Everything has changed so much, so fast.  It’s crazy.  I’m not sure where anything stands, anymore, but I’m shocked by how well I’m handling that.  And, last night, I actually started to get sick.  And, that normally would’ve been enough to thwart all my efforts to kick.  I’d clearly miscalculated my compensatory meds, and I could feel my intestines starting to spasm.  I panicked.  I started to make a phone call that I should not have made, but I caught myself and hung up.  Then, something crazy happens.  Less than a minute after I hang up, and I’m still thinking about calling back…  agonizing…  (to want something so much, while simultaneously wanting so much not to do it…)  it turns you inside out.  Just then, My Ace calls on the phone.  (Still breaking in the goofy nickname – I just wouldn’t feel right using his real name, since he’s on DT)  Totally unexpected.  And, suddenly, there was something to hang onto.  He said he’d be online soon, so, I waited around, and when he got there, we talked for a while.  It was good.  It always is.  He makes me feel so much stronger, and so much happier – at least while I’m talking to him.  But, it does carry over, to some degree.  I am a lot happier, just walking around in my day to day (not ALL the time, but there’s more of that feeling, for sure).  I knew I needed to make some new friends, but I didn’t thnk I’d find something like this, that would affect my life so much, through DT.  This friendship feels like part of that foundation I’m always blabbing about – how we all need a foundation of things that make us truly happy, so that we have something to land on when everything else falls apart.  Something to derive happiness from, even in the darkest of times… 

Like last night…  I was sick with withdrawal pains, and wanting so much to make it all get quiet and easy, again.  But, my Ace calls, and tells me we can chat very soon (he was driving – couldn’t stay on the phone), and I feel a little better.  And, when we talk on the internet, he makes me laugh, and smile, and before I know it, I’m not in that much pain anymore.  This a.m., when I saw what I did, yesterday, in terms of the miscalculation with my meds, I couldn’t believe I made it through.

If I can see this kick through…  I can’t tell you what that would mean to my life.  And, Ace is actually managing to help me get it done.  He won’t take credit, of course, but no one else has been able to help me like this, even though they were good friends, and wanted the best for me.  They could never really get through, or give me strength.  I guess, we all need different things to get through sometimes, and Ace just happens to have whatever the hell it is that I need from a friend, right now.  

There is something I’m anxious about today, other than the usual, and the obvious, but it’s a really lame and unfair train of thought, so, I’m trying really hard not to think about it.  It’s really none of my business.  Anyway… 

Talked to a guy I know at inpatient today who lost his girl to an OD a couple months ago.  They were both clean for a long time.  She went back, and OD’d that first time back out  (happens a lot – people stop, so their tolerance goes down to nothing, and whatever they end up using is just too much, and they OD).  in his grief, he went back out recently, a few times.  Not back to back, so he isn’t physically readdicted, yet, but…  he’s on track to be string soon if he doesn’t hit the breaks. fast.  I don’t want to see him throw away what he’s accomplished.  He’s a good guy.  And, once you’re back in…  it’s so hard to claw your way out, again. 

But, I’m trying. 

I want to own my life again.  Back when I started doing this, I didn’t care what happened to me.  Getting so high that I could feel no pain – it seemed like the next best thing to suicide (a desire which was being overrideen by that pesky animal instinct to survive).  So, between death and addiction, addiction didn’t seem so bad.  There wasn’t much I wanted to live for.  Now…  nothing makes sense, and everything’s in flux, but somehow…  I just feel so different.  I don’t want to die, or live this way, anymore, and breaking free (of active addiction) seems so much more possilbe than it did, before.

"And all the while there’s dogs a-barking
Streets are talking, out my window
Out the light, and the snow is flaking, hearts are breaking
Words are making a mess out of these
Thoughts I’m thinking, boats keep sinking
It’s drown or keep drinking.
And, if this darkness came from light
Then light can come from darkness, I guess
If this darkness came from light
Then light can come from darkness, I guess."

Mason Jennings, "Drinking as Religion"