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I was initially pissed off about getting busted and being forced to be clean, but then again even in jail I knew I had a choice. It was the first time I had the opportunity to do both meth and heroin, but I didn't see the point as I had already physically kicked. Why put myself through that again? The women in my tank 39 others were witness to the fact I didn't sleep 5 days. I came in with a 500mg a day barbiturate and 300mg codeine habit. Once the worst was over I think it was still another month before I could physically sit sit for more than a minute at a time, let alone read.

Life has thrown me a few curve balls and while I'm happy to be out, it's an adjustment dealing with the demands of being on the outside. That sounds strange coming from someone only locked up 90 days, the longest I ever served at once. Sigh. I've dicked around with drugs far too long as addiction leaves me living day to day chasing the next fix or whatever to stay well. It sucks all my time and left me broke and living in my car. I spent my 49th birthday in jail.

I know this is no way to live. Mom wasn't going to let me stay more than one night, but I've pretty much followed the rules and by mid December I will be in a recovery home for 90 days as ordered by the court. So I'm grateful for the good things, but its been a real test as the migraines have come back and I don't have any access to the Rx non narcotic drugs that helped me. I do have a shit load of fun pills that are my Rx, and amazingly enough I've not yet said fuck it and ditch the pain after 2 days, but only because I'm sure it's my mind fucking with me. I just want this shit to be over.

I've been applying for jobs, gone to interviews and it's always the same outcome - 'sorry but you've been unsuccessful on this occasion'. I'm doing all the right things and i've given 100% so what gives?

I might be over-qualified for the jobs i'm applying for. A supermarket probably doesn't want an undergrad working for them as a shelf stacker because they imagine they won't stick around for long and they'd be right, i can do better.

I just need a job though, any job. Anything is better than having too much free time to think. Me alone with my thoughts is a dangerous place. My shit tinted glasses begin to convince me i'm worthless and that my life is pointless so stop trying. I'm not using drugs other than some diazepam to ease my anxiety but i can see myself slipping into that hole again and it's a long way down.

I had a thought today that maybe karma exists and this is my punishment for all the hurt i've caused but if that's true then karma really is a bitch because my family are also hurting.

I'm not going to give up.

Everybody dies.

It’s a fact that sits in the back of my mind most days. If things are going badly, I remind myself; well, I’m going to die one day. Suicide and death are concepts I ruminate on like any other; morbidity is no reason for avoidance. But, this isn't just about me. Death has been catapulted to the forefront of my families psyche within the space of nary a month. Upon arrival home from her overseas trip, my sister fell ill and needed hospitalisation to replace vital fluids. No, she was not close to death, but no hospital trip is pleasant. That was just the beginning. Barely two weeks later, my parents sat my sister and I down to have a “chat.” Yes, a “chat-” with all the insinuation those apostrophe marks suggest. It’s going to be bad news - how bad you don’t know till it’s told. My sister reacted first, emotionally; in a spontaneous way most men or I probably wouldn’t allow themselves to do even in the safety and privacy of their homes. She cried. In fact she started sobbing. I was just numb. Breast Cancer. The big C. The one you hear about all the time - the disease half of all Australian’s get at some point in their lives. The diagnosis that rocks the thought boat from just conceptualizing death to realising you might actually have to face it, like a rogue wave building on an otherwise calm horizon. My first thoughts and feelings after the initial run-through of the situation were positive. “Ah,” I thought demurely and with feigned nonchalance; “Breast cancer in this country is so well researched, it’s basically like catching a common cold. No worries!” Alas the worries did come. For a few days, the prognosis was uncertain. Over three painstaking days she visited oncology, and her fate was revealed; she was in the early stages of the disease. She had not been handed a death sentence.

To be contd.

Seen doctor today. He's given me something called Mirtazapine instead of citralopram n increased my suboxone to 12 mg. i'm really pleased about this. I told them how I've been craving n using n how I've been thinking about trying stronger drugs. My key worker was really understanding n spent two hours with me this morning talking to me n going through things with me. I start the 12 mg on Monday n I only have to collect it weekly from now on.

Right - in KFC at mo having a kaisun box meal then off to meeting.

Take care,
Evey xxx

Well, I just finished jury duty on a civil court case. I honestly hope that is my last entanglement with our byzantine justice system. The judge kinda reminded me of the judge in Ghostbusters II but not quite so fiery. I think I understand why people hate lawyers so much, they like to split hairs over “the letter of the law” and they use really underhanded persuasion tactics. This isn’t an appropriate forum to go into the details of the case, but I will say that I felt strongly that the plaintiff is a part of a demographic that tends to get railroaded by our legal system and does not receive the representation that the more affluent have access to.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about the criminalization of drug use and what a ham-fisted approach it is. I read an intriguing article in People magazine a ways back in which Matthew Perry discussed his vicodin (and alcohol) abuse and the need for a parallel legal process for small-time drug offenders that would basically be rehabilitation-based rather than jail time. I personally think this is worth a try because the current system (incarceration) does not serve as a deterrent to addicts. My conditions would be 1) it would not apply to drug offenses involving violent crime 2) it would not apply to drug traffickers (cutoff quantity TBD by appropriate legal means). These two groups must be treated like the criminals they are. People busted for simple possession should instead be required to go to a rehab program, although I haven’t given that much thought to the details.

I realize this is an unpopular approach for many, as it smacks of being “soft on crime”. And of course, feigning outrage over perceived misuse of tax dollars is everybody’s favorite game to play. I realize there are a great many users who are absolutely incorrigible and will abuse the system.
It will be interesting to see how Portugal’s experiment with decriminalization goes, although their economy is such a shitshow right now which doesn’t really help their case too much. Over here I think the idea is a pipe dream, it’s just too radioactive for politicians to touch without running the risk of being smeared. It’s a tough cookie, no easy solutions.

I don't recall if something was happening in the dream before this point, but I was walking around in a department store at around the time I started to become lucid. I don't remember very many specific details from this point, but I do know that I was in an argument with one of the cashiers at the front of the store. I had been attempting to buy something while I was still mostly non-lucid, and I think it pretty much vanished from the dream. The main thing I recall is telling the cashier that he was going to have to give me his pants for some reason, and I suppose it was a valid enough reason because he actually took them off and frustratedly handed them over. I just tossed them back to someone else in the store who had been joking about keeping the pants for himself, saying that I didn't even want them. Every person in the store, aside from the cashier, was actually singing about this event as it was happening. This is a surprisingly common occurrence for me in my lucid dreams. There was even a lull in the instrumentals playing in the background and everyone's singing so that I could solo the final verse as I walked out the front door. I don't recall the lyrics now, but I wish I did.

As I walked out front I was becoming more aware. I suddenly felt the desire to summon a group of women and they all immediately spawned in front of me, four of them wearing blue dresses. This was a very casual effect and I was surprised that it went as smoothly as it did, but I felt that it did reflect my thoughts about letting my mind materialize my desires on its own. These four women all approached me and encircled me, placing me at the center of a big group hug between them. Because of this one of them was behind me and I could only really see the other three. I specifically remember that there was something "special" about each of them that I saw. The woman to the right of me was singing and had an absolutely beautiful voice; once again, I don't recall the lyrics. The woman directly in front of me was the most caring and affectionate of the group; I was staring directly into her eyes and felt very safe and loved. The woman to the left of me was simply the most aesthetically appealing of the group, the most attractive in a purely sexual way. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was that stood out to me about the woman who was behind me, probably for that reason.... However, thinking back, what I would actually say about her was that she seemed the most "normal" of any of them, but in a good way.

When I was focusing on these women around me, the world suddenly started spinning behind us and transforming into different environments. I find this incredibly interesting, because it is similar to every full entity contact experience I've had on a drug, the ones with actual interactions anyway. On LSD, 2C-I, and salvia I was faced with ghostly blue girls in trippy outfits who encircled me and overwhelmed me, leading to lots of sexual euphoria and transitions into new phases of the trips. These women were in much more normal outfits than any of these entities, but they were also fully rendered. What stands out to me is that they were wearing blue, and that these same sexual feelings occurred, and at some point during it all the dream scene suddenly changed. I honestly can't remember a whole lot about my new scenery other than it was outside somewhere, and it seemed rather abstract compared to most dream environments I have. The women were also nowhere to be found; I suddenly came to just on my own in this place.

Once I gathered myself I decided to try more summoning. I chose to call upon a girl who I knew in my high school senior PE class. This girl has had a large impact on my life, though in a rather superficial way.... In high school I had a lot of very severe body issues and spent a lot of my time feeling dissociated from life. While growing up I had slowly crafted what I felt to be a mental self image of what my "true" self should look like, how I would appear if my looks mirrored my personality. This girl from PE left a large imprint of my mind because she looked more similar to the image I had built up for myself than anyone else I had ever met, and thus brought out a lot of insecurity for me. Because of this, I also often tried to summon her in dreams or in trips as a way of using her to sculpt my perception of my own body toward the way I felt and lessen my anxiety, which conversely only made me feel worse. Within the last couple of years I have been letting go of a lot of these feelings, and just within the last few weeks I've actually been making amazing strides in this area of my life, but old habits die hard. She's usually the first person that comes to mind with summoning, and this time was no different.

Already in this dream I had made great progress in summoning with the four women from before. Aside from my most recent time, every experience I'd ever had involved summoning objects from behind me, or summoning people from around a corner and going to find them there, or anything like that. Shortcuts, ways to help my mind deal with what I was trying to do. The last time I tried it I managed to create a small object in my line of sight, and though it was difficult, I felt it was a large accomplishment. So obviously, those four women made me feel great! This next time I tried it there was even more of an animation to it, rather than them just fading into existence. As I pictured the girl from my PE class, a brown liquid started forming a 3D model of a person from the ground up. I say 3D model because it was similar to if you imagine a computer-generated character with no colors or textures applied yet, so it was all the default color (in this case brown), but everything else was properly detailed. This form held for a moment, then deformed and was filled with color. The result was a nightmarish, mutant alien-like creature that reminded me of a mixture between something out of Star Wars and a deliriant trip. I quickly dropped it from my perception and it vanished and tried again, only to reach the same results.

I was feeling anxious because I really wanted to summon that girl and I was afraid that the dream would end soon, but it suddenly occurred to me how hard I was trying. I remembered all of my thoughts of simply trusting my mind and letting things flow, and I managed to calm myself down as much as possible. Immediately, the brown liquid started up again. This time, however, it created the perfect form. It wasn't even the girl, but my mental self image that I had always wanted that she looked so much like. It was completely perfect, and I was stunned. But now, instead of being filled with color and coming to life as I expected, she merely gave me a smug smile and then jumped forward into my body. The action alone startled me and I ended up looking down at myself; my body didn't appear to have changed, but my perception of it was very flat and wavy. I amused myself with this for a moment and tried to see if I could stretch and pull it in different ways with my thoughts, but then I became nervous because I remembered past experiences where focusing on myself too much caused the rest of the dream to fall apart and fade away. Whether it was due to this or just expectation, I picked up on it too late and everything faded to black.

This dream meant a lot more to me than most of them that I've had, and I feel like it may be linked to the progress that I've been making lately.... It definitely had a more psychedelic feel than most of my lucid dreams, in any case. I wanted to detail it here because of how it reflects my personal journey and in the hopes of giving myself motivation to continue journaling so that I can get back into lucid dreaming. If you've read this far, thank you for your time and I hope you've at least found it interesting or entertaining!

This is going to be a dream journal entry for a lucid dream that I had last night, and since it's my first blog post here I'm going to include a good amount of background information too.

I've been a lucid dreamer, on and off, for about seven years or so. I first came upon it by accident in high school and then didn't pick it up again until not long after I graduated, when I realized that it was something you could actually work towards achieving. When I first started managing to have them on purpose I was fascinated with the idea that you could control what went on in your dreams; I basically wanted to build up a collection of superpowers. I was lucky enough to be able to fly without any effort as it was something I did normally even in non-lucid dreams, though it did take some practice to master. The next power, and the first one that I actually had to practice consistently to be able to use, was phasing through walls and other solid surfaces. After that, my list slowly started to build.... Over time I managed various levels of skill for telekinesis, shapeshifting, mega jumping, super strength, summoning, cryokinesis, body possession, mind control, teleportation, and some others that probably aren't coming to mind right now.

Around the time I really started becoming interested in lucid dreaming was also when I was first starting to get into taking hallucinogens. I also had a lot of anxiety at that time in life and was in a major depression. I used psychedelics and others regularly generally in high doses, but they just started to unmask more issues I had. I experienced severe dissociation on multiple occasions, but I was never able to achieve anything like ego death due to a strong inability to let go of my anxieties. Due to my dream world escapades, I was also attempting to control my trips not only in the sense of keeping myself grounded but in actually influencing the hallucinations in the same way that is possible in dreams. This, of course, led to many difficult experiences that never were able to go quite as I wanted, though it always felt like they had the potential to. That just convinced me to push further and further, until finally I had what was one of my last significant trips before taking a long hiatus from psychedelics that I'm not nearing the end of. That was an experience with a large dose of LSD, too large for me to influence at all.

In some ways I viewed this trip as negative because of how it unearthed more of my insecurities and continuing inability to achieve ego death, but in other ways I found it to be quite helpful. Something it made me truly realize is that I was treating hallucinogens as something separate from myself, when in fact they aren't at all; the hallucinogenic state is simply the part of our brains, our "mind", that we normally influence to create our imagination being stimulated from an outside source. There's no need to try control a trip because the trip already is you and the drug is just doing all the work for you, so all you really need to do is trust your own mind to follow your best interests (and why wouldn't it?) and everything will work out like you want. I realized this because even though I was far too gone to try an exert control over my hallucinations on that trip at all, it was that that actually caused them to form just like I had always wanted. It was like an acid trip at the level of control of a lucid dream, and I didn't even have to make an effort for it.

The more I thought about this, the more I could apply it to my lucid experiences. The best example of it that I can give is how I originally learned to overcome my inability to phase through walls in dreams. When I first started trying this, I would face the same problem every time: I could push through the wall if I tried hard enough, but it was extremely difficult. I would start by pushing my hands forward toward the surface and it would bend back like it wasn't totally stable, but still solid. The harder I pushed, the more it would begin to separate a bit like thick JELO, but it would show so much resistance. It got a little easier as time went on, but then something new occurred to me and I gave it a shot. And it worked! Basically, I just walked straight through the wall as if it was never there to begin with. I've used this method ever since and I've never had a single problem with it, and I can even go back to pushing on the wall as totally solid or having it bend if I feel like it. What I have since realized is that by outstretching my hands and expecting the wall to be a solid object I had to get beyond, I was giving it power.

I feel that when we try to exert control over hallucinations like this we're much more likely to come across these pitfalls, defeating the whole purpose. My mind was aware that I didn't want there to be a wall there, and if I had just gone about my business expecting it to be taken care of for me from the start then it would have. What's significant about this is that many of the areas of the brain involved in perception and imagination that become activated by dreams are also activated by hallucinogens; following this logic, I felt that the same concept of the mind being stimulated from an "outside" source (aside from your conscious control) should apply. For that reason I began trying to keep this in mind in my dreams, simply acting as if the things I wanted to achieve were already on their way rather than trying to create them myself. However, I also started smoking weed pretty heavily at this time and stopped remembering my dreams very well. Consequently, my lucid rate lowered significantly and I didn't have many experiences, but I never stopped trying to integrate these ideas.

So, with that all being said, on to last night!

Hiya People,

Today I did some volunteering making breakfast for the homeless...well drug addicts n alkies. It felt rewarding n I felt great because I was contributing to something, helping people. The people were lovely n friendly. They talked n had a laugh about things n some of the other volunteers were people who I go to the local support group with.

I then went round town to find things that I could put in a shoe box for Operation Christmas Child. Clarks happily gave me a shoe box to do this. I was not going to do it but my littlle one really wants them to have this n got upset over it so I thought "OK, I'll do it."

I got a few more things for Christmas shopping. Of course that means Boots because with the love2shop vouchers comes 500 points equalling £5. Boot promoting day on Thursday £12 for £50 spent so will be hitting Boots big time!!! The lights are going to be turned on too not that I give a shit about that.

Hopefully will be seeing the doctor on Thursday to ask if I can increase my subs really hope that goes ok then I have a support meeting. Won't be going to the peer mentor group after last week's insulting test that an 11 year old can do ESPECIALLY as I am a masters student for goodness sake!!!! Another thing is they phone me n EXPECT me to answer. Anyone who knows me KNOWS that I DO NOT do phone calls unless n KNOW n TRUST the person - least of all someone who phones 3 times expecting me to drop what I am doing n answer. I am the same with people knocking the door. Whatever happened to respect n common manners??

Take care,
Evey

I want you back.
I can't deal with the idea of never speaking to you again...well, not the idea, the fact. The fucking fact I'll never speak to you again.
How can that be true?
It's wrong, it's all so wrong. It shouldn't be happening, you shouldn't have felt the need to do this, you should have been happy. I wish I could have made you happier. I wish everything had been better for you, like you deserved.
You saved me and I wish I could've done the same for you.
You'd been through so much, you'd fought through it all. I know it had taken a huge chunk out of you. It would have anyone. But I wish life had given you a sign things could still get better. You were too young to die. You still had so much to see. So many years during which you could have gotten that happiness you'd been cheated out of so far.
Please make this a sick joke, someone. You can't be gone Tom, you just can't.
Been listening to Brendan's Death Song since hearing the news yesterday. I remember how much that song affected you when you were here for the funeral. It's affecting me the same now.
I understand why you did it. If anyone had a right to it certainly was you, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.
Dunno how I'll ever walk in front of that Burger King at King's Cross without crying now. I'll probably cry every time I hear the words vomit and sleeve near each other, too. Hah.
Say hi to Aaron from me. I hope the two of you are getting suitably fucked together, wherever you are.
I was going to get heroin earlier, to forget about this, but I won't, because you were right, we're better than that shit.
You were better than most stuff in this world, you know. I wish you'd had the chance to see that.

I miss you Tom. You meant the world to me.
I never want to stop writing to you. I don't know what I feel it's accomplishing, really. But I need to put it somewhere.
I need to tell someone, and you're the only one that really matters today. You were always one of the ones that mattered the most.
I don't know what to say, but I can't stop. When I stop you're gone again.

Fuck.
I'm scared of this world without you.
I miss you.

R.I.P. pontifex01

I can't think of a title. All I can think of is how totally pissed I am. My local dispensary is under threat of closing. They keep meticulous books, paid a quarter mil in taxes just to the local California coffers this year, and don't even ask me how well their employees are covered. Even their perks have benefits, man. They want to stay in business. They have complied with each and every bit of law in an effort to win a good name for dispensaries everywhere. Good people.

The owner told me that his dispensary is probably going to be closed by the Feds. I don't know his source for what he told me, but it sounded like a leak of wiki size.

He said that the DEA has received an enormous amount of money from three particularly popular big pharms who have been losing profits because of marijuana. He said the news really hit him hard and that his dispensary has one elderly woman who use to live with a morphine drip who only uses hubby bars now. He didn't think her particular case was something so widespread in general that the big pharms were feeling the pinch.

Well, I myself was on a fucking boatload of pharm pills and now I manage it all with cannabis. I have anxiety issues. Insomnia. Depression. And it isn't easy to handle it all just straight up sober. In my experience, I myself can NOT handle it all sober which is WHY I use drugs.

Marijuana takes the edge off of my anxiety. (I realize that it causes others massive anxiety. If that is YOU, gentle reader, then don't smoke pot, ok?) I can bring myself back from suicidal despair with a blunt and "bad boys of comedy" on Netflix.

I have determined in my time that I am dangerous when I try to do life raw. I just can't hang with it. But I don't want to be all kinds of medicated by the fucking man, dig? I don't want to go back on the next best pill, distributed by the millions into medicine cabinets everywhere making somebody somewhere some money, but not doing shit in MY community.

Meanwhile, my local dispensary often has locally grown cannabis. The people who work there are solid. They like their jobs. They have full coverage. 401k. They shop at the local market. Go to the same dentist I do. Good people.

So we have good people doing a good thing providing goods and services to their customers honestly and fairly.

This is playing itself out all across California.

It's going SO well, big pharms are experiencing some financial pain. They are going to solve the issue by giving the DEA money, and telling them to close the dispensaries down.

One.
By.
One.

cock sucking mother fucking bullshit deal. We have no privacy from people who only seem to want to hear our lives so they can get the most money from us. It's just all about money. I'm not naive. I know it's all about money.

But the people I know aren't the ones making money. My aunt just lost my grandmother's home. It's been in the family since the 1920s. My home is scheduled to go on auction in two weeks. None of us fully employed. Some of us have two bachelors but work part time in retail. Some of us have masters but are drawing unemployment. No one in my immediate or extended family is fully employed with good benefits. Those days are fucking gone.

We have all suffered great losses. If you could see it, the middle classes would look like a hurricane came through our financial lives and eviscerated our opportunities.

That's not enough. NOW let's close up the pot shops.

I'm sorry, but in the end, these are NOT the changes I was believing in when Obama got elected. I'm not blaming him. I'm blaming myself for thinking any US president would ever be anything but a puppet for big money ever again.

There does not seem to be any point to anything anymore. It feels like we are squeezed by a huge snake and we are powerless. We will be slowly crushed to death as this stranglehold continues, all the while the ones outside of the snakes grasp watch delighted as we fall.

Delighted as we fall. Delighted as we fall.
Hi-Ho The Rich are safe, delighted as we fall.

Hiya Peeps!,

How's it going with you all? I hope it's going good.

Yesterday I went to a meeting in my local area. I've been going to this meeting for the last few months n I think that those people are the loveliest, most caring n supportive I've ever known. I really do enjoy going. They have been so supportive of me n non-judgemental. They accept me even though I'm just a codeine addict n there are alsorts of addicts there: heroin addicts, benzo addicts, alcohol addicts n no one judges everyone. We're all going to a recovery cafe for a few hours, one of these days. An old friend was right about them being lovely people n not to judge.

I went to another group an hour before the meeting. This was with 'peer mentors' n I WONT be going there again. I thought a peer mentor was lije a friend: someone to talk to but looks like it's something different completely. This woman gave me a test that an 11 year old could do n I'm doing a masters for goodness sake. It was completely insulting. I could not say anything because I did not want to hurt others who may have struggled with that sort of test.

My key worker has phoned n is trying to get me an earlier appointment with the doc so i ask if i can increase my suboxone. Hopefully though n then I'll stop craving n feeling, empty n all this addictive behaviour like spending, drinking, tattoos, costume jewellery etc.

I really want to lose weight n as I am taking both citralopram n suboxone, I'm going to do some research (through my university's library as to whether citralopram or suboxone slows down metabolism. I know that my nutrition intake is contributing n my age but it seems lately that no matter how much exercise I am doing - and I really do push myself physically, I still seem to be gaining rather than losing n it's getting me down as my weight n being active are very important things to me.

To anyone who actually reads my garbage haha - Take Care n I hope that you have an ace weekend.

Evey xxx

I've been very contemplative lately. I'm not sure if it's the stress of being an academic overachiever who can't find employment or if it's because I'm an addict. Whichever, meet ChairmanMa084. Before you accept who you are, you have to know who you are. My deepest darkest secrets, what I stay up late thinking about. Those images that flash on the insides of my eyelids. I remember things like begging my mother for shoes that I knew she couldn't afford for me. Asking my father for $5000 for my fifteenth birthday, being dead serious about it. I've been stealing cash from his wallet since I was six. I justify it by him being a terrible father to my brother and me growing up. Yea, he's making up for it now. That's irrelevant to this now I think though.

I mean to document a few thoughts here today. The things I've lost that make me feel so out of control. The things that make me crave total control. I've lost a lot in my 28 years. I've lost a fiance. I've lost a wife. I've lost every grandparent, mostly to alcohol addiction. Thank god I don't drink...anymore. I've lost two children. One was aborted, one drowned. As I type this I feel my face filling with blood and heat. I'm sweating. It feels like I'm lying. The air passes by and cools my forehead with sweat. I overburden everyone to my advantage. I lost the trust from my entire family, yet I still have them convinced that I mean well.

I've lost these things, these people from my life. And now I lie. All the time, about nonsensical things. I lie about how much money I have in the bank. I say I'm broke and borrow money when I don't need to and then never pay it back saying I have too many bills. I have no bills. There is something dark inside of me. Is it something besides myself or is it me and the person I see in the mirror just the passenger? Whichever, I'm not doing either one of us any service as a sociopath. Until I have earned my own seal of approval, I'll continue to see myself this way. A duality of evil and passivity. I'm balanced I suppose. One hand holds my deceit and anger, the other my willingness to numb out and say, "It's okay."

So I put on a smile and go sell things to people. I play my guitar and sing into a microphone. I'm sure I look normal. But if you came up and talked to me, you'd notice something was wrong. You'd see right through me. I'm not transparent. I'm cloudy. You can see into me and know that there's something inside that doesn't quite match my conservative exterior. But you can't see exactly what it is.

All of a sudden, I remember the first time I admitted I was an addict. My sweat has passed now, but moments like this are why I've abused drugs in the past. I want to get high and not think about it right now. I've always used chemicals to cope. The only reason I don't go make a call for something right now is that it's too late in the evening.

Goddamnit. I never really have a point. I'd back up and expound on that, but fuck it. I need to be doing something productive so I don't make a ridiculous mistake. If you read this, please say something.

I helped a neighbor build a barn today. It helped get my mind off the low-grade withdrawals that I'm going through during my taper. It wasn't as hard as it sounds -- it was a steel barn with a wooden frame covered with panels of sheet metal. The sad thing about the barn is that it doesn't look like the beautiful wooden barns of 100 years ago. It's almost the opposite of those nostalgic old barns. If Walmart sold barns, they would probably sell barns that look like this. Not that there's anything structurally wrong with it, but it's got an emergency-housing-for-cows, pre-fab look. It's a structure that could be completely dismantled, moved, and re-built in few days, and nobody would be sad to see it gone.


The hardest part of the job was dealing with the neighbor. My withdrawal symptoms made it even harder. I was raised White Trash as well, so I know the signs when I see them. This guy is from a very solidly entrenched White Trash background. Not that everyone from this region is a redneck, but he has chosen to embrace all of the worst aspects of American culture, those that were flung in my face during my childhood, and from which I have tried to distance myself, for example, by getting an education. And just dealing with his overall bigotry, especially his racism and homophobia -- "n***r this and f****t that" -- was draining. I'm not going to go back there again to help him finish. It was nice learning some steel barn construction techniques, but I've had enough.

...

My gf Aelys is going back down to San Francisco for the winter to work so I'm spending the next several days with her at her house in town. She wants me to regularly check on the house while she's gone. She's worried about pipes freezing when the temperature falls below 0 degrees Fahrenheit this winter. Without her around, I will have more free time; she's the kind of girl friend who wants me around always to help her whether or not it's somethign that she can do more quickly and with less stress by herself. Maybe it's not so nice to say, but I'm looking forward to this.

With more time and the fact that I will be here periodically, I signed up to volunteer at the local Soup Kitchen. The soup kitchen provides free food for the needy, and with the poverty level in this part of state as high as it is (>25%) and the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get on public assistance, there are a lot of needy people. Also, by helping at the soup kitchen, I hope that I might be able to work on cultivating my empathy and compassion.

A couple of weeks ago on my way back to the cabin from the library, my bicycle suffered a catastrophic breakdown. That's the kind of equipment failure that, no matter how diligently you have prepared in terms of carrying tools and spare parts, you can't fix the bike on the road and ride it home. The rear skewer broke. Considering that I have a 60 mile round trip commute, I bring along an extensive bicycle repair kit. If only I was in the habit of carrying an extra set of skewers in my tool kit, I would have been OK. But those things almost never break if you are careful not to over tighten them. I had to push the bike home, and by then I was so disgusted with it that I left it leaning outside against the cabin and couldn't bring myself to even look at it until Saturday. After finally building up enough motivation, I pulled off the wheel and found that not only had the skewer snapped, buy the hub itself was broken inside. That must have been why the wheel started rubbing and grinding when I first heard the pop.

Anyway, the hub was a relatively expensive 36 hole Shimano Deore XT hub, and it shouldn't have fscked up like that because high end bike parts are supposed to be better than that. Luckily I own several bicycles. I can afford this by not owning a car. Money that would have been burned up by the daily expenses of car ownership, taxes, gas, fees, etc gets put toward nicer things like bicycles. So I rode another one here yesterday, a Bianchi Bar Bike I bought for $50 on craigslist several years ago. A "Bar Bike" is a bike that is so cheap and beat up, you don't have to worry about it being stolen when you ride it to the bar and leave it locked to a parking meter or tree in a high-crime neighborhood like Haight-Ashbury where I lived in San Francisco at the time.

So, today, I decided to buy an entire new wheel and cassette. On the old wheel, the rim, tire, chain, and cassette were worn out. The bike shop in town didn't have the wheel I wanted, and they weren't willing to quote a price and order one for me so I bought one online. $300. Bike parts are not cheap.

Hobbits are diminutive creatures who inhabit Middle Earth in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels. My favorite thing about Hobbits is their extraordinary feet. Their feet are unusually large, hairy and unaffected by harsh climate or conditions. They don't need to wear shoes, and they don't. They can roam barefoot all day across the sharp stones of the talus slopes of mountainsides, across deserts of thorny plants, or snow fields and never get a cut or even a blister or frostbite.

Thus inspired, I've been working on toughening my own feet. In San Francisco, I would spend my day barefoot some times. But invariable, I would end up picking bloody shards of glass out of my feet by the end of the day. Despite its reputation for being a progressive and environmentally conscious city, I have found that it is in many ways the opposite. For example, the people of San Francisco defiantly recycle their glass by throwing it out of their car windows. Need I say that very few actually ride bicycles and that the mass transit system is gentrified to the point where only the 1% can afford to ride it regularly?

When I lived in Portland, it was much safer to go barefoot. Mostly, shops (cafes) would ignore me. It's mostly old people who get upset by that sort of thing. I would sit and move about in a way that my feet weren't conspicuous. Now going barefoot here in the desert is an entirely new challenge. Every thing that grows has some kind of thorn or spine, especially by the late summer and fall when the sun and heat have desiccated most plants. But I still go barefoot mostly and in spite of all of the thorny plants that grow here. At the end of the day I prefer to pick thorns out of my feet rather than glass. So, it's not so bad as going barefoot in San Francisco.

I've tapered down to 1 100 mcg/hr fentanyl patch every 2 days. This morning, I took a couple of naloxine (Aleve) tablets and an ibuprofin as well. Still, I have a very uncomfortable feeling. I'm restless and have back and leg pain. I wonder whether I have not actually injured my back this past year without knowing about it and that the fentanyl has been masking the pain all this time. And then there is the psychological craving and restlessness. Mentally, it's as though my favorite food were dished up and sitting on a plate in front of me, and I'm very hungry, but I can't eat it because my mouth has been wired shut. It's also like sitting through a very boring lecture on a subject you aren't interested in high school. You have been sitting for the past 8 hours. It's Friday, you usually get let out a few minutes early, and it's one minute before the bell rings, but the Professor keeps going on and on and on because that one kid keeps asking him to explain and expand upon a trivial point that nobody cares about. This discomfort is all I can think about.

I feel that the following is now safe to write about publicly because the Fentanyl is now gone. After my father died of pancreatic and liver cancer several years ago, he left behind cases of Fentanyl patches he had been issued by the VA hospital. In those cases were thousands of unused patches of varying dosages ranging from 12.5 micrograms per hour to 100 micrograms per hour released. Supposedly, each one lasts 72 hours.

to be continued due to exceeded word count

so, I am back in the working world and have been for a while now. it's funny because working your typical 9-5 is always something I've done, even while using. but how I see my day and how I go about my day are completely different. I've always planned to use before work, at lunch and immediately after. so now, being sober, and working the same 9-5 if quite different.

I am just thankful I have changed scenery. I left my old company and went on to another. I left the old area where I worked and moved on to the next. I left that life I was ONCE living and MOVED ON to the NEXT!

MOVING ON played such a big part in this recovery, thus far. those who want to get clean NEED TO CHANGE THEIR LIFE! you need to get rid of those past thoughts, those past memories, and move on. also, and I am thankful for this, you need to lose those friends who brought you down (luckily, it was not my close friends I have used w/, it was a random crowd I'd go out of my way to meet just to pick-up). YOU are the shot caller when it comes to quitting, so CALL THE SHOTS!

3 months in and I am on top of the world. SURE, this is NO WHERE NEAR the 5 years I put in prior, but sobriety is sobriety and I actually feel MORE CONFIDENT NOW than I did 4 years into my last go-round.

I am just thankful I have opened my eyes, saw life a bit different, and realized that I am the SHOT CALLER in my life, not the people around me. I can do WHATEVER I want to do, esp. if it betters my life and my future. I am truly thankful for what I have.

I've been living quite lonesome life in the past. Now I've met this nice girl at school. We seem to get along well, and chit-chat this and that. I think I have a crush on her - but I'm no sure if the feeling is only one-sided. I've been thinking of asking her out, but I'm kind of afraid to get a negative answer. I'm afraid it would break this beautiful "good friends at school" situation. I've been waiting, that she would bring up the topic of going out together - doing something outside the school concept. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to wait forever for this to happen. The situation is kind of funny, I'd like to move up the friendship latter, but then I have all kinds of fears on how this would proceed. Maybe the safest option would be to continue going forward as until now, but then again I might regret not making an initiative in the long run. Relationships sure are complicated! But nevertheless, I'm happy I've been able to make contact with a girl despite my shyness and lonesomeness.

Wanted to have a record of this somewhere. Five weeks ago I was lying in a hospital bed with two IV's in my arms, electrodes all over my heart and brain, a broken nose and concussed skull, being told my heart probably would have stopped had I waited any longer to get to the hospital after what turned out to be a psych & stim OD. By far one of the scariest experiences of my life but in the end I'm so happy it happened as it proved to be the wake-up call I needed to finally realise I really did have a real problem with drugs in general. Never mind heroin, it looked like I'd gotten myself dangerously addicted to anything I could lay my hands on. So I'm very happy to be able to say I've been one month clean today. It's been really hard and I still really haven't recuperated from all the constant stim/opiate/psych/benzo abuse of these past few years, but I feel better with every single day and I can't say how happy I am I've managed to get out of this. I can really see now how quickly I was on a road to completely ruining my life and I think I probably would have had I waited any longer to stop all this. So yeah. Just wanted to share

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Last night before going to bed, I performed a scrying exercise. To describe this scrying technique simply, I stared at a Tibetan "Om" mandala that was displayed on a computer screen until it was burned into my retinas. This took about 5 minutes.

Then, in a dark room, I sat in the seiza position (kneeling asana) and gazed at the color-reversed image that appeared behind my eyelids. Actually, the colors were correct, because I had previously reversed the colors of the original image to their complements using GIMP image editing software.

I concentrated on the image and began to manipulate it. I moved my viewpoint through the glowing mandala, as though it were a kind of gate way. Behind the mandala was a face made of the glowing phosphenes. The face was not in the original mandala. It was made of millions of bluish green jewels spinning in the strange, whirling kaloidoscopic symmetry of the vision processing columns of the occipital cortex. It was the First Shaman. He/she had a grinning Harlequin face. The face soon melted away, and I went to bed.

Late morning, around 6 am, I dreamed of entering a tunnel. Dark. On foot. Maybe I had to crawl a ways. It was a passage built of concrete, and it went under a road or some urban area. It opened into an auditorium-sized chamber underground. There was an amphitheater here. I sat on one of the concrete seats among the rows. On stage was a cast of dozens of singers and performers in old fashioned costumes. They were performing some kind of operetta. I don't have a musical background and lack the vocabulary to describe it well, but presently, they were singing a strange but cheerful tune. The lyrics were comedic. In structure, there was a group of main singers and several answering choruses of singers. It was a catchy tune and I found myself humming it for much of the morning after I woke up. It's frustrating not to know how to put on paper the strange music I dream about sometimes.

I feel that the following is now safe to put in my blog because the Fentanyl is now gone. After my father died of combined pancreatic, liver, stomach, duodenum, and jejunum cancer several years ago, he left behind cases of Fentanyl patches he had been issued by the VA hospital. In those cases were thousands of unused patches of varying dosages of fentanyl ranging from 12.5 micrograms per hour to 100 micrograms per hour released. Each one lasts roughly 72 hours.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is effective at 50 to 100 ng/kg putting its potency at 100 times that of morphine. Thus, 100 micrograms is roughly equivalent to 10 milligrams of morphine for analgesia, according to Wikipedia. The LD_sub_50 is 0.03 mg/kg in monkeys, so assuming my body processes it similarly to the way a monkey does, 100kg*0.03mg/kg and the chance of dying is 50% with 3 mg in my system. Not that I would take that much at once, but that would be 30 100 mcg/hr patches in one hour to overdose without a tolerance. So taking only a few at a time should be safe. Any excess would metabolise before it could build up to toxic levels.

Being fascinated with opiates, I couldn't resist the temptation to try one. My first one was a 25, and after waiting no less than 3 hours without any noticeable effect, I added several more to my arms and chest. Finally, I felt something. Their effect was OK for an opioid. Not as good as heroin or Demerol (my favorites) but much better than vicodin or codeine.

At the time my father died, I was in college and was only using heroin once every few months. Ingesting more frequently I decided was too risky and could affect my grades and job prospects. So back onto the subject of Fentanyl. After getting a taste of it by using a few patches every day for a few weeks immediately after my father's death, I quit. I didn't suffer any serious withdrawal symptoms except for one sleepless night and a day of nausea and diarrhea, if I remember correctly.

Having decided that they were worth keeping and weren't terribly habit forming (which is horribly wrong I have come to realize), I stashed them all away for later. They remained hidden until June of 2012.

At my last job, I was getting fed up, mainly with the limited opportunity for advancement under the current politico-economic climate. This is the "Lost Decade" for early career research scientists, and I am among the lost. Not only that, but as I've become more politically and culturally aware, I've been overwhelmed by the sick sinking feeling accompanying a realization: that I am an adult stuck in a world run by children with enormous material power, playing obsessive games with money and power. And nobody around me seems to be aware of it, or if they are, they aren't willing and capable of doing anything about it.

So, things have changed with me in these ways. I have sort of hardened psychically. I don't mean that I've completely lost all sense of compassion for other human beings, I just wish I never had to deal with anyone ever again. I have lost all hope for and confidence in the human race (with a very few exceptions), and have begun to wonder if what the world really needs is another mass extinction event, for instance something on the scale of the KT meteorite (the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event), the asteroid impact in what is now the Yucatan Peninsula that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. I would probably die in it too, but it's just as well, given the fact that I have no future in this country.

I looked for something to take my mind off of these things, whatever their cause. I decided to recover my stash. I dug it out and everything was OK. I didn't worry about developing a habit because I believed that I had an unlimited supply (but now it is gone) already in my possession. So every day since June 6 2012, I have ingested some fentanyl. I started small, figuring that 1 25 mcg/hr patch would keep me feeling good for 3 days. At that rate, they should last me longer than 50 years if I took 1 every 3 days as prescribed. I must have forgotten about my earlier experience, because one 25 didn't do anything. So I put on 3 more and had a good effect. Soon, almost daily, I was sticking at least one of the small ones and a couple of big ones onto my chest and biceps. I never removed them, but instead, I let them fall off on their own after a few days. Eventually, I had 10 or so at any given time. Boy was I wrong about having a 50 year supply.

Not impressed with myselt AT ALL! Last night had some vodka after three nights of not having a drink. Grrrr! I ate a sausage butty, tuna butty n a few Bernard Matthews drumsticks.
After all the exercise I've done, and the P90X arms n shoulders last night, I am DISGUSTED with myself.

Evey

Well I've just had what's called a eork focus interview. I'm quite positive now n I'm really glad that I was not put on the support element which means you do not have to attend them.
Eventually I'd like a job or there's no point in completing a bachelor's degree n doing a masters degree.
She gave me these options like there is permitted work. You work up to 16 hours a week, you can claim up to £101. A week for up to a year but it affects council / housing benefit or you can earn up to £20 weekly n can continue with this without it affecting disability benefit or counselling / house tax benefit.
There are also work tasters plus a work experience that is 6 - 8 weeks.

I told her I'd like to volunteer making breakfast for the homeless n she's ok with that, says it won't affect benefit n they actively encourage it. So next meeting which is Thursday, I'll ask to fill in the forms n ask if I can do Tuesday mornings as I do not have to go pharmacy for my suboxone on that date. I now only collect it on Mondays, Wednesdays n Fridays.

I have started exercising like I used to. Stair runs, DVDs etc. i do INSANITY Pure Cardio, Jillian MICHAELS LEVEL 1 + cardio, Debra Siebes, n Ryan Shanaham's (kettleWorx) 10 minute fast fan burn. Ten minutes may not seem a lot but believe me when you're using a kettle doing kettlebell swings, lunges with the KB going under, skier squats (basically squatting n pulsing while keeping in the squat), squat leg swings n kicks, you sweat like nobody's business n I only used a 10Ib kettlebell.

I want to do INSANITY Max Interval Circuit. It's an hour long of max interval training doing things like plyo, side burpees, in n out squat; the lot n it kicks my butt.

I've got some cold going on here buy hey ho that's not the end of the world n NOT an excuse for me to be sitting on my a** feeling sorry for myself. It's a nice day, I've two long things hanging from my body called leg so best get using them haha.

Take care peeps n all the very best,

Evey xxx

thats right, its been 70 days since my last OD. I havent touched or seen dope since. I thought about it maybe once or twice at most but have no urge or drive to use. I keep hearing from people I am on the "pink cloud" and it will soon end. Well, who knows.. but what I do know is I've been down this road before and never have I felt this confident and good about what I am doing/seeing. The Subox is helping greatly but even that I would like to taper soon. I am prescribed 16MG's a day still but there are days I'll take 8MG when I wake up at whatever time I wake up that day and end up falling asleep w/o taking another Subox that day. Sure, the next day I wake up and I don't feel GREAT but the 8MG itself got me through the day and still wake up w/ no urge; I just take another Subox at that time and all is good again.

Life has been different over the past 70 days. I moved out of my old apartment, left my GF, changed my job, have MONEY FINALLY, people are asking me to do things they were NOT asking before, I am being trusted by my family (although.. and YES it bothers me still.. there are time at night ill fall asleep on the couch and they question if I was nodding off?!?!) -- that PISSES ME THE FUCK OFF! my bad for falling asleep. and yet they ask if it was a nod? hey, whatever, tho. I am always down to take a piss test. plus, I take a piss test every couple weeks anyway cuz of the Subox doc, so I am fine w/ whatever.

I'll admit, tho.. I do smoke WEED still. Weed helps me sleep, eat, puts me at ease, anxiety, etc. Weed is helping more than xanax and valium did in the past. I also have a brain tumor and supposedly I can get scripted the weed once more stores start to open here in MA.

Anyway, I am working from home today and figured I'd write a quick blog in the meantime.

Bye folks! STAY CLEAN.. SAFE.. and HAPPY!

I’m going on three years as a weekend warrior and I honestly can’t make up my mind if that is something I should be proud of or ashamed of. At any rate, I’m strict about my usage, I don’t make exceptions for using during the week (that can turn into such a slippery slope) even when I’m having a horrible week or one that just seems to go on and on. Just Saturday. The six days in between can be a pretty long haul though.

When I’m having a bad day (or week) Saturday keeps me going. Last week was awful. I’m having a health-related issue right now that modern medicine isn’t addressing well. I felt so discouraged I barely ate anything Mon, Tues or Wed.

Somehow I always manage to pick myself up and find a reason to keep going. I’m pretty sure my Saturday activities are a big part of it. No matter what crap I have to deal with in life I know I’ll always have Saturday.

I do try to lead a balanced life with a career, a few hobbies and one friend that I hang out with. But I won’t make any bones about what I enjoy the most. It might be escapism or hedonistic but it does a damn good job, better than anything else I can think of. It is what it is. Denial is not just a river in Egypt. I am available to the world for six and a half days a week but not Saturday night, that is my time.

It seems like every week I’ve got a different thorn in my side. Health problems flaring up. Nightmares again. Job driving me nuts. Cat sick as hell.
No worries, Saturday is coming. Saturday will make it all better. It always does.

Well last night I did not have a drink n was pleased. All day I had the thought to buy alcohol but I did not buy any. I also did an hour hour n half of exercise when Beautiful was in holiday group.

Last night I was busy anyway counting some old change to put back into my back account. My little on counted her change too, that she had saved up, so that she can go buy a toy n put half of it into her bank account that she cannot access until she's 18. With the money she's got to that will be on a toy n maybe a small cake of sweets but not a lot as I don't want her ruining her teeth - which reminds me that I have 3 fillings on Wednesday 'because I have some decay.' I can't wait. I love fillings!!!!

Tonight Besutiful n I are going to my sister in laws house. They are having a late halloween thing where kids dress up n an early bonfire party. So that should be good. I can't really go anywhere until Thursday as over my overdraft which is £1,000.

Take care everyone,
Evey xxx