#scrthaddct

[scrthaddct-blog]

I’ve struggled with an addiction to opiates for most of this decade, and before I swallowed that fateful Percocet I was an alcoholic. This blog will not celebrate or glorify the addict lifestyle. I am not proud of the fact that I am hiding my addiction, but I am not currently ready to either come clean or get clean. My goal is total abstinence from drugs and alcohol. Quitting drinking was fairly easy, but quitting heroin has been quite the opposite. A big reason I am in this mess is because I didn’t take my habit seriously enough at the beginning. I have gone to meetings and will continue to go to meetings but I have not found them helpful (I’ll get specific about this in future posts). I am constantly worried and frightened. I am always broke and my partner is getting sick of my increasingly desperate excuses. I want to quit but I don’t want to quit.

I am currently in a methadone program but I still use heroin anytime I have money to pay for it, which is most days. I’m a fairly typical case. I hit the pharmacy on my way to work, get through the day, and then start the search for drugs after work. I have two different dealers on opposite sides of town, and they don’t deliver. (Heroin dealers almost never deliver. Most of them are hooked on their own product and therefore try to avoid exertion because it kills the opiate high.) One dealer is thirty minutes from my house by transit, the other is forty-five. This may not sound like much but it is. Taking into account the amount of time they make me wait outside their respective buildings (one often forgets I’m waiting there and nods off, which is fucking MADDENING, especially in my pre-methadone days as I’d be dopesick).  I live within walking distance of my workplace, so it makes no difference where I start from. Best case scenario, it takes an hour round trip. Worst case, 2.5 hours. Both scenarios are rare, as I spend an average of 80 minutes every day en route to buy heroin. (As for the obvious question of why I don’t just stock up or buy bulk, it’s because I’m always quitting tomorrow. Always.) I spend a minimum of $20 for a point (that 0.01 grams), but that too is a rare occurence. I am usually able to scrounge up $30 for a point and a half. For my east side guy, I try to show up as late as possible because he gets progessively higher as the day passes, and when he’s high he often can’t be bothered to open up a flap and tosses me 2 for the price of 1.5.

I’m sure the more financially prudent of you are astounded, thinking to yourselves “HOW THE FUCK CAN THIS GUY AFFORD TO SPEND $30 EVERY SINGLE DAY?” That’s a fair question. The answer is...

I can’t. I can’t afford $30 a day. I couldn’t even afford $20 a day. Back when I tried Suboxone for 3 months, a maintenance drug my insurance wouldn’t cover, I was barely able to find the $11 it cost each day. 

I cannot afford my addiction, so I have to do things I never thought I’d do, things I can’t describe here. I’m sure you can imagine. Things aren’t as bad as they were a few years ago, but I still feel like I’m not in control. It’s unbelievable, the way my mind goes blank en route to my dealer. It goes blank so I don’t change my mind. I am forcing myself not to think about the things I want to think about, like maybe finding a 12-step group instead, or just going home to watch a movie. Every day, unless I’ve truly exhausted all options and have no money, I go somewhere to buy drugs.  

Lately I actually have been using less, but only because I haven’t had the money, not because I am getting help or altering my habits. For the last 2 or 3 months the cycle goes like this: Every other Friday is payday. My paycheques aren’t consistent but I usually receive between $1100 and $1300. Peanuts, I know. The money is deposited into my account at five in the morning, but I am awake, manically refreshing my browser on my phone while walking to the nearest ATM. The instant the money comes in I withdraw my daily maximum of $500 and make a hopeful call to each of my dealers. 

This call is a Hail Mary. Coke dealers might stay up all night, for obvious reasons, but people who peddle dope are safe and secure in their beds, snoring softly or jerking awake with a gasp because heroin causes sleep apnea. I continue to call both numbers until one of them picks up and tells me to come by. I use over the weekend while spending time with my partner. I am in a terrific mood the entire time. I am usually running low by Sunday afternoon so I re-up later that night. By either Tuesday or  Wednesday the drugs are gone and I am broke. I mean completely broke. I spend every cent I can on drugs. And I say drugs because I often grab a gram or two of coke. It’s never been my drug of choice, but most heroin users start doing coke around the two year mark because we don’t really get high anymore - we just feel normal - and the coke gives the heroin a sharp glimmer. Also, heroin is stronger than it was even 2 years ago, and I get tired and coke helps. I like to be awake to enjoy my heroin. (PS: ALL heroin has fent in it nowadays. Unless you’re a filthy rich lawyer spending enough cash to get a direct source, which would be 100k a year, you are doing fent every time you use heroin.)

Where was I? Right! The cycle of addiction that is holding me captive and ruining my life.

This Tuesday or Wednesday is always pretty rough. I don’t get dopesick, thanks to my trusty methadone, but the physical symptoms have never been the bane. It’s the mental stuff. It is indescribable. I’ll try anyway but I’ll miss. The only point I hope you take away is that this depression, or despair, or black hole, goes way beyond the personal. It’s not “I am sad. Poor me.” It’s...wider than that. Denser. It is inescapable. My thoughts seem to think themselves, without my consent. They don’t arrive in full sentences, or even words, but blood-deep feelings, forbodings, certainties that nothing is worth getting out of bed for, that you will never feel joy, or even a gust of mild pleasantry, that you are a fucking asshole junkie loser and even if you could get sober, which you won’t, there would be no point because the world is a sick machine bleeding a massive shit...etc etc etc. I quoted Green Day somewhere in that run-on sentence. Bonus points for finding it without Google or any other internetz. 

Anyway, I call the first day back after a binge Day One, for a few reasons. One, because what else would I call it? Two, it’s the name of a really pretty song by a band called Kyuss. And three, it’s kinda funny because it’s one of Amazon’s core values, repeated over and over by the Amazon army, those poor souls who work there for fractions of what their selfish psychotic CEO hoards. 

Day One. More often that not I make it through, and the second is always easier. But sometimes I do stupid shit. My lone suicide attempt was on a particularly desolate Day One. I woke up in my own vomit and took a shower. Then I called my dealer because I’d consumed all my heroin with my Death Dose.

So that’s a summary of where I’m at these days. Trying to get through. Tomorrow is another Day One so wish me luck. I’ll need it.