One year ago I was kicking the opiates I'd taken for about 4 years. I started out Cold Turkey, but cooler heads prevailed (friends who happen to be nurses freaked out at me and my pharmacist Jim freaked out at my doc- who didn't care) and I withdrew a little more gradually, over 3 weeks. My daughter still laughs at the emails I was sending but doesn't tell me what was in them. I kinda live in dread that they'll surface some day but what the hell. Can't be any nuttier than what I was posting on my blog.
I don't remember a lot. So much has happened since then! But when I look back at a blogpost from a year ago http://austanspace.blogspot.com/2011/02/later-that-same-day.html
it comes back pretty clearly. Too clearly.
I don't endorse Cold Turkey. I've done it a couple of times now and it's never a good experience. Though I'm the type who laughs through a lot of it, there were horrors too. The severe physical withdrawals from being dopesick can kill. While I know that's how I do it and make it last, I don't recommend it. Somehow- unremembered exactly how, as I was alone most of the time- I broke my collarbone during it, which went untreated. I recall having to make several cups of coffee in succession all the time because my arm would jerk out and throw the cup, or my hand would just open and I'd drop it.
Many good things have come after. Living here and getting out of the "luxury downtown living" of the Brooks House. Overcoming pain without using drugs. The entire Oz trip that came with Irene. Bonding so closely with Strider again. My friends rallying to move me twice in six months. The joy of blogging, which really only started with detoxing a year ago. Until then I'd blog in a year what I now blog in a month. And getting Hildebeest, who's now more a part of me than black clothing. What's left of my brain is, well as Tim Minchin says, "It's not perfect but it's mine."
A year without dope is a year of real life. In Technicolor. It's good.
MYSTERIOUS GARDEN
1 year ago
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8 comments:
I don't know much about addiction. Thank the good Lord I'm not on any prescription medication except for the odd dose of gout relief. It sounds like you were pulled through the "eye of the needle" in your attempt to get free. Words can't express how happy I am that you made it through in one piece.
You are one strong lady!
Lawless- it worries me now that there are so many people on oxys and such. It's dope, plain and simple, though not nearly as "fun" as heroin. It's prescribed, which makes it even worse, and more regular. There is so little available for pain relief, and I've found these "pain management" people have A) never had pain themselves and B) are usually some shade of fruitcakes. One told me to put orange dots up around my home to focus on. They're clueless.
I'm glad I'd been through Cold Turkey before. And nature kicks in, too, erasing the worst of it. Thanks, Lawless. You're a good and kind woman.
Proud of you Lass :) By God I know what it's like.
Really, really proud of you - and you know what? When you finally ditch those things your 'real' personality comes through. I look back on my 4 years on them - and remember little, only that I 'wasn't me'.
Anyone who reads your blogs can see what a delightfully wonderful individual you are. On opiates - that can get lost somewhere in the fog.
Rory
Arleen- it takes one to know one! ;D
Rory- Thank you. Just, thank you. All that coming from you means a lot to me. It's really not the same world or life after you kick dope. Nothing is ever that bad again, eh? Opiates are awful, in every form. It is a fog, and not the mists of Avalon.
Wow. Tough road to go. No wonder you're such a tough cookie. (But cookies are very sweet, too.)
Aw, Susan, I just saw this. Thank you.
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