I'm sick of this Hopping the Wagon shit, really. I can't even bear typing that out anymore and I really hate this nonsense of diaries of withdrawal. Actually when I started this blog I promised myself I would never do daily posts like that, for no other reason that it's just boring junkie addict crap. It makes me cringe! I really don't care about getting clean, not to that extent anyway.
So I'm stopping these posts and stopping thinking about how many days, hours and minutes since i last used. It only brings it closer to mind and only makes using even more attractive.
I've more interesting things to talk about than that... I'd rather tell you about the woman on the 5th floor of the apartment building across the road and how at 3am each morning we raise cigarettes to one another and blow smoke rings to the heavens. You'll learn more about life through little stories like that than crappy journals about quitting which really just repeat themselves every day. I just can't continue writing that kind of garbage.
All My Love & Thoughts Shane. X
ps: If anyone is wondering where today's earlier post went, I deleted it. It wasn't even worth the virtual space it was written on.
Another change of plan...
Hopping the Wagon: Day 5
I'm sweating. For the second time in four days heroin is coming out my body. It's too much. It's too exhausting. Heroin cannot be a halfway house. One must either do it all the time or not at all. Trying to straddle some middle road is eternal damnation. No junkie can be happy having to economise like that, it's the worst thing in the world.
My friend Katy once told her imaginary drug counsellor that the thing that would make her better was two £20 baggies a day. If the system could give her that she'd be fine. Her reasoning was correct but two bags would only have helped her for a time and then she'd have needed three. But what she was saying was that she wanted some kind of predictability, some insurance policy that allowed her to plan and regain her proper self and emotions. Living for the giro cheque and begging to maybe get a bag every two or three days was tearing her apart.
A week later, she was tracked down and bashed up by some embittered ex-lover, her face smashed open on the sink in her bedsit. I found her wandering down Uxbridge Road with glazed black eyes and a split lip. People were veering and staggering out her way. It was like she was war and famine and disease and was there for the kids. She told me that she wanted to die, that she needed a fix. I said "I'll put you in for a fix." She hugged me and cried and then she was the happiest girl in town.
Katy died the next day - heroin overdose. That's what the street corner said anyway. I didn't really mourn her, I didn't know how to mourn someone like that. I suppose you do it with a tourniquet and a spoon and an extra strong hit. I don't know. Anyway, as usual, when street corners speak they speak a load of bollocks. A year later I found Katy sitting outside a courthouse rolling a cigarette and making little sketches. She was up on heroin possession and supply charges. That's how she took what she needed from the system. And then they took it back. She got two years and I never saw her again.
All these people that pass by are history. I remember them like that, like their faces represent a certain amount of time or a season or a sky. Their words and clothes and actions define a time. We're all history, that's for sure.
Tomorrow is Day 6. Not really but for us it is. I must catch up on my emails and mop the floor. Nothing too exciting there, but once when I was mopping the floor I found a small chunk of heroin. It must have shot off from a larger rock and sat there for god knows how long. Since then I don't mind soaping the tiles... the dishes, though, forget it... there's absolutely no future in washing dishes.
X
Hopping the Wagon: Day 4
Day 4 followed in pretty much the same manner as the second half of Day 3. It's nothing serious. I have got a black-eye though. I nodded out in the bathroom and slipped and caught my eye on the corner of the little shelf which holds the shower products. I'll put up a photo tomorow.
No poetry today, so if you need a daily dose of that go here:
Chemical Addictions & Revelations
Heftman boasts that his words aren't brilliant. Heftman is a liar.
Until tomorrow (even though it's tomorrow already!), Love & Thoughts, Shane. x
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
Hopping the Wagon: Day 3
Imagine skies of pink candy floss stretching out into forever. The city is bathed in a strange warm light, which feels like some peculiar weather pattern is on its way. Over there, great industrial chimneys bellow smoke, and down there, men are hosing down the streets and sweeping cola tins and empty packets of Gauloises cigarettes into the gutter. That's what Lyon was like this morning as I sat looking out the window at the bar owner on the corner as he set out his tables for another day of business. I know the old saying, that we'll reap havoc for the beauty of a pink morning, but as of now the day has remained unspoiled by nature or desire.
I actually feel surprisingly well. I only slept three hours because I kept having these vivid nightmarish dreams, and rather than close my eyes on visions of my body dying I sat typing random words into Google and seeing what it came up with. Mostly it was just porn, then I disabled 'safe search' and it was all porn. Then I took care of the hard on that had been irritating me all day. It felt like the greatest wank of my life... certainly of the last two weeks.
It's strange, but I always masturbate when I'm ill or in pain. It's nothing to do with pleasure and pain, but more about creating a sensation greater than the one I am suffering from. It's a kind of momentary and pleasurable escape. When I'm depressed my dick is very rarely out my hand, and when I've got toothache, well, I'm just a public nuisance.
Right now I'm off to buy some methadone. As it's from the same girl I score smack from I think there's probably a 90% chance that I end the evening tying my wrist off with a tourniquet. What even more makes me think that is today while I was out shopping I mysteriously decided to check my bank balance. When I do that, there is only one reason behind it: I'm thinking of scoring. I kid myself it's not... but it is. It's like when I draw out money I don't need. I tell myself Oh, it's just to be safe... just in case there's a n unexpected problem with the card or something. Before I've even finished the transaction, my dealers phone is ringing and I'm willing her to answer. Addicts may lie to others, but it's nothing compared to the bullshit they tell themselves. I'm no different. Constantly having internal dialogues with myself convincing the junkie in me that this will happen and I can do that, and if I use it like this and save on that it'll be fine - that I can afford another 5 grams. But it's all bollocks. Once you even begin to think like that it means you cannot afford it, that something or someone else is going to suffer for your excess.
Hopping the Wagon, Day 2: 13h21
Just woke up.
Someone once lovingly referred to me as the "hunchback of eternal pain" and that's what I feel like.
Swallowed 40ml of methadone. No coffee so had heavily sugared tea. Checked my emails and letter box. No death threats or court orders.
Outside still looks like winter skies. The season is definately on the turn.
Rubbish piled up near the door and fruit flies in the bathroom. I feel like I did the first time love gave me a low blow and disappeared down the road with her things: nostalgic, sad and happy. Two futures going off in different directions, and for the better or worse, things will never be the same again.
France is not a romantic place to be - it's not even a nice place to be. People say it is, but the daily details are the same and the lonliness is the same and the people are the same only they make no sense. I'd much rather be back in some West London ghetto, watching the rain extinguish burning cars and people punching phone booths because their dole cheque never arrived. That's beauty to me. Not really, but from a safe distance it is.
The last time I heard an accordian was in London. A gypsy wedding reception that spilled over into violence once the bar tab ran dry. The bride got glassed and the men stripped down to their vests and headed over to the park for some bare knuckle bonding. Gypsy weddings always end like that, it's half their fun. Divorces are even better.
I'm getting divorced, did I tell you? My wife of three days (Mythical Darts & Broken Darts), after ten years of quiet, surprises me with an email (a divorce petition). But that's another story...
x
Hopping the Wagon: Day 1 - Why?
Kympton:
shane
Where are you going, and what is your motivation for your actions..Is someone going with you, I truly hope you succeed..But...and be honest now....do you really want to stop or do you feel you need to stop...I,d love to know
Reply:
Kympton, no, no-one is going with me... there is no-one to go with me. I'm alone here. i've no friends and the only people I know are junkies from the needle exchange or dealers. That's nothing new, even in London I wasn't one to have rooms full of friends. I prefer to be alone or with one person.
My motivation... I'm not really motivated, but the reason is writing. I've been writing a lot (away from here) these past few months. I've been scratching out ideas and getting on with a couple of books. I had planned Christmas as a deadline I could have something ready by, and 2011 set aside for publishers or agents to post my work back with "fuck off" scrawled on it.
Over the last month, getting pregressively worse, my writing has fallen with increased drug use. My schedule is falling behind and it's something I'm passionate about. If I don't tide that flow now it wilI spiral out of control and everything will turn to shit.
One of my other writings consist of a persons wait for somebody. He is waiting for the return of someone/something he once had. That is written daily and stops making any sense when posts are missed, or important events hurried over because I was stoned and missed the day. And that keeps happening. That book is three quarters finished and if i carry on with heroin at this time it will remain like that, as another work that almost materialised but burnt out.
Also, I don't think living life as an addict is any worth on it's own. It can be interesting and useful and insightful only if one's observations from within it are gotten down and out. Apart from a heroin addiction I also have an urge to pass on my observations of the world, to write the things that no-one ever wrote for me. To explain from a strange place what I saw and why I saw it. To never have my books finished, ideas down would be a tragedy. Death is nothing. Death by heroin is no more tragic than death by old age. What is tragic is if that drug use consumes you to the point that you miss your own life. that it passes you by and only when death is sucking in at the cheeks do you realize that maybe you should have lived a bit... done something else.
If that sounds like regret, it's not. It's just saying that being a junkie is as hopeless as not being a junkie and having no dreams or ambitions or wants or desires.
So, I feel I need to stop for other passions in my life. Do I want to stop? Not really, no. If I could write and create and not quit I'd do that, but it doesn't work like that for me. Sure, I can scribble the odd poem under the influence or write a small post, but to invest the time to do something a little better, no, I can't on heroin. That's not a mental can't, it's a physical thing. I'm not awake long enough and have to spend far too much time searching veins and scoring and picking up needles, etc, etc. So, for 10 years (17 if we take into account my subutex addiction) I've given my days to opiates. Apart from this blog I've never given anything back from that. 17 years to get over 17 years, that's fair. But now it's time for something else.
Oh, and I'm skint.
That's it Kympton. Figure out for yourself what is the important sentence in that lot and if it holds good tidings for a successful break. I doubt it.
Shane. x
Hopping the Wagon: Day 1, 15h55
It is a cold day. It feels like there's ice outside. The sky is bright blue but fragile. It always feels like this when junk is seeping out your body. It's as if all the evils of all the world are hanging about outside waiting to descend upon you. Wind, noises, rain, smell, light. It is all there and all intrusive, like the the unwelcome touch of an unwanted lover. Coming off heroin feels like rape.
I haven't cleaned up yet, but I did scoop all my needles and little aluminium cups into a box. Not because they tempt me, more, if I'm truthful so as the filters don't get soiled and I can reuse them if I'm ever really desperate. I tried to ignore the mess as I stumbled around but I couldn't help thinking I'd never get my deposit back on the apartment. I think in eight months I've caused so much damage as it will need to be completely renovated. I've not tried to do that, door handles and shower curtains just fall off when I touch them. Since I've been here there's been one fire, one flood, an explosion, broken door, two sparking radiators, the shower unit has ripped out the wall and the light above the hob has melted. The bathroom units are all burnt where I've left cigarettes burn down as I either struggled to find veins or stood gouched over the sink thinking of removing the needle. What was a few months ago a fresh start is now just as stale as any other end in history. The place reeks of heroin, it is everywhere. I don't think it can be cleaned up.
Physically I feel better than this morning. Methadone takes about two days to get completely in the system and to work away all the little aches and pains. Those two days are not horrendous but uncomfortable. Make no mistake about it, what I will be describing in these posts is not heroin withdrawal, it is about the transition from two drugs to one. I am stopping heroin for a moment and sticking solely to my methadone script. If this were cold turkey or proper withdrawal there would not be a post for weeks. Any addict who says they wrote under withdrawal (as it happened) I don't believe. It is a crippling condition and does not leave you the luxury or poetry to describe your own dying. Imagine laying in some war zone with your guts spilled out and the good side of your head ripped off. How ridiculous would it be to ask for a pen and piece of paper? Not even the most narcissistic person in the world could get away with that... not even an Englishman.
Hopping the Wagon: Day 1
The morning has just ticked past five. I feel like shit. Like I am going to survive my own death.
My legs hurt, and both sides of my body - from the hip bone and running up under each arm - are bruised and swollen. For the past three days, with needles so blunt you couldn't pierce an ear with them, I've been injecting in the long veins that run up along the torso. I've hit nerves, tender muscle, cartilidge and bone. I feel down and beaten and I haven't even turned the light on yet.
Except from the glow of my laptop and a muted Harry Potter film (which has been looping away in the background for two days now) the room is dark. I can just see shapes - a tap, a fan, a doorhandle. There are things on the floor, probably clothes, probably shot through with blood. In my bed there are cigarette ends and ash and tobacco. The ashtray is piled high like some weird game of Jenga. (A moth has just flown by - it'll be dead soon. The heat of summer is already on the turn.)
There is also a smell. It smells like sickness - like everything does when one is down with the flu. It seems to be coming from my fingers, my hair, my nose, my skin. Cold water seems like the worst thing in the world. I am ill. I know it, but cannot feel it. If it wasn't for the methadone I would not even be writing. Sometimes I want to die - just for ten minutes, until the world rearranges itself into a better looking shit.
Cigarettes taste like death too. I've just lit one. Now I want a coffee. A coffee would be great. But the energy used in getting that coffee would take the pleasure away of having it. I would only suffer more. Also, I'd have to turn the light on and then I'd see the mess: needles and cups and blood and half eaten things and bread in the sink and rancid bowls of cereal and me...
#
When I am better I am going to enjoy life. I'm going to go to the park and watch things and feel all the little pulls and annoyances of nature on my skin. If it's cold, good! I need it. I want to smell and breathe and get exhausted and have some natural kind of calmants. To sleep because the day was so long and the ride home so hypnotic, like that day trip I once had to Brighton, where the motorway lights sent me to sleep on the coach. I want that and the sea and the world and the stars. But more, more than anything else, at 5.44am on Tuesday 31st August 2010, I want a clean bed. Light fresh sheets, proper pillows and a soft crumpled blanket that is cold at first and then warm and then unimaginably comfortable. To wake up in a new world where all those old songs no longer exist...
Won't you help to sing
This songs of freedom-
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs....
Tomorrow I am going on a three month break from this/heroin. That's my intention, anyhow. I will document each of those days in little posts. Whether it lasts one, two or ten, who can tell??? Going by previous records and my lack of resolve, I'll give myself three days before I'm back here again. Back fearing the morning light, cursing the first metro and dreading the sound of the bin men. Those who want to suffer or laugh along, feel free to pull up a chair....
(Posts will be written instantaneously. There will be no redrafting or spelling or comma checks. All faults are mine. Shane. X)
Customs & Excise
Today I met a Goddess. She had no teeth, skin the colour of boiled and beaten fish, hepatitis A, B & C and probably HIV. She came all the way across town to rob me of 55 euros – I'm a lucky man. Normally she won't get off the toilet for less than a hundred, but today she must have been feeling extra charitable.
The Goddesses name is Sonia. That's her real name, no fucking around with her. She gives it straight. She tells you “You pay double and get half!” All I ask is that she don't dip into the 'half'. Nine times out of ten she does.
If it wasn't for Sonia I'd either be dead or sober. For the last two years, ever since David was sentenced to 4 and a half years in St. Joseph's prison, she has been supplying me in methadone and heroin. Only once has she ever let me down.
When I see Sonia, I see beauty. I'm blind to all her tricks and scams and cons. It's like I'm in love. I sit waiting for her for hours, send her desperate texts asking where she is and convince myself that she will stand me up. And then I see her. And she looks so wonderful and I suddenly feel whole again.
In france it is the custom to greet one another with a kiss on either cheek. Sonia and I don't care a fuck for customs. We do it with an old-fashioned hand shake. Sometimes we even say “hello.” Mostly though she just says “It's really small but strong!” Then she turns her back and is gone.
For the next 12 hours she is no longer a goddess, but rather a “fucking robbing junkie whore!” and someone “I'll never see again! Nah, that's it, I'm sick of that bitch... really, I'm fucking serious this time!!!” Come morning the smacks all gone and to feel only slightly shitty I swallow three times as much methadone as usual. Before I know it I am withdrawing money I don't have and paying my rent with a cheque that will bounce into orbit when the landlord tries to cash it. But so what, I've just hit the redial button and Sonia's phone is ringing. In just under an hour my Goddess will come, rob me again, and then I'll feel a whole lot better.
My fondest Wishes to All and a huge thanks to those who have sent mails and continued supporting Memoires through the rainy season. Something beautiful will surely be posted soon...
Until then, All My Thoughts, Shane. X
