February 2007

There is no access to the internet for patients at the Walker Center.  As I did at that other, inferior rehab, I’ll try to keep notes; I’ll try to catch the story up when I return.  I’m really going to miss this type of writing while I’m gone.  It has been an amazing experience and the support and feedback I have received have helped me stay off crystal meth for longer than I have at any point in the last two years or so.  I am grateful to have had the opportunity and an audience to tell my story to.  I hope that some of you out there who may be thinking that crystal methamphetamine isn’t really working for you anymore can find some hope in what I’ve shared and that you will be able to access resources in your area to join me on this path, this ‘road to happy destiny.’

May God bless you and keep you until we meet again.

p.s. Augusten Burroughs!  I’ve just learned that in Utah they are keeping shreaded CARROTS hostage in LIME JELL-O.  We’ve GOT to DO SOMETHING!!!   LOL!

The whole world’s waking up
All the city buses swimming past
I’m happy just because
I found out I am really no one

At the Bottom of Everything,  Bright Eyes

That seems to me, at least today, to be the secret to everything.  I am happy.  In a room full of folks in recovery I am just another part of the greater body.  That is not to say that I’m not somebody.  I am somebody, damn it.  And so are you, Augusten Burroughs.  (specifically someone I’d like to meet – play le coeur du jour with – tease mercilessly – aid in the fight to liberate fruit cocktail from the jell-o which is a special calling for a Mormon boy from Idaho [see No Man Knows My Pastries by Sister Enid Christiansen] but I digress . . .)

I AM somebody because I have the opportunity to get up today and recover.  I get to get up and align my day with the will of my creator.  I get to meet the challenge of NOT doing something that is as natrual to me as breathing.  I get to NOT USE crystal meth in order to make it through my semi-charmed life.  Because I am not the author of the experience, because I don’t have to do it alone and because my experience of it is not OF me but FOR me, I am no one.

When I’m lucky, when I do my part, I get to stay sober.  I understand what peace is.  I get to help other people like me.  Any other day, in any other state I feel like a caged animal.  Being inside my own skin is so painful that I would do anything to get out.  Often that has meant getting high.  Or drunk.  Crystal meth, pot, alcohol, vicoden, mushrooms, LSD, ketamine, MDMA, whatever . . . just so my own skin doesn’t boil me alive. 

Today I’m no one.  And in the words of Martha Stewart, “That’s a good thing!”

Healing from a couple of years of using crystal meth has been really hard on me physically.  I am getting over my second or third cold of the season.  I’m breathing again.  Not being able to write drives me totally insane and there isn’t internet access at the house, busses don’t run on the weekend.  I’m basically a recovering tweaker held hostage in the suburbs of Nowhere, USA.  But, happily, I have news

Wednesday I leave for Gooding to go to the Walker Center.  Try not to think “Karen Walker  — hold on a second honey, can’t you see I’m taking pills?”  Not the same family at all, though they should meet.

As with the other treatment center, I’m not sure I’ll have net access but I have alot to say before I go and not much time.  I’ll be back.

It’s a Miracle!
    - Bary Manilow

Truely.  I don’t know that I’ve ever been so grateful for thirty days of sobriety ever.  Or that I ever had it so willingly.  There is something qualitatively different about this round of “recovery” that I don’t recognize and it tastes like grace.  I haven’t put together 30 days clean and sober in over three years, though I have tried on a couple of occasions.  I didn’t try to do this, per se.  It’s more like it was given to me.

To those of you who have supported me, whether in tangible, physical or economic ways or simply by keeping  my in your prayers I want to say Thank You!  I’d also like to extend a special thank you to Melanie Curtis, Charlotte Lanier and Tom Duncan of SHIP and my dearest friend Gail W., who have been more supportive and loving than I deserved and who have, by their tangible and material aid, saved my life.  Also to my aunt Jenny, who has never given up on me, my brother and sisters who love me in spite of myself, my father who has been willing to go thousands of miles out of his way for my recovery, and to my mother and step-dad who have only ever wanted the best for me and seen me for my higher self, even when I couldn’t.  Also, I am deeply indebted to Dale and Jill Irvin and family for opening their home and their hearts to me despite their well founded reservations.  Thank you for the safe harbor and the love you have given me for so many years.

To all of you, I love you, too. 

Just turn around (you fool!) ’cause you’re not welcome anymore.

I have really reached the end of my frustration tolerance.  Or my level is low.  Something, because yesterday if I hadn’t been able to climb back in bed and shut out the world and slip in to a tiny little coma I would be beating down the doors of Intermountain Hospital by now.  I’m manic and depressed at the same time and that, in many ways, resembles angry.  And it’s painful.

When bullshit like that is happening I’m likely to be confronted with opportunities to be peaceful and grateful but what I feel like doing is tearing the flesh off my bones.  This morning I still have a headache and I’m not quite sure what part of this all is mine, vis a vis my addiction, and which part is a chemical imbalance that I should be seeking medical treatment for.  Like I have health insurance . . . . . . . . .  NOT.  (There are things about this country I really HATE, you know?) (I wonder if I could claim political asylum in Canada . . . )  Our new female driver is a . . .Can’t Understand Normal Thinking.   And last night, a night when I need a meeting like NO OTHER night before, when I need new faces and different junkies because the ones I live with I’d as soon cram down the garbage disposal as look at or listen to another minute, this is the night she picks to not have fuel in the van and decides she’s not going to be driving us (which it is her job to do).

I’m still exploding her in my mind.  Thank God for Frank, our house manager, who stepped up and gave a few of us a ride in his car because the meeting helped a great deal.  The curious thing is it was a book study and I never felt compelled to talk.  But it sure got me out of myself for a bit.

When I kick assholeface me out of the house and go to a meeting the me I like usually returns.  Kind of like a propane tank exchange for the soul or “Spirituality for Total Retards.”  The thought of doing it for the rest of my life is daunting, depressing and discouraging.  Like being stuck to a machine – I wouldn’t be sure which would break down first, me or the machine. (Probably me.)  But as long as I think of it more like a treasure hunt or like I’m spying on my True Self I don’t seem to experience that mental claustrophobia.

I’m tired today though.  Super tired.  I’m going to go see about a nap.

so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost
that their loss is no disaster.
from One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Yesterday I stopped by an [sic] old friend’s house to pick up the worldly goods and the junk about which I become sentimental; stuff I left in his care a couple of months ago when I was homeless and on the street and unable to stop using long enough to pull my head out of my ass.  Of all the tweekers I know I had deemed (in my disease) that he was among the more stable and trustworthy.

It seems that he couldn’t be bothered to keep his agreement with me and decided early on to throw everything away.  Except for what he kept.  My Diesel jeans for example, which he was wearing when he answered the door.   But you know, he was really nice.  He gave me a ride home in his new BMW 750Li cause he’s cool like that.

Now I may be an emotional person but I’m not really like a big baby or anything.  I think I’ve cried so much in my lifetime that generally I find it hard to cry and if I DO actually break down a little it is brief and often in the shower.  The combination of noise and water seems to help me give myself permission.  It’s just stuff, too, you know.  Stuff.  Artifacts of consumerism.  Yet, when I got home I cried.  When I made dinner I cried.

Later in the evening I went with my housemates to an AA meeting in Eagle, Idaho.  You know god tends to show up at those meetings and heres how I know that.

The topic of this meeting was GRATITUDE.  Fucking gratitude.  I did something I never do.  I shared in an NA meeting and I actually cried.

I had never noticed before how tears burn.

I beleive that what we focus on expands so here’s what I’m trying to do.  I’m focusing on how grateful I am for what I DO have.  I’m focusing on remembering that I made the decision to leave my things with him while I was IN MY disease and that he, too, is sick.  I will only treat him the same way I would treat a sick friend – kindly and from a distance.  I’m focusing on being shown how to show him forgivness because I too need to be forgiven, by my family and my friends certainly, but mostly by myself.

but I try to open up to what I don’t know
because reason says I should have died
three years ago.

No other course.  No other way.  No day but today.

Jonathan Larson (1960-1996)

Just knowing you are in this world
Can warm my heart
Friends for life
Not just a summer or a spring
Amigos para siempre

You know, God has a funny sense of humor.  Funny strange, not funny HaHa.  I got home last night from volunteering and group and NA and there was a package at the house from one of my dearest but distant friends, Gail.  Yea!  GailMail!  Inside there was this completely darling card.

blah blah blah care package
blah blah blah office-husband
blah blah blah wicked cravings
blah blah blah candy
blah blah blah most popular boy
blah blah blah uno
blah blah blah pump your fist!

So, I’m going to ignore my own advise about diet for the moment because MyGail totally sent me DOVE chocolate hearts and a tsunami of Wonka products (I have LaffyTaffy in my teeth right NOW!) And I’d rather get sick on sugar that I have because someone in the universe gives a shit about me than spend another minute eating broccoli.  I’m going to take it as a sign from God to give myself a friggin’ break.

I’ve lost lots of things in the course of my addiction but somehow managed over the years to hang on to pictures of Gail.  She moved to Arizona about eight years ago and we lost track of each other not long after – which was my fault – but somehow our paths crossed again recently and I just want to say publicly how grateful I am to know her, how happy I am to count her among my friends, how sorry I am for not holding up my end of the friendship over the years and how humbled I am by her love and support and care which I have neither earned nor deserve but which sustains me and gives me hope.

In AA you’ll often hear “we’ll love you till you can love yourself.”  That may be true if you are one of those strong enough to reach out to others.  In the absence of that kind of strength I hope you have a Gail.  It may save your life.

I don’t know why, I guess I’ve been avoiding it for some reason but I had meant to write more on the physical aspects of detoxing and recovering from crystal meth use or addiction.  Much of it is pretty unattractive and you know it’s better to look good than to feel good, right?  Whatever.  I haven’t felt too good throughout this and I hope that if you’re thinking about getting off crystal meth what you are about to read won’t scare you off.  If you’re helping a loved one battle this monster I hope this will give you some idea of what may be going on and give you some ideas that may actually help.

First of all, I’ve said before, I no longer sleep through the night.  Average number of times a night I fully wake up started at about four and is gradually falling.  Last night was like a miracle to me and I only got up twice, but anymore, three is about average.

I often wake up hungry.  I’m eating an extraordinary amount of food.  Getting off crystal meth requires an amazing amount of food.  I crave carbs and especially sugar but what I’ve been finding is that carbs and sugar in particular  exacerbate the yo-yo effect on my energy levels and my mood.  Protein seems to help me stay more level.  The calmest and happiest I am is when I’m eating well balanced meals made from whole foods.  Last night I made a pork loin, jasmine rice and a nice salad.  There was enough left over to make a couple of sandwiches for lunch today.  I felt so good after dinner that I really didn’t do much snacking after (although I did polish off a “Krab” cheese ball and a box of low fat Triscuts while I was cooking) and my happiness with dinner has translated into looking forward to lunch today.

I was the kind of tweeker that tried to take care of himself for the simple reason that sleep deprivation and malnourishment are not the ideal conditions if you want to really enjoy getting high.  I tried to sleep at the very least every other night and to eat at least one well balanced meal a day.  Even at that I was pretty far from what might be thought of as ‘stasis’ and I’m on the “equal but opposite reaction” side of the mirror now.  One good poop every day or two has become basically a continuous stream of gas and shit.  I’m never really sure which it will be or when it will come out but I can almost guarantee that it will be at an inconvenient time and place.  “Trumpet” would be a nice nickname.  “Shitbag” would be more honest.

The other thing that crystal meth was great for was controlling pain or at least propelling me through it.  Now that I’m off of it I am in agony a good 35% of the time.  Tylenol helps some as does some lite exercise – nothing beyond a brisk walk to get the blood flowing and increase my neurotransmitter activity.  I wish hot water wasn’t at such a premium in my house because I’d really like to take more hot baths.  That would help a bunch.

So that it.  That’s what I recommend.  While you’re detoxing from crystal meth you may be starving, you may not sleep well, you may have gastric distress, you may be in pain and you may be lonely.  Ask sober friends who support your recovery to help you with chores like shopping and cooking.  Stock up on and eat well balanced meals made from good, whole foods.  Keep GasX or BeanO on hand along with an over the counter pain reliever (NOT the P.M. version though it may be tempting) and take them AS DIRECTED.  Try to get outside and go for a walk every day.

It’s not going to be easy, but like someone used to say to me, “Easy doesn’t do it.  Easy never did it.  Nothing worth doing has ever been easy.”

It’s going to get better.    It is.  It just has to.