Now I might be wrong here but why the hell are you reducing ur meth script at the mo stee when you're still shooting up??
To me this sounds completely counter-intuitive? surely you wanna be on a dose that is holding you to the point you DON'T need to be shooting up? reducing now (to me) seems like the worst idea cuz soon as you drop lower you will be back to square one?
EDIT: I really hope this post doesn't come across as judging, I just am struggling to understand your motives with reducing the meth whilst still actively iv'ing h? I know that if this was me I wouldn't be strong enough to stay off gear entirely if I was still using semi regularly
No i's OK bcf it's a perfectly legitimate query to what sounds like counter-intuitive motivation.
You see - it is. I hate being a heroin addict, but the drug is lovely and I have never wanted to stop completely using it. It's heroin. It's recognised among the most addictive drugs in the world, alongside tobacco, and alcohol. It makes your behaviour irrational. I went around in circles for 10 years, spending periods of up to three years at a time in constant physical dependency, and periods one of which went up to 3 years without being physically dependant. But once it got me it got me - I never stopped using, the longest I went without was for around 5 months during the 3 year period but on average I had to have a sly pie at least once every 2 - 3 months just for satisfactions sake. I love the drugs effects, it's one of my favourite head spaces to be in, but it's unlike other quality drug experiences as it's just not compatible with social functioning, as you need nothing but the drug and yourself and so far as heroin goes, that's party time.
But I'm old and ugly enough now to realise you cannot have it both ways, and the only way to ultimately function and create one last chance for myself to rejoin society is to knock it on the head. But after spending a decade avoiding treatment so that I could always clean myself up from a straight cold turkey, something which while is vastly unpleasant, I have been able to do on many occasions and something I believe would be ultimately more difficult if not impossible to do from methadone. So, by avoiding getting a methadone script - I conned myself for years thinking that I had at least some control over when I need to stop using. I did - but what I never grasped is how to stop starting using again, as I have continued to chip even during long periods in which I have had no physical need for a habit. I'm so pathetic that I once went 8 days (at which point I generally feel 'back on my feet' and sober following a straight CT) cleaning myself up and naturally got some gear to celebrate (which was not unusual for one of my efforts) but on this occasion I didn't even get away with just a victory twist - I came into some money I was owed so I spent 3 days using which being that fragile meant that by day 4 I was more or less in full withdrawal again
So this time around, I'm a couple of years off 40, I had returned to find my family home in uproar so my mother now needs 24 hour care from either myself or my father due to 'challenging behaviours' that she displays following a long period of alcoholism, which had crept up so slowly over the years, it left her with some degree of brain atrophy that would have resulted in a Wernicke's encephalopathy / Korsakoff type illness had we not physically stopped her drinking. So, I decided to play the long game following my last relapse - surrender to treatment and ask for a reduction in order that I can be swapped over to buprenorphine. But the doctor kept me on a blocking dose of methadone for the best part of a year, as she could see that I was never going to stop using OT and I needed to learn the hard way, so that after enough money has been wasted on trying to get high when you can't it changed my behaviour surrounding the routine and amount of heroin I use.
So, when It reached the absolute minimum I could live with, they are now dropping my methadone dose continuously until the autumn, at which point they can swap me over to bupe - and once I'm stable on it they can continue to decrease until I get a place a residential rehabilitation unit I have been referred to and I have contact with already. It's a 14 week course during which time I'm hoping whatever clever CBT programme or brainwashing technique they have will be positive, productive and engaging and that it will result in a total change in my perspective on life. Because that is what it is going to take to stop me using heroin completely, and I believe that in over 95% of cases people who have had a dependency in the past simply cannot continue to use occasionally on an indefinite basis - even if you keep it up for years - i did - you will always and inevitably have a full relapse. I hope that I will achieve this result, as I can see no other option. If it does not change my way of thinking, then it will at least buy me a couple of months worth of life but nothing more as I can see myself at the moment waiting 6 months or so and thinking I can have a one off, which obviously isn't going to work. Either way once I'm on the Bupe I will be fully committed to this for at least the amount of time while it is in process - as I know that once I 'graduate' from the facilities course I will either go and use again and sooner or later relapse, or will never go near a crumb again. And it may have to result in the cessation of any unprescribed drugs hopefully with the possible exception of cannabis.
But until the day comes when I have to stop using I will probably carry in. I smoke most of my gear and always have done - but my tolerance is so high now that I will get through 5 - 8 bags on a session just to get it full on. But by shooting one first I can get away with using much less, as for instance I sparked last night after the two I tucked into while posting, leaving me with the majority left for the w/e which would also give me the room to have a trip or something a little more exotic as I have the perfect after-cushion. I have no life really, no friends I see on a regular basis, just here, my key worker and the adult training centre I use on a weekday to do online courses and to try and get out of this fucking house, as my mother is awful to live with due to her behaviour, and sometimes spending the weekend anaesthetised is the only way I can live here as I have no where else to go until my res. rehab placement is ready.
My money limits my use, so as it is for a fixed period of time, I'm not going to make anything worse at the moment by having a few bags twice a month, as one days use has never precipitated any extra w/d symptoms (unless I'm in the middle of doing a straight CT). My methadone dose has always held me just fine but the underlying fact that I want to get high, not 'stable' means that until this aspect of my thinking is addressed, I will continue to want too. I'm just in a position at the moment where I can actually manage my use (I now have such a splitting headache from feeling so high last night that the thought of a bag is making me feel sick at the moment - the sort of 'hangover' I would get from a heavy session during the chipping phases of my habit), but it is only due to current routine, financial situation and the possibility of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I know I would not be able to maintain this for ever without the amount I use or the amount I inject increasing, but once I'm down another 10ml (which should be by the end of September) and swap over to buprenorphine I will be stuck as I was before and will not be able to use while the taper Is in its most crucial phase.
I know it's silly and inadvisable and I need to consider making any further references to my use on here until this is all over and done with, but even if you cannot make head nor tail of any of the above BCF - it's heroin, it's really hard for me, in fact impossible, to motivate myself to stop taking it while I'm kept physically dependant on opiates / oids, so until such time as I'm ready for action I cannot see where the motivation will come from. All I know is that I'm using heroin way way less than I ever have done while remaining physically dependent, and that's going to have to be good enough for me now. I'll step my game up as and when I need to, which as I have been saying should be within the next 2 months -so realistically I may only be going back out to cop again 4 times or so anyway....
