Still, it wasn't bad and and two days is better than no days...
XXX
Hopping the Wagon, Day 3: I think this means I've relapsed
Still, it wasn't bad and and two days is better than no days...
XXX
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
18 comments :
Well I am on the vodka tonight.. only one large one but I relapsed too.
Well done on two days xx
Ps Sadly I linked you plight in my post today .. Some people just function better with a substance in their blood.. others can do it sober.. Personally I find people that use anything far more interesting xx
Jeez, I turn my back for five minutes and there's another half dozen posts...
I think you're too hard on yourself, given how much you write over all the blogs you do and contribute to as well as the non-blog books you're working on.
In fact the writing definitely does seem like an addiction - over on DC's when you started that regular thing about your mother's partners I thought 'God he's starting another strand'! Sort of like your mother had gone solo from here.
Of course this has all been done while using on and off so who knows what happens when you stop. If you could just get the daily thing done in 3 months (even doing multi post backlogs on Methadone that you could publish on H days) then try and stop then.Or maybe just concentrate on that one thing and try to get it done as soon as you can so you don't have that daily pressure.
From what you say about the needle/vein situation, just carrying on injecting isn't a long term prospect. Might as well try giving it up while you still have the option.
Whatever, you've already done a ton of amazing stuff. 2011 should be about getting off H and getting an agent to sell you.
I mean you can always go back in a year or so once you see if being a a successful author is a substitute.
Without even reading that back I know it sounds simplistic...
Shane, I fucking love that photo. Two days is better than no days. The third day was always the worst for me...that was when my veins would start screaming at me with their piercing little voices, driving me mad. That was, if I ever made it to the third day. There is always some kind of balance. I am clean, but not nessacarily sober...sometimes it is merely a balancing act.
I hate that photo.
I just read your reply to my comment a few days back, and I accept what you say about doing H now for reasons other than filling a hole in your soul - BTW I don't believe in souls/spirits either (except arse-souls), I was grappling for another word but couldnt find one (still can't - personality maybe). Also, its only too clear from your unique writing and artistic skills that you have something else to live for other than H, and a lot of H-users have nothing else, just their habit.
But I got 6-hour, 6-day, even one 6-month diary about the times I've tried kicking it - reading them back, I never learn anything which can help me next time (and my writing doesn't even have a brillian creative aspect like yours does to give it any other value). But I do try to capture these experiences in rhyme sometimes. So, after 22 years on and off (mainly on), and to show what a bad joke I am, look at this little ditty 'what I wroted' after 6 months off H when I was feeling oh so cocky and confident that I had finally done it:
"she still calls to me
from a distant shore
'I was once your love
and you were once my whore,
I am still the one
who you must adore'
- but I just smile with my eyes
and close the door.
Except the gale from the hole in my heft-filled head blew the effing door right open again a few days after that, and its back to being the Whore of Morpheus again. Oh yeah, I liked the photo. I'm sure there was a point when I started out. Maybe I made it. Maybe you can make it. Time to High
Hi Joe,
Before I reply to your comment I would like to tell you something: my creative output in this time is largely a result of things you've said, comments you've made, and the encouragement you've given. In consequence of my creative output, my heroin use (even if this post is about relapse) has still significantly decreased over the last year. So in that way your support has also had that indirect effect on my life.
When I think of that it's really strange. Strange because you've never come here pressing, pushing or praying that I kick heroin, or saying things like "just imagine how great your writing would be if you quit." You've accepted my addiction and also accepted that my creative work, and its greatness or poorness, is something apart from that. So it's weird that the one person who has never pressed for me to quit is the person who has had more of an impact on that side of my life than anyone else.
I've always felt that you see me as first and foremost a writer - everything else is circumstantial. You come here for the way I say things and that's also why I'm here. Heroin is just the theme, a subject from which I can show who and what I feel I am (a writer). When you saw that too, and said it, and then I learnt you were a published writer yourself, it took on a lot of meaning for me. When I finally read Obsessions and realised you were not just a published author, but a great one, then it meant even more. And that in turn led to me taking much more care of what I wrote and how I wrote it
One of your very first comments on DC's said something like: "it's good and in parts very poetical". So I thought, that's nice, but why isn't it poetical everywhere? It could be. That one comment made me re-read everything I wrote. I saw that it was the rush to post between days free from H that led to it being mostly just 'good', with hints of something more fantastic here and there. So from that point on I wanted to have those poetical bursts making up every other sentence. Of course, that takes much more time and thought to write like that, and finally it led to me having to sacrifice my drug addiction for my writing addiction (which suddenly seemed worthwhile.).
It's a nice history. And more than anyone else who has written or shouted up my work, it's your support that will always take pride of place. With any/each book I ever manage to get published, the Thanks page will be for You.
Ok, now I can answer your actual comment...
Probably I am a little hard on myself, but I know the other side of that and if I let it slip completely then it could be years before I get back here. I don't think that would happen, but I still like to keep an eye on it.
Actually the post thing on DC's (mother strand) is a good point of how heroin affects the writing. I had twelve or fourteen of those strands and wanted to do one everyday for a fortnight. I wanted it to become a little feature of the comments for a while and maybe even something that people would look forward to. Then heroin days slipped into the fray and suddenly the posts stopped – another thing that went unfinished or terribly interrupted. Ok, I will start those back up again, but it won't be quite the same and a lot of the impetus has gone. These things kind of snowball and once they fall can then seem pointless.
2011, you're absolutely correct. That is really my plan. I also have this feeling that having some kind of success would be the thing that stops me using for good. Everyone I know says that success would only make me worse, but I really don't feel that. I think it would keep me occupied and motivated in positive ways. I often think that heroin stands in for lack of success (not in general, but in me) that I use for to at least be recognized as “something”.
2011 is going to be a good one, for both of us.
All my thoughts, Shane. x
ps: most solutions are simple, that's what makes them so hard to find.
Ruth, what, you've relapsed already!!!
Mine was just a joke... i've passed yesterday straight as an 'S'.
XXX
BMelons,
yeah, even getting to the third day is a huge triumph. But I don't see it as any kind of a failure, I still got two days and used them well(ish), haha. X
hey Longy,
It's horrible, I agree. I wanted to show how in an addicts/alcoholics life that things can so quickly change into the obscene. From things seemingly going quite well you can open the door onto some very unsuspecting sights.
So from saying earlier "I may score???" i wanted to try and show the shock of having done that and going from straight and clear to fucked and pathetic.
I won't be making christmas cards out of that one! ;)
Take care mate, Shane. x
Heftman, your poetry is great! I've linked to your work in the latest post.
I must rush, but will reply in more detail a little later...
keep well & all my thoughts, Shane. x
Hi Shane,
Two days is better than none. When the time is right, you will quit.
How did you make that photo? Did you find it? Its not really carved into your chest is it?
Barbara,
The photo I done with a razor blade and a mirror. That's the only effect I used. I've always done that, not as self-harm but for photographs. I call them body mails. Somewhere in London there are 25 prints of different ones. A friend and I exhibited them at a church art show.
Hope you're well... I must get my arse over to yours and catch up. I will...
XXX
Shane, impressive! Have you seen the movie "Memento"? If not you MUST see it.
I will save you the time of catching up on my blog: My son is doing pretty good. He had 9 months clean and had a relapse and now has a few months clean again. I have a job I like and am doing fine, just kind of lonely.
It is a start, right? I hope that you will continue forward and stay on track.
Violent picture Shane! Is that yours by any chance? Was going thru your posts after a longtime again. You said you don't want to quit heroin? may i ask why? Do you believe it's a part of your life? Are you happy that way?
Been a long time since I visited your blog. Take care Shane. Best Wishes, Shivi.
As u know from last nights email i absolutely love ur post. I'm currently sitting here in the dark with no money except for £17 in the post office that isn't open til tuesday! Luckily I've got 170ml of methadone though that's gotta go between 2of us over 2days. I can't even pawn owt in coz the fuckin bank holiday! My few proper mates are just as skint and all my family are down south. Just wanted to say that pic of the gear made my mouth water, i sooo wished i could reach out and grab it from the screen(if only!) Even if i manage to beg, borrow or steal some money i don't know who to score off coz its all shite!
Anyway Shane hope ur well. All my love Gina
Post a Comment