Crash and Burn

I always say, if you can’t laugh at yourself when you’re crashing hard from a two week narcotics bender, then when can you?

I stopped taking my oxycodone yesterday. And, as I expected, I came down. Hard.

To my strength, I have to say, I’m now confident that I’ve trained myself to get through pretty much anything in life. I was fairly sure I had prior to yesterday, but now I’m certain. An experience like this would normally scare the shit out of me, but the trick is simply to know what to expect, and just not let yourself forget that this, like everything, will pass. That’s probably the biggest lesson I took from my psych sessions (which, I haven’t mentioned, I’ve cut back to monthly now just to check in, as I’m over my issues now), just that to survive in life you just can’t let yourself forget how trivial everything is. No matter how intense or scary or confronting or threatening any given situation is in your life, ten, five, hell even two years from now, it’ll just be a vague emotionally-detached memory or a witty story you tell. You just need to step out of yourself sometimes and look at what you’re going through analytically, and say, hell, there’s no reason to make a big deal out of this! It’s just another day and soon enough it’ll be behind you like all the others.

So, I grit my teeth, buckled my seatbelt, and let myself crash. And more importantly, I let myself laugh about it. I mean sure, I nearly walked into a video store with an open bottle of bourbon in my hand without realizing it. And sure, I knocked a stack of DVDs over, and sure, my hands were shaking when I signed the credit card slip. And I’m certain I looked like a total scabby meth-head the entire day, and I’m sure anybody who saw me said to themselves, "Eww, look at that nasty junkie. Some people really are scum!". I’ve thought it myself about people in the past. But the fact is, I know that I was just coming off painkillers that I do actually medically need to take, and I know I’m not some filthy smack junkie who couldn’t score a hit. I made the conscious choice to clean up for a little while and I can start taking them again whenever I need to or want to.

So, I might just take some… right now.

{coughs} No, I’m not that bad. Yet. I’m thinking about it though. Just like I thought about cigarettes when I quit smoking. But I won’t crack and start again until I’m ready to. I have enough strength for that.

I feel like I have the hangover from hell today. Seriously kids, don’t do drugs. Drugs are bad, mmkay? You don’t know how low you can feel until you have a great high to compare it to.

The world is very bright and loud and painful and sharp when you’re clean.