So it's been an interesting few days. I am feeling much better after feeling ill for a few days. This has felt almost exactly the same as dope-sickness. I haven't done that for a long fucking time. Dope sickness timetable (this all came back to me a few days ago, not the dopesick, but the timetable.): Day 1, feel fine, can't sleep well that night, extremely exhausted, though. Day 2, sleep all day, wake up periodically to defecate and drink water and take Nyquil. Can't eat, not hungry, can't keep it down. Stomach starts hurting, indigestion gets painful and intense. Day 3, leg cramps set in, mind races, heart races, blood pressure rises. Leg cramps get fucking horrible. Can't sleep. Nyquil doesn't help, just makes you feel like a zombie. Diarhea persists, appetite still nonexistent. It's impossible to move, too tired to stay awake, too awake to sleep. Too hungry to eat, too fucked to move. Worst day of the whole thing, by far. By far. Depression nearly too much to handle; contemplate going into residential detox with Buprenex to ease the pain, or methadone to fuck your habit thirty times worse than it ever would be if you just give it another three days. But you give it three days because you need the sickness to prove to yourself that you deserve to live again someday. Day 4, appetite hits back like no man's business. Leg cramps still a pain, but not impossible. Aspirin helps. Sleep still difficult, but not impossible with Nyquil. Day 5, only slight indigestion persists. Sleep still difficult. Calm sets in. Feel better, awake, alive, here for the future. Not dead, yet. Resolution sets in to keep it going straight and finish with this week of shit. Either that or you start thinking it's all gravy and go get strung out again. Day 6, back to normal, sleep sort of off and on. Indigestion still a problem off and on, depending on how you deal with the appetite that has hit you. Day 7, home free! The most important thing to remember is that if you just wait it will end. It will get to that day where the sun is shining and you can finally enjoy driving across the Bay Bridge and seeing a movie and going to see a band without using a day-old needle to get a fucking lame-ass fix in the bathroom of some shitty bar.

I need to write this shit to remind myself why I want to stay sober. I remember the last time I was dopesick when I want to use now. I am going back into a rehab program on Tuesday for relapse prevention and to maybe get some counseling while I'm still stable enough to deal with some of the shit that goes on in my life. I'm really not as fucked up as this entry makes me seem, but I am dealing with issues. I was feeling like there was going to be imminent catastrophe if I didn't start this program. It's not the right one for me, not quite. It's a little too labor intensive, but it's all I can get around here, and it's better than getting all fucked up on dope and getting all fucked in the head. So I am doing what I can to keep it together. And I feel so good about the future, and about love, and about sex, and about family and about life. It's cheesy, I know, but it's true. It's been raining, and it's like that line from that movie, it washes all the shit from the streets. And it washes all the shit from my mind. And it feels good to get wet sometimes, even if it can be a drag. And I've been ill for a few days and I'm feeling great today, and I woke up next to my boyfriend and we had sex in the morning, and I got an urge to go see my family, even though I just spent two days with them. So I went and asked if my dad would take me to the driving range (because that makes him really happy.) And I did it with him, and it was great, and now I'm back in Santa Cruz and I get to see Scotty and live this shit to the fullest.

'I don't know where I'm going, but I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can, 'cause it makes me feel like I'm a man when I put a spike into my vein. When I tell you things aren't quite the same when I'm rushing on my run, and I feel like Jesus' son, and I guess that I just don't know. Heroin, will be the death of me. Heroin, it's my wife. It's my life.' ----'Heroin' by The Velvet Underground (and I'm clean and I never have to feel so helpless again you doubtful motherfuckers.'