Heroin

board om

board om wrote: »

I have been reading through this thread and I couldn’t decide whether to post or not. Part of me wanted to but part of me wanted to just leave things be. So I don’t know if it is a good or bad thing but I have decided to post in the hope that it might help you from letting things get any worse than they already are.

From reading your posts you have been smoking gear for the last year or so and you can see how difficult it is to get off it. you know the pain of withdrawal, the depression that comes with being clean, the horrible feeling of knowing that NOBODY believes a word out of your mouth (I bet even the people closest to you that are helping you recover think twice about believing you if you are 5 minutes late home or if you are locked in the bathroom more than 10 minutes).

Now imagine if you let this go on for 2 years, or 5 years, or 10 years? by then you will be injecting, (don’t kid yourself by saying you wont ever do that, we all say we would never do that but unfortunately the time comes when smoking and snorting gear just doesn’t give you a kick anymore and then its the next logical step). I can tell you now that the pain and depression you get from the withdrawal of smoking gear doesn’t even compare to the pain you will feel from withdrawal from injecting it. The only way I can describe it would be to compare it to being driven over by a bus several times. And even with the help of methadone and Roche and zimos. It still fcuking hurts. Every inch of your body aches like you wouldn’t believe. You feel pain right through to your bones, you are both freezing cold and roasting hot at the same time, you pour sweat that is nearly white in colour and smells like nothing you can imagine. you wake up screaming (lol, I say wake up but really you haven’t been sleeping at all so you aren’t waking up, you are just snapping out of another trance you have been in that you convince yourself was sleep). You vomit even though you haven’t anything in your stomach to vomit; it just means you puke up stomach lining. And I won’t get started about the problems with your bowels and diarrhoea.

At this stage all your real friends are gone or you only see them at social occasions, because they don’t mix with junkies. And there is always a patronizing tone taken with you because "you have a substance problem". If you disappear for 5 minutes on your own everyone is mumbling and muttering "I wonder where he has got to". It doesn’t matter if you were only taking a p**s, it still happens. And nobody, not even those closest to you will believe a word out of your mouth anymore. If you said the sky was blue they would take it with a pinch of salt and think that you were only telling them the colour of the sky because you thought you could get some money out of them for it.

Are you getting the idea of what I am saying here?

I would give my right arm and leg to be back to that first year of using heroin and knowing what I know now because I would have done something about it then and I wouldn’t be living the life I live now. I hold down a very good job and I look respectable to anyone I meet on a professional basis and I get a lot of respect in my professional life. But anyone who knows me on a personal knows me as a strung out crack and smack head who has been given more chances than I deserved and I have fcuked every one of those chances up. The gp's, the clinics, the drugs councillors, the detox centres. I have even been in hospital a few times for abscesses from injecting dirty gear and I nearly died last year from a blood clot because I was injecting into my leg. The blood clot travelled up through my body and ended up in my lung. Fortunalty for me it went into my lung because if it had gone to my heart or my brain I wouldn’t be telling you this now. I would either be dead or living my life as a vegetable. (I say fortunalty it went into my lung but I didn’t feel very fortunate at the time though as it is probably one of the most painful experiences you can imagine, but still better than being dead). I think one of the most degrading things about that time in hospital was being kept under nearly constant supervision because even though I was a middle class, professional, private patient, I was an intravenous drug using junky. So the doctors are reluctant to put an IV in you because they know as soon as they turn their back you are going to inject gear or what ever else into the IV. Which ironically is exactly what I did? oh, and I forgot to mention, because I had used pretty much every usable vein in my arms and legs injecting coke and gear, when the doctors and nurses did need to put in an IV for antibiotics or to take blood, they used to have to take it from my feet as they were the only working veins they could find that worked. Now that is painful. (With a blood clot they have to take blood once a day so just picture that). And when they couldn’t get the blood from my feet anymore, because veins only last so long, they had a choice of taking blood from my groin or else putting in a central line which is a line straight into your chest that they can leave there for about a year. Neither option seemed even slightly bearable. They were reluctant to give me a central line anyway because they thought I was obviously going to use it to inject drugs as soon as I got home. And they were dead right.

I have been out of hospital a good few months now and everyone thought a scare like that would "scare me straight". I even believed it would myself, lol. But unfortunately life goes on, and so do drug habits. I wouldn’t do as much crack or coke as I used to but the gear is still with me. I kid myself that I am not as bad as I was before, that I only do it a few days a week and use methadone and tablets the rest of the time, but the reality is my habit just got so bad that I can’t afford to do it like I used. My gear habit alone would cost about €100+ a day so that might give you an idea of how much a bad habit can cost. And I buy in bulk. If I was buying on the street I would be looking at close to €300 a day. So I get paid monthly and end up on a binge for the first 2 weeks of the month and then I spend the next 2 weeks borrowing to get petrol for my car, buy lunch for work, cigarettes, and all the other stuff you take for granted on a daily basis. You spin a friend / family member a story about how your ATM card broke or a direct debit went through twice and you have no money until pay day so you can borrow a couple of quid to get you through until the end of the month, next thing you know you have spent that money on gear as well. So you have to find someone else to spin the same story to. And so on and so on. But after a few years’ people know your story’s and get used to your BS so they just don’t listen anymore. They know they will get the money back, after all I am not a thief, they just don’t want to be the ones to give me money to kill myself. And I have to respect them for that. tbh I have a lot of good people in my life, I don’t know how or why after all I have put them through. I definitly don’t deserve them. But they say the reason they have stuck with me through this is because I wasn’t always like this, and they hope I won’t be like this forever. That is not to say that I haven’t lost a lot of people along the way. I have lost a hell of a lot of people through it, but the ones that are still with me are the ones that really matter, and I hope they know how much I appreciate them even if I never say it. It must be difficult for them as well because they have probably heard me giving the "I am getting clean" speech at least 500 times at this stage. And they have witnessed the "of course I am clean, I have been for months" speeches just as many times when it is obvious to even a blind dog that I am off my head. You see, none of my friends touch the stuff. I have become friendly with other users over the years but none of my genuine proper friends have ever touched it. This was completley my fcuk up and mine alone.

All this has done is help me to hide it better. That is how I hold down a good office job. That is not to say I haven’t lost jobs over it. I have actually lost 2 jobs over it, not the employer directly knowing what was going on, more them just knowing there was something not quite right with me but not being able to put their finger on it. Me smoking crack pipes, shooting up gear, and then passing out in the cubicle of the work toilets a few times a day probably didn’t help my case. One of the jobs I did really well at and they pretended not to see me disappearing for 40 minutes at a time because at the end of the day I made them a lot of money. They let it slide for nearly 2 years. Then a trip to the hospital finished that one for me. A bit embarrassing having to have a nurse call in sick for you because you were that out of it. The other job was just a mess from day one and I think they thought I was suffering from severe depression because I kept disappearing to the toilet. I got out of there pretty sharpish.

My current job I am in about a year and I love it and its going really well. I keep the balance of drugs and working quite well. Please don’t ask me how I hold it together because people always ask me and I have no idea. If you met me you would never know anything was wrong with me. I wear nice neatly pressed suits and ties, polished shoes, etc. I have a nice D4 accent (sorry guys). I have never been arrested for buying drugs; I have never even been searched. In fact the only time I even came close to being searched the garda actually thought the guy I was getting gear off was mugging me. I had to say I was paying him for helping me fix a spare tyre on my car. It never even crossed the Garda's mind that i was buying drugs even though the guy was a known gear dealer in the area and I was handing him cash on the street.

So OP, sorry if I rambled on a bit (ever so slightly). I originally started writing this post to offer some advice to maybe help you but it’s actually made me look at my own situation clearly for the first time probably ever so thank you for that. I want to give you an idea of what waits around the corner for you if you continue as you are. Its very easy for people to post about someone they heard about or someone they knew once, but here is a first hand account of a destroyed life. There is plenty I didn’t tell you like how I am in debt for thousands of euro, how i used to own my own house which is long gone, and how I once had a girlfriend like you who went on just like yours does. She is long gone now though. They only wait around so long and after one too many relapses they move on. You can’t expect them to put their life on hold forever.

Feel free to PM me anytime for a waffle. I wont bother saying the cliché "if you feel like relapsing PM and I will talk you out of it" because that never works. It has to be you at the end of the day. And sure id probably ends up scoring with you so I am the last person you should talk to in that situation.

All the best

Dude.Great post but get the fcuk off the gear.Seroisly,evem if you need a break from work.Go to rehab.It might slow things down in th short term but will improve things immensely in the long term.

board om

Deleted User wrote: »

Dude.Great post but get the fcuk off the gear.Seroisly,evem if you need a break from work.Go to rehab.It might slow things down in th short term but will improve things immensely in the long term.

thanks man. you are completely right but i have heard it many, many times before.

after my second time in hospital about 2 + years ago my family picked me up from the hospital and brought me to rehab in a place down in meath. it was a bit of a god squad buzz about it but i was willing to try anything. i was supposed to stay there 5 months but when i got there they wouldnt let me stay because i had benzos (roche, dolmain, zimos, etc) in my system. i had to give a urine sample when i got there and obvously they showed up. i could have got in there if i had just had gear and coke but with the tablets they couldnt let me. apparently its because tablets stay in your system longer so they cant monitor you to make sure you arent taking anything while you are detoxing. so they sent me home which was heart breaking. imagine thinking there is finally a chance you might be saved and then being sent home, straight back into the situation you had just left.

i travelled up and down to that rehab unit every week for about 2 months. each time i was told the next week there would be a bed waiting for me and then when i would get there i would be told that a patient had been sent by the social so bed was gone, or another patient had relapsed so they were staying longer so bed gone. after 2 months of disappointments i finally gave up.

tbh i think they saw south side guy with good job and middle class family to back him and thought to themselves he can afford to go to the rutland. unfortunely when i left my job my vhi went with it and without vhi it would cost me €18k to go to the rutland. the one in meath was only a few grand.

i am only chasing my tail really. i need to take a few months off work to get clean but i need to work to save money to be able to take that time off. but in the meantime every cent i earn goes on drugs.

round and round in circles. i get dizzy thinking about it.

board om

board om wrote: »

thanks man. you are completely right but i have heard it many, many times before.

after my second time in hospital about 2 + years ago my family picked me up from the hospital and brought me to rehab in a place down in meath. it was a bit of a god squad buzz about it but i was willing to try anything. i was supposed to stay there 5 months but when i got there they wouldnt let me stay because i had benzos (roche, dolmain, zimos, etc) in my system. i had to give a urine sample when i got there and obvously they showed up. i could have got in there if i had just had gear and coke but with the tablets they couldnt let me. apparently its because tablets stay in your system longer so they cant monitor you to make sure you arent taking anything while you are detoxing. so they sent me home which was heart breaking. imagine thinking there is finally a chance you might be saved and then being sent home, straight back into the situation you had just left.

i travelled up and down to that rehab unit every week for about 2 months. each time i was told the next week there would be a bed waiting for me and then when i would get there i would be told that a patient had been sent by the social so bed was gone, or another patient had relapsed so they were staying longer so bed gone. after 2 months of disappointments i finally gave up.

tbh i think they saw south side guy with good job and middle class family to back him and thought to themselves he can afford to go to the rutland. unfortunely when i left my job my vhi went with it and without vhi it would cost me €18k to go to the rutland. the one in meath was only a few grand.

i am only chasing my tail really. i need to take a few months off work to get clean but i need to work to save money to be able to take that time off. but in the meantime every cent i earn goes on drugs.

round and round in circles. i get dizzy thinking about it.

Just get away.Go to somewhere like Alaska/northern Finland,somewhere where you knw noboy and just try your best, you need to get away from the parasites who support your addiction.

board om

Deleted User wrote: »

Just get away.Go to somewhere like Alaska/northern Finland,somewhere where you knw noboy and just try your best, you need to get away from the parasites who support your addiction.

i know this only too well. it is something i have thought about doing a few times. the offer has been there a few times with friends and family but it always screwed up in one way or another.

like a couple of years ago a friend was moving to the south of france and he asked me to go with him for a few weeks to get clean. if i wanted to go with him the deal was if i had to be off gear a week before hand and only taking methadone. if i did that he would bring me with him and let me detox off the methadone there. obviousuly i didnt get clean for the week before hand.

tbh i dont think i could have put him through it anyway. he didnt know what to expect. i think he thought it was going to be me complaining a bit for a week and then it would be all ok. he had no idea what a horrbile sight it is to watch someone detoxing. my ex girlfriend watched me go through it a few times. if you met her tomorrow and asked her what it was like i would say she still couldnt talk about it. she was the next best thing to traumatised. the look on her face and the crying and screaming from her still haunts me to this day. it was the guilt of what i was putting her through that really haunted me. she had very little experience with any kind of drugs really so it was completely alien to her. i still remember her roaring crying down the phone to my GP, begging him to help me. all he could say was sorry but there was nothing he could do, i had to see it through. she ended up having to leave the house on the 3rd day becuase she couldnt watch it anymore. and i couldnt blame her. all the love in the world couldnt prepare someone for that. it was killing me to put her through it.

a few other times i was supposed to go various places in ireland and abroad where i was supposed get myself sorted, but it never works out like its supposed to. it is very difficult to expect someone to sit with you in that situation for a few weeks. and tbh, as painful as that few weeks of getting clean is, it is the few months after getting clean that is the dangerous part. becuase you are depressed as hell so you are constanly fighting the urge of relapsing. thats why i find it a disgrace that these places in the UK are charging people £2k+ Strerling for a weeks treatment that promises to get them clean in 7 days. the reality is you could sit at home and get yourself clean in a week. but it is the months and years after that is the problem. it is a lot of councilling and support that is needed, not a miracle 7 day cure.

ricey

@board om

Hey bro and jesus great post. I bet it felt good to let all that out? Im not doing so good right now, well im two days clean after another relapse... iv been on gear now two years id say and jes does it take total control of your life or what. Been smoking a lot of crack the last bit too.. not a big fan off it, too much of a come down for a fast short buzz! Still do gotta stay away from it.

I hear what your saying about the pain.... i have it right now. Im going clold turkey this time, no benzos well i aint got any so iv no other choice because i took all my last script the last time i was trying to get off it.

Im always hopefull that il get clean this time and il get to a treatment center and life will all be ok, but no one knows what 2m holds for me all i can do is try stay clean 2n and start again 2m.

patrickolee

Deleted User wrote: »

Dude.Great post but get the fcuk off the gear.Seroisly,evem if you need a break from work.Go to rehab.It might slow things down in th short term but will improve things immensely in the long term.

I don't think you actually read his post, did you? If you think you did, I suggest you read again.

Very good post board om

estar

board_om

you are so articulate and eloquent about your habit
and yet so detached from it, so matter of fact.
you are clearly very smart to manage a habit and
a job. i admire that. but it might be whats ultimately
stopping you from hitting rock bottom and getting clean.

why dont you give up gear entirely and manage
on methadone. i dont know anything about drugs
but couldnt that be something to aspire to, as
it would be financially more viable and also be
more stablising for you? or would this have the same
withdrawal effect.

couldnt you then sign over your finances to your
family and get someone to manage them for you
so that you dont have access to the cash and
spend it in a drug binge at the begining of the month?

all this could be hopelessly naive of me of course.

if you paid off your debt, which in a well paid job like
yours you probably could in 2 years, you could
then save for rehab in US, they have excellent
and very very remote facilities where even if you
wanted to sell yourself for money for drugs,
you wouldnt find any.

i know addicts stablised on methadone for years
who no longer take gear. well, i know one such addict.

isnt there always hope and always a way out of
the vicious circle.

i wish you and ricey the best of luck as always

steo123

ricey man.enough of the niceties get ur act together

uve had more than enough advice and theres so much help out there

stay off drugs/drink.....

stop moanin and get a job throw urself into it

end of story

someone please close this thread its getting beyond tedious

Wibbs

steo123 that may be your opinion and that's fine, but the direction of closure of this thread is not your remit. If you have any further issues, PM a mod. Don't bring it here.

dlofnep

Ricey - Once you get your head sorted, get yourself off to college or something and get your life moving again. I feel boredom/putting yourself down because you can't see a future is a big trigger for drugs. Granted I've never taken heroin before, but I've dabbled with everything else in my time. it's just not worth it.

A good friend of mine, or at least he was - ruined his entire life with drugs. He became a paranoid psycho who constantly went from stages of paranoia to stages of downright anger and he wanted to attack and kill anything that moved. He has got out of prison again. I haven't seen him yet, and won't until I feel he is sober. He shot up heroin, dropped pills and snorted coke everyday. I've no idea how he's still alive. He's been in prison 3 times and the kid is only 22. It's a disgrace what drugs do to people.

But people can change and I've faith in you. I wish you all the best. Go travelling, do anything for change. Change will help you.

ricey

steo123 wrote: »

ricey man.enough of the niceties get ur act together

uve had more than enough advice and theres so much help out there

stay off drugs/drink.....

stop moanin and get a job throw urself into it

end of story

someone please close this thread its getting beyond tedious

People like you really piss me off!!

If i want to come here and talk i will ok? Im a addict to drugs thats why i started this thread in the first place, the day il want this thread closed is the day i get clean. Its very easy for you to say stop moaning get a job all that other ****e but you dont know me, you aint got a clue what its like to be a addict. If i could just STOP drink/drugs i would, the hole point is that im trying and i cant!! I come here for a chat and some people are giving me great motivation here so what gives you the right to want my thread closed?? please answer me that.

I think this thread has turned out to be great. There has been lots of good advise posted here and it may help someone not only me. There could be other members on boards involved in drugs that might get a bit of help from here, or younger people who have never used hard drugs like heroin or coke were it will take them in life if they do.

Anywayz for anyone who does not think im not moaning!! Stayed clean tonight
going to bed now (watch a movie or something first) to sleep and il start my fight with heroin again 2m and with the help of god il be posting in a OPEN thread 2m that iv stayed clean for another day.

Later all.

PS

15,154 views on this thread! There must be something good coming form it
so you stop your moaning or join boards.jp were no one will understand your
stupid ignorance.

Adyx

Well done to both Ricey and Board_om I say. You both have so much courage, fair play to both of ye for making the effort to help yourselves and others with ye're posts. Ye are both so brave!

Wibbs

I have to add to the kudos to ricey and board om even if it's such a struggle. Indeed I throw in the other posters who have weighed in with good wishes and advice for people they don't even know.

Marksie

I would add my wishes to that of wibbs as well and thats to all who are posting their experiences and struggles

Keep it going and IMO as long as you are posting on here, the thread stays open

Beruthiel

board om
Thank you for posting your story here.
My heart goes out to you and your struggle. I truly hope that one day you get enough courage to sort yourself out.
You say you've had offers to go somewhere and sort yourself out but that something always seems to come up to prevent it happening.
Would you conclude that in fact you are making excuses and that if you really wanted to go ahead with this, it would happen? That your effort is half hearted as this has such a hold of you that you can't let it go?
You still have your life, don't you think you should do something before you loose it?


Ricey, well done, you can be proud of yourself, keep up the good work!
btw, is it possible for you to go away for a couple of weeks with your g/f? You would be somewhere else, away from any sort of access and perhaps it would help you?
Just a thought...


steo123
It's clear you have nothing to add to this thread so don't bother posting again.
I don't appreciate your comments and this thread will be staying open, nobody asked you to read it.
B

MsFifers

Just read through this whole thread (in work on Good Friday so am making my own choices on how to spend my time! ) and jeez Ricey and Board Om - I wish I could wave a wand and fix things, but all I can offer is good wishes to you both.

One thing is striking me tho Ricey - you are such a warrier to keep trying again and again, fair play to you. But as they say, its madness to keep doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. What I mean is - wouild I be right in thinking you are trying the same approach each time?

From reading what you have written - your pattern is - you shut yourself away from everyone, and manage to get clean for a few days. Then the depression hits, you go out, your girlfriend has a row with you, you meet up with drug users and take something, and then you are back on the gear again.

Can you set things up for yourself so that you do not go on this pattern next time. Ie - you know you will get depressed - what can you set up for yourself to help you through that depressed period? What can you arrange to support yourself through that time? Just trying to sit it out on your own seems like it isn't working for you.

Its likely you will have a row with your girlfriend because she is going to doubt you (and you can't blame her, really can you? She is only rowing with you because she cares so much) - what can you do so that you don't go on the downward spiral of thinking its all over, no one cares about you etc?

You need to put a plan in place for yourself. I don't know what will work, cos I don't know your circumstances. But try to think it through and come up with some ideas - maybe ask for help at your group?

I think it would also be good for you to write down what your life is going to be like without heroin. Really picture it - what are you going to be doing? Working at? Spare time? Who will be in your life when you aren't around drug users anymore? How will you feel when you wake up in the morning? When life gets tough and you aren't taking drugs any more - how do you get through it now?

Hang on to that picture! IT WILL HAPPEN FOR YOU!

Good luck!
(God - sorry this was such a long post!)

January

Following on from MsFifers idea about writing down what you want to do when you get off the drugs... that is such a great idea. Write down your goals be it getting married to your gf, going to college and getting a good job, having kids.

Do it, and look at it everytime you think about taking drugs again, you will never have these things if you keep using ricey.

Good luck with your fight. Keep trying, we're here to support you!!

ricey

Hey all its good that ye still want to see this thread open, just got a bit annoyed at that someone says oh close this thread!! But life must go on lol, trust me iv a lot more to be worried about and getting worked up by.

Not feeling too good today. I was up all night last night watchin films (xvid work on ps3 cool) so i did'nt get to sleep till bout 7 or 8 this morning. Cant sleep at night its too hard. Woke up then and i just feel like total crap, as board om said i fell like a bus going over me. Im so depressed too and even feel myself that im moaning at this stage, iv been trying for so long to stop and its just kicking the $hite outta me each time. I look at it as a battle and there is only one winner for me its been gear so so so many times! This is my third day and its bad real bad..... its like as if the drug has just takin me and made me a slave to it. The struggle to get away from the slavery this drug has me under. Who knows if il ever get better but im going to keep trying you know. Its hard to think of another life or a new life when your going through withdrawl because its so bad you just feel like crap and dirty... i cant see a better life right now all i can see is a life of pain and misery thats been my life for the last ten years! I aint been on gear ten years but iv been on some drug or another since iv been 13. Drugs have taken all of my teenage years away form me and half of my twentys. Who knows drugs might take my hole life away from me, later all

estar

the way i look at these things, when ive something hard to do
and must do it, and dont know how i will is the knowledge that
someone else has done it, then i must be able to too.

im sure it is very hard, but it is not forever. get a calendar and
mark down how many days - its probably 20 days before you
would be able to sleep. i actually dont have a clue - ask your
doctor. cross off each day. and then when you are about to
re-offend just take some time to think how far you are setting
yourself back.

other people have won this battle. you can too.

if you start thinking you cant win, then you are f&cked.

therewillbe

Make it through it and your family will forgive you .Focus. remember the BAD times .

ricey

ok things did'nt go so well tonight and i used again, only a small bit to take away the sickness. Oh at this stage iv tried too many times to come off it myself and just failed. I made a choice im going to go on a methadone program. If there is anyone here that knows anything about methadone please post and let me know what you think of my choice. I know methedone is supposed to be bad stuff too but my gp has always advised me to try it and i just want free of heroin and free of having to go score and worry about getting money for my next fix. I read over most of this thread today when i was sick and its MAD how things have changed. I started out with such high hopes of getting off it then and NEVER using again. Things did'nt work out that way did they? Iv had enough of the pain and hurt that iv been putting on my family and people closest too me so going on the methadone seems like the best option for me right now.

Thanks for putting up with me all lol and thanks for all the GREAT support iv been getting and even the criticism from one or two no worries it all helps.

billy the squid

shop the dealers. not knowing where to get it might make it easier to avoid.

ricey

Thanks board om its great for me to have someone like you here that can put it too me straight and knows what he is talking about from personal experiances.

I know the fhy is bad but im just so messed up at the moment and i have to have gear everyday or im f.ucked you know, before i could go a day or two without it but now i have to get some every day or il be sick. It seems to just have gotten worse BIG TIME all of a sudden. Its like one day im ok with the smoking and know i can go the five days and feel fine like i was never on anything but now i just wake up in a pool of sweet and my eyes dilated sick as a dog having to go and get a smoke. To be honest im scared i really am, this is killing me and getting worse and worse and i know im going to loose everything if i keep going on like this, but i cant stop.

When i used last night i just said to myself il have to try something different and try methadone. I have loads of reasons for this. I am sick of smoking gear, i dont want it to get worse that im injecting it, im loosing everyone who has any bit of faith in me and i just cant afford to keep my habit going.

Thanks for your hel kuz hope to here more from you and keep your head up there is a light at the end of the tunnel for all of us, be safe k.

phaze

Hey Ricey,
It's great to see you still have hope - sure you're even there encouraging the lady who's giving up alcohol this weekend. You want to be clean so badly but I have no advise to give you.

Today is another new day, a fresh beginning.
Please mind yourself.

Drift

Hey Ricey I've been following the thread all along and you're very brave. It's very unfortunate that you keep lapsing.

I have no idea if this sort of thing is possible but I wonder could you move in to the home of a family member somewhere else in the country for a few weeks. By move in I mean completely move in and not leave the house at all for a month or so. Get them to do all your shopping etc. It might be the way to force the cold turkey on yourself.

Like I said I know nothing about drugs but it's just a suggestion.

estar

hi board_om

what would be wrong with staying on methadone for the rest of your
life and not using heroin

just wondering.

estar

i know it might seem like you answered this question.

but

theoretically if one didnt take heroin again which would
require will power,

wouldnt it be safer than being on heroin, cheaper, and more
stabilising?

i know you say that the methadone dose is high, and the withdrawal
hard, but fundamentally isnt it safer if you can stick to it?

i suppose the key is how committed a person is to actually giving up
heroin and the life that goes with it. i guess if you really want to it
might be a safer option.

but then again what do i know. nothing says you.

board om

estar wrote: »

i know it might seem like you answered this question.

but

theoretically if one didnt take heroin again which would
require will power,

wouldnt it be safer than being on heroin, cheaper, and more
stabilising?

i know you say that the methadone dose is high, and the withdrawal
hard, but fundamentally isnt it safer if you can stick to it?

i suppose the key is how committed a person is to actually giving up
heroin and the life that goes with it. i guess if you really want to it
might be a safer option.

but then again what do i know. nothing says you.

no, that is a fair point. some people would say if you find something that keeps you off drugs then why would you want to stop it. and in some cases they are probaly right. i read about some guy in the US who had stayed clean for years but once he got down to about 15mls a day he would relapse. he could spend years clean but once he got to that level he would always end up back on heroin and basically back to square one. now he was a perfect canddiate for someone who shouldnt come off methadone. he had found something that kept his life in order and kept him clean, so why fix whats not broken?

i came across a few people like that. one guy always got down to 7mls and then he would relapse. now realistcally 7mls would be hardly anything so i think it was more in his head. sure he would lose more than 7mls pouring it out to drink so i dont think taking it could have benefited him that much. but he was terrified everytime he got down to that 7mls mark. he was too afraid to skip to 6mls (which really wouldnt have made a difference to his system) and he wouldnt just bite the bullet and give it up altogether which he probably could have at that stage. he was stuck on a cycle of relapses for years. in my opinion he should just stay on it because it obviously benefits him.

for me it is a mental thing though. if i am taking methadone i bascailly am taking a free version of heroin, and i am still a slave to something. knowing i will never be free doesnt seem like a life to me. also there is the problem that when you are taking methadone you are constantly mixing with other addicts. the whole idea of getting off gear is you get away from things like that. but with methadone at least once a week you have to either go to a methaodne clinic, or a particular doctor, or a particular chemist, and you are always meeting other addicts. so you are constantly still in the overall drug situation and the option of scoring is always there. so i just feel there is no end to it where methadone is concerned.

there are also the side effects which are pretty nasty. apart from the ones ive mentioned like falling asleep everywhere you go, there are more serious side effects as well. methadone gets right into you bones and limbs whcih is very painful. your arms and legs ache a lot and they lock up as well. it is very painful. i get it very badly in my legs so if i am say lying on the couch watching TV, when i go to stand up i cant actually walk and it will take a lot of pain and strain just to get to the other side of the room. it would be like watching an 80+ yar old with severe arthritis. its not really how i wanted to see myself at 30 years of age, but there you go.

also i know it sounds silly considering the severity of the alternaitve, but spending the rest of my life having the pharmacist in the chemist looking down their nose at me, having to mention that i am on methadone to any doctor or dentist i see (becuase you have to notify them in case they give you something that doesnt mix with it), not being able to take a holiday without getting a special methadone holiday prescription filled out and getting a letter to be able to bring it through the airport, and then getting ripped apart by customs because "if you have methadone in your luggage then you are a junky so you must have drugs on you", and then the greatest fear of all which is losing you methadone and not having access to more so you go into withdrawal. that is my biggest fear which is why i keep bottles hidden in all the important places. i would be terrified of going away on a flight and losing my luggage and being stuck in another country without being able to get more.

its not a life i would wish upon my worst enemy. i dont even see it as a life at all really.

ricey

Ok i got around 210mils of fhy off someone today and im gonna try come off the gear 2m with it, how should i use the fhy to come off the gear board om if you can? My goal is to take the fhy for this week and just come off everything after that.

FingersCrossed

Ricey, I think Board om is saying the Methadone is worse. Read his last few posts.

ricey

Ya in the long term he thinks that. Iv never been on the stuff but it has to be better then going out everyday to score then smoking or worse injecting gear. My plan is not to stay on the fhy long term, what i want to do is just use the 220mils that i have to come off the gear now and gradually come off the fhy too. I know il prob be still sick a bit but i think i can get off everything if i use this fhy.

Sally Cinnamon

Ricey, I've been following this thread for a couple of weeks. Firstly, I'd like to say how heartbreaking it is to see how much you are suffering as you clearly want to break your addiction, and secondly fair play to you for trying over and over, it takes real strength.

But looking over the last few days and the discussions regarding methadone, I really think you should be seeking medical advice at this point, self medicating hasn't worked for you up to this and given what board_om has said about the methadone, it's going to be bad if it goes wrong, do you really want to put yourself in that position?

ricey

Sally Cinnamon wrote: »

Ricey, I've been following this thread for a couple of weeks. Firstly, I'd like to say how heartbreaking it is to see how much you are suffering as you clearly want to break your addiction, and secondly fair play to you for trying over and over, it takes real strength.

But looking over the last few days and the discussions regarding methadone, I really think you should be seeking medical advice at this point, self medicating hasn't worked for you up to this and given what board_om has said about the methadone, it's going to be bad if it goes wrong, do you really want to put yourself in that position?

Ya of course i would rather have my own methadone off my gp or something but that would take like a month and they tell you to keep using gear untill then... i just cant hack using anymore full stop. Im not going to go mad with the fhy, my mother has it and she will be givin it to me everyday. Just had my last smoke there so im ok now but 2m when i wake up il be in the rats again and i dont want to have to go looking for gear + i cant afford it anymore, my poor parents are broke from giving me loans and all that just to feed my habit. lol i got a loan off them to buy the fhy but hopefully that will be a good thing and i can weine myself off both over the next week.

board om

ricey wrote: »

Ok i got around 210mils of fhy off someone today and im gonna try come off the gear 2m with it, how should i use the fhy to come off the gear board om if you can? My goal is to take the fhy for this week and just come off everything after that.

nice one. 210mls will be plenty. once you are on and off it again quick enough you wil be fine. the trick is not to get comfortable on it and start using it as a substitute which is the mistake most people make, including myself.

now you will have to put the effort into this as well. its not a free pass. it will stop the physical sickness and give you a chance to work on the mental side of things. i think what makes heroin withdrawal so difficult is battling severe physical and mental withdrawal both at the same time. fighting a mental addiction is really difficult but when your body is screaming with pain at the same time it just makes it impossible.

give me a few minutes and i wil PM you about how much to take and for how long.

ricey

Ya thats the killer with gear. You got the physical sickness and the mental sickness to deal with all wraped up in a big bag of pain and suffering.

I REALLY hope i can do it with the 210mils. Im gonna pry and pry and pry that i can and just try to relax as much as i can over the next few days. 2d is the most important day for me i got to get through today and then worry about 2m.

Thanks bro il wait for the pm. Your a great help id be half lost without ya, honestly

board om

Sally Cinnamon wrote: »

Ricey, I've been following this thread for a couple of weeks. Firstly, I'd like to say how heartbreaking it is to see how much you are suffering as you clearly want to break your addiction, and secondly fair play to you for trying over and over, it takes real strength.

But looking over the last few days and the discussions regarding methadone, I really think you should be seeking medical advice at this point, self medicating hasn't worked for you up to this and given what board_om has said about the methadone, it's going to be bad if it goes wrong, do you really want to put yourself in that position?

unfortunetly it isnt as easy as that. you cant just go to your GP and ask to get on a methadone course. GP's cant prescribe methadone. the only place that prescribe it is the methaodne clinics. you have to sign on to a clinic and go on the waiting list. in some areas in dublin the waiting list is 9 months, some are shorter than that but others you can be waiting longer than a year. for limerick i would say the waiting list would be pretty long as they wouldnt have that many clinics but they have a growing number of addicts.

when you are on the waiting list, as ricey said, they suggest you continue taking heroin until your name comes up. when you do eventually get called the process is only starting. they work it around their time table so you can be told to be there at any time in the morning or afternoon and then a completly differnet time the next day and the next. there is no set time each day, you could be 11am tuesday, then 8:45am wednesday, then 2:15pm thurday, etc. if you are trying to hold down a job and you are on the clinic then forget about it because it is a full time job just trying to get them to treat you. you will be going in daily or every second day for a few weeks before they even give you your first bit of methadone, and the whole time they just keep telling you to keep on using gear. and when they start giving you methadone it is only a small bit each day in the beginning and you have to keep using gear, after a few weeks they will give you full doses and then you are expected to stop using gear.

so can you imageine some poor soul who is desperatly trying to get their life back together so he goes to the clinic and asks for help. he then spends the next few months being put on the long finger and keeps getting told to continue using drugs until they are ready for him. when it is finally time for his treatment to start he has most likely lost all faith in it and probably in a worse state than he was when he originally signed on. its just nuts.

i was very lucky that i knew my doctor a long time and i knew him very, very well. he made a few calls for me and had me on a clinic within a week. he had to call in some serious favours from other people but he managed to do it. and i can not thank him enough for doing it. that was a good few years ago and to this day i am still extremely greateful. it is probably one of the single greatest things anyone has ever done for me, because he didnt need to do it. he just knew i was in bad shape and i needed help. in a way he saved my life and he knows it. i know i am still pretty fcuked now, probably more so than i was then, but he got me talking about my problem with councillors and family so it took a t lot of the strain off me mentally. it killed me to go back to him months later and tell him i had relapsed. i was dreading it and i avoided him for weeks, but when i eventually went in and told him he didnt give me a hard time over it. he just told me to cop on and sort it out. years later he actually saved my life again. i had bee taken in to hospital for sever pains in my chest and i couldnt breath properly.after a few days in hospital they sent me home and said i had pulled a muscle, which didnt seem right but they are the professionals so i went home. the next day i collapsed in convulsions of pain and couldnt walk or breath. i was totally crippled. i got to my doctor and straight away he said you have a blood clot and its in your lung and sent me straight back to the hospital with a letter telling them where to scan. low and behold i did have a blood clot and it was in my lung, exactly as my doctor had said. i had been injecting into my legs a lot and a blood clot had travelled from my leg all the way up to my lung. so i spent the next month in a hospital bed in absolute agony, with quite a few embarrased doctors looking after me (they were a bit embarassed about sending me home the day before becuase i kept saying to telling them it wasnt a pulled muscle and they kept telling me it was fine). wasnt funny at the time but we laughed about it afterwards.

ricey

Any help on how i should use the fhy board om?

board om

ricey wrote: »

Any help on how i should use the fhy board om?

sorry ricey, got really into reading some of the leagl discussions and then goofed off on my laptop. i have to stop taking sleepers before i am ready to go to bed. i end up asleep on the couch and then having to wake up and drag myself to bed.

i will PM you now.

ricey

Cheers bro im just not sure how much i should be taking u know, no worries anyway i was well goofed out myself.

FingersCrossed

Best of luck tomorrow Ricey x

(Or today - depending on your sleeping patterns...)

board om

ricey wrote: »

Cheers bro im just not sure how much i should be taking u know, no worries anyway i was well goofed out myself.

no worries, i am doing up a few difent plans so if you end up needing more the first few days you will still have enough to do you the rest of the days.

i though i could fcuking well cut and paste from excel straight into PM but you cant so i am manually typing it so give me a few minutes. i am chain smoking cigarettes so dont worry, i wont goof off and forget about you.

ricey

hehe lol thanks bro Just got your joke about turning on the water to help you pee... i spent about twenty mins on the bog just there myself but na nothing heh.

thanks fingerscrossed ya its today my sleeping pattern is all over te place
i would go to sleep for the day now and just get up at bout 7 but i wont il stay up today watch the soccer and go to bed after that.

Ri na hEireann

Just wondering Ricey, how do you finance your addiction? How much does it cost you daily. You have no job so do your parents finance your whole addiction or what?

This thread,to me, shows the need we have to tackle heroin as a society before we try sort out any other drug epidemic. I never realised that it takes such a hold of people to the point where the drug actually lives their life. Like you must have relapsed 10 times since you started this thread?

board om

hey ricey,

how is the head today? i presume that worked for you and you managed to get a proper sleep.

let us know how it is going

Sherifu

Great to see you're still trying ricey. Thought we had lost you for a while there.

ricey

Thnaks bro, i aint ever lost just taking the long road heh.

Sherifu

ricey wrote: »

Thnaks bro, i aint ever lost just taking the long road heh.

Good man. Fair play. All the best dude.

littlefriend

board om - have you ever thought about writing a book about your story? You are so eloquent and are definitely gifted in the way that you speak/write..
Maybe it would help you in some way to do something like that.. it would definitely help other people.

Truly, I think you have helped ricey and fingerscrossed more than any of the other hundreds of ppl who have posted messages of encouragement to them. Your words have also educated and increased awareness in all readers of this thread that this horrible afflicition of addiction is a disease.

Don't give up on yourself

ricey

ya board om as littlefriend says dont give up on yourself....

you have been a great help to me and thats something i never expected, the last place i expected to get getting help on taking phy and coming off heroin was here lol. but as much as you have helped me and others i would love for you to try do something yourself. I know it would be a lot harder for you then it is for me but it cant hurt for me to say it to ya but as they say only you can make that choice.

secman

We have now reached the stage where one chronic heroin addict is giving instructions to another potential one on how to use methadone , that he is sourcing on the street !!!! Now should he overdose ?????

This thread is losing the plot.


Secman