girvo/gist:3144864

## gistfile1.txt
The Withdrawal

No junkie ever goes through withdrawal willingly. Oh no, we’ll do anything we can to stave off the sickness, but it’s not something that most will understand. For a Normal person, robbing your parents and cheating your friends and burning all the bridges around you for just a “high” makes no sense... But what they can’t understand is what we’re avoiding.

William S. Burroughs described it as a “thirst”, and I quite honestly can’t find a more apt description. It’s a thirst at the most basic level; your very cells and soul cry out to be quenched. It starts innocently enough: sniffles, like the beginning of a cold. That’s just the beginning. It takes a day or so for a junkie to start to feel the thirst, the hunger. But once it’s a hold of you, the agony and terror and fear that consumes your every waking thought (and most of your unwaking thoughts too) will bring even the strongest person into a place they could never imagine.

The first time I experienced it, I was 18. My best friend had a girlfriend, who’s father had severe nerve damage due to a workplace accident, or something. I never really inquired, nor cared for that matter, because what it brought us was far more interesting. Endone, chemical name Oxycodone, is a synthetic derivative of morphine that’s 2/3rds the potency of Heroin itself. I’d already dabbled in opiates for a year prior, and here was something beautiful, amazing, that fell right into my lap.

My friends and I half-heartedly joke that the Drug Gods seem to look out for us as we never seem to want for connections to the underworld. I personally think it’s more to do with keeping your eyes and ears open, talking, communicating, and above all listening. No, it’s more than listening; it’s understanding. Seeing the undercurrents of a person’s drive, seeing that they too are One Of Us, that is the key. This time however, it was pure chance, and an open ear as usual. The girlfriend asked me, “Josh, what’s Endone?” and I promptly replied “I think it’s like Codeine”.

I was both right, and utterly, beautifully wrong. Of course, oxy is chemically very similar to codeine; it’s actually more a derivative of codeine than it is morphine itself. But suddenly, we had an open-ended, overflowing, and above all free source of a drug that no 18 year old should possess, least of all in the quantities we had. It consumed me.

An oxy high isn’t that much different from any regular opiate. It starts as a warmth, a brightening of mood. It crescendos in a feeling of absolutely pure apathy. That probably doesn’t sound like fun to you, but believe me when I say that being able to spend a day literally Not Caring Anymore, that is the best kick of all.

I was working for a phone sales place at the time: a small retail kiosk in a busy shopping centre on the Gold Coast. I had received a call from my friend.

“Josh, her Dad found out. It’s over man”

“You’re kidding me? There’s nothing we can do? Fuck it, I’ll pay if I have to”

“Sorry man, it’s over this time.”

The fact that this situation caused him and her to break up didn’t even register on my conscience at the time. It’s hard to think about someone else’s problems when your own take precedence. My supply had run dry! “Oh well, no big deal, you’ve still got codeine and hell, it was a good run. You’ll find something else,” I thought. If only it was that easy.

I was in the middle of a busy shift, about 12 hours since my last and final dose. I used to snort a few lines at night, then drift off to a blissful half-sleep listening to music. Living at home restricted me to the twilight hours, unable to feed what I didn’t realise was my addiction in the daytime. It started as a cold. My nose and eyes and head were leaking everywhere. I excused myself to the bathroom to try and clean myself up. I cared about that job, god only knows why. Then, I was leaking from the other end of my body.

One of the things you always forget in the midst of an addiction are the side-effects. The easiest one to spot for opiates is constipation. it never seems so bad, you can usually go when you really need to, but when your body’s thirst for the drug becomes apparent, your body goes into overdrive. every repressed bodily function hits you at full force. here I was, at my retail job, with my undies full of liquid shit, my eyes oozing, and my body aching like the fabric of my muscles were tearing themselves apart. what a lovely sight I must have been.

But, that passed within a day. I’d been taking oxy on and off for a year at that time, a “chipper” if you will. I’d binge, then abstain, then binge, then abstain. Getting it through my friend kept me somewhat in check, luckily. But that gave me my first taste of the sickness, and i didn’t heed the warnings.

The last time was the worst. I’d been an opiate user full-time for 4 years, and heroin for 6 months of that. I’d transitioned from a kid to a kid with a needle, and nothing was going to get in my way. until, you know, something does. heroin was a very expensive habit, and I had a lot of money, labouring out near the mines. $500 would get me half an 8-ball, just under 2 grams. this would usually be gone in a few days. i was a pig, a full blown junkie.

“Nurse, I self-prescribe diacetylmorphine shots, at least 3 times daily, 5 if needed. 100mg minimum should do the trick I think”

Self-delusion is a cruel trick. I’d snuck the remains of that 8-ball up north with me, and ran out after the first day. I’d planned to taper off, knowing that I’d kept the sickness at bay up til then by surviving off my grandmothers stolen morphine and codeine tablets. what I didn’t realise is how bad this was going to get.

Going through withdrawals seems to have a lot in common with getting old. The body begins to shut down. Hearing things clearly, thinking reponses becomes an effort in futility. the stench of Death surrounds you... but this isn’t actual death. this is death of the self, your soul. It grips you tighter and tighter until you’re willing to go to the ends of the Earth for One Last Shot.

That’s the worst part about it. One shot will “cure” you, at least until it wears off. My last shots had run out, and I was concreting curbing. my whole body ached from the very core; my bones felt like jelly and my head was on fire. i was leaking out of every orifice, and the stomach cramps were always there to double me over. but the worst part is the cold. you will get no sleep during withdrawal, oh no. its a cruel joke visited upon junkies by the Drug Gods for their own sick amusement, i think. sleep is the only thing you wish for, to make it hurt less, but sleep isn’t something you will get. cold sweats, no matter how warm you are will dance a tango with the stomach cramps, a sick dance to keep you in as much agony as possible.

it’s the third day that’s the worst. withdrawals take between 4-8 days to clear. one day, a junkie could do. two, well, it’d be possible. but four? six? eight? no human can withstand that without thinking dark thoughts, entertaining wild ideas about breaking into a nursing home and holding the nearly dead to ransom for their painkillers. that’s what turns you from a human being into a monster.

I was lucky, in that I was in the middle of nowhere, no chemist nor dealer nor hospital nor nursing home in sight. so, I had to ride it out. I was so sick, I had a day off work to writhe in cold terror on my bed. all that dances through your head is “one more, just one shot and this all goes away.” if only it were that easy.

Once it passes, the joke isn’t over. for a junkie, it seems your very body becomes conditioned to opiates. if you decide after going to hell and back that “hey, one shot won’t hurt,” then prepare for the consequences. within a week, you’ll be back on the horse (pun intended) again, and your body NEEDING that drug to function once more. it takes years to develop a habit, and weeks to bring it back. there’s the cruelest irony of all.
	The Withdrawal

	No junkie ever goes through withdrawal willingly. Oh no, we’ll do anything we can to stave off the sickness, but it’s not something that most will understand. For a Normal person, robbing your parents and cheating your friends and burning all the bridges around you for just a “high” makes no sense... But what they can’t understand is what we’re avoiding.

	William S. Burroughs described it as a “thirst”, and I quite honestly can’t find a more apt description. It’s a thirst at the most basic level; your very cells and soul cry out to be quenched. It starts innocently enough: sniffles, like the beginning of a cold. That’s just the beginning. It takes a day or so for a junkie to start to feel the thirst, the hunger. But once it’s a hold of you, the agony and terror and fear that consumes your every waking thought (and most of your unwaking thoughts too) will bring even the strongest person into a place they could never imagine.

	The first time I experienced it, I was 18. My best friend had a girlfriend, who’s father had severe nerve damage due to a workplace accident, or something. I never really inquired, nor cared for that matter, because what it brought us was far more interesting. Endone, chemical name Oxycodone, is a synthetic derivative of morphine that’s 2/3rds the potency of Heroin itself. I’d already dabbled in opiates for a year prior, and here was something beautiful, amazing, that fell right into my lap.

	My friends and I half-heartedly joke that the Drug Gods seem to look out for us as we never seem to want for connections to the underworld. I personally think it’s more to do with keeping your eyes and ears open, talking, communicating, and above all listening. No, it’s more than listening; it’s understanding. Seeing the undercurrents of a person’s drive, seeing that they too are One Of Us, that is the key. This time however, it was pure chance, and an open ear as usual. The girlfriend asked me, “Josh, what’s Endone?” and I promptly replied “I think it’s like Codeine”.

	I was both right, and utterly, beautifully wrong. Of course, oxy is chemically very similar to codeine; it’s actually more a derivative of codeine than it is morphine itself. But suddenly, we had an open-ended, overflowing, and above all free source of a drug that no 18 year old should possess, least of all in the quantities we had. It consumed me.

	An oxy high isn’t that much different from any regular opiate. It starts as a warmth, a brightening of mood. It crescendos in a feeling of absolutely pure apathy. That probably doesn’t sound like fun to you, but believe me when I say that being able to spend a day literally Not Caring Anymore, that is the best kick of all.

	I was working for a phone sales place at the time: a small retail kiosk in a busy shopping centre on the Gold Coast. I had received a call from my friend.

	“Josh, her Dad found out. It’s over man”

	“You’re kidding me? There’s nothing we can do? Fuck it, I’ll pay if I have to”

	“Sorry man, it’s over this time.”

	The fact that this situation caused him and her to break up didn’t even register on my conscience at the time. It’s hard to think about someone else’s problems when your own take precedence. My supply had run dry! “Oh well, no big deal, you’ve still got codeine and hell, it was a good run. You’ll find something else,” I thought. If only it was that easy.

	I was in the middle of a busy shift, about 12 hours since my last and final dose. I used to snort a few lines at night, then drift off to a blissful half-sleep listening to music. Living at home restricted me to the twilight hours, unable to feed what I didn’t realise was my addiction in the daytime. It started as a cold. My nose and eyes and head were leaking everywhere. I excused myself to the bathroom to try and clean myself up. I cared about that job, god only knows why. Then, I was leaking from the other end of my body.

	One of the things you always forget in the midst of an addiction are the side-effects. The easiest one to spot for opiates is constipation. it never seems so bad, you can usually go when you really need to, but when your body’s thirst for the drug becomes apparent, your body goes into overdrive. every repressed bodily function hits you at full force. here I was, at my retail job, with my undies full of liquid shit, my eyes oozing, and my body aching like the fabric of my muscles were tearing themselves apart. what a lovely sight I must have been.

	But, that passed within a day. I’d been taking oxy on and off for a year at that time, a “chipper” if you will. I’d binge, then abstain, then binge, then abstain. Getting it through my friend kept me somewhat in check, luckily. But that gave me my first taste of the sickness, and i didn’t heed the warnings.

	The last time was the worst. I’d been an opiate user full-time for 4 years, and heroin for 6 months of that. I’d transitioned from a kid to a kid with a needle, and nothing was going to get in my way. until, you know, something does. heroin was a very expensive habit, and I had a lot of money, labouring out near the mines. $500 would get me half an 8-ball, just under 2 grams. this would usually be gone in a few days. i was a pig, a full blown junkie.

	“Nurse, I self-prescribe diacetylmorphine shots, at least 3 times daily, 5 if needed. 100mg minimum should do the trick I think”

	Self-delusion is a cruel trick. I’d snuck the remains of that 8-ball up north with me, and ran out after the first day. I’d planned to taper off, knowing that I’d kept the sickness at bay up til then by surviving off my grandmothers stolen morphine and codeine tablets. what I didn’t realise is how bad this was going to get.

	Going through withdrawals seems to have a lot in common with getting old. The body begins to shut down. Hearing things clearly, thinking reponses becomes an effort in futility. the stench of Death surrounds you... but this isn’t actual death. this is death of the self, your soul. It grips you tighter and tighter until you’re willing to go to the ends of the Earth for One Last Shot.

	That’s the worst part about it. One shot will “cure” you, at least until it wears off. My last shots had run out, and I was concreting curbing. my whole body ached from the very core; my bones felt like jelly and my head was on fire. i was leaking out of every orifice, and the stomach cramps were always there to double me over. but the worst part is the cold. you will get no sleep during withdrawal, oh no. its a cruel joke visited upon junkies by the Drug Gods for their own sick amusement, i think. sleep is the only thing you wish for, to make it hurt less, but sleep isn’t something you will get. cold sweats, no matter how warm you are will dance a tango with the stomach cramps, a sick dance to keep you in as much agony as possible.

	it’s the third day that’s the worst. withdrawals take between 4-8 days to clear. one day, a junkie could do. two, well, it’d be possible. but four? six? eight? no human can withstand that without thinking dark thoughts, entertaining wild ideas about breaking into a nursing home and holding the nearly dead to ransom for their painkillers. that’s what turns you from a human being into a monster.

	I was lucky, in that I was in the middle of nowhere, no chemist nor dealer nor hospital nor nursing home in sight. so, I had to ride it out. I was so sick, I had a day off work to writhe in cold terror on my bed. all that dances through your head is “one more, just one shot and this all goes away.” if only it were that easy.

	Once it passes, the joke isn’t over. for a junkie, it seems your very body becomes conditioned to opiates. if you decide after going to hell and back that “hey, one shot won’t hurt,” then prepare for the consequences. within a week, you’ll be back on the horse (pun intended) again, and your body NEEDING that drug to function once more. it takes years to develop a habit, and weeks to bring it back. there’s the cruelest irony of all.