This is it - the journey has begun!!

Well like a child waiting for Christmas the eve is upon me before I know it!!
Just to make things clear the situation is this:

I am unfortunately and ashamedly to say, a registered heroin addict. But im an addict with s difference, because I am going to get out of this and i am going to do it the first time and I'm going to document every step of the way to give people an insight into exactly what its like to go through an experience like this.

And by that I mean an insight from all angles... from how i got into it, how far into it, how I got to admitting i had a problem, how I got help from friends, family & professionals and ultimately from a personal angle, mentally & physically.

Its already taken a lot of time & commitment from myself into getting off it & I haven't even come off it yet?! The doctors like to really make sure you are serious about getting clean before you get an appointment to get medication.

I first saw my doctor at the end of August this year and we are now mid-October. Luckily for me its judgment day fro me tomorrow. I have my appointment at 2.15 with the doctor and the plan is that she is going to start me off on opiate based medication (subutex) I have booked three days off work as chances are I'm going to be ill. Hopefully I will be on of these people who transfer over onto the medication with little more than the Flu (-at most) to suffer? I so hope and am praying not to be one of those who react badly..... I know of one girl who was so ill in the transition period that she phoned an ambulance because she kept collapsing with the pain.... I so hope thats not me?

For those who don't know-a little medical info:
All over our the insides of our bodies we have pain receptors. The chemicals in the heroin coat the pain receptors, putting like a lovely big snug warm comfy coat around each & every one of them.... however, these coats do not last for very long & when they start to come away that is when the user starts to go onto withdrawal......
The reason its so painful is because the pain receptors are being exposed to something that they are not used to... (remember Grannie saying to you when you were a kid - Take your coat off you wont feel the benefit when you go back outside?!)
Well Grannie was right!
So now I have to strip my receptors of their coats & let them get accustomed to the slight chill of normality...... to go cold turkey would take between 4days and a week to clear out, I have tried that before & I can't do it so I'm doing it with the help of medication this time. All this will do is take the edge off of the illness set to become me, Im going to be uncomfortable to say the least. To mark it out of ten I would be saying that 0 is good & 10 bad, the illness tomorrow would be about a 5 out of ten I'm expecting....but the medication should then make it a 3 out of ten?

The second day I'm expecting to be 6/7 out of ten, day 3 7/8 out of ten and day 4 5/6 out of ten & day 5 2/3 out of ten, more bare-able hopefully?! Oh joy how great this is going to be?!
Maybe it wont be quite as bad as I'm expecting? But I like to be prepared?!

So what am I going to do to distract myself during this time? Well so far I have got (from friends&my sisters) some lovely water colour paints, pencil crayons & sketch pads, so I can draw & paint whatever comes to mind?

Ive got myself a cross stitch kit of The Snow-Man which will take me hours and hours if I have the concentration ability?

I have a Suduko book donated from Kirsty which has been a great help already! I've go my knitting to do, again if I have the patience & concentration level required? I have several DVDs to watch that I've had a while&never got round to watching, so they might get listened to,through restless sleep-if not watched?

Finally I have a selection of magazines&crosswords &books. I've purposely chosen four books for the occasion- Flowers in the attic (a sad&tragic but riveting page turner!)
Jordan's auto-biography (I've had it ages &its meant to be good so I thought it would be good for some mindless mental stimulation?!)
Forget you had a daughter... (Some womans probably heart-breaking true story of her life- aptly named as this is what i think my dad would do if he knew what I were doing at the moment?)
and finally Filth..... a sick and twisted comic book that is disturbingly warped&demented fiction&art work giving my mind the opportunity to wonder to far away places where reality is simply a distant&fleeting thought...which of course is exactly what I get from being under the influence of a class A drug, that I shall be no more?

So really I think I got all angles covered there?!! The rest I shall take as it comes?
So how am I feeling now?... I'll start a fresh bit for this....