Sick? Suffering? or Sick & Suffering?

Feb 09. Hey friends, I wanted to appologize for not getting on here or online at all the past few days. After having my mom be sick for almost a week I caught a nasty bug myself. Needless to say after my head building pressure like a balloon & my stomache emptying as fast as one its a few days later & I am finally aware enough to write again. Its funny how being "sick" is so similar to the being "sick" associated with addiction.

In childhood I can remember getting so sick that I could not even enjoy a cartoon. When I got sick I missed school, etc, and completely shut down socially. That status of "walking zombie" was the worst feeling in the world. A little later in my years a different kind of sickness with the same results crept into my life.

In my early addiction to substances it was more like hangovers, stric-9 attacks, and the polluted haze from pot that made me disfunctional and "sick" so to speak. Nothing too demanding on my body for more than a day or two after a long or excessive string of partying. As I progressed into more dangerous substances I can remember all of the socially debilitating symptoms settling in though. During years of abuse I experienced many call-offs from work for several days & sometimes an entire week of work. Most people did this when they caught the flu or took a vacation, but not me. Those weeks were spent in hibernation with massive amounts of drugs and cases of alcohol. There were always people around to party with so the problem never became apparent until everyone went home to sleep for school or work, and I was still up with one other person getting high.

The physical ravages on my body were like the flu bug in a sense that I needed a day or two to recover alot of times or sometimes did too much up my nose and BAM an empty stomache. After some changes backwards towards more mental and less physical drugs & drinking that simmered down for a short period of time, only to call me back for another few years of the same "sick" existance. It was apparent to me that I was not normal & I honestly thought that I would have to suffer this way while others 'grew out' of it seemingly. Then the sickness found an all new way into my life. I had suddenly become addicted to opiates. In the beginning it was low level pain killers, but on a daily basis. The days I ran out I can remember getting a 'cold' like stuffy nose and alot of muscle aches and pains. It was to a point where the mornings were impossible to start without having some pills to snort or swallow a handful. For as much acetametophine in each pill I don't know how I didn't overdose on that alone to this day. My higher power is my only explination.

A little further down the road I graduated to the "death bed" opiates. Pain patches, Syrups, Pure Pills instead of those mixed with lesser pain agents. This phase is where the real definition of 'dope sick' became a reality for me. Because of cost or supply shortages there always seemed to be at least one or more days out of the week that I had to suffer with the starting symptoms of the flu. Even sometimes when I used them, the euphoric feeling created was so intense and so close to overdose that my body would overheat and cause vomiting to keep from going into shock/dying. So a good high day I was sick, and a no high day I was sicker. Fighting a losing battle the day came where every pill, patch, and syrup was consumed and there was nothing left but a person with the "dope connection".

Crossing that line was something I told myself for a decade that I would never do, but knowing that just a little sniff of it would take away the hellish withdrawal symptoms worse than any flu.. I made the call. Its funny how they say the devil is inside that stuff, how true, because by the third time I used it I wanted to try it interveinously. It wasn't long after I got interested in it that it happened and I scored a bag of hundred needles and someone to show me how. There is no sick compared to when you do your normal 3 day supply of dope in 24 hours and cannot get more. I can't relay to you the thoughts that went through my head to get it or the foxhole prayers I made to take away the reaction. You would think the suffering was enough to make a person never do it again, but the insanity of the disease says "there is a medicine that will take this away". For so many years I lived sick, and caused myself to get sicker. And people have the nerve to say that addicts use by choice.. the choice to be sick was not presented to us.. it was too late to choose once we were already sick and nothing short of a miracle can save us. I just wanted to relate that no flu bug, nor any other condition I have ever experienced in my lifetime can be graded as equally "sick, suffering, punishing, or tormented" as the withdrawal from "death bed" opiates. From someone who has just fought a natural flu bug, to experiences every kind of drug & substance related sickness other than all out organ failure.. there IS NO comparison. I can only pray for those who suffer from any addiction or disease like alcoholism, they know not what we endure, but I write on so that they may appreciate our strength should we succeed or fall trying. Thanks for now.. Good Night. Good Morning... <3 Jimmy