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It was the season of giving most were just waking
To me it felt more like the season of taking
Here, son! Have a gift
Let us bury thatsoul-nagging rift
Thank you so much for this beautiful material
But, it's not what I need in this unfinished serial
I don't need your money or monetized attention
And I certainly did not needyour loving intervention

Not for what you thought at least
Indeed inside me there lies a beast
The drug, the alcohol, the self-deprecation?
Those were mere symptoms of this insidious incubation

He's so two-faced
Plus he wants it this way
He doesn't want to work
Like we did in our day!
If that is the future of our youth
He needs to find a better way
Son, we beg you just kneel down and pray


Well, if that is what you think would help
If that's what you think you need
We will help find you a doctor to go see
Look on the bright side and try to hold on
While I suddenly tune into your oldest of songs

Your son needed help, help all along
For years he cried that same old song
The ears were not deaf, which it fell upon
They would stop to help, but it takes too long
Yelling and shaming and ostracized was he
Wondering why not a one could see?
Now they want to help, now they can relate
Even though angering and insulting it was not too late

Maybe it's a lifetime overdue of denying what's inside
Maybe they still are in disbelief and trying to hide
But, I am bipolar and I am alive.

any bluelighter dying, especially in circumstances which, in retrospect, may have been more easily preventable, is tragic. jim's death is no exception.

my heart goes out to claire, his family and his friends.

it's soul-destroying for me to see a couple of bitter bluelighters use his death as an opportunity to push their agenda and point fingers but i also feel it, to an extent, vindicates the action we've taken to transition from the old lounge to the new social forum. many people have moved on and it's sad they can't leave it behind.

blaming somebody for the death of another is a low blow. i know i'm not personally responsible for jim's death. honestly, i feel that their saying so is an insult to jim's memory and does both his life and his passing a disservice.

finally, i am told that they're bent out of shape that i did not post an r.i.p. in axl's social (now shrine) thread. i have just three words for them there: go fuck yourselves.

i'll mourn jim's passing in whichever manner i feel appropriate and i'm not going to post a public message just because a butthurt ex-staffer thinks it's somehow appropriate.

i hear the lies - it's a disgrace i didn't post because jim and i were such close friends in real life and had met so many times. etc.

i never met jim in real life. fact.

when you have to manufacture lies to attack somebody, what does that say about your attack? and to those who are so gleefully lapping up the lies, ask yourself why you're so quick to believe them?

r.i.p. jim

alasdair

I still hate the holidays but that last entry was a ray of sunshine, huh? Good grief.

It's a constant struggle as of late. Part of me wants to give up, curl into a little ball and wait there until I'm old and then I can simply ...fade away until everyone forgets about me and I even forget myself and I don't even bother to die; no, I just slowly wither and shrink and eventually, someone glances over at where I used to be and shudders as an uncertain chill runs down the spine...hair stands up on necks or arms, a memory tickles the back of the mind, too infinitesimal for focus, too insignificant to develop and too fleeting to grasp, a shadow even in the brain, ultimately receding there as well, utterly and truly gone...

and part of me goes, "are you BATSHIT??? YOU are UNFORGETTABLY tectonic! You shift realities just by existing and you're flirting with shadows? Shut all of your fucks up, pop your mouth off your titty and go get fucking drenched in life, you spoiled twat!"

I want to shelter my kids while exposing them to the realities we are all facing. But…gently.

I want to smother my husband. With a pillow. Made of kisses. And bricks. Of chocolate. And cement.

We used to be very intimate - not just sensually (laughing at myself since I had to pause and confirm I meant 'sensual' and not 'sensuous' and yes, I mean grown up stuff, not all my senses stuff, but I guess that, too) but with how close we were with one another. I bragged, "you know how couples finish each other’s sentences? POSERS! We say the same word at the same time!"

Occasionally, we’d come across the odd one who’d audaciously retort, "big whoop. We do too." Haaarrrumph, HA! Not like us. No one is like us. "Oh, really?" I’d scoff, ever the more haughty. "Are they made up words? Like eleventeen or Januholic?" *blank stare* "I didn’t think so." And therein would ensue much self-congratulatory back-patting at the flawless eternal nature of our indestructible love.


BULLSHIT.

BULLSHIT.

BULLSHIT.

How do I explain what I mean...how do I...ah yes. Bishop Briggs puts it quite nicely in her song, "River,"



Hairpin trigger. Fuckdammit, yes. That’s what it’s like. The slightest little thing sets his little bitchass off. I miss our laughter and our sex.

Did I mention I’ve known him since kindergarten but we only started dating in 2013…he’s had a crush on me, for really really, since 2002. Sheesh. That alone tells you something, doesn’t it?

Sharing is caring - The best piece of mail ever received
So, long story short I've basically been suffering from chronic anxiety and insomnia this last few months. It's been ongoing for a number of years and I take Citalopram for anxiety and depression, only trouble is is that I suffer from epilepsy so can't take a high enough dose of citalopram the Dr would like to combat the anxiety a as well. Basically for that I can only take benzos but only get 14 x 5mg diazepam every few weeks. It's not enough simply said, I totally appreciate they're not ideal for longterm use cos I've had problems with addiction previously and got through some pretty intense tapers.

Anyway, the anxiety has raised its head with a vengeance, really been struggling and some days I can't leave the house. I used to have multiple sources for benzos but what with my little habit had to leave them in the past. I've had a look at online pharms and they're either ridiculously expensive or just look too good to be true, just not worth it imo.
So anyway I PM'd a lady I know from another board explaining my predicament and she basically said she's doing a taper in the new year and I'd be doing her a favour if I took them off her hands. I just sent a stamped addressed envelope, a couple of days later it turned up.
Now she said she was sending me a few (I expected 20, 50 MAX!)

So there I am, hands trembling with anticipation and WOW I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I decided a quick stock take was in order and she'd sent 265 x 10mg Apaurin Diazepam and 20 x 20mg MSJ Diazepam.
It's been years since I've seen Apaurins, they're pretty much the holy grail of EU manufactured diazepam! IMO they beat Actavis, Teva and pretty much any other diazepam prescribed on the NHS.

But I really cannot thank my friend of the other board enough. To send that many, well I just can't express how grateful I am!!

...when you're staring at your cursor and all you can think of is how disgusted you are with yourself?

I'm disgusted by my drug use.

I'm disgusted by my sex life. (Not now...well, yes, now, but not in the same way. Now, I'm an unhappily married woman with a punk ass twat for a husband who is also an addict and never wants to fuck. Back then...I was a ...well, I guess, slut. Or..."empowered woman" who fucked whenever. Whatever. But....in retrospect, gods, how fucking dangerous!!! Not, "catch-a-disease" dangerous but "get-fucking-murdered" dangerous.)

I'm disgusted by my life. How did I end up here? I'm strong, smart (I speak four fucking languages for the sake of all fuck!), well traveled (what, 7? 8 countries? I'm no atlas but hardly the average American), respectful, funny, kind....

I'm a useless piece of shit.

I can't even be used as fertilizer.

Today Bluelight goes black in memory of all the members of this community that have lost their lives. Some of their names are in the shrine and some have simply stopped posting, anonymous names, anonymous lives. Except that they were never anonymous lives.

In every part of the world, in every strata of society, in every culture, families suffer the terrible consequences of the risks associated with the use of drugs. Each and every parent of a son or daughter that lost his or her life to a drug overdose or fatal interaction, or even simply an unknown physical vulnerability combined with a relatively harmless substance will ask themselves every single day what they could have done to prevent the death of their child. I came to Bluelight tortured by that question and the answers that are emerging simply point to the fact that this is perhaps a misguided question.

Answer #1: Knowledge can save lives. The mission of this site is harm reduction. Harm reduction assumes that the person coming here has the intention of taking a drug and we are going to do our best as moderators to ensure that the forums give that person a realistic view of the risks of that decision as well as the ways to minimize them.

Answer #2: Prohibition doesn’t work. We cannot save our children’s lives from a car accident by prohibiting cars and we cannot save their lives from drug abuse by prohibiting drugs. We can demand real education. We can demand dialogue in the media, in schools and in the medical profession concerning the placement of very young children on legal mind-altering and addictive drugs while criminally penalizing other drugs.

Answer #3: We can see our children as whole individuals, struggling to come to terms with both their own complexity and the social and cultural reality of their time and place. We can recognize that our role as “environmental controller” ended with our child’s infancy; that guidance and limit setting are different from control. We can accept that our teenage and young adult offspring determine their lives through their choices, through making mistakes and through trial and error, just as we did and still do.

Answer #4: We can fight the failed policies of the War on Drugs and the misinformed and misguided thinking that continues to feed this entrenched way of looking at drugs. The War on drugs is simply a disaster that is ruining lives all over the globe. It is a failed domestic policy and a failed foreign policy. We can get involved in our own communities, especially as parents speaking to other parents, to try to break the spell of ignorance that continues to prop up this set of laws that causes untold suffering the world over.

We can do all that and still the unthinkable might happen.

For me, the unthinkable happened on May 30th, 2011. My youngest, my most vulnerable, my fiercely opinionated and hilarious and deeply spiritual son made a choice, a fatal mistake or a fatal decision, went against everything that I had begged him to consider, and lost his precious young life. What could have saved him? My husband and I could not save him; nor could his beloved older brother, his best friend nor all the friends that tried. Neither Bluelight nor Erowid as sources of practical information could save him. Bluelight the community of people that embraced him could not save him. As I write this I am aware of how I am making it sound hopeless; but that is not my intent and I do not feel hopeless.; in very large measure that is because of Bluelight and the whole Harm Reduction movement. I have seen the power of this community as it reaches out to help someone through cravings in real time. I have seen this community encourage young people to tell their parents what is going on and to ask for help. I have seen parents that feel like the worst failures because of their own addiction get the support they need to believe in their own goodness enough to seek treatment. People use drugs for many reasons—to relax, as medicine, for growth, for adventure; people abuse drugs for many reasons, too—as medicine for psychological pain, for a hiding place, for temporary relief from the fear of the chaos of being alive and human. Bluelight has people coming in from all angles and it is the power of this community that each person enters knowing that they can ask questions without fear.

On this day, I would like to honor those members of this community that no longer are among us by remembering the fullness of who they were. Drug taking gets stigmatized with enough hypocrisy to sink a ship but death by drugs is even further stigmatized. One of the most comforting discoveries I made about my son’s life after his death was that he had this community that knew him, accepted him and valued him for the entirety of who he was: a funny, intelligent, compassionate person struggling with growing up, complicated by extreme mental states as well as addiction. He, like many others that struggle hard with living, often internalized the larger culture’s view of him: addict, criminal, weak, useless, failure. The most pain I ever felt as a parent was hearing my son apply these words to himself. We can honor the lives of those that did not make it by doing everything possible to develop our own compassion, for ourselves and every other living thing.

I would also like to honor the families and significant others of those that have died. For us, the missing is an unrelenting pain. The passage of time does not heal all wounds, as the cliché would have you believe. My own mother said it best at my son’s memorial when she said that it is like an amputation. Perhaps the raw torture subsides but every day and every night from here on is an adaptation to pain.

If you are a young person entering this site for the first time today, read through the shrine. Every one of the names there was a person full of dreams for whom death was still an abstract—something far away that happened to other people. Every one of the names there left a devastating wake of grief. Take care of your selves and your dreams. No one else can do it for you. Honor your life.

This morning I woke to hear my husband sobbing in the next room. The sobbing is not new. He does it. I do it. But it has been five months and fourteen days and nine hours and fifteen minutes since we lost our son and so these times have gotten less frequent.
In the beginning we cried endlessly and we tried to hold each other constantly. Then we found that we needed to give each other time alone to be with our sadness ourselves. We acknowledged that although neither of us intended it, being in each others presence sometimes made us self-conscious. We needed to be free to have snot running from our noses, to make ridiculous animal sounding noises, to hit things, to fall down, to get hiccups and for this you need privacy. Cathartic behavior looked melodramatic in front of anyone else, even ourselves. We didn't need to act as a mirror of that to each other. So we agreed that unless one or the other of us asked for comfort that we would try to create space for each others need to howl.We saved the holding for the safer kind of crying.
And so this morning, I stand outside the closed door to the room that once was Caleb's and I listen. Should I go in or should I not? On the other side of this door I am crying but I make sure that it is soundless. I am aware that we are a metaphor. This experience that I share with him and only him, we cannot truly share at all. I cannot touch his grief. He cannot touch mine. Our love made Caleb. Our love for Caleb has held us together through so many other strains in our lives together. But the place that Caleb held in my husband's heart is theirs alone. I shared this man with two people that are as important to him as I am to him, perhaps more. He shares me with those same two people, our sons. It is paradoxically the root of our strongest bond and now, in the face of this death, the most constant reminder of how alone each of us truly is.
My husband worries that his grief will be endless, that he is not as "strong" as I am, that his inability to feel any joy will ruin what is left of my life. I try to console him that this is not true; but sometimes I wonder if this is not what causes so many marriages to fall apart after the death of a child (the majority if statistics are to be believed but that subject is probably a whole separate blog.) It is hard to shoulder even an ounce of someone else's grief when you are drowning in your own. We have tried to be as honest as we can with each other about what we need, but what will that look like if one or the other of us says, "what I need is to do this alone."
The desire to be alone might seem crazy to anyone outside of this experience but it is actually something that we have both felt. The way that I understand it is to recognize that this experience can best be characterized as a complete deconstruction of the self. It as if Caleb grabbed a strand of each of us when he went flying off into death and we unraveled from cloth back to thread behind him. Everything that was reality before went with him: our perception of the past, our vision of the future; nothing was left unchanged. To reconstruct oneself from the inside out takes time, takes great focus and, to some degree, self-absorption. My husband likens it to how he felt coming back from Vietnam. He wanted to roam the country by himself, attach to nothing, let life come back in whatever new way it would, having no expectations. His fantasy now, he says, is to run away. He feels guilty about it because of his love for our other son and me. I try to tell him not to feel guilty because I have the same desire and the same guilt over it. We wonder what it would be like if we actually had the money to carry out these fantasies. We imagine what it would be like to pay for an apartment for our son so that he didn't have to struggle financially, hire someone to take care of our animals and then just take off separately. We compare vehicles that we would go in. He says he would get a van. I say I would take an airplane to a country where I didn't know the language. Then we argue about the particulars of our fantasies and end up chuckling but inside I know each of us is still escaping into the comfort of the fantasy.
How can there be comfort in dreaming about being separate? i think it is part of our strength that we have always had as a couple. We are as different as two people can be. We have not always had an easy time with these divisions but the respect we have for each others autonomy has seen us through a lot. That ,and humor. And our sons. My husband's delight in our two unique sons is a beautiful thing and one of the gifts in my life that I will forever be grateful for witnessing. I know that we will come through this together no matter what together may look like. I can love this man sobbing; it would be so much harder if he couldn't cry. That's what I try to tell him from the other side of the door.

Pretty much another selective depressing year for the holidays for me. . . Decisions made. .

Constant debate here of if i should move again, I dont like the comments that are being made nor the actions that are being taken place.
Pretty sad considering the situations at hand, and things just are not going the way I expected . . as anything in life.

I keep telling myself to just go with the flow or live in the moment and all in all is fine but then . . . at the same time there are things that need fixing, and possibly this is the place to get some stuff fixed then continue. .. at the same time "damage is already done" comments and proof of actions from other people is APPARENT, <-- is it a race against time and they're views, where i would have a better chance somewhere else where peoples views are not so judgmental or narrow minded/non understanding, just assuming. . . .

The mind just wonders, I feel with the current situation it is really pushed my limits of depression and anxiety to never before. I no longer or it has been a while that I have been hyper or felt good or even slept in a bed. I think the whole time in the currently location I have only slept in like a bed not my own four separate occasions. <-- just making a data statement not complaining. . Rambles .

the two past years just are the two years of hell . . There has been some fun also but nothing like the past.
Chasing dreams . . . .
So many dreams lately wondering if they are real or not real. . the fight to wake so i can realize if they are real or not is becoming odd.

I wrote a letter to a pal about how I fucked up my favorite holiday. This is an excerpt.

Thanksgiving is (was?) my favorite. I love(d) cooking and having guests over. This year I stupidly train wrecked myself. I had the WHOLE fucking family over and it was way more than I could handle. In addition to my husband and two kids, I also had my mom, eldest daughter and her beau, two sisters with their partners, (one sister has a daughter already), one brother with *his* partner and both his kids and since both sisters and my kid have lived here, a brass fuckle-tin of their buddies showed. Normally, I’d be over-fucking-joyed.


I couldn’t leave the fucking bedroom for more than 5 minute increments and I felt like an utter failure. I was SERIOUSLY thinking about suicide but I didn’t want anyone to hear me call the hotlines and the thing that always keeps me from doing it is knowing it will be one of my kids who finds me. Despite being dead, I can’t live with that.


Oh, and one of my best friends - an alcoholic - came by so drunk she fell off the sofa and lay there, staring at everyone with her cheek half buried in the cushions. My stunned brother asked if she was ok and with all the Blackness she was able to muster with a couch in her mouth, she snapped, "DO I LOOK OKAY? HELL, NO! IN GENERAL AND SPECIFICALLY, I AM NOT OKAY!" Because of how much she means to me, I just stood there laughing at her while everyone else scrambled to her aid. I was pleased to earn "The Look" she’d been giving me since jr. high.


I’m still in shock no one knows I’m an addict. I guess being as sick as I am with everything else helps mask it but even the doctors haven’t asked. I can’t tell if I’m an amazing actor or my entire medical team is quacking.


As for blogging…at this point, it’s the only fucking thing keeping me sane. And part, or a more elaborate version, perhaps, of this letter may end up in the blog unless you object.


This is when it starts to get hard, by the way. I’ve developed an almost debilitating agoraphobia. I loathe grocery shopping and holiday shopping is even worse, attempting to guess what hunks of useless shit people really don’t want and buy it with money I don’t fucking have with my zero income, decorating this shitbox I live in* then packing, wrapping, opening the presents followed by cleaning up; next, 4 days later, everyone ignores my birthday, but fuck it, one day closer to death…and New Year’s so I can remember all my dead drunk friends and finally the ghastly silence filled by the hopeful letdown of a barren January. And I’m actually an optimistic realist!


Yuk. I’m going to go hibernate. Wake me up on Groundhog Day.


*My house is filled with mold, the landlord treats it like shit so it looks like a hovel, it's poorly angled so it never gets any sunlight and it's way too small for all my pointless crap anyway so....

December. Fuckerfucking December.

Raise your hand if you love December hahahahaha, just kidding. I don't care. (Not to mention, none of you did, anyway.)

Let's have a neat list, shall we?

• I can't STAND shopping.
• I can't STAND spending money - I panic like crazy.
• I can't stand buying gifts. More panic (what if it isn't what you wanted? What if you hate it?)
• I can't stand disappointing people, predominantly loved ones. I don't want to crap on my kids' hopes.
• I can't STAND getting gifts. What if I don't like what I've gotten? Then I have to fake as if I like the shit. And I can't toss it or re-gift it if it came from family. I'm stuck with useless crap forever. Yay. Barf.
• I can't stand holiday decorations.
• I can't STAND wrapping shit.
• Although not directly December related, I can't STAND the weather. It's cold as my tit out constantly.
• I have lost too many friends in the month of December.
• It goes: Christmas, my birthday, New Year's Eve so basically, I get "Happy Birthmas" cards or some other dumb shit.
• This both pisses me off and doesn't because I hate getting shit, nevertheless I know I'd get more respect if my day was in April...
• If anyone does bother to acknowledge my birthday, it's with a combo gift "for both events! Cool, right?". Yes. As cool as chlamydia from a public toilet. Fuck you, assears. I'm gonna get you one, too. Who cares if your birthday is in August.
• I pay attention. I *know* what you want. Probably better than anyone else in your life because when I'm with my girlfriends and one of them is looking through a magazine, I look at what she points to. When she tosses herself down on the couch after a long day and says, "all I want is..." I write it down. When we're walking around and she stops at a window to admire whatever the fuck bullshit is in it, I get a sense of her tastes. With my guy friends, I know what his hobbies are and I ask about what the coolest shit in it is. If he likes pool, tell me about...*shrug* sticks. Oh, lol, not sticks? Cues? I'm a dummy. Tell me about them. Yeah...and do you have a case? A bag? If it's bowling...you get it. Even better, if I'm friends with both halves of a couple, I can tell each one how to get the perfect gift for the other.
• But I can't do it myself because I'm broke.
• ...and broken.

I fucking hate December.

Every time I think about you I get this amazing nervous feeling in my stomach and a big smile. Our relationship didn't last an especially long time but the impact you had on my life has reverberated through the last decade like the last note of a fantastic concert. That trip to Knoxville reverberates through my mind. The drawing you made for me in rehab hangs on my wall "Funky not a junky" my mind always completes the verse "but I know where to get it". You will always be the one who got away. I would have gladly moved to Knoxville for just a chance to date you. But it wasn't to be. I think I will always wonder what if. But its a good wondering no bitterness just a nice daydream. Ill always have a special place in my dreams for you.

Not normally...but this is a poem...for...reasons.


A P o Em


Who can write
With a broken pen (heart)
Amongst all these shattered
Glass pieces of (my heart) the bottle
Thrown against the wall (of my chest)


Who can heal (sob)
While clenching teeth (photos) so tightly
The blood is barely (runs freely) concealed

Who fucking wants to
Who fucking wants to
Why bother
When it will all happen again
On a whim against the weakness


Flower petals so easily crushed by
Heavy winter boots


Fucking indifferent
Don't
Please don't
Don't say it


...I love you too


~shard
12/3/16

Isn’t that what immigration is for? Who in their right mind would have one? I don’t see the appeal of babies and toddlers.

They’re disgusting and selfish. They stink. Their breath smells like sour milk. They spew foul liquids from every orifice. Kaka, snot, vomit, ear goo, pee, and some thigns I don’t even know about. They make awful sounds. They’re ugly and look like aliens.

Today is Armistice Day, and most stores and cafés are closed. Only the big chain stores like Starbucks are open. I needed to get out of my tiny flat and work somewhere else for a while.

I was horrified to see a badly behaved double family bring in double sets of babies and toddlers to Starbucks today. They took over the store and acted like they owned it the instant they walked in. They gathered up every empty table and chair and blocked the room with themselves, the misplaced furniture, their luggage, and strollers. This forced everyone else to dodge them and resulted in a lot of people bumping into each other to avoid them.

Tweeker skinny and hyperactive, the blond mother looked batsh1t crazy. Her eyes so wide you could see all the way around the iris. her clothes were half thrown on. Sweatpants, socks and shoes that did not match, greasy blond hair in a kerchief and running around all frazzled as the toddlers ran around the store screaming and flinging the whipped cream off their mochas at each other. The baby in the baby wheelchair emitted a mindless howl every couple of minutes. The blond mother gave nasty glares at anybody who looked even mildly annoyed. The brown haired mother ignored held another baby and ignored the toddlers.

What was even more mind-boggling is that some guy said they were cute. No. Kittens are cute. Puppies are cute. Your spawn are monsters. And the fathers were standing gossiping to each other with their black lab they had brought into the store. Even the dog was misbehaving and running around the store. They did not attempt to discipline their children. Their voices were loud to give them away as British tourists. What was even more messed up was taht they had a black nanny with them to help, but she was just as useless as the fathers. She seemed more like just another status symbol and accessory for the parents.

All I wanted to do was work in a place that was reasonably normal for a busy café, which I can usually do for hours at Starbucks, but it wasn't possible today.

So today makes the first day into 'phase' at the rehab that i'm at. which means that i have been there at the rehab center a little over 2 months now, and let me tell you.. the past 2 months have been hell. i'm not used to being told to make my bed, and do chores. after 2 months of that i started to learn to make my bed every morning i wake up, and to do my chore. now that i'm in the 'phase' program i will get in trouble if i do not do those things, and if i get 5 'issues' then i will have to either write 18,000 words or a list of shit to do, and i really do not want to write that many words, and the shit that i'd have to do is like to sleep in detox, or be assigned a brother and take him to meetings.
I have a little more freedom now, like i get to leave at 4:30pm and stay out until 11pm. before hand i couldn't leave the property unless it were a weekend, and instead of being required to attend 15 meetings a week, I only have to do 7. so i get to get out a little bit more, the downside of that is that i have to be up at 3:30am on Wednesday morning and work in the kitchen there until 11pm.(with breaks after breakfast,lunch and dinner, and have to go to an AA meeting after dinner). we are not allowed to have any coffee there so that really sucks. Hell i woke up that early in the morning to get another one in me (that is if i did go to sleep).
I have a total of 4 more months in the 'program' and after this month goes by then they will move me from a top bunk, to a bottom bunk, and after the second month of phase then i will be moved to a single bed, and after the single bed then i will be moved upstairs.

Hell, I came from the streets. I was sleeping in a tent off of an old abandoned railroad track. in the winter months, drinking myself warm everynight. I didn't know that I would turn into an alcoholic until..
like on the 5th month and i woke up next to a hooker with the taste of hand sanatizer on my breath. I knew I had hit my bottom there, I went from drinking hard liquors <mouthwash < hand sanatizer, the next would have been break fluid or some fucked up shit. I did the drugs when they were around, later discovered that I can get more alcohol for my money, so I said fuck drugs wheres the bottle!
a lot of my homeless friends would have got paid like around the first of the month from SSI, and be broke the next day, where I would go pan handle and get a gallon of the cheapest vodka that i could buy and be shit faced for the next few days, i would keep doing that shit until I found out that I can get even fubard by drinking mouth wash. that was my shit!!

I'm sober now, and thats only some of my story.

I can't wait until I have more time sober so I can help another alcoholic, and once I graduate from this program then I will have a chance to do so, and get paid to do it! xD

Everyday is just a little worse then the last. I have a pile of SSRIs all lined up on my night stand inviting me too eat them all at once. A cry for help. A week in the phych ward followed by no one giving a fuck still. Don't get me wrong my parents try. I just cant help myself. Everyone would be better off if I was dead or not involved in there life. I just need to find the courage to kill myself. I have been told that I will feel much better after a make a final decision on death. All the worries and doubts will drift away and I will feel at peace with the absolute meaningless of this world. I hope that is true.

I thought I was doing fairly alright then it got train wreck tragic. In a nutshell because it's too painful to get into: Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I cook for a week in advance so I'm not stuck in the kitchen all day, giving me the opportunity to enjoy the company of my guests; as to them, I request nothing of them save, perhaps, booze or a very special dish if they feel so inspired.


I invite anyone with a pulse - perfect strangers and my most revered. This year was no different. In fact, quite the opposite. The guest list would be my sweetie and I, our two boys and teen gal, our eldest daughter driving from WA with her sweetie, my brother, his lady and their two kids, both my sisters and sweeties, the elder with her daughter, my tenant, one of my earliest friends from jr. high, my love brother (sounds rather kink, but no. He’s a Brother-In-Faith), a pair of friends and a neighboring family with their three kids.


Except, apparently, I had a lobotomy or something, because I forgot I am sick as fuck. There is no slutchunking way in Ancient Rome I can handle all the required cooking. I can barely pour cereal and I’m supposed to make a 30 lb. glazed turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potato crunch, sautéed garden veggies, arroz con gandules, salad, muffins and oh, 6 pies and a cheesecake? Plus gravy, amaretto whip cream and stuffing?


Did I mention I’m the lucky asshole with agoraphobia AND social anxiety disorder?


Now, before you zip over here to thump me with a fresh Gilligan, I wasn’t always this way. As a matter of fact, this time, last year, that guest list would have prompted scoffing. "Just them? That's it? Amateur."


As a result of recently being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Fibromyalgia, losing 50+ pounds, and feeling as attractive as a pre-chewed Mick Jagger mini-marshmallow (not to mention dealing with The Haters telling everyone the weight loss was cancer until someone saw me get lightheaded and almost pass out at the grocery store, then it became "no, she’s totally a drug addict!" [Hey Alanis, is THIS the right place to say ironic?], only fueling my desire to stay the fuck inside, well, I pretty much fucked up my favorite holiday - the one that allows me to get through the rest of the shitty ones, by being too fucking sick and terrified to even leave my fucking bedroom.


Well done.

I'm staring at this keyboard struggling with what I want to say, afraid of, you guessed it, saying too much.

How many days straight, no sleep, is too much?

How many days straight without leaving your room? Not seeing your kids even though they're just on the other side of the fucking door?

How much self loathing?

How much blame can one person carry?

....and how much fucking blow?

It's been a little while since I've used any drugs other than the ones I'm prescribed.

But today I had a day with no commitments and no one was going to be home with me but my dogs.

So I decided to pick up a bundle of dope and some crack. Not too much but nowhere near enough, as anyone who has ever been addicted to drugs may know...

I've been smoking the crack all day and sniffing the dope. I've got to go to the supermarket with my girlfriend to buy the food we need for Thanksgiving dinner. That's going to be a fucking trip. I don't want her to know I'm on drugs, especially crack, but it's going to be pretty fucking obvious.

It's going to be pretty terrible. I fucked up again. I'm so sorry, bubba bear, I really am. I've just been so depressed and anxious lately. This is obvious but I want to fucking fix it.

I don't really subscribe to the AA/NA thing of complete abstinence, because I've been somewhat successful on Suboxone but honestly maybe I need to reevaluate that.

I want to get the hell off of Suboxone and Klonopin but it's going to be so fucking hard. I think I am going to have to go in-patient for that because I've been on Klonopin for over 5 years, probably closer to 8 years. And I've been dependent on Suboxone for 3+ years. I'm on 8mg per day sublingual Suboxone.

It's going to be a bitch to get off of them both. I think I would get off Suboxone first and then work on getting off of Klonopin, because there's no way in hell I would subject myself to concurrent benzo and opioid withdrawal.

I need to get off of these medications.

I want to wake up in the morning and not need any pills or powders or whatever to get through my day. I want to feel natural endorphins again. I want to sleep naturally again and not be knocked out chemically.

There's a time and a place for drugs and chemicals, I truly believe that, but I've wasted over 10 years of my life on chemicals.

I know I need to do grief counseling to help me deal with the loss of my mother.

I also know I need to get off of Suboxone and Klonopin because they're like a ball and chain I drag around with me, making everything hazy and surreal.

Holy shit, it's been 42 days since I made the decision to go on methadone as a maintenance drug to address my addiction to opiates. In the beginning it was great! I was still getting high from my 'done and I was accomplishing a lot! I had to keep going up a bit every few days to a week, which is how I found myself at 75mgs. Well, I was happy at around 45/55ish but then I had to go and get high (or was it take pills? I'm not too sure) and started feeling guilty in a way I haven't before. I knew that by doing that I just messed up my tolerance. For some people it may take a few times of using on top of methadone, but for me, all it takes is ONE use that creates a high stronger than what I'm use to on a daily basis and then I'm stuck with being at a higher dose. The lower one just doesn't do it for me anymore. I hate it, but it is what it is. I was trying real hard to NOT fuck around on the methadone, to stick with the notion that we were getting clean.

For realz....

...yea, I said we. We, as in, my boyfriend and I, as in, the person I've spent the last 10.5 years with and will in all likelihood spend the rest of my life with. We both joined the program and I thought he was going to actually work the program. It turns out that he is using methadone because it's cheaper than maintaining a habit on anything else, his social anxiety and grave depression is lifted while an opiate is attached to his receptors, and it's better than the alternative of smoking dope all the time. So I was wrong about his intentions and motivations for getting on the program. As always, my feelings of actually wanting to give this sober thing a shot, feel silly, naïve, and just, well, almost embarrassed for some reason? I'm not sure.


Like I'm super lame for wanting to get sober. Like I should be okay with the drug life. Like it's weird that I'm even considering that drugs are actually bad for you....giving into the propaganda. Shit, my counselor at the clinic is a huge abstinence only kinda gal and it bugs me that she tries and makes me feel guilty or bad for still smoking cannabis!

It doesn't work! LOL!!! I'm not worried about my cannabis After giving up everything else, including getting drunk, I feel like a bowl after the kids are in bed, while I'm curled up in my bed with a book or a movie and something sweet, is a lot better than I was doing AND there is absolutely nothing wrong with it! I know cannabis is a relatively benign plant and there are many states that have it legal for recreational use.

It's honestly the only substance I don't have a real issue with. If there were cocaine (mdma, dmt, ketamine, _______) in my home, I'd want to do it as soon as my kids are asleep! I wouldn't want to wait. It's kinda easy to save the psyche's since I don't abuse them-I try and treat them with the utmost respect.

At 49 days of methadone maintenance I believe I have finally stabilized on my dose. I am at 75mg and I don't have intense cravings any more. I do long for the high but I know that if I try and smoke it would be a waste of money and I am really digging having extra money! With that money staying in my wallet and not going into the hands of my dealer, I have the ability to pay my oldest daughter an allowance for all the chores she does around the house and that is a great feeling!

I have the means to buy myself a cute, unique apron for my new job along with a great server book as well!

Life is getting better, little by little...
I'm not clean and clear of all substances, not by a long shot, as I do enjoy altered states of consciousness. Opiates though, they weren't just an altered state, they were a way of life. And that was a problem. One that I needed to face and tackle before things started to get better.

Last night, after working 67 hours in ten days straight, I sat upstairs my restaurants bar, talking with the bar manager and having a beer and a shot. I received a message from my boyfriend saying that he had a little surprise for me when I get home.
My mind went over the things it could be....it couldn't be dope or pills, because those are no longer effective for me...we had sweets at home, so it couldn't be that...hmmmm....what could it be? I knew he went to get herb while I was at work...was it a new movie? No...shit..what could it be?

So after my ONE beer and ONE shot, I say good bye and start on the three block walk home. The thought went through my mind to go one block further and grab a half pint of Jim Beam and a coke to share with my boyfriend, but it was cold and I didn't have a jacket on, so I went home. When I walk in I was greeted with a warm smile and a kiss-and was asked if I wanted to eat, and said yes! I was super hungry! He heated me up some chicken lasagna and I scarfed it down. Just as I was finishing up, he brought out the broken mirror and set it on the table...he had fish scale!!!

Yay! What a great surprise! I knew it was good, because he doesn't do blow if it's not good.

It wasn't much, maybe three good lines each, but it was enough to enjoy and be thankful for! It was nice to indulge a bit after working my ass off at my new job (especially since I got to serve that night and not just host/bus/cashier and walked with 135 on a Sunday night!) and being clean of heroin and pills for so long!

I send him off to the corner store for a half pint of whisky, a coke and a pack of smokes. We enjoyed each others company, and talked and smoked and had a few drinks. Then, somehow, the idea of eating my mushroom chocolate left over from a music festival I went to over the summer entered my head. It was only 1/3 of the chocolate, but I knew it was good. And I even had a gram or two of dried mushrooms in my secret drawer that I tried to offer my boyfriend. However, he's always been kinda an lsd guy...mushrooms he's got to be outside, and since we didn't have a sitter for the kids, so we couldn't go on a night walk, he opted to not indulge with me like that and just hung out with me.

This was kind of a big thing for me, as I have never eating a psych alone, and I was kinda worried he might be upset or annoyed with me, but he assured me that it was perfectly ok!
The big step was me actually taking his word for what it was and trusting that he really meant that.
You see, I've had a problem thinking that people only tell me things because they think that's what I want to hear, but that hasn't worked out for me very well in the past, so I'm trying the new thing of just believing that people are saying what they really mean.

I had an absolute blast! It was a good trip that lasted about 4ish hours or so. We listened to music, and talked a bit. He brought me a candle so I could get lost in the flame. He laughed with me. He held my hand when I cried (out of joy, really) and all in all I really am glad I did that. It was a beautiful super moon out that I got to bask in the beauty of.
And I even was ready to analyze whatever my mind wanted to throw at me. I felt confident that my choices lately have been good and will lead me in the right direction in life.

There is still a lot of work I need to do with myself but I am ready for it. And I am ready to accept that my boyfriend really does love me for me, and not just because I function well in life.

I'm very grateful for my children, my boyfriend, my home, my job....I'm glad I chose to go on methadone. I think it may help me so much more than I thought it would. I think my addiction was deeper than I wanted to admit.

I don't believe all drugs are bad. I believe that our choices can make our use of drugs bad and that some drugs, for some people, will equal life long dependencies that can trump all other choices.

Know Thyself

After my son died and the whole world, the one that started in my mind and radiated out like a great sea of light and noise and movement went completely dark and silent, I lay in my own wet madness and the only movement was my chest expanding and deflating, expanding and deflating. When my eyes moved, I could hear them, as if they were my childhood doll Lisa’s eyes from so long ago, the eyes that opened and closed with a gentle clack when you tipped her forward or back. Her face came into my mind and it was of course also my son’s face with the wide set blue eyes, the full pink cheeks and the frozen, angelic smile. She/he floated there, an image in the otherwise dark void and I believed that the task before me was to move towards that point of light, that by moving I would once again create the world of light and sound and movement. And so it was that I did sit up and I did stand and like a person waking from a coma, I saw before me the whole world as it was before, chaotic with color, saturated with scents and clamoring voices, dizzying noise. But it was not my world. Not the one that went dark. That world held me. It held my family intact. It held my son. Was this a movie? A re-enactment? A trick?

Pulled outside into my garden by a honeysuckle by the kitchen door, my garden lay verdant and overgrown in every direction. I have always used working in the garden for therapy, weeding and pruning and transplanting got me safely through many hours of my son’s addiction and psychosis. It gave me one small space in which to achieve order in a time when helplessness was my normal frame of mind. But what I felt when I looked at my weed choked garden now was a sense of un-belonging.

Almost without thinking I picked up the broom that leans outside the door and I began to sweep. I swept the flagstones that my son helped me gather from the neighbor that was tearing them out across the road a decade ago. I swept in an inward pattern, around the edges and towards the center. I circled my grief like a dog weaving a safe bed out of nothing but intention. I gathered the mess of all that remained of my life and my self into a small, neat pile of leaf and duff and ash, pushed it gently into the rusted metal dust pan and tipped it into the bin. There.

There.

I have cleared a space. It will fill again, I know that. But the broom makes sense in my hands, the dry sound it makes on the pink stones is calming. It is a simple agreement. The broom asks only to be put to use. I ask only for a reason to get back up. Together we can clear a small space. We can do it today and again tomorrow and the day after that. It requires no speech, no emotion, no insight; only the purity of simple focus and mechanical motion. Oh, beautiful, gentle motion.

I do not need happiness anymore. I only need something to hold in my hands, to set a meaningless and humble human task and see it through.

Well things have been going swimmingly now that I have somewhat of a well thought out plan on the next few years and the rest of my life.

To start the car i bought about 18 months prior died. Just paid my parents back for it in time to be rendered carless by fate. But that spurred me to start saving money and in astoundingly short order i was about to save about 2000 in almost weeks, planning to get to about 3000 or so by the middle of December. It literally marks the first time in my life i have nothing i need to spend money on so i can save about 70% of my weekly pay. It feels good thinking i can actually save my money and this makes money seem like something easily had if i try.

I have also gotten very into gemology. I have always liked gem stones and planned on collecting them along with elements as part of my whole "life of loving chemistry" after all what are gemstones but a chemical compound? So I got my first one in and knowing nothing of carats and how small they actually are i received a tiny peridot along with a decent sized citrine. I keep the Peridot on me (its that small) all the time as a sort of good luck charm. I plan on taking appraisal and gem classes so i can hopefully travel the world and buy sapphires, which are one of my favorites, and diamonds because they are commonly traded. I figure i literally look at them because i think they are pretty what better use of my time then to get paid to look at pretty colored things. I am going to start with a cheap online class but really theres a few nationally recognized institutions i am going to look at for classes.

I am still working toward going back to school for chemistry and having it be a formality. I actually purchased a microscale lab (well depending on what one considers to be a "lab" its 3 by my standards... crazy value like 25% the true value) next i just need a college text book on real lab experiments from a real university to do at home. I also need to get a very easy algebra text book to see where math gets hard so i can hopefully sharpen those skills. The way i see it is i want to be enrolled again by the fall semester of 2018... i got some time but not a lot.

Chemistry is a passion i would love to make it into a career and legit source of income but thats not as likely as trying to work with gemstones in some fashion. I like gemstones because of their chemistry so in that way it makes sense.

Also one of my oldest friends moved up to my state from FL so its nice to feel like i have a trusted friend around again, until recently i hadnt seen him in almost 8 years. Its actually nice having someone I can chill with where the relationship has never been a buyer/seller or party style one.

Needless to say it seems like things are progressing forward. Everyday is full of new opportunities and i am continuing to work toward the main goal... where i rule all of you, obviously bluelighter status will result in leniency

i just wanted to put that out there, i'm roughly 78 days sober, and to be honest.. i still feel like shit. all of those feelings that i would cover up by drinking are starting to come out, and it really fucking sucks. i don't like a lot of those feelings because they come from my past, and its a motherfucker waking up at 2am crying about some shit that i went through when i was 11.
I would like to also mention that i am in a alcohol treatment program, it's a 6-9 month program and I am going into my third month of being there. I've seen a lot of people come and go, out of like 50? people that i jonied the program with theres 3 of us that remain. its not a hard program at all, i mean the first month and a half did suck, i accepted the fact that i was an alcoholic and needed help, and if i were to keep drinking the way i was drinking before i got into the program then i would have been dead. i'm saying that because if you are an alcoholic of the hopeless variety like me then our life span isn't all that great. i had to accept the fact that i was indeed an alcoholic before i even got here, and really..my alcoholism had me believing that drinking mouthwash and hand sanatizer was normal. i drank because i liked the effect produced by it, if you drank for the taste the same shit i drank then my hat is off to you.
i'm still pretty early in my recovery, the entire god concept still has me thinking, there are times where i'm thinking shit like, 'if there is a god then why are there so many kids dieing from hunger in third world countries'? i look at all the people that have many years in recovery and a lot of them go to church, I still havn't made it that far. everyday i wake up i tell myself that i am an alcoholic because i like to say 'hey today is a good day to get shit faced', and knowing that i am an alcoholic is half the battle and at least i have made it that far.

alcoholism has fucking ruined my life, i'd like to say that i have a family that cares for me and all the good stuff that goes along with it,ecept that isn't the case. my last 'spree' destroyed the chance of me re-building my family again. I had to accept that I have no family and am getting sober just for my sake. those feelings i get from cutting my family out of my life is really fucking my head up, i have family thats sick and dieing and trying to stuff that shit deep in my head is making me feel like shit, and the thought of 'hey a drink sounds good' crosses my mind. i'm still trying to cope with that shit, but today i am not going to drink over it, i work a selfish program and for once in my life i have to do this sobriety thing just for me. it wont work another way because i've tried, countless times to get sober for my family,job,girlfriends,etc and they all end the same way, with me being homeless with nowhere to go.

i would like to say that i am happy today, but i would be lieing to you. today i am just grateful that i woke up in a bed, with breakfast to eat and somewhere to wash my ass and brush my teeth. the day isn't over and that list will only get bigger. if i do decided to take a drink today then the chances of you seeing or hearing from me ever again are really not so good. i have to learn that when i do 'drink/drug' then bad things happen every time. and i am sick of bad things happening to me because i'm not such a bad guy, i just make really bad decisions.

starting next week i will be working in the kitchen at the recovery center that i'm at, that means for 2 days out of the week i will be waking up at 3:30am and working until 11pm that night preparing meals for 250-350 homeless people, i am really looking foward to that because i like to eat, and i know that the walk in fridge at where i'm at is loaded full of donuts and tons of sweets.

just for today i am grateful that i'm not dead, and get to experience the good vibes i get by helping another alcoholic.

Gosh once again it has been a while. Endo sorted, using next to nothing, drinking under control for the most part, no boys. Saw NF again and realise now that whilst the infatuation may never go away, he is not for me and is far too jeuvenile to be in a relationship. Fuck his mixed messages tho, guess some things don't change.

Now that I am celibate, I feel like I am seeing things clearly for the first time ever. Life is lighter. People and their motivations seem more obvious.

I am at the start of the journey when it comes to what I want for myself long term. I thought I had it all worked out. I do not know shit. I will work it out but one day at a time.