Formication and hallucinations - when shit gets real

It's been a while since I posted and for that I apologize.  Have had a lot of changes in my life recently and I also went to spend some time with my family in Colorado.  I will be writing an update soon.  For now here's some harm reduction information on a topic that is very personal for me.  It might not apply to you but it does for a lot of people.  Copy pasted from a comment form on some wiki site...

Speed bugs, picking, and formication

"awesome.  I just wrote like three paragraphs and the stupid site randomly refreshed and deleted it.  AAAARGH.  let me try this again writing in notepad so i don't lose my comment again.  

 I could write a book about this stuff.

I used to have a really bad problem picking my skin when I used drugs.  I was an active heroin addict for 8 years, started doing coke 2 years after the H, then used meth for the first time 5 years in, and had a triple habit shooting heroin and meth every day and also smoking crack for 3 years on and off.  I picked the hell out of my skin the very first time i used meth, I also pulled out so much of my hair that i had a huge bald spot in the back of my head and had to shave all my hair off.  At first it was the meth that made me pick but eventually i would pick whenever I got high on any kind of drug even downers like heroin and benzos.  It's a really terrible cycle.  In addition to picking I was diagnosed with something called 'trichotylomania' which means to pull out your hair.  Picking is sometimes serious enough to be diagnosed as 'dermatilomania' aka pulling / picking at skin compulsively. Dermis = skin, mania = insanity / compulsion. I could spend an entire 24 hours sitting on my floor or standing in front of my mirror picking at my skin or pulling out my hair. It was very common for the sun to come up on me while I sat in the same spot picking, having started doing it the night or even day before. I would pick with my fingernails, tweezers (always had a pair on me and i owned like 20 different pairs), syringes, razor blades, exacto knives, a metal 'skin care tool' that has a hole on one end that you drag across pimples to pop them out, sewing needles, pocket knives, and all sorts of sharp metal things.  Sometimes I would pick so bad it would look like i had road rash on my face from a car accident.  i would also pluck out my eyebrows (every single hair) my arm  and leg hairs and even my pubes.  When I would pull / pluck out hairs it was because they would sometimes have these clear or white 'gel' looking tubes either attached to the hair root or stuck in the pore / follicle itself, these would pop out after i plucked a hair out.  When I picked it was because I saw little white worm looking things and black specks coming out of my pores.  I would collect these 'bugs' / 'parasites' and stick them to pieces of notebook paper as proof of my 'infestation'.  When I got sober I threw out like three whole notebooks full of this crap.  It's a really disgusting and scary habit.  Once I started nothing could stop me, i would only stop when my fingers hurt too much to keep going or my hands would cramp up.  I was terribly ashamed of doing it but I couldn't control myself.  I would do it in front of my friends and even in public, if someone asked me to stop I would get mad and do it more frantically.  Most of the time I honestly believed that there were bugs in my skin and I didn't connect it to the drugs.  I thought I had morgellons, or scabies, or bird mites, or some kind of nanotechnology virus engineered by the government to drive me insane.  My mind would play weird tricks on me while I picked.  i would think i was playing a game that someone had invented to test me and the object was to collect as many 'bugs' as possible in my notebook, or that if i collected enough 'specimens' i would make money off of them somehow, or take them to a doctor and help discover a new disease.  I would often see them moving under my skin or outside of it, sometimes I could feel them biting me or hear them make hissing noises.  Weird crazy SCARY shit that made no sense. 

I once got MRSA so bad from picking that I was told at the ER that i was days away from dying of sepsis.  I had to be held for three days and given tons of oral and IV antibiotics and had to take special showers several times a day.  Staph is common with pickers because it lives under your fingernails.  You could also get cellulitis, blood poisoning, necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating virus) and all kinds of terrible infections. to this day i am covered in scars.  They are the worst on my arms and legs, they have gotten a lot better since I stopped picking obviously but in the right kind of light, when it's cold, or when I get a sun burn you can see that every inch of my arms are covered in overlapping scars.  There are scars from when i cut myself as a teenager, years worth of track marks, abcess scars, and layer upon layer of picking scars.  my nose is always red from times when i picked all of the skin off it trying to get rid of 'blackheads' and 'clogged pores', kids in my hometown sometimes make fun of me by calling me 'Rudolph' which is extremely embarassing.  The scars will never go away, but they do get less and less noticeable as time goes on, thank god.

The stuff that you see happening to your skin is going on for a reason.  One reason is that you are hallucinating.  Meth and other stimulants make you hyper focus on things and make you want to do something repetetive or detail oriented.  They also cause sometimes subtle and sometimes very vivid visual and auditory hallucinations.  I have been locked in my second story apartment and heard dozens of people in the street whispering about me.  i once heard someone climbing the wall outside my window and thought i heard them trying to open my window, I have heard people pounding on my door trying to break it down, I have walked down the street in San Francisco and literally every single person on the street was talking about me.  I have been chased by cars, people on bikes, and worst of all 'shadow people' *shiver* I once pulled a two inch long black worm out of my armpit.  The scary part about that one is that I put the 'worm' in a drawer and it was still there the next day and I showed it to some sober friends and they were freaked out by it and couldn't tell what it was.  Looking back on it i think it was probably a long strip of skin and dried blood, but it came out of my armpit when i was picking, kind of popped out of a hair follicle, when it popped out I was so shocked by how long it was that I screamed and started to cry.  Meth causes psychosis, it is very seriously damaging to your mental functions, it is no joke. So anyways, if you are hyper flocused on your skin, seeing things that are not real on or in your skin, and compelled to do something repetetive; that is the neurotic and insane combination that leads to picking.  There is also formication and delusional parasitosis that occurs when you use stimulants.  

Here are some methods i have found useful to heal and repair skin as much as possible after really bad picking episodes.  First of all it is essential that you wash the skin as much as you can.  It will hurt but you have to do it.  I suggest using 'Hibiclens', this is an anti bacterial soap that really works wonders to prevent and treat skin infections and it is very gentle on the skin, just try not to get it in your eyes!  Pour a decent ammount of hibiclens on a washcloth and gently wash your skin.  Use it instead of body wash in the shower.  When I had MRSA and sepsis Hibiclens is what the doctors had me wash my skin with at the Denver hospital i was staying in.  You can buy hibiclens at Walgreens, duane reed, safeway, etc.  Another product that works really well is called 'Prid', it is a homeopathic 'drawing salve' for abcesses and infections that have pus or bacteria in them.  You put a huge glob of it on the wound and cover it with a non stick gauze pad and tape it up.  I have put Prid on abcesses before, left it under gauze overnight, and in the morning the abcess had drained and was almost completely healed.  I have given a container of Prid to several of my actively using friends and many of them have healed their own abcesses using it.  Prid is really an amazing product and it is one of the essential things I always kept around when i used to pick. Prid and Hibiclens are your first line of defense against serious skin infections, both of these products can be bought at Cvs, walgreens, rite aid, etc.  some holistic products that work really well are cold pressed Neem oil for topical use (it smells bad but works wonders) and Colloidal Silver for topical and oral use.  Many people who suffer from Morgellons swear by Colloidal Silver.  You can get Colloidal Silver at whole foods and gNC but i buy mine online because there are alot of fake and low quality CSilver products out there.  Nutrasilver is a good online version.  Colloidal oatmeal and lavender bath soaks for eczema are great. Tea Tree oil is anti-parasitic and anti bacterial but should not be used in deep open wounds.  You can buy diatomaceous earth 'clay' which is good for topical use on abcesses that have not opened yet or started draining.  the diatomaceous clay works like a drawing salve and will bring the abcess to a head.  For healing I use neutrogeena naturals moisturizer and Aveeno excema therapy lotion.  Bathing or soaking your skin with lavender epsom salts can help reduce itching and irritation but is not good if you have a lot of deep open wounds.  Lavender oils and lotions provide a lot of relief for pain and itching as does Dr. Bronners lavender soap.  Grape seed oil and grape seed capsules are amazing to heal and soothe wounds from picking and to fight infection.  Milk Thistle capsules are good for your skins healing when taken orally once a day.  Grape juice is good to flush the toxins out of your system as is cranberry juice.  Try mixing sea salt and lemon juice and soaking your skin.  Swallowing a clove of garlic like a pill once a day or just eating a lot of garlic in your food will flush toxins out of your system and fight bacterial infections.  Swallowing a pinch of cayenne pepper in water is also good to detoxify your body.  Drink alot of water.  Soak in a warm bath.  Wash your face with a warm wet washcloth and lots of soap, Hibiclens or something for sensitive skin like cetaphil or a kind of soap without harsh dyes and scents in it, then lay on a thick coat of moisturizer and sleep with it on so it can sink into and condition your skin.  Steam and heat will reduce swelling and pain.  Cucumbers laid on the skin will reduce swelling, soothe, and provide relief.  Cut a potato in half and place it over a pimple, bump, ingrown hair, or abcess and it will draw the poison out of your skin.  These are just some methods that I have used and found to be very effective.  Do a search for morgellons and eczema home remedies and you will find a lot of other things that will work for healing wounds caused by picking.

Lastly i just want to say that if you are tired of being at the mercy of your addiction maybe it is time for you to seek help to get sober.  I was about as bad as it gets with my addictions and i am currently in therapy and AA and things are getting better slowly but surely.  It is important to have a support system if you want to get clean and sober, nobody can do it all by themselves.  NA, AA, SMART recovery, and Life ring are all support groups that will help you work towards a drug free life.  Reach out to somebody else who has been through it to hear their experience, strength, and hope.  You can recover, people do it every day, you just have to want it and do whatever it takes to change your life.  I sincerely wish you all the best of luck and happiness no matter what you decide to do moving forward.  Take care of yourselves and try not to hurt yourselves.  Your health is very important and you are worth taking care of, don't let society and stigma about drug use make you feel worthless.  Do some research on harm reduction to learn how to use drugs in a safer and less destructive way.

http://zenithchasing.blogspot.com >>> This is my blog about my recovery if you want to learn more about what i am doing to change my life and try to live without drugs and alcohol and also to heal from the painful events in my past both drug related and not.  If you need someone to talk to please know that i am always here to listen and offer whatever advice that I can.  Good luck, take care, stay strong, and stay blessed. <3"

- Zenith Chasing

Falling From a Pink Cloud (and Learning How to Fall Correctly)

Recent events have snapped me back into reality, my pink cloud had officially dissipated, if you could even call it that...  I guess that given my predisposition towards the negative, it makes sense that my personal pink cloud would be miniature sized.  Fun sized?  I guess the latter sounds a little nicer, and chewier somehow (I'm thinking of nougat.)  Abstract ruminations and manic tangents aside, I feel like shit.  Just found out that another friend of mine, albeit not as close a friend as T, but someone I have known since I was 17, died this week.  Rest in Peace LES Jewels - I will miss you buddy.  This is certainly the end of an era for the Lower East Side.  I sincerely hope that this is not going to be one of those horrific months where every time I dare to check my email or my facebook I find out that another one of my friends is dead.  It kind of comes with the territory of being a heroin addict, but maybe my higher power will see fit to give the people I care about a break for a little while?  Their lives are hard enough as is, they don't need to have them stolen, seriously.

My teeth are fucking killing me.  I really need to get my wisdom teeth taken out.  It gets worse and worse by the day.  I honestly do not know how I am going to get the procedure done however without asking my parents to pay for it, and that is really not appropriate, I should be giving to them right now not continuing to be a burden and a disappointment.  Still, I contacted all the local dental schools I could find and even with their sliding scale dealies i can't afford the shit.  In all likelihood I will wait until my face swells up and I get some kind of oral sepsis before I finally do something about it.  You would be surprised at my ability to handle physical pain.  Hell I got hit by a fucking semi truck a few years ago and got right back up.  What's a tooth ache compared to that!? Uuuuugh.

There are mice in my fucking room.  Like six of them.  It started out with one, then two, then three, and now the adorable little fuckers are running around my room constantly, frollicking and playing and eating my socks.  The most precious little squeaks can be heard all hours of the night from various corners of my tiny single-room-occupancy hotel room, a joyous chorus fueled by errant kibble from Kalis bowl and fruit snacks I dropped behind the microwave on accident.  They really are cute, I don't want to hurt them, but I really would like for them to not procreate any more, or if they must, to go to somebody elses room... please?

I have not been to a meeting since Sunday.  I am, however, doing copious amounts of step work to finish up my first step by the time I meet with M on Friday to review it.  I am finishing up my chapter reviews and after that I have one more assignment and then I can move on.  I get to see if it is at all possible for someone as cynical as me to fully submit to the idea, NAY the supposed REALITY, of a higher power and believe that said power can fix me.  If that is at all possible it will be extremely significant for me, it will be fucking huge, this step is going to be really fucking hard.  I don't want to seem like a close minded douche bag who is all hung up on the whole 'God in AA' thing, that's not it.  I am just such a negative person, I over analyze everything to death, and faith has never been one of my strong points or really one of my points period.  I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it though.  Right?  One day at a time.  As promised here is more of my step one work...

Times I tried to quit using and failed

• After I started using heroin for the first time in Baltimore and then in New Jersey I went back to Hartwick College after my very eventful summer vacation.  I brought a bundle of dope with me, assuming I could use it to wean myself off, but you know what happens when you assume... When the dope ran out I lasted maybe two more weeks at college before I stole my friends boyfriend and dropped out, then hitched to NYC to shoot more dope.  This is how I blew off a free ride to college to go hang out with a bunch of homeless kids and shoot heroin in a fucking park (Tompkins Square.)
• I was on methadone for eight months a couple of years ago while living in Maine with my ex J.  Despite being in an intensely fucked up and abusive relationship with J, other aspects of my life were going pretty well; I had a job and an apartment and was getting along well with my mother.  I got kicked off of the clinic I was at for missing some group therapy appointments (because I had a JOB that I felt was slightly more important) they did not taper me, and I relapsed after a week due to the intense physical withdrawals of kicking methadone.  I cleared out my bank account, the remnants of my settlement for being hit by that semi truck I mentioned, in about a month; it all went straight into my dealers pocket.
• I had gone to live with my sister in Co Springs after being homeless and strung out in Denver all winter.  I kicked cold turkey on her couch.  After four or so months of white knuckling my sobriety I went to Vegas to stay with my friend Ava.  I didn't know that she and her husband were strung out at the time.  I relapsed.
• I attempted to kick at my Moms house many many times with limited success.
• Same thing at my dads house in Arkansas.
• I tried to stay clean while visiting my dad in Colorado and ended up shooting dope with my brother, who has his own life shattering heroin addiction to deal with.
• I tried to kick in Maine by taking suboxone.  (See my post 'Utterly powerless over addiction') I lasted about a week before I planned a trip to NYC to get high, roping two friends into the whole thing, and ended up getting loaded and ditching both of them after promising I would not do exactly that.
• I came to SF sober-ish, still drinking and smoking weed, but I had been off heroin for a week or so.  I fully intended on staying clean once I got here.  I got high in my hotel room two hours after I got off the plane.

I have no fucking control over the shit.  I am insane.  I am sick.  When it comes to heroin or alcohol there is no fight, I just give in and give up completely.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Here I am, the fucking epitome of insanity.  It's really scary...

But hey check it out you guys - I AM FUCKING SOBER RIGHT NOW!!!  I have been sober for 36 days!  100% sober for over a month.  That is something I have never done since I started using heroin seven and a half years ago.  It might not sound like much to you but to me it is a huge achievement.  You have no idea what this means to me.  It means that I am not a lost cause, I am not a hopeless case, there is a possibility that even I might get better, that recovery is possible.  We know that's not the pink cloud talking because I already fell out of that shit and I have the scrapes and cuts to prove it.  That shit is just straight fact.  It's just a beginning but at least I have that, it's at least a start.

M suggested that I start writing daily gratitude lists, probably because I am such a downer and I'm always feeling sorry for myself, and I think it's a great idea.  I'm going to close out this post with my first attempt.

Today I am grateful for the following

• My dog Kali.
• As the methadone clinic lady said this morning when I told her I was in bed puking all day yesterday from food poisoning; at least I have a bed to be in.  I am grateful that after seven years of homelessness I now have a roof over my head.
• The fact that I did not wake up dope sick this morning and that I am going to bed clean and sober.
• Having money in my account and food on my EBT card.
• That my neighbor (and currently my only friend in SF) Dwayne was able to assert his rights as a tenant to the police who came to evict him today and that he also has a roof over his head tonight as a result.
• That my health and my sanity were not completely destroyed by my addiction.
• The chance to start over and be a better person tomorrow and the day after that.

Thanks for reading you guys.  As always I wish you all the best of luck and strength in your recovery, and if you need anyone to talk to, I'm here for you. <3

Hi, I'm Erica, and I'm an addict

Wanted to share a couple of things today, mainly what I am currently working on in AA for my first step. As some, but not all, of you know - the first step in Alcoholics Anonymous is...

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-- that our lives had become unmanageable.

Obviously this is the same for drugs as well.  I go to AA as opposed to NA for a couple of reasons which I'm sure I will expand upon later.  Suffice it to say for right now that I feel like alcoholism and heroin addiction are very similar and I can almost always relate to what alcoholics say in meetings.  I consider my main problem to be my heroin addiction, but I have an addictive personality in general, if it's not one thing it's the next.  Before I ever shot dope I was binge drinking with my friends in Tompkins Square or on the rocks in Portland, Maine and waking myself up with sidewalk slams, so it applies either way.

The exact wording of this step is, in a nutshell, exactly why I got onto a clinic and started going to meetings in the first place.  I was willing to do anything at all that might help me kick my heroin addiction, I didn't know anything except for the fact that my life was out of control and I could not continue to live the way I was living.  I would honestly rather have died than live another day trapped in the nightmare of my addiction.  It is essential for me that I never forget the reality of that nightmare, the exhausting and painful personal hell I had created for myself with drugs and alcohol and mental instability.  In order to keep that reality in the forefront of my mind I need to fully understand the nature of my old life and why it was so unmanageable.  My sponsor M gave me some step work, essentially writing exercises  that help you work the steps, the first 'assignment' was to make a list of the ways in which my life had become unmanageable.  The second was to write about some of the specific instances in which my life was unmanageable.  The second list is a work in progress still but I am going to share with you my first list and also what I have done so far on the second one.

Ways in which my life as an addict had become unmanageable

• The financial cost of supporting my habit was becoming impossible to afford
• Multiple legal issues had arisen from my criminal efforts to pay for my habit
• I was losing my fucking mind, going insane
• My health was rapidly deteriorating
• My relationship with my mother especially, but also with the rest of my family, was being destroyed by my selfish actions and unwillingness to look at my addiction
• I was unemployable and had no job prospects or means with which to support myself, I was relying on my mother to pay my rent, and stealing to supply whatever else I needed
• I felt like I wasn't taking very good care of or paying enough attention to my dog, I would subject her to stressful situations, environments, and individuals while using
• I had no real friends, lots of fair-weather friends
• My level of criminality and my criminal mentality / activity continued to increase, i was consistently crossing my previously set moral boundaries, I had no rules for myself or my behavior
• I was trashing my physical experience, I looked like crap but I didn't realize it because when I'm high I think I'm hot shit
• I was frequently put into, or put myself into, situations where my physical safety and even my life was in danger (violence, overdoses, etc)
• I was frequently a victim of physical violence and intimidation, I felt afraid for my safety all the time, paranoia set in as a result
• I was surrounded by crazy, untrustworthy, mean-spirited, and dangerous people
• I felt completely hopeless, like I had no future, and I wanted to die

 In my second list I am writing about experiences I had during my addiction that illustrate how my life had become unmanageable.  This is going to be an ongoing process for me because there is just so much shit that was fucked up about my life while I was using.  I am going to be very honest here because I know I am not the only person who has been through shit like this, and I can only hope that it will help other people to read about my experiences, so I'm not going to hold back.  If you feel like making stupid comments about the shit I have been through or the shit I have done, I seriously suggest you rethink that urge.  Don't be a dick.

Times that my life was unmanagable

• I stole a hundred dollars from my mother by adding money from her bank account to a linked paypal account she helped me set up.  I did this even though she was sending me money on a regular basis at the time to pay for shipping on my ebay sales.  This is the incident that resulted in us not speaking for the past four months.  I have yet to fully take responsibility and apologize.  
• I have been arrested for shoplifting three times this year.
• I can't return to a certain east coast city because of a (hypothetical) unresolved legal issue there.  This was (theoretically) the result of multiple drug charges over the years and failures to appear in court or attend drug classes.
• I was arrested for shoplifting at Ross when I had a previous bench warrant for shoplifting.  To avoid going to jail, and because I am a lunatic when I am on heroin, I cut my wrists in the bathroom while being detained by loss prevention awaiting the arrival of the police.  The police came and had me stand at the top of the escalator, bleeding profusely.  The entire store saw me standing there in restraints with a cop holding my arm to stop my blood from flowing out of my wrist, a pool of blood already collecting on the tile floor. This was obviously a humiliating experience. I was 5150ed, brought into the hospital for mandatory psych evaluation, and held for 20 hours before being released. 
• I got into a physical altercation with the security guard at the Fillmore Safeway.  While trying to escape with stolen coffee, dog food, socks, and people food; and while holding my small dog Kali, I was thrown to the ground.  Kali easily could have been hurt.
• I used my stun gun on a Walgreens employee who caught me shoplifting in order to flee the store because I was dopesick and didn't want to go to jail.  This is especially reprehensible because I have been attacked with a stun gun myself and it was arguably the most traumatic experience of my life. (I know that I'm getting ahead of myself, but how the fuck do you make amends for something like that!?)
• When I was selling coke and heroin in large quantities on the east coast (maybe), a customer stole a spare set of keys from my apartment and gave them to a friend to rob me.  I was alone in my apartment with my dog one night when the door opened and a 6'5'' + man ran in brandishing a tazer.  He proceeded to taze me with the stun gun upwards of twenty times leaving burns all over my face, neck, and stomach, and throw me around the room breaking everything in my apartment and demanding I give him all of my money and drugs.  I fought back and screamed for help the entire time, the adrenaline coursing through my body was stronger than the zaps from the stun gun.  He tried to go towards my dog to attack her and I used every ounce of strength I had to get her out of the room and focus his violence back onto myself so she could get to safety and hide in the other room.  He finally gave up and ran out of the apartment with nothing after I managed to open the door and scream into the hallway twice for help.  This is when I noticed the keys in the door.  Looking out the window, I saw my custy, who I thought was my friend prior to this incident, drive him away in her truck.  For the next month I holed up in my friends apartment behind three deadbolted doors sitting on his bed with a loaded AK-47 beside me.  I was absolutely terrified, yet I continued to meet with my runners and sell drugs through them in order to support my massive dope habit and my addiction to making easy money.  I still frequently have nightmares and flashbacks about this experience.

That's it for now, honestly talking about that last incident makes me really uneasy so I am going to take a break and continue transcribing my list a little later.

Besides working on my first step I am going to meetings almost every day and working with my sponsor.  I am trying to challenge my own sense of inadequecy (sic?) in social settings and working on feeling more comfortable in my own skin without being high all the time.  I feel much better in general, and I am coming to terms that I am not the party girl and social butterfly I have tried to force myself to be for years and years, there is nothing wrong with being an introvert, I just need to challenge myself and not isolate completely.

I shared in a group for the first time since going to meetings in San Francisco the other day.  I have been trying to listen more this time because I used to share a lot when I went to meetings and I did it for the wrong reasons.  I have no problem, as you can see, talking about myself and being introspective.  I have years of therapy and institutionalization throughout my adolescent and teenage years to thank for those lovely boundary issues. I went to the Elan School for three years growing up, if you do not know what that is I am sure I will talk about it later, and you can always look it up on Wikipedia as it has garnered quite a bit of media controversy recently.  Anyways, I have just as much to gain from listening and internalizing other peoples shares as I do from sharing myself. I talked about having blind faith in my recovery and the promises of AA, that even though I have no idea what recovery for me will look like because I have always been fucked up, I am willing to try anything that might help me get closer to happiness. 

More later, thanks for reading.  Please use the contact form or comment on this post if you have any questions / comments or just need someone to talk to.

Methadone is Recovery!

Hey.  I plan on writing a proper update in a little bit, but for now I wanted to share (and hopefully further) a discussion on what I think is a very important topic. I am probably going to talk a lot about Methadone in this blog. Methadone is a central part of my life and my recovery at this time and is also a topic of much debate in the recovery community. I am very interested in facilitating and participating in civil discussions on the topic as well, so please do not hesitate to comment with your opinions and thoughts.  I wanted to post a comment I made on an article I found earlier today.

Tami writes, [...] "I found Methadone & have been sober since 3-21-11. The program saved my life, and I am grateful to be on it. Without it I might be dead! Thank you for reading this, and if you know anyone who struggles with a heroin or pill addiction, please remember this and recommend METHADONE. I have and I have saved a few lives. If you really want to be sober and find a program that works,find the Methadone clinic closest to you and just follow the program. Not only did I get sober, but I learned how to live sober..Getting clean is the easy part.. staying clean..changing your lifestyle..it takes time and the rewards are great."[...]
 
- An excerpt from Methadone Saved My Life by Tami Ash on Addicted To Sobriety , found on @SobrietyAddict

Here's what I wrote in response to Tamis' story.

"Methadone - It works if you work it - Approach with caution and be honest with yourself!
Methadone is not something that should be taken lightly. It's kind of like how in the rooms we say 'it works if you work it', methadone works, but only if it is used as prescribed and taken seriously.  Methadone is a very strong opiate and needs to be regarded as such. 
I have been on methadone twice in my life.  I was a heroin addict first and foremost but I also drank, smoked crack, did meth (and pretty much anything else I could use to destroy my body and my mind) for eight years prior to my current sobriety.  The first time I was on methadone I did not take the program seriously.  I took way too much, raising my dose whenever possible, and also used other drugs including heroin occasionally while on the program.  I drank constantly.  I was not at all serious about recovery and made no attempts to quit using.  I basically just dosed so I wouldn't have to worry about ever being dope sick.  Things have been very different this time around because I have finally realized that I have a serious problem and that I cannot continue to live my life that way.
There are strict rules regarding drug use and mixing drugs / alcohol with methadone at all methadone clinics.  Mixing alcohol with your dose, using opiates with it, or taking benzos (benzodiazapenes - aka anxiety meds like klonopin or zanax)  on top of your dose can be extremely dangerous and can lead to fatal overdoses.  A lot of people drink or take benzos to potentiate the 'downer' effects of methadone. Not only does this defeat the purpose of getting on methadone in the first place, but I really cannot overstate how dangerous it is.  When your clinic tells you not to drink / take benzos, listen to them!  It could save your life to abstain from mixing methadone and illegal drugs / alcohol.
Methadone is not supposed to get you high, if it does you are probably taking too much.  The first time I was on a clinic I got up to 180mgs a day.  Now I am on 48mgs. a day and slowly tapering off of the medication.  Though I have been offered the opportunity to raise my dose many times since I started this new clinic I have refused every time and kept my dose at a high of 50mgs. a day.  This amount of methadone has been enough to prevent physical withdrawals for me and that is why I am on the dose in the first place, taking any more than necessary, to me is the same as using.  It's all about your intent.  If you want to be on methadone to get fucked up or avoid being dope sick while still doing dope or other opiates, don't waste your time.  If you want to be on it to take the first step towards your recovery from opiate addiction, methadone can be a very powerful tool, just please do your research first.
I am currently working the 12 steps in AA.  I have a sponsor.  I told her about being on methadone but I do not openly share this information with other people in the rooms.  Many AA members, even more so with NA, are against drug replacement therapies like methadone and suboxone.  NA has published articles specifically referring to methadone and stating that taking methadone as prescribed by a doctor is synonymous with using in the eyes of the NA program.  AA, to my knowledge, has not published any such articles and they seem to have a more lenient view on the subject.  I personally consider it to be an 'outside issue', like taking meds for depression or bipolar, or taking prescribed pain meds for an injury; thus no ones business but my own and possibly my sponsors.  It's up to you whether or not you want to disclose this to other members of your AA or NA group, just do not be surprised if you encounter some negative viewpoints, stigmatization, or even discrimination.  Worst case scenario, you may be excluded from sharing in NA or even told to leave a particular group, if you share that you are on a methadone program.  I am very lucky to have an exceptionally understanding and kind woman as my AA sponsor, even so I was still very afraid of being rejected or judged by her when I told her I am on methadone.  It is an issue some people in the rooms feel very strongly about.
Personally I do believe that methadone saved my life.  I would not have been able to kick the heroin habit that was destroying every aspect of my life without methadone.  Now that I am also working the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous I feel that I have built a support system for myself that will allow me to safely taper off of methadone without relapsing on heroin. Some people choose to stay on methadone maintenance for years, some people even stay on it for the rest of their lives, still others make the switch to suboxone or get a private doctor to prescribe methadone pills or wafers.  I have my own reasons for wanting to limit my time on the clinic, and I will again urge you to do your research into the side effects of methadone before you start on a program.
Methadone tapers are a very slow process as methadone withdrawal can be dangerous and there is no such thing as a painless taper.  I am taking the process very slowly, dropping a mg. a week, to make the process go as smoothly as possible.  The last time I was on methadone I got kicked out of the program without a medical taper and had to jump off 50mgs. cold turkey.  Even at such a low dose as compared to my high of 180mgs. it was a hellish experience, extremely painful, and it lasted almost two months before I started to experience any relief.  Needless to say, after two weeks of continuous physical withdrawal, I ended up relapsing. My heart was never in it that first time, I have a lot more strength and a support system to rely on now, and I believe that I can effectively taper off of methadone and be 100% clean and drug free without it.  I need to keep in mind however that detoxing off methadone is extremely difficult no matter how long or slow the process. I am doing my best to pace myself this time to prevent relapsing or backsliding in my recovery progress. 
I feel that it is very important to pair methadone treatment with another form of support such as AA / NA meetings or working with a therapist.  I myself am doing all three and it is working out very well for me.  Right now I am experiencing the most success I have ever had in a recovery attempt, I feel genuinely committed to my sobriety and am giving myself the time and space needed to do the steps right.  Having a support system and coping mechanisms to deal with the difficulties of early sobriety is absolutely essential to any addicts recovery.
For eight years, almost constantly (a couple of breaks here and there but no really lasting clean time), I was a homeless junkie.  I was sleeping in alleyways or abandoned buildings, traveling from state to state to escape myself and my many failures, and shooting up in space toilets (sf speak for automated outdoor public bathrooms), crack dens, and public parks. I begged for change, stole from stores, and sold my body to support my ever-increasing, ever more expensive, and ever destructive addiction. I was dirty, rail thin, and covered in track marks and abcesses. I hated myself and was basically killing myself very slowly from day to day. My family and friends had all given up on me and I had all but given up on myself.  It took the understanding that I was going to die from my addiction without ever realizing any of my dreams or goals to get me to admit that I needed help.  I didn't know how to live any other way, I just knew that I could not continue the way I was going, so I had to surrender my life to my higher power (as I understand it) wholly and completely. I had to allow myself to hope for a better life even though I couldn't even imagine what that might look like. Methadone was the first step towards building that better life for myself, joining AA was the next step.
If I can get clean, I know for a fact that anyone can, it's just a matter of seeking out and using the tools that are available to you.  Like I said before, it really does work... if you work it! 
Good luck and God bless to those of you who are still suffering and to all of my friends out there working their recovery."

More later, thanks for reading and please continue the discussion either here or at the original article page if you have anything to add.
PS - I have a twitter account now so feel free to follow me if you are so inclined and I shall return the favor. @Zenith_Chasing

This will serve as an introduction

 This is a picture of me though I change my hair a lot so I may not look like this anymore, you get the general idea.  That is my friends kitty. :)

Disclaimer: It is safe to click on links in the text of this blog because they are links I put there, not those annoying advertising links you see in blogs these days.  I put them there because I feel that they are relevant or that they further explain important topics I don't feel like elaborating on myself at the moment.  Go ahead, click without fear. :)

I've been waiting for the right time to write my first post and I guess today makes sense because today I'm fucking up.  I am about to relapse, I know this yet I cannot seem to stop myself.  I've been trying to get a hold of my dealer since last night. He is notoriously difficult to get on the phone which is probably to my benefit right now, but i know that if he had been available I would have gotten high last night, so my current sobriety is not for lack of effort to the contrary.  It's been about a month since I shot any dope, I've been on a methadone clinic for two months now, and up until a few days ago I was really trying hard.


I'm going to quickly tell you some basic facts about me.  My name's Erica, I'm 25, I am originally from New England (Portland, Maine mostly) but I consider New York City to be my home.  I moved to SF in November.  I was a homeless heroin addict for seven years, I just got clean two months ago and I still struggle with my addiction on a daily basis.  I used to ride freight trains and hitchhike around the US and consequently have been to almost every state and major city in the country.  I am currently unemployed, though I am trying my best to find work, the economy has basically been shit my entire adult life but I really cannot use that as an excuse any longer. I am an artist and an activist.  I am queer with a very asexual leaning but that could possibly be attributed to my sexual abuse related PTSD.  As you can see, I am painfully (often excessively) honest. I feel like if I put everything out there people cannot use my faults against me.
Here are some things I do tend to lie about because I am ashamed.  I am on a methadone clinic.  My mother pays my rent at the shitty SRO hotel where I live because I have no source of income. I dropped out of college and gave up on a full ride because I wanted to be a junkie and hang out with 'crusties' in Tompkins Square Park. I am very, very shy and sensitive, my feelings get hurt very easily. I have no friends besides my dog Kali.

That's all for now in the way of introductions, if you decide to read this blog you will learn a lot more about me as I am desperately nostalgic and overly analytical.  Years of therapy have made me adept at introspection and expressing my feelings and intentions.  I do not  mince words and I have promised myself that I will be honest in this blog, so if you are offended by, um, potentially offensive content, this is not the blog for you.  You have been warned.

A couple of things happened to get me to the point of fiending for a hit.  First, I was participating in a judicial program called the Community Justice Center, AKA Poverty Court. This program required me to go to court once a week, go to groups, do community service, document my dosage at the clinic, and speak with a case manager.  This gave my life some semblance of structure and gave me motivation to accomplish goals and get my shit together.  Last week I went in to court and the judge dismissed my case on a technicality.  I should have been happy about this, so says my lawyer, but I was crushed.  There goes my sense of accountability, there goes feeling like someone gives a shit about my life, there goes people trying to help me.  Now I'm on my own.

My mother, who I have historically had a very tumultuous yet close relationship with, has not been speaking to me for the past three or four months.  I fucked up and made a very junkie-esque move on her that I will explain some other time.  Anyways, I feel very alone since I also have distanced myself from my only friends in San Francisco, other junkies.  I have no one to talk to besides my therapist and my hippie neighbor, who are both great people, but I still feel extremely isolated.  Most of the time I just sit around with my dog watching shit on my step-dads' netflix account.  Before I got on the clinic my days were spent (hypothetically) 'boosting', shoplifting from various bay area stores and selling the stolen goods to mexican 'fences' for the local flea markets.  This is how I earned money to support my habit and also how I acquired necessities like clothes and hygiene products.  Now that I am trying to get clean I have no income and nothing to do.

Because of CJC I started doing community service at a local arts organization that shall remain nameless.  Initially volunteering there made me very happy because I got to paint and felt like I was gaining work experience and blah blah blah etc.  Unfortunately the lady who oversees volunteers doesn't like me.  I have to mention that I am very insecure and easily hurt when I am not high.  The main draw of heroin for me is that it makes me not give a fuck, after spending my entire childhood and teenage years feeling pathetic and like an exposed nerve, not caring about anything was a welcome respite.  Maybe I was being over sensitive but I really think this woman resents me.  This is really fucking embarrassing but I'm just gonna throw it out there, my wisdom teeth came in about two years ago and crumbled as they did, now I have two jagged half-teeth jutting out of my mouth cutting the fuck out of my gums and the inside of my cheeks.  That shit is clearly infected.  Heroin dulled the pain of the infection and gum-shredding but now I don't have that.  I don't have insurance.  Apparently the cesspool in my mouth makes my breath smell bad, other junkies don't care about that kind of shit but normal folk do.  Anyways, volunteer lady made a comment about it and now I'm too embarrassed to go back and volunteer, don't have community service to do anymore anyways so I don't need to, but now all of the structure is completely gone from my life.  Back to sleeping all day and watching 'Damages' all night.  I already watched the entire 8 seasons of 'Charmed' and 'Supernatural' plus everything Joss Whedon has ever created, BTVS rawks!   I'm a loser.

Yesterday I got a text from my mom.  My grandfather died. We were relatively close when I was younger.  I did not even know he was dying. She texts me this.  She says not to call because she doesn't want to talk to me yet.  I know this is my fault, it's just hard to deal with shit like this alone and without heroin to numb everything.

Anyways that's why, in a nutshell, I am now desperately trying to buy some decent dope.  Pretty much everything on the street in SF is total garbage these days so I have to buy high grade expensive shit just to feel anything and not feel like I flushed my money down the toilet. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something by the fact that I can't get either of my old dealers on the phone.  I should probably just go get on the bus to the clinic and forget about it, but it tends to stick in my mind once I start the process of fiending for it.  Maybe I should hit a meeting or something, haven't been to one in years.

Have to go, more later.

Update: It's 4pm and I haven't gotten high yet.  Hopefully I can make it through the day without relapsing.