Eight weeks have past since my last blog and my first dose of prescribed methadone. In that time we witnessed the untimely death of Amy Winehouse and angry youth rioting across the UK. I haven’t felt the need to write any of my experiences or feeling down because my thoughts over these past few weeks have been all consuming. It’s been like I have been fighting this civil war inside my body, each day an aspect of my personality a new battle ground. Despite this it’s still given me my life back, methadone has been my reintroduction back into reality. I have had to give up putting any other drug into my body in order to win back me. Friends have noticed I have given up drugs and are more surprised to see I have given up drinking. It has created an air of suspicion as to the driving force behind this choice of abstinence. Most my party friends have been to high to really notice or care but their have been a few that see it as a judgment towards their choice of lifestyle. Little do they know what it takes to do what I have done? It’s taken weeks of rewiring my brain, trying to regain that sparkle and optimism I once had. I can’t take all the credit. The introduction of the Italian American, has reminded me that all of this is worthwhile. His faith in me to regain control has been phenomenal. A UPen Graduate, law degree but most of all one of the most caring, understanding and most handsome men I have ever met. Unfortunately this romance is on a countdown. He is at the end of a two-year stay here in London and is returning to NYC mid September. When I told him about my addiction I was so scared. It was like coming out as gay again. I was so scared he would think that I was dirty or damaged. It took me a day to let the words pass my lips. From the night I said there was something I needed to tell him to the next day when he finally convinced me that no matter what it was it would never change the way he felt about me, I finally said. I’m a recovering heroin addict. He just held me tight and said “thank you for telling me, I can help now”. This was the moment all my faith in worldly things were restored and I felt for the first time since 2006 love. I’m sure anyone reading this would laugh at how pathetic I am but I tell you it takes an extraordinary person to empathise with another when they have no personal experience with the issue in hand. I mean he hasn’t ever done a drug in his life. How is it possible that he cares enough to help. It’s not as though he’s desperate. Good-looking, intelligent, successful guy wants to help me. Messed up, recovering drug addict with abandonment issues. I’m not being down on myself. I know there is more to me than that but he can see it. Something in me is worth saving. Of cause I fell in love with him.
He came and saved the day when the addiction clinic wouldn’t let me take home my medication. It’s a controlled substance, incredible strong and I had to prove to them that I was responsible to take my medicine on my own and not under the watchful eye of my local pharmacist. Thing is this meant for me having to give up my job. I’m sent away all the time, to hotels across the UK and without take home medication I would have to join the 66000 unemployed in the jobseekers queue. The Italian American came over to my place helped me to gather all my papers as proof of working away and wrote a letter; a character reference alongside all my paperwork to prove to all the professionals at the addiction clinic that I was responsible enough to take home my medication. His letter was amazing. I was so impressed with his commitment and authority. He hand delivered it and within the next 24 hours I was deemed fit enough to manage my own medication. I realsied pretty soon after this that for me to show him the same level of commitment and understanding I would have to no longer depend upon him and that I must show him before he goes away that I can do this on my own. So as I sit here aching all over from the withdrawal of coming off methadone, remembering all the horrible mental and physical side effects, I am thinking of him and that taking this next step to recovery before he leaves for America is a weight off his mind. I know he cares for me a lot so I can’t have him worrying about me. When he gets back from Greece I will be fully recovered and onto subutex. This drug is the final stage of addiction recovery and once I stabilize on this and continue to stay t-total I will be well into the last faze and just weeks away from going back to normal. My best friend ‘Pig’ who is also on subutex asked me today if we have stepped into dangerous territory now, by taking heroin we have open the door. We can get on the right side but that door will never close. I told him that Yeah I had that fear but ultimately it’s down to yourself to alter your perception for your greater good. You could say that having a complete knowledge of addiction from the cause to the recovery is a much better position to be in. Without it we could accidentally spark a riot inside of us and destroy all the good in our life’s. We now know the true cost of feeling high on this drug. I prefer feeling good with the use of my own bodies natural chemicals. The quest of understanding how to control your own natural endorphins, serotonin. Exercise, travel, career, love et cetera. None of these natural highs exists when you choose to take heroin. It’s a pretty easy equation to calculate. We just have to remember the facts and take charge of ourselves.
