Neal Boulton's HeroinLife: Living Beyond the Needle

Anytime Soon

Neal Boulton — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:40:32 EDT

I Don't Plan On Going Back. "I died. Right after thinking, 'There's no fucking way I'm going to die.' They tell me it was pretty gruesome: aspirating, vomiting, aspirating again. Full on overdose. Breathing, heart rate too low. Then everything just stopped. I stopped. I didn't see any white light, any tunnels or angels. In fact, I don't remember a damn thing. Absolutely no lofty revelations. I was revived after I was pronounced dead-their last ditch. Last ditch because my lungs were filled with vomit and they feared I would suffer more during the 'maybe a minute' I might be brought back. They tried anyway, I'm told, Tarantino style, with a giant adrenaline rig directly into my heart. Luckily for me, I was able to vomit and cough enough of the fluid out to just barely breath. The rest is history and a debt to good doctors. Yes, I belong here in recovery. Clean six years now. And I don't plan on going back to the chopping block anytime soon."-Juliette H., Chicago, IL

Sane Again

Neal Boulton — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:12:34 EDT

“

Even in my twelve years of being clean I slip into this sort of weird isolation mode where, while I don't stop meetings, I stop sharing, stop calling my network, and stop pretty much all of my social recovery stuff. It doesn't make me use, but ever so slowly that anxious feeling in my gut returns and I get restless. It's hard to explain but when I realize this one thing is always true: I've stopped doing service work. Recently after feeling this way I began going on twelve step calls once a week and bringing meetings to rehabs. To be honest, it was never terribly convenient given my busy schedule, but as soon as I resumed my service work I was socializing again and calling folks more. And as usual, I started feeling normal again with fewer (secret) thoughts of maybe using. When I give it away, not only do I get to keep my serenity, I get to live sane again."

”Lou N., Santa Fe, NM

People, Places & Things

Neal Boulton — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:13:21 EDT

Anger Management. "I know I am not supposed to get angry too often in recovery. When I do, I mutter the serenity prayer, even though I am not religious in the least. I switch the words around a bit though: I say it like this: 'God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, courage to change the person I can, and wisdom to know that that person is me.' But I'll be honest with you, I get mighty angry at my family and friends who are not in recovery who go on and on about how bad I was in my past, then tell me how cool it was that I got clean-while they are snorting a line of coke or dragging on a big joint. I moved away from them ages ago, but more and I more for my recovery I need to stop coming around here for holidays like Thanksgiving, or Easter which is coming up. Yeah I get angry, and I pray, but when they wonder why I still have to go to 'those NA meetings' it's the straw that breaks the camels back. Thing I realized the other day was, yeah-I do have the courage to change me...and simply not go back around them anymore. My clean time means far too much to me to ruin it staying angry about a situation I can change by taking action to protect myself. People, places and things."-Terrance F., Nashville, TN

Hard Reminders

Neal Boulton — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 13:20:09 EDT

You're getting so tired of hearing the same things in NA meetings that you've stopped going. Now what?

Q: I used to go to NA meetings daily. I had a sponsor who I called a few times a week and saw for coffee. It's kept me clean for six years, but I'm sick of hearing the same old things over and over, and the gossiping. I've stopped going, but my anxiety level has increased since I left. How do I plug back in?

A: It's happened to all of us: days when you roll your eyes after hearing the same phrases, and reminders, or drugalogs-or gratitude meetings. Many of us have taken breaks from the meetings only to find that after too long away we start to feel isolated and on shaky ground again.

Richard E., from Achorage, AK told HeroinLife, "I sort of felt more mature and settled and stable after ten years in NA. I felt confident that I didn't need the meetings and the coffee gatherings and the service work as much anymore-until I stopped all of it and found myself kind of secretly entertaining whether or not I might be able to handle some weed, or a few drinks, or a hit or two if I just kept it chil this time. It wasn't a giant obsession, but these thoughts began to nag me. My pride made me not want to call anyone from the meetings because this was what everyone had warned me about. My problems compounded the longer I began harbouring this secret. After a month of this I cracked-and picked up the phone and simply called my old sponsor. He didn't judge me or tell me, 'I told you so.' He and I, and NA, just picked up where I had left off. The weird thing is-the longer I stay away from the sometimes annoying daily reminders, the faster I forget that I am an addict. Sometimes I think addiction is a disease of the memory, because it didn't take me all that long to conveniently not remember staring at the ceiling of an ambulance on my way to the psycheward ER after yet another rock bottom moment of losing it on dope in a public place or at home such that the paramedics were called to haul me off."

Katherine W., of St. Cloud, MN said, "I don't know if it's my fried brain cells or just the nature of addiction, but when I get the urge to use after missing a few weeks of NA I literally have to force myself to remember the detoxes and rehabs and middle of the night prayers to a god I only believed in when I was desperate, scared, sick, or broke. The cool part were all the folks who came up to me after I returned to NA who thanked me for sharing that kind of honesty. By the end of my first meeting back, I felt immediately back on the beam."

Jerry A., from Tampa, FL told us, "I went to meetings for awhile, then I stopped and picked up again. I wanted to give it one last shot. I lasted longer than I thought I would. I was functioning. I was so humiliated a year into it though-I was using again just avoid being sick. I'd wait for dealers, find myself in really dangerous neighborhoods, low on cash, and lying to everyone again. These days when I get annoyed at the meetings and the service work I choose to do, I just compare that annoyance to the annoyance of being strung out."

Key Tip: It's easy to forget we are powerless. A clean network can help keep it green, keep you growing, and keep you clean.-N.B.

More Than Just Myself

Neal Boulton — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:37:47 EDT

“

I was mighty angry when my family did an intervention on me about my dope addiction. Furious. Seething. I felt betrayed. Then after I got clean it hit me: I'd betrayed them many times over. Brutally. How could I have been so blind not to see how much I was hurting everyone around me. Even putting them in danger. Being clean has been an eye-opening journey so far, helping me to see more than just myself."

”David B., Buffalo, NY

Fire Hazard

Neal Boulton — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:29:00 EDT

Double Living. They tell me I'm as sick as my secrets, yet suggest I maintain annonymity about myself out there. I know that works for many in the recovery rooms and I respect that-but it doesn't work for me.

Secrets are my sex-I get off on them. Used to be, the moment you were out of view, I'd do things you'd never imagine and never find out about because I'm that good at hiding the clues. I'd be able to look you in the eyes as one person, that person you love and trust, while I was planning the things I was going to do when you're weren't around as someone else completely.

I never had to lie much, because I kept my double life surgically separate from yours.

I'm not only talking about heroin here. I'm talking about other relationships, random sex, other drugs while I'm supposedly clean, and financial moves that normally we'd consult about. I have lost many friendships and been passed over by many jobs and promotions. But I've only been able to stop my duplicitous behavior by owning my truth: I'm a dope addict-and the fire of my addiction always catches when I harbor secrets.-Larry H., Floyd, IN

90

Neal Boulton — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:27:00 EDT

Independence? I'm speechless when I think about it: 90 days clean. For us, once we started, we never stopped. In my case, the moment I woke up and even thought about H was the moment I felt solace. True comfort came as it flooded our veins. There was nothing like it at first. We were lucky. Or were we? We had the independence and money to do as we pleased with no one ever questioning our lifestyle. Hell, everyone around us partied: they drank, they used coke, and they smoked weed, among other things, all of the time. The fact that my wife and I shot dope and always seemed a little loaded was no big deal, and even part of what it took to be friends with the people we used to hang with. It wasn't long though before our bodies and our minds and our appearance started to show the wear and tear of smack. We used to think we were free. "Independent." Two rocks that stood, invincible-and proudly alone. We were, before heroin.-Douglass K., & Lisa R., Santa Fe., NM

Daily Reminders

Neal Boulton — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:27:32 EST

“

I relapsed recently. I can't say it was all horrible because it wasn't. But what was horrible was this gut ache of utter remorse I had after. That and, as I always forgets happens, the obsession for more is still haunting me like some whacked kind of ghost. I have come to believe that my addiction is more like a disease of my memory: I never remember how dangerous this all is, or the sickness, or the depression and obsession that follows me after I use. The old junkies who continue to help me are right. Daily reminders-like don't pick up and you won't get high-are key for me.

”Rolley F., Denver, CO

Addicted To Love?

Neal Boulton — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:22:16 EST

What's Your Love Of Choice? The Greek playwright Sophocles wrote, "One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love."

Now as we all know, for some of us that word could as easily be heroin. But 2,500 years ago, Sophocles wasn't thinking H, he was thinking hearts when he wrote that. Today, scientists have proved Sophocles right, showing us just how being in love can indeed reduce pain. How? The answer to that question may go a long way into addressing why out of 3,213 HeroinLife readers we polled, 19% of you told us you quit H only to become addicted to relationships and sex.

The simple fact is: love may tap into some of our oldest brain pathways, making us feel so euphoric that we ignore pain, according to a recent study at Stanford University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There, they found that students in love felt less pain while staring at a picture of their significant other. In addition, love acted through the same brain pathway as several strong painkillers and addictive drugs-yep, such as heroin and cocaine.

Studying the effect of love, and heroin, on these pathways might not only tell us more about love itself but could also help us find ways to treat both pain-and the replacement of one addiction for another in our recovery. The suggestion we gleened from all of this? If you've become powerless over it, pay attention to it and act on getting help. You may love yourself for it later.-C.R.

By The Numbers

Neal Boulton — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:21:27 EST

How many times is it going to take? In a poll of 1,923 HeroinLife readers, 68% of you told us that a herion addict you knew (either family, friend, or otherwise) died after his or her first relapse. "My husband and I were clean 2 years," Susan E. of Orlando, FL, told us. "He relapsed in the morning and was pronounced dead by lunch time."-M.V