The Addiction Series: Part IV

Holding it all Together

Copyright © 2002, Patrick K. Kroupa
All Rights Reserved

MindVox

MindVox

Original Publication: Heroin Times

This will be the last installment of the addiction mini-series for Heroin Times. While I could easily continue for months — or years — bringing up every possible situation or question that arises as people write in and express their opinions regarding the last piece… There really isn’t much of a point.

All I’m attempting to do with these articles is express my experience and my truth. After almost a lifetime of drug use, nearly a decade of dependence on narcotic analgesics, and a “recovery” which has pretty much gone against the advice of every single addiction treatment “expert” I have ever come in contact with; I’m coming up on three years clean.

Some of the greatest pieces of art I have at the moment, are my psych evaluations and treatment records; the very last series contain the wonderfully amusing handwritten scrawl, “Extremely Poor Prognosis” written all over them in big blocky letters. Taking a look around three years after, at who’s left… The answer is — sadly — almost nobody. I have outlasted 99% of the “clients” I originally entered “treatment” with — where I lasted only about 2 weeks before being thrown out as a negative influence — I’ve outlasted 99% of the counselors giving me useless advice, and I have outlasted most of the owners of the wonderful facilities I was being “treated” at.

This is both extremely funny and tragic. Because what happened to everybody else? The answer in many cases is: who the hell knows. People simply disappear, and living in active addiction is a very demanding career, nobody mails in postcards from the street, letting everyone else know how they’re doing.

With many of the people I know exactly what happened: nothing. They’re still bouncing in and out of rehabs in an endless revolving door, suffering the consequences of some “Mysterious Disease” they were unfortunate enough to catch; or they’re dead. Game Over, all problems solved, better luck in your next life.

Being at the receiving end of that wonderful mountain of nonsense and pseudoscience that passes for “addiction treatment” at this point in time, isn’t much fun. With some exceptions, most of the people passing out this useless advice mean well. They really do. They want to help you.

The problem is, at this moment in time, the field of addictionology is pretty much at the stage where, “okay so, see, we apply leeches until the Evil Spirits leave the patient! Except we’re using happy fun science, so we won’t call it demonic possession; instead it’s a Mysterious Disease which can go into remission!” Woo hoo!

Basically, most of it is a buncha bullshit which does more harm than good. I’m going to close the series with a summary of what DOES work, and is still working, for myself, for a variety of individuals I know who likewise fell into the, “not a hope in hell,” demographic, and have maintained despite the odds…

Detox: There are an endless variety of methodologies for getting unsprung. None of them worked for me personally, although I’ve seen many of them work for other people. Three years later, after exposure to literally hundreds of persons in “recovery,” my opinion has not changed. NOTHING which has yet been discovered even comes close to doing what ibogaine accomplishes.

If you are drug dependent, particularly to opiates or opioids; there’s ibogaine, and then there’s this mountain of junk which in some cases eases the transition, but mostly leaves YOU dealing with a staggering amount of psychobiological fallout raining down on you.

If you’re a junkie and want to cut that loose, do yourself a favor, skip steps 1 to 1001, and go directly to the finish line: ibogaine. We’re in 2002, it is no longer necessary to come up with $18,000 to $35,000 for a single dose, as was the situation a few years back. The worldwide ibogaine treatment network has grown, branched out, and is in the process of covering the entire planet. If you want it, ibogaine is available. And somewhere on planet earth, it’s available at a price you can afford.

All that being said, ibogaine will detox you. It won’t change your entire life and make it completely different. YOU have to do that part.

Out of the variety of friends I have who are holding it together, if I had to sort through all the possible things they do to maintain, and come up with common qualities they possess… It would be BELIEF and PURPOSE.

Belief that it’s possible to live without heroin. And some sort of purpose in their lives. They are human beings, some more fucked up than others, some work the steps, most do not, but they define themselves as individuals; not a summation of their symptomology.

Western models of mind are extremely good at isolating and pinpointing a near-endless series of things that are wrong with you. Unfortunately they are also almost completely useless in helping you fix any of that.

What can you learn from all this? If you keep digging in shit, you’re gonna be covered in it.

You have problems…? Welcome to the human race. There are a lotta different ways you can deal with things, other than narcotic analgesics.

But it’s extremely helpful if you can at least occasionally get out of yourself, and find something to do which gives your life some sort of meaning.

Faith, strength, and fuck ’em all.

The end.

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