Day Two - bracing for tomorrow!

Well I am on day two now, bracing my self for tomorrow, those that know what I mean, know what I mean.  Day three is the hardest day of the physical withdrawal process - day four and five will taper back and there will be no physical symptoms by day six.  I have made it to the tenth day once and to the sixth day once, I know what is coming and I fear it.

The psychological symptoms however, will never go away completely, this is the reason for the two failures I have had post days ten and six.  I had in both instances removed myself by way of hundreds of kilometers from my suppliers, then as soon as I got back to within a few km's of my home I was ready to 'get on' again, craving madly.  I have no real knowledge of long term recovery as yet, but am led to believe that it will taper down of the years, but will never disappear.

I spent today with friends, trying to avoid thinking of any things that might cause me to crave.  There are so much goings on in my life, pertaining to family and there inerrant disappointment with me that I found it hard to concentrate on anything else, after a few hours I became jittery and had to leave before it became abundantly clear that something was up with me.

It is worth noting that this is a cold turkey attempt, no patches, no implants, no pharmaceuticals.  This is purely based on a promise made to the most important person in my life at the moment, second to my kids, and a recognised dangerous impact this is having on my life and the people I care about.  I have lied to all of them before, I have never given my word until now however, this is the test, does my word still mean anything or have a truly descended into the realm of the Junky?  Time...

A lie uncovered:  I have lost too many friends to think about, I have lost my best friend to this scourge, I died the day he did but was revived he was not.  I shot up that day on the way home from the hospital, I shot up before his funeral, I shot up every day I could from then till two days ago. 

Well tomorrow is another day, taking the clichéd 'one day at a time' for now...

An introduction into this blog

Well, I am currently on day one of my first real attempt (in my humble opinion) at ridding my self of this awful bane to my existence, there have been over the course of the last year or so two 'not so serious' attempts, I will get to those.

The plan I am following is called Straight Edge, Straight Edge (sXe, xXx, or "Edge") refers to a lifestyle, a personal commitment, a philosophy.  Straight edgers abstain from recreational drugs, including tobacco and alcohol.  Some followers of the straight-edge philosophy also abstain from promiscuous sex (skipping this bit), the regular use of painkillers, and the intake of caffeine.  Some also practice vegetarianism or veganism (No Chance).

It is my intention to provide an historical account of my fall into the grasp of this drug, I sincerely hope it might help someone out there avoid my path.  Once I have done this I will attempt to provide some reasoning as to why I have made the choice I am currently undertaking, the stress of the choice itself is such that any thing I write now will no doubt be malicious and misguided.

For the reasons outlined, I will be editing the "time posted" so that is correlates with the actual events as they took place, to the best of my capacity of recollection at least.

Enjoy the ride, and hopefully two birds will have been killed with one stone by the end of this; 1) I will be clean, and 2) I might stop just one person from taking my path.

Perhaps one day my family can forgive me, perhaps one day my three children will read this and know that no-one not even their perceived super-dad is infallible.

Wish me luck!

Czech Republic Decriminalizes ALL DRUGS

The Czech cabinet Monday approved a Justice Ministry proposal that sets personal use quantity limits for illicit drugs under a penal code revision that decriminalizes drug possession in the Czech Republic. The law and its quantity limits will take effect on January 1.  Happy New Years.

The Czech government had approved the decriminalization law late last year, but failed to set precise quantities covered by it, instead leaving it to police and prosecutors to determine what constituted a "larger than small" amount of drugs. The resulting confusion -- and the prosecution of some small-scale marijuana growers as drug traffickers -- led the government to adopt more precise criteria.

Under the new law, possession of less than the following amounts of illicit drugs will not be a criminal offense:
Marijuana 15 grams (or five plants)
Hashish 5 grams
Magic mushrooms 40 pieces
Peyote 5 plants
LSD 5 tablets
Ecstasy 4 tablets
Amphetamine 2 grams
Methamphetamine 2 grams
Heroin 1.5 grams
Coca 5 plants
Cocaine 1 gram


Possession of "larger than a small amount" of marijuana can result in a jail sentence of up to one year. For other illicit drugs, the sentence is two years. Trafficking offenses carry stiffer sentences.

Justice Minister Daniela Kovarova said that the ministry had originally proposed decriminalizing the possession of up to two grams of hard drugs, but decided that limits being imposed by courts this year were appropriate. "The government finally decided that it would stick to the current court practice and drafted a table based on these limits," Kovarova said.

The Czech Republic now joins Portugal as a European country that has decriminalized drug possession. Drug possession is also decriminalized de facto if not de jure in the Netherlands, and actual charging and prosecution practices in some other European countries already approach decriminalization in practice, if not as a matter of law.

sourced from "Stop the Drug War" Chronicle.

Pustulations and pain relief.

Had to go into hospital today, had this massive lump under my armpit, no doubt some stupid infection I picked up as a result of Junky-dom.  The people at the Hospital treated me quite well until they saw my history and decided I was just in for Pain Relief, apparently a lot of smack addicts feign injuries so they can get a hit from the Doctor.

Truth of the matter is this was probably a Staph infection (Staphylococcus aureus or golden staph) which is a bacterium, frequently living on the skin or in the nose of a healthy person, that can cause illnesses ranging from minor skin infections (such as pimples, boils, and cellulitis) and abscesses, to life-threatening diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, endocarditis and septicemia.

At any rate, they would not treat me so I self medicated.  Had double my normal dose of smack, half a pack of over the counter pain meds, and tried to drain it with a syringe.  It was impossible to drain, so I ended up putting up with excruciating pain for the next couple of days until it finally burst.

It is highly probable that proper care and filtration would have avoided this, lesson learnt!

Death of the best friend a man could hope for

Today my best friend died.  I died too, I was lucky though, they got to me in time.

This had not been the first time for either of us, I had 'dropped' once before and my friend had three times before, twice with me, I saved him those times, but could not this time.  'Dropping' is a funny thing, the first time you do it it puts you off for a while, but after the WD's kick in you figure stuff it, I will be more careful next time, then eventually you think you are hard enough to handle a bigger dose or you get too confident and over you go again.

Final separation - all downhill now

We separated for reasons I will delve into later, nothing to do with drugs, we had just both changed and were heading in differing directions in life.

This did prove to be the final undoing however.  Here I mark the point of when my addiction began, the true addiction, only weeks after this event my future was sealed.

A Third Child

Nuff said...