This is a story about patience not being a virtue...
There used to be 3 bathrooms in my old house in Oxford. I once hid in the shower for over 3 hours, waiting to step out and give some guests a tour of the facilities. That's strange behaviour for a 9 year old boy.
I'm still teetotal, and it's been 107 days since I last had an alcoholic drink. That doesn't mean that I'm not still patiently waiting though, for something. Some imaginary finishing line, some trigger, some excuse.
I kinda screwed everything up around day 90 anyway. I took 3-FPM, Mexedrone, βk-2C-B and Flubromazolam in a massive crazy binge, trying to stave off a relapse onto MDPV (Supercrack). You can't fight fire with fire, and if you're testing your patience, your patience will eventually fail.
The problem with being very patient is that people can mistake it for self control, good behaviour. People start to think you're OK. People start to think you don't need their help, their support.
Since the advent of the Dark Web, it has been possible for a respectable middle class person who doesn't know any drug dealers to obtain absolutely anything they want, through the mail. You just have to pay your money and wait for the postman.
Waiting for the man is something that you will find lots of popular cultural references to. I once waited 3 weeks for a Quaalude (or 'lude' in common vernacular) to be delivered to me from some far-flung corner of the globe. Yes, I watched the film Wolf of Wall Street and decided that I needed to add Methaqualone to my list of drugs that I had experienced. I very patiently waited for my delivery. I waited a long time for the man. The mailman.
Given enough spare time with no mission, no project, no goal, I will eventually relapse. A relapse onto a ridiculously powerful stimulant drug will not be pretty. It will be quick and destructive. There's a good chance that it will result in death or hospitalisation.
This is how you get temporarily free. You hit it with 4 powerful benzos, to kill the psychosis and get to sleep. Then the next day you hit it with 3 powerful benzos, to slay the anxiety and restlessness. Then the next day you hit it with 2 powerful benzos, to taper off the 'downers' without having rebound insomnia and unmanageable panic attacks. Then, the next day, you take your 1 remaining benzo. You have an awful night of sleep. You have rising panic and butterflies in your tummy, but you're almost free. Then the final day you're drug free again, but you're all alone and you feel like you want to die.
Monday is the first time that I would be able to re-order something to restart the whole horrid cycle of self-destruction. Tuesday is the earliest that something could be in my nasty sweaty little palms, with me eagerly tearing the packaging apart.
It might not sound like it, but to a 'conventional' drug addict, that's an unthinkable amount of time. They're used to picking up the phone to a dealer and meeting them within hours. In fact, many addicts' lives are structured around such immediacy that they know their dealers' movements intimately, and can know within a window of 15-30 minutes when they are going to get their fix.
You might think that drug addiction is about willpower. What did I demonstrate, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, if it was not this magical 'willpower' stuff? It's not the solution to anything. I just put myself into standby mode. I just put myself into hibernation. I was just waiting.
Drug addiction is about having a life that's not worth living. "The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it is human connection".
Human connection is important.
Tags: #addiction #drugs
