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I tried the magic methamphetamine 2 months before this entry - not long after I turned 15
it seemed so new and cool even tho I'd used it evry day since I tried it!

i pulled the wool over Mum's eyes till oneday she walked in on me shooting up
Dad was a stoner and a tripper, but many of his mates went further

I was scared of Dad - the guy beat me daily - but P mattered more
looking back I was an addict from day 1

26/7/99 (AGE 15) - AN ADDICT DOESNT FOOL AN EX-DRUGGIE
Still feeling good - Valium-induced good but what the hell! I seem to swing a bit these days - I'm either very stoned and sleepy and mellow (well-enhanced by the crash) or I'm up in the land of crystal meth where I'm actually happy for the first time in my life. Right now I'm just tweaking a bit but this batch is disappointingly short-acting. I had a boring day - I wish Jay was still in Mt Roskill, then I wouldn't have to spend all my time smoking alone! When I got home after a visit to Joe's when he got home from karate, I rang Laura, Christiana, Alisha and the Shack.
Laura seems cool except she's worried because her Tae Kwon Do instructor knows now that she has a crush on him (ahhh GHB). Christi was watching the soccer and Alisha was coming down from the meth she buys in point bags at Papakura tinniehouses. Dodgy yellowy powder. Makes me shudder. So those were short convos.
As for the people at the Stoner Shack - Adrienne's had an asthma attack and Rasty's got the flu so I just chatted to Herbs and Jayson. Then Dad took me out to dinner at a Thai restaurant with his new girlfriend and her son.
I picked at my food and he said snidely something about how I never seemed to eat anymore then he asked 'which drug it was' on the way to drop me home.
I said 'WHAAAAT!?'
How do you fool him though? He was a drug user!

NB - FIRSTLY THESE NAMES COULD BE ALIASES
Jayson (Jay) - a friend I had a major crush on
Mt Roskill - a suburb near where I live, and of course, a mountain in the middle of it
Joe - a mate born into the gang I used to cook for
Laura - probably my oldest friend who's still a friend, even though now she's clean
Christiana - my girlfriend at the time
Alisha - my ex, though we were friends for years before having a relationship
Stoner Shack ('the Shack') - basically where Rasty's whanau lived out west Auckland and theyd take in any stoner who wanted to doss down and live off the dole there (whanau is Maori for family)
Papakura - the southernmost suburb of Auckland, where I lived for about a year once
tinniehouse - where anyone can go to buy foil packages (20$ 'bullets' called tinnies) of weed; run by gangs usually, and heard of by word of mouth (some sell points of meth too but its never good stuff)
Adrienne - my first 'best friend' at intermediate school, who got into drugs with me; now totally clean, going to NA after a 5yr jail sentence (shortened majorly) and working on a sheep station in the wops
Rasty - real name need not b mentioned; Adriennes ex-husband who told me he was Jamaican when I first met him (he is clearly Maori) and loves weed but hates other drugs (trouble is he smoked weed from age 6 onwards)
Herbs - another ex of mine and once Rasty's best friend, now another victim of P and a violent paranoid guy

Jan 5th, 2005
Mum's birthday today - I've had a pretty ace day and I'm full of good food and good drugs so it's been a good day.
On Wednesday I woke up late because I took too many pills the night before (I took some Phenergan as well, to take the opiate itch away - told Mum it was fleas making me itch....) and didn't come around until the afternoon when I woke with the shits. I wasn't feeling very well altogether until I had another pill to take the edge off - then I was hungry as a horse and feeling generous so I took Liam to Ollie's and bought us lunch.
I purposefully fueled up big-time because I planned to ride the glass boat with Captain Methamphetamine later and you need that fuel when you're tweaking or Captain Methamphetamine decides to snack on fried mussels (well....muscles) and you lose shape. Losing shape never bothered me till a doctor told me if I kept using meth I was going to start burning away the muscles around my heart and lungs. So now I eat no matter what.
After Ollie's I ritualistically burned some incense while I dug into that lovely crystal meth I got from Julian - five generous scoops full so that there was a 'layer effect' going on on the floor of the vessel and when it heated there was a pool big enough to bloody swim in.
Of course it hit me so hard I nearly jumped out the fucking window! Full of Pure energy (the other way you can tell I'm fried - I become the fountain of amphetamine-laced wit) I rounded up Liam and the dogs and we had a power walk around Onehunga Bay, where I bored Liam babbling on at seven-hundred miles per hour about how I didn't think it was fair the government bringing drug-testing on the roads to New Zealand because some drugs ('methamphetamine, just for example....') make you a better driver.
A big French mastiff, with a set of balls like brass knockers, came over to play with Cullen and Lola and it stopped to sniff Liam then proceded to pee all down his leg. I was beside myself!
Liam laughed awkwardly (well, pseudo-laughed) then dragged me off home, insisting that he drive because over his dead body was he being caught being driven by someone so 'obviously' high on P. I suppose I was hopping like the Energizer Bunny and laughing like Spongebob Squarepants.
Goddamn I'm barbecued - all aboard...I'm going off the rails on a crazy boat! (Well at least I'm not shooting it at the moment!)
I spent the rest of that afternoon (and evening) watching Outrageous Fortune, chain-smoking, talking to inanimate objects and dogs and anything that would listen. I wrote a letter to Charlie, which I'll send off with a stash of ice, speed, weed, codeine, coke and Ritalin, for a belated Christmas drug binge.
I'm nice but I have ulterior motives - I'm pleading to be sent some of his oxy and Dilaudid. I'm just beginning to find morphine isn't exactly working again and I don't want to have to go back to 'opioids I have to inject' (ie. homebake and heroin). Fuck I'm turning back into a junkie.
Hey, stop thinking like this, Lydia, you're high on crack - who cares what happens in the future...just enjoy the fucking P while it lasts!

NB. Liam is my younger, long-suffering brother, who did 'all the right things' in life.
Cullen and Lola were the dogs we had at that time (we still have Lola, the pitbull/bulldog/labrador/mastiff, but Cullen, the labrador, had to move on, as he kept escaping out of our property!)
Charlie is an alter-ego for a druggie penpal I had at the time, living in the States (we didn't hav oxy over here back then - we still dont hav dillys )....and yes we did send drugs to each other with our letters....I won't go into how we managed it but it was pretty dangerous of us!

You know, for the last , say 6 months or so, I have been on an emotional roller coaster.
I thought therapy was going really well for me- but I feel like I am so overwhelmed by the things coming out in therapy that I am shutting down mentally and opening up emotionally. I have been pretty good at thinking my feelings through and obviously that is not happening anymore. I am shutting down and just letting myself wallow in my depression some days. I almost want to stop going.
My therapist is cool- She is open minded and just generally a cool person. She is into religions (Buddhism mostly ) and Astrology-
She totally was open to me telling her about me communicating with spirits (yeah, yeah- say what you will) and my intuition-
She understood it actually. The feelings of panic and anxiety that 'could this thought be a prediction?' b/c all of these other thoughts were.....
I know this sounds silly to people who don't get it or haven't experienced it.....
But she gets it- So I like her.
She has encouraged me to open up more to myself.....Um, in a way that I thought was positive. She made me realize I give myself no slack and though I am totally accepting of other peoples faults I beat up on myself......
She helped me to accept that though I cope and am okay- I will always be growing from and carrying the weight of my past sexual issues- My parental issues- my extended family issues.
I used to put them away and just not deal with them. I would say its like a filing cabinet- I just put the thought in the cabinet and locked it up-
Well, she unlocked it and I THOUGHT this was a good thing......
But turns out it is making me a basket case.
And then yesterday I kind of snapped on her......
I guess b/c what she said made me lose a little bt of faith in how solid the work we were doing was......
I told her that I have been mean to people, particularly my husband.
He and I got in a fight and I was downright hateful to him.
Though my point and complaints were valid, my presentation ruined it and made me look like my complaints were coming from an irrational place.
I channeled everything I hate and it came spewing out of my mouth.
I feel that when you say things that are purposefully hurtful, it is verbally abusive.
THIS took me a long time to face b/c I always made excuses for other people tearing me down verbally- Finally I admitted to myself that I had been verbally/emotionally abused and it wasn't okay-
Then there I was doing this to someone else.
My therapist told me it was okay- I snapped back without hesitating (which was not right, I should have thought it through) That it was in no way okay and I'm not going to sit there and let her, or myself make any excuses for that sort of behavior. Her eyes got all big and then I felt like an asshole all over again.
I know she was trying to keep me from carrying too much guilt (b/c that is an issue for me- and didn't want me to beat myself up) She even said "I was just trying to make you feel better"!!
But I have told her in the past that I never want to NOT take responsibility for the wrong I do, have done etc. If I am wrong I want to recognize it, apologize and learn from it.....I felt like she was suffocating that part of me- Trying to make excuses for me.......
Which is what I have done for others and that makes me sick.

I feel like I'm sinking and not able to be logical or stable anymore.
I don't know how to get back on solid ground again.
Maybe I will feel different tomorrow.

been on hiatus for two years. i don't do drugs anymore so i guess it hasn't been on my priority list to visit the boards here lately.

but wow! i thought my vbjournal was gone ages ago. just spent some time reading old entries. man, i was insane back in the day!

july 11 2010 will be my 24th birthday and mark the third year i've been sober. i'm actually working in a rehab now.... crazy shit how much things have changed.

A little bit more about my time as a commodities broker.

I started out selling currency options. Options can be pretty confusing, and truth be told; I still don't understand everything about them. When I was doing it, currencies were a completely unregulated market. There were dozens of firms in South Florida doing it because there was no one to say whether we were upholding any type of ethical code. Many companies were outright robbing their clients, and lying to them as to whether they actually owned any contracts. Mine was a little bit more legit.

The idea behind an option is that, for a small dollar amount, one can leverage a large amount of a given commodity, or stock, or currency. Contract sizes differ from commodity to commodity, but when I started out, we were selling Euro/USD call options.

We were predicting that the US dollar would lose value against the Euro. My job was to call people up, get them excited about it, convince them that they could make a lot of money, and then have them send our clearing firm $5-$10,000.

The problem is, usually, the options would lose value pretty rapidly, and expire. The investment would be worth zero in less than three months time.

Now, we actually had an outside clearing firm, called PFG at the time. The company was simply collecting commission on the options they sold. However, as I mentioned before, the group of people I worked for had been doing this in Spain prior to coming to Florida.

While they were in Spain they owned their clearing firm and their brokerage.

That's important because they were able to sell their own options. They could sell you an option, collect commission on the sale in their left pocket, AND put the money you actually spent on the option in their right pocket.

So they would charge HUGE commission and sell you a shitty position. You might as well have been handing them ten thousand dollars and then walking away.

Eventually from what I understand, Interpol caught up with them and froze their clearing firm's account. It had something like ten million in it. They moved to Florida.

Now, I didn't know all that when I started working for them. All I knew was, there's a lot of successful people around, I'm living in a halfway house, I want to drive a SL600, and I want Zegna suits, and Gucci shoes, etc etc. And I hadn't seen the movie Boiler Room.

When I started working for these guys they had already established a commodities firm. Commodities are highly regulated. One must obtain a license to sell them, you gotta pass an exam and a very thorough criminal background check.

There were three guys who owned these two firms. Of the three, two had been in Spain, one of them had his commodities license pulled while he was out there, and one had a felony in Florida for cocaine trafficking.

The guy with the clean record started up a legit commodities company with money the other two gave him. He then hired them as consultants on the books and paid them that way.

Which is one reason I don't have a license anymore.

The other reason is, they didn't give a shit about making people money. They were in it for the commission. They gave their employees a story that makes sense, and trained them to pitch it on the phone. We didn't have any real use for market knowledge. We were salesmen. So they hired a guy to train us to pass the series 3 exam, and then they gave the testing agency a letter saying that English wasn't our first language, buying us an extra hour to pass the test.

Well, The National Futures Association, which is basically the Securities Exchange Commission for commodities markets, found out.

And after a hearing in Chicago they tore our licenses up.

Which is fine. I may only know a portion of the financial world. I don't believe I saw the ugliest part, and certainly not the best part. But from what I saw, it's definitely not the place for me.

I am now working in a treatment center. And I found out yesterday that I've been approved for a few grants to get back into school. My experience as a 'broker' is one that taught me a lot, but I consider it kind of a bump along a road. The greed, the deception. It's too much.

Ok, so.

I believe my vbjournal covered the bulk of my drug use. I became physically dependent on heroin at the age of seventeen. Lots of misery and obsession and repetition followed.

Luckily when I was ready, my cousin and my uncle both put down some money and I was able to move from Ellicott City, which is just west of Baltimore, into a halfway house in Boca Raton, Florida.

So in July of 2007. I found myself, on my 21st birthday, wandering around East Boca on foot. I can remember the sun beating me down, sweat dripping from every pore on my body. I had been through detox, but I didn't sleep through the night for months. That day I couldn't find my way out of my neighborhood for what felt like hours. The humidity coupled with my brain and body, angry for lack of heroin, formed an impenetrable veil of confusion and exhaustion.

I ended up making my way over to the business office at the halfway house. A guy named Carlo recognized me as a new resident.

Carlo was charged with the duty of convincing addicts and alcoholics, or their parents, that this particular halfway house was the place they needed to be. He was an older Italian man with a gray mustache and gold peaking out from inside his clothing. He drove a shiny new black Cadillac CTS.

"What's up Nick?"
"Carlo! I'm sick! It's like ninety-nine degrees out here! I can't find work! And it's my birthday!"

So Carlo invites me into his office and proceeds to get me a job working for a guy named Ray.

So the next day I get on a bus with two other guys from the halfway house. We get off the bus, and I have no idea what the fuck kind of job I've been hired to do. We walk into an open office area, with maybe ten desks set up. I'm asked to have a seat. Before long everyone in the place is on their feet shouting into telephones. They're talking about dollars and euros and oil and shit I don't even know. Then I meet Ray.

Ray is a guy I will never forget for as long as I live. The guy is maybe six inches shorter than I, with short gray hair spiked. He's got these suspicious eyes like chaos. He's got a gold Rolex, a gold bracelet, a gold chain around his neck... and he's fierce.

Thus I began my short career as a "broker."

What I did for the following two years wasn't right. I justified it in my head, I thought to myself; "It's ok! I'm not breaking any laws."

And I wasn't. I worked for a group of guys who legally took people's money and in exchange gave them absolutely nothing.

My roommate and I think we might have a story, working for these people, that could sell books or movies or TV shows. He met them in Barcelona, back when they were breaking laws. They moved him to Florida after they set up shop down here and decided to go mostly legit.

I'll probably elaborate more on that another time. For now though, suffice to say I'm out of that business. My commodities license was revoked and our attorney told us it would probably cost between $20-$40,000 to get it reinstated. Not worth it to me, I'm sick of markets.

I've been out since November of 2009. During the last seven months I've been moving from job to job. I tried a couple sales jobs, I worked in a warehouse for a while, got a part time job stocking magazines in various retail chains, and now I'm working as a behavioral health technician in a rehab. Basically what that means is I keep track of patients and make sure they're not fucking each other or killing each other (or themselves) and I gotta convince them not to leave sometimes as well.

I have a girlfriend. Our one year anniversary is in August. She's six years older than me... she turned thirty in May. She's my baby. She treats me better than any other woman I've ever had in my life, save my mom. Reading my older journal entries today, I was definitely forced to realize how sick my relationships were in the past. Very glad things have changed so much.


Well, my roommate's laptop is almost out of battery power, and I don't know where the charger is, so I'll write more tomorrow.

peace!

How has my prior knowledge and experience affected my work on this step?

06/12/10 7:53 AM

This is the last question from The Step Working Guide for Step One. This question is obviously not written for someone new but more for someone who is going through the steps again.

How very anti-climatic.

Same date and location as before, 830PM now...

To continue...

Westerners are undoubtedly wondering why someone didn't simply call the police. On Mindanao this is rarely even considered in the cities but in rural areas it is never an option. IF they even come it will usually take hours even when a garrison is near by.

The Philippines, unlike Western nations, has a nationalised police system, the "PNP*" (Philippines National Police). It operates in paramilitary fashion and police are rarely, if ever, local folk. In rural Mindanao this means they are less respected than a stray dog (at least one can eat the dog). Many are corrupt (making 180 US a month one can hardly blame them) and those that are not are generally inept.

Now, as I said in the last entry, Bisaya lack the reflex that allows one to flee when they face danger. It is not the "Headlight" dynamic, like a deer in one's headlight, because as I said the habal habal (trike) drivers were moving a few meters to and fro.

In any event, he noticed me as I knew he would. In retrospect I wonder what his drunken and befuddled mind must have thought when he saw a white face sitting on a log hahahaha.

He stumbled my way, swinging his 1 meter long blade and it my mind went into "survival" mode. Time slowed down, I heard no noise, saw only him and his blade but as I stood up I saw that he held what I now saw was a 2nd thinner blade, about half as long as the bolo (machete) in his right hand.

Now, against even a sober man and 1 blade, my money is betting on me (real superhero I am!). 2 blades though? Well that changes the odds in a terrible way.

As he came I thought quickly, a bad cut and I would probablly bleed out (nearest real hospital being 200 kilometers away), and trying to disarm a man swinging 2 blades was definitely going to get me cut, badly.

Thank G-D we had had some rain, I was bending my legs anyway in fighting mode, and scooped up a nice handful of mud quickly..as he came lumbering towards me I waited a bit, and then, WHAM, right in his eyes, perfect delivery. Hahahahahaha, he was soooooooo pissed off. He looked like he was going to cry, but then after quickly recovering he was even more enraged!

I was bouncing side to side, legs bent, watching his midrif because that will always telegraph an opponent's movements. When our bodies move, in ambulatory fashion, it is generated from the abdomen. I was barely out of reach from the longest blade but close enough to get his drunken spittle in my face as he cursed me.

As I moved side to side I was able to occasionally get in a good scoop of mud, generally on his face, as I looked for a piece of wood to beat the shit out of him, when finally a pistol shot rang out and the asshole stopped moving. Unfortunately though, it was merely a warning shot and he was not hurt. A neighbour had let off a shot but it allowed me to get immediately out of harm's way.

Walking into the compound...and this is the pisser...Rizza denigrated me, "Why didn't you do martial arts on him? I thought you were so good at it!" I looked at her for a quick second, and I said, "That Jackie Chan shit is not reality, you cannot get within reach of a man with 2 long blades," but I was just digusted with her.

As I quickly looked for something near the gate, I found a truck wiper (windshield wiper off of one of our 10 wheeled trucks, the wiper is an aluminum rod, flexible, about a meter long). Picking it up I quickly walked back out int Mangga while the family just stared at me, mouths open, and the neighbours actually cheered seeing me again (hahaha, "Kill the Kano" maybe) but on walking up the road, he was 2 compounds away by our cousin's place...the PNP were finally out of their drunken revelry, pistols drawn and coming at him on 3 sides. I was hoping they did not kill him outright so that I could whip him into a coma, maybe mark his face with his own blade...

He was drunk, full of brandy soaked testosterone but NOT retarded. He dropped the blades when the PNP fired a volley of warning shots. IF I beat him now the PNP would turn it into an extortion scheme against me, "Sir, it is the law but we do not agree with it. If you pay just a reduced fine now we can close the case"... Uh, no thanks, anyway. I will just find out which broken down grass hut he calls home and beat him senseless, then make his family homeless by burning down their hut. Thanks anyway.

Aggravated to no end I walked into the compound because now all eyes were on me, hoping to see me do what I wanted to do. Mom ran up and was shaking, I guess the shock wore off. She could not believe that I had an absolutely normal heartbeat.

I am sure that as I was bouncing around it was elevated but I was picked for my job (in the IDF) based upon my physical (and mental) profile. I have a rather constant heartbeat even under intense stress. I have also been stress innoculated to such a degree that I handle it quite well. In situations like that, I am tenacious, I want to finish the person, but not in a way that causes my judgement to be erratic.

My 1st question to Mom was where did that loser live. She said his family lives further down Mangga, nearer to the Surigao del Sur provincial line. I was happier then, knowing my time would come. Dad just stood there with 4 of my brothers in law, mute like one of those Easter Island statues. Mom joked, "Dad swore if you were hurt he was going to shoot the man," Dad having gone inside and grabbed his 45.

I hugged him seeing he was scared for me, but needled him saying, "See??? I always tell you, carry that fucken piece, don't keep it as a trophy!"

We went inside and then the phone calls started coming, "Raki is so brave, ""Raki is a hero," "Raki!!!!!!!!!!!" I was none of the above. I was a stupid fool and should have had my fucken head examined.

I then went on their PC, not feeling like walking over to my house, even though its just a few meters, I was embrassed at creating such a public spectacle...Now this is why I have told this sordid tale...Little Mayo, who was all of 5 back then, climbed into my lap as I began surfing the net. He wrapped his little arms around me and buried his head in my chest and began sobbing so heavily.

I was so suprised, but so, so, so touched. Even now I have to be careful lest I get teary eyed recalling that day. I cradled his face in my hands and asked him if he had been scared. All he could do was nod yes and cry. I held him tough, kissed the top of his head and told him I was OK, nothing was going to happen to me. He held me tight until his sobbing quieted down, maybe 10 minutes or so and I realised that I really had to think about my actions.

All my other brothers in law, the next youngest being 10 then, were pumped up, proud as everyone congratulated them on having such a heroic brother (there is no concept of "brother in law" in Bisaya Culture,to them I am "Kuya," which simply means "Elder Brother"), but little Mayo was taking it an entirely different way.

My sister in law Marian who was 8 then was proud as well but in her eyes I could never do wrong. She is so cute. The week before I left to go to the Philippines she made a new Yahoo ID to IM with the words "I love you Kuya."

Even with all this shit between Rizza and myself they are still so dear to me and that is the most fucked up part of the deal. That is the only part that makes me mad enough to smack Rizza (luckily for her that is something I would never do. Me? I had a girl spit in my face once and I simply turned and walked away).

So, upon returning, Mayo ran out and grabbed me. Marian next, then the elder boys smiling huge smiles and I went inside, Mom and Dad having been in Court for the final hearing in the case against Uncle Allan, the case that sparked our "rido" (family feud).

One of the kids called Mom up on a cellular to tell her I had come. She called the landline and we talked a bit, telling her I would only be there less than 2 days (turned into 9 but hey).

I went next door to my house, and aired it out, since it had been a couple of months since I had even spent 5 minutes there.

I then piled the kids into one of the SUVs and drove into the town proper, to pay my respects. My G-Dfather was working in the provincial capitol since he works for the Governor. My G-Dmother, the former mayor, sister of the current mayor and Col. Lademora's (I will get to him) daughter. I gave her the small gift I had brought for her (22K gold bracelet. I don't know why but SE Asians love 22K, soft like butter and that weird deep yellow colour, the colour of pure gold).

I went next to pay respects to Uncle Leo, my closest friend apart from Dad, and the rest of our huge extended family. By about 9 that night, stuffed from the obligatory dish at each home we returned to wait for Mom and Dad.

Popped in a DVD, it still amazes me when they get theater quality bootlegs before the movie is even in theathers in the US but I am well aware of the process of "how," since it is an endeavour I once considered getting into. Saw a movie, "Splice" that was OK, nothing to write about.

About 1 AM the dogs went crazy and I knew they had arrived. Spent about 30 minutes talking and then I went to my house to sleep.

Today is Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 and it is now 747PM here in Makati, Luzon, Philippines.

Recap: Spent 1 day in Makati (Manila), with Jackie. Left her in the condo, flew down to Mindanao obstensibly to pick up a supply of opiates/opioids since the methadone I had brought with me from New York City was getting low.

Landed at Butuan Airport, and took a taxi the 200 kilometers south to my "home," home being Rizza's family compound in San Francisco (San Franz), Agusan del Sur Province on Mindanao.

I was pulling up to the compound when I ended the last "Update" entry.
********************************
I have to admit that it felt so good to see the place. Even seeing the "rotunda*" (*local word for traffic circle, our road "Mangga" spins off of the rotunda) made me feel strange inside.

Pulling up to the compound I thanked the driver, grabbed my overnight bag and walked into the yard.

Like all rural compounds in Mindanao we have a pack of dogs, including my baby, "Jumbo," who is the number 2 in the pack. As always they were ecstatic to see me, baying, hair sticking up as if spooked, actually bouncing off of the ground because the alpha dog, "Chakie," a huge brute would not let any dog get on me. He has a game when I haven't been home for a while, he runs at full speed (that motherfucker can run!) and jumps onto me. He is built like a Saint Bernard, so imagine that fun I have!

This of course made my youngest brother in law Mario Jr. ("Mayo") come running. Not quite 7, he is still my pet.

REGRESS...On Easter Sunday, 2008 just before leaving for New York City to begin chemotherapy for my HCV (Hep-C) I was sitting in the "sala" (living room) with Dad (Rizza's father). We were discussing how Catholicism (his religion) is full of shit, how Easter is a pagan holiday adapted for the nascemt Church, when all of a sudden we heard our youngest "ya-ya" (female servant) screaming at the top of her lungs.

Then, as now we are involved in a bloody "rido" (family feud, and I do NOT mean the cheeky American game show). I was sure that the other side had acted against us. I stupidly ran outside without even my pistol since at the time, as we talked, I had stripped it and was reworking the trigger mechanism.

As I ran to her I saw her at a portion next to the gate where one can see clearly onto Mangga, the road running past the front of our compound. A man, perhaps my age, shirtless and apparently drunk off his ass was swinging a "bolo*" (*1 meter long machete used for cutting bamboo, small trees, etc.), and trying his very best to kill "habal habal*" drivers (*motorized tricycle made from a motorcycle dirtbike with a small c.c. engine and an aluminum shell built around it, with a small bench in front and back, the cheapest public transportation and oh so common even in rural areas).

I do not want to meander too much, especially with the character count on these Blogs, BUT, Bisaya* (*the dominant ethnicity in that part of Mindanao) have a curious personality trait that seems to be universal. They do not have a "Flee Reflex!"

The habal habal drivers were sitting there watching this shit, and as he approached 1 or another they would back over each other trying to get out of immediate danger but only a few meters!

What does our impetuous hero Rachamim do? I walk out into Mangga and several meters down the road is a fallen log on the roadside, I sat down upon the log and kicked off my "tsinelas*" (*rubber sandals, Americans call them "flip flops," these are the de rigeur footwear even in malls, EVERYONE wears them), and waited for the "tad tad*" (*literally means "chop chop") to turn his wrath on me.

I better close this entry here for the character count, and continue in the next "Update" entry.

What is my understanding of Step One?

06/11/10 10:03 AM

* There’s some shit you can’t do anything about. Roll with it.
* Consider as many variables as possible. There’s more to things than meet the eye
* Do the things you need to do, especially when you don’t want to do them.
* Don’t bullshit yourself.
* As long as I don’t get high I have a chance at a tolerable life
* If I take that first one, I will be gone for a while and chances are my life and mental health will quickly degrade.
* There is no person, place or thing that will make everything all right.
* There is a difference between ‘thought’ and ‘action’.
* At this point (9 months and 19 days clean), if I use, it will simply be ‘just because’ or because I think things will be different this time

06/12/10 7:40 AM

* Everything is temporary
* Service is important. Extremely important.
* Hostility, resentment and fear are my initial responses to the unfamiliar
* This new way of living is completely dissimilar to the old.
* Recovery is a long slow process.
* Consistency is important.
* Repeating positive actions, consistently will make those actions become habits
* Not everyone is in this for the same reasons
* It WILL get better. Sooner? Later? Who’s to say? Don’t fuckin’ bail before it does.
* Obsessive thinking causes me pain
* Self-centeredness is a motherfucker
* Just fuckin’ do it otherwise it’ll ruin my day from dwelling on neglecting responsibilities

How do I know it’s time to move on?

06/10/10 7:31 AM

Because I am stagnating and feel like I am actually regressing. If the Steps are the solution to the problem that is me than why the fuck are there so many IRRELEVANT questions in this fucking book? This writing is nonsense, man and it is delaying me from actually PRACTICING the principles in the Steps that are supposed to help me get well.

Rest assured, if I am asked to continue writing on the Steps out of this ridiculous book, it will be done with minimal effort and concern.

and the cyclops of disapproval!

ಠ

I HAD a dream... a vivid fucking dream. A scary dream that I woke up believing.

Have you ever woken up immediately planning how to handle the situation you THINK you are in because you dreamed it?


Have you ever dealt with the guilt of murdering someone who you haven't seen in years?

Have you ever held someone under the water that extra few seconds until they stop struggling

i met a girl last weekend and had plans to hang out with her tonight. so i went to the barber and got a line up there where allot of guys there that looked like drug dealers . so i ask the guy doing my line up if he knew any one hanging around the shop had any E for sale because i wanted to have it for the night . one of the guys there overheard and steped in to say that his friend was selling purple stars and that if i waited for him to get his shave hed take me over to the spot .

so he gets done and we drive to the spot he asked for the money ( i knew i shouldent have fucking gave it to him but i did ) it was a vacant building or some shit so i figured if he came out id see him if he tryed to make off with my money . i was waiting in my car looking at where he went in ,after 10 minuets i got pissed and got out of my car to go see wtf he was doing there was a big back door and he wasent there.

so i went around back to see if he was there insted of finding him there, a jacked gansta with a tattooed face shouted something to me in spainish ( in a what the fuck do you want tone ) so i asked him about the retard and told him what went down he said he dident know any one by the name. he told me that he could likely get me some E and if not coke for sure . so we get into my car and we go to the spot .. no E but he says he can get me a 20 bag of dope at another place and for the trouble he would give me a free 20 of coke

ive been wanting to try heroin for a long time so i took him up on it . i ended up taking him to the store to get smokes and drooped him off at his house after . he was pretty cool only thing i dident like was he kept taking me down these back roads in ghetto ass parts of towns ive never been to and telling me " drive fast nigga these streets are hot " and i got lost on the way home

so after the hole 3 hour ordeal i came home did 2 coke spoon sized bumps of dope showered and went to pick the girl up . we chilled had a few beers and had sex went really well but then she told me she had to be up for work at 5:30 and needed to go home . it was 1:30 i had 6 beers and 2 lines of coke i dident want to take her home i was fine to drive but i probably had around 2 or 3 beers in my system enough to get me a dwi . but i ended up taking her home any way

it was a long day but was worth it

i met a girl last weekend and had plans to hang out with her tonight. so i went to the barber and got a line up there where allot of guys there that looked like drug dealers . so i ask the guy doing my line up if he knew any one hanging around the shop had any E for sale because i wanted to have it for the night . one of the guys there overheard and steped in to say that his friend was selling purple stars and that if i waited for him to get his shave hed take me over to the spot .

so he gets done and we drive to the spot he asked for the money ( i knew i shouldent have fucking gave it to him but i did ) it was a vacant building or some shit so i figured if he came out id see him if he tryed to make off with my money . i was waiting in my car looking at where he went in ,after 10 minuets i got pissed and got out of my car to go see wtf he was doing there was a big back door and he wasent there.

so i went around back to see if he was there insted of finding him there, a jacked gansta with a tattooed face shouted something to me in spainish ( in a what the fuck do you want tone ) so i asked him about the retard and told him what went down he said he dident know any one by the name. he told me that he could likely get me some E and if not coke for sure . so we get into my car and we go to the spot .. no E but he says he can get me a 20 bag of dope at another place and for the trouble he would give me a free 20 of coke

ive been wanting to try heroin for a long time so i took him up on it . i ended up taking him to the store to get smokes and drooped him off at his house after . he was pretty cool only thing i dident like was he kept taking me down these back roads in ghetto ass parts of towns ive never been to and telling me " drive fast nigga these streets are hot " and i got lost on the way home

so after the hole 3 hour ordeal i came home did 2 coke spoon sized bumps of dope showered and went to pick the girl up . we chilled had a few beers and had sex went really well but then she told me she had to be up for work at 5:30 and needed to go home . it was 1:30 i had 6 beers and 2 lines of coke i dident want to take her home i was fine to drive but i probably had around 2 or 3 beers in my system enough to get me a dwi . but i ended up taking her home any way

it was a long day but was worth it

Hey,

So it's been a while since we've had one of these threads. Pretty well since Hoptis was able to make all the shiny new improvements to Blogs' visibility IIRC. Lately a couple of issues have been coming to mind that I think might benefit from open discussion.

Mainly, it's the trend of microblogging that has been going on lately. It seems mostly to be cervan's two line posts, and shoolameet's virtually contentless drug photo posts. Personally, I'm annoyed by the former (since she has in the past posted enough two-liners to knock nearly everyone else off the page), but I don't necessarily think that it warrants any action yet. The latter however is starting to piss me off, especially with his latest post. Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive, but it seems like he's being a bit inflammatory, and I'm not too crazy about that.

I haven't replied to his latest ('witty slogans') yet, as I'm concerned that I might be a bit too snarky. But if my sentiments are shared, I'd be more than happy to remind him to keep things civil or leave.

These are my thoughts of late. Any opinions? Any other issues?

On a personal note, I'm amazed that I've remembered the password to this account! Yay me!

-Dave

How is acceptance of my disease necessary for my continued recovery?

06/10/10 7:22 AM

Recognizing and accepting that I simply can’t get high like others is critical. Its real easy for me to say ‘Yeah, I’m just gonna grab a beer after work’ or ‘Maybe I’ll smoke some weed’. I can’t fuck around like that because my history shows that I lose control and I lose control quickly. I just can’t fucking stop once I have started.

It sucks and I’m still VERY fucking angry that I can never get high again. But this is something I need to deal with and just roll with it.

It isn’t easy and I strongly suspect that I am on my way to a nice little binge. I remember these feelings from when I first got clean.

I guess I really haven’t accepted that I cannot live and use drugs at the same time.

Responsibility sucks, man.

Still around and kicking. Just really have been MEH about posting here.

I still like this place but it doesn't hold the appeal that it once did. Maybe. I dunno. Maybe I'm just being lazy lately...?

Sitting here eating Chicken Penne and a large fruit punch. Yumm!

Found out that with an almost certainty that my son has IBS, at least we know WHAT he has after being left with more questions then answers for the past 4yrs.

My last test is on June 9th. So I guess I will find out if I have COPD by June 30th.

My breathing has been good lately, I ALWAYS cough. Who knows it might be more reconstructive plastic surgery related than lung disease thing. I might make an appointment with a collegue of my old surgen and see what he thinks....

I have put on mundo weight in 2 months, well not MUNDO but a lot for ME. I put on 11Lbs in 2 months!!!

I got the Depo Provera shot a week or two ago. Thank god no side effects that I can tell so far, so that's a good thing.

My anger has gotten better since the shot, which makes me think I might have some sort of hormon imblance..? Who knows with me....

All is well around here, things are good.

I dunno what else to say really...

One day gone, life's not the same without you.
We can all be strong.
But strength can't bring back the one's we've lost.
Holding on, moments will last always inside of our hearts
But what good are hearts when their Beatz have stopped?

My friend it hurts that you're gone.
You should still be here.
The world knows it wasn't your time.

Taken away and screaming, "Don't go, don't."
We know you're needed here with us.
It's so hard moving on.
We wake up everyday without a friend,
knowing it wasn't his time.

Passing on
We know that you're looking out for us all.
Still, so hard to believe that you're not with us.
You can't bring back the ones you've lost.
You can't bring back the ones you've lost.

You belong down here smiling wide.
Don't go.
No, don't go.

You belong down here smiling wide.
You know you're needed here with us.

Click to expand...

[heart beatz]

Have I made peace with the things I’ll have to do to stay clean?

06/08/10 8:24 AM

Not really. Lately I’ve been throwing an internal temper tantrum. I’m an angry dude and there’s a lot of shit I need to do to stay clean. Some of these things I just don’t want to fucking do.

Its suggested to be in service in the NA structure. I did that in the beginning, I was co-chairperson of the Public Information Committee for the Montgomery County Area and was making the Regional sub-committee meetings as well. I called the chairperson the other week and told her I’m bailing on service at this level. I just don’t want to be around people with significant clean time that act self-important and believe that service in the NA structure is some selfless, grand sacrifice. It isn’t. True service is doing street-level shit for that man/woman that is struggling.

I also made the decision to not have a Home Group any longer. To be honest, this was an impulsive decision made out of anger. Even though I am going to maintain a commitment to my Home Group it is going to be a very loose commitment. I’ve been taking things way too seriously and its been fucking me up.

I’ll get to a peaceful place of acceptance in time. I know for certain that when I start writing the Step Two questions, they WILL NOT be as involved. I’m just going to bang them the fuck out. Why? Because these fucking questions don’t do anything for me. Practicing honesty, open-mindedness, willingness and acceptance is more important than writing about it. These questions aren’t therapeutic and there are too many of them.

I need to progress with a cursory knowledge of ‘spiritual principles’ in order to get well.

Have I made peace with the fact that I’m an addict?

05/23/10 9:11 PM

Yes I have. At least I know what my problem is. Many do not. With this knowledge I can see that my greatest enemy is me.

immediate frustration: prior to about 2 weeks ago, i lived with my brother and step-brother. then my brother decided he was just gonna leave (lease is up aug 1) and move in with his friends for no fuckin reason at all. whatever...as long as he's happy right? thats what i thought at first. its when he took the tv from the living room that things really started to get annoying here. its his tv and he has every right to take it, but he didn't need to. they have plenty of tv's over at the place he's staying at. so since there was no longer a tv in the living room, my step-brother brought his tv out here. so now he has no tv in his room. personally i dont really care about that, and its not that i don't like my step-brother, but he NEVER fuckin sleeps and we dont exactly share the same interests in whats on tv (this dude will watch sportscenter on repeat 24 hours ag day - i love sports, and sportscenter, but once i realize i've been watching the same exact shit for like 3 hours, thats enough for me.) not only that, i like to sleep in the living room (the blinds in the bedrooms are worthless and the couch is significantly more comfortable than the air mattress in my room.) so what happens now? he's ALWAYS in the living room. he's apparently also decided he's gonna be sleeping out here now because of the tv situation. and of course he's a channel changer. he doesn't watch commercials (which is right up there on my top "annoying" list - unless you are fucking psychic, you are always going to miss part of the show you were watching before, before you decide/remember to change back. i mean, we were watching the fucking lakers and celtics in the finals tonight and he's flipping back and forth to the stanley cup (which i could give a fuck about - and he knows this.) its like a tie game with 3 mins left in the game and this guy is watching postgame interviews from the fucking hockey game. jesus christ. aside from the tv/sleeping shit, i'm really getting tired of this kid. and again, i'm really cool with him, but as i've experienced with my very best of friends, too much is inevitable...and i've hit that breaking point. and really, this isn't even his fault, its my brother's fault. things were so much more stable here when he was here...and i'm the older one -25, they are both 21 - but they are both almost finished with college, and i'm just now getting ready to go back to school again after 7 years. bottom line: its fucking annoying and its my brother's fault.

less immediate frustration: i'm an audio engineer (well, i graduated in 2005, but i still know whats up) who works pretty exclusively with a producer and a rapper (all 3 of us in different states.) the producer is completely killing our relationship, and aside from the work we do together, we all consider ourselves friends. the rapper is on his job and doing really big (well, locally anyways) shit right now, but the producer is fucking everything up. we've been working on an album (rapper+producer+engineer) for at least 2 years now and all the producer wants to do is keep "mastering" or "re-inventing" or whatever his technique and its destroying the project. at this moment, i'm pretty much done with it. the rapper is completely eye to eye with me on this too. he raps to the beats, then the producer "updates" aka COMPLETELY CHANGES them and the rapper no longer likes them. his crazy ADD/OCD/whatever shit is destroying an album that the 3 of us knew was a masterpiece (in our minds anyways) for AT LEAST the past 8 months...maybe even a year. unfortunately, i'm actually friends with dude so this makes everything oh so more difficult and i'm the most non-confrontational dude on the planet. i can't even talk to him right now and he keeps messaging me and messaging me, and trust me, its all off the wall-haven't slept for 3 days-nonsense...and i can't handle it...i can't even respond in fear of what he might do, especially to himself. i hope he gets his head straight, because he is a muthafucking genius when it comes to producing, but i just dont see that happening before i've given up all hope.

ok. done for now. that felt good to get out (and that and even the half of it - trust me.)

now thats what i call a blog/journal!

Today is Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 and it is now 148AM here in San Franz, Mindanao, Philippines.

This is the second, of 3 parts relating to"Myth #II," in a series, "Myths About Israel," in response to the many PMs I get from people concerned with both Israel and Jews in general. This "myth" of course, is "Israel/Jews Ethnically Cleansed Palestine to Create Israel," in not so many words...

So, the Arabs FIRST came to the lands in question under Khalifa 'Umar, known to Westerners as the Caliph Omar. Omar was the 3rd Caliph, a "Caliph" meaning "Supreme Leader" in the religio-political sense since he both led his empire and the nascent faith of Islam.

Omar arrived in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish State, Judea, then occupied by the so called "Byzantines," who were the inheritors of the Roman Empire. The Romans, having finally negated Jewish sovereignity in the middle of the 4th Century CE/AD, remained and administered the lands as part of a far flung empire.

Coincidentaly, since this entirely segues into the greater point, this is how the word "Palestine," and "Palestinian" first entered the common lexicon. The words are Koine Greek and simply mean,"Land of the Phillistines" and "Phillistine."

If one recalls from the previous entry in this series, the first part of "Myth II," the "Phillistines" were the Proto-Greek People from the Aegean Sea, the island of Crete and its dependencies. They were not even Semitic, much les Arab!

The words first entered known usage under Herodotus, often (incorrectly) labeled the "Father of Histiography," or the "First Historian." While Herodotus is valuable on several levels, primarily for its enlightenment (to the modern reader) about Classical Greek views, beliefs and culturisms, as well as the Egypt of his era, the bulk of his additional views and notes are not considered worthy of anything other than consideration as an ancient curiosity.

Critics correctly point out that while Herodotus DID mention the Phillistines ("Palestinians"), and di NOT mention one iota about Jews, Judaisim of Jewish Culture and did so while having at least visited Egypt, they omit the fact that he also insisted Armenia was inhabited by humans whose arms grew straight out of their skull, grew gold on trees and had a single eye. The point? Other than those things conclusively proven to have been witnessed by Herodotus, hiw "word" is worthless.

He uses the ancient Greek form, and so the word entered Greek, and by relation, Classical Roman society. When finally applied in the occicial sense, as "Syria-Paelestina" [sic], they used the contemprary form, which happened to be Koine Greek.


When the Emperor Hadrian, of Britain's "Hadrian Wall" fame finally conquered Judea after more than 400 years of tug of war with Jewish nationalists he destroed their political and religious capital, Jerusalem, and after rebuilding it in Classical Roman form, renamed it Aelia Capitolina. He forbade any Jew from entering it, a ban that last almost 3 generations. Most importantly, he renamed all of Judea, enter "Palestine" stage left.

Ironically, at this point not a single Arab lived in the land and would not come near it for another 300 years!

Regressing to the "Myth," at the point when Arabs first enter the picture, in the 7th Century CE/AD, the lands as I previously noted, were under Byzantine occupation. In some places, like Gaza, the population was entirely Jewish except for the Byzantine garrison in what is now Gaza City,. When the Arabs came, and made war, Gazan Jews stood side to side with Byzantine soldiers and attempted to fight off this horde of violent invaders.

Winning by sheer numbers, they captured all of Judea and Samaria, which today are collectively called the "West Bank," Gaza, Israel and suprisingly to many Westerners, the land of Jordan and parts of what are now Syria and Lebanon.

Islam was a new religion and still very much Arab-centric, a trait that would not change until the Ummayad Caliphate ensconced itself in what is now Modern Syria. This resulted in precious little intermarriage or even conversion of the now indigenous Jewish inhabitants of the region.

Islam allows for fairer treatment of fellow monotheists than of so called "Infidels," in the literal sense of that word (it does not mean "non-Muslim" but rather "non-monotheist"). This allowance is known, in English, as "Dhimmitude."

Basically, Dhimmitude allows monotheists, so called "People of the Book" (Ahl al Khitab) to practice their own faith and administer their own affairs with certain limits. They get this "right" by virtue of an immesely expensive "Tax," in what amounted to annual extortion. Lest one think it a relatively fair deal, they were not allowed to ride a horse or camel if any Muslim was walking, not allowed to carry weapons in societies that equate the practice with manhood, inter-marry, serve in the military, testify in court, bring suit or criminal complaint against any Muslim, build any edifice taller than the lowest Muslim owned dwelling, etc.,etc., so on and so forth).

Besides illustrating Arab-centricty, and later Islam-centricity, it also illustrates the fallacy now propagated by a fair number of "Palestinians" and their supporters that "Palestinians" are simply indigenous Jews who converted to Islam and/or Christianity.

Undeniably some did, genomic legwork shows us that 7% of all "Palestinians" are directly descended from Jews. 93% are not. They represent a tiny number in terms of demographics.

Then, as the Umayyads eroded the huge cultural barriers separating Jews and Arabs, the European Crusaders stumbled onto the scene, establishing several city/states, most notably for this discussion, the "Kingdom of Jerusalem."

Sovereignity oscillated between European Christians and Arab Muslims, neither leaving a lasting imprint upon the idgenous People, i.e. the Jews. Indeed, when the Crusader Era finally DID end it did so under a Kurd (Salah al Din, known to Westerners as "Saladdin"), albeit a Muslim.

It was not until yet another war mongering invader conquered the lands under discussion that the character of the region began to change; The Osmani, or as Westerners are prone to labeling them, the "Ottoman Turks" were a Central Asian Steppe People, a nomadic "horse" culture. Capitalising upon the gains of the Seljuki (Seljuk Turks) who had made great inroads into the Levant as mercanaries for the newly powerful Arabs, the Ottomans set their sights on the heart of the Byzantine Empire.

Abosrbing most Byzantine holdings, these included the lands in question. The fact that they brought relative stability to lands they conquered (relative to past empires) Arabs began slowly moving across what would lader become national borders. Thus began the Arabisation of "Palestine."

How Arabs were NOT "Etnically Cleased" will be dealt with in the 3rd portion of this 2nd "Myth."