Meth: a Ticking Timebomb Gone Viral

This Battle I Wage

When I'm on my bike, it is a form of meditation for me. Focusing on my breathing, gear selection and the hill ahead clears my mind of debris, and when I get back home becomes the best time for me to think and write creatively. This is when most blog posts are born.

In the past, I have given methamphetamines human qualities in my writing...'she' is how I refer to the drug. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing "My Love's Reach" 

Every time I try to escape her, I fail, and this is why I changed my approach this time around. The three months on and three months off plan, was me avoiding a reality that I, at that stage in my recovery, couldn't face. When I came up with the idea, it was definitely something I was contemplating in a literal sense, but only four weeks into this journey, I am slowly coming to grips with the reality of long term abstinence, or face the fact that I will die much younger than I should.

For the moment, I am using this plan as a crutch...a safety net so to speak. And once the three months is up, I hope and pray that I make the right choice...do another three months without using meth or completely accept that I can no longer use this drug to escape feelings of abandonment, sorrow and loss.

The thing with meth is, it's a great drug to help the user forget...we forget to live and we forget that every day we use, is taking weeks of our lives. We forget how to laugh and how to cry...although once the tolerance becomes outrageous and we can no longer afford or sustain the dosages needed to avoid these feelings overwhelming us, they wash over our lives like a tsunami.

At first, we cry, and then we become fearful of not having the drug...anxiety and severe withdrawals can last for days or even weeks. Then things settle, and the only remnants are nighttime bouts of prickly skin...like someone has a voodoo doll of me and is picking it with a pin, which always comes when I am trying to get to sleep.

Sleep patterns begin to go back to normal after a month. Before this though, especially during the first two weeks, twelve to fifteen hours a day of sleep is required to make up for the months of insomnia, where I recently slept for two nights in fourteen. After one particular binge, I nodded off on my bed one afternoon after not sleeping for many days, and an hour or so later awoke with complete amnesia...I had no idea who or where I was, thinking I must have been drunk at a party and had blacked out. It lasted for around a minute and was really scary stuff.

As the after-effects of taking meth begin to dissipate and the drug clears the system, there comes a flood of emotions and creativity and is almost, if not better, than taking the drug as a newbie. This is too much to control in a normal manner, and as much as it is a very joyous and happy experience, it doesn't last.

Week four is when these good emotions settle. The highs of the last two weeks wane and my moods begin to level out, only at a much lower level than if I hadn't taken the drug in the first place. Things that would cause anyone to feel down, cause me to feel like the world is ending. Sadness and frustration and anger come much too quickly and remaining sober then becomes a struggle to maintain.

Week four through to week twelve will be my test. How much I want my addiction to end, compared to how much I want the high. It is that simple. I have given this some thought and I have a few different ideas that I haven't tried before. I hope these plans can sway that decision when it comes, in my favour. But, there are no guarantees in this battle I wage, and to say otherwise would be a pure and adulterous lie.