Dreaming in the night air: the sequel. Withdrawal over, what now?

[Dickon]

Hello everyone,

I am starting this thread as a sequel to my "Screaming in the night air" thread that I began when I first joined DF. For those that have not seen it, it was a description of a methadone withdrawal, and may or may not have been based on my personal experiences or those of my cat. I have not touched drugs this last month and recently the posts on Screaming have become more about living life drug-free and general non-drug-related subjects than withdrawing. I thought I'd start this thread specifically for those living life after opiates who have gone through the withdrawal. To clarify, I'm talking about people who are off all opiates/opioids (including those prescribed, i.e. methadone and buprenorphine). My aim is that this will be a smorgasbord for people to talk about anything and everything that happens in their opiate-free lives. It would be great if people with a bit of opiate-free time came by and told their stories.

I've no idea if this will take off, but I hope it does. A lot of people say that getting off is easy, staying off is hard. I do not agree with this, but neither do I underestimate the difficulties of staying off either, and so far I haven't really found much on DF that touches on this subject.

Just to say, today I went for an assessment at an aftercare place. I met a really nice man called Mark and he did an initial assessment. I figured I'd try and get some support in real life as I'm not going to NA meetings. I will be going to a group therapy session on Tuesday. For what it's worth I feel fine as of now in regard to not using opiates, but I am thinking about the longer term now. I'm not sure how many people in the group will be on maintenance, and how many will be opiate-free, but the easiest way to find out is to turn up.

Love and fluffies to all

Dickon

[Ilsa]

meow? hmmm...what to do when sober. well let's see, i definitely torment my cats, usually with a laser pointer, get out and take walks, take pictures of random stuff. oh and i found a tibetan buddhist group here in town, which is a pleasant shock, to say the least, so i'll have one or two days a week of actual meditation and teachings to go with yoga

my cats still indulge on weekends but they've been very good about behaving themselves during the week and have mentioned that they are cutting back even further and waiting til the beginning of next month to indulge.

balance is a wonderful thing, when one can pull it off

what about you, D? what have you found to do with yourself now that the kitty is opiate-free?

[beena]

SWIM has recently slipped back into full-time cocaine and opiate addiction sadly (although she only has herself to blame of course), but is already planning how to stop again. If one thing can be said for SWIM then it is that she never gives up giving up! Anyway, SWIM only wanted to say that this seems like an interesting thread you've started Dickon and SWIM looks forward to adding to it in due course (when she is opiate-free!).

[dyingtomorrow]

While you were in the process of writing this I was actually reading over the Screaming thread and thinking how amazing it was that you did that. I can't even fathom it.

[Dickon]

What am I up to? That's a good question. I'm still somewhat physically tired, so spend a lot of time on here, as you've no doubt guessed. I've been enjoying the Time Travel thread, and the Interest in the Occult group as well as my more usual pootling about being a boy-scout, trying to be helpful, and posting my own take on the world on Screaming, and now here! I try and walk most days, to get some exercise and some air. I'm reading Crime and Punishment, which I'm enjoying. I've been doing a lot of cooking, inventing new things, and am still having hot baths most days. My wife and I have been doing the Times Crossword, and have finished it every day this week, which is a record! I've been playing the piano too, Grieg and Liszt mostly. The car is dead so until it's fixed we're a bit stuck. We've got friends coming for lunch tomorrow, and another friend coming round on Sunday (a former methadone user who's now a gardener for one of the Oxford Colleges). I've meditated a couple of times, and would like to make it a habit, and when I'm ready I'll be going back to the gym to swim and do some Yoga.

So I'm taking things pretty easy physically still. I sleep really well, and go to bed and wake up fairly early. It's all pretty calm and low-key right now. What's interesting is that I see it that way, where as a while back I saw my life on rather an epic scale, fighting the monster of w.d. with every little victory a big achievement on my part.

I feel calm for the most part with occasional more up-beat moments. I suppose I'm in a bit of a taking stock phase right now. I regret that I'm not 10 or 20 years younger, in some ways, although I have found some mellowness being that bit older. I feel a sensibleness, despite my antics, which is new. I have a sense of needing to do some serious growing and perhaps facing up to some hard home truths, but I'm not sure how or when this is going to happen. Maybe this aftercare group I'll be going to will be of some use in that direction. I hope to get some alternative therapies from it too, which is the real reason I went in the first place. I think I'm really weird but I actually rather enjoy group therapy!

I aim to rebuild my social life slowly as, methadone and all opiates (let me state here that I'll use the word opiates to include opioids too. I do know the difference, so no need to pull me up on it) have the effect of reducing sociability and making people more insular.

I watch quite a few of the American TV series, and play with my son, and talk to my wife. I've put a couple of photos taken today, so you can see the new improved Dickon, and the always perfect son of mine! Yep that's where all the posts get written. It's a collabaration, lol. Actually I was playing video games not DFing when those pictures were taken.

All pretty ordinary! My one, semi-big project, which I'll engage after fininshing Crime & Punishment, and reading The Never Ending Story again, which is a treat I've promised myself, is to attempt Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality", a book about theoretical physics, but although supposedly for the lay reader, it requires mathematical expertese. I'm also planning on learning at least the hand-waving version of General Relativity. My madcap idea is to do a physics degree. It's probably no more than a temporary thing, but if come next October I'm still contemplating it, I'll apply to Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, and a couple of other places, and see if I get lucky.

I am still feeling really proud of myself, and much more clear-headed. Yep, it's all small at the moment. It's enough simply to remain abstinent. Anything else is a bonus.

Good to see you Ilsa, and I really hope life is treating you well

Love

Dickon

P.S. Beena and Dying, your posts came while I was writing the above. Lovely to see you both here. Beena, you're bang on the money with never giving up giving up. Sheesh, I used to try really often, before I lost hope, and certainly recently I was far more aware of what a big deal it was to quit, so I haven't tried that often recently, which has certainly upped my success percentage! Someone said on your blog that you might be best getting some professional help, and I thought that sounded really good advice. I spent 6-7 months in residential treatment once, and so what I've done this time round would not have been possible without it.

Even though Dying, I am still completely gobsmacked that I've come this far. I am just happy that it happened. I'm proud that I've tested myself against one of life's toughest challenges, and I've done it for my own reasons, and proven something very powerful about my own inner nature. I said very early on in Screaming that I'm fucking tough when I want to be. I stand by that, and I walk as it were, an inch taller today! But that side of my psyche that was used to get through the Screaming is not the animal I need to be today. That is in many ways why I've started up this new thread. I'm on hand to give encouragement or bash skulls together if needed when it comes to my own take on quitting. But the first battle is now over for me! However the war is not.

It's all good fun! Yep, that's the way to look at things.

[chillinwill]

Dickon, just wanted to congratulate you on your success you have had so far. I have enjoyed reading your thread on the Screaming one and appreciate the constant updates you provided as it was incentive for Red Rock not to go back and start shooting heroin again. Overcoming opiate addiction is a very hard battle to overcome but it can be done and anyone that is doing it or is trying to do it, please don't give up

Just an update....Red Rock has opiate free now almost 7 1/2 months and still going stronger than ever. He never realized life could be so good without his heroin. Now don't him wrong, he still has an occasional craving here and there (as a matter of fact, he just had one now and that is why he is posting on this thread) but he knows he won't act on the craving.

I believe that it is harder to stay clean than to get clean because in order to get clean, one must endure the physical and mental hell but that lasts at most a month or so (depending on substance) but the staying clean part is the hardest (does get easier over time) because everything that reminded you of your addiction can easily trigger a thought and set off cravings. Not only that, but one must learn how to live life without trying to escape there problems by getting high. Don't get Red Rock wrong here, he still dabbles in social drinking and psychedelic use; however, he doesn't try to escape from his problems by doing this substances anymore. In the past, he would shoot some heroin, smoke crack, get wasted everynight, etc to run from his problems.

Now at the time Red Rock has finished typing all of this, his craving has gone away. This is another technique that can be used to combat a craving by posting on here and keep typing until the craving disappears. Anyways, just wanted to congratulate everyone on here, especially Dickon and Dick for all their help and support they provide. Keep up the good work everyoen

[Dickon]

Thanks Will, and big applause for Red Rock! That's a fantastic achievement. I totally agree with you about talking about cravings, and honesty in general. I have been struggling a bit with missing malt whisky, which is one of my past vices. I know I have a tendency to drink to excess but even so it frustrates me at times that I'm not like other folk! I know I'm ultimately happier neither drinking, nor teasing myself in other ways. I enjoy being clear-headed, and it's really noticable how much better I am at doing puzzles and cryptic crosswords than I was.

We had two friends, a couple, over for lunch, both academic, and they both have super-good memories. The guy is just incredible in that he knows a vast amount of totally obscure words, and is a repository of knowledge. We started the Listener crossword, although we didn't get that far, mostly as time was limited and we were talking and eating too. We looked up how Wotsits (I think they're generically called cheese puffs) were made, and even got to see a 1939 patent for a cheese puff making machine: A dough is made from the corn, and the stuff is extruded under pressure! His wife had a similar skill of being able to retain complex arguments from books she'd read.

I've always wondered about that kind of skill set, as it's so totally not something I posess. I'm always having to go back to first principles and reinvent wheels, and ask the most basic questions. What I can do well is figure things out. I discovered from my wife that I am very abnormal in that I don't think pictorially (or I have some fuzzy line pictures for certain mathematical ideas), and just seem to be able to work with abstract concepts. Nearly everyone else asked seems to use pictures far more than I do. What about people reading this?

I'm always trying to see what something is really "saying". Following an argument is one thing, but really "getting" it is another. A good proof or demonstration should provide you with a smack-in-the-mouth moment of "how could the universe be otherwise?". I suppose that's what I strive for, getting to this good moment. Without it any persuit of knowledge is deeply unsatisfying. Yeah it's kind of show-off fun to know a few difficult words, and even better if you can spell them correctly (I seldom can), but it's not like understanding a good mathematical proof, or seeing how special relativity can be used to resolve seeming paradoxes. That's one thing I've been thinking about today somewhat.

My wife and I have finished the Times Crossword everyday this week, and last Saturday's too, a record! So I'm optimistic I'm thinking better, although I've completely lost any ability to spell words. As I'm writing this on AOL not Mozilla, I'm doing it blind without spell-check - eek!

Next week Fedora Core 10 is released. Let's hope I can get that successfully installed. My wife needs windows for Photoshop, but I much prefer Linux, it's got lots and lots of really fun silly games! On the subject of Photoshop, if you want a laugh, go to my profile page, and view all albums, and look in the third one. It's only got one image, a Magritte parody done on Photoshop. It really made me laugh!

Well, in a few hours I start week six of my non-drinking and other abstaining. So far so good.

Love to everyone

Dickon

[Richard_smoker]

yes, chillinwill. staying clean is much harder than getting clean...getting clean might FEEL like an eternity, but it's really just a few days or weeks. STAYING clean really IS an eternity!

congrats to Dickon, will, and anyone else who has managed to stay clean this long. it truly is a difficult thing to initiate, maintain, and understand enough to stay away from your old coping strategies.

I'm managing to better keep my ship on-course now, after hitting a slight bump in the road about a week ago. it's all good now i believe. while there are certainly exceptions, it's true that every day is easier than the day before.

-DICK

[infekt]

I wish swiy the best. It's been a long hard road for swim as well, he has been clean from opiates since June, in which he had a month long relapse after 3 previous months clean. But swim got back up and pushed right back.

I wonder....if it even has to be a struggle?

dickon, you should check out richard smoker's relapse prevention thread:
http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70796

[Dickon]

It's a much bigger project staying clean than getting clean. It's a lifetime rather than a month or several! And it's something one can only say one has achieved at the moment of death. So perhaps logically we are comparing apples and oranges. Per unit time the getting is far harder than the staying clean. I'm at this moment very tired and a bit fed up that I don't yet feel re-energized.

Tomorrow I'm off to Bristol to spend the night, and I've got to pick up the car in the morning. This will be fun, to spend some more time socializing. Today James didn't call (again)! Well, never mind, I don't think either K or I were feeling all that social. I managed to finish the jumbo Times crossword, and I've read 100 or so pages of Crime and Punishment, as well as working out some fingerings for Mozart's A minor sonata.

Well, I just wanted to touch base, and say I'm here, although I'm feeling less talkative at the moment, and am sort of forcing myself to stay connected on here. It's all to easy for me to go completely introvert, so I've got to force myself to be social on here and in 3-d land too especially. A social life is one of the main things I didn't have much of in the bad old days.

So, I'm into week 6 now! Small moves, but 6 weeks in going to be a milestone for me. That's my next goal. It's also about 1000 hours too. On Tuesday I've got this aftercare relapse-prevention group. I just hope at least one of the other people in the group is clean clean rather than just not using street drugs. At least I'm not living totally chthonically, and am getting out and seeing people over the next couple of days, as well as seeing people yesterday. Today I holed up, but the weather was really horrible, so it wasn't a good day to be carlessly traipsing about.

Love to one and all as always, and well done Dick and infekt. Keep up the good work

Dickon

[yaba]

Swim is now free from opiates the last one was a dihydrocodeine (DF118) and the one before that was tramadol, Both on recreational doses (20 tabs a day kind of thing) Know it doesn't compare to methadone, But still not nice trust swim !

Swim done the heroine withdrawl a few times, But that is a long time ago.
Swim lived in The Netherlands, London and "To get away from it all" he moved to a small Island (between England and Ireland) That was for his yaba abuse rather then opiates.

Swim now lots better and stopt using but even here drugs is a problem (lots of raids recently) And heroine is not that hard to find, But its nothing compared to UK main land.

Now when swim has to go to The Netherlands he will be using heroine as a one-off thing this has only happened twice in nearly 8 years. He thinks that if he doesn't take any drugs where he is living its alright... Just some meds, booze and a smoke sometimes. No heroine, coke, meth, etc.. But on holiday in Thailand it was yaba time and meth time.. (meth was ice and is more pure compared to yaba, Still swim things yaba more dangerous.. More paranoid on yaba)

Sorry to go on to other things then opiates, He has to learn to type quicker and improve his English.

Don't think swim will ever be an angel, He has a normal job now a dog and is more responsible.
All the best to you Dickon.

[Dickon]

Yesterday we went down to Bristol, after I finished Crime and Punishment in the morning. I read from about 7-10 as I was hooked by that stage! In Bristol, which we only managed to get too after I'd picked up the car which was repaired at an exorbitant price, and my wife had lost the keys for ages (she'd packed them with the electric toothbrush heads. They are magnetic which might or might not explain this), we had a triple birthday celebration for John, my father-in-law, me and Irina (a Russian friend of John's who's living there and is 6 days younger than me!). It was a very vague Birthday celebration! But we all had b-days within a couple of weeks of yesterday. Also present were my wife and son, Julian (in a round about way a step-brother to my wife) and Micha (another Russian who also stays with John). It was a really enjoyable evening, although I did feel really strange not drinking when everyone else was. However by the end of the night when others were flagging I was still going fairly strong, so at that moment I felt good about myself. I'd managed to have some really interesting conversations with Irina about Brouwer and intuitionism; Irina is a mathematical philosopher and had some undergraduate essays to mark. So I started on one of the less good ones to see what the standard of undergraduate work is like. Well, I got interested in the ideas that underpinned the misconceptions, and so we got talking. Unless anyone is interested I will spare the details. I also talked with Micha about some interesting proofs he'd been looking at.

Today we went for a walk and I tried to teach Irena juggling! I then did my back in which made me somewhat less than happy and after lunch we set off home. Back here I thought there was an after-care/relapse-prevention group tonight, so I drove over and either I'd got the venue or the time and date wrong. So I spent the best part of an hour stuck in traffic, which surprisingly didn't bother me that much. I tried!

Well, it's really cold over here at the moment, and I'm pottering towards 5 1/2 weeks off things. Most things are good, except for my back and my lack of energy. Thanks for the encouragement Yaba. And it sounds like you have a pretty good lifestyle avoiding too many heavy things.

It's all good

Dickon

[Junkhead23]

SWIYS are really brave and courageous. I really look up to you for what you have managed o achieve.

[Gappa]

Interesting Dr D.. You seem quite the one interested in abstract intellectual thinking, you know all the x-word puzzles. Wondering if you have heard of a guy named Kim Peake.. I do believe he lives in the UK somewhere. He's an autistic savant that draws huge crowds to the English universities doing these inquisitions. Seems this guy knows just about everything like a living Google.
Anyway hope it's ok to post here as I am still not a member of the "clean plate club"..yet..

[Dickon]

Hi folks,

Sorry for not posting here for a little while, but I've reached a point of feeling quite talked out, and it's something of an effort for me to write at the moment, unless I've been spurred into action. I'm feeling somewhat reactive in that sense. My own story is still a happy one, I'm glad to say. Tomorrow morning will bring me to 45 days in. I've got some alternative treatments tomorrow at noon that I arranged through the aftercare service I went to. I've just got back from a relapse prevention group which was quite fun. It's enjoyable in the main to spend time engaging with new people.

Junkhead, Gappa it's really good to see you both here. This is an open house of course, Gappa, so anyone's welcome. I just wanted it to be a thread where anyone could pretty much prattle on about anything, but with a view to catering for people off opiates. But people trying to get off is just fine. I'd just not seen a life on life's terms thread, and thought I'd create one. I also thought considering the amount of sleep I'm now getting the "screaming in the night air" title had lost it's poignancy for me. Maybe when I'm not so exhausted I'll make a new thread with another title. lol. Who knows what the future holds?

I've never heard off Kim Peake, but I'll have a google sometime. Well, I'm outta here for now. Just thought I'd pop my head in the door, metaphorically speaking!

Love to all

Dickon

[ellie2]

SWIM wishes she could stay off all opiates but suffers with a great deal of chronic pain. So, instead, uses kratom often ..SWIM knows this too can be addictive but no way as unpleasant as opiate withdrawal.

[Dickon]

Well, I just was telling Dick in a pm how I was finding it impossible to write on my own thread, and only seemed able to respond to the questions of others, and then with some difficulty. I have know idea why this is so, but I asked him, and maybe in the asking, I cleared a block I'm having, at least long enough to write this.

Yesterday we left our son with my mother, and went up to meet a friend, a woman who'd read Chinese as my wife had at Oxford, in London, to see "Monkey. Journey to the West", a rock opera, with circus skills, martial arts, and animation (the animation and music were done by the people from Gorillaz). The show, despite some bad reviews, was really fun, although for us non-Chinese-speaking folk the sub/sur-titles (actually side-titles) were a little hard to read! My wife found one good review, from someone we were both at university with. But there was another one she found that was a complete nay-say from start to finish. We reckoned Ms Nay-Sayer must have been a shrivelled up old prune!

So I got to bed at 1.30 last night which is really late for me. I had my back massage on Wednesday which was very pleasant. I was glad to be told that I wasn't in too bad shape, which is reassuring, but after the massage, probably because it released toxins from the muscles, I got back a yucky taste in my mouth, and have, at times, felt as tired as ever. I'm resigned to this tiredness now, and take the moments of energy I have as little treats that I'm afforded most days for brief periods.

I was glad that the whole London thing, the biggest adventure since I quit 47-48 days back, went well, and I wasn't floored with exhaustion. We met another woman, again an Oxford graduate, although not from our college, and I suppose there's a bond of some sorts between alumni who are roughly contemporary. She was interesting, and it was a shame that we didn't get that much time to talk.

This morning it was back to my mother's to pick up our son, and I've been a bit tetchy some of today. I haven't meditated yet, which I did for the last couple of days. I'm trying to get back into that, as I enjoy it. I've had the odd thought about drugs and drinking, but nothing too serious. I think sometimes I question the "I've quit for ever" thing, although that could just be the remnants of N.A. "one day at a time" indoctrination. Of course any mathematician worth their salt will explain to you about mathematical induction, and demonstrate that forever, and "one day at a time", are (extensionally as to time-period) identical, so all N.A. is using here is a psychic trick. Thus flitting between thinking I'm never going to use, or I'm not going to use now and when now is over I'm going to extend the time I'm not going to use etc., is mere mental gymnastics.

I finished the Times Crossword today, but I don't feel clever, or linguistic, or able to call anything into memory. I used the computer to help me, as once I'd done most of it, I was impatient, and just felt stuck. Fair enough, there were a couple of things I didn't know (Princess Ida being a Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, and an Amah being a maid/nanny, from the Chinese), but a couple of others I should have got myself. Stupidity may be a parallel with physical tiredness. It's not that I'm stupid exactly, I'm just less bright than I'd like to be.

I'm just having to accept as best as I can than I don't feel how I want to or think how I want to a lot of the time. We all want our bodies and minds to be Lamborghinis on the open roads, but when we're like lamborghinis stuck in traffic it's a pain, and I'm sure it's easier for the mini drivers!! [Well, that's what I want anyway. You other folk, you can want whatever you want! lol]

So, is there any lesson, or moral, or purpose to saying any of this? Maybe the lack of any clear message is what is putting me off writing. I've nothing to say, except what might be perceived by most to be self-indulgent twaddle. Nevertheless it's the self-indulgent twaddle --- if that's what it is at all ---of a man who's still not using opiates, and just the droning lull of my voice will maybe send some man or woman in withdrawals into such a state of catatonia that they might even sleep for five minutes or so, or simply drift away into my world and think how wonderful the internet. My mind is at your disposal to wonder into, I've provided enough warrens and cheese and pathways for you, dear reader, to construct at least a partial map. Yep, that's it, I'm gabbling. Looks like I broke through the barrier, and am talking shit again! A good thing? You decide....finally I'm laughing as I write. I've been so damn po-faced of late. It's scary! I get the odd moment, but lethargy is a bastard. It's so not me. I'm a tigger, and a tigger without a bounce is not a happy cat!

Well, enough random prattle! It's good to be clean, it's good to have the choice as to whether to prattle nonsensically or to attempt the tightrope of meaningful communication that so often ends in failure! Here's a question I'll leave you folks with. I'm sure you've all experienced a time when you've been saying something that falls into the "bleeding obvious" category or even into the "most bleeding obvious stuff on earth and outside earth" category, and yet the person you are explaining this simple truth to doesn't get it, not a bit, not at all. Why? [Answers on a postcard please to Dickon at Dreaming in the night air, London, SW1 1AA]

Fluffies, joy-joys, energy bars and niblicks (they are golf clubs of some sort - I don't play, hence I am giving my niblicks to you)

Dickon [silly, but smiling]

[Richard_smoker]

^^^^ HELL YEAH!! I *KNEW* IT!!

I frickin knew you would get past that writer's block just as soon as you told me about it!

that seems to be a common thread of quitting the junk...

as i expressed to you in my reply, Dickon, i have been FAR FROM PERFECT in my own journey away from all opiates...

if you guys wanna call finding some kratom & poppy pods whilst cleaning my house (energy from being 'clean' and motivation from sobriety), then i guess i had an incidence of 'relapse.' i tried to justify it and DICKON (THANK GOD!!!) told me to IMMEDIATELY THROW AWAY ALL KRATOM & POPPIES...

fortunately i followed his advice. i can't even recall exactly what the kratom & poppy tea even FELT like despite being clean for about 3 months (counting 2mo taper).

I just thank God that Dickon was there to tell me chunk it. and i also am glad that i did NOT make a huge deal out of it. as chillinwill reminded me, these aren't SHIT compared to painkillers, H, methadone, or buprenorphine. hence the legality (i think).

but, regardless, i have Dickon to thank for his great advice thru all of this--we both pretty much quit on the exact same day if i remember correctly.

right now, it's me who never sleeps and Dickon who is kinda drained of energy--but oppositely, he is sleeping, so i'm actually quite jealous.

hang in there everyone... it's not easy, but i swear to God, it's FAR BETTER than being on the junk... FAR BETTER. -DICK

[AvidFan]

Patient X did post here on the eve of his detox, but was so fucked up on OXY he must have forgotten to actually hit the post button!

He was just saying he hopes to be able to legitimately hang around in this thread in a while, and join those who have come through withdrawal.

Patient X is glad RS threw away his rediscovered items

[Dickon]

What to do. What to say. Answers, questions. Fullness of time might reveal those things hidden from me. Transcend this lethargy, and rise phoenix like. What's the point I ask sometimes, for there is none. But it's good as it's painful. I am constrained, I am blocked, but I don't know what is behind the block, what the point of being Dickon is. For I am he, D, Dickon, Dr D, call me as I am named or self-named, and now I must write in a trance-like way to discover the truth of that condition. It's all easy to partake faintly of life in the world of men and women. But why when I see so much mediocrity can I not find my voice. What would I say with it if I found it. I'd rage eloquently, I'd cry sweet and bitter tears, in flowing evening-gown prose, enveloping my body like a black-coated figure, collar-up, a spectral figure in frozen time. I'd be that voice of reason keeping connected to those not caught up with the insanity, those for whom bleating is not an option. Let me bleat. J'espair d'apprendre. I do. I wish I did. I've had enough, of what, not sure! I want to explode, I want to fly, to escape the bounds of space and time and fly. Death and life! Let them be one. So much, so little, meaning is a fantasy, and connection real. I have nothing, static, a mind benumbed by absense, and it (doesn't) hurt.

Mundanity, mundanity,
There's nothing like mundanity
It's broken not one human law,
Abides the law of gravity.

....when you reach the scene of crime....mundanity is or isn't there....You decide.

Make it up, meow it up, associations of half-trailing words, communication lines failing, escape it upsidedown. The poet speaks in riddles, and all I hear is de-dum de-dum too-dumb. Ne me quitte pas. quitte moi langsam. langsamdi dimanche mangez-tous. I am at the gate, and I must speak silence, or stammer along in the darkness.

Window into Dickon's mind. I'd not travel there alone my friends. The vistas are long and shady in the summer twilight, but at night the wind howls. 7 x 7 is 49, and my mind is muddy, my body dirty tired. But plod I will on. Forwards in victory.

I will find that voice of mine if I must travel the mire of madness to get there. I will re-emerge saner at the other side.

Rational man! Get back.

Dickon [uncensored]

[Dickon]

Well, that was fun, above, going all weird! Today I had to go to the dentist and I got x-rayed, after I'd been kept up for an hour or so a night before with a really nasty pain in my mouth. Good and bad news was g) nothing to be done now, nothing obviously wrong b) likelihood it was tooth x which has a really big filling in it, and it's unlikely any root canal work will help, so if it goes wrong it goes wrong badly: implant isn't going to be easy or possible (something to do with sinuses), so I might end up gappy, or need a bridge. Also my gums aren't great, but I got an agonizing de-tartaring into the bargain. OK more than you wanted to hear! lol. Good news is that although it was painful, I didn't cry like a girl, despite my still highish sensitivity to pain. I actually rate pain after a w.d. to be a good thing. No, I'm only half a crazy massochist, and this time round, I'm being so gentle with myself that it hurts! Nevertheless, a bit of pain might kick some endorphins back, you never know.

Tomorrow I've got another massage, and then one on Wednesday! Yep, I'm going to milk this for all it's worth. I deserve it, damn it, and as I was saying to "Aftercare Mark" today (auricular accupuncture today, lol, before the dental torments), it's not just hedonism but it's going to help my body adjust to a drug-free life. Also I'm all for a bit of touch, a bit of being looked after by others. Such was not much to the fore in my life as an addict.

I'm seeing more people on here taking this bull by the horns, and I'm proud of each of you, who have stood up and been counted, even if just for a day, or a few hours. But people are winning. I would encourage everyone to go and give AvidFan's "Patient X" a bit of support on the "Patient X" thread in this section.

Well, just in case anyone thought different, I'm still pottering along, same as same as. What's it now? Day 53! (I actually had to work that out. This is a new development. I remember when I was counting hours, now I'm having difficulty remembering days!) I tidied the kitchen, and cooked a really nice spaghetti bolognese and a salad for dinner. I had somewhat limited ingredients (specifically no peppers and no corgettes, which made for a really nice sauce).

It's all fun, and by spring I'm sure I'll have got this exhaustion thing beaten. I seem to be out doing quite a few things at the moment. I enjoyed the group on Tuesday and meeting others fighting the same fight. I sometimes forget that I like people, and am not a miserable old git (yet!!!). People can be scary and dangerous, but I'm probably at least as weird and scary to others as they are to me. No, I'm just a little hard to fully decrypt, that's all! It's something I mentioned once on Screaming, that being convinced that for any individual on earth you know a significant amount about something unknown to them is a good feeling. And rightly or wrongly I believe it to be true. I've not met an uber-Dickon. Yep, I enjoy really feeling an individual sometimes. We all should, but I think it can be a lost art. I've maybe been one of the luckiest people I know; I've experienced life, not on some cosmic scale (I don't travel well, so I don't go out globe-trotting and doing "exciting things" all the time), although it's felt like that to me. It can be as much or as little as a bright-eyed smile from my baby son! or a "Carry Ubu Daddy down stairs". I was paid the ultimate compliment today I was called "child-like".

Give me my energy! I've mischief to perform! I have people to tweak and noses to pull, and stuffy folk to tease, and smiles to put on people's faces. I am never happier than when making happy mischief.

So, why "Ubu" you may ask? My wife called him "boo-boo", and I thought that sounded too much like a mistake, (which he wasn't), and because of the French surrealist play Ubu Roi, I instigated the nick-name. Time passed and now our son won't use his real name (pronouns are hard for babies to grasp, and Henry is only 21 months old), but refers to himself as "Ubu". This will be varyingly funny as you know the "Pere Ubu" character.

For those that haven't met Ubu :

"The central character is notorious for his infantile engagement with his world," wrote Jane Taylor. "Ubu inhabits a domain of greedy self-gratification." Jarry's metaphor for the modern man, he is an antihero — fat, ugly, vulgar, gluttonous, grandiose, dishonest, stupid, jejune, voracious, cruel, cowardly and evil who grew out of schoolboy legends about the imaginary life of a hated teacher who had been at one point a slave on a Turkish Galley, at another frozen in ice in Norway and at one more the King of Poland.

Thank you wiki! Poor Henry, if only he knew. I bought what I thought was a translation, but it turned out to be a French original, and it was not easy French, so I'm going to have to find myself a translation.

Well, I'm off to read some more of The Neverending Story, by, you've guessed it, Michael Ende.

Take care everyone, love and fluffies and warm socks to all, especially those feeling the cold more than usual (you know who you are brave bunnies!)

Dickon

[Dickon]

It's been a week since I last posted here. I haven't disappeared, as most people probably know. I'm still here, and I'm soon to be entering my third month on DF. I'm feeling really good today. When I named this thread "withdrawal over", as I think I've said, I was drawing a fairly arbitrary line in the sand, a heuristic demarcation point. Today, which is day 60, I feel different, better. In truth I still feel "tox"-ed, to some degree, and have a gritty taste in my mouth, but I have had a massage today. Massages release toxins (I think: I'm no medical doctor, so this is half memory and half speculation). Yesterday I did an hour to an hour and a half of clearing stuff out and tidying the garden. I felt better for the exercise, despite having a bit of a cough and sore throat. I was worried this morning that my throat was going to become seriously painful, but I've drunk a lot of water, and have so far avoided that.

In case people are jumping in here, I've been going to an aftercare service (because it offered complimentary treatments, but I also go to relapse prevention groups, one on one counseling, auricular acupuncture. It's really laid back and fun), and today I had my third massage. The woman doing them, Claire, is wonderful. I've had a few massages before, but she really has a sense of what's going on, which I could tell from the first one. It's been a revelation to me to see how my body responded differently in each of the three sessions. The first one I felt very "staticy", and although I loved it, there was a lot of stray electricity shooting around. She spent pretty much the whole time on my back and shoulders (with a little neck and head and a little reflexology). The second one, when she did my back and shoulders, I wasn't staticy there, but when she did my legs I was staticy, and today I wasn't nearly as staticy. It was a huge corporeal change. Also after the first two I was pretty much wiped out, I think because of the toxins released, but today, this seems to be on a smaller level.

Sadly, it looks like I'm having to go to America in the next few days, as my wife's uncle has had a stroke, and has a really bad heart. Things are not looking good in all honesty, but I'm going to miss my massages, and my sessions with "Aftercare Mark". He is great too, as is Roy who does the group. I said elsewhere that I upset someone somewhat in the group last night, no doubt by being too weird, too loud, too opinionated, or something. Oh well, it's a classic case of someone else's stuff, most likely. Get used to it. I am loud or can be, opinionated (although usually in a flexible way), and I disagree with people, and challenge them. Good, that is the Dr D I know and love! I live for mischief, but I never wish to hurt people unless they deserve it.

Singing.....guess who's back, back again.....Dickon's back, tell a friend.....la la la!!!! Wow, I'm getting there. I am not sure when I will be off stateside, probably in a few more days, so I should be about a little until then, but if I drop off the face of the earth for a while, it's unlikely to be my demise, although of course it could be.

Tomorrow morning I will be 60 days away, or maybe I should say 60 days home. I forget how little that actually is, but I am starting to appreciate that as a Dickon, I still haven't fully detoxed. I'm much much closer than I was on Monday. The manual labour and the massage really helped. I am glad that I'm not at a stagnation point, and am feeling much less lethargic. The lethargy has been a pons asinorum for me, and I so hope this isn't a temporary blip of good-feeling before I get sucked back into a state of inability to move. I feel optimistic, and good. A month of good sleep and eating has really helped.

The moral has to be : stick with it. Opiate withdrawal (particularly methadone withdrawal) can drag on, although I've returned to health more quickly in younger days, even though the acute phase is unlikely to last much over a month at the very outside. I am returning to my body, but clearly the poor much-abused thing, needs a little time, touch and care to return to feeling good about itself. So, all those on this path, pamper yourselves today, you have my permission!

It's great to be clean. I thoroughly recommend it. And well done Dick, Gappa, Roc, and Patient X (AvidFan). I like to think a little bit of magick has happened on DF of late. I love the personalised recovery threads! Everyone has a story to tell. I know I don't prattle on as much as I used to, but that's for two reasons. 1) I don't need to. Time does not run slowly with me anymore; days fly by. 2) I've felt blocked. I've thought I have nothing useful to say, nothing new to add, and had an almost visceral inability to write things. But that phase seems gone right now. I might repeat myself, but maybe if I do so, it's something I believe or feel is important! "There is nothing new under the sun", or maybe "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". Maybe the two statements aren't mutually exclusive. But that's something for you, dear reader, to play with.

I shall try to find a computer if I do end up in the good ol' US of A, and post stories of a Dickon abroad. This should be amusing for you lot, because Dickons don't travel well! So I shall no doubt become a complete curmudgeon! Maybe not, a clean Dickon might be a whole new phenomenon. Watch this space.....

Fluffies and mugs of cocoa and kit-bags, trouble for the packing-away of in, to one and all

Dickon [Smiling happily, sinking into himself, and rather enjoying the feeling!]

[AvidFan]

Sorry to hear about your wife's uncle, Dickon. Hope things work out, but if they don't, that it's a kind ending.

Great rambling post as usual - Patient X feels he might be starting to belong in this thread now

[rokman nash]

Dickon if you ever make it to TN,what I have you have brother. It's not so bad over here depending on where you have to go, but I understand it isn't home.Anyway I agree this df has helped me tremendously,and I believe you were the first to welcome me. I feel I've made real live friends to go through this difficult time with.So thanks for your input,caring, and knowledge.


ROC
do the day or the day will do you

[Richard_smoker]

yeah, sucks about your wife's uncle...hell i start to get shaky every time i know i'm about to be packing off to see my inlaws and so far, no deaths or atrocities to deal with, just holidays... and no traveling over oceans to get there either. so, good luck. i'm sure it will be a good experience in the end.

nice to see you back...not just back HERE, but "BACK" lol, haven't seen a whole page single paragraph post in a long time! hang in there everyone. oh, and by the way, the massage most likely does release toxins. the muscles have plenty of space to store shit up. the actual bit that's going on is breaking up frozen, "scarred-together" muscle fibers. (not literally scarred, but it's a good way to imagine it) Everything in a muscle works better and more efficiently when all the fibers are running parallel, in the same direction. breaking up these areas that are essentially stuck together allows your blood to circulate into all these little nooks & crannies between muscle fibers. this helps release all kinds of toxins--maily just carbon dioxide and urea (piss), but that's not to say that there isn't all kinds of other residual bullshit in there from months and years of buildup. no doubt, a good massage therapist can be similar to finding a new drug of choice! -DICK

Richard_smoker added 2 Minutes and 2 Seconds later...

ok, so that one wasn't one long paragraph... but in the old days, they were almost excruciatingly not-broken-up by "enter" keys. that must be the result of the relapse prevention, massage, auricular accupuncture--what the hell is that btw? they stick pins in your ears?? -DICk