Five Years Later

If you wound up at this blog, it is probably because you are hooked on Oxy, or one of its little brothers, like Percocet, Vicodin, or even it's creepy old uncle: Heroin. What bothers me is that the title of this post, "Five Years Later" might scare you away. The reason I say this is because, if you've found this blog, you're probably here because you want to figure out how to live Five Hours Later, not Five Years Later. You know what I mean. You want to know how to live five hours after your last hit. I do not spend any time promoting this blog, so it's really hard to find, and it's totally non-commercial. If you managed to find this information, you worked hard for it, and it's probably because right now you're sweating and shaking, or you've just run out of cash, or worse, your connection has evaporated. Maybe everything has fallen apart. You've lost your job, family, friends, or worse, your self respect. I don't know where you are at, but you should know this: every one of the 67,000 individual people who have managed to stumble upon this blog in the past ten years has been in whatever situation you are in right now.

All I ask is that you please stay with me for a moment.

If you can just hang on for a second, I promise that you won't get a lecture about magical powers, treatment centers, crazy detoxification schemes, or religion. If you'll just stay with me for a few more minutes, I promise that you won't be judged or condemned, and you won't be coerced or scammed. If you will hang in there for just a little while, you will read a lot of stories that will probably sound familiar to you, and I think it will help you to feel better. That's all I care about. I don't make a single penny by writing these things. I feel good when I know that I can honestly tell other people about what it's like to live in OxyHell and what it is like to get away from it for a while. Down at the bottom of the page, you'll find links going back to 2004 when I also was rolling around in my own vomit and sweat, shivering, crying, and wishing I was dead.

I hate to disappoint you, but as you go forward in time through the links, you won't find that I experienced some sort of miraculous recovery. I'm sorry. Life just isn't that way. But I think you will find that things can get better than they are right now. It's going to take some time. I wish there was some kind of a pill or magic power that could have made the whole OxyHell problem go away, but the only "pill" that could have done that would be, of course, Oxy itself. You'll be ok. It won't be easy, but one thing is for certain: you're going to wind up somewhere. Hopefully, it will be a better place.

I won't bullshit you, but looking back at my own experience, I think you need to know that there are some people in this world who will, who recognize that you are vulnerable right now, and would love to take advantage of you.  They might be preachers, your connections, your friends, your family, your shrink, your doctor, other "addicts," the courts, the cops...I don't know your story. I just know that I've been there and that most of those people haven't got a clue about what it's really like. Everybody who knew about my problem thought they knew the solution. Frankly, OxyHell is personal for each of us, for me, for you, and only those of us who have been through it. The rest of them have no idea. What you need right now is real empathy, not sympathy, and there's a very big difference between the two. 

Nobody who knows you can possibly understand what you are going through, unless they've been hooked too. Even then, we each approach the problem in our own way, and unlike most online material about addiction, I'm not going to tell you what you need to do or should do. I'll tell you my story, but realize, my story is no big deal, and I don't have any secrets or remedies for you. You are in a bad spot. You've got to write your own story. I just want people who are suffering to hear an honest account about OxyHell from another person who has been in the exact same spot you are in right now.

Are you still with me?

If you view some of my posts from 2004, and later, you'll hear a lot of familiar things. I hope that simply reading about someone else who is in the same place as you are right now will help you realize that you aren't the first person in the world to be going through this. You've got to be strong. What I mean by that is that only you can find your way out of this. There isn't a medication, a shrink, a rehab, a program, a kind of science, or voodoo that is going to make it go away. There's no magic. If there was some magic power that could give you what you need, that magic power would give you an unlimited supply of Oxy just as easily as it could make you not lust after it anymore. Just keep yourself alive, and you'll at least wind up somewhere, hopefully on the other side of this evil. Keep yourself alive, above all. If you can do that, you just might be able to carve out a life for yourself somehow.

I don't post to this blog very often. My illicit love affair with Oxy is not something I want the whole world to know about. I've done my best to hide it away. People do all kinds of weird shit in their personal lives. If they find out you were a junkie, they'll discriminate against you ("once an addict, always an addict") and then run off to their homes to do the whacked things they repeatedly do behind closed doors that no one will ever find out about. My last post was a year and four months ago. I titled it "Four Years Later" because it had been so long since I posted, not because I had been clean that long. When I last posted to this blog, I had been clean a total of one year and ten months. If you have chance to read it, you'll know that keeping track of how long you've been clean, whether it is 96 hours (a horrible place to be), 96 days, or 9.6 years,doesn't matter. The quality of my life, or your life, isn't measured in the number of hours, days, or years that we haven't been high. It's measured in something else, and it is that "something" that you need to find.

What matters is what we do with our lives. I could go get high right now, but I probably won't. As of today, it has been three years and two months since I last got high on opiates. Like the last time I wrote about this, I actually had to sit and calculate the years and months on my fingers. I really could go get high right now. I'd love it. Seriously. I could. I think I've made my point about that. However, I have to tell you that life changes. If you keep yourself alive, and if you manage it, you too could rack up days and months on a calendar, but Oxy will always be out there. She's waiting for you. You need to find a life that you want to live, that you really want, and she won't matter anymore.

I rarely think about Oxy these days. Of course, it pops into my mind every now and then. I'm glad I don't know anyone who has it or sells it. That would make it difficult, I think. However, the reason I don't know anyone like that isn't because I have worked really hard to stay away from those folks. That has nothing to do with it. My life is simply different right now. That's not because I've spent every day thinking about ways to avoid Oxy. In fact, I live without Oxy right now because I simply chose to live a different life, to take a different path, to be what I really wanted to be. I didn't spend each day of the past three years and two months slaying the Oxycontin dragon. I spent the last three years and two months living the kind of life I have chosen to live, and it just so happens that Oxycontin isn't something that could be a part of that life. For the kind of life I am living right now (and no, I won't tell you about it), there's just no place for Oxy. I might also add, that my reasons for doing Oxy in the first place have kind of evaporated. I'm living a different life right now. Maybe I just got lucky. I don't know.

I hope the same thing happens for you. But don't get me wrong. I don't want to infer that getting out of OxyHell is as easy as just deciding that you want to live a different kind of life. I know it's hard. I went through it also. But I think you can do it too, if you just keep yourself alive. There are a lot of folks who would like you to think that you are powerless and that there is only one way to get through this: their way. In fact, there is only one way to get through this: your way. And while you may be powerless when it comes to Oxy, don't let anyone fool you into believing that you are powerless with regard to your life. Oxy is just a pill. Your life is something much greater, that only you can control and direct. You do have power. You might not be powerful right now, but the next time someone tells you that you are powerless, remember that only you can keep yourself alive. Because you are the only one who can do that, you are the master of your life. You, and only you, are the one who can decide your fate.

Right now you're getting the shit beat out of you. Don't give up. Realize you aren't alone. Accept that there isn't just one route out of OxyHell; there are many. Have compassion for yourself. Think about who you want to be. Accept that you must start over; you can't go back. You will never be who you used to be. You can only be who you allow yourself to become.

Lastly, it will always be there. Even if you never touch opiates again, they will always be a part of your life, your history. There probably won't be a magical moment when the sun shines down from the heavens upon you and it will be all over, like when a fever breaks. There probably will come a time when you are able to live a different life, one that suits you, doesn't destroy you, and gives you a sense of fulfillment.

Until then, just keep yourself alive, and you might get there.