Heroin and the way it makes you feel

   For me it made reality bearable and made real life more forgiving. But now I've had to learn better coping mechanisms than what i was doing. But now that im sober and have been for some time now, I've learned that heroin can wreck your life and your family's too. Trust me I've seen it happen to mine and others around me. It will grab such a hold of you that you feel entirely helpless and emotionless too. I used to be a happy go lucky person .....where it took alot to break my morale and my spirit. But heroin was exactly like the lead singer of Nirvana described it .... that your content with being sad and depressed because by the time Kurt Cobain got to that point in his life, he was tired of fighting for his own life, which had i not got sober when i did, i would of more and likely have killed myself in the same fashion. Heroin is often described as " a monkey on your back" . And as much as i loved it..... the smarter part of me loathed it with a passion. Because it was going to take me from the ones i loved so deeply..... and yet you're absolutely apathetic too all who have cared about you.... your fears become your god in a sick and mortal way, and when i was in US Army for almost 6 years i had learned how to look at life and combat  really objectively and in becoming a fatalist meant for me being apathetic to all of those who died around me. And none of us  plan to take the path of life that will destroy us , alot of is are born with it. Self  destruction  was in  my nature..... now im trying to preserve life and not take my own..... ironic i know. I used to grieve the fact of having to stop using heroin. Now i don't even like  thinking of how it would feel to be high on heroin again and anytime i even began to think or even get a crazy thought in my head i just think about the opportunity that Ive had and given up to go and shoot  dope and how much i tore my family apart with ever ounce of smack that i shot into my weak veins. Life isn't any different than the US Army it is all what you put into it .

Everyday is a new day, but your past will always be your past

 This morning im sitting here listening to Nirvana's song " something in the way " and yet i still get chill's up and down my spine. Because that was the song that was playing on the black hawk my first hit " shot of heroin" , and that was the song that was playing my last shot of " white china" or " Afghan gold " that i shot up. I've come to realize  that  one of the main reasons that i kept relapsing  was because once i got clean and sober,  my past was harder to let go than i thought it would be. And at the time i thought over and over in my head " was i that bad of a person ? " but the whole thing with addiction is that it is an  illness not a god given right .... yeah you make a choice to use and abuse substances but at the end of the day, when you're addicted  to drugs or alcohol your completely and utterly  helpless to what ever your using and abusing. But how do you get that far? easily, just have the same up bringing that i have an the will to please everyone else other than yourself first. And yet still feel empty. But yet to this day i still have a lot of guilt from the past, especially when it comes to my children and my husband....  as a wife and a mom, you prioritize , such as you make sure that they have their needs meet before yours. But at the same time.... were they at priority while i was using? That's what i ask myself everyday.  
   

heroin and the war in Afganistain

Aint life a funny  facade of innocent bullshit. What do i mean by that you wonder? what i mean is as a soldier your expected to have no mercy, be cold, kill, and take another humans life at no expense, yet that wasn't me i had a heart for people, but could cope with death , so i looked for comfort else where and i found it in my second tour . I've  been through  the the war back in 2004 - 2008 and both the last two times i stayed in a drugged out fog, were i could look at soldier laying dead before me and not even feel any kind of sadness as they  take their last breath. Heroin repressed any feeling of emotion where you could function and yet be  mentally out of it. It gave me the false confidence i needed, and made me feel secure yet depressingly alone. The town of Kabul, Afghanistan you could get 98 % pure "smack " for only $4.00 and that was like at least 3 grams which in the United States was like $20.00 per gram and you were lucky to have  at least 15 % pure heroin in that. I over dosed once in Texas and that was because i was being naive and shot up some heroin off the street called " MAC 22" which was  heroin laced with fentynal Hydrochloride which is about 2 times stronger than morphine and yet knowing that i still injected it and felt this instantaneous sense of fear that if i fell asleep that i wouldn't wake up. I eventually woke up 7 hours later in the back of an ambulance...... yet that wasn't my rock bottom. 

How to live a good " christian life" by everyone eles standards, even as an addict

Me and my husband Mark are both decent christian people....... but do you ever wonder to your self as a recovering addict or a recovering alcoholic what are your  boundaries  ? with each other and god? That is one of the things i love so much about my husband is not the big things but the little things with him..... like for example if i was feeling depressed or in a " bitch mode" he would ask " Tiphia is every thing alright, your the reason i try so hard to be a better man, and i love you for you " and that alone is rare. I've been married twice  and the third time is the charm . I felt like with Mark that i married the " one" , the one that god chose for me and not me choosing for myself.... a child like faith is what I've learned to have.When i met my husband  at least  for me because Ive never needed someone more than heroin, but yet it is always in the back of my mind.... " one more shot , and that will be it " lol that's a damn pipe dream . Now think about it? how does the mind of an  addict work? I've always had " lying eyes" as my daddy used to put it, meaning that i could get away with everything, but yet all that you hide from people, will eventually come into the light and with me, it came fast and hard.
        It was actually frightening for my family to watch me self destruct myself and with a suicide mission from hell. I didn't want to live.... Why, so id be judged for my drug problems?, so everyone could tell me " I told ya so ", shit i had too much pride. And Pride can kill you, deprive you from God, a loving family, and what means the most to a sober person , but when your using you'll put everything at risk, even your own life.

Heroin addict trying to live a normal life

First and for most and  i just wanted to say that my days are long and exhausting , and heroin is still as fresh to me as the day i quit using and its a Constant struggle..... and yeah its been 4 years since Ive used but that don't mean a damn thing when it comes to drug addiction. My husband Mark is a recovering alcoholic and knows what its like to have a craving for something so sick but yet so falsely worth it in our " fucked up minds" . Ive seen him relapse many of times and yet i wonder to my self " is this going to be my relapse?, when will i eventual break ?" is always and ongoing fear I have but yet i manage to pull it together ..... have that old army motto " just suck it up and drive on " that's what we were always told every time we felt like we were on the verge of a mental break down or physical our bodies couldn't take much more and yet i manage to cow girl up with my husband every time  he has relapsed i wish i could take it from him, go threw the pain of his addiction and take it all away, but yet that's what my family said to me, but with him all i can do is love him, for better or for worst... lot if heroin for better or worst but mine came at a much higher price

Herion and its intentions

Heroin is a  one of the oddest drugs Ive ever came in contact with, when i smoked Methamphetamine , there was no enjoyment off of that high because you were up for 7 days straight, but heroin............that was for me... i instantly felt relief from everything, it made me numb to death and to war and trauma which aint a good thing at all. I remember trying to come off of it, shaking in a cold sweat and yet burning up at the same time, withdrawing was a bitch and that's another reason i never wanted to stop using it was because i didn't want to feel anything, heroin was my family, it wouldn't leave me or turn its back on me when i needed it the most, but yet it would gladly take my life at no mercy.

Soldiers as a recoveing herion addicted

I figured id start of telling y'all a little bit about my self, I grew up in Appomattox Virginia. And was raised in a very conservative yet highly dysfunctional house hold, neither my mom nor daddy drank or did drugs so i was the black sheep in the family....... i was the oldest of 9 siblings so you could say it wont much for me to be the leader by example. Anyways, i always " fucked up " some how with my father, he was a former military guy himself, which treated his children with the same standards, which is very unethical and unfair for a young lady growing up feeling always like a disappointment to everyone, and huge fucking failer  is what my daddy would call me on a daily basis. So at age 14 is was a full blow bulimic and go down to 95 lbs begging for someone to except me, but me a fool, naive to society and how the world was all i knew is i wasn't one of them. So i was believe it or not i was a goody two shoes country girl until i was 17 and my dad said that my shitty no respect attitude was shape or ship out i went into the Army. Didn't have a clue of what the real world was like, you want to use the term " shell shocked " as a way to describe my reaction to fighting for a country i had no clue about. I had my first drink at age 18 right before my first deployment to Iraq and saw the unforgivable , what most humans states side couldn't even use there imagination with there naked eyes. I had saw 2 of my best friends take there last breaths in my arms and i remember it like it was yesterday. There airways filling up with blood and be fighting back tears trying to comfort a dyeing soldier was easier said than done.
         Came back to the states after a 14 month deployment and came back a changed person, not wanting to be around anyone, not family nor friends, i was drinking the pain away hoping that one of these days i could wake up and forget all about the horrific images that i had to witness. Then i got ready for deployment #2 to Iraq, but this time i had a urging to be numb this time around. And the perfect thing that i could ever asked for came over to me , Afghan Heroin 95% pure heroin. My first Lt. Asked me if i wasn't to try some, and i was like " what will it do? i don't  do drugs and barely drink" and he looked at me with kind eyes and said " SGT. it will make you feel like instant bliss, euphoria, makes all the pain go away, you'll like it just try it " so i took it, he held my arm and shot me up, and i remember feeling this instant feeling like everything was going to be alright. A fucking false sense of well being, and way couldn't tell the difference from reality or from fiction, but i felt like i had sold my sole to the devil , and because i felt alone, it was even more of a motivation to keep me at its mercy....... and when you come down from it like in 12 hours the old army expression " monkey on your back " expression couldn't of been more accurate. I would do just about anything for another shot, what ever it took , just so i didn't have to face reality a bitter bitch of  fucking truth, and soldier will die for there fellow man , die for there country. But i was willing to die for heroin. 

Soldiers addicted to herion

My name is Tiffany VanSumeren, and you can say Ive done it all, from heroin to meth and Ive been sober for over 4 years. How and the fuck i managed to hit rock bottom is beyond me. I went to being a successful  Staff Sergent in the 101 st Airborne to a full blow junkie, shooting up heroin into my veins to just numb by self from the war and all the horrible everyday living coping mechanisms that the great America gave us, " self medicate" that was me. A bottle of hydrocodone and a few Oxycontin and i was in a false sense of happiness.
      Then one day in the mist of me over dosing to the point of no return...... i thought to myself, how would i want my family and children to remember me? A drugged up loser? looking for her next shot or high? or would i want them to remember me my being a loving mom and devoted christian that did the best she could? I just had about all  i could take of life and trying to be " everything to everyone" so i got my shit together and after 6 different rehabs and and one more lethal over dose that was it for me. I quit cold turkey. It wasn't easy but i can know say to former heroin addicts or current users " hey I've been right were your at" Its amazing how god works in odd ways because now im a restaurant manager and a sober devoted wife and mom. But it took the will to quit to the will to realize what i was going to use. I'm very content not drinking or shooting up dope..... yeah Ive got weak days were a bag of "white horse" would make it all better, make the bitterness go away, but the flip side is heroin doesn't care if your black, white, Asian, Mexican once it has you, its got you for better or for worse. And my goal on here to blog about this, is so people like me and who ever don't feel alone... there is a way out ..... Nirvana was one of by greatest bands to listen to while is was using, now it reminds me of where Ive come from and where i don't ever want to go again...... Please take it from me, if i can stop anyone can, I was one of the worse that the doctors had seen and treated, they basically told after many  attempts at detox that I would be getting a DOA " dead on arrival , so they told me that they could offer me a methadone, suboxone  or cold turkey in a medical environment and by that point i was so discussed with my self in my self pity that i was like cold turkey was by one chance at not being a statistic.
        7 Days later after havering the cold chills and throwing up non stop and having diarrhea and feeling like every fucking bone in my body was breaking. The pain was over, the physical pain at least the mental war was still there in my head, all the repressive feelings id had from the war, watching friends die in my arms and being in a abusive relationships came to the surface quick and it was very over whelming, but for the first time in years i cry lot and i know now that that's a healthy coping mechanism, tears from past pains were so extremely unexplained to my wonderful husband Mark who not only takes care of me, but two children that aren't even his, yet he mans up to take care of someone else responsibility. That is  a daddy, not a father. But I had to go through life the " hard way " to appreciate the greatest gifts in life which are God, my supportive husband and our 2 Beautiful babies.... so next time anyone who reads this feels alone, read this blog and i promise you'll feel relived