Happy New Year

I had my first session of therapy yesterday. I like my therapist quite a lot (and I totally covet her house--she works out of her home and the place just KILLS me.)

As I feared it would, the substance-abuse part of the equation took over most of the conversation; there was good reason for it, though, because I was sick, sick, sick.

Backtracking slightly: I have NEVER had this much trouble getting my dose of methadone adjusted before. What I thought was too much methadone now turns out to have been too little, which I discovered yesterday when I woke up dopesick. I went to the clinic, where my counselor confirmed: "If you're puking," she said, "your methadone is gone, gone, gone." She raised my dose twice--once for yesterday, and once for Monday since they're closed for the holiday. She told me if I could keep my dose down for 20 minutes, it would be in my system and I should be fine. Well, I hung around the clinic for 20 minutes (she said if I puked at the clinic, they could re-dose me) and thinking I was okay, went home. The minute I walked in the door, up came the whole dose. And it was absolutely NOT "in my system"--I was every bit as miserable as before.

I went to my appointment and minutes after I got there, had to excuse myself to throw up...again. Not exactly the way to make a good first impression. Despite my stomach, though, we had a very good conversation and I think this will be a positive thing for me. And as I told my new therapist: once I get my methdone dose adjusted, I am absolutely never going to use heroin again. I want to be DONE with heroin. I can't change what I've done in the past, but I can control what I do in the future. I will be glad when this phase of my life is over; I want a normal life, with normal problems and normal plans. I want to start my business; I want to take classes and volunteer and do NORMAL things. I want to stop defining myself by "former heroin addict" or "recovering heroin addict" or "broken-hearted long-suffering Gladys". I just want to be a person again--a person who does normal things.

One of the questions my therapist asked me was, "Who knows about your relapse?" And I said, "Nobody but me, really...my best friend out in California, she knows...but nobody else..." I didn't explain to her about the blog, though I'm sure it will come up soon. It's strange, how a group of people I've never met can become part of my support system...Have I mentioned that I'm grateful for that? I know this is becoming a one-track blog lately, and for that I apologize--but then again, this has taken over my life, again, and it's the main thing I'm dealing with right now. I can't wait til it's different--when I can rant and rave about popular culture (okay, I've got a post like that in the hopper, but it's not quite right yet); or talk about the classes I'll be taking, or how successful the business has been. I can't wait to get to that point.

I will be glad when they get my dose adjusted. I will be glad to put this chapter of my life behind me and start working on the things that brought me down this path in the first place. I want to be okay again. And I know I CAN--once I'm not sick. It's so frustrating that--unlike EVERY OTHER MEDICATION--there are restrictions on how much a dose of methadone can be changed at any one time. Even if it's in the patient's best interest to give them a 50-mg increase, state law says they can only have 10 mg added per day. Even if that 50-mg increase would stop them from getting sick and keep them from going out to get high--they only get 10 mg...unless they find a sympathetic clinic doctor, which is clearly not the case here.

I'm just scared, is all, and I wish it were otherwise; I can honestly say I wish I'd never tried that "just once" back in October. And that I never want to do it again.

So: I hereby put 2005 behind me, and plan for better things in 2006. I hope for the best for all of you, as well. Happy New Year, everyone!