a beautiful day arises

but my body is wracked by pain

a small blue pill is full of suprises

without it i will feel insane

the glow moves from head to toe

bitterness and anger melt away

euphoria smoothly takes it's place

at least no dysphoria for today

the pain hurts so much

it takes my mind to dark places

the opiod will rule my life

it controls my mind in such a way

the opiod will rule my life

it controls my mind in such a way

the opiod will take away strife

the opiod will save the day

Tags: Poem

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i see the world through a blinder

afraid of what is there

my feelings go through a grinder

i wish healing was near

all that's left of me is a shell

i'm a miserable , tired man

for the sins i've commited i belong in hell

i'm quite sure god is not a fan

i'm drained, i'm tired

i'm ashamed of who i am

to pull myself up, my brain is not wired

to put the past behind me i don't think i can

half my life is gone

the future is so bleak

the path i've chosen is so wrong

leaving my spirit is shattered and weak

Tags: Poem

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i look back at years wasted

regret and remorse hurts so much

a good life i've never tasted

i need to feel an angels touch

i've sunk so low no one can see me

i hurt so bad , feel all alone

i hear a voice that will set me free

the voice is death, my spirit won't conone

i feel like god has forgotten

a call for help no one can hear

why would god let me feel so rotten

i feel like screaming, to express my fear

my soul is empty, my mind is blank

my body is just a bag of bones

i can't believe how low i've sank

in a crowd i feel alone

i have nightmares every night

they re-enforce my self hatred

anxiety manifests in fight or flight

i can't change the words i've stated

Tags: My Feelings

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a substance  abuse therapist at one of the many rehabs i've been to told me that i was addicted not only to drugs, but also to the chase. i asked her to explain what she meant by that comment and she simply said, " you will find out, you are not ready to confront this observation yet." at that time i was 20 years old and i wasn't done researching my drug use so she was right by telling me that.

i was an insatiable drug  addict. i was a thieve. i was a crafty manipulater and always seemed to get what i needed to get high. during one of my long running crack binges, i stole $2,500 from an employer- an aa friend of mine- to fuel my habit. he found out the money was missing and i helped him look for it! that was the pinnacle of my addiction. i usually blew my whole paycheck for drugs and ended up broke for the rest of the week. my drug induced mentality rationized that the money i stole would allow me to pay my rent, buy food, ect. and i saw nothing wrong with it. after all my boss/friend made his living by over charging and cheating customers so i thought 'pay back is a bitch.'

being a crack smoker comes with considerable risk. often i would have to go into hartford's worst nieghborhoods to meet my dealer. if he wasn't around i would have to go on 'patrol' looking for it. crack is on just about every corner in the city but you risk getting robbed. it happened to me once when a dealer who could not believe i was in a section of the city where only residents bought, put a gun to my head and took the $100 i had. i actually got a rush from that and simply went and got more money and found some crack somewhere else.

towards the end of my crack smoking days i became kind of close to one dealer. he was a good kid, i mean as good as you can be selling narcotics, who happend to sell crack and heroin so he could put himself through college. he lived in a risky part of town but i did not mind going there because i thought it was fun to put myself in danger in order to get crack. the more sketchy the 'hood' the better my high was.

i would get off from work [ the same job that i stole from ] around 4:00 in the afternoon and the first thing i did was contact my dealer so could get some right away. i would get that rush on my way to see him anticipating that first hit.i have to say that in the 18 years on and off that i smoked crack, i saw some messed up things. none of it seemed to bother me as long as i got what i was looking for. i was arrested in 1996 right after i purchesd  $60 worth of crack. i was drunk as well and i had a small amount of marijuana on me. some how the police did not find the crack but they arrested me for the pot and took me to lock up. they also towed my car. the next morning i was released and walked 4 miles to the tow yard. i only had enough money to pay for my car so instead of taking a city bus i chose to walk. after all there was a nice chunk of crack wating for me and i could not get there fast enough.

it has been 5 years since i smoked that crap and what that therapist said never meant anything to me. as i look back on the wasted years the statement she made was right on piont. when ever i have to go to or travel through hartford i start to shake and i feel sick to my stomach. it's a good thing because my love of the chase has turned to fear and it is that fear that keeps me away from crack.

i guess what i was trying to express in this blog was that the thrill of going into the 'hood' to find crack was just as addicting because the risk seemed thrilling. finding crack and looking for it went hand and hand. sometimes i would go out and would'nt find anything. the disappiontment was similar to running out of crack and not having anymore money to get more.

it haunts me that i look back on those years and sometimes i miss the thrill of searching finding what i was looking for. i had a mission to accomplish and it was rewarding to succeed. i'm in no way advocating the use of crack or any other drug of abuse. i just wanted to recognize the grip cocaine had on me. i had put my life through hell, and more importantly, my parents.. they still never let me forget what i did and neither does my girlfriend. it is good that people keep reminding me because it keeps things real and also keeps the fear of returning to that life fresh in my mind.

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i wonder if president obama's plan for centralized heath care will improve psyciatric care or make it worse?

i am not ashamed to admit that i've been to uconn's psych ward several times. my first visit was during the summer of '05 and my last visit was this past april. in total i think i've been there 8 or 9 times. the reason i kept ending up there was for detox or because i overdosed in an attempt to commit suicide. the closest i came to actually dying was when i swallowed 300 milligrams of valium. instead of dying i slept for 4 days and was hooked up to machines on the intensive care unit.

since my adimmissions were associated with drugs the treatment team would always recomend a long term substance abuse treatment program. i always regected that recomendation because i've been to so many treatment centers it's ridiculous. i'm a stubburn person and i completely regect the 12 step program for recovery. i know why i abused substances. i was self medicating my depression.

uconn is a state run hospital that is always operating in massive debt. the debt comes from 3 departments in the hospital.

the delivery room, the neo-natal unit , and the psyciatric units. [ they have 2 units one for geriatrics and one for general  psych.]

a typical stay on the psych unit is 3 to 15 days. they can commit you for longer periods of time but it is very rare for a person to be there for long periods of time. if you need that much confinement they will send you to cedarcrest hospital or ct.valley hospital.

during a stay at uconn you are in a "fish bowl", it seems that way due to how the facility is laid out. every day, during the work week, you meat with your treatment team. this consists of a resident psyciatrist, an attending psyciatrist, a social worker and usually a medical student. they bring you into a conference room and discuss your situation and what type of after care you might need. the rest of the day consists of optional group therapy, vital signs, medication dispensing, and meals.

granted i never had a positive attitude when i was that hospital but they don't do much to help someone who needs help. it was explained to me by a nurse that uconn is just an acute care facility and their goal is to stablize you and set up after care. aftercare is one of the good services you get at uconn because you can see a psyciatrist for as long as you need to free of charge.

when i was discharged in april i was told by my doctor that unless i was willing to go to treatment for substance abuse that he would not see me on an outpatient basis. he told me that the state of connecticut would not allow me to be seen since i regected the recomendation of the treatment team. so currently i have no psyciatrist to meet with and no antidepressent medication to take and yet i manage to stay away from overdosing and drinking/drugging.

based on what i was told by my doctor concerning aftercare as an outpatient i was suprised  because at the end of the fiscal year on june 30th i received a phone call from uconn's outpatient department asking me if i would be interested in working with a new doctor! i said absolutely because my depression has not gone away it's getting worse and i need help now more than ever due to circumstances beyond my control. my situation is kind of a catch 22 because i have this condition in my back that is very painfull and debilitating so i need to be on oxycodone to blunt the pain until my neorosurgen figures out what to due with me.being on an opiate kind of contradicts what my treatment team recomended for me. so i hope that a universal health care system would improve the quality and the quantity of a psyciatric hospitalization instead of what is offered at the current time.

Tags: John Dempsy Hospital - Friend Or Foe

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i was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of 16. that was a year after i started using drugs and alcohol. interestingly, at least to me, is that i had feelings of self hatred and loathing at the age of 10. every psyciatrist or therapist i've worked with dismissed my feelings at a young age but would rather address the substance abuse. their rational was and is that depression can not be treated unless there is complete abstinance from anything mind altering. i get their piont but sometimes there are circumstances that warrent drug use. my back is messed up. doctors have told me that it always will be. i've had one surgery and will eventually need another one. i'm prescribed oxycodone and klonopin to blunt the pain and to keep the mucsle spasms under controll. i don't abuse these drugs but i could not live without them. i used to use illicit drugs like heroin and cocaine and marijuana and so on. i don't anymore. i don't dare go to an aa meeting and discuss the prescription drugs because the group will give you an attitude and tell you " you are not sober"! it makes me mad and i say to myself if i am not sober because i take painkillers and muscle relaxers for my back then so be it. i haven't been to an aa meeting in a long time and i'm not missing anything. i was taking celexa for my depression but it stopped working. i'm just as depressed now as i was on celexa. i start with a new psyciatrist in october. maybe there is antidepressent that doesn't work with serotonin because i was told i have "serotonin burnout" whatever that means. i'm frustrated because it seems to me that when doctors attempt to treat depression it seems like the treatments are hit or miss.

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Tags: Self Medication

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