I was going to title this post:
TILL DEATH DO US PART...
but
I DON'T BELIEVE IN DIVORCE (not really) so how am I to proceed in this ongoing passionate affair with my chemical life-partner?
I am so used to letting myself down regarding any and every resolution I have ever made concerning my heroin/methadone addiction that my new motto is: TILL DEATH DO US PART. Heroin is the most efficacious antidepressant I have ever tried. So effective, in fact, that for the first months of my addiction I naively considered myself CURED!
Seems ridiculous to say now, but it's all too true.
Workers at the druggiecentre, spouting stock platitudes, want me to believe that I'm using a depressant and that is making me depressed forget the fact (actually nothing is forgotten ~ they never researched far enough to learn it) that for hundreds of years opiates were pretty much the only effective antidepressants mankind had; that in the early 20th century "morphia" were frequently administered in mental hospitals for the relief of severe melancholia. (And to stabilize mania.)
(The first ongoing effect I noticed opiates had on me was a distinct flatlining of my formerly-oceanic mood-swings. As well as the downs I had frequent fizzy "up" days, when I was so buoyant practically nothing could force me down... Unfortunately (but just like conventional mood stabilizers like lithium/etc) the most prominent change I noted was an end to those lovely "up" days... (Opiates also have well-documented antipsychotic properties, though the psychiatric community have a vested interest in not researching that particular inconvenience...)
Though I have mentioned "bipolar" experience and symptoms, I don't think I'm clinically bipolar. But I do seem to fall into a subgoup of depressives who are liable to experience agitation, euphoria and "hypomanic"-like episodes on antidepressant therapy. My last such experience, with mirtazapine, was so disastrously extreme I flew up then plummeted right down, so profoundly I went into spiritual crisis. I had no idea it was the meds causing this. As far as I was concerned I had finally hit rock-bottom. I was not suicidal but my life was over. I just could not go on... I have googled all this and it would appear I'm on some "bipolar spectrum" (spectrum-disorders being the buzzword du jour in the psychiatric community). Because I've had similar, but thankfully nowhere near as extreme, experiences from Prozac, a totally unrelated antidepressant [Prozac/fluoxetine is an SSRI; mirtazapine is tetracyclic], the last doctor I saw suggested we give such chemical interference a miss from now on. Hurrah!
It was he, incidentally, who put the term "self-medication" on the table. A first-class excuse, on the face of it, to go on using. Except that in using I'm trapped, I'm still not happy, I see no worthwhile future. And I cannot travel. Physically separating myself from the druggiescene I'm so much part of might, I hope, be one of the things that saves me.I spoke to Narcotics Anonymous about this. In NA fleeing the places associated with one's using is often known as "the geographical cure" or "doing a geographical". And according to them it seldom works.
The NA-advisor I spoke to told me the best thing I can do is to go to meetings in London ~ 90 meetings in 90 days, though it's possible and for someone like me probably desirable, to do 180 meetings or more. There are 7am sessions for financial workers in The City, as well as lunch-hour meetings peppered around Central London. And if you go to an early-evening meet, it is often possible to go on to another, later one, somewhere across town. If I'm not using, the transport costs won't be a huge issue. Even under Mayor Johnson, tube fairs are still cheaper than heroin (though not much)...
No, they basically told me, face up to the addiction and do the recovery where you are. Do at least six months. If you can do this in London, where using is so easy, you know you can
cope being anywhere else... THEN do your travelling.I think they are right.
Though I do have some reservations about NA (and especially the way some members seem to implement their theories), I have to concede, in most areas on most points concerning Recovery, they do seem to be right.
The Narcotics Anonymous method probably isn't for everyone.
However, I have been to enough meetings, over more than 10 years, to be able to vouch that NA does work for those who not only "keep coming back" but who trouble to WORK THE PROGRAMME.I'm at a point now where my best options appear to be: 1 get heroin on prescription or 2 clean up altogether. Kiss my beloved opiates goodbye.
Compromise options 3 and 4 are to stick to methadone without using on top (never been able to do it before) or just to carry on as I'm doing now. No life. No future. Little hope.
So as I say, my commitment is to option four ~ for no life and no hope and no joy and little (let's be frank) to look forward to except a hopefully early death.TILL DEATH DO US PART
Let's face it, if I manage to stick to this new decision as resolutely as I've done to promises past I SHOULD BE CLEAN AND SERENE BEFORE THE YEAR IS OUT!!
Illustrations top ~ opium poppies=slavery and war; bottom ~ poppy as international symbol of peace, picture at TheLensFlare
Continuing my birdsong theme; another English garden favourite, the SONG THRUSH:
Said to have one of the most sublime of songs...
... an incredibly intricate and trilly tune...
PS HEAR THE FLAPPER WOODPIGEON COO-COO-COOING IN THE BACKGROUND!!!
NA LINKS:
Narcotics Anonymous World Service Office
Narcotics Anonymous UK
Narcotics Anonymous Australia
Narcotics Anonymous Canada
Narcotiques Anonymes French language site
Narcotics Anonymous German language site
Wikipedia article about NA
