As per usual, an unforced error on my part has sent me scrambling to find a new doctor... I fucked up, coming up positive months ago for morphine in my urine screen due to some poppy seed tea. Then, apparently, I also hadn't come up positive for oxycodone in my urine... whoops. That's because I was taking it before I got close to my testing dates. Although, I'm shocked that it wouldn't be in there at all, given that I've been on these meds for years and even a couple days without it shouldn't remove it entirely from my system.
That hot flush smacked me, as I felt all the blood enter my face. Luckily, R had driven me and was in the room when the conversation occurred. Imagine the horror of having to explain that whole experience to my parents. I can't even process that thought.
I've decided to call my doctor before him, who kicked me out because I came up positive for coke twice. However, he told me that it was just a "trial separation," and I could come back if I didn't like my new doctor. That's one way of putting it.
He's the best doctor I've had since I moved out here, and would really prefer to go back to seeing him. I'm nervous about calling him tomorrow and asking to come back. The concern that he'll tell me no is there--it is an overwhelming fear I have. The anxiety I feel about calling is nothing compared to what I feel about getting off opioids. The pain and withdrawal looms over me, as I know that, unless I call or find a new doctor, that'll be my fate.
---
4 days later and I still haven't called. Perhaps I'm simply putting off the inevitable or facing the true dire situation I've set up.
Monday, December 10, 2018
Thursday, November 29, 2018
To Taper or not to Taper
Another doctor down. An unforced error on my part, once again means I'm out of a pain management office. And with it a reliable source of oxy and oxymorphone.
Fuck. Once again, the high I'm chasing landed me in a hole. A deep, dark hole, that I can't climb out of without a lot of excuses to more people than I'd like.
At first, I felt good about tapering. Maybe, this had all happened for the best, and being free of opioids would be a whole new start. However, the 6 oxys I took after picking up my new taper script, made me realize one thing: I refuse to forgo my daily dose of pleasure. Fuck, I'd rather make up a million excuses and sense their side-eyed stares.
What's the point of living without a little bit of pleasure sprinkled on top?
Fuck. Once again, the high I'm chasing landed me in a hole. A deep, dark hole, that I can't climb out of without a lot of excuses to more people than I'd like.
At first, I felt good about tapering. Maybe, this had all happened for the best, and being free of opioids would be a whole new start. However, the 6 oxys I took after picking up my new taper script, made me realize one thing: I refuse to forgo my daily dose of pleasure. Fuck, I'd rather make up a million excuses and sense their side-eyed stares.
What's the point of living without a little bit of pleasure sprinkled on top?
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Pull All the Triggers
It's comical how easily, when in a heightened state, I can be triggered into diving into a bottle of pills or snorting them all up my nose. Not enough doses until my appointment, but I don't care. Fuck it, right?
RIGHT?
If I could mooch off my friends, find someone to help me cop, I would... any trace amount of H gets out of your system within 24 hours. Faster than any other opioid I know of, only followed by hydrocodone.
I took 2 sonata to help me sleep. Take the edge off my running nose, clenching fist, that sinking feeling in my stomach. Uncontrollable thoughts circle every movement. It all points to oblivion. I don't have anyone to talk about it with... all alone with these thoughts. The overwhelming current that pulls me back in.
All triggered by a fucking TV show.
I keep yawning out here, between typing and suck on this cigarette. The cold breeze keeps running across my feet. Shivers that want to run through my body,but I hold them back. Stop them up until my foot is tapping and my heart is racing and all I want is more more more more. Please god. Just enough to get me through until Thursday. To keep me high until then.
They post up all this "opioid hysteria" on TV. But is it really to make us feel better? Like we're not so alone. It could only be for those concerned families, so worried about their little Danny's and Susie's pill or H problem.
But for Lucy and Danny and Susie, all we get is a reminder of who we are. Our reflection played out by actors shivering and sniveling, but don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
Please let me sleep, dream of needles and powders and pills, and I'll be good tomorrow.
I promise. Tomorrow.
RIGHT?
If I could mooch off my friends, find someone to help me cop, I would... any trace amount of H gets out of your system within 24 hours. Faster than any other opioid I know of, only followed by hydrocodone.
I took 2 sonata to help me sleep. Take the edge off my running nose, clenching fist, that sinking feeling in my stomach. Uncontrollable thoughts circle every movement. It all points to oblivion. I don't have anyone to talk about it with... all alone with these thoughts. The overwhelming current that pulls me back in.
All triggered by a fucking TV show.
I keep yawning out here, between typing and suck on this cigarette. The cold breeze keeps running across my feet. Shivers that want to run through my body,but I hold them back. Stop them up until my foot is tapping and my heart is racing and all I want is more more more more. Please god. Just enough to get me through until Thursday. To keep me high until then.
They post up all this "opioid hysteria" on TV. But is it really to make us feel better? Like we're not so alone. It could only be for those concerned families, so worried about their little Danny's and Susie's pill or H problem.
But for Lucy and Danny and Susie, all we get is a reminder of who we are. Our reflection played out by actors shivering and sniveling, but don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
Please let me sleep, dream of needles and powders and pills, and I'll be good tomorrow.
I promise. Tomorrow.
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Tapering into Oblivion
Every rib hurts. The tips of my shoulder blades. The dip in my back. Tender to the touch, as if I've become a giant bruise. Even my tits hurt. Down to 5mg of Oxymorphone er twice a day and it's pushed me into a spiral of excruciating pain.
I'm avoiding taking my oxycodone... as per usual, the beginning of the month, I dove into the bottle freely. Now, I've trapped myself into only being able to take 2 pills a day to last me to my appointment in 10 days. Even then, I'll still be without pills for 2 days. I have plenty of oxymorphone because I couldn't find my dosage at any stores near me. That meant I didn't fill my prescription for another 3 days after my appointment, leaving me with a couple days surplus until I see the doctor again.
At least it's Saturday. The apartment is warm and comforting, bathed in the low lights from our many lamps. The building was built in the 70s, when it was common not to have overhead lights built in. Instead, there are outlets across the walls attached to the light switch. I prefer my lamps, the soft glow spreads across the apartment, carrying a homey sense.
I can't lie down. Whenever my body touches any surface, the pressure hits me as if I'm pushing on a deep bruise.
------------
Only 4 days until my appointment. 3 really, if you don't count the day of. I'm sated.
Our friends, suddenly pulling out a tiny bag of coke from an inner pocket, was so easily tempting. Crisper and sweeter than the juiciest apple, but I resisted. Instead, I blew another oxymorphone on top of the one I had snorted hours earlier.
Now, mixed with the tequila, vodka, and beer, I'm high enough not to care. They left a few minutes ago, and I'm now in that sweet spot of alcohol and opioids. Whatever powder has dripped down the back of my throat, has dissolved into oblivion. The opioid receptors running along my spinal column, brain stem, and appendage are filled.
I mean, I might have to get up in 5 hours in order to do some early voting. But, fuck it.
The present must be enjoyed--first and foremost. The nauseating hangover that will hit soon enough is a distant problem. Unlike the drug test which I will pass with flying colors, having escaped the dangers of coming up positive for cocaine.
A doctor has confronted me with that once. Technically, it happened on 2 drug tests in a row. The first one he did not tell me about, only bringing it up after the second positive (one month later). In my shock and horror, I told the weak lie that I must've been drugged by friends--perhaps due to some mixed into the punch? As if I hadn't put the dollar bill up my own nose, taking that line swiftly, with a deftness practiced from years of pulling powder..
Yes, I know the danger of mixing opioids and alcohol.
The real question is: do I believe this will kill me (like it has so many others)?
The simple answer is, obviously, no. Everyday, for the thousands of days I've done this, I bet that my brain's desire to breath is stronger than the pull of the drugs to cease my chest from expanding.
Even now, my muscles are tense in my legs--soon I will take a tizanidine to release them from their tense state.
The nausea is just an annoyance.
Like the room spinning and my head pounding.
But, I didn't do any of the coke they offered me. I controlled myself, seeing the consequences clearly before me.
Thank god. For once I was strong enough to see the future consequences, and not risk coming up positive--dooming me to painful withdrawals. Even if I snort my oxymorphone and mix it in a belly full of liquor, at least I didn't put that coke up my nose.
As long as I wake up in the morning, it'll be evidence that I've matured enough to see the obvious dangers in my actions.
But damn: a bump of that coke would've been so right.
However, now it's time to sleep.
Love you all,
Lucy
I'm avoiding taking my oxycodone... as per usual, the beginning of the month, I dove into the bottle freely. Now, I've trapped myself into only being able to take 2 pills a day to last me to my appointment in 10 days. Even then, I'll still be without pills for 2 days. I have plenty of oxymorphone because I couldn't find my dosage at any stores near me. That meant I didn't fill my prescription for another 3 days after my appointment, leaving me with a couple days surplus until I see the doctor again.
At least it's Saturday. The apartment is warm and comforting, bathed in the low lights from our many lamps. The building was built in the 70s, when it was common not to have overhead lights built in. Instead, there are outlets across the walls attached to the light switch. I prefer my lamps, the soft glow spreads across the apartment, carrying a homey sense.
I can't lie down. Whenever my body touches any surface, the pressure hits me as if I'm pushing on a deep bruise.
------------
Only 4 days until my appointment. 3 really, if you don't count the day of. I'm sated.
Our friends, suddenly pulling out a tiny bag of coke from an inner pocket, was so easily tempting. Crisper and sweeter than the juiciest apple, but I resisted. Instead, I blew another oxymorphone on top of the one I had snorted hours earlier.
Now, mixed with the tequila, vodka, and beer, I'm high enough not to care. They left a few minutes ago, and I'm now in that sweet spot of alcohol and opioids. Whatever powder has dripped down the back of my throat, has dissolved into oblivion. The opioid receptors running along my spinal column, brain stem, and appendage are filled.
I mean, I might have to get up in 5 hours in order to do some early voting. But, fuck it.
The present must be enjoyed--first and foremost. The nauseating hangover that will hit soon enough is a distant problem. Unlike the drug test which I will pass with flying colors, having escaped the dangers of coming up positive for cocaine.
A doctor has confronted me with that once. Technically, it happened on 2 drug tests in a row. The first one he did not tell me about, only bringing it up after the second positive (one month later). In my shock and horror, I told the weak lie that I must've been drugged by friends--perhaps due to some mixed into the punch? As if I hadn't put the dollar bill up my own nose, taking that line swiftly, with a deftness practiced from years of pulling powder..
Yes, I know the danger of mixing opioids and alcohol.
The real question is: do I believe this will kill me (like it has so many others)?
The simple answer is, obviously, no. Everyday, for the thousands of days I've done this, I bet that my brain's desire to breath is stronger than the pull of the drugs to cease my chest from expanding.
Even now, my muscles are tense in my legs--soon I will take a tizanidine to release them from their tense state.
The nausea is just an annoyance.
Like the room spinning and my head pounding.
But, I didn't do any of the coke they offered me. I controlled myself, seeing the consequences clearly before me.
Thank god. For once I was strong enough to see the future consequences, and not risk coming up positive--dooming me to painful withdrawals. Even if I snort my oxymorphone and mix it in a belly full of liquor, at least I didn't put that coke up my nose.
As long as I wake up in the morning, it'll be evidence that I've matured enough to see the obvious dangers in my actions.
But damn: a bump of that coke would've been so right.
However, now it's time to sleep.
Love you all,
Lucy
Friday, October 12, 2018
High as I Am
I had my pain management appointment the other day. It took forever for the PA to come in--never a good sign. She immediately asked me what was wrong, how I was doing etc.., and then without much of a preface she said: "Your last drug test came up positive for morphine. Do you know why that might be?"
I could feel my heart racing. That stupid shitty poppy seed tea could be the only explanation. It didn't even get me high, leaving my legs and arms feeling like they had become thick pudding. I wanted to die right there. Slip into the floor and disappear.
"That doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be there. I don't understand."
"I agree, it shouldn't be there." She smiled at her computer screen, as she quickly typed.
"The only thing I could think of is eating some poppy seeds muffins maybe. I do eat a lot of pastries..."
"That would come up with a metabolite for cocaine."
No. No it couldn't. Not unless you're making some new type of cocaine that I've never tried. Where the fuck are you getting your poppy seeds from, bitch? Because I know that the morphine came from poppy seed tea... not that I'd tell you that...
"I don't know then, I'm really confused."
"Well, we're going to drug test you again today. If it comes up positive or there are other anomalies, we won't be able to prescribe you anymore opioid medications."
"I understand that completely." Calm down. Steady yourself. Do not seem to buck at the prospect of paying another $140 fucking dollars for this test. Because you know you don't have the money for it, but the pills are far more important than money. Without them, you might as well lie down and plan to die.
"When do you want to do more injections?"
"I'm working down my deductible. The last ones were over $1000, so I want to wait until it'll be a little less expensive."
"I can understand that." She chuckled. "Anything else I can do for you today?"
"No, the taper is kinda hard, I'm definitely in a bit more pain than before. But I'm okay overall."
"Alright sweety," I'm not your sweety "I'll see you in 4 weeks then! Take care."
"Thanks! See you then."
I walked out and grabbed a paper bag with my name on it. The plastic cup was inside. Luckily, my bladder was so full I pissed until it started to dribble down the sides. It was nice, clear yellow--obviously I've been keeping hydrated.
I appreciate that the office gives you a paper bag to put your "specimen" in, as opposed to walking around with a lost look on my face, a cup of hot urine in hand.
To find the new dosage of my oxymorphone er, I had to drive around to a pharmacy on the north side of town. I'm down to 5mg twice a day. 50% tapered down now in a month. Tiny, round, lilac tablets all waiting to be swallowed or railed.
The other night realize now that I have no idea what the goal is at the end of this. Is it to take me off long acting opioids for good and rely solely on my oxycodone for breakthrough pain? Or is this simply meant to keep me line with the CDC guidelines? If it's the latter, then we won't need to taper down anymore--my meds are equivalent to the 90 MME (morphine milligram equivalent) which they recommend.
This whole taper has made me realize that I don't want to go off opioids. In fact, I don't know what I'd do without them. Who would I be without my chemical compatriots? What would I use as my respite from the day's many let downs?
I'm high as I type this, head heavy with the 5mg oxymorphone I shoved up my nose, and the 20mg of oxycodone I washed down with Mountain Dew right as I got in the car after work. I'm scared about what it would mean to suddenly be yanked off my drugs of choice. The withdrawal would be unbearable and scares me almost as much as the thought of sobriety. There's not enough loperamide in this world that could keep me well. My tolerance is so high that even when I tried heroin I found it to be shitty compared to my pills.
For a moment, I close my eyes and felt the world sway around me. It's amazing how much euphoria can flow through the body all at once. It swells with each drag on my cigarette. The menthol resonates on the back of my tongue. Sugar from the gummy bears I've been eating mixes with it to create a foul chemical taste. But in my current state I barely care.
If only this state could be reached without the use of chemicals, I'd never touch a pill again. But, without them, I have no idea how to get to this place of infinite peace. That glowing pleasure that ricochets from my skull to my crotch, down my legs, and back up again. Cycling through my body in an infinite loop of joy.
I can only hope that, if you're reading this, you're (as) high (as I am right now).
I could feel my heart racing. That stupid shitty poppy seed tea could be the only explanation. It didn't even get me high, leaving my legs and arms feeling like they had become thick pudding. I wanted to die right there. Slip into the floor and disappear.
"That doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be there. I don't understand."
"I agree, it shouldn't be there." She smiled at her computer screen, as she quickly typed.
"The only thing I could think of is eating some poppy seeds muffins maybe. I do eat a lot of pastries..."
"That would come up with a metabolite for cocaine."
No. No it couldn't. Not unless you're making some new type of cocaine that I've never tried. Where the fuck are you getting your poppy seeds from, bitch? Because I know that the morphine came from poppy seed tea... not that I'd tell you that...
"I don't know then, I'm really confused."
"Well, we're going to drug test you again today. If it comes up positive or there are other anomalies, we won't be able to prescribe you anymore opioid medications."
"I understand that completely." Calm down. Steady yourself. Do not seem to buck at the prospect of paying another $140 fucking dollars for this test. Because you know you don't have the money for it, but the pills are far more important than money. Without them, you might as well lie down and plan to die.
"When do you want to do more injections?"
"I'm working down my deductible. The last ones were over $1000, so I want to wait until it'll be a little less expensive."
"I can understand that." She chuckled. "Anything else I can do for you today?"
"No, the taper is kinda hard, I'm definitely in a bit more pain than before. But I'm okay overall."
"Alright sweety," I'm not your sweety "I'll see you in 4 weeks then! Take care."
"Thanks! See you then."
I walked out and grabbed a paper bag with my name on it. The plastic cup was inside. Luckily, my bladder was so full I pissed until it started to dribble down the sides. It was nice, clear yellow--obviously I've been keeping hydrated.
I appreciate that the office gives you a paper bag to put your "specimen" in, as opposed to walking around with a lost look on my face, a cup of hot urine in hand.
To find the new dosage of my oxymorphone er, I had to drive around to a pharmacy on the north side of town. I'm down to 5mg twice a day. 50% tapered down now in a month. Tiny, round, lilac tablets all waiting to be swallowed or railed.
The other night realize now that I have no idea what the goal is at the end of this. Is it to take me off long acting opioids for good and rely solely on my oxycodone for breakthrough pain? Or is this simply meant to keep me line with the CDC guidelines? If it's the latter, then we won't need to taper down anymore--my meds are equivalent to the 90 MME (morphine milligram equivalent) which they recommend.
This whole taper has made me realize that I don't want to go off opioids. In fact, I don't know what I'd do without them. Who would I be without my chemical compatriots? What would I use as my respite from the day's many let downs?
I'm high as I type this, head heavy with the 5mg oxymorphone I shoved up my nose, and the 20mg of oxycodone I washed down with Mountain Dew right as I got in the car after work. I'm scared about what it would mean to suddenly be yanked off my drugs of choice. The withdrawal would be unbearable and scares me almost as much as the thought of sobriety. There's not enough loperamide in this world that could keep me well. My tolerance is so high that even when I tried heroin I found it to be shitty compared to my pills.
For a moment, I close my eyes and felt the world sway around me. It's amazing how much euphoria can flow through the body all at once. It swells with each drag on my cigarette. The menthol resonates on the back of my tongue. Sugar from the gummy bears I've been eating mixes with it to create a foul chemical taste. But in my current state I barely care.
If only this state could be reached without the use of chemicals, I'd never touch a pill again. But, without them, I have no idea how to get to this place of infinite peace. That glowing pleasure that ricochets from my skull to my crotch, down my legs, and back up again. Cycling through my body in an infinite loop of joy.
I can only hope that, if you're reading this, you're (as) high (as I am right now).
Thursday, October 11, 2018
On Boofing:
Side note (for all of my non-drug savvy friends): boofing is a term for rectally administering drugs. Whatever Bret Kavanaugh says, that's the only definition I've heard for it up until these past 2 weeks. Other people say it means fucking. I can tell you one thing, it sure as shit doesn't mean farting. In fact, if you were boofing, the last thing you'd want to do is fart--however you define the term.
My neighbor asked me to explain the process of boofing (or plugging as I prefer to call it, as it sounds less disgusting) which I will do now (in case you ever find yourself in need of this information):
Prep: make sure your colon is clear of shit--use an enema if you haven't shit in days due to opioid induced constipation.
Step one: take an ORAL syringe, fill it up with water, put finally crushed drugs into container of some sort (I prefer to use a shot glass) or if it's black tar, mix water and heroin in cooker and heat until it is well mixed (do not let boil, or some will evaporate).
Step two: apply some lube to the syringe if desired for a smoother insertion. Then pull your pants down and get onto your hands/knees. (If the water was heated to dissolve the drugs, wait a minute or two for it to cool down--don't want to burn your rectum.)
Step three: insert syringe until the barrel is fully inside your asshole, the only part still sticking out should be the plunger.
Step four: depress the plunger until it hits the end of the barrel.
Step five: slowly remove the syringe, in order to keep the liquid from seeping out.
Step six: lay down on stomach/side for about 15 minutes to make sure that you don't loose any due to seepage.
There you have it: a thorough explanation of what/how to boof drugs. It is my preferred method for any drug that cannot be taken orally or intranasally. I no longer IV drugs, so (the few times I have taken heroin) I use this method instead. It's extremely effective, has a quick onset of action, and a great bioavailability!
Overall, I highly recommend it!
My neighbor asked me to explain the process of boofing (or plugging as I prefer to call it, as it sounds less disgusting) which I will do now (in case you ever find yourself in need of this information):
Prep: make sure your colon is clear of shit--use an enema if you haven't shit in days due to opioid induced constipation.
Step one: take an ORAL syringe, fill it up with water, put finally crushed drugs into container of some sort (I prefer to use a shot glass) or if it's black tar, mix water and heroin in cooker and heat until it is well mixed (do not let boil, or some will evaporate).
Step two: apply some lube to the syringe if desired for a smoother insertion. Then pull your pants down and get onto your hands/knees. (If the water was heated to dissolve the drugs, wait a minute or two for it to cool down--don't want to burn your rectum.)
Step three: insert syringe until the barrel is fully inside your asshole, the only part still sticking out should be the plunger.
Step four: depress the plunger until it hits the end of the barrel.
Step five: slowly remove the syringe, in order to keep the liquid from seeping out.
Step six: lay down on stomach/side for about 15 minutes to make sure that you don't loose any due to seepage.
There you have it: a thorough explanation of what/how to boof drugs. It is my preferred method for any drug that cannot be taken orally or intranasally. I no longer IV drugs, so (the few times I have taken heroin) I use this method instead. It's extremely effective, has a quick onset of action, and a great bioavailability!
Overall, I highly recommend it!
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Old Friends in New Places
We started drinking at 11am. It's now 9:20pm. I'm covered in mosquito bites, temples pulsing with the approaching hangover. 3 mimosas, and what... 4 beers? Or 6 beers? I don't know anymore. In the past, this would've been nothing for me. But now, with a husband who doesn't drink, my tolerance is strikingly low. But this weekend is going to be different...
My 3 best friends from home are here. They flew in this morning, and are staying a few blocks away at a cute little house from AirBnB.
I now have to spend the next 6 days walking a thin line and hiding whatever remnants of my past they think have died, are still alive and well. These are the people who saw me before and after I first started shooting pills, went into the hospital, went to college, got hooked and clean from coke, moved to Texas, etc. etc.. Of the 27 years I've been alive, I known 2 of them for 20 years, and the other almost as long.
Although it's been 2 years since I last saw them, it seems like no time has passed. The possible mischief that will ensue this weekend, reminiscent of high school, is exciting. I've been overwhelmed with joy since the moment they arrived. Just being in their presence is more euphoric than any drug I've ever taken.
However... friendship won't keep me out of withdrawals. My doctor appointment is Tuesday and I'll be able to squeak by until then. Enough oxymorphone er to get me to that morning, and only 4 more oxycodone... I gave in and took my third one of the day today. Technically, I'm prescribed 4 per day, so that's not an issue. But my own indulgence at the beginning of the month has meant (as it does every month) I have to ration them. 2 oxys per day, 2 oxymorphone er per day. That's it... until push comes to shove, and then, ya know, sometimes you have to take another that was meant for a day or two from now.
My future self hates my guts, but she's not here right now. She never is--just a distant possibility.
-------------------------
I haven't craved coke in so long. Being out at all the bars downtown, walking endless blocks, all I could think of was that odd taste of gasoline (or was it rubbing alcohol) numbing the back of my throat. Stress from trying to meet every dietary restriction was causing me a headache. Pissed off at their ungrateful attitudes as I led them to a place I knew would have food for everyone. I wanted something, anything to keep me going. To keep me from losing my mind. To get me as high as I wasn't right then.
I'm not sure what to do about taking my next pill later on. How to get the powder to their place and snort it in one quick snap. I haven't crushed one up in a fold dollar bill in ages. I am thinking of grinding it up here and finding a way to transport it. Maybe like the good old days in my contact case. Yeah, that's a good idea. Ill just do that.
Just because they're here that doesn't change anything. Just another obstacle to get what I need.
My 3 best friends from home are here. They flew in this morning, and are staying a few blocks away at a cute little house from AirBnB.
I now have to spend the next 6 days walking a thin line and hiding whatever remnants of my past they think have died, are still alive and well. These are the people who saw me before and after I first started shooting pills, went into the hospital, went to college, got hooked and clean from coke, moved to Texas, etc. etc.. Of the 27 years I've been alive, I known 2 of them for 20 years, and the other almost as long.
Although it's been 2 years since I last saw them, it seems like no time has passed. The possible mischief that will ensue this weekend, reminiscent of high school, is exciting. I've been overwhelmed with joy since the moment they arrived. Just being in their presence is more euphoric than any drug I've ever taken.
However... friendship won't keep me out of withdrawals. My doctor appointment is Tuesday and I'll be able to squeak by until then. Enough oxymorphone er to get me to that morning, and only 4 more oxycodone... I gave in and took my third one of the day today. Technically, I'm prescribed 4 per day, so that's not an issue. But my own indulgence at the beginning of the month has meant (as it does every month) I have to ration them. 2 oxys per day, 2 oxymorphone er per day. That's it... until push comes to shove, and then, ya know, sometimes you have to take another that was meant for a day or two from now.
My future self hates my guts, but she's not here right now. She never is--just a distant possibility.
-------------------------
I haven't craved coke in so long. Being out at all the bars downtown, walking endless blocks, all I could think of was that odd taste of gasoline (or was it rubbing alcohol) numbing the back of my throat. Stress from trying to meet every dietary restriction was causing me a headache. Pissed off at their ungrateful attitudes as I led them to a place I knew would have food for everyone. I wanted something, anything to keep me going. To keep me from losing my mind. To get me as high as I wasn't right then.
I'm not sure what to do about taking my next pill later on. How to get the powder to their place and snort it in one quick snap. I haven't crushed one up in a fold dollar bill in ages. I am thinking of grinding it up here and finding a way to transport it. Maybe like the good old days in my contact case. Yeah, that's a good idea. Ill just do that.
Just because they're here that doesn't change anything. Just another obstacle to get what I need.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Self-Control and Lack Thereof
The bottle looks curiously empty. Well, 1/4 full is more exact. I could count the pills.
But once you know the number, then it all becomes real. The anxiety sets in. How will I make it to the end of the month? How will I work? How will I get high?
With 2 weeks to go, I shouldn't be this low. I've been rationing down to 2 pills per day since I noticed it. I've actually had enough self control to stick to it, too. It's a skill, shoving down those most intense impulses in the moment, that I mostly fail at practicing.
Right now, my left nostril clogged full of oxymorphone, only one oxycodone for after work, yet I've stuck to my goal. I haven't taken another oxycodone from my dwindling supply. Each drag of my cigarette only intensifying the opiates storming through my nervous system. The mosquitoes are eating me alive as I sit out here in front of our apartment. I hope they all overdose from the chemicals in my blood.
My best friends from home are coming out for the 6 days right before my appointment. I can't be in pain or withdrawal while we're hanging out and enjoying the city. It's the only reason I'm working hard to control myself. I don't want to ruin the time that they're out here, crumpled on the toilet, intestines ready to explode from my asshole, sweating out the chemicals I stuff down my throat and nose, unable to function beyond breathing and shitting. It's one thing to put myself through that hell, it's another to take away from the short time I have to see them. It'll be the first time since my wedding that we'll be together--and I can't wait!
-------------
I took 800mg of Cimetidine (brand name Tagamet) to potentiate the oxymorphone and oxycodone. It is working perfectly. There are perks to be a pharmacy tech, one of them is a nuanced understanding of how drugs are metabolized. In this instance, cimetidine works to inhibit the enzymes that breakdown oxycodone and excrete it. This allows more of the drug to build up, producing a better high. Oxymorphone is broken down into oxycodone--thus both drugs are now building up to perfect levels in my blood stream. The spot in the center of my forehead is overwhelmed with those calming effects that only opiates can bring. Each cigarette drag another torrent of dopamine rushes through my spine. I'm sweating from the muggy Texas heat, even though it's already 5:48pm. But in this state it's almost bearable.
But once you know the number, then it all becomes real. The anxiety sets in. How will I make it to the end of the month? How will I work? How will I get high?
With 2 weeks to go, I shouldn't be this low. I've been rationing down to 2 pills per day since I noticed it. I've actually had enough self control to stick to it, too. It's a skill, shoving down those most intense impulses in the moment, that I mostly fail at practicing.
Right now, my left nostril clogged full of oxymorphone, only one oxycodone for after work, yet I've stuck to my goal. I haven't taken another oxycodone from my dwindling supply. Each drag of my cigarette only intensifying the opiates storming through my nervous system. The mosquitoes are eating me alive as I sit out here in front of our apartment. I hope they all overdose from the chemicals in my blood.
My best friends from home are coming out for the 6 days right before my appointment. I can't be in pain or withdrawal while we're hanging out and enjoying the city. It's the only reason I'm working hard to control myself. I don't want to ruin the time that they're out here, crumpled on the toilet, intestines ready to explode from my asshole, sweating out the chemicals I stuff down my throat and nose, unable to function beyond breathing and shitting. It's one thing to put myself through that hell, it's another to take away from the short time I have to see them. It'll be the first time since my wedding that we'll be together--and I can't wait!
-------------
I took 800mg of Cimetidine (brand name Tagamet) to potentiate the oxymorphone and oxycodone. It is working perfectly. There are perks to be a pharmacy tech, one of them is a nuanced understanding of how drugs are metabolized. In this instance, cimetidine works to inhibit the enzymes that breakdown oxycodone and excrete it. This allows more of the drug to build up, producing a better high. Oxymorphone is broken down into oxycodone--thus both drugs are now building up to perfect levels in my blood stream. The spot in the center of my forehead is overwhelmed with those calming effects that only opiates can bring. Each cigarette drag another torrent of dopamine rushes through my spine. I'm sweating from the muggy Texas heat, even though it's already 5:48pm. But in this state it's almost bearable.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Slinging Pills
This afternoon at the pharmacy:
"I'd like to get these filled." She hands me 2 prescriptions.
Before reading the name or anything else, I ask "Have you been here before?"
"They're not for me, they're for my mom. And yeah, she has."
The name immediately jumps out at me. It's her...
-----
She had come in last Friday, gripping a stack of scripts in her pudgy fingers.
"I went to HEB, but they said it would take 5 hours--and I don't have time to wait for that."
"Alright, let me see what you have."
Clonazepam 2mg. Hydrocodone-APAP 5/325mg. Tramadol 50mg.
2 opioids and a benzo--a combination that can easily cause respiratory depression. Only a doctor that didn't care or didn't like her patient would write these 3 together.
There was a handwritten note on the top of the Tramadol RX: "gave 2." What the fuck? It's an opioid... why would they give her any without filling the RX? Was the pharmacist high, too?
"Give me one moment." I could tell she was hesitant to let me walk away.
I walk the 15' over to my pharmacist B and begin to whisper, "You remember, that woman, Dina, who is always trying to get controls and has brought in fake scripts before? She just dropped these off. Tramadol, hydrocodone, and clonazepam"
B looked at each one slowly, taking a moment to process the information. The warp speed of the pharmacy continued on around us, but now I could sense each sluggish second slipping past me.
"I'll have to check the PMP before we fill these and call the doctor." She said, eyebrows raised far above her black, cat-eye glasses. (The PMP is the state's prescription monitoring program. It allows us to see all the prescriptions for controlled medications that an individual has filled at any pharmacies. It provides us with the name of the medication, dosage and quantity, as well as the prescriber etc.. It is our way of tracking any patient who we know to be a doctor shopper or pharmacy hopper--those 2 favorite pass times of pill heads.)
"Okay, I'll tell her it'll be an hour or two...?" trying to gauge if that was what I should do. I could feel the burning sensation on the back of my neck increasing from Dina's scalding gaze.
"Sure."
A rush of anxiety rolled down my spine as I approached the counter. Her lips drew a straight line across her face, her clenched jaws frozen with anxiety. I knew she was shitting it but pretending to be an average, exasperated patient with no time to wait.
"Miss Dina? My pharmacist has to confirm some information with your doctor before we can fill them so it'll probably be 1 to 2 hours." my tone wavered. I braced myself and waited to hear an onslaught of "fuck you"s.
"I don't have time for this." She spat, "Give my prescriptions back and I'll go somewhere else!"
"Alright, let me grab them." Glad to be rid of her, and pleasantly surprised not to be subjected to a torrent of abuse.
B was already on the PMP looking her up, as I told her that Dina was going to get them filled somewhere else because she doesn't "have time to wait." Once more her eyebrows raise in mock surprise, "Okay."
-----
Now (only 6 days later), I am faced with her prescriptions again. Another cocktail of CNS depressants. The first one is Clonazepam 2mg (again), and the second is codeine/acetaminophen 30/300mg (another opioid). Welp, I understand. Downers are my favorites, too.
"Did you want to wait or come back?" I ask the girl as she twirls the hair from her ponytail around her finger. She's probably not more than 17 years old.
"I'll wait. How long do you think it'll be?"
"15 or 20 minutes."
"Okay. I'll be here." I begin to type in the date of birth on script as the girl's ponytail disappeared between the store aisles.
When I search her birthday, Dina's name doesn't appear. Assuming I typed it incorrectly, I do it again. Still not there. I search her up by name. Her date of birth is 11/19/1973 on the prescription, but our system (correctly) has 11/19/1975.
I can already hear my pharmacist M saying, in his clipped Egyptian accent: "tell hem we don't have it." That was his way of dealing with forgeries or questionable RXs, making them another pharmacy's problem. (A practice which is frowned upon.)
Sidling up alongside my coworker Ann as she's typing up electronic RXs that are coming in faster than we can fill them. I hand her the prescriptions and point out the name. "Look who it is!"
"Are you kidding me?"
"Nope. This time she had her daughter bring them in. Also, check this out!" I search her up by name. "The birthday they have on these scripts is 2 years off." We both had stupid smirks on our faces. Dina's game is going to be up very quickly... at least with these doctors.
"Do you wanna call the doctor?" I ask her. "I'm supposed to be doing production." I give am exaggerated glance at M, whose standing behind us. It's only a matter of time before he questions what I'm doing without a spatula in my hand and a vial in the other.
"Sure. No problem."
"Let me know how it goes!" I sing.
Back at the production work station, I see that 10 prescriptions are coming due in the next 30 minutes. The printer roars into life and spits out labels, while I run to the shelves and pull drugs that I see will be first. Proair, Metformin 500mg, Lisinopril 10m, Duloxetine Dr 30mg...
A mix of curiosity and excitement builds up in my guts, but I refuse to acknowledge it. Instead, I keep filling as quickly as possible, almost unable to steal glances over at Ann to see if she's off the phone with the doctor's office yet.
5 people suddenly appear at the register. I speed them through the process. When I step back to the computer and glance back at the time, it's been about 15 minutes since I handed off the scripts. Ann is still on the phone. I can see her shaking her head in agreement, before putting the receiver down.
Right then, four people get in line at the register. Reluctantly, I drag my maroon, high-top Adidas, with the black wings, over to them. My curiosity is overwhelming. I wanna catch that bitch.
All I want is that satisfaction of catching her in the web of lies she's spun. The trail of identities, doctors, prescriptions that she didn't think we'd notice is now her undoing.
Finally, freed from the register. I glance around to check and make sure no customers are approaching.
"What'd you find out?" I run over to Ann, brimming with enthusiasm.
"So, they have to files for her at the hospital under those 2 birthdays. Each file has the same name, address, emergency contacts, everything, but the social security numbers are different."
"Holy shit." I've never had a customer that dedicated to the pursuit of pills. Her addiction or business must run deep.
"I asked if they had a copy of her driver's license under the fake date of birth, but they didn't. I don't know how that's possible. When I worked in the hospital, I made sure to scan that in for every person."
"Yeah, I've had to do that just to go to my regular doctors. What the fuck?"
"Yup. But, they didn't want to void the prescriptions. However, the nurse is going to alert the doctor."
"Again, let me say: What. The. Fuck? They aren't going to void them? I wonder if the doctor is complicit..."
A moment of stunned silence hangs between us, the possible enormity of this find is overwhelming.
"What's going on?" M has noticed that we've been talking.
Ann explains the situation to him.
"Just tell her we don't have them." Dismissing all of our work with the flick of his wrist, as he waves Ann over to the drop off to tell Dina's daughter.
I wonder if she knows about her mom's double life... I will never do this to my future kids. I've crossed a lot of lines in my life but I will never cross this one.
Her daughter is annoyed with us, just as impatient as her mother. She leaves in a huff, stomping off to buy the bag of powdered donuts hanging from her left hand--no wiser of all the information we've pulled up on her mother's life.
I'm sure we'll see Dina again... and I can't fucking wait to catch her.
Until later,
Lucy
Saturday, September 8, 2018
Lope a' dope
Monday 12p
God, those malicious thoughts trickle in until I'm drowning in lust.
I am a junky. I don't care what I toss in my body as long as it works. By that I mean, gets me fucked up. I pray those 24 Immodium ADs I took will do the trick. Only down now to 1 10mg oxymorphone er, divided into 2 pieces: 1 for tomorrow before work, 1 for tonight around 4pm. I'll snort the 1 tonight, heightened by the Immodium blocking the opiate receptors in my bowels.
After only 20 minutes right now, I can feel those tiny tablets kicking in, my head going blank and heavy. The weight of a thousand bowling balls on the back of my neck. Eyes cross and uncross.
This morning at 2am I woke up with the ominous feeling that I would soon be doubled over on the toilet, cursing my existence. I refused to get up until 3 am when I began to worry I'd be shitting the bed. By the time it was 4, and I'd left, I was overwhelmed with disgust for what had flooded out of me. Sweating and shitting all the chemicals out of my system. Left to wonder whether once all the chemicals were gone, what would even be left?
The lope makes it almost bearable. Its long half-life and affinity for the receptors in the guts manage my worst symptoms. It keeps me from diving off the edge and hunting for another way to take the edge off. If only I could control myself, this wouldn't happen every month. But, who am I kidding, that would require self-control--and I have none.
---------
Saturday 11:11am
The doctor appoint on Tuesday was a repeat of the month before, and the month before that. The repetitive farce ad infinitum.
The PA's smile was kind, framed by straight auburn hair down to her chest. Cherubic cheeks highlighted her youth, she might be 35, but well below 40.
"We talked at the last time appointment about tapering your dosage down to be more inline with the recommended 90 morphine milligram equivalent. And right now you're at 120. Have you thought about which medicine you want to reduce?"
I understood every word she said. I'd done the calculations before on the app on my phone, the CDC's opioid calculator for morphine milligram equivalency per day. Both my 4 oxycodone/apap 10/325 per day and my 2 oxymorphone er 10mg are equal to 60mg of morphine, respectively. A small part of me was interested in lowering my dose. Perhaps the lower the dosage goes the less of a junky I am. Is that how it works?
"I think we could try going down on the oxymorphone er."
"Okay. Now you'll be taking 7.5mg twice a day. That'll bring you down to 105MME. And then once you're doing well on that, we can talk about the next step. This will also mean you can your Percocet at 4 times per day."
"Sounds great."
"Is there anything else I can do for you today?"
"Nope. That's it. I have enough refills on my tizanidine (my muscle relaxer)."
"Okay, great. I will need a urine sample today."
Thank fuck I didn't take anything this week that would show up. Being a good girl means never having to worry about coming up positive on a urine screen.
"Alright."
"Once you're done, you can go out and make an appt for 4 weeks from now."
"Sound good. Thank you!"
"You're welcome! Have a nice day."
I'm concerned about tapering down. But, at the same time, happy I can keep my Percocet dosage. The oxymorphone high produces a much stronger nod. Unable to control it, I find myself jolting awake on the patio most nights, worried the neighbors have seen me. It's an unmistakable scene to anyone who isn't naive about the drug world.
The oxycodone high is more euphoric. A blissful warmth of euphoria wrapping it's loving arms around me. Without that, what would be the point? It's the soothing balm to my daily battle to keep returning the pharmacy and the abuse by my boss behind the counter as well as customers on the other side of it.
Without R, I would have no reason to fight my own desire to stay in bed and never leave. But that pills make it possible, physically and mentally, to press on.
Let's hope this taper doesn't make that impossible.
All the best,
Lucy
God, those malicious thoughts trickle in until I'm drowning in lust.
I am a junky. I don't care what I toss in my body as long as it works. By that I mean, gets me fucked up. I pray those 24 Immodium ADs I took will do the trick. Only down now to 1 10mg oxymorphone er, divided into 2 pieces: 1 for tomorrow before work, 1 for tonight around 4pm. I'll snort the 1 tonight, heightened by the Immodium blocking the opiate receptors in my bowels.
After only 20 minutes right now, I can feel those tiny tablets kicking in, my head going blank and heavy. The weight of a thousand bowling balls on the back of my neck. Eyes cross and uncross.
This morning at 2am I woke up with the ominous feeling that I would soon be doubled over on the toilet, cursing my existence. I refused to get up until 3 am when I began to worry I'd be shitting the bed. By the time it was 4, and I'd left, I was overwhelmed with disgust for what had flooded out of me. Sweating and shitting all the chemicals out of my system. Left to wonder whether once all the chemicals were gone, what would even be left?
The lope makes it almost bearable. Its long half-life and affinity for the receptors in the guts manage my worst symptoms. It keeps me from diving off the edge and hunting for another way to take the edge off. If only I could control myself, this wouldn't happen every month. But, who am I kidding, that would require self-control--and I have none.
---------
Saturday 11:11am
The doctor appoint on Tuesday was a repeat of the month before, and the month before that. The repetitive farce ad infinitum.
The PA's smile was kind, framed by straight auburn hair down to her chest. Cherubic cheeks highlighted her youth, she might be 35, but well below 40.
"We talked at the last time appointment about tapering your dosage down to be more inline with the recommended 90 morphine milligram equivalent. And right now you're at 120. Have you thought about which medicine you want to reduce?"
I understood every word she said. I'd done the calculations before on the app on my phone, the CDC's opioid calculator for morphine milligram equivalency per day. Both my 4 oxycodone/apap 10/325 per day and my 2 oxymorphone er 10mg are equal to 60mg of morphine, respectively. A small part of me was interested in lowering my dose. Perhaps the lower the dosage goes the less of a junky I am. Is that how it works?
"I think we could try going down on the oxymorphone er."
"Okay. Now you'll be taking 7.5mg twice a day. That'll bring you down to 105MME. And then once you're doing well on that, we can talk about the next step. This will also mean you can your Percocet at 4 times per day."
"Sounds great."
"Is there anything else I can do for you today?"
"Nope. That's it. I have enough refills on my tizanidine (my muscle relaxer)."
"Okay, great. I will need a urine sample today."
Thank fuck I didn't take anything this week that would show up. Being a good girl means never having to worry about coming up positive on a urine screen.
"Alright."
"Once you're done, you can go out and make an appt for 4 weeks from now."
"Sound good. Thank you!"
"You're welcome! Have a nice day."
I'm concerned about tapering down. But, at the same time, happy I can keep my Percocet dosage. The oxymorphone high produces a much stronger nod. Unable to control it, I find myself jolting awake on the patio most nights, worried the neighbors have seen me. It's an unmistakable scene to anyone who isn't naive about the drug world.
The oxycodone high is more euphoric. A blissful warmth of euphoria wrapping it's loving arms around me. Without that, what would be the point? It's the soothing balm to my daily battle to keep returning the pharmacy and the abuse by my boss behind the counter as well as customers on the other side of it.
Without R, I would have no reason to fight my own desire to stay in bed and never leave. But that pills make it possible, physically and mentally, to press on.
Let's hope this taper doesn't make that impossible.
All the best,
Lucy
Monday, September 3, 2018
Wasting Face
Saturday, August 24, 2018
Midnight
The soft pallet at the back of my throat is caving in, expanding my nasal passages. Soon when I snort pills all the powder will simply fly down the back of my throat, no better than popping them. I ignore the niggling pain in the roof of my mouth, that burns after each line. The oxymorphone clings to the wet spaces, the irritation never goes away—no matter how much water I gulp.
It's been 8 hours since I got home and inhaled my nightly medication, but the sting of the powder lingers. That last bit of sugar stuck at the bottom of the coffee cup.
Tonight I decided to make tea for the first time in probably a year at least. I made the first batch an hour ago, and only drank the second about 10 minutes ago. It pours into each of my limbs like thick concrete. My muscles ache with each movement under the weight. Around 11:30pm, I ate a bowl of cereal--my only meal of the day besides breakfast and a bag of sour gummy bears this afternoon.
1:50 am
The tea only weighed me down with a stoned-out, stomaching-churning, body-high. I relented to the thought rattling on in my brain: "snort your morning dose at 3am, you'll end up doing your night one at 3 in the afternoon anyway."
R was nestled under the covers in our bed. The handmade quilt (made for us by a friend as a wedding gift) pushed to my side of the bed. A swirling noise hung in the air from the fan spinning overhead. It has to be kept on low at night, on any of the higher settings it squeaks and rocks wildly. I have imagined it flinging itself from the ceiling, onto my prone body far too many times.
I am sure his eyes opened just enough to see me slide my nightstand drawers open, pulling out all my supplies in silence. Until it came time to grab the medicine bottle, I gave the first one I picked up a shake--too empty. The next one was far too heavy. But that third one was my oxymorphone. With my index finger I fished one out, before returning the bottle and closing the drawer.
After the drawer was closed and I put everything down on the sofa, I realized I had forgot the alcohol swabs. Once more, I snuck in and grabbed a couple--1 for now, the rest to be kept in the living room for next time.
I hit play on the remote to continue watching Live PD. (I love the stupid people on that show... R hates it, so I have to watch it when he's asleep). The alcohol pad was slowly stained with orange dye as I rubbed the ever-whitening tablet on it. The most heavenly creamsicle. I then toweled it off with my paper towel, removing the slimy film of alcohol left on it.
I dropped it and twisted down the lid of my pill crusher (the best $5 a junky with a pill habit could spend available at any grocery or drug store). Each time the resistance grew weaker as the powder became finer, until I felt none.
The $2 bill I use to snort my oxymorphone with was a gift from my old pharmacist. She had given it to myself and another tech to put into our wallets as good luck--that way we would always have $2 if an emergency arrived. Instead, I found it more amusing to do the act she found most abhorrent with it. A sick joke just for me.
My future-self requested that I only snort half. Enough to top off the tea for a good high, and leave me with enough for later on in the morning. However, as has been proven for over a decade now (as retold on this blog), I have no self-control. Once the thought enters into my mind, it becomes immovable.
2:26am
To breathe, I have to keep my mouth open a little bit. Whenever I'm not sucking down another cigarette, at least. I'm all alone outside our apartment, feet pressed to the painted green bars of the walk way, leaning back in one of our wicker kitchen chairs. They were my father's from his first apartment in the late 70s, our kitchen table chairs when I was a child, and then ours. Now 2 of them are always outside are place, except during downpours.
There's a light breeze blowing my smoke across the computer screen. Nausea keeps creeping up on me (I baked some cookies a little while ago), but I can't control the desire for the pull on each cigarette I devour. There's a lamp post on the other side of the courtyard
The morphine mixes with the oxymorphone to create a strange high--the heavy morphine numbness and the oxymorphine pleasure. It blasts up my spine once more and leaves an aurora of pleasure in every extremity. My blood pulses faster along the my skin, reverberating in my ears.
Orbs glow on top of the lamp posts beneath me. Like tiny moons, so close I could touch them, if only I could get a little closer.
Wednesday 5:53pm
There is no high. 25 mg of oxycodone produces nothing. I might as well have taken a tylenol and called it a night. Once more, I fucked myself. The same story each month repeated ad nauseam. I've used up my pills too soon and now I have to make up for 2 missing doses. I decided to skip my regular oxymorphone dose tonight, opting to take 2.5 oxycodone instead--hoping they would make up for it. But that thick oxymorphone high, or upbeat oxycodone, is elusive.
My cravings are growing steadily with each passing second. All I want is to feel that warm, fucked up glow.
What can I say? I'm a junky to the core. There will never be enough chemicals in my blood stream to fill the desire in my head. The spot in the middle of my forehead pulses, waiting for a sensation that isn't going to come.
Maybe if I split one of my oxymorphone er tablets... one half tonight, one half tomorrow... but I still be short my morning dose the day of my appointment on Tuesday.
But once Tuesday rolls around, that fat bottle full of chalky tablets will be more than my greedy mind can absorb. Sometimes I'm surprised I haven't OD'd yet after receiving a new prescription. I pop the tablets with a reckless abandon more fit for the end of the world, than a regular week night.
Time to go back inside now, put down the cigarettes and reevaluate this situation. Once the thought of taking another dose hits me, it runs rampant. All logic vanishes. Concern for my future condition are erased and supplanted by the screaming desire of now.
6:09pm
And my overwhelming desire overrode my better judgement once again. Sniffle every few seconds to keep the powder in my nose, running through the passages and burning my throat. That raw hole in the back of my pallet is expanding every day.
I don't feel high. I doubt I will. It was 4 when I popped those oxycodone, and after 2 hours, this 5 mg of oxymorphone won't do shit. It's more to quiet the screaming. However, I feel them growing louder.
Fuck the future. Sniff the rest of the pill now. You can take lots of loperamide later... over the weekend. You'll be home if you end up shitting yourself. You deserve to be miserable anyway. You could always get drunk, that'll strengthen the effects. Invite people over Saturday and get wasted,
Or maybe I'll just take some alprazolam right now. Even if the high doesn't surface, it'll quiet my mind.
6:45pm
Nine tiny alprazolam tablets (Xanax) floated at the bottom of the bottle. I took two, washed down with Glacier Freeze Gatorade (The best flavor--and if you don't think so, fight me! ;). They're only 0.25mg tablets, but two will fuck me up easily. I have no tolerance to benzos, unlike the monstrous once I've created with opioids.
It was a bad sign when I did black tar those couple times last year and found the high lackluster. Perhaps it was also my overwhelming histamine response, resulting in me stripping down naked to try and sleep (not really appropriate attire with friends in the next room). Out of Benadryl, still awake with a constant need to scratch, Lee and I walked to the gas station at 6am to purchase some (and I don't do anything at 6am, so this is a testament to my dire need for antihistamines).
6:53pm
I swear the alprazolam is kicking, but it may be that more of the oxymorphone has been absorbed.
7:17pm
Giggles stream from my mouth. Idiotic jokes funneled through my euphoria become examples of my great wit. Every thought is no longer consumed by an overwhelming desire to take more opiates.
8:09pm
But that freedom is short lived as the disinhibiting properties of the alprazolam grow stronger. That shitty opiate high. That apathy to the future.
It has dawned on me that this RX for xanax from my psychiatrist may get me in trouble with my pain management doctor. All the rules I had to sign there, as far as I know, none stated I couldn't be prescribed benzos.)
Midnight
The soft pallet at the back of my throat is caving in, expanding my nasal passages. Soon when I snort pills all the powder will simply fly down the back of my throat, no better than popping them. I ignore the niggling pain in the roof of my mouth, that burns after each line. The oxymorphone clings to the wet spaces, the irritation never goes away—no matter how much water I gulp.
It's been 8 hours since I got home and inhaled my nightly medication, but the sting of the powder lingers. That last bit of sugar stuck at the bottom of the coffee cup.
Tonight I decided to make tea for the first time in probably a year at least. I made the first batch an hour ago, and only drank the second about 10 minutes ago. It pours into each of my limbs like thick concrete. My muscles ache with each movement under the weight. Around 11:30pm, I ate a bowl of cereal--my only meal of the day besides breakfast and a bag of sour gummy bears this afternoon.
1:50 am
The tea only weighed me down with a stoned-out, stomaching-churning, body-high. I relented to the thought rattling on in my brain: "snort your morning dose at 3am, you'll end up doing your night one at 3 in the afternoon anyway."
R was nestled under the covers in our bed. The handmade quilt (made for us by a friend as a wedding gift) pushed to my side of the bed. A swirling noise hung in the air from the fan spinning overhead. It has to be kept on low at night, on any of the higher settings it squeaks and rocks wildly. I have imagined it flinging itself from the ceiling, onto my prone body far too many times.
I am sure his eyes opened just enough to see me slide my nightstand drawers open, pulling out all my supplies in silence. Until it came time to grab the medicine bottle, I gave the first one I picked up a shake--too empty. The next one was far too heavy. But that third one was my oxymorphone. With my index finger I fished one out, before returning the bottle and closing the drawer.
After the drawer was closed and I put everything down on the sofa, I realized I had forgot the alcohol swabs. Once more, I snuck in and grabbed a couple--1 for now, the rest to be kept in the living room for next time.
I hit play on the remote to continue watching Live PD. (I love the stupid people on that show... R hates it, so I have to watch it when he's asleep). The alcohol pad was slowly stained with orange dye as I rubbed the ever-whitening tablet on it. The most heavenly creamsicle. I then toweled it off with my paper towel, removing the slimy film of alcohol left on it.
I dropped it and twisted down the lid of my pill crusher (the best $5 a junky with a pill habit could spend available at any grocery or drug store). Each time the resistance grew weaker as the powder became finer, until I felt none.
The $2 bill I use to snort my oxymorphone with was a gift from my old pharmacist. She had given it to myself and another tech to put into our wallets as good luck--that way we would always have $2 if an emergency arrived. Instead, I found it more amusing to do the act she found most abhorrent with it. A sick joke just for me.
My future-self requested that I only snort half. Enough to top off the tea for a good high, and leave me with enough for later on in the morning. However, as has been proven for over a decade now (as retold on this blog), I have no self-control. Once the thought enters into my mind, it becomes immovable.
2:26am
To breathe, I have to keep my mouth open a little bit. Whenever I'm not sucking down another cigarette, at least. I'm all alone outside our apartment, feet pressed to the painted green bars of the walk way, leaning back in one of our wicker kitchen chairs. They were my father's from his first apartment in the late 70s, our kitchen table chairs when I was a child, and then ours. Now 2 of them are always outside are place, except during downpours.
There's a light breeze blowing my smoke across the computer screen. Nausea keeps creeping up on me (I baked some cookies a little while ago), but I can't control the desire for the pull on each cigarette I devour. There's a lamp post on the other side of the courtyard
The morphine mixes with the oxymorphone to create a strange high--the heavy morphine numbness and the oxymorphine pleasure. It blasts up my spine once more and leaves an aurora of pleasure in every extremity. My blood pulses faster along the my skin, reverberating in my ears.
Orbs glow on top of the lamp posts beneath me. Like tiny moons, so close I could touch them, if only I could get a little closer.
Wednesday 5:53pm
There is no high. 25 mg of oxycodone produces nothing. I might as well have taken a tylenol and called it a night. Once more, I fucked myself. The same story each month repeated ad nauseam. I've used up my pills too soon and now I have to make up for 2 missing doses. I decided to skip my regular oxymorphone dose tonight, opting to take 2.5 oxycodone instead--hoping they would make up for it. But that thick oxymorphone high, or upbeat oxycodone, is elusive.
My cravings are growing steadily with each passing second. All I want is to feel that warm, fucked up glow.
What can I say? I'm a junky to the core. There will never be enough chemicals in my blood stream to fill the desire in my head. The spot in the middle of my forehead pulses, waiting for a sensation that isn't going to come.
Maybe if I split one of my oxymorphone er tablets... one half tonight, one half tomorrow... but I still be short my morning dose the day of my appointment on Tuesday.
But once Tuesday rolls around, that fat bottle full of chalky tablets will be more than my greedy mind can absorb. Sometimes I'm surprised I haven't OD'd yet after receiving a new prescription. I pop the tablets with a reckless abandon more fit for the end of the world, than a regular week night.
Time to go back inside now, put down the cigarettes and reevaluate this situation. Once the thought of taking another dose hits me, it runs rampant. All logic vanishes. Concern for my future condition are erased and supplanted by the screaming desire of now.
6:09pm
And my overwhelming desire overrode my better judgement once again. Sniffle every few seconds to keep the powder in my nose, running through the passages and burning my throat. That raw hole in the back of my pallet is expanding every day.
I don't feel high. I doubt I will. It was 4 when I popped those oxycodone, and after 2 hours, this 5 mg of oxymorphone won't do shit. It's more to quiet the screaming. However, I feel them growing louder.
Fuck the future. Sniff the rest of the pill now. You can take lots of loperamide later... over the weekend. You'll be home if you end up shitting yourself. You deserve to be miserable anyway. You could always get drunk, that'll strengthen the effects. Invite people over Saturday and get wasted,
Or maybe I'll just take some alprazolam right now. Even if the high doesn't surface, it'll quiet my mind.
6:45pm
Nine tiny alprazolam tablets (Xanax) floated at the bottom of the bottle. I took two, washed down with Glacier Freeze Gatorade (The best flavor--and if you don't think so, fight me! ;). They're only 0.25mg tablets, but two will fuck me up easily. I have no tolerance to benzos, unlike the monstrous once I've created with opioids.
It was a bad sign when I did black tar those couple times last year and found the high lackluster. Perhaps it was also my overwhelming histamine response, resulting in me stripping down naked to try and sleep (not really appropriate attire with friends in the next room). Out of Benadryl, still awake with a constant need to scratch, Lee and I walked to the gas station at 6am to purchase some (and I don't do anything at 6am, so this is a testament to my dire need for antihistamines).
6:53pm
I swear the alprazolam is kicking, but it may be that more of the oxymorphone has been absorbed.
7:17pm
Giggles stream from my mouth. Idiotic jokes funneled through my euphoria become examples of my great wit. Every thought is no longer consumed by an overwhelming desire to take more opiates.
8:09pm
But that freedom is short lived as the disinhibiting properties of the alprazolam grow stronger. That shitty opiate high. That apathy to the future.
It has dawned on me that this RX for xanax from my psychiatrist may get me in trouble with my pain management doctor. All the rules I had to sign there, as far as I know, none stated I couldn't be prescribed benzos.)
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Post-Sex Cigarettes
Maybe it was the orgasm, or the knowledge that my bottles are almost empty, but the cravings are rushing over me. Like those crashing waves of the Jersey shore of my youth--tumbling under rough, cold waves. Every fiber of my being screams, "just snort an oxymorphone... maybe just a half of one... you can take the other half tomorrow, half another two to make up those 2 doses you'll be short until the appointment. 2 oxys and 1 oxymorphone tomorrow and Sunday. You'll be fine."
But I know how this ends, as it does every month. I'll spend the last 2 days writhing, without sleep, muscles tight to the bone, as I wait to reenter the doctor's office and a pharmacy. I don't care about the disapproving looks of the techs faces behind the counter, unable to see my degenerative spinal condition. In need of the medicine that soothes my body and spirit.
Earlier, itching as if I'd swallowed 10 codeine tablets due to the mosquitoes bites that dot my legs, I took 2 benadryl. I now understand why they cut shit on the street with it. That post coital high, naked and entangled, sheets shoved to the foot of the bed, but it is a high from the sex or the drugs. Opioids make sex better, besides how difficult it can be to cum. This time I howled through the last minute. Sexual pleasure bursting past the walls of chemicals running down my nervous system.
The air is cool outside tonight. A nice respite from the scathing sun and triple digit heat. The bliss that I should be feeling is over run by racing calculations--how do I indulge this yearning while still having enough until Tuesday morning? A math problem that will hang over my head until that morning, desperate for a fix--any kind--before I dive into that fat bottle of pills later on. My dry mouth is now salivating at the thought of those chalky tablets.
Fuck. I wonder if I'll be this way forever. 11 years spent nursing this nice habit. This unimaginable desire that consumes me every moment of the day. I doubt there's an hour that goes by, even as the baskets of prescriptions stack up around me at work, that the next dose doesn't flit through my thoughts. It's that spot in the center of my forehead, constantly aching until the chemicals start to break down, and I'm once more lost in my own little void. And who would I be without it? This addiction raised me from a 16 year old punk to a 27 year old pharmacy tech. As the world is crumbling down around us all, I figure we each need our escape. Mine happens to be trapped in the bottom of an amber vial.
This past week the same junky came in twice. The first time, he asked for syringes. His long, thin frame carved with black tattoos and a stud in his chin. The bones in his skull protruding through his jaundiced skin.
"What do you need them for?" My pharmacist asks his expressionless face.
"I'm diabetic. I need it for my insulin."
"Okay, do you get your insulin here?"
"No, I get it at _______"
"Well, I can call and verify that with them, then I can sell you a package."
"I have HIV." The subliminal message that he is a drug addict now cresting his lips.
"I need to verify your insulin prescription in order to sell you syringes."
"Okay, never mind." He walks off in defeat.
I would've sold them to him if he could've told me the insulin or dosage. But, irregardless, if he was an HIV positive diabetic, his status was not a necessary disclosure. He was basically admitting his reason for getting them, and I doubt it was to inject some Lantus or Novolog.
That benadryl is grinding into the oxymorphone right now. This 3rd cigarette in 15 minutes is making it hard to keep my eyes open, as it increases the pleasure.
Fuck. I better get some sleep before I do something I'll regret on Monday--fiending and burning with pain.
Night friends,
Lucy
But I know how this ends, as it does every month. I'll spend the last 2 days writhing, without sleep, muscles tight to the bone, as I wait to reenter the doctor's office and a pharmacy. I don't care about the disapproving looks of the techs faces behind the counter, unable to see my degenerative spinal condition. In need of the medicine that soothes my body and spirit.
Earlier, itching as if I'd swallowed 10 codeine tablets due to the mosquitoes bites that dot my legs, I took 2 benadryl. I now understand why they cut shit on the street with it. That post coital high, naked and entangled, sheets shoved to the foot of the bed, but it is a high from the sex or the drugs. Opioids make sex better, besides how difficult it can be to cum. This time I howled through the last minute. Sexual pleasure bursting past the walls of chemicals running down my nervous system.
The air is cool outside tonight. A nice respite from the scathing sun and triple digit heat. The bliss that I should be feeling is over run by racing calculations--how do I indulge this yearning while still having enough until Tuesday morning? A math problem that will hang over my head until that morning, desperate for a fix--any kind--before I dive into that fat bottle of pills later on. My dry mouth is now salivating at the thought of those chalky tablets.
Fuck. I wonder if I'll be this way forever. 11 years spent nursing this nice habit. This unimaginable desire that consumes me every moment of the day. I doubt there's an hour that goes by, even as the baskets of prescriptions stack up around me at work, that the next dose doesn't flit through my thoughts. It's that spot in the center of my forehead, constantly aching until the chemicals start to break down, and I'm once more lost in my own little void. And who would I be without it? This addiction raised me from a 16 year old punk to a 27 year old pharmacy tech. As the world is crumbling down around us all, I figure we each need our escape. Mine happens to be trapped in the bottom of an amber vial.
This past week the same junky came in twice. The first time, he asked for syringes. His long, thin frame carved with black tattoos and a stud in his chin. The bones in his skull protruding through his jaundiced skin.
"What do you need them for?" My pharmacist asks his expressionless face.
"I'm diabetic. I need it for my insulin."
"Okay, do you get your insulin here?"
"No, I get it at _______"
"Well, I can call and verify that with them, then I can sell you a package."
"I have HIV." The subliminal message that he is a drug addict now cresting his lips.
"I need to verify your insulin prescription in order to sell you syringes."
"Okay, never mind." He walks off in defeat.
I would've sold them to him if he could've told me the insulin or dosage. But, irregardless, if he was an HIV positive diabetic, his status was not a necessary disclosure. He was basically admitting his reason for getting them, and I doubt it was to inject some Lantus or Novolog.
That benadryl is grinding into the oxymorphone right now. This 3rd cigarette in 15 minutes is making it hard to keep my eyes open, as it increases the pleasure.
Fuck. I better get some sleep before I do something I'll regret on Monday--fiending and burning with pain.
Night friends,
Lucy
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Out of the Pharmacy and into the Fire
The holes inside my septum hum as I inhale, pulling powder into one as pressure is released through the other. I'm sitting cross legged on the right hand side of the bed next to my night stand, R is propped up on the other side. His glazed eyes (an angry red from smoking pot) look heavy as he stares at his phone.
"Do you have Narcan?"
The question makes anger boil in my guts. I'm silent, slack-jawed. Unable to answer, even though it's a simple word:
"Yes."
The word slips out, followed by, "But, I don't know why you're worried about that! I'm fine. It's just my muscle relaxer; it makes me really sleepy. I'm not going to fall out!" Inflecting each syllable with growing annoyance. "Anyway, it's in a pink pouch in one of the plastic drawers. There are 2 vials and a syringe."
"You looked really fucked up out there. I was worried... thought you could be close to overdosing."
"I'm fine. Look at me! I'm fine."
I leave him and the room in a cloud of disgust.
Cigarettes in my left hand, computer in the other, I sit back outside. My aqua Sk8hi Vans are pressed against the metal railing of the apartment walkway, lifting my chair onto its back legs. Everyone treats it like their balcony, until someone walks by lugging laundry or walking their dogs. The bright green foliage of the trees surrounding the courtyard below provide a small amount of privacy.
I suck on a cigarette and start writing. Well, I had intended to be writing but I end up lost in the New York Times (which is typical).
My eyes keep lolling closed, only to be snapped open again as the chair begins to waver.
The old adage "do what you love" keeps coming to mind. And why not? What's the harm in enjoying some peace and quiet from my own thoughts, the constant physical agony that consumes my consciousness? I'm not a scientist. I've never experimented with drugs--I know what they are going to do. THAT'S WHY I TAKE THEM. Everyday I work my 8 hours and then I come home to my real life. I fill other people's addictions and then feed my own in the privacy of our bedroom. I don't steal. I don't cheat. I simply luxuriate in my own medication. Why fight the most basic of all human desire--a life free from pain? Or, in some cases, a life full of pleasure?
Every month, I tell myself this one will be different. I won't take more pills per day than I'm supposed to. And every month, by the second week, I've come to realize I've fucked up royally. That the bottle full of pills was deceptive and the bottom of that amber vial would soon be all I could see. In that sense I do fight myself, but not to
---------
I found this scribbled in a memo pad I was using in 2015/16. It was bookended by the scores of Scrabble games between R and I. The reminder is clear: some parts of my life will never change. And maybe who I truly am, that clandestine person lurking behind the smile I flash at the world, will never change either.
"A deep, pulsing, heavy sleep falls over me. Life on opiates is like living underwater--muffled, warm, slipping from my fingertips. The biggest downside is how my memory slips away along with the pain."
"Do you have Narcan?"
The question makes anger boil in my guts. I'm silent, slack-jawed. Unable to answer, even though it's a simple word:
"Yes."
The word slips out, followed by, "But, I don't know why you're worried about that! I'm fine. It's just my muscle relaxer; it makes me really sleepy. I'm not going to fall out!" Inflecting each syllable with growing annoyance. "Anyway, it's in a pink pouch in one of the plastic drawers. There are 2 vials and a syringe."
"You looked really fucked up out there. I was worried... thought you could be close to overdosing."
"I'm fine. Look at me! I'm fine."
I leave him and the room in a cloud of disgust.
Cigarettes in my left hand, computer in the other, I sit back outside. My aqua Sk8hi Vans are pressed against the metal railing of the apartment walkway, lifting my chair onto its back legs. Everyone treats it like their balcony, until someone walks by lugging laundry or walking their dogs. The bright green foliage of the trees surrounding the courtyard below provide a small amount of privacy.
I suck on a cigarette and start writing. Well, I had intended to be writing but I end up lost in the New York Times (which is typical).
My eyes keep lolling closed, only to be snapped open again as the chair begins to waver.
The old adage "do what you love" keeps coming to mind. And why not? What's the harm in enjoying some peace and quiet from my own thoughts, the constant physical agony that consumes my consciousness? I'm not a scientist. I've never experimented with drugs--I know what they are going to do. THAT'S WHY I TAKE THEM. Everyday I work my 8 hours and then I come home to my real life. I fill other people's addictions and then feed my own in the privacy of our bedroom. I don't steal. I don't cheat. I simply luxuriate in my own medication. Why fight the most basic of all human desire--a life free from pain? Or, in some cases, a life full of pleasure?
Every month, I tell myself this one will be different. I won't take more pills per day than I'm supposed to. And every month, by the second week, I've come to realize I've fucked up royally. That the bottle full of pills was deceptive and the bottom of that amber vial would soon be all I could see. In that sense I do fight myself, but not to
---------
I found this scribbled in a memo pad I was using in 2015/16. It was bookended by the scores of Scrabble games between R and I. The reminder is clear: some parts of my life will never change. And maybe who I truly am, that clandestine person lurking behind the smile I flash at the world, will never change either.
"A deep, pulsing, heavy sleep falls over me. Life on opiates is like living underwater--muffled, warm, slipping from my fingertips. The biggest downside is how my memory slips away along with the pain."
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Shuffle, sniff, shuffle, sniff.
Monday:
I called out today from work. Probably more nerves than anything else, although I have been coughing up thick gunk since last night. Now I'm lounging in the thick Texas heat--cut through by a warm breeze. A layer of sweat licks my brows as I'm writing this.
I shouldn't be smoking, but it's not as dangerous as my other vice.
The pills I'd doled out to last me until my appointment Wednesday (it's Monday today) have been squandered besides the 3/4 of a crushed up one. The line cut on my favorite plate, with the picture of a New York State prescription pad printed on it. The other 1/4 in my pill box, along with another one that's split in 2. That's supposed to last me until I get there at 8am in 2 days. I'll get through it. A few handfuls of loperamide (Imodium) will make it last.
There's a heavy feeling on my back. I'm not high but almost content. I will probably go back and sniff another small line to placate my unending desire.
I start at a new pharmacy tomorrow. It's in the same chain as the one I was working at, which was unceremoniously shut down a week ago. We only had 1 month's notice from the landlord. This meant a desperate scramble to prepare to leave and hundreds of confused/terrified customers.
Inside our apartment smells like rotting garbage from a sink full of dirty dishes. I can't seem to bring myself to wash them, all the while knowing I have to.
I'm trying to spend my day writing; I have to do something worthwhile since I didn't go to work today. Thick mucous bubbles up in my lungs. I cough up a small amount of sticky green crud on to my right hand as I type. As I wipe it onto my sleeve, I find a larger bolus of phlegm on the keyboard. It's the size of a large marble. (The past 5 minutes have been utterly disgusting, but on the junky scale probably only rate a 2 out of 10.)
This morning's pill barely covered up my sickness. The sign that my tolerance has reached an unhealthy level. I worry that the half a pill I have for tomorrow will barely cover me for my 8 hour shift. I plan to take 7-10 loperamide caplets (each at 2mg a pop, that number should do the trick). It'll keep me well enough to get through it... even if I'm in pain, at least I won't be in withdrawal.
Withdrawal is a powerful specter that clouds any junky's judgement. At a certain point, the high becomes second to staying well. After I took my pill for this morning, a dose that should've kept me well--I felt the sweating begin. Every muscle in my legs and back cramped up, as my stomach fell through my asshole. I had to take another pill... and then I had to take some of tomorrow's doses. I had to squander my insurance for the future in order to survive the next moment today. It's a constant cycle of need, want, and fear. But mixed in with that is the glorious high. Eye-shutting, mouth-gaping, spine-shivering euphoria is what drives us on. Then those tense moments as the sickness hangs over our heads, that is what drives us back. Every morning and every night I'm consumed with the knowledge that without my doses I'll be on the toilet, doubled over and crying in pain. Not the worst pain I've experienced, but I'd gladly trade sticking needles between my vertebrae to that.
When I was younger, off my head on drugs, with a baby habit, sickness barely factored into my calculations. Now it runs below the surface of my days, a barely audible hum in the background.
.......
#junxlife
Sunday:
The doctor wrote my oxymorphone script incorrectly. We had to go back and turn in the old one, written for a dosage that doesn't exist with instructions that are totally different from before, then pick up the correct one. But by that point on Wednesday, R had been puking and was still nauseous. Although I had the oxycodone RX filled and ready for me to dive into, the long acting oxymorphone that keeps me standing
I called out today from work. Probably more nerves than anything else, although I have been coughing up thick gunk since last night. Now I'm lounging in the thick Texas heat--cut through by a warm breeze. A layer of sweat licks my brows as I'm writing this.
I shouldn't be smoking, but it's not as dangerous as my other vice.
The pills I'd doled out to last me until my appointment Wednesday (it's Monday today) have been squandered besides the 3/4 of a crushed up one. The line cut on my favorite plate, with the picture of a New York State prescription pad printed on it. The other 1/4 in my pill box, along with another one that's split in 2. That's supposed to last me until I get there at 8am in 2 days. I'll get through it. A few handfuls of loperamide (Imodium) will make it last.
There's a heavy feeling on my back. I'm not high but almost content. I will probably go back and sniff another small line to placate my unending desire.
I start at a new pharmacy tomorrow. It's in the same chain as the one I was working at, which was unceremoniously shut down a week ago. We only had 1 month's notice from the landlord. This meant a desperate scramble to prepare to leave and hundreds of confused/terrified customers.
Inside our apartment smells like rotting garbage from a sink full of dirty dishes. I can't seem to bring myself to wash them, all the while knowing I have to.
I'm trying to spend my day writing; I have to do something worthwhile since I didn't go to work today. Thick mucous bubbles up in my lungs. I cough up a small amount of sticky green crud on to my right hand as I type. As I wipe it onto my sleeve, I find a larger bolus of phlegm on the keyboard. It's the size of a large marble. (The past 5 minutes have been utterly disgusting, but on the junky scale probably only rate a 2 out of 10.)
This morning's pill barely covered up my sickness. The sign that my tolerance has reached an unhealthy level. I worry that the half a pill I have for tomorrow will barely cover me for my 8 hour shift. I plan to take 7-10 loperamide caplets (each at 2mg a pop, that number should do the trick). It'll keep me well enough to get through it... even if I'm in pain, at least I won't be in withdrawal.
Withdrawal is a powerful specter that clouds any junky's judgement. At a certain point, the high becomes second to staying well. After I took my pill for this morning, a dose that should've kept me well--I felt the sweating begin. Every muscle in my legs and back cramped up, as my stomach fell through my asshole. I had to take another pill... and then I had to take some of tomorrow's doses. I had to squander my insurance for the future in order to survive the next moment today. It's a constant cycle of need, want, and fear. But mixed in with that is the glorious high. Eye-shutting, mouth-gaping, spine-shivering euphoria is what drives us on. Then those tense moments as the sickness hangs over our heads, that is what drives us back. Every morning and every night I'm consumed with the knowledge that without my doses I'll be on the toilet, doubled over and crying in pain. Not the worst pain I've experienced, but I'd gladly trade sticking needles between my vertebrae to that.
When I was younger, off my head on drugs, with a baby habit, sickness barely factored into my calculations. Now it runs below the surface of my days, a barely audible hum in the background.
.......
#junxlife
Sunday:
The doctor wrote my oxymorphone script incorrectly. We had to go back and turn in the old one, written for a dosage that doesn't exist with instructions that are totally different from before, then pick up the correct one. But by that point on Wednesday, R had been puking and was still nauseous. Although I had the oxycodone RX filled and ready for me to dive into, the long acting oxymorphone that keeps me standing
Friday, January 19, 2018
Plunged Deep and Drained Dry
Bring yourself back to the last time a shiver of fear shot up your spine and drew the color from your cheeks... Take a deep breath...
I'm plunged into that state of horror once more. Dr. S sat across from me, papers in hand. His light blue scrubs flanked by his white coat, with its ornately tied silk knots in place of buttons. But he never used them, letting it hang open by his sides.
His boyish good looks haven't faded, although he is steadily approaching 50. Above azure eyes, his gray hair was meticulously spiked up and glistened with styling gel. Every aspect of his appearance carefully considered, which reflected in his practice. The waiting room was decorated with dark woods and rich leathers. Completed by a set of lamps held up on stands by a series of pulleys and counter-weights. He had picked out each piece personally.
The sigh slipped past his lips.
"So we need to talk..."
"Okay..." I'm sure it came out as more of a question than a response. I thought maybe my insurance was not covering the knee injections I came in to receive.
A blonde nurse was behind him on the rolling-stool, a tablet resting on the exam table in front of her. She's always been sweet and friendly, but she seemed distant. Her eyes never moving from the screen.
"You've come up positive for a metabolite of cocaine for the past 2 months in a row." He flipped to the page, pointing to the red letters with the name of the metabolite and quantity. But I was no longer present. He might as well never have shown me them. He could've been offering me lines of coke at that moment, and I wouldn't have noticed.
The junky part of my brain began to click-on, preparing to explain away. deny deny deny.
"I don't understand..."
"It means that I can't keep you as a patient--for my safety and for yours."
"I understand. I can't believe it, but I understand. I know." My mouth was groping for the words to explain it away. To wake me up from this nightmare.
"It would've been right before thanksgiving and right before Christmas. Think back then, where you were, what you were doing, who you were with."
"I mean, we went to some parties. But, I can't believe that people would do that to us. I mean, I had some punch and shit, but I just don't understand."
"If you didn't do it voluntarily then that's the scariest story I've heard." He could've been sarcastic but he was genuine. I could tell he believed me, or at least didn't want to confront me with the implausibility of this scenario. "You need to be really careful about who you're hanging out with, they don't sound like they have your best interest at heart."
"No. They definitely don't. I'm just shocked and upset they would do this to me, to put me in danger. I'm shocked." Deny, repeat, deny, repeat. Say the words enough times and they'll become true.
-----
But images from that night in December kept flickering into view.
My friends huddled outside my apartment at midnight. R was inside along with a few other people. Our "punk parents" were inside, and I didn't want them to see what I was about to do.
My eyes followed every movement of the bag of coke in W's left hand, and his house key in the right. Scooping up some and snorting hard.
And then came the words that would seal my fate:
"Can I have a bump?"
"Of course! It's your party!" He passed it to me.
I dug into the bottom of the bag. White crystals of coke glistened on the gold grooves of the key.
It was a Friday, my next doctor appointment wasn't for 4 days. 2 bumps wouldn't show up. Abstaining would've been rude anyway. Right?
As I inhaled, I felt the air whistle into my right nostril, through the growing hole in my septum, and into my left nostril.
That hole grows larger with each year. The damage of a decade spent chasing down the next high.
The party continued on, and besides a friend we had to kick out, it was a great night.
But when had I done cocaine in November? It gnawed at me.
I rarely did coke; I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've done it in the past 12 months.
How could I have forgotten about it? When had we even hung out with people other than my family around Thanksgiving?
Our friends know not to offer us coke. Well, at least not to R. But even with me, and their knowledge of my history, they tip-toe around the issue. Only offering it when I would inquire. They respect and support us, knowing about the struggle we had getting rid of our coke habits.
-----
"You're young, I get it. A little won't kill you." Quickly following it with, "But it's still not good for you or your heart. It's not like the guy I once had, I was like 'really man? you are too old to still be doing this kind of stuff. It's so bad for your heart." I imagined the man, sitting in the same seat as me, convulsing with the same fear. "I've been told before by people, 'yeah, I did do it,' or 'you put it in there!'"
I chuckled, "No, I understand. I know you didn't do that. I just can't believe that this happened. Can you give me some names of doctors you'd recommend?"
"Sure. Shoot me an email with your insurance, and we can send you a list. And if it doesn't work out, you can come back in a few months. Think of this as a trial separation." A comforting smile spread across his face. The thought of coming back gave me a slight glimmer of hope. He is the best doctor I've seen for pain management so far; treating me like a person, not a patient.
"Great, thank you so much. I'm so sorry that this happened. You're the best doctor I've seen. I'm just so heartbroken." Tears welled up in my eyes, but didn't fall.
"If it doesn't work out, give me a call in a few months." He smiled once more as he stood up. "Take care of yourself, and be careful about the people you're hanging around with."
"Thanks, Dr. S." I followed him into the hallway. My eyes were locked on the teal carpeting while I walked past the nurses and their animated conversations. I wondered what they would say about me to one another. If they'd laugh at the implausibility of my story, or my shitty lies.
R and I walked into the parking garage. I recounted what had happened as the tears finally flooded my cheeks, along with the words, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I can't believe I did this." His embrace, the words of comfort, none of them could mend my own self-loathing.
Despair loomed over and then consumed me.
"I wish I could kill myself. I deserve to die. I'm such a moron. I'm so sorry."
Every sentence was punctuated with apologies. I could feel the weight of my actions crashing over me. I let myself succumb to the embarrassment and hatred I felt. A few hours of pleasure had cost me access to the medication that I need in order to function and keep pain from taking over my life.
The prospect of withdrawing, unless I found a new doctor in 2 weeks, created a sense of urgency underneath the despair. My energy had been eaten away by the appointment. I cringed at the idea of having to start all over with another doctor. And I worried that, like Dr. S, he wouldn't give me prescriptions at my first visit.
If that's the case, I'm staring down withdrawing from a 20mg of oxymorphone er and 10mg of oxycodone a day habit. (I ended up using up a bunch of my oxy early, so I've been rationing myself to 1 pill a day.)
And that would be starting on Tuesday.
At least if it was a Friday, I could spend my weekend curled up on the bathroom floor. Instead, I'll be behind the pharmacy counter: slinging pills to all the customers and junkies who need them to keep one foot in front of the other, day after day.
This is the life I chose...not my illness, but the new disease it has spawned. At the very least, it never gets boring.
Leave me some words of encouragement in the comments, I really need them right now!
Love you,
Lucy
I'm plunged into that state of horror once more. Dr. S sat across from me, papers in hand. His light blue scrubs flanked by his white coat, with its ornately tied silk knots in place of buttons. But he never used them, letting it hang open by his sides.
His boyish good looks haven't faded, although he is steadily approaching 50. Above azure eyes, his gray hair was meticulously spiked up and glistened with styling gel. Every aspect of his appearance carefully considered, which reflected in his practice. The waiting room was decorated with dark woods and rich leathers. Completed by a set of lamps held up on stands by a series of pulleys and counter-weights. He had picked out each piece personally.
The sigh slipped past his lips.
"So we need to talk..."
"Okay..." I'm sure it came out as more of a question than a response. I thought maybe my insurance was not covering the knee injections I came in to receive.
A blonde nurse was behind him on the rolling-stool, a tablet resting on the exam table in front of her. She's always been sweet and friendly, but she seemed distant. Her eyes never moving from the screen.
"You've come up positive for a metabolite of cocaine for the past 2 months in a row." He flipped to the page, pointing to the red letters with the name of the metabolite and quantity. But I was no longer present. He might as well never have shown me them. He could've been offering me lines of coke at that moment, and I wouldn't have noticed.
The junky part of my brain began to click-on, preparing to explain away. deny deny deny.
"I don't understand..."
"It means that I can't keep you as a patient--for my safety and for yours."
"I understand. I can't believe it, but I understand. I know." My mouth was groping for the words to explain it away. To wake me up from this nightmare.
"It would've been right before thanksgiving and right before Christmas. Think back then, where you were, what you were doing, who you were with."
"I mean, we went to some parties. But, I can't believe that people would do that to us. I mean, I had some punch and shit, but I just don't understand."
"If you didn't do it voluntarily then that's the scariest story I've heard." He could've been sarcastic but he was genuine. I could tell he believed me, or at least didn't want to confront me with the implausibility of this scenario. "You need to be really careful about who you're hanging out with, they don't sound like they have your best interest at heart."
"No. They definitely don't. I'm just shocked and upset they would do this to me, to put me in danger. I'm shocked." Deny, repeat, deny, repeat. Say the words enough times and they'll become true.
-----
But images from that night in December kept flickering into view.
My friends huddled outside my apartment at midnight. R was inside along with a few other people. Our "punk parents" were inside, and I didn't want them to see what I was about to do.
My eyes followed every movement of the bag of coke in W's left hand, and his house key in the right. Scooping up some and snorting hard.
And then came the words that would seal my fate:
"Can I have a bump?"
"Of course! It's your party!" He passed it to me.
I dug into the bottom of the bag. White crystals of coke glistened on the gold grooves of the key.
It was a Friday, my next doctor appointment wasn't for 4 days. 2 bumps wouldn't show up. Abstaining would've been rude anyway. Right?
As I inhaled, I felt the air whistle into my right nostril, through the growing hole in my septum, and into my left nostril.
That hole grows larger with each year. The damage of a decade spent chasing down the next high.
The party continued on, and besides a friend we had to kick out, it was a great night.
But when had I done cocaine in November? It gnawed at me.
I rarely did coke; I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've done it in the past 12 months.
How could I have forgotten about it? When had we even hung out with people other than my family around Thanksgiving?
Our friends know not to offer us coke. Well, at least not to R. But even with me, and their knowledge of my history, they tip-toe around the issue. Only offering it when I would inquire. They respect and support us, knowing about the struggle we had getting rid of our coke habits.
-----
"You're young, I get it. A little won't kill you." Quickly following it with, "But it's still not good for you or your heart. It's not like the guy I once had, I was like 'really man? you are too old to still be doing this kind of stuff. It's so bad for your heart." I imagined the man, sitting in the same seat as me, convulsing with the same fear. "I've been told before by people, 'yeah, I did do it,' or 'you put it in there!'"
I chuckled, "No, I understand. I know you didn't do that. I just can't believe that this happened. Can you give me some names of doctors you'd recommend?"
"Sure. Shoot me an email with your insurance, and we can send you a list. And if it doesn't work out, you can come back in a few months. Think of this as a trial separation." A comforting smile spread across his face. The thought of coming back gave me a slight glimmer of hope. He is the best doctor I've seen for pain management so far; treating me like a person, not a patient.
"Great, thank you so much. I'm so sorry that this happened. You're the best doctor I've seen. I'm just so heartbroken." Tears welled up in my eyes, but didn't fall.
"If it doesn't work out, give me a call in a few months." He smiled once more as he stood up. "Take care of yourself, and be careful about the people you're hanging around with."
"Thanks, Dr. S." I followed him into the hallway. My eyes were locked on the teal carpeting while I walked past the nurses and their animated conversations. I wondered what they would say about me to one another. If they'd laugh at the implausibility of my story, or my shitty lies.
R and I walked into the parking garage. I recounted what had happened as the tears finally flooded my cheeks, along with the words, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I can't believe I did this." His embrace, the words of comfort, none of them could mend my own self-loathing.
Despair loomed over and then consumed me.
"I wish I could kill myself. I deserve to die. I'm such a moron. I'm so sorry."
Every sentence was punctuated with apologies. I could feel the weight of my actions crashing over me. I let myself succumb to the embarrassment and hatred I felt. A few hours of pleasure had cost me access to the medication that I need in order to function and keep pain from taking over my life.
The prospect of withdrawing, unless I found a new doctor in 2 weeks, created a sense of urgency underneath the despair. My energy had been eaten away by the appointment. I cringed at the idea of having to start all over with another doctor. And I worried that, like Dr. S, he wouldn't give me prescriptions at my first visit.
If that's the case, I'm staring down withdrawing from a 20mg of oxymorphone er and 10mg of oxycodone a day habit. (I ended up using up a bunch of my oxy early, so I've been rationing myself to 1 pill a day.)
And that would be starting on Tuesday.
At least if it was a Friday, I could spend my weekend curled up on the bathroom floor. Instead, I'll be behind the pharmacy counter: slinging pills to all the customers and junkies who need them to keep one foot in front of the other, day after day.
This is the life I chose...not my illness, but the new disease it has spawned. At the very least, it never gets boring.
Leave me some words of encouragement in the comments, I really need them right now!
Love you,
Lucy
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