Staying Drug Free, Making Amends, & the Wreckage of the Past

 Being Clean is Only the Beginning

Hard won experience shows us that as long as we are clean (drug free) we have SOMETHING to be grateful for every day. Even if being drug free did not magically make all our problems go away, using would just compound them. Eventually, we will have enough clean time to make amends to those we owe. There is no shortcut to cleaning up our wreckage of the past. Addiction was a daily suicide, and its effect on our lives show that. Rebuilding a life that burned more bridges than the Luftwaffe is by its very nature a difficult task. Expect it to take some time, and for it to suffer setbacks. Eventually making amends will be more a process than a goal. Some folks are quick to forgive, some want to see years of abstinence, some could care less as long as you pay them back the money owed. If you stay clean long enough, folks come around and your level of recovery and support will cover the wreckage of the past. If the rewards seem rare, and year’s later life still seems a mess, take a step back and grab a pen. Use that pen to write down what you have now and make an honest comparison against where you were in life when you said, “Enough is enough.” Facing problems without the crutch of drugs eventually becomes a rewarding experience.

The first thing we forget about is the worst part of being a junkie. That is right, being dope sick. Even with a dozen years clean, life has its hassles. Some, like maybe a criminal record or an estranged family, are directly result of using. These ones allow a desire to use to sneak into our daily lives. Before that desire gets a foothold, try to remember the 36 hour mark of when we got clean. G-d, in whatever form you chose to call your Higher Power gave us humans quite a gift in ‘selective memories’. Sometimes this selective memory is great. If we all remembered, pain fresh as the day received, we would surely go mad. Sometimes it is a little more ambiguous when girlfriends of the past become prettier, the infantry was not as bad as it seemed, or jail/prison was not that bad. Same thing applies when we think of our ‘using’ days. The ones leading to the end of that way of life for us are sometimes the first forgotten. Especially when we have enough clean time to take it for granted. Couple that with the feeling we will never clear up our wreckage and trouble may be brewing.

As often cited in the fellowship that deals with addiction, everyone had hit a different ‘bottom’ before doing something about the monkey on our back. Some blew out in a spectacularly bad way; others just bounced checks until the constables showed up. Some of us sold our bodies, well rented are a little more accurate, while others sold their grandparents furniture when they were on vacation. Some of us merely lied to ourselves while others ruined life-long friendships. The point is being clean and staying that way must be its own reward if we wish to be in that magical 5% that truly does keep that monkey at bay. As much as we would love to tell the newcomer the magical recovery fairy is going to come once you get clean, we know that would be a lie and a disservice to them. So what does help clear up ‘the wreckage of the past’? Before we do a little more exploration of wreckage, and/or making amends, one point cannot be over stressed:

NOTHING WILL EVER GET BETTER IF WE USE drugs at any stage of the game.

So we have been out of rehab for a couple months and have found some meetings we like. Trial, error, and time shows us who is talking smack, who is sincere, an all the shades in between. We may even have found a sponsor and a home group this time out. “When does life start getting better?” That question creeps up a good bit now. Look around, because incremental changes are hard to see. Heck, they can be impossible to see without the right attitude and perspective. “6 months outta the joint and this glow in the dark key tag is all I got” a one-time sponsee shared with me. I sympathized. 6 YEARS clean and wreckage still rears its ugly Gorgon like visage, aiming its glowing eyes into my life. It’s sometimes like being Perseus, except on a weekly basis. The big difference is that I Andromeda’s place, our sanity, freedom, and clean date is chained to that rock. To torture that metaphor a little more, we can use that chain and rock to our advantage.

Anytime it seems like life has NOT improved since we got clean, try the following. As mentioned earlier on, pleasure is remembered far more vividly than pain. Try to remember a rough sketch of how we felt the second day of starting our new rug-free life. Whether it was pacing in a holding cell, a hospital room, or the hallway of a domiciliary, the shakes and runny nose (more like a spigot) alone should make today seem a little better. Throw in memories of clothes that felt like a hair shirt and sleep an ideal more than a noun. Our current wishes, by comparison, should be considerably more mature than our early prayers just for the sickness to stop. We used drugs to hide from life, whatever the reasons were. Problems do not magically go away because we are clean. No one holds a parade for people who never became a junkie. It is pretty childish to expect one because we are no longer junkies. The previous statement may read (and sound) harsh. Sometimes the truth, like life, can be harsh.

Whenever some of us start to make amends, there are a couple assumptions that should be dropped with quickness. Foremost is that life is now Candy land because we are clean. That is druggy thinking to be sure. Just as hollow and rotting as skag itself are the thoughts of life being magically trouble-free. Just because we are now taking an earnest stab at living like the rest of the human race does not earn us any medals. Indeed, our very existence may never be more difficult than it is now, over half a decade of recovery notwithstanding, but we are free of drugs. Even if we lose lifelong friends because of things out of our control, we face life on its own terms. That is the only way we will make it to the next battle.

It has been a tough for me to put some of the previous stuff on paper. I am becoming a stranger to my children, primarily due to lack of work. I lost the trust of a life long friend because of someone in the program that I trusted a little too quickly. Finally, I took my own advice and did the old ‘stiff upper lip’, quit moping, and wrote today’s article. As regular readers know, I do not advocate any particular fellowship or 12 step program. Whatever keeps you clean is fine by me, not that you require my blessings. With that little disclaimer, I would like to share something from the current edition of Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text. Midway towards the bottom of page 102 is a section that sums things up nicely. “Some of us, even after years of recovery, found ourselves jobless, homeless or penniless. We entertained the thought that staying clean was not paying off, and the old thinking stirred up self-pity, resentment, and anger.” (Narcotics Anonymous “Basic Text” Sixth Edition, NAWS, Inc. Chatsworth, California. Quote cited as a ‘reasonable use’ source.)

So now we know that we are truly not alone in those situations nor in the emotions they cause. Staying clean can be a lonely business, especially those who come here for their fellowship. Waiting for our lives to become ‘right’, whatever that is, solely from not using is wishful thinking. Life is tough, life as a junkie is so much tougher. We do not need drugs to face life anymore than we need diapers to go outside. Once that is accepted, everything else will come in its due time. I try to respond to emails within 24 hours and usually do. There was an area retreat last weekend so I am a little behind. It truly is an honor to receive letters generated by these articles and I never ‘blow’ anyone off. Speaking of letters, I received one that had some excellent questions, the most relevant asking about the traditions regarding anonymity and this series of articles.

The simplest explanation for why I am not violating the anonymity of the fellowship(s) is that I represent neither of them. Nor do I make any claims to. I am simply trying to allow others to use the internet and email to get clean without the need for another person to know about it. The reason I recommend readers to join a 12 step group is because that is how I stay clean. I am friends with a handful of people who have wicked drugs, never attend any sort of meetings and are still clean. That being said, I am NOT one of those folks. It would be disingenuous for me to write about getting and staying clean without giving some sort of credit to the first two 12 step programs. I hope that clears up any concerns about me violating any of the traditions. Thanks for taking the time to read this, feel free to email me, and have a great week.

Recovering From Heroin Withdrawal: Now We Have a Week Drug Free How Do We Cope with This Hole in Our Life?

The last article, when we got clean together, there was a major thing I neglected to mention. There are teas and other ‘remedies’ on the market that promise to ease withdrawal. I strongly advise you to pass on them. The comfort they add is minimal and, make no mistake, you will come up hot for opiates if you have to take a whiz quiz. ‘Nuff said.
OK, we have 4 days clean and are working on a week. So what do we do NOW? This is a crucial time for us, my friend. Make no mistake about that point. All that suffering will be for naught with just one use. PLEASE keep in mind that I was a heavy user for decades, not some BS artist at a rehab clinic. Your resistance is not going to go down for years and the cravings will pop up unexpectedly, much like an erection at church. It is just as embarrassing, too. Most of us addicts are self-medicating thrill-seekers and boredom is a mortal enemy of ours.

It is time to take a little inventory of ourselves. Did you get clean before losing any or all of the following?
• Your partner
• Your job
• Your real friends
• Your freedom
• Your earthly possessions

There are quite a few reasons for asking but the most pressing one for now is how are we going to spend our time and cope with our loss? I mean, hard drugs have been our best friend and lover for some time now and we have to cope with our loss. We will go over the grief cycle in a minute but let us stick with the subject of our partner for a minute or two. Even freshly clean, did you notice the libido coming back? Boy, it is so nice to be able to climax again. I am not trying to shoehorn sex into the discussion just to raise eyebrows. It is an integral part of any deep relationship and one of our core hungers.

Hard drugs had warped our way of feeling pleasure, our perceptions of it, and convoluted our entire way of thinking. Small wonder just getting over the withdrawal is only the beginning. If we were lucky enough to keep our partner’s love until now, accommodations need to be made. We need to let them know that some very rough waters still lie ahead. Being clean may mean the end of lying, stealing, disappearing, and the host of other shaky crap drugs have us do.

The readjustment back into the world of sane, responsible adulthood is no cakewalk either. Sometimes this part of our journey makes Frodo’s march through Mordor look like a conga line. It will take an entire article to look at work, friends, not being in jail, and what we have left in our lives. Now that we are clean, what is pressing right now is the grief cycle and how we are going to deal with it. Let us look at grief and how it affects our early recovery. There are five stages to the grief cycle. They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You do not have to memorize them. As we get clean, they will appear so many times and in so many ways, we will never forget them.

Just because we have kicked “it” for a week now does not mean denial is in dormancy. It is as sneaky and inexplicable as the rest of the madness we call addiction. For me, it popped up in a way that seemed so reasonable. A week without copping, arms starting to heal, and the memory of the flu from hell had me a little cocky. As I strutted about with puffed chest, I figured I had this beat. In a century that may be funny to me but right now, I am still embarrassed even thinking about it. I began to question whether I was really a junkie or had I just became a little too fond of it? No kidding, only a week has gone by and we starting thinking like that. If that isn’t classic denial, I would wonder what is.

The anger part comes and goes so often we may fear we have lost our ability to reason during withdrawal. I do not mean just being short-tempered because of being clean. I am talking about a slow-burning rage just below our surface. I was angry with myself for allowing all of this to happen. I was mad at God for making me that way. I was mad at people for abandoning me. The list of things that make us angry due to drugs could fill a hard drive. These are all things you can discuss with your partner as we try to reason them out of our system. This is where fellowships help some people a great deal. That is its own article a ways down the line. The premise that we are going through this series is one of privacy. I am assuming only you, me, your computer, and your loved ones can know you are in early recovery.

On the surface bargaining may seem a non-issue in addiction recovery. I mean, it’s not like we have cancer or our mom passed away. Once we start examining it, we do see a bargaining stage of us losing our secret lover heroin. Maybe I can just use on the weekends is a big one with some folks. I will never use three days in a row again is the bastard cousin of the weekend use lie. It is human nature to remember good things and pleasure much more sharply than the bad things and the pain they caused. This observation supports denial but it also seems to be what empowers bargaining delusions. Just as time makes long gone girlfriends prettier and you convince yourself the infantry did not suck that much, we start to minimize the damage drug use caused and remember the fun part. Bargaining makes us believe we can recapture the fun without the consequences.

I believe now its time for us to look at depression and its place in early recovery. I am not a professional counselor nor a psych/med technician nor do I make any implied claims that I am in any way qualified to counsel folks. I am just an ex-junkie sharing with you and praying for you. Depression is serious business and why I made that disclaimer. The temporary depression that sets in when you realize you can’t get high anymore is what I am talking about. To this day I truly miss smoking a joint, especially when playing video games. Will a joint kill me? Not in the real sense, it won’t. Will it make me run out and get some skag? Again, most likely no. But who knows what thread being pulled will unravel the whole sweater? Knowing I lost my weed privileges can depress me even now, years later. Don’t dwell on things lost, money spent, how you came to be where you are at. True, those things need to be examined but do not overdo it. A healthy correction can slide into an unhealthy self-hating vent all too easily. If you are blessed enough to still be in a relationship, find out why they decided to stick it out with you. The answers may be a very uplifting surprise.

Finally we reach that holy grail of recovery, acceptance. Do not be discouraged if this comes and goes in strength, duration, or intensity. I have a friend who is into her third decade of freedom from heroin. During a conversation, she shared a solid observation with me.”You can never forget you were once an addict. Not as punishment but to see your world the way it is and the way it was.” That statement from her has been a real cornerstone in my life. For me, acceptance means not beating myself up too much and doing my best to build for tomorrow.

I guess that’s it for now. I thank you for taking the time for us to have this little talk about our first week clean together. Feel like a quick recap? The grand achievement of getting clean is just the start of the road. We need to take a look at what we have and figure out how we are going to keep it. The loss of our chemical crutch and best friend is going to cause grief. This is normal and we need to look at how it makes us feel. Finally, do not let life climb on top of you. Even if we are looking down the barrel of going back to jail, clean is the only way to face life. Even on my worst days, I can look in the mirror and say ‘at least I am clean’. I am proud of you and look forward to our next chat. We will go into friends, work, life, and what’s left. Before I forget, do not run out and try to pick someone up if you are alone. Trust me on that and remind me to talk about it later.

Need to Get Clean but You Are Afraid of Withdrawal? There is Hope for Any Addict

Your first waking thought was about using. It does not matter if it was how are you going to get it, where it is, how you going to pay, whatever. Sitting up and becoming fully awake, your second real thought is that this just can’t go on any longer. This house of cards has to fall sometime. Telling lies on top of lies to cover more lies is no way to live. Just the thought of it makes your stomach churn. Can withdrawal be any worse than this? Deep thoughts and questions for someone just getting up. Your only real taste of withdrawal was those two days you could not get a hold of your doctor or your connection or waiting on that check. You were so happy when you got what you needed, or so it seemed. After you got off sick, you realized you were not even high, but not sick was good enough. Looking in the mirror, you ask yourself “How did I get here? How is this going to end?”
Well, I can tell you from experience that it can only end in one of four ways:

Getting and staying clean, no matter what it takes
Commitment to an institution by family or the court
Jail and/or prison
DEATH

Now I am assuming that since you have read this far, you are debating if it is time and if you can really be drug-free. I also know how addiction works and your disease (It is a disease, make no mistake but more on that later) is telling you tomorrow or even never. Look, whether you are a housewife b.s.ing the doctor for oxys, the former pill head who went the cheaper (at the time) heroin route, or someone who has legitimate injuries, it makes no difference. We are in a cycle that, if not broken, only leads to shame, heartache, prison, and death. I cannot pretend that what I am sharing with you is better than the 1,000s of books and millions of dollars spent on treating addiction. What I can tell you is that I am clean, how you can get clean, and how to stay clean if you really want to. I owe it to the hundreds of people who have helped me on my journey to spread the word and I sincerely hope you end up clean. The first hurdle? You guessed right, withdrawal better known as ‘dope sick’.

I would say fear of withdrawal keeps more people using than any other reason, with the exception of underlying mental problems. Like the disease model, I hope to discuss hidden mental illness and its role in using drugs in some future article. Just for now, withdrawal is the werewolf’s capering shadow just beyond the light of the campfire. After that long, long night of waiting the sunrise reveals it to be just some leaves and branches. I am not saying it won’t be tough but the fear of it is worse than the actual sickness. I should point out, if you have not figured it by now, I am talking about opiates. Booze and benzo withdrawal can actually kill you, so if that’s your bag you have to see a doctor one way or another. Opiate withdrawal has never killed anyone, though you may think you want to die once or twice. OK, are we still ready? Great. It is a decision no one has ever regretted. Once you pass through this, you will always remember that it is soooo much easier staying clean than getting clean.

Some folks swear by over-the-counter flu remedies will ease the burden. I suppose this comes from the early symptoms being flu-like. To be brutally honest (and you have to be when dealing with addiction) I have been through withdrawal 4 times and the flu/cold stuff was an expensive waste. 4 times? Well, some folks are just thick-headed 🙂 The first was in the county lock-up and the less said, the better. Ever see the movie ‘Ed Wood’? Think of poor Bela and you get the idea. Second time was in a hospital, God bless them but it was just as yucky as the lockup. Well, the chow was superior as well as the beds but you are locked up just the same. Mentally, doing it at home and on your own is the most challenging and rewarding, to me anyhow. A combination of numbers 3 and 4 is what we will go over. You may want to keep it secret, that is on you. That is, for now. As the series continues I hope to make a pitch for joining a fellowship but for now I just want to help you get yourself clean. All in all it is no worse than a really bad flu when you were a child. It certainly is not as bad as it is portrayed in some movies or TV shows. Now it is bad, I am not going to sugar-coat it. But there are ways to make it less unpleasant. Here is a list of comfort stuff had with me. Out of the following items, what you need may vary:

Smokes (lots of them, if you smoke that is)
Coffee
Kaopectate
Ginger Ale
Pepsi or iced tea (any fluid you can drink a lot of)
Paperbacks
Pepto Bismol
PlayStation
Pretzels
Phone (maybe)

First, I am not endorsing any brand names just telling you like it is (or was). The editor can add the registered and copyright symbols. As addicts, we can come up with the money. I am not telling you to do any sort of hustle to get the stuff listed above. In fact a very loving person provided me with the above list. If you do not have the luxury of living alone, Thursday complain of flu symptoms since you are going to quit at midnight. By Monday, the worst will be far behind you. Some folks feel crappy for a week, some three days but everyone I know who has kicked it, 60 hours is the high-water mark for misery. Believe me, I know a lot of people who have kicked it. OK, the list. If you are a non-smoker, scratch it but if you are you may want to buy a roller and a sack or can of the cheap stuff. Really. Anti-smokers, keep the sermon to yourselves. The health benefits of kicking opiates far outweigh a couple days of overdoing the smokes. Coffee sure helped me in many ways. It gave me something in my stomach so the dry heaves were not so dry and it hid the taste of bile very well. The Kaopectate should be self-explanatory. Now some folks get crippled with the runs off and on, others it is a mild inconvenience. I knew what to expect from lockup, so I did the stuff as a pre-emotive strike. That’s where the ginger ale REALLY comes in, as a chase for the kao. Goodness, that big K is some of the nastiest tasting stuff to me. Also, like many of you, I associate ginger ale with my mum (God rest her soul) taking care of me when sick as a wee one. The Pepsi and iced tea is for fluids, the more, the better.
Are you with me so far? Great. You know you can do this, you want it bad, you miss the old you as bad as your loved ones do. The fact that you are trying to kick it on your own says a great deal about you. I had to lose everything, including my freedom, before I saw the light. Locking yourself in and kicking it because you want to? Man, I am proud of you. I truly mean that and not in some corny, fake-ass way. You are going to need that strength and determination. The symptoms according to the Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale (or COWS. Google it if you want but it may just add to your misery) include runny nose, joint aches, irritability, restlessness, gastrointestinal distress, and gooseflesh (?). I guess the gooseflesh means when my skin crawled. That was the first to come and the last to go, followed by the runny nose. Time, for the moment, is the enemy. Pacing, irritable, constantly thinking ‘aww, the hecks with it, I’ll kick tomorrow’ is very hard to ignore. That is where the paperbacks and PlayStation (if you haven’t sold it) comes in. Veritable time machines allowing you to go sometimes 15 minutes without thinking about dope and how bad you feel. Now, obviously, it does not have to be those two things. Sudoku, solitaire, crosswords, whatever you do to occupy your mind is a big blessing. It is not going to be a constant torture but the sickness is going to come on very strong and go away over and over for the next three days. That sounds and seems so long to me, which is why I counted the hours backwards.

Now, you may feel like you have been awake for weeks but little naps will happen, sometimes without you noticing. So it has been 36 hours and the waves do not seem to be lightening up. Try to have a couple pretzels and a soda. Even if they come back up quickly, you will feel a little better. Now the joint aches seem to be personal. I was a paratrooper and my knees ached like a bad tooth. A good friend in recovery who had back surgery had terrible back aches during her withdrawal. Old injuries may announce themselves to you or maybe not. A brief respite from the symptoms settles on you from time to time. They get longer and longer, eventually surpassing how long you feel the actual symptoms. As you notice when you do not feel so bad, take a second to thank the God of your understanding. Along with fellowships and mental health, we will talk about this in the future. Right now, all that matters is you have two days clean. It is early afternoon and you are restless. Go ahead and take a walk. Do not go too far, over do it, or go anywhere near people or places that make you want to use. Besides, a short jaunt around the block and you will want to retreat to your safe place. Head back home and make a pot of coffee or tea and break out a book. I had never read it before but during my withdrawal I picked up Shogun by James Clavell. I had dimly remembered we had to watch the mini-series in middle school. This is an uncompensated endorsement. I read it for hours without feeling the symptoms. It took me out of myself for hours at a time during very acute withdrawal. Truly having your mind on other things sure does help.

Wow, is it really Saturday afternoon? Thursday was the last time you used. Holy cow, this is the longest you have went since you really picked up a habit. It would be a lie to say you felt good but you sure feel better than you thought you would at this time. Just one more day and it will be all downhill. During the waves of heavy symptoms and you were tempted to put this off to another day now seem a little silly. Those thoughts will pop up but now you have been through too much to start all over. Because that is exactly what wil happen. There is no tapering off or a sick bag. If you break down, all this work was for nothing. You are not home free yet but you are in the home stretch. Sips of Pepto Bismol have replaced chugs of kaopectate. A couple pretzels and a glass of soda actually stays down now. You probably can risk a couple aspirins now. If you think that will take the edge off, go ahead. Time is moving along a little quicker now and the crippling waves of heavy symptoms are getting farther apart. Skin’s still itchy, eyes are still hot but it is getting bearable.

Its Sunday afternoon and you have just gone through some hellish introspection. As the symptoms lessen you become acutely aware of a good deal. This is were a phone may come in handy. Your old, lifelong friends have been put on the back-burner for months, even years. Whether it was you didn’t want them to know what was going on, or you bummed money early on in your addiction, or your dope buddies (who are only around when you are copping) took up all your time, it does not matter. Time for a little fence building and the testing of the waters. Remember, although the worst is behind you, you are still in withdrawal. Irritable and prone to tears, you just want to make a call or three. Make arrangements for a normal activity that used to be fun. Coffee and pie or a movie sounds pretty good, at least for the moment. If you do make a call or three, try to keep a couple things in mind. You have spent months or even years living for a buzz and ignoring everything else. You may think its a secret because you have never been confronted. Your true friends and loved ones know something was up. Depending how far we have sunk, rebuilding relationships is going to take time. I hope we can discuss much more on that subject at some future date.

Did you just yawn? Not from this article :-), I mean during your cleansing period. That, my friend in recovery, is a great sign. Try to eat something, get a hot cup of tea and lay down with the Sunday crossword puzzle. Make sure your alarm is set because you just may fall asleep. Even if it feels like you tossed, turned, and were awake all night, you weren’t. A couple minutes disappeared here and there. It has been 3 and 1/2 days. Think of how you felt at 36 hours, or even yesterday morning. Today you may be achy, groggy, and stiff but you feel almost human. Face it, many folks go to work with hangovers. Those hangovers are far worse than the tinge of dope-sick you have left in you. The alarm surprises you so maybe you were asleep after all.

This is it! That flu hatched in hell two nights ago is just a bad cold now. For the first time in three days you actually want to take a shower. If it won’t mess with anyone else day, go ahead and stay in until the hot water gives out. A glass or juice and some toast is all you can risk but it stays down. Cloth against your skin does not feel like a hair shirt anymore. Have we kicked it? Not by a long shot but do not be discouraged. The most acute and painful part is over. You want to tell the world of your victory but for now, just let God know you appreciate His or Her help. There is a long but fulfilling road ahead. I hope you can share it with me. For now, please know in your heart that having never met you, I am very, very proud of you.

Unifying blogs and ties to main page

I sort of got a WP blog to get my name. CLICK HERE for my main Recovery page. I am going to try and unify me blogs. Hopefully, soon. 🙂