When it rains....

My luck has turned from bad to really, really sucky. I was informed that the investors at GiveClicks.com took heavy losses on another venture and have pulled funding and handed everyone pink slips with no severence, no warning, no nothing and that I won't be paid effective immediately. Great, they were my sole source of income and I have less than $100 to my name and have a stack of bills already late and more due on the 1st. Not sure what to do, not much to do other than start beating the streets for work I guess.

Great timing huh?

Waitin on a Train...

Today I met with a social worker at the VA for my final step in qualifying for the 12 week substance abuse intensive outpatient program and she interviewed my about my life and substance abuse history and I told her of my five 28 day inpatient treatments, use history of every substance, periods of use for each, method of use for each, family history, marital history, employment history, medical hsitory, nonsubstance addictive behavior history and so forth, so on. Needless to say she determined me "qualified" for admission into the program and scheduled me to begin treatment on September 14th which will be about 45 days after I first sought help for my problem and 30 days after my last use. As a lifelong addict, I'm used to waiting. Addicts are always waiting as Lou Reed so aptly chronicled in his song "I'm Waiting For My Man".

I'm waiting for my man
Twenty-six dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington, 125
Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive
I'm waiting for my man

Hey, white boy, what you doin' uptown?
Hey, white boy, you chasin' our women around?
Oh pardon me sir, it's the furthest from my mind
I'm just lookin' for a dear, dear friend of mine
I'm waiting for my man

Here he comes, he's all dressed in black
PR shoes and a big straw hat
He's never early, he's always late
First thing you learn is you always gotta wait
I'm waiting for my man

Up to a Brownstone, up three flights of stairs
Everybody's pinned you, but nobody cares
He's got the works, gives you sweet taste
Ah then you gotta split because you got no time to waste
I'm waiting for my man

Baby don't you holler, darlin' don't you bawl and shout
I'm feeling good, you know I'm gonna work it on out
I'm feeling good, I'm feeling oh so fine
Until tomorrow, but that's just some other time
I'm waiting for my man

So, you see, I'm used to waitin...

Funny how the phone stops ringing....

It's been a bit more than a week now since I've gone very public about my struggles and I noticed today how much less my phone has rung and I kind of chuckled a bit. The old using friends have now all found out that I'm clean and no longer have anything to offer them and their lack of calls are welcome. It's an unwritten law and fairly understood among users that when one gets clean that the others leave them alone. It's a mix of wanting that person to succeed as they wish they could and an inherint distrust of their former fellow user...it's just the way it goes. Once fast friends through thick and thin, through the daily hustle to keep everything together and everyone dosed simply disappear off the face of the earth. There are remnants of their existence around that I am still finding around the house....a G-bong made out of a soda bottle under the sink or a lone CFM shoe under the bed but they've all scurried off and found another place to get high or another buddy to fix with who will listen to their babbling story of regret, remorse and justification.

It's not just them though...it's all the others who I knew in my "other" life...the business contacts and the non-using friends. Those are the ones who I can only assume feel betrayed by my revelations and to those all I can say is I'm sorry but I didn't become an addict just yesterday. I've been one since I was 12, long before I met you and I've never hid this fact from any of you and quite to the contrary have always been very upfront about it. Did you think I was kidding? Do my open discusssions about my situation embarass you? Make you uncomfortable? Make you want to distance yourself from me? It's ok if they do...distance away if you must but I'm still here, still me...just clean now...not long to you perhaps but to me 10 days is like 10 years.

The Ghosts that Haunt my Soul....

It's early Sunday morning and I'm alone with my cat in the Urban Abode less than 48 hours since attempting to check myself into the psych ward at the VA hospital and being turned away...if that wasn't the ultimate rejection I don't know what is. I guess insane people don't know that they are huh?? It's now one week since I last injested any illicit chemicals and my brain is starting to thaw out and is oozing sorrows of a lifetime onto my floor and I lack a mop adequate enough to to sop them all up. So I've been sleeping on the floor surrounded by these puddles of pain...rolling around in them...feeling their cold wetness...reliving the nightmares over and over again...gonna get out of here...anywhere but here.

Nationwide Sober Living Home and Recovery Resource - Virtual Tours, Brochures, 3D Maps, and More...

Nationwide Sober Living Home and Recovery Resource - Virtual Tours, Brochures, 3D Maps, and More...

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Book, Addicted Like Me, A Mother Daughter Story of Substance Abuse and Recovery

Book, Addicted Like Me, A Mother Daughter Story of Substance Abuse and Recovery

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Surrender To Win Is Just Not My Style...

The concept that an addict must first surrender in order to win goes against every cell in my body to the very core of my being yet here I sit once again beaten down, in poor health, alone in my pit of demoralization and depression. Unable to stop but likewise unable to go one more day as it's been these past four months since my relapse into darkness. I drove myself to the VA Hospital a few weeks ago to start the process of getting help. The paperwork was easy but the wait for treatment was almost a month and I started it two days ago with a physical, meeting with a dietician, labwork and on Monday I meet with the folks in the mental health clinic to start treatment for what I already know is my diagnosis....polysubstance addiction, ADHD, depression and PTSD...quite a cocktail to drink on a daily basis but it's been my morning coffee now for decades.

This will be my sixth full scale attempt at treatment in the past 25 years.

Crossroads

Today I'm going to seek treatment for my addictions (again) at the VA Hospital. Here we go again, another surrender, another failure, another shame. It's hard to admit after all of my former attempts but it is what it is and to live in denial any longer would be futile insanity. Another turning point, another fork in the road, another decision.