Ephemera

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Sharps

April 19, 2012 in Ephemera by Chris | 3 comments

At one point in treatment my counselor had me walk around with a syringe in my pocket.  I carried it around for 5 days.  I wasn’t really much of an IV drug user, not that I wouldn’t have become one.  I tried it a couple of times.  It was great, but it was kind of complicated.  And honestly I got into treatment right after those first experiences with needles.  I never disclosed it to my counselor.  I was, after all, allowed to go to treatment on the State’s dime because I was an “IV drug user”, or so I told them so I could get in.

I find myself thinking about that experience every day now, at least 5 times a day, when I go to the cupboard and pull out a new syringe.  ”These are a tool for delivering medicine to get well, not for using drugs to get high.”

For some reason all of a sudden I am dependent on insulin.  I use a new syringe 4 – 6 times a day.  And every single time I think its weird.

Taking suggestions from friends.

September 19, 2011 in Ephemera by Chris | No comments

A long time ago, when I was first getting sober, An Irish Friend of Bill told me she thought I was bright enough to go back to college, even bright enough to study law.  So I’m back in college now and so far it would appear that she was right.

 

Getting ready for the week

March 26, 2011 in Ephemera by Chris | No comments

Texaco Morning

1/1/11

January 1, 2011 in Ephemera by Chris | 3 comments

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the new year and wish you well in it.

How do I cook without you?

November 22, 2010 in Ephemera by Chris | 1 comment

My favorite cranberry sauce receipe calls for Grand Marnier.  Some of my favorite cookies have Galliano in them.  Pity.  I don’t care what people tell you about “all the alcohol cooks off”.  It simply isn’t true.  Some small amount of alcohol remains. 

Now it isn’t the tiny amount of residual alcohol that remains that concerns me.  No, my real concern is over the act of going to a liquor store and purchasing liquor and then having liquor in my house.  I imagine that I could do it and be fine, but I’d rather not find out for sure; not so long as there are reasonable substitutes that are available. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Straightening Out Physically

August 11, 2010 in Ephemera, Humility, Living in Recovery, promises by Chris | 5 comments

My body has been a challenge from the moment I got sober.  Things bother me that I would never have noticed before.  And I don’t know if it is that I’ve totally damaged myself from my years of crystal meth use or if I’m just some kind of unluckily predisposed to illness kind of being.

Early in recovery it was respiratory stuff; bronchitis, sinusitis, that sort of thing.  It didn’t help that I was still a smoker.  Getting through the first winter sober required several rounds of antibiotics.

The second winter sober required several rounds of antibiotics, too, but I guess they didn’t do much good if I ran around with pneumonia for 3 or 4 months, eventually needing a couple of major surgeries to get me better.  I don’t know how better I got.  I still have pain from the surgery.  I look at my back and side and I feel like Frankenstein.  And all that time, those 2 months of recovery, laying in bed, taking vicoden (as prescribed – but so what, that shit is hard to do when you’re “sober”) losing faith, losing hope, losing “conscious contact”.  All of that is normal, I’m told, for anyone in recovery going through what I went through.  But it’s been a year and some months later and I’m OK.  I don’t have the Burning Bush kind of Higher Power that baptized me into recovery.  It’s quieter now.  I have to look for it.  I miss the Burning Bush – but what I have now is OK.

I have convinced myself that my head is OK – but my body says otherwise.  A week ago last Saturday the skin on my leg became really sensitive, but there was no rash; nothing to indicate that something was wrong.  I thought maybe it was the length of my shorts rubbing that part of my leg or maybe my new detergent wan to blame.

Last Saturday I woke up with a full-on, huge case of shingles that was spreading before my eyes.  I went to the doctor immediately and I started taking medication to stop it within hours, which I guess is a good thing.  It continued to spread, in spite of the medication.  It seems to finally be calming down.

It makes me wonder, am I really the same as I was before I had half my lung hacked out?  Am I still so completely unaware of my mental and physical state that things like this happen.  I thought when I straightened out spiritually I was supposed to straighten out physically and mentally.

I thought I had been taking pretty good care of myself; three meals a day, going to bed at a decent hour, etc.  I thought that I was handling beautifully the pressure I’ve been under at work.  Then my body tells me what’s really going on.

I know that I must be recovering from my drug addiction because when I was using I might not have even seen a doctor.  This could have been much worse than it was.  Like that terrible relationship I almost got in to, I recognize when something is wrong now and I take action.  I put “first things first”.  The first thing to do when you can actually see the blisters forming is go to the damn doctor.  I guess that is what progress looks like.  One of the differences between me on drugs and me sober is that I see a doctor when I need to.

Maybe – just maybe – God is doing for me what I cannot or will not do for myself; slowing me down.

By the way, don’t get shingles if you don’t have to.  This hurts like a . . .

I’d really like a job offer from Current Media.

December 26, 2009 by Chris | 3 comments

Thin Again

October 25, 2009 in Ephemera by Chris | 6 comments

I’ve always been a skinny person.  Before my addiction to crystal meth the most I ever in my life weighed was 180 pounds.  I’m also 6’4″ so while 180 isn’t exactly underweight it is only a 32″ waist.  Call it narcissism but it’s an aesthetic I really like on me.

Post crystal meth addiction I gained weight like I never have before.  When I got sober this time I came in at 170 lbs. and over the course of 90 days I put on 60 pounds.  That finally leveled off and I lost 15 of it, and I could have been content to continue weighing 215 pounds.  I would have rather that it was muscle weight and not all on my  stomach, but 215 wasn’t terrible.

After my surgery I packed on a whole new batch of weight.  I was all the way up to 245 at one point.  I went from being moderately active to absolutely sedentary.  I craved sugar all the time.  I have no self control, obviously, so I denied myself nothing.  I became so large that I couldn’t bend over to tie my shoes.  I had to cross my legs to do it.

While I was visiting my dad I got on his bathroom scale – 240 pounds.  I had one of those moments of clarity then that unless I did something about the problem it was only going to get worse.   Well, we alcoholics and addicts are people who are given to extremes, or so the tell me, so I guess I can accept the fact that I may be going slightly overboard in my pursuit of a skinny me again.

I figured out how many net calories I can consume per day to lose 2 pounds a week.  I track everything I eat.  Everything!  I have started exercising – walking mostly, but walking hard, for about an hour a day.  Every day I have come in well below my goal and I’ve lost 5 pounds.  I only need to lose 31 more pounds to no longer be classified as “overweight” – 35 or 40 to look cute in jeans again. Read the rest of this entry »

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