Criminals Can Have Ethics, Too

I was closing the glass sliding door in our den and making sure it was locked before my husband and I retreated to the bedroom to smoke a bowl when he said the most interesting thing to me. He said, “I don’t know why you lock everything so tight, Jeanne. We are the bad ones. We are the dangerous ones everybody locks up for.”

Until that very moment, I had never truly considered myself a criminal. Even through years and years of dealing, trafficking, buying and using drugs, being in and out of jail, and even catching Class A felonies, I had not realized how civil, law-abiding Americans view us.

That was years ago, of course. I’ve come a long way since then, too. But there are still drug dealers, traffickers, buyers and users still out there, by the millions. And I think one reason I never really saw us as bad people is because we tried so very hard to maintain ethics and morality through it all. Concerning children, anyway.

If a girl became pregnant, she was cut off from purchasing drugs, and the word was spread that if anyone sold or gave to her, they would be too. I know it didn’t solve everything for that child or even make the mother go straight, but it helped, I witnessed that.

If someone’s utilities were being cut off and they had kids in the home, we cut them down to enough to keep from withdrawing and would not sell them anything until they brought us a receipt from the power company. 

If someone hurt their family physically, they were cut off and never were dealt with again. And usually, they got a visit from someone in our circle.

I’m writing this post because there are so very many dealers who are so very corrupt, so very bad. Are they reachable? I don’t know, I doubt it. But just maybe…. they will keep ethics about them until the light shines through and they recover. Until the light of understanding comes to you, brother, sister, any of you with clout and power to do so, be good to the children. Any way you can, do good for the kids.


Signs Your Kid May Be Getting High
Rants for the Gaslit's Truth From the Stem

On a side note....
If I'm Bitchy It's Because You Trampled My Tomato Plant

A Bit of De-Motivation Can Be a Good Thing

I remember many times when I was high that I believed I was able to carry out a task better because I was high and "happy." I was a better wife, mother, sister, friend....

Though I did not get into dancing while high, I absolutely can relate to the "awesome dancers" in the de-motivational poster above.

I even washed dishes better, man, and if you had been there to watch me, you probably would have seen me pausing the dish chore 10 or 15 times to start another completely different chore that I would then stop to go back to another or even to create another different chore again entirely and forget what I even set out to do in the first place and then would see a blouse that needed mending and stop everything to pick it up and study it and when I finally CRASHED . . . . the dish chore was not even half the way complete. In strange contrast, sometimes I would spend an hour on only one plate.

Yeah, man, I was better at it all!

And the silly-stupid-uncool way those dancers look is actually the brighter picture of methamphetamine addiction. It gets so ugly that it’s beyond stupid, beyond uncool, beyond regret.

Meth?
Not even one time! Not ever!

What Was That Drug Addict THINKING?

Dorothy has a daughter who is not trusted in her home, even when accompanied by her family. "If Tiffany leaves a room, I know she is looking for something to steal so she can get drugs. If she wants to use our bathroom, I have to watch to make sure she doesn't take a detour into one of the bedrooms."

Dorothy has attempted to manage the sad relationship with her youngest daughter for many years. Her daughter is addicted to K-4's. She is an intravenous user. K-4 is the street name for the drug Dilaudid, a serious narcotic.

Like all opioids used for analgesia, hydromorphone (Dilaudid) is potentially habit-forming. It is listed in Schedule II of the United States' Controlled Substances Act of 1970, and is listed in the Single Convention On Narcotic Drugs.

If We Could See

When you get high, you’re not the only one affected.

When you get high, you’re not the only one affected.

I’ve heard so many people state “I became another person” on whatever drug that they let overtake them. I know I did. So how can using only affect you?




 

If we could literally see “getting high” like a glowing, toxic gas, we would better see it touch others, and perhaps stop using because we would never want to see that toxic though beautiful gas touch our loved ones.

Because it’s obvious we would never stop abusing substances simply for our own good.







If I was concerned about my health, I would have never started abusing drugs.

But if I literally watched it reach out and touch others . . . . and looking back, I realize, I already have, you know?

Still did I stop getting high?

At least emergency room doctors would know what’s wrong from the start.

Been Sketching?

Actually, “sketching” has nothing to do with art when it is describing a state experienced when high on crystal meth. The word can only be defined as a meth user who is perceiving his/her environment wrong. Not necessarily bad, but incorrect.


















An incorrect perception when sketching could be something like the sketching I use to go through when I got high on ice (rocked-up methamphetamine): I believed there were words on paper, perhaps indentions left there by someone's pen or pencil tip while writing messages (probably secret messages) to . . . . who knows who the mysterious writer was addressing on my sticky notes? The point is, the words were not really there.

But when I put ice in my pipe, there were words on sticky notes, the white side of chewing gum wrappers, the papered side of the foil inserts in cigarette packs, dollar bills . . . . I spent a great deal of time trying to make the words show up more clearly so that I could read them.

Ink, paint, shoe polish, cigarette ashes rubbed into the paper, pencil lead swiped softly across the dollar bill . . . .


Basically, I was sketching. If your teenager or friend or loved one happens to use this term to refer to someone’s actions, question their purpose for using the word. Hopefully they are taking up a nice hobby in the arts.

If not, they may be talking about the drug which sports only a 6% success rate in successfully quitting. Wake up, parents and educators! Talk to your kids before the local meth dealer does.

For Andrea

Drug Overdose, Friday, December 11, 2009

Methadone Maintenance: The Cure for Opiate Addiction?

Years ago, I believed that I could not give up my little pain pill habit. Lortab, Lorcet, Tylox, whatever opioid pill I could con out of a doctor or buy for about $4 a pill on the streets, I usually took no more than eight in a twenty-four hour period, and had "weaned" down to about five a day when I decided I needed to get help. That was years ago, when I truly did not understand what a drug addiction could tragically become.

Entire Article Here

"Let the Dead Bury the Dead."

So I have a business partner who is afraid to clean out a rental house with me because the previous owner, a woman in her 40's, committed suicide in the bedroom.

Okay, I understand people get the heeby-jeebies.

But when going to the house today in order to see just what needed to be done - and evidently on my own, at that - I encountered neighbors who dissected and studied the dead woman's life in an attempt to understand the incident.

Fairly normal, I suppose.

The thing is, now that she is dead, the woman is receiving a large amount of attention. Of course, the stories of her struggles and here-and-there remarkables and some downright heroic actions that these neighbors apparently will remember until the day they die their own deaths lead me to ask the obvious: why did she do it, then, when she had friends such as these?

Oh, but they only spoke in passing. Sometimes they exchanged Christmas cards by walking a few to each others' mailboxes.

Is it just that it was an interesting get-together on an otherwise dull, cold Friday, then? Why even bother to gather at her home and exchange stories of her hopeful times now?!? A little late well-intended fellowship, I'm afraid.

Because what I saw in the bedroom and indeed the entire home was extreme loneliness.

Be good to someone this weekend, people. Don't wait until it's too late to fill a few moments with something more interesting happening on the block than watching Judge Judy.

We Have Changed

Twista wonders where the love is, grandparents speak of a friendlier, more respectful day when others could depend on their neighbors, and I even remember a time when I actually knew who my neighbors were! And I knew the names of their children, and even the names of their pets!

I have yet to meet any of my neighbors where we moved a month ago, and am not sure we will meet any time soon. maybe in the spring time when everyone is out taking care of the lawn. Maybe we will speak then.

The point is, our country has changed. Yes, it has. We are not very dependant on our fellow man any longer in this new technological age. Who would be when a voice command can make a vehicle call for aid or an elderly woman can click a button on her necklace and alert  medical personnel to the fact that she has fallen and cannot get back up again?

Is this the way, then? Are we destined to be loners talking to machines who seem to wince when another human comes into view? 

What Are Withdrawals from Ice Like?

The following article is an attempt to describe a stage of addiction to those who do not get high. This is what your loved one or friend struggles with many times over.


A Look Into the Withdrawal of a Crystal Meth Addict



So, my connections hit a temporary "drought" of sorts, due to a huge bust that had been making its way into Alabama from Texas. We'd be down for about a week and a half, probably, they had said.

There was no ice to be found anywhere, and the gnawing in the pit of my stomach spelled out a fear that, for me, was every bit as frightful as the fear some people experience when faced with losing everything they own or even when first hearing that our nation is going to war.

Continue reading this article here :)

Tough Love: Helping a Friend Overcome Addiction

by Meghann Vance
Associated Content Producer
CP Page

Addictions can be extremely difficult to beat and sometimes all you can do is dish out a little tough love. Often, people don’t recognize how far they’ve sunk into addiction, how much they’ve lost control of their lives… it take’s a friend, a TRUE friend, to point it out.

Entire Article HERE

Epiphany of a Recovering Drug Addict

I did not want to be a high grandmother. Although the courts gave me added incentive to be compliant with a treatment plan, it has been solely my own choice to not use methamphetamine since August of 2007.

My granddaughter is almost six months old now, and I am certain that when she reaches the age of five years old, I will be able to say "I have been clean for five years." The extreme difference between the person I am on methamphetamine and the sober person I am today can be clearly seen. I am gainfully employed and no longer using or dealing drugs.

Entire Article Here

101 Ways to Hurt Your Loved Ones

A Day In the Life of Two Crystal Meth Addicts

Though there are many different ways to hurt your loved ones while addicted to Crystal Meth, a loving family can forgive when there is sincerity present.

However, the deteriorating nature of a long-term, chronic Crystal Meth user becomes such that true healing and closure may never come for some wounds.

A similar situation would be having just watched an extremely graphic horror movie depicting suffering (or something in which you normally would or could not watch), only to reconsider the choice all too late. Just as there were images depicted in that regretfully viewed horror movie that you may never "un-see," there are emotionally detrimental words exchanged during heated arguments or actions decided upon selfishly that you cannot "un-say, "un-hear," or "undo."

Entire Article Here

A Day in the Life of a Methamphetamine Addict

Beneath the Ice: My War with Methamphetamine Addiction

What need is there for alarm clocks when we never slept anyway? My day would usually begin around 72 hours before the morning light became noticed, and I was routinely surprised by the site of it: "My God, is it morning?" The revelation would then create cause to "burn one," yet again, as did almost any event occurring in my environment, perceived environment or actual environment, I should say.

Hell, if the phone rings, burn one; tie my shoes, burn one; returning from the store, burn one; receive bad news, burn one; receive good news, burn one! Any event of just an average day in methamphetamine addiction became a reason, an excuse, to continue using.

I believe I have heard it said before, though I am drawing a mental blank about who may have coined the adage, "You are the last thing that I thought of, and the first thing on my mind." Simply put, Methamphetamine was my god, and I was unknowingly dancing with the devil himself. Methamphetamine addiction stripped me of my very person, changed my personality to an unrecognizable degree, and created scars throughout my family and deep into my friends . . . scars that may never fully heal.

All that I am and all that I have left to give after Methamphetamine addiction is a story of completely grave disappointment, exhaustive pain, mental collapse, and a scream in my heart that will not be stifled. Hopefully, what is left of me can be used to better aid others' decisions regarding which dance requests to decline in life.

Entire Article Here

Why Don't You Get Dressed and Come Down?

Picking up pieces of myself after dropping everything for a few, and
The attestation you endlessly display leaves me with only one truth.
The dilemma I always allow me to face gives rise to obsolete excuse:
The problem's not the lack of concern, but its aroma that will confuse.

Why don't you get dressed and come down here,
With these adversaries, these rivals, these foes, these
Merciless creatures, come here to hunt, come here to wrinkle your nose?
I can't understand why I just don't want their patronizing time!

Entire Poem Here

Personal Experience at the Hannah Home In Alabama

Homeless Shelters Are Not Necessarily "Rock Bottom"



Ordinarily, women's shelters are established for a variety of reasons. For the battered and abused women and children of our society, these homes can mean a safe and secure place to live, sleep, and begin a new, productive life. For those who are displaced, or have no home of their own, the shelters meet the many needs for a woman and her children, as well as for single women.

For me, it meant an alternative to prison while attending counseling for drug addiction in 2001. What I found in the surprisingly warm, attentive atmosphere are things I will never forget.

When first hearing of the alternative plan for my sentence, I was happy to be able to leave jail, and of course ready to be just about anywhere authorities would allow me to be instead of behind bars. But I viewed a woman's shelter quite differently than they in fact are. Upon entering the group home in a county to the north of my own here in Alabama, I met smiling faces and warm reassurances that everything would be okay.

Entire Article Here