When the Party's Over

One of the hardest parts of addiction--and I had forgotten this from my last go-around, six years ago--is cleaning up afterwards. It's hard enough to close your eyes and grit your teeth and say "Okay, I'm DONE with this now,"--but it's a lot harder, while your teeth are still gritted and your knuckles are still white, to look around and say "...and I messed up THIS and THIS and THIS..." Because the easiest way to forget about all the things you messed up while you were getting high? Is by getting high again.

Well, that's not an option for me, in more ways than one.

After one last use, I threw out all my needles yesterday; buried them at the bottom of a bag of trash and walked it out to the alley myself. And normally, grand-sweeping-gesture-of-it-all aside, that would present only a very minor and easily-surmounted obstacle to getting high; after all, I know most of the places where the harm-reduction van stops, and they're very lenient about giving you supplies even if you're not "exchanging" needles as such. (They didn't used to be that way. It used to be, if you didn't have needles to dump, you couldn't get any fresh ones. Not sure when that changed.) And I've made this gesture before; the only outcome would be that a few days later I'd drive to the van and pick up a new batch of needles, and drive home feeling more defeated than before.

Except I can't do that now. The harm-reduction van is on vacation, til after New Year's Day. I think they come back on the 3rd, but I'm not sure, and either way I don't care. I have thrown away all my needles and I am not going back to get more. I have over a week to get my head together, a week during which I absolutely cannot get high. I have put an insurmountable obstacle in between myself and my addiction.

Well, not "insurmountable"--I'm sure if I was feeling ingenious enough, I could manage to scrounge up a needle somewhere. But I am in no way prepared to WORK at getting high. I am prepared to work AGAINST getting high, as a matter of fact. I am tired of feeling defeated, tired of muttering under my breath "I am NOT a bad person" and not being quite sure I believe it. I know what I want out of life and this isn't it. So I made it so that I CAN'T get high, at least for a week--and if I want to get high THEN, I'm going to have to take a concrete, thought-out action by going to the needle-exchange. There are about a million points in that process where I can stop myself and say "This is not what I want from my life." I'm not saying it's 100% guaranteed to work, but I'm giving myself a better chance, at least.

And it's a good thing, too, because now comes the hard part.

The wreckage is not so bad, I don't think. I should be grateful the relapse was only two months--a couple more months and there would have been a lot more mess to clean up. There were a couple of bills that didn't get paid, I know, and I spent a lot of money I could have used more productively; but all in all it could have been much worse. I can catch up on bills, and my tax refund will be here by early March (I always file as soon as I have my last check stubs for the year), so I can patch up any financial leaks when that check comes. But it's still scary. I've avoided opening bills for a month or more--as if they'd go away if I didn't open them! That's the sort of thing I used to do when I was really, REALLY in debt. It didn't work then, and it's not going to work now. (Don't you wish things DID work like that, though? Where if you didn't open a bill, you wouldn't have to pay it?)

I think I'm worrying needlessly, exaggerating the amount of damage I've done to my life because I feel guilty for relapsing in the first place...and THAT is a perfect example of the sort of thought process that's characterized my latest depression. I question EVERYTHING about myself--I don't trust even my own good intentions. For months now I've felt as though I've completely lost faith in myself; I've felt like a fraud, like all the things people admire about me are just an elaborate facade, hiding someone that NOBODY could admire. And it's horrible to feel that way. It's hard to describe what it's like...like not only am I questioning what I believe, but I'm questioning the whole concept of "belief", and even the existence of the words I would use to discuss that concept...or the letters in the words, or the pixels that make up the letters....I feel like the core of my world is completely unstable, but in a very narrow way. Everything else goes on as usual, but everything I believe is shaken all the way down. I wish I could articulate it better, because I know this doesn't make a lot of sense. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, either; I just know I want it to go away.

My first appointment with my therapist is on New Years' Eve. She sounds very strait-laced and serious--but then again, I only spoke to her for a few minutes, so it's early to draw any conclusions. I'm nervous, I'll admit, but more than that I'm hopeful. I'm starting to visualize the kind of life I want, and I know I have to take some big steps before I can get there.

So here I am: Day One, And I Mean It This Time.