The only certainty is uncertainty

Just saw you on the front page. I’m so sorry, honey. You know that I know exactly how you feel. And yes, it’s the lies that are the worst. How can you have any sort of relationship when the trust is just not there? I think it makes the family member of the user so bitter. Lying just comes naturally to them. He won’t be able to keep his meeting with the junkie friend if he has your

daughter though, will he? Maybe that would prevent him from going. Though I think that we both know by now that if an addict wants heroin, nothing will stop him. I feel so helpless sometimes knowing that I can’t do anything. And like your partner, Mark can go all day without anything to eat, and then he binges on sweet things. I hate that drug!!!

RYN. Heroin seems to act in different ways at different times! Sometimes Mark just lies back quietly, other times he’s rushing around tidying up. When he was still working he went to the dealer very early before work. I remember him saying that once he went to the toilet at work and smelt somebody taking heroin in the next cubicle! It’s the injecting that scares me the most. Mark smoked it for

years and said that he didn’t like injecting. I hated what it was doing to him, but smoking it is far safer. The person rarely overdoses and can’t catch diseases that way. Then suddenly, a few months ago he turned to the needle, and frankly it terrifies me. He was in hospital a few months ago with a big ulcer on his arm and it turned to septicaemia. I’ve no idea where on his body he injects now.

I think it might be a bit scary for you to leave your daughter with him while you’re away. I think it can make them forgetful and you don’t want her to see anything. Is he on methadone? Mark is on 65mls a day but it does nothing for him at all. He just carries on taking heroin, and so does everybody else I know who is on methadone!

I hate that kind of rationalization. When I was dating a compulsive cheater for five years, she’d tell me the truth, hurt me, and then say, “what, you’d rather I *lie* to you?” She thought she was doing a good thing by cheating and being honest. He’s doing the opposite rationalization, but it’s the same thing. They expect us to feel guilty for wanting them to both be honest AND be clean.As if that’s so much to ask. And it’s not. Don’t forget that. Expecting a healthy partner and co-parent is never, ever, too much to ask. And he may have convinced himself that the choice is between being an active addict who lies and an active addict who tells the truth, and you may have to accept that that’s his reality that he’ll never leave, but please don’t ever accept that that’s acceptable. It’ll be hard as hell to be a single mom to a newborn, but prepare yourself for doing that if that’s what it takes to protect yourself and yoru family. I wish I lived closer so I could help out more.

ryn: I’m really glad. i do wish I could help more, though. It’s just wrong that you’re going through this at seven months pregnant. *hug*

RYN. I believe that using methadone to come off heroin has a very low success rate. Only about 3%. Most addicts just use it to stop them going into withdrawal if they don’t have heroin for a day! I know that in America they give far bigger doses than they do here where the average dosage is only 65mls. I was told that once you get to 100mls, whatever you take after that doesn’t make any difference because 100mls is the maximum dosage that does anything! We don’t use bup. here at all. It’s subutex or methadone. Mark was on methadone a few years and he managed to come off it himself. He couldn’t come off heroin though! He went back on methadone a few months ago, but has regretted it. It ties you down completely if you have to take it every day, and he hates the way that it makes him sweat. At one point I was going to get him to take ibogaine which is illegal in America but not here. I had some sent through me, via Canada to a fave in America, and it did work for a while. It’s a scary substance though!

RYN. I believe that using methadone to come off heroin has a very low success rate. Only about 3%. Most addicts just use it to stop them going into withdrawal if they don’t have heroin for a day! I know that in America they give far bigger doses than they do here where the average dosage is only 65mls. I was told that once you get to 100mls, whatever you take after that doesn’t make any difference because 100mls is the maximum dosage that does anything! We don’t use bup. here at all. It’s subutex or methadone. Mark was on methadone a few years and he managed to come off it himself. He couldn’t come off heroin though! He went back on methadone a few months ago, but has regretted it. It ties you down completely if you have to take it every day, and he hates the way that it makes him sweat. At one point I was going to get him to take ibogaine which is illegal in America but not here. I had some sent through me, via Canada to a fave in America, and it did work for a while. It’s a scary substance though!

I’m so sorry; I wish that there was something I can say or do to make this better for you…

—

dear. i’m sorry you’re going through all this trouble again. like a fellow note said, i wish there was something i could do to make you feel better, at least give you a hug of support

Thank you for your notes. There are so many conflicting emotions. A deep sadness and pity for the addict. Frustration because they can’t come off the drug and you want to help them but you can’t. Anger at what they’re doing to themselves and you. It goes on and on…

*sigh* i’ve only had a glimpse of the world you’re in now, but even such a small exposure made me immensely unhappy. i’m sorry that things are the way they are for you. i just hope things change in him for the better soon. *hugs*

RYN. We live in a rural area, and all the dealers are just small time people who are dealing just to feed their own habit, not to make a big profit out of it. Every so often one of them goes to Manchester or to one of the ports where it gets smuggled in by the big men. I really think the police should pay more intention to the ports and where it gets in to the country. Roz works for the police andshe said that the funding wasn’t there, but if heroin wasn’t available there wouldn’t be as much crime to get it, and there wouldn’t be as much money wasted by the prison service!

I saw your note on Orange sorbets, I love your front page 🙂 I am in NZ, I lived with an addict for 10 years, it was one of the hardest times in my life, altho it was only gambling and not drugs I am surprised how similar the behaviours are.

RYN. I know exactly what you mean, but when my late mother’s engagement ring goes missing, plus my grandmother’s engagement ring, plus the pearls that I got for our 25th wedding anniversary, and I know that I’ll never see them again, I don’t care that it’s not my son that’s taking them, it’s my son on heroin, they’re still things of sentimental value that can never be returned. I can put up with

money going missing, but I get really angry when it’s personal things!

RYN. When you said about buying a weeks heroin in one day, and him taking it in one day, it reminded me of when I first found out that Mark was on heroin! Until he got methadone for which there was a seven month waiting list, I bought him a bag of heroin a day to stop the withdrawal. Sometimes he would get a weeks worth and give it to me to keep for him, only to find that he’d swapped the bags

for valerian powder which looks just like heroin and taken all that I’d bought at once. They’re so sly where heroin is concerned that it’s unbelievable! I remember trying to divide a bag of heroin into two separate bags to put one away, and he didn’t like the way I was doing it. His lip went up, and he looked as though he was snarling like a dog. It turns them into animals!

Thank you for your lovely note, but I’m no more amazing than you, or anybody else that has been thrust into a situation like this! None of us want this to happen, but when it does we just have to summon the strength and cope with the situation! I must admit that it has changed my personality though. I used to be much quieter, but fighting this evil drug has given me a self confidence that I

didn’t have before. It has also made me more bitter and suspicious of the world. Life goes on though, and we all fight for those that we love. I just didn’t think that the fight would be so rough. Thanks for reading. A chunk of my entries went missing when the hacker got into O.D., never to return, but not much that anybody could do about that!