Tacodude, sounds like you want to treat your chronic pain more than you want to quit using heroin. In this case, why are you not getting 100% pure china white for essentially pennies?
I was also very functional (I was an engineer). I could never hold a job forever as there would always come a time when I would be sick, then I was worse than bedridden, but I could hold these types of jobs for around 6 months to a year while I was using. Until it caught up with me at the end, rand myself broke and had to quit as I was spending my life pretty much bedridden.
For several years I was completely functional though, nobody really ever knew. My two past girlfriends knew, and I eventually told my younger brother, who didn't tell anyone even when my life was at risk. I was never after the nod, I started using the drug specifically for pain relief and then got addicted to it. I couldn't get shit but a handful of percs from the doctors, and that was after a 2 year wait in excruciating pain. I had snapped by the end of that, had already done heroin, opium, hydromorphone, and oxycodone by the time I even had my first MRI. I had also started getting daily panic attacks from the stress of being in pain all the time.
I don't know man it's weird like I don't feel the pain as bad now. I swear it would never go away but it's not bothering me the same. I'm also not working a corporate job anymore, though, and my life is generally pretty stress free right now. I feel like the more I keep myself active and my mind off the pain, the better it becomes. Mine is definitely psychosomatic, a lot of it. Like a real bad injury I think I healed from but took so long the acute pain turned chronic simply from the nerves firing for so long they would stfu. Or something like that... I have damage too, but a lot of people have worse damage and no chronic pain, others have no visible damage and excruciating chronic pain. It's complex like that... and makes it tough for doctors to prescribe a med people try and hustle. This is why I tried dope, but it isn't why I got hooked on it. Fuckin loved the high, fit me like a glove in more ways than making me forget I ever even hurt my back. As a heroin user I was 200 pounds and very muscular. I would practice yoga 2 or 3 hours a day, and my guitar for 4 while working. That's a lot for me now.
Eventually my tolerance got so high I couldn't deal with it anymore, shot up 5 times and sort of re-evaluated what I was doing with my life. If I wanted to end up covered in tracks in a couple years if I was lucky enough not to get too heavy of a hit. I can't function without benzos, I would really prefer not to use them but I would otherwise be in a chronic state of panic and fear. I was this way for around a year or longer before I got on them during yet another panic-related visit to the ER. Was cutting my arms and shit. I am not getting off those anytime soon... no way. The lifestyle of my H use and how things ended traumatized me enough for now, that I can taper to a lower dose of those at least in the future.
It's only an epidemic because they don't give out the pure (the cure). I was always pissed about that... I've had really good china white before once in my life. Pretty much so amazing that it ruined all other dope for me forever, even made slabs of afghan #4 chipped off a key seem relatively not-as-good-shit. Why is a drug with such a risk of overdose resulting in death sold in an unregulated black market with no quality control exactly? It's bad enough they fuck with the herb like that.
Yeah man I wish I could just be a stoner and tripper like that... I still have the benzos to deal with, so I guess technically I'm not clean, but doing much better. Used to take massive doses of benzos in withdrawal just to try and knock myself out before I could get high again... when I knew I'd have money or a reup or whatever. I couldn't feel the benzos in withdrawal... I could take like 20mg alprazolam at once and hardly feel the tension relieve itself, never sleep either. Then once I got high I'd realize that I was wrecked on those benzos... dicey behaviour. I don't take abusive benzo doses like that anymore, I'm not trying to escape from anything.
My back is somehow improving over time, I can't explain it but I think it has to do with positivity and attractive constructive things into my life. Keeping myself busy and if I ever feel that pain flare up I'll either lay down on my heating pad or push myself through it. None of my previous bosses even new what chronic pain was, and I look like a healthy, youthful man. So when I tell them I simply can't help them lift something, it's like wtf. Or, if I am in too much pain at work to function, it's not like it is acceptable for me to lay down on a heating pad for 30 minutes. So I am still trying to find the right job for me. I love what I am doing now but I need more money. The money I was making as an H user, but without spending every last cent on heroin.
Spacejunk, a friend from here gave me the idea to write a book the other day. I never knew what I would write about before but many people have suggested that I look into this. I have the idea now, so that is pretty neat to me. I will have to try playing a Gretsch sometime. Your style sounds crazy diverse! I use an overdriven valve amp as well, and I play in a small unfinished cement area that has really nice acoustics. I have 2 dials on my amp, like to control everything with analog pedals. I would like a keyboard too, one with a lot of keys, that can make trippy psychedelic sounds with different pedals (like maybe a Moog phaser, or something like that)... that is the idea I have for the 3rd member of the band I would like to form. Just someone with a solid piano background who would have fun messing around with new sounds, and maybe some beats and stuff too. Yeah though once I started playing from the heart things got a lot more fun, I randomly became a lot more creative at one point in my life. Since I quit using H, I have been more creative than ever before in my life. Not just with guitar but photography, journal writing, my appearance (tattoos, new piercings, dyed and oddly styled hair), my work that involves teaching... and somehow I have attracted this foxy lady into my life. Taking things slower with her than anyone before, but there has been attraction building up for like a month and I have very strong feelings for her. I don't think I had a sex drive when I was using heroin... it didn't really matter to me at the time, because I had no desire for anything like that.
