

Although countable transitive models do not provably exist within ZFC, any finite set of axioms of such a c~ t~ m~ can be modeled therein. Thus when we are carrying out a forcing construction, we can think we are working with sufficient axioms of ZFC to guarantee the forcing construction and prove the consistency of an arbitrarily large fragment of M[G] the generic extension of the (non-existent) ground c~ t~ m~ M. Thus the (non-existent) M[G] is seen to be a consistent model of ZFC"

Now if you ask me that would make a fucking stupid maths book. I trust the second half of that is utter gobbledegook to you. OK, it would make sense if you spent enough years persuing the subject, but it is hardly the next step up the ladder from the first part which I trust is utterly and totally self-evident to you.

Anyway, you've probably gathered by now I am a zombie who has hardly slept for a week, and is trying desperately to make make himself smile. I am still so bemuzed by the wannabe arty /super emo thing. I am boringly in the science camp and don't know what emo music is, and think the look is ok, if you like that sort of thing, but for a 38 y.o. it would be painfully silly. It's been quite an entertainment and any loss of reputation I got from it was overcompensated a couple of hours later by someone liking something I'd posted.

This thread explains itself clearly, and then indeed rambles. I know I have one friend out there who enjoys my rants, or some of them anyway! I try at least not to cover the same ground repeatedly except as it pertains to a continuing state of my being (oh that D, he said he couldn't sleep days ago. He's just repeating himself) or my resolve that I need to keep up. Soon, my pretties, <cackles>, soon my pretties, I shall stride from this forum, and blow it up! BOOM! It is a stepping stone, not a monument, that once stepped over should dissapear, at least to my consciousness, and remain only as a possible aid to fellow travellers from addiction to freedom. The thread will consist in one post "Two men quit methadone." with as a parenthesis the rest of it.

Presents to all the good children, and smacks to all the naughty ones unless they admit how naughty they are in which case they too may get presents.

D [Not Rambling, but quitting]

Dickon added 368 Minutes and 22 Seconds later...

A guy in a pub once said to me.....any mistakes or misrepresentations of what he said I indemnify myself for full a priori ........

I am getting there!! In 11 hours I'll be in week 2. How much better does that sound than week 1? If I could somehow manage to get some sleep tonight who knows I might wake up a different person tomorrow. Hope but don't expect is what I say. So folks, if there are any folks out there, points out of 10 so far? I'll (sneezing fit) wager that my odds to reach one week were worse than 10-1 in the public mind, but now what do you rate me to reach the end of week 2? 2-1 on? evens? In fact if there are any trusting and betting folk out there willing to bet against me name your odds. I'll wager all I have on me succeeding. D is a confident ex-drug-fiend. What's the old saying "half measures will avail us naught". So everyone, keep wiring in all those positive vibrations on the E.S.P.-net, but make sure they are sleepy-positive vibes. I think I've had 2 breaths of sleep and a 10-15 minute period of sleep since this morning. So I'm up to 1/2- 1 1/4 hours sleep in the last twenty four. You may imagine, if you so please, a bright-new-skinned Dickon with shiny eyes rather ruined by the bags under them. Anyway, I'm just checking in to tell all of you whether on my side or against me that I'm still here. "I've been beat up, I've been ???? up, but I'm not down, no I'm not down". <sigh> Here comes the darkness, and it's only 6 o'clock. Tonight the clocks go back which I hate. I'm going to rejig my spread-sheet to the new time or maybe I'll keep it as it is and then I'll be one hour ahead of the new time, which might seem fun!

D departs giving HIMSELF a huge pat on the back for being 6 hours away from a flawless 40 days and 40 nights of w.d.-ing., and 10 1/2 hours away from being into his second week clean, and giving everyone else one wish.

<D Grins and fades, body first, then head, finally leaving just a luminous grin shimmering in the night air>

Dickon added 641 Minutes and 48 Seconds later...

A quintessential pub lier declared once.....or am I lying when I say this.....

I had some real sleep last night!!! It's only 3 in the morning, although it's really 4 but the clocks have changed. Boo Hiss. I got about 5 hours real sleep, with some pretty crazy dreams, but it's one step closer to that deep and dreamless sleep of the virtuous that I'm always gabling about. Where did I pick up this expression, or did I just make it up? I'm not sure, I think I added the "of the virtuous" bit myself.

[Dr D potters lazily back after having tea and toast and jam. Yummy. The post-withdrawal-piggy is upon me! D beams a broad and true smile]

One week down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The war is over, and I'm recovering well in the infirmary. But would you believe it, I'm all worded out. I don't think I've really got much more useful to say. Just one thiought occured to me. A good mental image to use for visualization when
quitting is a Terminator (an Arny one of course! Well you could use that woman one if you're a woman). "It never stops, it never sleeps, it never ...... until it achieves its objective" (total misquote, but that's not the point is it dear reader). It's the post-explosion get-up-and-go steady grim calculating determination. It's a good image, it's helped me before, not so much this time. I've not done a huge amount of visualization this time round. I suppose I've let with my eyes, and have seen myself with black eyes fixed on the goal. Visualization: it's a good trick to help with turning thought into reality!!

Jesus, I've gassed long and hard for days, but it helped me feel less alone in the hard w.d. nights. [yawns]. I'll probably just be sat here semi-dozing in my chair, but a sleepy D is here for you all if needed. I feel your pain if your in w.d.s.

Love and sleep to all

Dickon

Dickon added 506 Minutes and 25 Seconds later...

Lies may follow.....(everything said is for for entertainment only)....

So, why do I always end up in trouble! There I go, doing by best boy-scout routine, and still I get a bollocking or infraction or slap-down or whatever. Ah.....lucky I'm a humble chap and not a litigeous one.....but damn it can't someone somewhere clarify things.

Let's just say the problem was to do with falling foul of the naming sources rule. I named no source. But I linked to a site that contained information about possible sources. It is a site that provides information only. This is perfectly paralleled by the lawsuit:MPAA v. Isohunt. In a couple of sentences we essentially.

MPAA: Isohunt abuses copyright legislation, and exists solely to promote copyright abuse and has no other uses.

Isohunt: We contain no copywrite material on our site, we are simply a search engine, for all torrents. It's no more our fault that we link to copywrite material, than Googles if it links to kiddy-porn and no one (sensible)'s suggesting Google should be banned.

At the risk of being banned for good (and I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would ban me for this as it would imply the kind of petty-minded stupidity I spend half my life abutting) "if you want to score some XYZ a good source is google". Yeah it would be nonsense to say that evil scumbag Dr Death he's killing youth, by sending them to that evil Google. All I've done is said in effect a good source would be lycos-search-dog-or-some-other-specific-search-engine-you've-never-heard-of.

Ah well, I'll just be the bad boy with the heart of gold! I did probably a worse thing by offering to name a source (with very severe caveats - i.e. strictly medical reasons with proof of need and in private) but I never did it. That would have got me a ban I think, so in some ways I'm quite grateful of the warning, even if I was wronged.

Anyway enough whinging, fair enough, but any moderator reading this, please why have so much more info in the warning e-mail than in the rules? Clarify the MPAAvIsohunt problem too. I, and this is incredibly rare for me, actually read all the rules cover-to-cover and conscientiously try to abide by them. So, getting to the point at last, if I disappear it's more likely than not that I've been clapped in irons and forced to walk the plank. So followers of my tale, do not doubt me even if I disappear. Please keep in your mind the story of a man who quit, and draw strength from it.

I'm 176 hours away from methadone! In under a day I'll have reached 200 hours. My hands are still cold and clammy and I sweat a bit at night, but Dickon is returning! Everyone, it's not that bad! It's bad, but it could be worse! Rember the blue and grey heavy metal drugs in one of those Burroughs stories. Don't get any and you start having spontaneous ampuations, and then die. One use and your hooked. Now that would be the habit from hell!

(Crosses fingers and hopes to see everyone again, but bows out gracefully in case this is his final exit)

Dr Dickon.

Dickon added 511 Minutes and 53 Seconds later...

Ah...It may be so, it may be not that.......

I am off to bed now. Goodnight all. I'm still in the game, don't think I'm getting kicked out, just loosing all my reputation points. Well, my true reputation I hold with-in. If there's anyone still following me I've put some pictures up of a family that isn't mine.

185 hours. <yawns>. Nearly there now!

Love to anyone still following my progress! <yawns again>

This sleepy Dr D is going to go to and collapse. Guess what? As I type this my hands are warm!! The old skin is comming back!! Wayhay. I've been visited by my post-withdrawal-piggy, or is it a post-withdrawal-tapeworm, and really chowed down like a hog today!

Too sleepy to say anything else, but I'm trying to keep myself up a little bit longer. No it's not going to work. I'm off to bed.

Night folks and lots of love to all.....

D

Dickon added 887 Minutes and 27 Seconds later...

A turnip has never yet been heard to utter the following, and until the discipline of turnip-speach-therapy is advanced, it is unlikely any turnip will utter soon the following.....

200 hours!! 200 hours!! Give it up for Dickon (bows, smiling, to a completely empty room!) Everyone has packed up and gone home, and I slept really badly last night: 2 hours or so. I just thought I'd try and give my self a bit of affirmation as I deserve it. My state is pretty stagnent at the moment. The sleep deprivation is making me less than feel 100% happy. But I'm in the 9th day, and I've got the end of day 10 in my sights now. My resolution is of course unhindered, but I'm hoping day 10 or 14 will show some improvement. Failing that I'll hold out for day 21 or day 28. It doesn't matter, unless I die somehow between now and then I'll get there, and some night not too far off I'll drift off and wake up 6-8 hours later refreshed. Yeah!!! This is the boring donkey-work phase I think. It sure beats the intense w.d. phase.

Love to myself and anyone else still following my story

Dickon

[Richard_smoker]

wow... looks like quite a bit of talk has gone on since i last checked!

swim had last dose of buprenorphine last week (4 or 5 days?)...sleeping a few hours at a time with 100mg benadryl...nothing else except clonidine.

went for a walk around the block today, and feel a good bit better.

what a colossal pain in the ass? -DICK

[Dickon]

A gerbil was trained to say...

I know I guess just talking kept my mind busy when I was in the worst clock-watching insomniac phase! So I just gave myself permission to talk about any- and every-thing. I think I've managed 3-4 hours sleep tonight so far and it's only 1.20am. I seem to be getting up about this time though. But it's all slowly coming together now. Most importantly yesterday my appetite started to include fruit and vegetables, which is a really good sign I think.

You're over the worst of the acute part Dick. Keep it up, and yes it's a colossal pain in the arse or ass, but you'll get your reward on earth! In a little over 2 hours I start day 10 !!! Quite a different place to be from when I started this thread a fortnight ago. Once the sleep kicks in and my skin figures out how to behave itself, and I stop having sneezing fits I'll be a bona fide normal (me normal? lol. But you get the idea) human being.

Love to all

D

[Buchan]

Lies follow......

Well, I'm back. Thank you for your thoughts D, and if any of the above is true, congratulations on reaching day 10. Well done. Apologies for not being around at those boring times.

Just caught up on the thread (taken me about 2 hrs to digest it all), ...... Brilliant! Such great entertainment. What a great feeling it is to laugh out loud again.(Happened bout 6 or 7 times there!) Priceless.

Please keep it up.

As for me, well I saw the doc today. She gave me 25mg diazepam per day, loperamide (for the shits I believe), and Mebeverine (for the cramps). I'll have to quit the DF's from this point, but hey.... that's a good thing.

5am.... work in 5 hrs, bah. I dread the thought. 2 hour drive to do outreach stuff (I get crazy bad cramp on my clutch leg at the mo, just behind the knee.... nowhere else on my body surprizingly), driving is torture, so looking forward to that. Next up, try to act normal and help other folk get off the shit for 6 hrs, and then a lovely drive home again. What joy. Booked a week off starting next monday though. Why didn't I think of that last week.

Anyhoo, my best to all.

Buchan added 14 Minutes and 49 Seconds later...

BTW, are you really Chris Martin?

[Dickon]

A wandering minstrel somewhere could be singing.....

Buchan, it's good to see you back. But you're going to have to quit DF? how come? Just because you'll be too Valiumed up to contribute, or because of something else.

I'm really glad some of my ramblings made you laugh, the highest secondary purpose of all the above was to inspire/amuse/confuse/create thought/controversy etc. The primary purpose just being ANYTHING to keep me alive through these dark times. Looking back I think all in all, when everything's said and done at the end of the day if you know what I mean, etc. etc., I think I've chottled along in fair-to-high spirits, and am still trying to do so! I've made myself at times too!

Just be thankful (in the clutch leg sense of thankful) that you're not driving a Countach. I've never driven one (I've been taken out in one, and sat in several) but the clutch on those is an absolute beast. You'd end up with one leg more muscular than the other if you drove enough! The Diablo had a heavy clutch too, but it was nothing on the Countach! I think the Merci.s and Galli.s are much easier, but I'm not certain of this, since my following of Lambo shit has diminished of late.

Chris Martin (looks him up): no - not me ! honest! But I can vaguely see the possibility of mistake. This here person here is far happier being a Dickon, but sadly one of the things Dickon's don't do at all well (in fact they do excruciatingly and terrifyingly badly) is sing! Which I genuinely regret. Singing lessons are still (quite far down) my to-do list.

Everyone, fight that monkey-mayhem how ever apish you get (getting apish is a German phrase I learnt the other day for getting junk-sick)!!!

6 a.m. (7 a.m. in old Money. Isn't it funny how that's L.S.D. even though it's pounds shillings and pense : it's Librae, Sestertiae and Denariae I think). OK A possible subject for a debate on here or at school: Would re-introducing non-decimal currency aid in children's learning of maths skills? Just a random thought to leave you all with, as I go and eat the next part of my breakfast (Chicken Goujons, the first part was avocado vinaigrette. So I'm challenging the tempero-culinary hierarchy too! <yawns>)

Pink Clouds to all who've eaten their Filboid Studge

Dickon [1 week + 50 hours time served!]

[Buchan]

None of the following should be taken seriously whatsoever.....

No no good sir. I don't mean quit the DF the forum. I look forweard to the comfort this thread brings over the next tough week. DF's are a term for Dihydrocodeine. They commonly have "DF 118" writtern on them. You probably know that already though.

OK.... I am too valliumed up to contribute or even understand yoyu at this precise moment, lol (perfectly legally though at least)....... I cant even get the italics off, lol. I'm about to drop off into some much welcome sleep any second now. I shall respond properly in a few hrs.

G'night/morning.

[Dickon]

Silly me. mistaking DFs for DF. Oh that's very good news, I was worried we were going to loose you for a second then. DFs won't be a walk in the park to quit, but should be easier than stronger things.

I am sooooooo tired still. I think I'm going to jump in the bath, and pretend I've slept through the night!

Love to all

Dr D

[Richard_smoker]

i guess this is day 6 for swim. for first time, he was able to get up at reasonable hour this am. now, the most difficult thing seems to be how to fill up the hours in the day....guess that means time to get a job. -DICK

[Dickon]

Ex cathedra disengenuensis .... (total gobbledegook Latin meaning that I do not accept responsibility for the following cautionary fantastic tale)...

Hiya Buchan, Dick. It's so weird how we're all doing the same thing and yet we're all in such totally different places. The thought of work to me at the moment is just laughable!! I have no desire to work at a time like this. I've reached a whole new level of exhaustion today. My wife says I look tired in a totally new way! I think I said that earlier somewhere, no not here! One thing slides into another sometimes. My constant companion these days is Georges Brassons singing in his uniquely incomprehensible French. I understand next to nothing of his songs. They're wonderfully relaxing and upbeat at the same time. They're very funny (I've yet to locate the one which apparently contrasts the sternness of a judge sentencing someone to death, and the same judge as he pleads for help and mercy when he's been mistaken for a female Gorilla by a 14"-endowed male Gorilla) and touching even if I understand at most 5% of what he says.

Guys stand still for a moment! Sniff the flowers. I remember 10 years ago when I cleaned up I was like a mad fly whizzing here, whizzing there. Now I just want to sit in comfort for a few weeks and do as little as possible, except pamper myself! I'm over 2/3 of the way through my first fortnight now. I'm quaffing a pint-mug nearly full of cappuccino; reason: to force myself to stay awake a bit longer. I've called it tomorrow at "12.30am" and "2am", yesterday and today. I want to keep today going for as long as possible, so that tomorrow can strike at a reasonable hour. Anyway in rehab I kept getting told to "sit with myself", "sit with my feelings", etc. It sounded like gobbledegook but was actually good advice.

I think this dragging thing is one of the particular pleasures of a methadone withdrawal, and my up-beat want to take on the world phase will come in a few more weeks. Langsam, Sehr Langsam (slowly, very slowly) is ok. What I'm missing most in this lethargy is my edge. I feel like I've turned into a glob of unintelligent protoplasm, about as interesting as a speck of dirt on the floor. I can briefly raise my game if I must, but it takes a real effort of will to even approximate ME! I am 230 hours away from the methadone, in 10 hours it will be 10 days, so I'm just being greedy. It wouldn't really matter if I spent 10 days posting grunts and non-sense if it meant I got through this thing.

So buck up you whinging Pom, and stop moaning!!! God how I hate moaning! Dickon you will be up, you will be cheerful and good company and bouncy fun fun fun!!! That's better. You can talk yourself into most good things and out of the bad ones!!!

Everyone, let's rock this crazy world and gain the cudos of doing it our ways. Then we can tweak the nose of the giant pixxy and chivvy the in-need-of-chivvying, and hug the in-need-of-hugging, and quite simply set this mad crazy world to rights! Amen to that ! Preacher man, tell me about the kingdom, the kingdom of the purple clouds.I have SEEN the kingdom brothers. Amen, praise the lord! I have SEEN the kingdom! Amen. I say : I have SEEN the kingdom! Amen - Praise Jesus. It is beyond imagining! It is one long love-in with the universe, and all good things are ours! I will GO TO the kingdom!! Yeah man! Nothing like a baptist-minister fantasy to get the blood going! [you've got to get the voice right and read it aloud. I personally guarantee joy-joy feelings and smiles if you do it with the right voice!] That's better!

God isn't yack yack yack yacking incessantly such a drag without the interludes of fun and good spirits?! D has earned his irreverence! I say with pride that I have a right to tease and twist words and joke about as inappropriately as I damn well want to! I am free again! Free! Free! Yehaaaaaa...Go coffee go! lol.

OK. I've got a question for you folks! Is there anything I can do to shorten the duration of the remaining w.d.s even at the price of intensifying them? I do not have access to Naltrexone which would be the obvious way of doing this. I suppose I could get some in 2-3 days. But my one experience with the stuff was so terrifying I don't think I could bring myself to gobble up even a little of the stuff even if I did have some. OK I know exercise, and I'm thinking eat oily fish/olive oil/etc. Will milk-thistle help? I'm taking this anyway. Any other ideas welcome. It's not important, I'm just getting fed up of this long-drawn-out shadow-withdrawal.

I just can't see how I'm going to stay up another 5 hours. If I don't stay up a few more hours I'm going to suffer! Alright let's fight the powers that be by way of paradox, i.e. by staying awake. When all I want and all I need is sleep. I'm setting my target at 11 pm new money (midnight old money). I'm got doing with any great intentionality, but I'm going to have a try. Then I'll sleep for 4-5 hours maybe and get up at 3-4 new money, which is a simulacrum of the next day's morning! I think Ds powers are all but gone. It's mean to wish this of myself. I'm laughing just thinking about it! Well if I collapse and sleep, it's all good!

Dick, I'm proud of you getting to day 6. Buchan you just got to get off the DFs. Easy! I'm sending all positive vibes I can muster in your respective directions! Turkey, give me another slice! You carve, I'll gobble it up!! Pudding's looking rather nice.

Dr D [Master of Withdrawal]

Dickon added 160 Minutes and 40 Seconds later...

I am going to lie to you throughout the rest of the post....or am I?....you decide...

Well folks guess what this thread's got over 1000 views. I have to admit to a modicum of pride here. I'm sure there's one or two twisted ones out there hoping that this "wanna be arty / super emo" type comes a cropper (I should make that my signature some day! Let old cuss-pots know that I enjoyed his slight!), but the good news for everyone else is that I'm feeling in a rather cheerful mood right now. I think the cappuccino really helped. I'll try and stay up for a few more hours, to put my night in the night-time where it belongs. No point being sick and "jet-lagged" co-morbidly is there?

An hour or so previous I went back and looked at some of the earlier stuff I'd written. You know what it inspired me somewhat! How odd that I can actually gain inspiration from myself! It's like lifting yourself up by your boot straps. It seems to defy Gravity or the principal of conservation-of-energy or some such law.

10 days. That will be a number to conjure with, and it's less that 8 hours away. 3.30 tomorrow morning (new money) is the 240 hour mark! Then another 12 hours will get me 3/4 through the first fortnight. Right now the residuals seem to be attenuated. My hands aren't icicles but are at a good temperature. The body will soon be a comfortable vehicle again!!!

What the hell, let's have another double-espresso cappuccino and see if I can stay awake until midnight in new money. I'm still thinking in old time as time since quitting is so much more important than time as perceived by others at the moment.

No let's not do that, 2 double espressos will be too much this near bedtime. Let's just see how far I can carry it on willpower.

I can do it. I can do it. I can do it....!! I have done it!!!!

Go everyone go, let's kick this shit into touch and go sniff flowers and frollick and beat up old ladies not because we need their money but simply for the sheer pleasure of it!! Life is what we make of it. And I'm making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. "And why not? I suppose that, in a way, is what it's there for".

Kittens and Puppies to all (for life not Christmas)

Dr D [PhD Prankology (university of life)]

Dickon added 444 Minutes and 50 Seconds later...

Hypothetically speaking....

I am just 5 minutes away from the 10 (24-hr)-day milestone! Yeah! More power to that man! Give him a bright new badge and and a sweetie!

Anyway I have had about 3-4 hours sleep between 10.30-3.15. OK folks I've bitten the bullet and I'm going to come in to the land of the rest of us at least when I talk in my posts. So that means that a 24-hr day starts at 3.30am, because 4.30am (before the clocks went back) is when I took my last 5mg of you-know-what. Yeah!!! 10 days up!! Now, let's set the big mark at 14 days. The next two little marks are 250 hours (all 50 x hours are good!), and 252 hours, 3/4 of 14 days. I think you folk who are following this get an idea of how I do things with Goal-setting. One of my most pompous and long posts was about this I believe!! Chopping up the journey into manageable chunks is good for morale. And there ain't nothin' that moral ain't good for boy, except your monkey. You feel me?

Oh, I'm just going to put in a little plug for DF here. It's really great when you become a donating member, you can do lots of new fun things!! They're spelt-out on the site somewhere, but I'm not going to spoil the surprise. (I'm really starting to doubt myself with this American spell-checker. It doesn't like spelt learnt or colour etc. I'm a mixed speller, certainly a far from confident one. I usually know when I don't know how to spell something which is at least a start!)

There were two specific things I wanted to say. Firstly, and it struck me when I was looking back over this thread and particularly at Dick's (Richard_Smoker's) early posts, that some people might wonder what changed between the days before I began my reduction, and the day that I started it, and ask what prompted me, with no noticable immediate external stimulus to take the path I did. All I can say is that I do not know the answer to this. I could hazzard a guess that it's an answer of the kind "why did this 156,456,342nd snowflake start the avalanche?", what was so special about it? The correct answer to this is nothing. It just happened to fall at precisely the right time. Maybe my mountainside was being filled-up with snowflakes of general discontent about taking methadone and not feeling fully emotionally available for my wife and son or myself for that matter. There was absolutely nothing special when I decided at 225, and tried to stay there for another day rather than gobble 3-400mls as was my wont if available to me. I always had the ultimate Get-out-of-jail-free card in that my addiction nurse was flexible, so I could make up a lie about having to go away, thus needing to pick up my script early. I'd love to hear others' views on this. I referer to a rock-bottom of sorts (in 12-step parlance), and that definitely was a big pile of snowflakes, but clearly by and of itself it either needed to germinate in my mind, or more likely just was one of many pressures building up. That's as good an answer as I can give. Secondly, serious things need humour. I don't know know why I felt I had to state this all-too-obvious thing explicitly. It was just ratting around in my head whilst lying in bed, in the usual eloquent way, which turns into lumpy prose the minute a keyboard is approached! Yeah, you know what I mean folks! So I approach what I'm doing here at once with absolute deadly earnestness and at once with an absolute irreverence for things. It makes perfect sense is perhaps what I'm trying to say. It's an interesting subject how humour can be used seriously! But it's for another person, another day.

Another 2-3 hours to ghost through and then it will be dawn! Dawn is my friend. I love you Dawn <Dickon waves to Dawn and blows her a kiss. Hopes his wife doesn't get jealous at Dickon blowing kisses to an anthropomorphisation. lol>. That's the best thing about being me, is that every now and again I say something and it just cracks me up! It's one of those wonderful mysteries about just opening your fat gob and gassing on without fear or favour. Every now and again some really good things come out! I can't recommend it too highly.

Well you can probably see I'm in impish good spirits despite sitting here hunched up with an overcoat on in the middle of the night on the verge of shivering. Well it's gone 4am so that's getting close to a monk's wake-up time.

We're getting there. I think I might just go and have a hot bath, put some new clothes on and try my best to face the day with as broad a smile as I can muster.

[some fatuous well meaning clichee of your chosing goes here]

Love and anti-dandruff shampoo to those that need it, wigs to the hairless, and simulation-dandruff to the rest!

Dickon [What shall I be to day.....A tree]

[Richard_smoker]

well well well...

today has been nothing short of MIRACULOUS!

my buggy managed to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn (just before dawn, that is)... with only the minor remnants of sweaty chills...as we progress into 1 whole week clean from buprenorphine. also, no benzos, no amps, no uppers, no downers (save clonidine and benadryl), no booze (cept for one beer last week)... what a great fucking day!

i'm serious. this has proven to be one of the most triumphant days since swim ever thought to replace his evil opiate vice with the 'lesser evil'--buprenorphine.

we are fast approaching the 2 month mark since my monkey first decided that he would taper down his dose and GET THE FUCK OFF the subutex.

Dickon: many of the sentiments that you currently claim, are still manifesting in me. But, strangely enough, just as you promised last week (via p.m.), the oddities of detoxification would soon pass, and when i could finally release the clonidine, I would suddenly become alive with each new passing day!

---and, it is fucking TRUE!

and to think that it could be done without AA or NA... (not tempting my own fate)...instead, just reveling in a very NEW emotion for me: VICTORY! SELF-CONTROL!! SELF-OWNERSHIP!! SELF-RELIANCE!!

all this, and a new-found VIGOR to mount up against the anti-Richard-forces that once prevailed against me, and proved more powerful than I--in recent months, in the employment / self-reliance aspect of life.

I could go on and on philosophizing about everything that has given me strength, but I really don't see the purpose now. This has proven to be the most difficult battle of my life. But in many ways the MOST GRATIFYING and ENLIGHTENING experience of my entire life...

...because NOW, I can see the duality of drugs (as with everything else in life)...for drugs are NOT INHERINTLY bad or evil... just as they are not simply "good."

Life is a balancing act.
For everything done out of selfish and self-destructive motives, find comfort in giving out one single complement, or one donation of your time, money, lodging, or some other assistance to a hurting/desperate/needy friend or someone whom you have never even met.

personally, I would never exchange the experiences, liberation, neuro-cognitive-awareness, or oneness with the plighty of humanity that i've received from experimentation with the things that you-know-you're-not-supposed-to-do...

To those still struggling, heads-up... there's way more good out there to feel than any one synthetic happiness found in any pill, powder, shot, or butt-plug. -DICK

p.s. if anyone else is thinking of kicking opiates, do it TODAY or else wait until springtime--cuz the colder it gets, the more painful the cold-sweating-shaking-chills.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Go Dick!

[Dickon]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ I might be lying when I say...

WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!!! Go boy go! I'm so glad you're getting that pink-cloud taxi away from junk-sickness! It's an inspiration to us all! How things have changed since our paths first crossed on here eh! It really is so much better doing it for ourselves. I totally agree. None of this "I can't we can" rot. How's about "I can. We can"? Far better! I just want to give you all the respect in the world and my thanks for being here with me when I've needed some company. I'm really glad the bupe withdrawals are in remission, let's hope this is the end! I'm plodding into day 11 with yet another sleepless night behind me, but it's coming a bit more each night. I may have a week or so left, but nothing impossible! You're post just makes me all the more eager to hang in there for the ensuing fun and frollicks and good times!

Let the good times roll. Today is a day of inspiration. I feel it in my bones!!!

Dr D [He is not worthy !!]

[Richard_smoker]

yeah, for sure!

if i can throw something out--my pet has found sleep to be quite attainable in 3 hour segments anyways by taking over-the-counter benadryl (diphenhydramine) at pretty lofty doses. (100mg to 150mg at a time; then waiting 1.5 to 2.0 hours for effect). this drug is even safer than clonidine.

i agree with everything in the last post! weird how 'wide-awake' the waking moments are now...in the past, swim could have sworn that opiates were like 'speed' to him. now he's not so sure... -DICK

[Dickon]

I am terrified of Diphenhydramine because of the possible hangover effects. I've used promethazine, another sedating OTC anti-histamine with sometimes bad results; i.e. terrible hangover. Diphenhydramine has recently been voted number one torture drug at least twice in a thread on the subject; I wouldn't go that far but clearly it's not for everyone! I can handle the sleep-dep if I must, I just don't know if I could handle an antihistamine hangover. Anyway I can always sleep when I'm dead!

Love to all

Dickon

[Richard_smoker]

ha...i guess i need to eat that last comment. especially seeing as i've been awake all day and even with 200mg diphen earlier...still wide-awake at 4am. guess my energy boosters are on double time. -DICK

[Dickon]

Hypothetically...

I think you'll be going through quite a few more highs and lows Dick before this thing settles down. If you're anything like me you'll be quite emotional, childish/like, happy one moment sad the next. I'm not sure if you've had any experience of post w.d.s. It will take a few months for the emotional volatility to die down, but the emotionally volatile time is one of great creativity. Well that's what I think. I'm really hoping that within another week I'll be getting there!! I'm still stuck in sleepy sleeplessness. But I've had what 3 days with no clonidine, no diclofenac, no antihistamines or anything else. So when my body finally works things out, that's that. There are no more little steps down. 246 hours now. Just keep plodding if it's hard, and dancing if it's easy !!!

Love to all unconditionally

Dickon

[Ilsa]

Originally Posted by Dickon

Hypothetically...

I think you'll be going through quite a few more highs and lows Dick before this thing settles down. If you're anything like me you'll be quite emotional, childish/like, happy one moment sad the next. I'm not sure if you've had any experience of post w.d.s. It will take a few months for the emotional volatility to die down, but the emotionally volatile time is one of great creativity. Well that's what I think. I'm really hoping that within another week I'll be getting there!! I'm still stuck in sleepy sleeplessness. But I've had what 3 days with no clonidine, no diclofenac, no antihistamines or anything else. So when my body finally works things out, that's that. There are no more little steps down. 246 hours now. Just keep plodding if it's hard, and dancing if it's easy !!!

Love to all unconditionally

Dickon

ya know, i was thinking about finding/starting a thread about depression, mood swings and the like as related to withdrawing. it's been a year and i'm still struggling with the depression/anxiety and am curious as to the experiences of others. thoughts?

namaste

[Dickon]

Ilsa my friend, nice to see you in my virtual home!!

Usual conditions apply: I dreamt a dream in which a Pink pig swallowed a much larger elephant and got thinner in the process. It was something of a paradox. He burped, and a bubble-elephant emerged who twittered in a strange sing song language the following: --

I think that if you can abstain from all mood altering drugs for 1 year - 18 months, not drink and not smoke, exercise well, and in particular do Yoga or Tai Chi, and meditate (when you start meditating, you may well go loopy, but that's just a phase. However if the loopiness is serious, get advice from SWIM [I'm rehabilitating this term in it's literal sense btw, I don't mean pm me about this, as I'm not qualified to help with serious mental health issues]). Eat well, get some good friends in your life, and hopefully have a sexual partner or several, whatever floats your boat. If you get all this in place and are still feeling depressed, then I'd say chances are it's simply an organic condition.

Personally, and you probably have gathered I default to mania not depression, I think a lot of the mood swings are correctable by spiritual practice (yoga / meditation), exercise, doing things that build self-esteem, finding good friends, and physical touch (massage is probably just as good as sex. But touch is really important if you ask me). Another great thing to do is dance! I don't know whether it's ubiquitous, but there's a thing called Gabreil Roth's 5 rhythms dancing that I used to love. Often barefoot, it's completely free-form, non-smoking, non-drinking, attracts hippy types, and is a great way to ease into physicality at least if your capable of throwing off the shackles of self-consciousness. Yeah....I know....I'm a mostly no holds barred kind of bloke....and that's not just on the internet....(except when I'm chained up in a cage of drugs, when I'm dull as dishwater "normal" on the outside)...

If you want me too Ilsa I can give a completely medically ill-informed opinion about what you're doing right and/or wrong, but I'd need a lot more details about your case. There are some people who simply suffer from depression, and because depression stops them from doing the things that might cure it, it's very hard to know how much is organic-incurable and how much is organic-curable. That's something I'd love to see some research into.

Smiles and wagging puppy-dog tails to all

Dr D. [Dr of life!]

Dickon added 652 Minutes and 13 Seconds later...

P.S. It occurred to me that I'd never met any fishwives who had sailed the seven seas and what with sweet dreams being made of this, dreamt the following hypothetical dream where the I refers to a talking clam:

Well I'm 274 hours in now! Yeah, I'm getting to the business end of that first 14 days of this quitting game. I've just watched Southpark and then Waking Life, which I was reminded of by a thread on here. Waking Life is very good, and even though I'm a talking clam I must recommend that you buy a copy and don't be naughty and download it from the internet. It's a very thought-provoking film, and the music, and weird animation-over-film are highly original.

What's new? My wife thinks I'm even more exhausted now than the new plateau of exhaustion I reached on day 9 (Calendar day. Remember this clam uses days to represent 24-hr days usually. It's more positive!) But I had a 1/2-1 hour nap earlier in the morning, so actually if you put all the hours sleep I've had together in the last 24 together, it's pretty damn respectable. "Bank of Sleep" are definitely sending the bailiffs round to collect now! Good for them!! I have just done my first bit of creative cookery since I cleaned up. That's one thing I've never talked about. Food has only started appealing again recently, and despite the extemeties problem not really helping with preparation, I had a go! I love throwing ingredients together in random ways and seeing what comes out! I'm not that bad at it. I made some duck breast with unknown organic pink-skinned onion/spring-onion hybrid mystery vegetable, mushrooms ginger and garlic and baby-leaf spinnach. It wasn't my best, but it was edible, and is another sign that Dickon is returning bit by bit.

I've been experience some sadness too, more a fleeting shadow of what I've lost to not having been fully present to past events, especially with our son being born, etc. But that grieving process is what I've come to expect as normal, as is a certain amount of grieving for the drugs themselves. However much revulsion I mustered in the heat of quitting, I cannot totally ignore the good times. It will in no way influence my decision to not use, but there might come a time when I do have to talk about this in no uncertain terms. When and if I do I shall put a big warning, because that's not the kind of shit one wants to read when ones in the initial "screaming in the night air...." phase of this process. However it is essential information for the traveler who is that much further on. You will remember my essential tenet is emotional honesty. You will never get sane pretending you are!!!

I heard once (I have no sources, and I might be playing chinese whispers so please anyone who has acurate info point to source, or discredit this as myth) that former drug users after having spent 4 years in 12-step recovery were indistinguishable from "normal people" on a list of emotional-health scales. So, what that means for we doing-it-our-way boys and girls is that we need to expect a long wait before all that emotional lability calms down. I think that 1 or 2 years is a realistic goal to achieve a simulacrum of normality but that depends very much on who you are, and the spiritual work you put in (no I'm not a religious nut, but meditation, martial arts, yoga, inter alia are wonderful healers. There is work to be done but it's pleasant work in the main, building physical/emotional/spiritual health and self-esteem) . But we have much better than normal second off. Imagine if cold-turkey-from-methadone were a drug (duration of action 14-21 days. Intense pain, agony, distress physical and mental), now flip these negatives round and imagine what a shitty hangover you'd have from an anti-withdrawal. That shitty-hangover is now inverted into the joyous "hang-over" from the withdrawal. Anything that awful brings joy at cessation. Colours are brighter, all senses heightened, birds sing, it's like being in love with all life, but only for those boys and girls who ABSTAIN totally from all drugs and alcohol. You'll not got Dr D's promissed pink cloud if you don't follow the Plan!! Remember way back when, "The Plan. All revererence the Plan. The Plan is perfect etc.", but it's got to be YOUR plan, if you're not me, which you might not me (you might be me if I'm reading this to myself as I sometimes do for inspiration, humour etc!) I'm now rather glad I had such a big habit because it made for such lousy w.d.s and thus should make for a good pink cloud!! It's also good for self-esteem to quit unaided by rehabs/programmes etc.

There's one final thing that's come to mind that I seem to have avoided for the most part this time round. Usually when I quit I get days of black-nastiness, which I usually justify as being a consequence of letting the ruthless-single-mindedness part of my psyche out to play. He will grip on tight, but will bash things in his way. In my opinion, in w.d. it's all good if you're wanting to do psychic violence to all around you; it's just returning emotions in extremis I think. One effect of this reduction cure has been to make those black emotions attenuate. I also think I've been very careful with that sort of mood because it scares the hell out of my wife. I'm not sure why, but I guess it's because I seem a different alien person, as compared to my usual friendly bunny-rabbit personality.

I'm off for 1/2-1 hours nap. I'm running on empty sleep wise, or I feel it despite the returning hours.

Love and strength (and anger, rage, psychic violence if that's what you need to see through on your plan)

Dr Dickon [exhausted bloke]

Dickon added 346 Minutes and 8 Seconds later...

P.P.S. In the words of a constipated semi-translucent angel fish who, decided to conserve momentum by engaging in verbal diarrhoea -

I am engaging in the most paradoxical thing I've done so far. I didn't get any sleep after that last post. So on rising I've 3 times primed my espresso machine with as big a load of coffee as I can, in the vain hope that I can force myself to stay up those extra hours. I'm just glugging down the last of another doppio espresso. This much coffee ought to induce total and utter insomnia, the last thing I want, but because I am so so tired I think it might just keep me up for a little longer, and only if I'm lucky. I'm getting enough sleep now, just at the wrong time. I just don't know how I'm even going to push this damn thing back a couple of hours. I thought I might be able to get myself awake if I started writing, but all I'm doing is gabbling on!

The good news is that I've got through 280 hours of this!!! Methadone doesn't let go easily I'll say that for it. It's w.d.s are of the tenacious kind, even if they have disippated substantially. Right now I'm having a rare warm-hand moment, which is awesome. I know it's a relatively minor w.d. symptom but constantly having cold hands is painful and unpleasant. Our cat is complaining, as he's being kept in because of fireworks!

Well so much for this masterplan. I just don't think I'm going to make it for more than 1/2 -1 hour. But I guess I went to bed at 8.30 yesterday, and it's now 8.38, so if I can hold out until 9 or 9.30 it will be a mini-victory. It already is. I just can't do another 3am-8.30pm day. Well. I'm afraid gravity is winning, and I'm going to go and stay awake in bed. lol!!

So I'll probably be back at 2am calling it a new day. Boo Hoo. Never mind, it's all good fun!

Love to all

D [both a ghost of his former self and a self of his former ghost]

Dickon added 611 Minutes and 46 Seconds later...

P.P.P.S. In the fossil record there are many Ammonites. Current scientific wisdom is that when they were alive these creatures did not have a well established language. However when looking on a well-known but non-nameable-on-DF commercial auction web-site I discovered for sale a sandwich and a door both of which had blobs on them that the greedy sellers claimed were the faces of Jesus. These blobs spoke to me telepathically and told me of this story in which one ammonite said to another [I will not go into the revelation about how to square geological time with the Bishop Usher's indisputable and totally true date for creation of about tea-time on some day in 4004 BC. The fossils were sent to test your faith, and if I gave you the answer it would ruin it for you]: (thinks that about covers it from one found boy to a certain someone! You know who you are ! smiles cheekily !):

Well, looks like its only old gas-bag in here today. Well, that's never stopped me before, and I feel on a roll! Erk....run ....run now.....he'll be into surreal lunacy if you're not careful before too long....

Good news. I lay in bed for about 8 1/2 hours straight last night except for the odd going for a pee. I put on some audio lectures on psychology, which were both interesting and none-too-exciting, and were delivered by a man with a pleasant enough voice. OK I didn't even stay up beyond 9pm, despite the copious quantities of strong coffee. But who knows I got 5-6 hours sleep, maybe more and got up at about 5.30am. That is a genuine morning time. It's not 2.30 or 3.30 which is really still just night. So Dickon is into his thirteenth day on All Hallow's Eve. Just so you know a hallow is a saint, a relic from a saint, or possibly even a relicary to house a relic from a saint. It's not often used as a noun except by J.K. Rowling, and I've forgotten the definition she used in H.P. 7. So is this an auspicious or inauspicious day? I've no idea. I felt spectral, cold, with a coating of low-grade malaise but now I'm pigging out on some cereal I feel alertness and a little strength returning. The alertness might be a consequence of the espresso though. The little signs of not quite rightness are a pest. Time is starting to flow again, so every improvement increases the rate of improvement, and getting to the 4 week or even 6 week period seems kind of easy now. Compare that to the beginning when any one hour, yet alone a 24-stretch was a battle to be fought for tooth and nail. The weirdest thing about battling withdrawals is that the "enemy" is somehow absent. The victory is won not by doing something but by not doing something! I suppose the trick is to gird ones loins with what material assistance one can find, and try and keep ones spirits up.

I'm not sure if it will bring a much better today, but I feel I have passed the point of maximal sleep-deprevation. I do not feel as exhausted this morning as yesterday morning. I'm far from bouncy bouncy fun, but I'm still holding out for the days when I go to sleep and awake refreshed and ready to go. I suppose I'm always happier in the summer, so who knows I might have to wait as long as spring before I feel really joyful again. No worries if that's the case, I'll get there too, unless of course I'm hit by a falling piano or run over by a truck! I think though once I get my body back in action I'll feel great even if the dark closing in of the year is upon me. It's only 7 weeks or so until St Thomas's day, and then the days will start to lengthen again! My hour chart is looking full. I'd only given myself 14 days of hours to get through! D is toujours l'optimiste as they say in Franglais. Half full? Screw that! It's brim full of goodies! I think I'll just do another 14 days, it's a bit silly now, but it's just something visual to keep my focus. No matter how silly the trick if it works use it! That's my view. I like things to be easy, with lots of pictures. Yeah for words of one syllable! It's weird how you often have to go through absolutely tortuous complexity to arrive at simplicity. Unweaving addiction is like this. The simple fact is if you don't use for a month or so, live healthily, you'll defeat the things. On some level that's all that needs to be said. Yet the reality in the moment-as-happening is somoething like all this stuff I've written on this thread. In a month I'll probably have forgotten it all and just have a vague memory of having got through something that was in some abstract way not-very-pleasant-at-the-time. The most hard-to-achieve victories become trivial in the past tense, because they could not have ever been lost! I've no idea where I'm going with this. I must be trying to think myself round to something or other, but I've no idea quite what. I've got my eyes on the prize of 14 days abstinence. That's only 44 3/4 hours away. I've got 15, 20 and 21, 28, 31 (a calendar month) to go after that.

Well, anyone else still trucking with me, I'm all sympathies for any distress you might be going through. But I will not accept failure from any of you. You're none of you too weak to quit. Show some metal! It's easy. I bet if I said to you all don't juggle 9 balls for the next month, you'd all succeed (unless we've got a few budding Anthony Gatto's on here). So what's the difference between that and not using. Nahh....that doesn't work does it!! Worth a try though! If it works for you use it. Anyway get the idea that I'm beaming all best wishes and strength and encouragement etc to those still in the game, and not in a vague abstract way, but as a man standing up to be counted and winning through!!

Dawn !! I love you Dawn, my rosy-hued anthropomorphisation!

Duvets and fans to the cold and hot

Dickon

[Richard_smoker]

i hear ya....yeah, after sun came up, i finally got a couple hours sleep. i know what you mean though. still trying to decide on what to do about OTHER substances...i mean, i don't feel compelled to drink. not now anyways...so, i wonder if that means i CAN drink? sometimes, anyways?

oh well... questions that will have answers in due time, i'm sure.

Dickon, thanks for support. wonderful thread. -DICK

[Dickon]

The following is a hypothetical dream in which a terrapin swims backwards and speaks the following ancient magical spell designed to ward off the evils of over-zealous moderators on SWIMy case. GGrrrrr [teeth clenched, doing his best to manage a polite smile, and realizing that over-zealous moderators have good hearts and SMIDickon should really not get resentful, but acknowledging that feelings are feelings, and the fact that I was walking along earlier today imagining I was eviscerating SWIamoderator with rusty blades is perfectly OK, and far better than any real evisceration. In fact my rage was useful as it got me to jog a few hundred yards! So a reverse-psychological thank you, and no hard feeling, to SWWhoDoesorDoesntKnowWhoTheyAre, and probably doesn't come here!] The turtle burps (turtles and terrapins are interchangeable in hypothetical dreams):

First a fact for those oversexed ladies out there who for whatever reason are not getting any:

Men were more eager to bed women wearing red than those decked out in other colors, according to five studies involving 149 men and 32 women published today in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Dick, you should definitely leave the thorny question of drinking for another day. One piece of advice I can give you is that after 23 months away from it, all beer did was make me piss. The thing I'm going to find hardest to stop is single malt whisky, which I love. But I know if I abstain totally from alcohol I do feel much better. I have a very addictive personality, so anything I do I tend to do to excess. If this is you too, abstinence is probably the best thing, at least for a few years. I think after a few years you might be OK, but I'd definitely advise to try a life without it, certainly for 3-6-12 months as an absolute minimum. To throw something back at you, ask yourself, is it the "addictive voice" talking? I'll bet you it is! Alcohol lowers inhibitions as you know and can lead to other things. Just a thought.

[sneezing fit] I've been into town today while my wife and baby spent 2-3 hours in a traffic jam ultimately failing to visit a friend and coming back, and bought myself a new pair of shoes! No big deal, but a little reward! I'm totally addicted to Timberlands! lol I think I've worn the same two models of Timberland shoes for 15 years or so. They're very comfortable!

I'm 3/4 of the way to the first 14-days , which could be rejigged as 1/2 way to 21 days! I still haven't quite shaken the last of it out yet, and it's quite a drag still. But not long now.

I'm glad you like this thread, because it's taught me one life-lesson about people on here, in that it's my only contribution that has got bad reputation, and only bad reputation. The three things I got the best rep for were 1) a thing that broke rules and got deleted. 2) & 3) Dickon being a twisted sicko, doing monkey-bashing and torture scenarios!! Fairs fair, I have got rep for some informative stuff too. What do they say, no one ever lost money by under-estimating the intelligence of the general public, or was it Americans and something other than intelligence. Or is it no good deed goes unpunished! Anyway...

I just went up for a 1 hour nap a little while ago 3.30pm-4.30pm-ish so although I was woken by a visitor for my wife, a 1 hour chunk is a significant deposit to "Bank of Sleep." I'm still having an attenuated form of the praeternatural-dream. When I quit back in '98 I had just read the book "Perfume" (quite a cult book at sometime, can't remember the author's name) and I had a whole heap of incredibly vivid weird dreams based, very loosely, and transmuted through a withdrawing mind, on this book. I think this was my "scorpions and centipedes dreams" that Burroughs describes. How are your dreams at the moment Dick? I think there's a need for REM sleep (a kind of REM purge perhaps!) to happen before that "deep dreamless sleep of the virtuous" can be had.

If this is your first time doing this I can probably help, because I've done 2 year-plus clean and non-drinking (and non-smoking) periods in my life, so I have a reasonable idea of what to expect. The main warning I think I've already given you is that at least for now do not expect the high times to last. High and low will alternate, and for months you will probably feel quite-to-very thin-skinned. [example. How I felt about being given a warning on here today! Totally inappropriate response (cf a normal person); it's really a triviality, but it wasn't to me. I needed to mention it on here to get it out of my system because by venting things they become attenuated and disappear. I'd recommend you talk about your mad thoughts rather than try to pass yourself off as sane. It's always the ones wearing the sane masks that are really loopy. The ones who let out the insanity when it comes upon them will quickly return to a more stable equilibrium (chemical imbalances notwithstanding). Not sure if you know all this, but it's good advice to anyone getting to about this part into the game. It's good advice for me, if no one else! So expect any madness to be vented in here. If I seem cruel or nasty, it's only because I will best avoid BEING so by SEEMING so verbally! [Dickon is someone who tries to put wasps and spiders out windows rather than kill them, although will murder mosquitoes happily]

Anyway I like the archetype of bad-boy with heart of Gold! It's not a true representation but I think it's often how I'm perceived; at least the bad-boy part [I think my mother is rather proud of the fact that one of my teachers described me as the most disruptive pupil in the school's 600 year history. I think people like to mythologize, and I have been picked up for a bit of that along the way, just because I'm unusual. I only self-mythologize for role-play purpose and ego-stroking, and I healthily distance myself from believing any of this crap, but it's fun to play at believing, kind of wine-tasting, spitting out the idea after a good swill. I'm laughing more and more as I write this twaddle. Laughter is the best medicine. That's the best belly laugh I've had in ages!! It's such fun being me. I wouldn't want to be anyone else, anywhere else. A little more money, well that wouldn't go amiss, but I'd be happy leading an ascetic lifestyle, as I'm a being of body and mind, rather than a materialist. I keep my treasures within. Ah shut up you twit, what are you on!! Nothing of course. I forget that I turn crazy when I stop using drugs, in the nicest way imaginable of course. I just get more mischievous and, well, maybe just a little disruptive!]

Yeah, it's all good! What did I say, let out the crazies, give 'em some place to play, so that they go home tired. Lock them in a room and they'll do press-ups and break out and bash things! I so want to shake off the last of the non-sleep-deprivation w.d.s, as I've still got gacky skin and slight piloerection (that's a smart-arse word for goose-bumps).

OK Dick et al. any of you guys in it for the medium haul at least let me know if you get peeling skin on your hands. It usually happens about 4-6 weeks after quitting, and it's what I equate with the completion of the rebirth! I'm not sure how universal it is, but it's certainly not peculiar to me. It was a treatment (rehab) story but it happened to me.

I don't know if it comes across to you, dear reader, who ever you are, but I've been chuckling ever since I got to that wine-tasting metaphor, and rereading the stuff. I know it's not even that funny, but maybe if you imagine a chuckling Dickon writing it, it will make you smile or chuckle too! It sure beats murderous rage, but murderous rage is to be expected. Go bash a pillow, exercise, or write something vile and sadistic, just don't do anything vile or sadistic!

I wonder if anyone can sense Dickon's gradual thawing, not complete, but my mind has become more of a river than an arrow of late, and meanders it's way down to hopeful rest and emptiness. I wish to become nothing. To do so I speak my truth. I will become the void. Then I shall be one with the laughter of children at dawn.

In 9 or so hours I'll have completed the 11th day, and really will be squidging along towards the 14 day mark. It's coming together nicely. At 38, a 225mg a day methadone habit requires a little time to unlearn. But the absence of drama is great. The high-drama-mark of today was getting a second slap-down on here! compare that to a crazy day on the crack and heroin! I really am so lucky to be alive. It's not entirely been my own doing, there's either been something/one looking after me or the Buddha of shear-dumb-luck has been randomly appeased. Thanks to any/all/none for that. I'm really glad I lived until today, to write this post and chuckle and smile whilst doing it, and watch my little boy pootle around and kiss my wife, and stuff! Stuff, I'd almost forgotten the pleasure in "stuff"!! [that's a great word!]

Belly-laughs and bright-eyed smiles to all

Dr D [PhD in appreciation of stuff and chortling to himself as he posts on DF]

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent. Thanks!

[Richard_smoker]

nice. good advise. swim seems to recall his only other experience with detachment from opiates... seemed to last a month or three, and as soon as a rough patch hit him, BAM! back on the shit...

so, it is with great humility and hesitation that i explore these reaches. it is good to know there is someone else out there suffering. although i must admit, i'm still a tad giddy from the successful kick...hoping it will last. -DICK

BTW, you're right about the addictive voice. just learning to recognize it seems to give a great deal of empowerment over it...without the sticky situations of meetings. -DICK

[Dickon]

In a galaxy far far away a distant relative of our nematode worm burped a 100,000,000 galaxies into existence, on which there is a small probabillity that someone is declaring in an as yet unheard language the following fabrication....

Don't worry about the meetings. I did plenty for the both of us, so I can always give you the NA party line filtered through an intelligent brain, and not at is it so often delivered, by morons. I don't know if you came across my "NA or not NA ..." thread. It's had a couple of good posts on it although I'm the only partial-agonist for NA [laughing again! Doesn't take much today]. Someone posted the results of one study which showed than AA was not significantly better than other relapse-prevention modalities. I'd never much stopped to consider the flaw in the argument that "people who go to AA meetings" have a better chance of staying sober than those that don't. The truth might better be expressed as "if you do 6 CBT sessions you've got just as good a chance as staying sober as someone who spends his whole lifetime going to AA meetings". It's a very different spin, on what might well be the truth.

Trust me, I know these roads. This will be THE best and most exciting time in your life, I guarantee it!! Heck you're in my gang now, and we are going to have some serious fun. I have the optimism Mojo flowing. The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty, it's brim full and overflowing so we better quoff down on this good shit so as not to waste it. The deeper we drink the more we'll get! You've definitely got the whole moral thing, which has got to provide the outer framework. Have fun, but don't do bad things. I'm a natural toe-stepper-on-er, so I have to be careful as my "fun" can go a little OTT sometimes! But if I saw someone like I was a fortnight ago, I'd rush to try and help, as I know you would, like you did when I first got here. I think it's all very well to gas on about what to do to get clean, but it's nothing like hearing it from folk who ACTUALLY did it. The experience is worth 1000 self-help books.

You know what? I think I might even sleep tonight. I'm not sure why, but I have an optimism about that too. Something flipped over when I was writing my last post. I'm not sure what, but it's put me so much more to the good! Maybe it was the positive vibes you were sending!! Positivity begets positivity. I just hope some other folk are seeing how fun it is to clean up, despite the small matter of the left-over cold-turkey needing to be gobbled before the fun part of the meal can begin!

It's a shame you're not closer to home, or I'd have you over for some dinner! On the subject of which, how's your inner post-withdrawal-piggy? Mine's got me eating like I've got tape-worm. Thank God I don't have the blob-turning-into-propensity gene!!! I'd be a lard-ball in a few short days if I did.

Anyone else out there, come on in, it's warm and fluffy in this part of DF. Here you will meet the ones that did it! You don't have to be a Dick (or a Dickon) to get well, but it does seem to help! We want Christopher and Buchan et al. to come back!!! Well I do.

Oh and Dick, did you see the new psychedelic maths pictures that I put on my profile page? I made animations of this stuff once upon a time, but have lost most of the files; I wanted to try to get a better intuition of what 4-dimensional space might feel like. It never really helped much, but the things were fun to look at. I'd love to get an avatar of one spinning. I've got all the "still frames" for a few of them, so might cobble something together again some day.

Well it looks like the tiredness has hit me like a sledgehammer. So I'm off to try and get a wink or two of slumber.

Love to all, and lots of it

Dickon