Well, it's my first blog entry here at Bluelight... so I figured I might as well start with a confession that will scare half of you and leave the other half vastly unimpressed. Tonight is my last night getting loaded before I officially kick heroin.
For the past four months, I have been playing with fire. Only in New York can one order drugs in the same manner they order Chinese food. It's expensive, of course, which is the main reason I'm broke at the moment. I'd been doing a pretty bad job budgeting money before my habit went out of control, but heroin was undoubtedly the catalyst of my financial ruin. I now live from paycheck to paycheck, just like every other financially decrepit person I know.
I never pictured myself becoming an addict. In fact, the first few times I ever used opiates (oxycodone, specifically), I got horribly ill. For many months I could only tolerate opiates in small doses, and I always had to make sure I'd eaten first. The first time I got seriously high off heroin was via intramuscular injection. That was my first real taste of what opiates could offer: a beautiful, blank slate of euphoria. The experience freaked me out so much that I forced my boyfriend (who was a much greater opiate enthusiast at the time) to throw out the remainder of our stash. I made him promise me that we wouldn't touch dope again, and we kept that promise for almost nine months.
What exactly happened that pushed me over the edge, from popping a 30mg Oxycontin for recreational purposes once every few weeks to booting 20 bags of China white every night? Even now it is hard to say. Some junkie sources state that to avoid addiction, one must never use more than two days in a row. I know at some point I adhered to that rule, and broke it at some point later. Over. And over. And over again.
I guess I'll see how I fare over the next few days. I hold down a professional job and no one (except a few very close souls) knows about my secret affliction. I really hope I learn something from this the second time around, after detoxing for one week just a little less than a month ago. I know I can get through it. What really worries me is what comes after it's finished. What do I do with the remnants of myself? Do I go back to yoga, photography, journaling, party-going, the ho-hum of everyday existence pretending it never occurred? Is that even possible? Will I actually be wiser from this in the long run, or was it all just a terrible waste of time and money?
After dumping another $160 down the drain, I didn't even get high tonight. I'm not sure I'll ever get high enough again to be satisfied. I've hit the end of the road, and I can't go down any deeper without fucking up my life in some irretractable way. I guess it's time to turn around. It feels like a very long way back.
For the past four months, I have been playing with fire. Only in New York can one order drugs in the same manner they order Chinese food. It's expensive, of course, which is the main reason I'm broke at the moment. I'd been doing a pretty bad job budgeting money before my habit went out of control, but heroin was undoubtedly the catalyst of my financial ruin. I now live from paycheck to paycheck, just like every other financially decrepit person I know.
I never pictured myself becoming an addict. In fact, the first few times I ever used opiates (oxycodone, specifically), I got horribly ill. For many months I could only tolerate opiates in small doses, and I always had to make sure I'd eaten first. The first time I got seriously high off heroin was via intramuscular injection. That was my first real taste of what opiates could offer: a beautiful, blank slate of euphoria. The experience freaked me out so much that I forced my boyfriend (who was a much greater opiate enthusiast at the time) to throw out the remainder of our stash. I made him promise me that we wouldn't touch dope again, and we kept that promise for almost nine months.
What exactly happened that pushed me over the edge, from popping a 30mg Oxycontin for recreational purposes once every few weeks to booting 20 bags of China white every night? Even now it is hard to say. Some junkie sources state that to avoid addiction, one must never use more than two days in a row. I know at some point I adhered to that rule, and broke it at some point later. Over. And over. And over again.
I guess I'll see how I fare over the next few days. I hold down a professional job and no one (except a few very close souls) knows about my secret affliction. I really hope I learn something from this the second time around, after detoxing for one week just a little less than a month ago. I know I can get through it. What really worries me is what comes after it's finished. What do I do with the remnants of myself? Do I go back to yoga, photography, journaling, party-going, the ho-hum of everyday existence pretending it never occurred? Is that even possible? Will I actually be wiser from this in the long run, or was it all just a terrible waste of time and money?
After dumping another $160 down the drain, I didn't even get high tonight. I'm not sure I'll ever get high enough again to be satisfied. I've hit the end of the road, and I can't go down any deeper without fucking up my life in some irretractable way. I guess it's time to turn around. It feels like a very long way back.