suboxone

took half a sub today, this morning, upon waking up. felt like shit; thats actually a gross overstatement - my nose was running and i felt anxious and restless. this is standard. normal withdrawal symptoms 18 hours or so post-fix. theres a weird kindof comfort that comes with initial withdrawal. things seem brighter. the anxiety more than anything else is what keeps me fixed to the junk.

the best method Ive found for a quick kick is to take a sub on day one, fix then or a little bit later, and then cross my fingers to continue taking subs without the smack for the next two days. Ive literally fixed, taken a sub, then shot up - all within a 5-10 minute period; Ive never read anywhere about this being safe and read/heard from multiple sources that it isn't ... but that hasn't been my experience, its never whipped me into withdrawal but i always swallow it. i dont let it dissolve. this seems to make the naloxone irrelevant and conveniently avoids the taste of the pill. Ive been doing this for the last five years when i feel like i need to cut down or take a break or just want to save some money.

i need to drive north to see my parents and friends this weekend and while north i make a point not to fix which means kicking. i also want to save a bit for a new camera. and even if our habits cost us $30 a day it still fucking adds up and could be better spent elsewhere.

Ive found that i can kick relatively smoothly in three days. i dont take the subs for any amount of time longer than necessary as i have so many friends just as strung-out on suboxone as they were on heroin or opiates. methadone is fucking horrible as it leaves you just as much a zombie as when yr strung-out, without the worthwhile rush of the needle. back in 2005 i sucked down methadone for six months and ultimately decided to kick it with heroin. i felt better on smack than on the pink magic liquid that the zombies (most of whom seem to require canes) migrate to the clinic take. at least its natural. i just figure if yr not going to be on smack than why be on anything?

my suboxone kick normally goes something like this:
depending on when i last fixed Ill either take it first thing in the morning or last thing before bed. i tend to wait 12 hours or longer. i take half of an 8mg subxone pill. i dont let it dissolve, i swallow it. its much more comfortable if my stomach isnt empty, if it has at least a little something in it. if i take it in the am Ill fix later in the day. this morning i took it around 8am and fixed around 1pm. the trick is to wake up and take half or a quarter on day two and not fix later. most of the time i make it through day two clean. when i do this its been my experience that i feel absolutely NO withdrawl symptoms. i can be kicked in three days, sleep fine eat fine no cravings and as long as i have shit to do i dont have to worry about my number one trigger which is boredom. i only get symptoms, really really mild (think of being dope sick 24 hours in, super manageable) symptoms, when i take the sub and dont fix at all on day one. the symptoms leave with my next dose of sub. on day two i take another half sub (4mg), again swallowing it. if Im feeling antsy about fixing later i try to let it dissolve so Im less tempted. then Ill take a quarter or another half before bed (2-4mg depending on how long Ive been strung-out and what my mental state is if Im motivated to do it or if Im just doing it because its time to). day three Ill take a quarter when i wake up, sometimes I wait until later in the day. at this point it doesnt even really matter if i take any, with the exception that I tend to have no fucking energy if i dont take any. thats pretty much it. Ive successfully done this a shitload of times over the last five years, basically using suboxone to regulate my habit. Im lucky because I dont have the obsession to use that i used to when i first started out shooting smack. now its just smack. not a god a goddess nothing special just a fucking drug that makes being alive ok for 12 hour increments of time. its a coping mechanism, nothing more nothing less. something to do when i dont know what to do with myself.

but i want to save up and get a new camera. so its time for a break.

tomorrow or sometime after then

i have this thing about starting a kick on an odd-numbered day. its probably just my junky mind eliminating half the possibilities half the opportunities half the year as potential clean dates. tomorrows the 31st of august and i especially like the last day of the month as a kick date. i like time off on occassion.

over the last 9 years - since july 3rd 2003 when i decided i wanted to shoot heroin until i died (i turned 27 and re-evaluated that decision) - Ive put together more than 11 days clean on 3 seperate occassions. on each occassion i wanted something that conflicted with shooting smack. 

Ive been to rehab 3 times, with my longest stay being 9 days when i was 21 and my shortest stay being 4 days at age 24. the third time i went - fully my idea, unlike the first 2 times - i was 27 and got kicked out on day 6 i think. i doubt Ill ever go back to rehab unless i really need a vacation. the longer i use the more i recognize junk as a coping tool. 12-step, exercise, religion, work music whatever : these all work as coping tools as well. when i started shooting heroin on a daily basis it was because i was in emotional pain and didnt know how to cope. i didnt want to feel anything and i didnt understand why/how people got strung-out on heroin until the moment it became clear : heroin is liquid apathy. the cure for pain, albeit temporary. it also makes life incredibly simple black&white focused. when strung-out Im well sick or high. what matters most is heroin everything else is secondary and it dictates my schedule makes my decisions sets my days priorities. nothing is so serious.

the first time i managed to stay clean for more than 11 days followed my release from custody to county parole. my parole officer tested me. the conditions of my release included getting a job going to 12-step meetings and reporting weekly. i went to meetings. i got a job. i enrolled in school. i reported and i stayed clean. i didnt want to go back to jail. Id done 6 months for grand theft auto and before i went in Id actually kicked - tapered off - as part of this huge plan i promised myself Id execute that involved getting off the streets and living in a house with a white picket fence for foreverafter. when i went in i hated the drug and i thought my time with it over. using dreams were nightmares Id wake up heart racing afraid of kicking. i genuinely considered myself done. with almost 10 months clean, two and a half months out of custody & with two weeks after being off of parole, with no one to test for and jail not hanging over my head i made a deal with myself that if someone offered me oxycontin Id do it. someone just happen to the next day. i did it. got 30 days. fell into a relationship with another junky and off to the races strung-out again i went.

the second time i wanted to join the swim team at the local junior college. i quit smoking cigarettes quit smoking crack and shooting speedballs and heroin two days before i jumped in the water. i didnt realize at the time that the swim team i joined happened to be state champions with practices twice daily (am & pm). it felt so fucking good to be in the water again - i swam competitively for 10 years before leaving high school at age 16 for college 4,000 miles away in Montreal. i swam attended school with a full course-load and worked full-time. age 26 going on 27 at this point. it lasted for a little over 3 months: two weeks after i quit the team due to feeling overwhelmed (on the recommendation of my sponsor) i started shooting-up again.

the third time love got me clean. we got high once together. i kicked. stayed clean for 10 months. until he left me for prison. that was august of 2010. now its 2012.

dirty dull rigs & musings about exchange

the rigs we use finally seem to be deteriorating. the numbers are unreadable, the stoppers on the plungers stick & pop off stuck in the barrel, the points dull enough to require a running jab to puncture the skin &/or bent enough to be a miracle everytime it resurfaces not broken off. we've been using the same ones for almost a month. the exchange here runs once a week, on a weekday, for two hours from 10-12p; statistically a retarded time to run it if you want people to actually use clean rigs. because yr fucked if you have a 9-5. but most people dont think of junkies as having 9-5s. the exchange staff makes it as inconvenient as possible. they're 12-steppers. the idea of running a peer exchange was incomprehensible to the staff. junkies taking clean needles to junkies who are too apathetic to make it to the exchange? no matter if those are the kids most at risk for contracting & spreading disease. but this is a conservative/republican county in california and its a miracle the exchange runs. even if the 12-steppers use it as a platform to promote abstinence via a spiritual solution - which ironically makes it appear incredibly unattractive; their sponsors should go over the traditions with them. Id rather be a junky than a self-righteous asshole, hooked desperately on an abstract concept to survive. when i can make it Im always grateful to be on the dirty side of the fence.

that used to never be the case. in SF, mary sunshine who runs SFNE, i go and leave feeling like a piece of shit - in the best way possible. i exit half the time seriously considering kicking; cursing for the motivation to do amazing shit with my life until i fix, fall into the lull of liquid apathy. i almost feel something other than just sick or well or high. not here. not with these assholes. i always try to stumble in there with a disgustingly happy grin, laughing from my stomach. which is fucking hard to do strung-out. laughter only seems to come from the throat once the invisible line from being a chippy to stung-out gets crossed.

years ago my mom found my clean rigs and threw them out. i explained to her that Id more than willingly stick a dull, crusty rig into my arm if a dull, crusty rig appeared the only method of administration. i told her Id get more cleans anyway. she asked where. i told her the exchange. she told me she wanted to bomb the needle exchange. years later the director of the exchange became her only way to contact me, the only way to know if i was still above ground. today she writes letters advocating the importance of access to clean needles. she understands that without the exchange there would be less exposure to important social services to alternatives like getting clean, kids would contract diseases get their shit together and die before being able to help others get their shit together. access to free, clean needles just means that iv drug users are less likely to be taken advantage of by those with access to (not necessarily clean) needles. Ive used dirty needles in moments of sickness and i have a college education for christ sake. 

in miami i lost a point it broke off under my skin while trying to hit a vein. crackheads sell points for $5 and theyre shit, ultrafine points most of the time; the junkies sell them 2 or 3 for $5. the market is run by crackheads and junkies due to exchange being illegal in florida. Id been using & reusing the point, unable to find another better needle, until it broke. anyway. that was in may 2010 & the point hasn't come out yet.

heroin

Ive been shooting heroin for a decade.

age 13. stretched out on a heating vent in front of my bedroom i finish the final pages of junky; as i put the book down i dont know where to begin to find junk but wish i did.

a few years later. hopping a bus to new york to see coldplay on their first US tour. before they became over-produced shit. its valentine's day. the plan is to meet a friend from rochester with a friend with a couch to crash on. rest our eyes. we dont meet. i scalp my ticket to an enthusiastic college girl who later writes to let me know chris martin didnt bring his voice on stage. he lost it to laryngitis. stress. cigarettes. something. left it in a box somewhere on the subway. that i didnt miss anything.
we stumble around new york lost. a girl on church steps rattles her broken voice for spare change. money for a hotel room. cash for a place to stay the night. i offer her twenty to sleep on the floor of wherever she ends up. her friend in the bronx sleeps in a basement apartment. we wait. hop the train to the bronx. stumble into the basement apartment. they scatter: phoenix. josh. and whats his name. one of them mumbles mid-fix: i hope you dont mind: we are heroin addicts.

the first time. i cant even sit up. nausea.
i picture myself in the wild. in a cabin. surrounded by brisk air. a down comforter up to my chin. cozycozy cozy warm. half asleep. waking up to the sound of my own laughter. this is how it feels on the nod. like being half asleep in a cabin. so cozy warm that you'd rather piss yourself than get up.

cops have asked me why i ever thought it might be a good idea to stick a needle in my arm. it just comes down to one thing: curiosity. to know. most people see junkies, see them struggle, see them rot go to jail prison mental institutions and see shooting heroin as a bad  idea that leads to those behaviors and those places. i saw the motivation. that if junkies are willing to do those things and go those places, that whatever motivated their actions and took them to those places must be worth it.

Im 30. i forgot that innocence lost can never be found.