was there anyone who ever thought they be a heroin addict!?

[Jabberwocky]

seriously, think about it. I am 32yrs old, and when I was young the thought of heroin was the worst thing on earth. people who did heroin were complete fucking losers who were worth nothing and would kill you for a dollar, right? and back then I never thought of sniffing, all I knew was people who did heroin SHOT IT and they did it cuz it only cost a few dollars and an easy way to get high and become a loser. I used to think it was for poor folk who couldnt get by in real life and lived on the streets and had nothing better to do.

now here I am, a semi-recovering heroin addict who has been addicted to opiates for the past 12-14yrs and heroin for the past 7-8 years. I never in my life would have thought I'd be here; esp. when it comes to shooting. at 18yrs old I'd sniffing oxy 80's and think that was nothing. I thought sniffing was no big deal as long as it was a pill and there was no needle involved.

well, we all know the original 80's eventually left and then the 30's came and went and finally.. HEROIN was the option! HEROIN! what? why would I want that? its cheap, right? no, its not, cuz I had to buy fucking grams and grams to get high. so what i once thought was the cheap way out I now realize you have to go through a lot to get that fucking money! and guess what? you can only sniff so much cuz it goes so quick, so you need another way to do it in order to keep it around a bit longer and get more for the money, right? so what else is there to do? smoke it? nah. how about I stick it in a needle and put that needle in my vein, right? that should work because is what I hear everyone does. and BOOM, that one day it happens and you get that sudden rush! and then 8yrs pass and youre in a fucking hole and a half w/o a clue as to what to do next!

man, who would have ever thought this would be life. I think of what the things I COULD have had, or SHOULD have had, but instead I have NOTHING but I am fighting this battle day by day. suboxone has saved my life but I hope it continues to do so and I do not slip up AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN like I have so many times in the past.

being an addict sucks.

 

[gmlifer]

I feel your pain. We have all made some pretty bad decisions that led us on a long go nowhere path. Congrats on getting clean.

 

[Deputy_Dilaudid]

I had a feeling that opiates would become a part of my life, but not too the extent to where it almost killed me, literally. When I was 15, I had 3 out of 4 wisdom teeth pulled and two were impacted so they really had to dig those fuckers out. The doc gave me 10mgs of percoset, because I prior oral surgery before and had broken bones prior to this and vicoden just didnt do the trick. So, naturally when the novocaine that they whacked me up with even before I left lasted quite a few hrs, but the pain woke me out of a dead sleep in the middle of the day, and I was screaming for my pain meds, and right off the bat I took two, and man I was on the moon. He had given me 60 for some reason 4 a day for 15 days, or perhaps it was more like 6 for 10 days but wrote it differently especially for such a young guy, but big for my age. I'm 6'3 and I weigh 272lbs, with I would say maybe 20-25lbs of that is body fat the rest is muscle, and Ive always been this way. At 15 I was just about done growing and was well over 220lbs so I guess the dose needed to be a bit higher for my weight, and what would be found out as a natural tolerance.

After I didnt need them for pain anymore I shelved them, and was smoking pot and drinkin 40's like any good teen does, but one night I came home and wanted to know if I took 3 or 4 of the percs while Im not in pain how would I feel. And Ive always had a love for trance music, especially vocals depending on the high and the setting. So, I popped 40mgs of percoset, and I put on my brand new music and waited for what was too come, and that surge of warmth spilled over my body, I could feel myself floating almost levitating off the sheets, and this wonderful safe euphoria that I had felt after my first kiss and we spooned together, and it was almost semi psychedelic as there were some mild hallucinations of color wizzing by, but more like what you would see in a club and the harmony nd the unity you felt inside a rave while tripping out with thousands more just like you. This feeling lasted for hrs and I never wanted it to end..so I used up the last 25 pills within a matter of a week or so trying to chase that first experience, and I found it once again at age 20, where i was comfortable enough with using needles for steroids, I saw no problem in spiking a vein. And It was magical, like when In Trainspotting he melts through the rug and the floor, except I wasn't ODing and I felt that pleasure again like I had 5 yrs ago only this time it was 1000x greater. And from 20 on to my present age I have been shooting dope in one form or another, until March 4th,2015.

That morning I woke up unable to breathe, and rushed to the ER in an ambulance. At this point in the my chapter I had been using pure dilaudid, since the heroin had turned to shit and people were disappearing like flies, and were dropping dead, so I was shelling out the cash for both tablets the 8mg ones and 50ml bottles of Dilaudid HP(high potency) of anything from 10mg/ml, to 50mg/ml.

Too make a long story short I contracted a staph infection in 2013 called osteomyelitis, which is so rae that IV users of narcotics or steroids only have a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting this infection which is in your spine. It was in me so long because doctors didnt know what the hell it was causing pain that you cant imagine, laying down on your back felt as though you were being beaten and stabbed in the spine at the sametime while your ribs felt like a boa constrictor crushing you. Finally I was treated for it, with a PICC line inserted into the vein in the bicep between the tricep on the inside that runs straight to your heart, and after being on several IV antibiotics for 2 months, the infection cleared up but did its damage.

This year it came back with vengeance, and I would up in ICU for 3 weeks, and was diagnosed with Bacterial Pneumonia, Sepsis(blood poisoning) Osteomyelitis, MRSA(the super drug resistant staph infection) all in one shot. People had to wear speacial gowns, masks and surgical gloves when they came to see me because my immune system was so compromised. Eventually cat scans showed while although feeling better I was getting worse, as my lungs were filling with fluid that was too thick to drain, because the tried. And Apparently the shit that cotton may miss when you use a pill to mainline, builds up in your lungs, and we are talking like a decade of pill slamming. The incision on my right side goes from the center of my chest almost too my spine, it took over 80 big ass staples to close. And the doctor had told me in all his yrs he had never seen that much shit in someones lungs, and even after they put in the chest tube which was as wide as a garden hose in me, to get all the fluid and any remaining whatever was still in there. They gave me one of those machines where you can medicate yourself, and I was injecting no less than 16mgs at a time at home 6-8x a day, so they decided to let me inject myself with 4mg every 15 minutes, and then taper me off on to methadone. Where as with dilaudid having a half life of 4-6 hrs, and I would get dope sick right around that time, the methadone will stay binded to the receptor for up to 48 hrs if not longer.

So, I wound up staying 2.5 months in the hospital itself, getting an IV antibiotic called Vancomyacin 6x a day, and I spent another 40 days in a nursing home because no company would send a nurse over because of my drug use. Which made no sense because the first time, I had the PICC line in I went home, and I told the Drs straight up I dont have to be home for someone to smuggle me in a syringe and some dope so I can get high in the nursing home, so I didnt see the problem but their infinite wisdom did. I spent all of March, April, May and half of June...with a bag hooked up too my arm that took Two hrs a day, but I was stuck in a nursing home that I wouldnt have left my worst enemy in.

They speak of jails institutions and death, they never said, you will contract the most bizarre infections, and now I only have 52% of my lung capacity, you can actually see little holes that bacterial ate in my lungs. I have to use oxygen 24/7, Im on a number of meds including 3 different inhalers, and I stopped smoking thankfully but after 25 yrs of Newports, I mean damn...I thought it was weird that the last time I was in treatment everyone there was a smack and crack addict and they all had Hep C, not me though,and and I still dont. Im on a Methadone program, thats finally getting me to the dose I need to be at so I can stop craving the way I do, the last time I was on i believe 170, now Im on 120, I see the doc again for another increase and hope to christ that my taking that 10 minute drive to the clinic everyday will stop my urge from play pin the dart in my veins.

I know this was long and thanks if you read it all the way, but I knew drugs was going to be a part of my life somehow, I never thought this badly, but I knew I would use...and that I will save for the psychological breakdown of why I do the shit I do lol...seriously though I am a therapist, I can help you get through your trouble but I'll be damned if I listen to myself. Thats why this time I think I have a fair shot and keep doing the right thing because my counselor was exactly how I was, in just about every way, they only thing that separates us from running partners is age, but I am damn proud to have another professional like him to confide in