Desperation

As addicts, we unfortunately know desperation all too well. In the beginning of this article, I ask you to meditate on the role desperation may have played in your addiction or someone you know.

Desperation – reflect on the role desperation plays in opiate addiction.

How being in a state of desperation changes mentality and priorities of people?

If desperation were absent, what would be different?

During my own struggles with opiate addiction, I had a profound realization. And after having this realization, I began to see it in regards to others struggling with addiction. I began to notice differences in addicts and the nature of their addictions. I asked myself why some people can sustain their addiction for years without any external pressures to quit or any kind of real turmoil that may have otherwise put an end, or at least caused notable strife, in the continuance of the addictive behavior, while at the same time I knew people that seemed to barely get their fix every day and were constantly dealing with difficulties others were not. I realized that there is a direct correlation between the amount of desperation in one’s life on drugs and how ‘successful’ or sustainable their addiction will be.

When a person becomes addicted to heroin, there is a real need to keep such things a secret. By keeping one’s addiction a secret, they have less opposition to continuing their behavior. But when the secret starts to bleed out, and people start questioning and asserting that something is not right, the opposition to their addiction becomes greater. Being addicted to a drug is hard enough, let alone when there are people actively working against it from happening. This is why many addicts gradually become isolated and rarely socialize with other people, unless such people are part of their world of addiction.

Now, desperation is something addicts face when little to no chance of their fix being obtained is the perceived reality. When physical withdrawals begin creeping in, desperation creeps in with it. The further along into suffering, the more desperate the addict gets. Addicts that have reliable dealers, that still have transportation, that still have those around them fooled, that still have income, etc. don’t fall into the situation of desperation as often, if ever at all, as addicts without such conveniences.

Typically, the longer an individual has been addicted, the more likely they are to have lost their vehicle(s) and driver’s license, the more likely they have exhausted all routes of obtaining money if they have lost their job, and certainly are no longer trusted by anybody that knows them. This creates a serious strain on that addicts otherwise unhindered drug use. When they have more and more obstacles in-between themselves and the drugs, there is immense opportunity for desperation to set in.

With the agony and suffering addicts face from withdrawal, and the sudden sensitivity to their destroyed and disgusting surroundings due to the drug’s absence and therefore not being able to cloud their mind from such things, there is no choice for them other than obtaining the drug to ignore and escape- NO MATTER WHAT. Desperate plans make total sense in a low life. A ‘normal person’ does not consider robbing the bank up the street, because they don’t have to. The desperate addict contemplates robbing the bank up the street because they cannot perceive any other solution to their immediate problems. Upon having to deal with their horrible life, suddenly the addict is OK with stealing a car to go get the drug, stealing money or possessions to sell or trade to get the drug, or even commit more serious crimes. Dealing with the negativity derived from such criminal activities (perhaps regret or other emotional responses) doesn’t matter or compare to the state of desperate suffering they are currently experiencing, as well as the fact that upon obtaining the drug, such negative reactions their behavior are subdued from manifesting by the euphoric high of the drug.

Heroin is so powerful a drug, that it wouldn’t matter that there are no utilities in the apartment, that four stray cats have taken refuge in your bedroom without a litter box for the last few months, or that food is something nearly forgotten about as necessary to life, because the ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS BEING HIGH/NOT BEING SICK.

The addict’s state of total need gives no chance for them to calmly and clearly assess the alternative options to their plight. This is why an addict will not consider getting help, or calling somebody they can trust to assist them into entering some form of rehabilitation. Only when they have desperately engaged in their criminal plans and failed, will they maybe consider getting help. For only after actually knowing they tried all they could and still cannot get their fix, will receiving help/rehabilitation be embraced by an addict. The only other time an addict will be open to quitting is when they no longer value the high of the drug. The negatives so far outweigh the feeling of being high, that they are ready to end the game and slavery. For many, the openness and willingness to quit only comes when they have literally exhausted every single desperate plan they could conceive, and truly have not one single option left or attemptable other than getting clean. When this moment occurs to the addict’s thought process, that the only way to make it through the near future without prison or withdrawals for days (usually weeks for hardcore or long-term users), is to finally submit to the truth of their reality and quit.

I was able to stretch my addiction out over a long and grueling ten years! Many addicts I know struggled with heroin for 2 to 5 years at most. When speaking and interacting with other addicts, I always try to understand the nature of their situations while they were addicted. Did they have to drive to get their drugs, or was it delivered to them? Did they have family members that also used, or not? Did they have daily income, or no job at all? Were they morally OK with stealing, or did stealing pose a problem for them? Did they have a girlfriend/boyfriend that used, or not? Did they have many dealers, or just one connect? Was the heroin they were purchasing of good quality, or was it not? Was their employment steady, or seasonal, or different? Were they required to take drug tests for work? Did they inject or snort the heroin?

All these things factor into the amount of and frequency of desperation. All factors in the addict’s life are potential obstacles. When there are far more things that could go wrong, there is a far higher chance of that addict being trapped in a state of desperation, and when this occurs, often times criminal behavior ensues. When an addict has little reason to ever become desperate, the more likely they will be to successfully hide their addiction longer and more successfully avoid being hindered by external forces (parents, concerned co-workers, friends, acquaintances, etc.)

When an addict has plenty of money and accessibility to the drug, they can go on about their addiction without having to expose themselves by irrational desperation.

Desperation occurring all the time with a person causes far more suspicion on behalf of all the people around that person. Addicts are constantly having to pretend. When they’re sick, people ask what’s wrong and they must lie as to the reason why. When an addict is sleeping on the couch all day while visiting the parents, or at some social function, they must lie and say they’re tired and working a lot. Such occurrences become so frequent that people begin to question what’s really going on. It’s when the addict can no longer pretend to be OK that desperation exposes the truth, whether the addict likes it or not.

As explained in the previous Here to Help entry about dissolving barriers, the most negative way in which heroin addiction and heroin addicts are viewed is attributed to this factor of desperation being present in the addict’s experience. It is when an addict is desperate that they steal, lie, cheat, and sometimes even kill. It is when addicts are desperate that they lash out at anyone stopping their fix from happening. Because the user has been in a first-person position during their gradual deterioration to the state of desperation, the user understands their reasoning for irrational behavior and decision-making. The non-user, victims, or any other person observing/interacting with addicts, does not see the real causes of the addict’s desperation. Knowing why an addict acts desperately is not a justification for accepting such behavior, but rather is key to understanding and furthermore curing the negative behaviors and aspects of addiction’s slaves.

A good analogy to imagine an addict’s desperation is this: Imagine a child is hanging over a cliffside by a rope. The parent of the child begins to panic. Now, the rope begins to fray and tear. That same parent will now become utterly desperate. Not only must they save their child, but they must do it now! This is the same exact mindset of the desperate addict seeking their solution to agony. When an addict schemes and carries out their desperate acts, they do so in the same way that parent would shove others out of the way to save their child before the rope snaps. The addict is first in a state of panic, and quickly becomes desperate when that panic isn’t subdued or taken care of by way of getting high.

So what would change for the addict and those negatively affected by them, if there were no reason for urgency to enter the mix of complete need? What if addicts could obtain their fix simply by walking to the nearest drug store? Cigarette smokers don’t act irrationally out of desperation because they simply go get more smokes. If heroin were as readily available as cigarettes, there would be little to no cause for desperation and the damaging behavior it implies.

Now a person might ask why an addict can’t simply ignore their need for a fix while they begin to undergo horrible withdrawals? I would ask the same person to stand in the center of a bonfire and say, why can’t you simply ignore your need to exit the flames? There is not simply a lack of will power in an addict being unable to endure long periods of withdrawal. Withdrawal from heroin and other powerful opiates is not something that can be conveyed to another person who has never experienced it, or even at the very least seen it in peak severity. Because of the complexity of the real, physical changes in the brain’s biology, I have prepared a separate blog on the specifics of the brain’s transformation during the course of addiction and how withdrawals and chemical dependence to the drug manifests. Heroin addiction is not simply psychologically developed, but physically developed. The need for a fix in the world of heroin addiction is far more potent than say, somebody running out of cocaine. (And I am not stating that cocaine addicts are somehow weaker individuals, but rather stating that as hard as drug addiction is, heroin addiction is at the summit of ‘addict mountain’)

Not all, but many addicts that haven’t lost their sense of wrongdoing also realize that as soon as they get well (obtain their fix), they will no longer be in immediate need, therefore no longer desperate, and can immediately go about redeeming themselves to anybody they may have injured or violated in any way. I feel like this is part of the way addicts justify their desperation. Another way an addict may justify their desperate acts may be to compare them to worse things they may have thought of, but never had to resort to, or by comparing what they had to do to worse things other people may have done in their same situation. An addict may even go so far as to go right back and apologize and offer some form of restitution for their wrongdoing after having gotten high. I had found myself in desperate circumstances many, many, many, many times, and when the withdrawal was too much, I often had to ditch morals or concerns for consequence. I had done things that prior to being addicted, I would have never thought of, but I would do it anyway, as I ‘had no choice’. And as soon as I was better, I’d do all in my power to ‘make up’ for whatever it was I may have had to do. This is still wrong, but it is easy to see how addiction causes situations that are out of the addict’s hands, and it requires such violations of others in order to prevent greater violations from manifesting.

 

Environment

This entry is about the influential power of environments. Accessibility and acceptability to drug abuse is always within particular environments set up for exactly that purpose. Just as McDonald’s is an environment for hungry people to eat without hindrance to the obtainment and consumption of food, addicts seek out or create places conducive to the obtainment and consumption of drugs with minimal obstruction. To abstain from substance abuse and similar dangerous behavior, one must become aware of the environmental characteristics of their surroundings, both internal and external. When it comes to heroin addiction in particular, there aren’t house parties or dance clubs or any other kind of casual, open-use situations for a curious drug user to stumble upon, as one would with other drugs more ‘socially acceptable’. Heroin is something with massive stigma attached to it. Heroin use is something done behind dumpsters in back alleys, in basement bathrooms with no plumbing, prisons, ghettos, concentration camps, cancer wards, battlefields, and in parked cars at the most rundown of rundown parts of town. So when it comes to heroin, the environmental dynamic is of immense importance to note.

Typically, the average person who is not drug-oriented, in the sense that they don’t use a lot of substances, experiment with drugs, or know many people addicted to drugs, would not happen upon a heroin addiction. This is something an individual seeks out. All who seek heroin intend to try it, all who try it do not intend to become hooked. And what is strange to many who have not experienced the ‘lifestyle of heroin use’, is the fact that people seek the drug knowing full well the notorious reputation. Many people who engage in heroin purchases are:

1. people who live in a rough area of town and are desensitized to the stigma because of witnessing others engaged in heroin deals/use
2. persons with parents or family that use, creating a lack of critical assessment of the risks and dangers because of the witnessed sustained use by this person using
3. people with opiate dependence, pain pill prescriptions, and so on
4. people compelled by a strong interest in the drug based on peer influence, like             when somebody you respect or look up to admits to using it and therefore removes the stigma in your mind regarding the drug (“well if he does it, and he is hygienic, smart, nice, and works everyday…it can’t be that bad…”)

My point being that heroin is ultimately conducive to creating hardcore addicts, whether the person has been addicted to something before or not. For underneath it all, there are people with a disposition to addiction and there are people without that disposition, it is merely a matter of manifesting it. “I’d better stay away, since I know I have an addictive personality…” is a phrase I have heard people say many times, and I always wondered what this meant. I never had an ‘addictive personality’, and I became a hardcore user for ten years.

As addicts, we know all too well how interested certain people would get in trying the drug upon finding out we ourselves were a user. I know that many people would want to try it based on the mysterious nature of the drug, rather than be deterred by such a reputation. They would want to see it, smell it, touch it, and eventually try it. Mystery is the most powerful lure…Therefore, it is important to remove the mystery!

Not only is the physical environment by which we live in have profound effects on our thinking and opinions, but our mental environment does as well. We must be equally concerned with our internal and external surroundings and stimulations.

Subconscious absorption of information that causes ‘secret’ influence on mind (things we absorb without specifically focusing attention to them).

-The music we listen to = influencing our ideas of what’s ‘cool’ or not

-The media we watch and hear = rating ourselves to others worse off, justify our situation

The entertainment that we enjoy can have hidden within it the influential ability to form our opinions for us, via our admiration toward characters, song lyrics, visual content, philosophies, etc. that promote/tolerate/glorify drug use.

In the books we read, movies we watch, music we listen to, radio we hear, lectures we absorb, do they give us a general sense that drug use is fine and cool? Or do these things we enjoy convey the risks and despairs linked with substance abuse?

-Does such entertainment and education promote or glorify drug use? Is the information being absorbed anti-drug use?

Of course all people have their opinions, but anybody that holds the position that drug abuse and addiction is fine and dandy, cool, or fun hasn’t suffered or experienced loss on the level every single drug addict in recovery (or those who are not alive today to share the experience of recovery) has surely faced. The bottom line and truth of the matter is: that no drug abuse is acceptable. Leisure partying or recreational experimentation all too often become daily habits. For isn’t that how every person in recovery started? Just using on Saturday nights, became only the weekends, became Mondays too for the pick up to get through work, then eventually all day every day.

Our Surroundings have profound effect on influencing thoughts and feelings, therefore our opinions.

As long as there are always examples of others with worse situations than our own, we will never see our own predicament as bad enough to quit immediately. “At least I don’t shoot up” becomes “At least I don’t have collapsed and infected veins” becomes “At least I am not homeless” becomes “At least I’m not dying of HIV” becomes “At least I only share needles with my lover” becomes “At least I have my limbs” …and this will go on until the person is clean out of worse predicaments to be in. And we all know this only happens when said person is finally in the grave. “Well at least my young corpse looks good!” Sad but true…

When I began to use drugs more and more often, I was finding myself in environments I never thought I’d be in. I became comfortable and ultimately never wanted to be outside of places that were promotional to drug experimentation, rather than suppressive to it. These environments yielded more accessibility to more drugs and were populated with others having the same agenda. I was also exposed to a lot of information and ‘drug user wisdom’ from the people who had been in such places longer than me, some for God knows how long. I always wondered how some of these ‘old school addicts’ were alive! And I learned that when they go too far down, they take uppers, when they are too far up, they take downers, and when they can’t seem to satisfy themselves, they take trips through alternate realities on psychedelics.

Where in my childhood I was around people with immense disdain toward drugs and users, I was now surrounding myself with people advocating drug abuse of the most hardcore order. These new people in my life were also far more influential to me because of their seeming kindness, compassion, understanding, and common lifestyle philosophies. I was lured deeper and deeper into this lifestyle of addiction by those with common interests in art, tattooing, creative thinking, and other similar passions and ideas to my own, where my past social circles were intellectually stagnant with 5^th grade reading levels, and conflicting ideology to my desired way of life. Nothing but alcoholism, heavy metal music, and weight lifting…ewe. (certainly not a lifestyle appealing to any potential girlfriends, lol.)

When sorting through my recollection of transformation, I began to make the profound connections between all the subconscious stimulation being absorbed and the way my life progressed through time.

The environment one spends most of their time in is the external reflection of their inner mind and vice versa. So spending time in environments conducive of recovery, abstinence to drugs, and sober living that are also populated with sober people, can do nothing but help one succeed in recovery from addiction.

Next time, Here to Help will touch on the undeniable benefits to building a spiritual understanding of oneself and a higher power as you understand it to be. As many may know from work with the NA program, developing a relationship to your personal higher power is something only you can do, and only good can come from. Whether you believe in God, or a god, or in some force of nature, maybe even your own inner spirit, having a higher force to be accountable to, reliant on, and empowered by is truly beneficial in challenging times. Although we win one day at a time, sobriety isn’t always easy, in fact can sometimes be the hardest thing to do for a day. With a higher perspective to help you through, the challenges can shrink substantially.

 

Here to Help is written by Jason Scholl and maintains no connection to and is in no way affiliated, united, funded, associated, in cahoots with, attached to, in representation of, or propagated by any federation, culmination, delegation, situation, committee, group, mob, gang, mafia, society, club, brotherhood, sisterhood, fraternity, or coven. All material hereto contained in the above Here to Help entry is entirely the product of Jason Scholl.

Mood Alteration

Have you ever been in a bad mood? A good mood? What is a mood, anyway? How can it be bad or good? Well, let’s take a trip through ‘mood alteration’. Wikipedia defines a mood as being an emotional state. Moods differ from emotions, feelings, or affects in that they are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event. Moods are typically described as having either a positive or negative valence. In other words, people usually speak of being in a good mood or a bad mood. Mood also differs from person to person based on temperament or personality traits which are even longer lasting. Nevertheless, personality traits such as optimism and neuroticism predispose certain types of moods. Long term disturbances of mood such as clinical depression and bipolar disorder are considered mood disorders. Mood is an internal, subjective state but it often can be inferred from external observations such as a person’s posture and other behaviors.

I know that while using drugs, the most peaceful and accomplished-feeling moments were right after obtaining the drug and again after ingesting the drug. Of course with heroin addiction, there are physical withdrawals effecting your mood in a very negative way. As soon as you get high, your mood does a 180 degree turn. Suffering becomes euphoric bliss, irritability becomes compassion, catatonic depression mixed with desperation becomes a dance of exuberant celebration. The incredible and immediate – no- the magical transformation that occurs the instant one injects or snorts heroin is the ultimate in mood alteration. Being addicted, you learn all about the magic of being able to control your mood via taking more dope. The same is with all opioids, although pills are slower acting (roughly 20-30 minutes on an empty stomach or 10-15 minutes after insufflating, having also breached any protective coatings). This immediate gratification is one of the most powerful dynamics of the addictive power of these drugs. This incredible ability to warp through time and space from the pits of hell to the euphoric bliss and pleasure of heaven in seconds by ingesting a powder or shot or pill makes it hard to go back to old fashioned, slow and enduring reality. Opiates have such a hold on the user’s mood at all times, whether high or withdrawing, that the drug becomes the God of mood. The mood of the user is at all times dictated by either the presence or lack of the drug.

Depression, chronic stress, bipolar disorder, etc. are considered mood disorders. It has been suggested that such disorders result from chemical imbalances in the brain’s neurotransmitters, however some research challenges this hypothesis. If one wants to cause imbalance, get hooked on heroin. The nonstop ups and downs get so intense, that stable reality does not exist for the addict. The addict wishes that just one day here and there they could just be normal. But the harsh reality of the nature of opiates is not a compassionate one. I often questioned my habitual abuse of the drug, knowing that I was digging myself deeper and deeper into a cave I could not get out of, but I’d go on tunneling deeper and deeper into the pit of despair anyway. As long as my trusty protective bubble of heroin was present to shield me from the brunt of the torture, I would survive and be ok. But what being trapped in such extremely altered moods for so long does to an individual, is the desensitization of perception to reality. And when the drug is not present to encase the user in a blinding fog of numbness, there are physical withdrawals so intense, that the mood is altered 100% in another direction. There is never a moment of simple clarity to enable the user to glimpse reality, or reason. They are submerged in altered moods, and cannot grasp any sort of concrete concept that may help them achieve a foothold to receive the urgent message the body has been screaming that you must stop and get help, but has been suppressed and buried under thick layers of deceptive euphoria, desperation, and confusion.

Heroin isn’t the only substance capable of destroying a person’s functional moods, but all drugs damage the psyche in such a way. When I wasn’t drowning in dope I was google-eyed drooling in awe-inspired entrancement from LSD, or psilocybin mushrooms. Tripping through portals to the God realms of unspeakable hypnosis. Even in the rare moments when I was content (what can only be described as content, considering the context of my existence) I was still not afforded the opportunity of natural and healthy moods by way of thought-polluting desperation and pitfalls of depression and regret from my hideous state of being. There wasn’t a mood I hadn’t altered, nor a mood I hadn’t inverted, perverted, shattered, contorted, or altogether rid myself of experiencing.

So, with our firm grasp on what mood alteration is, and how dangerous it can be, why do we do it? What is so darn intolerable about naturally stimulated moods? I just cannot understand why I was never satisfied with the way I felt. I always had to feel more, or better, or higher, or sleepier, or hornier, or tireder…well, I don’t think that’s a word, but you know what I mean. Why the constant discontent? I had abused the chemical substances so hard, that my brain was incapable of settling itself down in a single, humble state. In reflection of my addiction, I realize that yes, I was surely hooked on heroin specifically, as I never struggled with any other substance in such a tremendous way, but I was really addicted to the alteration of my mood. I was never happy unless I had a chemical in my pocket that could change my mood to a desired state of mind at the snap of a finger, at all times. Even at times when obtaining heroin was proven impossible, whether the dealers were out of town or arrested, or I had no money or credit with the dealers to front me, or had no transportation, etc. I would desperately seek out any other substance that could take the edge off. I always preferred valium or Xanax to cure my agitation and desperation, marijuana to ease my physical withdrawals and increase the potency of whatever other drugs I may have been able to get. Even things like alcohol, over the counter sleep aids, sex with the girlfriend, multiple cigarettes, or cough syrups (especially Nyquil) would become targets to my need for any kind of mood other than the sober agony of withdrawal from opiates.

The next Here to Help will be discussing just how deeply opiate addiction goes. We will talk about the differences between opiate addiction versus other substance addictions, how heroin and other powerful opiates change a person inside and out, and how we must work hard to penetrate to the depths where the root problems reside that fed our addictions in the first place. Opiates go deep, but we will go deeper!

Here to Help is written by Jason Scholl and maintains no connection to and is in no way affiliated, united, funded, associated, in cahoots with, attached to, in representation of, or propagated by any federation, culmination, delegation, situation, committee, group, mob, gang, mafia, society, club, brotherhood, sisterhood, fraternity, or coven. All material hereto contained in the above Here to Help entry is entirely the product of Jason Scholl.

Taking Responsibility

Ten years. A decade. 3,652.5 days and nights. This is the length of time I spent personally practicing drug abuse in a storm of self-inflicted suffering and isolated destruction. I do not blame another for my struggles, nor do I feel I had been pushed into the dark corner in which I spent ten years snorting heroin. My addiction to the drug first required my intentional abuse of the drug. Many addicts do not wish to admit the fact that we as individuals are solely responsible for our addiction’s origins. We may not be responsible for traumas or any of many other experiences that, in effect, had profound contribution to the manifestation of the addiction.

Embracing our responsibility for our predicament is key to overcoming it. If we, as addicts, disregard our personal responsibility in the contracting of our disease by viewing it as something inflicted upon us by our surroundings or environments, or something instigated within us by external provocation, we disregard the fundamental truth that we alone willed our ingestion of the substance with which we struggle to stop ingesting. (Except maybe in the rare case you were tied to a chair in a basement for a month and injected with heroin against your will and eventually let go to experience the horrors of addiction firsthand… something like when a vampire bites you and now you must avoid light and drink blood to continue living as a monster.) We alone got ourselves into our addiction, we alone can get ourselves out of it. Much like admitting we have a problem in the first place in order to solve said problem, we must also claim responsibility of it being our problem to solve. We must all acknowledge our own hand in whatever our current predicament may be.

This does not mean we cannot accept help from one another or receive counseling or medication to assist in our healing, but rather that underneath it all, our person, our inner conscious being, our individual judgement and conviction determines the manifested reality of our life situation. We can be subjected to all the self-help literature, counseling, psychiatry, medical treatment, etc. the world has to throw at an addict, but unless the addict is open and willing to receiving and utilizing such help, the good intentions are wasted. We can’t even begin to fix our problems if we deny the true cause. I will be the first to say that I could not have escaped and recovered from heroin with the success by which I have, let alone if at all, without the help I have received on my treacherous journey to my currently two-year abstinence from opiates. Immense compassion, love, financial charity, and good will have propped me up when I would have otherwise collapsed into relapse. As all these things were instrumental in my success, it was my initial will to quit dope and be free of its enslavement that gave driving force to beginning my journey.

I still remember my family members, desperate from concern and blue in the face from their attempts at convincing me to quit, when I was an active user. There was a time when I was so defeated and locked on to the lifestyle I had become enslaved to, that I would argue for my right to use. Not only for my right to use, but that I believed all people should be on dope. Peace through addiction. If only everyone were on dope, then it would be accepted and all would be blissfully sedated for the duration of our naturally miserable existences. This philosophy is not only dangerous and unhealthy, but immature. This idea was completely absurd. Heroin had brought my standards of living to such a low, that only heroin itself was able to restore minute fractions of my natural wellness.

I was so deeply entranced by this drug, this God of my life, that I considered non-users somehow inferior, that they had no idea about the grim realities of life’s true nature. My opinion being that those against the use of heroin just hadn’t had enough exposure to the harshest experiences in life to open them to the idea of submitting to such a substance for general uplifting and escape, for if they had, they’d understand perfectly why somebody would and could get hooked to such a notorious drug. I was a religious fanatic practicing ‘Heroinism’. Not only was I deaf and blind to the life lines being tossed at my sinking ship by those concerned of my well-being, my ideology had me fiercely defensive while advocating others get on heroin; That I was somehow in on the secret to a supreme way of life, while everyone else lived their lives like sheep. The hypocrisy of this mentality is so astounding it need not even be mentioned, but the drug had affected me to such an extent, that I was spiritually, physically, and mentally corrupted. If heroin hadn’t brought me down so far in the first place while blinding my cognitive clarity, I would have been able to realize that heroin was not solving my problems or protecting me from them, but rather was the source of them. I wasn’t gaining anything from the highs other than an ability to lucid dream, and as previously stated, I was being given back only a tiny bit of all it had taken in the first place.

In order to continue feeding this horrible reality, I had to first submit to the drug’s power of my physical condition. As time went on, I had to not only accept that I was addicted but had to embrace it. By not embracing my addiction as my focal and intended reality, my suffering increased. So to ease my immediate suffering, I had to actively subdue it through attaining more heroin. I was taking out loans I couldn’t pay, always pushing the inevitable pain farther up the road. As long as I could keep heroin in my system like a shield to the raining arrows and swinging swords of withdrawal, I would be fine. This is the aspect of the nature of addiction that led me to view my surrounding world as the enemy, and not the drug itself. I was past the fact that the drug was my reality, and was now blaming the obstacles that kept the drug from my constant ingestion and possession. It wasn’t my addiction that was a problem, it was the laws and their enforcement that made my addiction a problem. The world that failed to sympathize or understand my situation was the enemy, while heroin my only ally.

This mentality is dangerous and is cause for incredible self-deception for a user. One of the first major hurdles I had to overcome when facing my addiction with its end in mind, was this mindset of “I should be allowed to use!”, or “Why can’t I just get dope every morning and live my life?”. Since I wasn’t hurting anyone or stealing from anybody, I viewed it my right to do with my body and life what I wish. I had fallen victim to the deceptions I had so subtly instilled upon myself over the duration of my addiction. We must realize that heroin isn’t only a physical experience, but a spiritual and mental one. When on heroin, my thoughts, morals, senses, interpretations, ideas, etc. were all morphed into archetypes of service to the addiction. Everything was processed by the “Heroin Filter”, meaning all activities of my mind and body, in order to manifest, had to serve the cause of sustaining, maintaining, and obtaining more dope. Over time, less and less energy is allowed to be ‘wasted’ on anything else. If what I was thinking or doing wasn’t getting me more heroin, money for heroin, access to heroin, or alleviating sickness from lack of heroin, then it wasn’t indulged.

Look for my next entry of ‘Here to Help’ for a bit of rub on ‘mood alteration’. Was my heroin addiction only one manifestation of a broader problem? Am I actually addicted to altering my mood? What is it about simple, sober reality that causes one to want to alter it? What types of mood alteration are there? How can altering one’s mood improve reality? How can it degrade reality? Are there any forms of mood alteration that can be proven a safe practice? Is it possible to alter one’s mood without becoming addicted to it?

Tune in next time for insights and opportunities to agree, disagree, teach, learn, or just plain entertain a part of your day in a productive and thought-provoking way. ‘Here to Help’ is my aim to interact and embrace good, innocent, drug-free activity for promoting happiness and beneficial information to those ready to bail on dope addiction.

 

Here to Help is written by Jason Scholl and maintains no connection to and is in no way affiliated, united, funded, associated, in cahoots with, attached to, in representation of, or propagated by any federation, culmination, delegation, situation, committee, group, mob, gang, mafia, society, club, brotherhood, sisterhood, fraternity, or coven. All material hereto contained in the above Here to Help entry is entirely the product of Jason Scholl.

Freedom

Let freedom ring! Oh the sweet, sweet taste of it! The high price (and body count) of it! The differing perspectives on it! Ah, let us discuss glorious ‘Freedom’. The standard dictionaries of reference typically define freedom, or liberty, as the power or right to do as one wants; free will; autonomy (giving oneself one’s own laws). From the start there is fertile ground for debate on what freedom really is, and I think it has everything to do with the context with which it is being discussed, and for what purpose it is being implemented. I personally assume the position that freedom and liberty are one in the same. One takes the liberty of acting as they wish, as they have the freedom to do so. As far as whether or not our modern situation in America could be called ‘freedom’ or not is where the juice is. For with each passing generation, does it not seem like Americans are enjoying less and less freedoms?

Of course, by comparatively looking at the previous enslavements of certain peoples, we are considerably free! But when we imagination utter, pure, 100% freedom with complete anonymity and unaccountability, we are far from free. I cannot go into the world naked with guns blazing and start up a business selling some other guy’s property, and so on in any absurd manner I wish to imagine my idea of complete freedom to be (of course this is physically possible, but I wouldn’t get far doing as such). Does this mean that I am not free? That I am indeed not free to do as I wish? This is where we get to the point of this discussion: If all humans were wholly free to do absolutely as they wished, there would be an uncontrollable element of detrimental chaos. We can envision how many people would soon fall victim to those expressing their ‘freedom’ in a violent or coercive manner.

When I think of world-wide freedom, I can’t help but acknowledge the inherent impossibility of its manifestation in such a world where every individual is totally free to think, say, or do whatever they consider themselves free to think, say, or do. “I have the freedom to restrict your freedom” is a statement that comes to mind as defining my concerns. For there to be simultaneous freedom for all individuals, there must be an equalizing factor, some universal accountability that would regulate harmful or detrimental expressions of freedom. Some sort of control in place, which by definition destroys the true meaning of freedom. So, let’s squeeze this lemon, shall we!

Generally, liberty seems to be distinct from freedom in that freedom concerns itself primarily, if not exclusively, with the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; whereas liberty also takes into account the rights of all involved. As such, liberty can be thought of as freedom limited by rights, and therefore cannot be abused. The abuse of freedom is something that one might think is impossible, as they are free to abuse it if they wish. This is where the addict nestles his philosophical standpoint on using. We are free to use. We are free to ingest whatever substances we wish.

As John Locke (1632–1704) sees it, “In the state of nature, liberty consists of being free from any superior power on Earth. People are not under the will or lawmaking authority of others but have only the law of nature for their rule. In political society, liberty consists of being under no other lawmaking power except that established by consent in the commonwealth. People are free from the dominion of any will or legal restraint apart from that enacted by their own constituted lawmaking power according to the trust put in it. Thus, Locke’s freedom is not as Sir Robert Filmer defines it: “A liberty for everyone to do what he likes, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws.”

Freedom is constrained by laws in both the state of nature and political society. Freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of nature. Freedom of people under government is to be under no restraint apart from standing rules to live by that are common to everyone in the society and made by the lawmaking power established in it. Persons have a right or liberty to (1) follow their own will in all things that the law has not prohibited and (2) not be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary wills of others.

So to climb out of the deep defining dilemmas developing thus far, let’s take our healthy understanding of what freedom is and see how addicts systematically enslave themselves through embracing it.

When I was using, I was utterly determined to exercise my free will to continue my addictive behavior. Rather than understand that my addictive behavior was the problem, I viewed the obstacles to my addiction’s continuance- such as heroin being illegal- as a violation of my freedom. I took my concern off of the true problem (my abuse of substances) and placed it on anything that hindered my ability to do as I pleased. I saw the fact that heroin was illegal as a violation of my freedom to be addicted to it. If I don’t harm or steal from anybody, what’s the problem? I failed to see the bigger picture. As mentioned before, if all people were utterly free to do as they felt when they felt like it, there would inevitably be numerous violations and restricting of these certain people’s freedoms by the hands of those others embracing their freedoms. Obviously there would need to be some ultimate authority that is impossible to violate. Something in place that is a higher authority applicable to all people, and that could not be used as advantage to one over another…

So what kind of ‘law of nature’ or equalizing oversight could be administered to maintain a fair freedom for all? Well, there are already numerous such entities throughout the world with this very desire. Such things in this world could and would be able to serve such a function, but do not succeed in manifesting such a reality because of freedom itself. If all people followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, there could certainly be world peace. But there are simply too many differing interpretations. There are too many different kinds of people, places, types of religion, ways of government, etc. resulting in conflict, making it impossible to appease everyone equally. Freedom to believe and do what you wish, is essentially the freedom to prevent freedom from being achieved on a global scale of equality. Freedom across the entire world can only be manifested when it is ‘forced’ into a framework of socially sanctioned ideology, designed specifically for the unique community attempting the fair exercise of freedom throughout its population. Such is why we see freedom can be achieved, and is achieved, in some states, countries, and parts of the world, but worldwide poses a problem, as there are too many conflicting ideologies that would be forced into tolerance and interaction with each other as different populations exercise their freedoms.

We get closer to finding a solution by recognizing what prevents the successful implementation of universal freedom. Intolerance, dishonor, disrespect, and racism are all factors in the upheaval and prevention of the realization of universal freedom. Because of certain passions and beliefs, some communities are unable to tolerate, respect, honor, or embrace other passions or beliefs that may conflict with their own.

Because of my experiences through years of opiate addiction, experiences like relying on others and being the target of much judgment and criticism learned me incredible tolerance and respect. Even if I were against the actions or ideas of another, I would tolerate (and sometimes even embrace!) such expression, trusting that I would be tolerated to enjoy the same expressions of my individual freedom, regardless of what they felt about it. Just as I didn’t like people to look at me in a disgraceful light because of my faults, I didn’t judge or neglect others based on theirs. If I was completely against something, I just kept my thoughts to myself and didn’t go out of my way to embrace that which I wasn’t in alignment with; I would just go about my own agenda, while allowing others to go about theirs. Unfortunately, there are too many unavenged transgressions, too much unbalanced karma, and too much suffering based on inequality to suddenly expect all people to act as one for the cause of universal freedom. There are always going to be those people in this world (extremists) who refuse to tolerate certain things. As addicts, we sure know how little tolerance people have had toward our past choices and behavior. There will always be those who cannot simply keep their feelings to themselves, and this is why I feel ‘Freedom’ is unachievable on the worldwide scale today.

I realize peace and freedom are two separate things, but upon deep reflection, one cannot be achieved without the other. Therefore, all ways in which peace can be achieved, are ways that can lead to mutual freedom to be experienced by all. With freedom comes responsibility, accountability, and opportunistic equality, and implementing such freedom requires respect, reason, tolerance, and mutual understanding of all things, whether we may agree or not, in the name of our right to do what we ourselves want.

As recovering addicts, we are all in a unique position to educate not only one another, but the rest of the world, by applying what addiction has taught us:

– expression of compassion toward others in need

– being non-judgmental of others faults or mistakes

– as living and breathing testaments to tolerance, we have all been transformed by the transition from the extreme mental states of addiction to the peaceful and humble mental states of sobriety

In the next entry of Here to Help, we will talk about ‘responsibility’. In the world of addiction and recovery, many addicts must finally deal with the many things we have buried under long periods of time through drug use. By acknowledging our responsibility in our own addictions, we can overcome them. Though taking responsibility for our own suffering and losses is hard, it is necessary to a successful recovery.

Here to Help is written by Jason Scholl and maintains no connection to and is in no way affiliated, united, funded, associated, in cahoots with, attached to, in representation of, or propagated by any federation, culmination, delegation, situation, committee, group, mob, gang, mafia, society, club, brotherhood, sisterhood, fraternity, or coven. All material hereto contained in the above Here to Help entry is entirely the product of Jason Scholl.

Destroying The Barriers

Welcome to the first edition in a coming series of topics for discussion regarding subjects tied to drug addiction, particularly opiate addiction. With this format of information exchange, I hope to inform, educate, and learn new ways to help those directly or indirectly suffering from heroin (or other forms of) addiction. My aim, with all I do in this field of addiction and recovery, is to dissolve barriers between users and non-users. These barriers are established by ignorance and fortified with ill-informed judgment. A complete and thorough understanding of heroin addiction is the key to non-users becoming sympathetic and empathetic to the addict’s perilous situation, and the complete understanding for the user, is the key to overcoming their addiction altogether.

Closing the gaps of ignorance separating users from non-users while simultaneously benefiting those affected in the peripheral of addiction’s poisonous wrath is the intended purpose in writing these essays. With everyone involved in drug addiction and recovery working together, addiction stands no chance at growing further into the lives of people everywhere.

Recently while contemplating the content and layout of my first ‘Here to Help’ entry, I came across some thought-provoking statements made in a wonderful book by the late Terence McKenna, called “Food of the Gods: The Search for The Original Tree of Knowledge; A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution”. For those who have never heard of Terence, I highly recommend searching his name on YouTube, Wikipedia, or Google. He is a guru of psychedelia, spirituality, ethnobotanist, philosopher, as well as many other things, most notably his study of Shamanism and Shamanic practice across the third worlds and ancient forests of Earth. In chapter 13 of his book, he touches on the nature of heroin addiction, originally dubbed “the soldier’s disease”. First popularized on the battlefields in treating the horrors and ailments of fighting men, opiate narcotics quickly replaced distilled alcohol and white sugar as examples of high purity addictive compounds in the minds of the public concerning the ‘evils’ of drug addiction. Even with statistics showing alcohol kills ten times more often than heroin, it is still viewed as the depths of drug depravity. Terence explains the two main reasons for his point of view.

“One is the actual addictive power of heroin. The craving manifested by the withdrawal symptoms experienced in the absence of the opiate in the drug addict’s brain, which induces illegal or violent acts to obtain the drug is the source of heroin’s reputation that addicts will kill for their fix. Tobacco addicts might kill for their fix, too, if they had to, but instead they simply walk to the nearest convenient store to buy cigarettes.”

-If heroin were as readily available and socially acceptable as smoking cigarettes- another highly addictive mass killer via lung cancer and breathing dysfunction- there would be an incredible decline of such unsavory behavior in relation to an addict obtaining their fix.

“The second reason for the distaste with which heroin addiction is viewed is the characteristics of the intoxicated state. Immediately after his shot the heroin addict is cheerful, almost ebullient. This active response to the shot quickly gives way to the ‘nod’. This nodding out is the junkie’s goal with each shot to get into the detached state of twilight sleep in which the long reveries of the opiates can unfurl themselves. In this state, there is no pain, no regret, no distraction, and no fear. Heroin is the perfect drug for anyone who has been traumatized by historical upheaval or lack of self-esteem. It’s a drug of battlefields, concentration camps, cancer wards, prisons, and ghettos. It is the drug of the resigned and the dissolute, the surely dying and the victims unwilling or unable to fight back.”

-The states induced by the drug dissolve the sensory of whatever harsh or unwanted realities are plaguing the user.

-For the addict, being on the drug protects them, it enables or empowers them, where they otherwise were a helpless victim to circumstance.

-A user, upon becoming aware of this alternative to their otherwise painful existence accessible only through the drug, has obvious reason to completely need it from their original introduction to the high forward. From the first taste forward, the user quickly goes from wanting to needing the effects of the drug.

McKenna goes on to say, “that junk is the ideal product, the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. The heroin merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve or simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client. He pays his staff in junk.”

-The only thing separating a non-user from the active user is the fact that one has tried the drug. And the path that leads to trying the drug, is having a reason to try it. Such reasons as negative influences of emotion, feeling, thoughts, etc. that cause a need for change or escape. When the world one lives in hurts, it is no puzzle why they would use a substance that ends the hurt.

“Junk yields a basic formula of evil virus: the algebra of need. The face of ‘evil’ is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency, need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need, “Wouldn’t you?”. Yes, you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act in any other way than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite.” Terence explains.

-Because of the subjective nature of this experience of reliance on opiates, any person not in a state of total need will never be able to comprehend thoroughly opiate addiction and the user’s mentality and behavior.

-The way a diabetic might disregard others needs while in a state of shock from having low blood sugar as they desperately obtain their insulin, is the same way a heroin addict may disregard another’s needs when in withdrawal. The immediate situation of the person suffering takes priority to any surrounding dynamics. If heroin were available to addicts as insulin is available to diabetics, there would be near zero criminal or erratic activity on behalf of addicts.

-Once the threshold of total need has been breached, the physical and mental dependency for the euphoric and painless exit from their progressively deteriorating reality keeps the addict firmly hooked.

-Unique to substance abuse as a whole, is the 2-tier nature of heroin addiction. There is both a mental and physical set of triggers for using, making two categories of ‘reasons for using’. If the physical aspects of addiction are subdued and satisfied, the user may still seek further intoxication to satisfy their mental cravings, or vice versa.

-The two tiers being:

Physical = withdrawal symptoms experienced vs. blissful peace

Mental = an access to mental realms, or spirit, in which producing endlessly unraveling streamers of thought and speculation super-charge creativity vs. depressing and gritty unforgiving reality built around them by the by-products of the addiction itself.

-The dreams and visions experienced with heroin being in stark contrast to the waking and sensitive 3-D realm of sober reality.

We are thrown into being! We do not ask for it…we find ourselves ‘alive’ and living within this world with its ‘order of things’. Being directed by society, driven by needs, and required to act accordingly with the order of authority and its enforcement. We are here with no personally invested part in this creation, yet are expected to participate, to serve, and to pass on to our children this contradictory and questionable world order.

And as we progress through this existence, we discover the immense inequality, pain, suffering, and hypocrisy of all the established dynamics of this existence. The more we disagree with the setup, the more aware we become of the hollow nature of this illusion, the more apparent one realizes we’re getting screwed! “Be a good boy, go to school, go to work, marry, have kids, and pay your taxes each year…or be imprisoned, judged, cast out, disregarded, or die already!”. These childish systems of authority and hierarchal male dominance grind against the intended potential of natural, instinctual, holistic and peaceful principles of life.

In the next entry of ‘Here to Help’, I dig into the subject of ‘Freedom’. What is freedom, exactly? Are there different types of freedom? Is our country really the ‘land of the free’? How does your personal idea of ‘true’ or ‘absolute’ freedom differ from the freedom experienced by the average citizen in America today? Sometimes I feel as though we are given just enough freedom to be held accountable for our faults. Tune in next time for insights and opportunities to agree, disagree, teach, learn, or just plain entertain a part of your day in a productive and thought-provoking way. ‘Here to Help’ is my aim to interact and embrace good, innocent, drug-free activity for promoting happiness and beneficial information to those ready to bail on dope addiction.

 

Here to Help is written by Jason Scholl and maintains no connection to and is in no way affiliated, united, funded, associated, in cahoots with, attached to, in representation of, or propagated by any federation, culmination, delegation, situation, committee, group, mob, gang, mafia, society, club, brotherhood, sisterhood, fraternity, or coven. All material hereto contained in the above Here to Help entry is entirely the product of Jason Scholl.