Wilderness Rattle

Though rehabs are built on the breaking down of the narrative structure of justification the addict creates. They take a person down to a condition where they can be restructured from. Hence a home or solitary withdrawal can run a risk of leaving just the habits active state, not remove the patterns that return the addict to familiarity. Abuse victims often search out further abusers as the system is one they know. One would think return would never happen yet it is often the case victims follow a path of serial abuse. The addict may need reprogramming to change. However, unless one has money, NHS places are hard won. First six candidates must be found. This group must spend six weeks preparation with weekly meetings. Once this has been run a panel judge who is suitable. Most of the six can be found wanting in some detail. If fortunate, a series of visits to differing rehabs, some Christian, some psychology based. Time is used by talking, one to ones, and group meetings. Some find it quite life changing. Many return with a familiar brainwashed manner, others return religious. Many relapse. Many relapse immediately on release. One could wait three weeks for the group stage to begin, six more weeks, then be told they aren't ready or have attitude issues. The girl who heads my panel has history with me. She is fresh from college and very inexperienced to be taking life or death decisions. Our first meeting was as my new keywoeker. Government cuts meant the experienced staff were offered their old jobs at half their previous wage. Highly insulted all left. Turning Point in frome replaced these respected and experienced councelors with college graduates. I had made a recent visit to my GP after a profound period of depression with suicidal thoughts. I assumed she would have read up on my case. Yet her opening gambit was a suggestion to lower my prescription without reason. I said with such little discussion and your lack of knowledge on my case, increasing my script would be just as logical. It felt as though I was talking to a child. I have read widely on addiction and drugs for over 35 years. I wasn't trying to insult her, just help her understand how the situation felt. She ran off to her boss in tears, like a child would. He defended his employee selection but after raging a while began to listen and finally accepted my point. I asked for a different worker as is my right. She continued her carrot and stick approach, leaving voice messages on clients with no credit. If they failed to respond they would find their prescription stopped causing relapse to heroin, crime to fund it. Stablished addicts lives disrupted. It is a matter of time before some one dies from her petulant responses when a text would have succeeded. So I got my new worker who, though inexperienced appears to have a genuine aptitude for this kind of work. The child validates her position by having had a heroin habit. Looking at her skin, teeth etc clearly it was breif. Ex addict co cellars tend to refer to their experience, assuming you are like them. They have a tendency to assume they know more than a well trained and experienced councelor. Once I heard my fate lay in her hands I knew she would be unlikely to be professional. Revenge could kill me. So my plan B. is now taking shape. I will upset many people, let down others, already my days are filled with insults from my partner. From waking till sleep.
But I will die if I don't put myself first. I must be selfish. Each time before I have struggled through, feeling obligated to complete work. Fifteen years and still no space to recover. A year is ideal, six months ok, and three months a chance. So, tomorrow I begin an intense session completing a desk. Assembling what I will need. Then I shall drive to some lonely part of this island and be very ill. My partner says I am abandoning her. Yet to stay as I am will not fix anything. To do this I have to be self-centred. Ignore debtors and clients. I will die soon if I continue. A madness of such self destruction has overtaken me. A suicidal spiral. I am not sane. I can think of no other course of action. Yes, it is extreme. However I will live. This is what I am trying to communicate. This reflects only on me. It is not a critisism of anyone. I will have to recover then repay people. I have lost all self perception and awareness. The ethylphenidate will kill me if I don't stop. My addiction to opiates has left me unemotional, deadened, cold, thoughtless, unable to love. At first these tablets were a godsend. They cured my heroin addiction. Fifteen years on im still dependent on them. For a few years they caused little change but as time has gone on I can't feel love, I can't fall in love, sexual mechanics function but no p,ensure or love accompanies it. This is my biggest worry. I was of the first generation prescribed subutex. I am the first long term study. There are no referal papers or greater experience than my own. My life once revolved around romantic attractions, I loved romantically. I lived for this. But it has gone. I need to withdraw from these to know what remains. If this is a permanent change or just saturation of a partial agonist synthetic opiate.
Finally, benzodiazepenes returned. The withdrawal from these is long, arduous, frightening. Most suggest a long taper, at least a year. More recent studies suggest a swifter withdrawal. Once a benzo habit forms, the brain stops producing its own GABA. This family of neurotransmitters do many things. One example is, say a shock, a car just misses hitting you. Adrenaline surges through you, once danger is passed GABA returns to normality and calm. But when they aren't there, this shock, this adrenaline rush stays for up to three days. Terror remains with no reparative functioning system. Sleep is difficult. I would wake screaming from terrifying dreams. Never sleeping past four. Then I would walk the dark empty streets. A kettle boiling terrifying volume as the intensity grows as thw water comes closer to boil. Panic is constant. Post traumatic stress disorder frequent. De realisation, the feeling that reality is false stays for months. Depersonalisation, something in this system makes you who you are. Constant panic, constant fear. A body saturated will not feel much for a few days. Then a trip like quality takes over. This increases as the saturated body rejects the chemical from wherever it gathers. A full four weeks of increasing daily terror. At four week one reaches the peak. Return of ones own GABA takes several months. You go insane with fear. Any sleep managed is flooded with nightmares from wich waking is a relief. Undoubtedly harder than heroin withdrawal by some distance. Some suffer hallucinations, others seizures. It is possible to die. So some taper is always advisable.
Before I enter hell I must explain why I am going. My partner is fuming at my selfish choice to get well. My main client will be disappointed, nay take legal action. Other freinds, family, will all be let down. No ammount of explaining that this is addiction. Ones behaviour is out of your control. Free will is not there. I say this to explain, not to avoid taking responsibility. But no one would choose this. And if I am to be of use to anyone I must get well. Last chance. Only writing this now has the magnitude of my decision begun to sink in. I will be very ill for three months, fairly I'll for three more, and I'll for much longer.
Once on the mend I cannot return to anywhere I know. Relocation is paramount. Career change advisable. A severing of all my past. Triggers of relapse take a thousand forms. From a road curve to a litter piece. Drugs will ensure nightmares, depression for a year.
Finally, when rebirth begins, a transcendent freshness to every experience is overwhelming. Tears at beauty in a flower. Opened eyes, babies eyes. Babies security too. A rebirth but slow, painful, lonely, cold and seemingly endless.
I have managed to make great things whilst having serious substance problems. I know of no one else who has done this. With my hands untied I will be very, very powerful. I have never lacked faith in my abilities or felt less inteligent than anyone. Freed I should be able to produce quality work. It may not be furniture though. I've spent the best years of my life creating dreamworlds for others. Now it's my time to show how things should be.