Further Proof That Time Flies

Today marks one year clean for me. It was last New Years' Eve that I decided to try, one more time, to quit heroin--which I'd been trying to quit for at least a few weeks before, and would have succeeded were it not for the ceaseless puking. In fact, that was the only reason I did any heroin on New Years' Eve last year in the first place--I was so sick I couldn't stand, sit, rest, think, or sleep without retching. It was not at all enjoyable, and I so wanted to be done with it, I promised myself that if I got out of it, I'd never go back. (That may sound like typical junkie's promises, but I don't believe I'd ever said "never again" any of the other times I'd quit--it was always more not for a long while...) I remember days and days of being really nervous after I quit, thinking Today might be the day I get sick... and being grateful each day that I didn't.

This blog helped. It got progressively harder, each time I'd screw up, to come here and admit my screwups. In some cases that would have meant I just would have stopped writing altogether, rather than face the discomfort of admitting what I'd done--but I couldn't do that either. Even if I was writing nothing else, I could always say Hey, at least I'm writing something, and sometimes that was consolation enough. I knew THAT was better for me than the heroin.

And so a year later, here I am: still writing, still clean, still waiting for my ship to come in--though just at the moment, I'd settle for a small dinghy.