Well, it's the weekend, and Christmas is almost upon us. Normal people go out at the weekend. I used to go out at the weekend when I was a normal person, but then heroin took over my life.
You see, I couldn't even get through the first paragraph without mentioning it. I was determined that my next article would not be about smack. People may be getting bored of me talking about smack all the time. My apologies, but you'll just have to put up with it. I've tried thinking of something else to write about, I've thought long and hard on the matter, but I just can't get past the word 'SMACK' that is engraved across the creative side in fact on every side of my brain. Call it half a writer's block, if you will. If writing about smack and talking about smack is what it takes to keep me from doing smack, then you're gonna have to put up with it.
Just to put you in the picture, I was a smackhead for six years. In that time, the longest that I have ever stayed off smack is 16 days. That is it is until now, as it is 157 days (at the time of writing) since I last did smack.
157 days is not long to be clean in the world of smack addiction, but it's a start on the journey to becoming a normal person again.
There seems to be so much I haven't covered in my articles so far. Knock-on effects of smack addiction, each one is an article in itself, and I feel like I could write a book. For the purposes of this article, this 'product of a messed-up mind', I'm going to talk about how it feels to become and to stay clean.
Some years ago, in a halfhearted attempt to get myself clean, I attended a meeting of my local Narcotics Anonymous group. I had not used for 4 days at the time, in fact I was turkeying in the meeting.
To set the scene in your head, NA is like AA but for smackheads. After a brief introduction, anyone who wants to say anything, can. You just say 'I'm Joe, I'm an addict', then you thank everybody for their contribution, then you make yours.
Heroin is very popular where I come from. So I expected NA to be equally as popular. There were 8 people there, 2 of whom were students studying some form of social care. That left 6 of us. The chairperson, who was also an addict, said it was a busy night. Then you realize that NA is for ex-smackheads. Unfortunately there aren't enough ex-smackheads in this world. Getting and keeping hold of the 'ex' can be very difficult.
One of the ex-users, in his contribution told us that he'd been clean for 18 months. He talked of when he first got clean, one day he was walking through the park, when he suddenly started crying because he realised how beautiful the park was, and he never noticed when he was a user. Well, I had to stifle a laugh. The way he was going on about the daffodils, and the birds singing in the trees, I nearly creased myself. Get a life, man! He was rambling on like some fucked up junkie. Yep.
When I got clean for 16 days, as soon as I felt up to it, I went for a breath of fresh air. I went for a walk in the park.
I sat on a bench, lit a cig, and looked around the park. Suddenly, I began to notice things about life and nature that I'd never noticed before – how nice it all was. The daffodils, the birds singing in the trees. I sat in that park with tears streaming down my face. Life is beautiful.
Getting into and then getting off smack has changed my whole outlook on life. Back when I was a 'normal' person I was, I suppose, quite self-centred. I worked to earn money, get rich, have a nice car, holidays abroad, all the things you take for granted. Basically, I was out for myself.
When you get into smack, it closes off certain emotions. You don't feel love, you don't feel guilt, you don't feel any sense of right and wrong. All you care about is smack. But when you come through the other side of it those emotions come back and they come back ten times stronger. Now I care about everybody, I do what I can to help anybody, and above all I appreciate that life, just to be alive, is a beautiful thing.
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