It’s No Good

So now we’re well into the fall. My Employment Insurance has been approved with no waiting period – so to speak – as I am on a Temporary Lay-Off which means that I’ve only lost my job for the time being and will be called back once the company can afford me. Pretty straightforward EI claim as they’ve got none of the normal verifying of the reason why an individual is applying. In Ontario, this means that if you are implicated and found even partially responsible for your job loss, EI can deny your application. This also prevents people from quitting their job just ’cause and then apply for EI. Both of these situations automatically disqualifies the individual. At that time, 2005, I was entitled to 60% of my salary but as next to no taxes or deductions were subtracted, it was almost the same amount as my normal salary with all of the required taxes etc were calculated. In my near addled junky mind, all I could think was “Sweet!” Business as usual.

And it was for the first couple of months…sweet, that is, but like anything else, this didn’t last. One of my friends ended up becoming our dealer after we ended up having a falling out with our original one. My friend was, and as far as I know, still prescribed massive amounts of narcotic analgesics.  On the first Wednesday of each month he receives/ed 720 8mg brand name dilaudids prescribed by his family doctor.  I had filled this prescription many times in the past for him, and as he was/is not on any sort of drug plan, it cost him about $320CAD every month.

He received these due to some injuries he had sustained during a work accident. As far as I know, him and two other workers somehow ended up being literally buried alive for a large part of one of their work days. When they rescued them all, he had broken both of his legs, some ribs, his right hand and one of the fingers on his left hand. I know that he also sustained some nerve damage in one of his hands. As far as I remember, he ended up being in hospital close to six months. Anyway, initially he never actually used any of his pain meds as he quickly learned that they were much more valuable to him if he sold them outright. Before greed overshadowed everything, he sold his pills at 10 for $100,  though this didn’t last very long, or 2 for $25 or $15 each. Do the math. He made a shocking amount of money from this endeavor and as he didn’t even use the pills at that time himself, it was all gravy.

Kind of ironic, but as long as there were pills easily and readily available, life continued on, and with it, the feeling one didn’t have so much as a care in the world. Not surprisingly, this illusion could disappear in an instant and with no warning. The first time you woke up only to discover that the well had gone dry wasn’t so bad. You hadn’t yet trained your junky mind and body to go into automatic and painful withdrawal at this mere suggestion. Not yet, but very soon. By the end of this first day without the ready availability of pills, you actually managed to finally hookup. The moment you fixed, you felt returned to normal. Two weeks later when the same situation presents itself, your mind and body are less forgiving and understanding. Start to feel anxious and nervous the longer the day stretches with no sight of relief. Well into the evening, you impatiently wait but you’re really incapable of doing anything much else as the waiting taxes every fibre in your body, and now it had started to become more and more frequent and difficult to find opiates on a daily basis.

After a short time, our bodies started to go into withdrawal when no opiates could be located, and this wasn’t pleasant. This had started to bother me as obviously having to endure ever increasing periods of withdrawal was by no stretch enjoyable and I started thinking more and more frequently that there had to be something more than this. Also, our main connect had started to lose track of the picture, and had begun treating us with disrespect, and had begun to take us for granted. For the most part, Jim and I tried to buy these pills in bulk. There rarely were no more than maybe a half a dozen smaller purchases throughout the month. Now, one would thing that if one of his customers was buying 260 units monthly that perhaps he would be able to cut them a bit of a break, but sadly no. He charged us groups of ten – sometimes on the very rare occasion groups of twelve – which translated into 26 groups of ten units each, charged at $100 per group, which adds up to $2600 each and every month!

When I say that we were regulars, I truly mean that we were indeed that. I am in no way attempting to inflate our use, and in fact, am extremely ashamed and embarrassed even sharing this info, as it paints a pretty distasteful picture of what we allowed our addiction to become before we were finally able to put the breaks on it. Now for just over 24 months dealing with him, we never deviated far from this number. We almost always paid in advance, and always paid cash – no bartering or asking for them up front, etc. If we did have to request a front, it was rarely for more than a few days. Now, I get why he didn’t want to cut us too sweet a deal as he had begun to rely on our money each and every month. Who wouldn’t want to receive this amount, especially considering there was no work needed at all whatsoever in getting it? No hustling, no nickel and dime sales, less traffic coming and going to his house because he didn’t need a dozen or so more customers minimum to replace the two of us.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Barrel of a Gun

The summer that my Mom and I ended up having our falling out certainly turned out to be a quite a bit more than a mere convenience for me as it turned out. While there had never been any question that we both had been heading down this path ever since my Dad passed away, I most definitely made the most of the opportunity when it presented itself to me and did nothing much to prevent its derailment. Even though we’d been at odds in the past over issues more serious than the one that I finally used as my excuse to sever our current relationship, by this point it didn’t matter. Definitely the proverbial straw for me, as there were a number of very legitimate reasons why we could not, nor should not, continue on with our current relationship as it stood.

At the same time, I knew that I was also motivated by the fact that there would now be one less potential distraction interfering with my current usage. By this time, I was having a difficult time balancing my active addiction with my work and social responsibilities, my family obligations, as well as dealing with the general day to day mundane stuff one tends to encounter as we drift through our lives . So with that stress gone for the time being, I was able to refocus more of my energies on what was becoming increasingly more and more important, and I don’t mean work. Ironically, about a month or so after my blowup with my Mom, I ended up receiving a temporary layoff  notice from my employer stating that I would be required, immediately, to take a leave from work of between 12 and up to a maximum of 16 weeks. At that time, I had been working for my employer, a software company, for a number of years. By the time I received this notice, our office had been reduced to a staff of just over twenty from a high of near a hundred and fifty employees less than a year prior. Even though I knew I was still a valued employee, I also recognized the financial duress the company was currently experiencing.

Plus, talk about timing. Bloody pathetic on my part, but reality none the less. One less distraction yet again. The writing was so on my wall and yet…

TO BE CONTINUED…

Spare Tire to Spare

One of the few complaints I’ve got regarding MMT – Methadone Maintenance Therapy – is the disgraceful amount of weight one almost always seems to gain while on it. Sure, there are a few lucky ones that seem to escape this horrible fate, but from where I’m sitting they are most definitely few and far between! I’ve gone from a fairly svelte size eight/ten to a seemingly, no, actually, lumpy size fourteen on a good day! Most days I am barely bothered, but on those rare days when I am carefully dressing for a particular event where I know that I shall most definitely encounter particular individuals, this fact never seems quite so galling, never mind appalling. The proverbial albatross around one’s neck to be sure. Might as well weigh three hundred pounds it seems by the time you’ve somehow managed to settle on an outfit. No amount of black can be that slimming, nor can any amount of strategic dressing be that flattering. Don’t believe everything that you read!

For better or worse though, it seems that once on MMT as a female the sooner you accept the inevitable, the better! Don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all suggesting that you use this side effect as a license to eat either, as I know many do. If you gain close to 100 pounds while on MMT, then you were severely underweight when you started or there are whole boatloads of other issues you need to deal with as well. Most seem to be decidedly underweight by the time they start treatment, so it makes sense that this weight should be welcomed. It’s all of that extra stuff that tags along for the ride I end up resenting. Keep in mind that I am not at all suggesting that methadone per se is the cause of the weight gain, as I don’t believe that weight gain is a recognized side effect of methadone as constipation would be.

I believe this weight gain occurs while on MMT because of the overall, generally positive lifestyle changes that an addict undergoes while on MMT. Just as no two addicts are alike, no two stable doses of methadone will be alike, but once that dose has been found, all sorts of possibilities start opening up for the opiate addict. Until this magical amount has been reached, the addict is still susceptible to old behaviour or habits. On a stable dose, all of those brutal and unpleasant withdrawal side effects will have completely disappeared. Also, the opiate receptors of the mind are so flooded that any attempt to use any other sort of opiate will be a waste of both money and time. The addict will feel absolutely nothing. Now up until a stable dose has been reached addicts will try anything and everything in their power to try to find a way around the methadone in their system. Generally, they’ve also got to discover this on their own regardless of how many have gone before them. Doesn’t matter. Until it happens to them, it’s not true.

Until this stage, even though the addict is on MMT and may be on it for months at this stage, old addict behaviours and lifestyles will still figure fairly prominently in their lives. If you’re still trying to use while on MMT then nothing has really changed at this point. Things really don’t start to change noticeably until the addict is at a stable dose. Once all of the side effects from withdrawal have disappeared, their overall body will start to feel better. With each passing day, the muscles and bones start to ache and throb less and less until one day when you wake up and get out of bed; it no longer feels like a chore. It becomes second nature. When in active addiction, our stomachs tend to be in turmoil because of dope sickness or cause we’re too messed up. Either state tends not to be conducive to eating three square meals on a daily basis! Addicts graze at best.

Whatever your drug of choice, whether pills, smack et al, generally there tends not to be some bottomless well providing our vice to us no questions asked. No, that would be far too easy. One of the crosses you have to bear as an addict is the huge amount of time and energy one must invest in the search for their big, ultimate payoff. I am now, depends on my mood though, either the most saintly patient person ever, or I’ve got the attention span of a newborn kitten. Varies by the day and circumstance, though, I figure for every hour I’ve invested in travelling to score, scoring, making it back home again and then actually using, there are probably nine more hours where nothing whatsoever happened except for the waiting, and then some more waiting and some more. On the infrequent day where there is a line at my clinic, I can’t help but chuckle to myself each and every time someone in line complains about how long of a wait they’ve got or how they’ve never, ever been here when there has been such a long line. On days when I can’t take it, I chide them and ask if they’ve never had to wait for a delivery that never seems to arrive! I mean seriously, the absolute longest amount of time I’ve had to wait in line at the clinic in nearly five years has been twenty minutes. I would never have started MMT in the first place If only the dope fairy had bothered to show up in such a timely manner previously.

OK, now that this weight gain is here and there is nothing I can do to fight it in the short run, I do the best I can with what I’ve got for the time being. One of the things that I did learn to do the first time I was in MMT over a decade ago was to learn to sew. Now initially, I was crap but I persevered for a couple of reasons. Specifically, the whole idle hands theory was a huge factor, but mostly because I discovered a love, as well as appreciation, of fabric. I couldn’t stay away from fabric stores and after each visit, I’d arrive home with more and more fabric, all of which I made sure I purchased at ridiculously low prices. So of course, I just kept sewing and sewing until one day I noticed I was actually getting pretty good at it. Well, actually, it was more my daughters could no longer tell if what I wore was store bought or homemade. Once these lines blurred, I knew I had made it. Confirmation on this followed my daughter’s first request for my services.

So over the course of this summer, I’ve been playing with a top design for myself. It’s my very own design and after each attempt a dramatic improvement has occurred. I’ve been tweaking and ripping and tearing and sewing and testing for the past couple of months until finally, now, I’ve created a top that flatters and camouflages all of my current imperfections, and for the time being offers me a certain amount of self-confidence that I’ve been lacking. If I could find my digital camera, and if I knew how to use it, I’d definitely upload some photos. I definitely will get some online very shortly.

peace, love and happiness…

 

Waiting for Mr Brownstone

To receive methadone, I have to attend two doctor’s appointments each and every week. My appointments fall on Tuesday and Friday, and the “clinic” that they are a part of is held between the hours of 7am and 8:30am on both of these days. There are twenty-three other patients that also attend this clinic. This particular one is designed primarily for those on methadone that also work fulltime. During my clinic’s available hours, you are looked at on a first come first serve basis, but as all of us have to follow a schedule of some sort, we almost always arrive at the same time which means we’re all pretty much seen at the same time, as well as never really having much of a waiting period before we are seen.

This clinic is pretty much the only one like this that is offered at the Clinic – with a capital C – that I go to, even though there are now almost 1200 patients attending, and perhaps even more than this amount now as our numbers are still literally growing in leaps and bounds. As well, amost all of the patients from my clinic are exceptionally well behaved and well mannered, which can differ greatly with the average patient of the Clinic. As much as I am loathe to generalize I can’t help it when I say that the average methadone patient ends up giving junkies a bad name!

I remember one of the doctors who was doing my assessment prior to starting methadone asking me  how serious I was about getting clean. When I told him that I was very serious he asked if he could offer me some advice. He warned me that this was not the place to try to make new friends, not if I really was serious about my recovery. He told me to bring a book or magazine with me each time I came so that I would have something to occupy myself while waiting my turn. He said if I looked busy then it was less likely that anyone would bother me. He cautioned me from giving anyone there absolutely anything at all – not change for the pay phone or money for the bus, nothing at all.

For the most part, I’ve done my best to keep to myself and its worked out fairly well. I mean, I was trying to remove myself from the ongoing drama of an addict’s life, so why would I want to add any more? To this day, I continue to bring something to read to each doctor’s appointment even though I no longer really need its protection – again because of the type of addict that happens to attend the same clinic I do.

It is easy to marvel at the difference between our lives and the majority of the others. The others tend to be loud and demanding and impatient and intolerant for the most part. Every visit, there are always a few patients from the other clinics that attempt to be seen by the doctor that runs my clinic, and each and every time, the nurses sitting at the counter have to explain that this clinic will only see the patients that have been registered and approved for it, and if they happened to have missed their normally scheduled clinic that they would have to attend another one. Generally their response is never remotely polite. They usually carry on about some injustice done to them, but eventually have to leave with their tail between their legs as the nurses never, ever budge or make exceptions. I mean what were you doing that was so bloody important anyway that you had to miss your original appointment? It wasn’t as if their job was keeping them from attending that’s for sure!!!

This is one more thing that I constantly find myself marvelling about – the number of addicts in the program that are incapable of working at the same time. Most of them that I’ve talked to or listened to while sitting quietly seem to express similar reasons for not holding down a job while receiving treatment. Most of their excuses seem pretty lame to me also, but then, even at my absolute worst, I always held down a full time job. The more I did, the more hours I generally ended up working so that I could pay for this ridiculous sickness. I’ve discovered that most of them never even had a job before they started treatment, so I guess this is a strange and unknown area for them regardless of whether they’re using or not. Sad. Wish treatment offered some sort of guidance for them so that ultimately they would become contibuting members of society but there is nothing at all available. Again, sad.

LIQUID LUNCHES – a short story

I’ve managed now to maintain a journal of one sort or another online now coming up on eight years. Initially I was so self conscious about exposing anything about myself, but after a short time, I forgot that I was actually writing on a public forum, and wrote just for the sake of writing – for an audience of one so to speak, moi! With my first journal I did nothing to hide my identity in anyway, but, I also ensured that I made no mention whatsoever of my alternate lifestyle, so to speak. While it was true that everything I wrote about was 100% honest, the mere fact I completely avoided addressing a substantial part of my life was nothing more than me lying through omission which by definition is equally as bad as if I were lying. I wasn’t really being truthful or at all. Conundrum!

At the same time, I certainly was by no means ready to expose a very private side of myself or my husband, or at the very least, risk the chance that someone reading my journal would be able to put two and two together and figure out what we had fought and worked so hard to remain secret and separate. Ah-ha! A secret identity was in order. Why not? I thought. It works for super heroes now doesn’t it? So with the anniversary of my alter ego in mind, I guess you could say that I’ve been maintaining a journal online, with my entire life 100% exposed, for near seven and a half years now. While I still chose to keep my real name and my families private and hidden from anyone doing a general search of me, anyone that knows me intimately is familiar with any of my online writings now, my daughters included. More than anything else now, my innate shyness and general self consciousness are the main things that stop me from going any further.

One thing I’ve not been able to help but notice is how much change has occurred in those writing about addiction. There seems to be far more relatives of addicts writing now than the actual addicts. When I first started out, I can’t remember anyone other than addicts or addicts in recovery writing or keeping a personal journal. A point of view that I can’t help but consider now, was never a consideration in the past. Nary a glimmer. Keeping current with the ever growing number of this niche keeps me honest, and never forgets to remind me that my recovery no longer affects only me, but any number of people close to me who care about me and my welfare – obviously, there are many other things working away in the background, but each and every time I read one of the relatives journals, I can’t help but feel humbled. I also can’t begin to say enough about any one of them and the suffering they must endure each and every day. Their writings should be mandatory reading for any drug education course in the school system, the penal system and any other type of system out there!

For anyone new to my writing, I first off, would like to welcome one and all. Secondly, I wish that all of my online writing was accessible to everyone. Currently I have approx 200 plus entries from a former site that I have yet been able to upload to this site. It had been maintained by another and for some reason, about three and a half years ago, it disappeared without warning. Miraculously, he did eventually return everything to me in the form of a .sql file which is a file I’ve no clue what to do with. I can open it one of the more sophisticated alternatives to notepad but that’s pretty much it. Buried deep within all of the stuff that stares out from my computer monitor, I can make out my original entries. On days when I feel particularly ambitious, I’ve copied and pasted individual entries into this journal with the entry’s original date stamp. With over 200 though, I’ve never quite felt that ambitious! Maybe one day soon – or maybe an idiot proof method of getting this file incorporated with this site will appear miraculously for me! Never, ever say never!

In the meantime, allow me to share one of the few original stories I managed to write while knee deep in addiction. May be a little graphic for some, but it never fails to make me suitably uneasy every time I force myself to read it, reminding me of how important my recovery and sobriety is to me and mine. This story is way too autobiographical for my liking as I seemed to spend many similar days to the one I wrote about than I cared to admit.

LIQUID LUNCHES – a short story

 
I like to call myself a functioning addict or a responsible junky – an oxymoron if I have ever heard one. You ask what makes me so different or special from other junkies or addicts? Well, nothing really except the amount of work involved. It is much harder to be a functioning addict. You are forced to live two very separate and distinct lives. Your public face is the only face that anyone is allowed to see. no one can be allowed entry into your private world. This you keep very well hidden from view.

 
No one can know that your half hour lunch is not sitting down at the nearest coffee shop consuming today’s special washed down with a couple of cups of coffee. No, instead you have quickly headed over to the local public library and have locked yourself in one of their bathroom stalls. Once you are safely behind its closed door, you carefully remove a brown eyeglasses case from your purse only you don’t have a spare pair of glasses in it. You place a strip of toilet paper across the back of the toilet bowel and gently place a spoon on it.  

 
You grab one white pill out of your baggy and place it in the centre of the spoon. With the end of your lighter, you carefully crush it until it is a fine white powder. Next you rip the packaging off of a new syringe and open your small bottle of sterile water, placing the tip of the syringe in it to draw up 50 units. Carefully you fill the spoon with water.

Lifting the spoon up into the air, you flick your lighter and aim the flame so that it is centered beneath the spoon. The water starts to bubble and the fine powder dissolves. Breaking some cotton off the end of one of the many q-tips you have, you drop it dead centre into the warm liquid. Quickly you suck the liquid out of the spoon into the syringe. Sit back for a second to breathe a sigh of relief. No clumsy accidents. So far, so good. Taking some more toilet paper, you wipe your spoon clean before returning it to its case. You make sure that your small bottle is properly capped and your baggy zipped up tightly. You crumple the syringe’s wrapper up tightly and place it in the case also. You will have to dispose of it later.

Enough time should have passed so that the liquid had cooled. You perch your rear at the edge of the toilet seat making sure your feet are square to the ground. Taking a look at both arms you decide which one to go for this time. The left looks as if it will yield the best results. You tap your forearm a few times and flex your hands. Carefully you remove the cap from your syringe. Taking a deep breath you stick the needle into your skin gently pulling the plunger back a fraction. A rich red floods the barrel. Bulls eye. With as steady a hand possible and a silent plea for them to remain that way, you depress the plunger at a uniform rate until all of the liquid has disappeared.

Bliss. Now not too quickly, you remove the point from your skin, firmly pressing some tissue over the bloody hole. Once the bleeding has stopped, you qrab the point of the needle with your bloodied tissue and twist it until it snaps off. Throwing both into the toilet, you flush them down the drain. You recap your now empty syringe and return it to its place in the eyeglass case. Wrap two elastics around the case and return it to your purse. You certainly can not be too careful. You want no rude surprises should you ever drop purse with contents spilling everywhere. Too big a risk to take for the functioning addict.

You gather your stuff and exit the stall, stopping to wash and dry your hands. Look for your comb to run through your hair. As everything went smoothly, you still have time to freshen your makeup. Touch of lipstick and a brush of powder and you are good to go. With one final glance back at the mirror, you open the bathroom door refreshed and satisfied by your half hour lunch break.

Methadone Pretty Indeed!

The following is a reaction to a debate – somewhat heated to be sure – that I recently got into with someone who once had been one of my dearest friends. Finally after a decade and a half of a pretty hardcore opiate addiction, he decided to go on methadone and has been on it just shy of two months. Already, he is spouting the rhetoric that I hear so very often from the majority of methadone patients at the clinic that I attend, and once again, I found myself frustrated. If some of what I am about to say doesn’t make complete sense, I apologize in advance as I was on a bit of a tear when I typed most of this!

I know that Methadone Maintenance Therapy and its success/benefits can certainly be a hotly debated topic on any given day within the opiate addict community. I certainly can understand why it is something that can get both the for and against sides worked up into quite the lather. There are many times when I wish that there was at least another solution to MMT rather than cold turkey and abstinence available to me, but unfortunately, in southwestern Ontario, Canada this is pretty much all that I’ve got right now.

Quite often, the meth program in my city can be a very negative experience. The few doctors that are part of it often stress only the negative – the high recidivism rate if you were to actually complete the program or the likelihood that you would spend your entire life in treatment. There can be little to no counciling, plus often they push and push you until you are on an almost unmanageable high dose often prescribing amounts way above what was your true blocking dose.  Then they discourage you when you want to start to taper down and decrease your dose. I refused to go any higher than 95mg once I felt that I had stabilized and am now currently on a dose of 60 that I find is more than adequate.. My husband stopped increasing his at 145mg and is currently on a dose of 90. A lot of the other patients were encouraged to go on doses that were at least double our amounts. No wonder they all felt like crap most of the time, not to mention feeling rather defeated.

Never mind all of the talk of methadone’s side effects. This alone can defeat you before you’re even given a chance to get started. How is it possible to imagine a life in recovery, if you’re never given the required encouragement to attempt to even get there? I think that a lot of methadone”s side effects are in reality urban legends. Now after spending three and a half years on it – round two for me also, as I spent almost the same amount of time on it a decade ago – I found many of the supposed possible side effects or reactions never materialized unless you literally “willed” them upon yourself. I found that those that bought into and blindly believed and accepted all the garbage that our doctors were feeding us actually developed exactly what they were told they would develop. Self-fulfilling prophecy really.

For many this became their license to not have to work or even look for work and justified their desire to eat any sweet thing that passed remotely within their line of vision and pound on those extra 70 pounds. Suddenly they felt completely justified in needing a previously unprescribed prescription for Ritalin to keep them going. While many of the people that I met while I was in treatment fell firmly into this category there were some that could just not settle into the program and found meth treatment to be an unfulfilled painful step of their recovery process. For these unfortunate few there were real and valid issues with methadone.

Yes, you definitely feel more exhausted and it is hard to focus at times. Suddenly you feel as if you have developed ADD. No doubt years of opiate abuse combined with meth’s assault on our bodies throws our metabolism right out of whack and we all seem to pacify this with an increase in our daily sugar intake. Obviously a weight gain will soon follow. But is this weight gain solely from the meth or are we no longer running ourselves into the ground constantly searching for our next hit? Once the hunt is removed we immediately become more sedentary. Combined with the fact that each and every penny is no longer being spent on illegal substances we find that for the first time in a long time we actually have a well stocked fridge and a full cupboard. We can finally get rid of that jumbo jar of peanut butter and  $.99 package of plain crackers.

With this kind of philosophy from the clinic it was no wonder that the majority of the patients felt as if they had traded one losing card for another. Had there been a little bit more positive feedback from the doctors I think that they would have seen entirely different results. I talked to so many that were also suffering from constant low level depression while in treatment. Because I felt that I was being prescribed my true stabilizing dose, once there, all cravings for opiates disappeared. Honestly

HOOKED

While I was transferring some of my files from my old hard drive onto my new computer, I found a folder with a series of images that I thought some might find kind of entertaining. These images were the individual pages of a comic book that had been distributed throughout New York city during 1966. It’s called HOOKED and its a story about one guy who finds himself unwittingly hooked on heroin. If anyone is interested in reading this 30 page story, click on the image. Once at the link, you’ll see the web page I’ve created and uploaded for this comic. There are individual full pages for each page of the comic so that it is nice and easy to read. Enjoy!!!

SHAKE THE DISEASE

After running into our old friend and dealer the other day, it suddenly occurred to me the number of females that we know who found themselves pregnant in the past two years, have given birth, and yet do not currently have custody of their newborn. Ashley was just the most recent of at least a half a dozen, or even more. Of all of these women, I am aware of only one of them who was able to leave the hospital with her daughter, who remains with her to this day, almost two years later. All of the others automatically were involved with Social Services. One of their representatives was literally waiting there in the birthing room to remove the newborn from the mother the second that this could safely be done.

This is frightening on a number of levels to be sure. Obviously these females were still abusing one, or more, illegal substances throughout the pregnancy. If she was unable to quit, or at least get on methadone – if opiates were the issue – the moment she found out her condition – and once the decision was made to continue with the pregnancy – she made it abundantly clear how very selfish, and negligent, she really was. Obviously, no serious consideration was given to the potential damage she could cause for her unborn child with continued substancve abuse. Without exception, all of these women did nothing at all to even curtail or reduce the amount or frequency of their substancve abuse. For me, personally, I had an extremely difficult time even interacting with any of them while they were pregnant, as it was near impossible for me to refrain from comment about this abuse.

Last week when I ran into Ashley, I simply could not keep quiet, especially as she was the one to introduce this topic into our conversation. Since the birth of her daughter a few months ago, her use has actually escalated, not to mention that she has now introduced speed into her daily doses of 8mg dilaudid pills. I am sorry, but WTF? Currently, her and her boyfriend do not have an apartment of their own. They’ve been rotating staying at various friends pretty much on a semi regular basis. The baby is currently with her mother, and by the look of their current situation, will most likely stay with her for the foreseeable future. She mentioned that the Social Worker was giving her six months to get her act together.

She was given a guideline of sorts as to what was expected of her to accomplish in order for her daughter to be returned to her. She’s got about six weeks maximum now before she has to meet with Children’s Aid. At this hearing, she ostensibly is to present to them why they should return her daughter to her care, Obviously they’re going to want to see that she is serious about her recovery which means that she should be on MMT at the very minimum by this time. She is also going to have to prove to them that she has a permanent address with the appropriate amount of space, or rooms, for a newborn to be adequately maintained, never mind flourish. I’m also guessing that she’ll need to prove that she has all of the proper furniture, accessories, food, et al for the baby. No doubt there is considerably more things that will be required for her to do and have. CAS is certainly not going to hand the baby back to her in a cavalier manner. They will look at every last detail under a magnifying lens is my best guess.

So far, she’s not done any of this. Nothing. In fact, about the only thing that she has really done is ensure that now her boyfriend also has a hardcore dependence on opiates. What a pair! I told her as much. I said that she needed to get serious right away, especially if she really and truly wanted custody of her daughter. She maintains that she does, but I don’t know anymore. I look at all Of the women whom have gone before her these past two years, and all I see is the writing that is already on the walls. What’s really gut wrenchingly sad is that in the end, it is the children who will suffer because of these women’s ultimately selfish attitudes and choices. If they’ve decided that they are simply incapable of cutting drugs from their life no matter how hard they try, what they really need to do is remove themselves completely from their child’s life, because in the end, the inevitable sporadic contact with them will damage these innocent babies immensely. Do the unbelievably unselfish act of severing ties completely so that their child has a chance of finding a family who will nurture and love and be completely involved and committed to them. Otherwise these babies barely stand a chance, and they might as well admit defeat before they even have a chance to get started!

NO LONGER NEED – OR WANT – THE CHAOS PART THREE

OK, so the original reason that I started my rant the other day regarding my former dealer was the fact that we unexpectantly ran into him and his girlfriend, and this meeting was still fresh in my mind. Considering the size of the city that I live in – just shy of 400 000 – it’s surprising, but by no means disappointing, that I’ve managed to avoid them these past three years. Yes, while it is very true that once we decided to clean ourselves up, Jim and I moved to a completely different part of town as well as severing all ties with the members of this lifestyle. Essentially, we isolated ourselves, and made sure not to leave any forwarding address.

As this town in reality is only so big, it was a matter of time before we ended up running into them, or at the very least, a mutual acquaintance – I hesitate to say friend. Also, as he was one of the primary dealers of pills three to six years ago, we were bound to run into some of his former customers as they, too, attempted to quit the pills, and clean up. Of course, as is normal amongst these types of cliques, gossip can run rampant, whether its actually true or not is an entirely different issue! So, for the past six months, I couldn’t help but hear what was being said about them, especially as they had recently had a little baby girl. There had been some pretty gruesome stories floating around about her especially.

She never did manage to quit the pills while she was pregnant, and in fact, while she was in the hospital delivering her daughter, she still somehow managed to continue to use. Apparently, so the doctors and nurses would not notice any track marks along her arms, she had been shooting into her neck. Naturally, she tested positive for drugs so right away, the social workers took her baby away from her. Luckily, her daughter was given into her mother’s care so she is able to see her as often as she wants. Now, whether or not,, she actually takes advantage of this situation is another matter all together. I guess she was given six months to get herself all  straightened out if she wanted custody to be returned to her.

Now, if her mother has the baby, then at least she will be denied nothing. She will be given every creature comfort imagined, especially lots and lots of love and attention. Her mother and step father are exceptionally wealthy and will be able to well provide for their grand daughter without any difficulty. Of course, their daughter could also live at this same standard save for the fact that she has messed up far too many times for her parents to continue to indulge her each and every whim. Those purse strings have long since been severed. She’s her own worst enemy. Her parents have given her far more chances than she should have had considering all of the things that she ultimately did to them. they’ve been way more patient than I think I would be. I say this from complete first hand experience as I have had frequent as well as extended interactions with both of her parents, as well as her older sister. Her mother, is in fact, a year younger than myself.

There is so much more detail that I could go into, but I will have to save this for another day, as I don’t really have the time right now. So to whomever made the comment about our dealers not really being our friends, this particular situation doesn’t quite apply to that statement. Yes, I am aware that no dealer is ever your friend. Its business plain and simple. This particular arrangement was slightly different as I mentioned a few posts ago, that in fact, one of our friends of longstanding – just over twenty years – ended up becoming one of our dealers by virtue of him having a product to sell that we wished to purchase.

Anyway, I’ve somehow managed to lose my original reason for this post so let’s see if I can somehow get myself back on track. OK, so we finally ran into them the other day. They were in pretty rough shape as both of them were pretty sick, and it didn’t look as if they were going  to have any luck locating what they needed.  As a last resort, they were going to grab a bunch of speed in the hope that this would help with their withdrawal. I’m thinking not so much, but I’m so not an expert in this particular area. Anyway, she and I chatted for a bit about her current situation, and she expressed that she did want her daughter  to be able to live with her, but that she didn’t think that she would be able to give up the pills, or more importantly the chaotic lifestyle that she has come to know as normal.

Its a really sad and tragic situation to everyone involved.

NO LONGER NEED – OR WANT – THE CHAOS PART TWO

One of the questions regarding my previous posts had to do with my friend that was, and as far as I know, still prescribed huge amounts of dilaudid. He received, and receives I guess, 720 8mg brand name dilaudids on the first Wednesday of each month. It is his family doctor that prescribes these o him. I have filled this prescription many times in the past for him, and as he is not on any sort of drug plan, it was about $320CAD the last time I picked it up for him over three and a half years ago. He receives these due to some injuries he ended up receiving on a work site. As far as I know, him and two other workers somehow ended up being literally buried alive for a large part of one of their work days. When they rescued them all, he had broken both of his legs, some ribs, his right hand and one of the fingers on his left hand. I know that he also sustained some nerve damage in one of his hands. As far as I remember, he ended up being in hospital close to six months. Anyway, initially he never actually used any of his pain meds as he quickly learned that they were much more valuable to him if he sold them outright.

Now, as far as I know this worked nicely for him for years. He was able to pay his mortgage plus keep himself in as much speed as he could possibly imagine. All was good in his little world. That is until he met his current girlfriend, who also just happened to be half of his age. She played him beautifully. He chucked out the old wife and brought in the newer and younger model who just happened to have a raging pill habit. A match made in heaven, n’est pas? Pretty soon, the young lass found herself pregnant, but with no plan on attempting to clean herself up either. By this time, he had managed to lose most of his customers, not to mention friends due to his new love and her ever growing influence on him. Seems that wherever she went, you could be sure to find you were missing things. She was also a major thief. I also had the pleasure of being on her receiving end of this little trait of hers to the tune of near $1000!

I’ve just been informed that he now has a raging pill habit worse than hers, and is fast losing every little thing, including his brand, new daughter. He either does all of the prescription he gets within two weeks, or sells more than he needs to, but word is that by the middle of the month, he is begging anyone that will still listen to help him.

So, my hat goes off to you indeed. Had you not become so insufferable a few years back, I may never have tried MMT out again, but you did, and so did I. It has been a massive success, and I know that I wouldn’t be sitting here today, rubbing my hands in karmic glee without you!