Booster Day

I just took a booster dose.. well I say booster, it's more like an in between booster and flood dose.. Ive got 2000mg TA and am going to split it into 4 or 5 doses over a couple of days.

My ears are starting to buzz as I type.. and the screen is too bright. (The first symptoms you notice when you take it)

The point of all this is to top my nor-ibogaine levels.

Ibogaine converts to nor-ibogaine in the liver and it has a significantly longer half-life to Ibogaine.

A lot of people claim the majority of the 'addiction interrupting' properties are attributable to the nor-ibogaine.

It can hang around in the body for some weeks after flood dosing, which is though to help with cravings post detox.

I've also got some root bark (the raw root powder with all the different alkaloids) left over for after/PAWS

As I've been reading, it seems very important to have an aftercare plan in place after the detox

Be that counselling, yoga, acupuncture or exercise. Group therapy is particularly noted to help.

My problem is that I have no willpower to talk of, and I'm so un-disciplined! And I always have been, not just since starting on heroin.

I really need to work on myself, I need to find a vocation that I actually WANT to do, I'm 31 now and I still haven't a clue what I want to do with my life!

Don't get me wrong, I have worked the majority of my habit, doing jobs as diverse as tree surgery and body piercing, to counselling/key work, and managing bars and clubs.

I'm not aversed to working, I just want to be doing something I believe in.

My passion is music, I'm a grade eight pianist, I play guitar, drums, accordion, some strings. etc...

I would dearly Love to find a career in music but I always talk myself out of it, (self sabotage button again)

But I'm slowly realising that I need to follow my heart if I'm ever going to find any peace and fulfilment!

I need some guidance, I don't help myself, I'm lazy, I'd quite happily watch TV all day, but nothings going to fall into my lap that way..! 

I guess I just need to work out a plan and some life goals... and sharpish... I'm sick of always staying in the same place (psychologically and physically!

Long Overdue Update!

I've been crap at posing recently, all my energy is going into staying clean right now..!

Its been six weeks I think now? Every day drags, I'm still not sleeping properly, I'm consumed 24/7 thinking about heroin..
I've actually ordered some more Ibogaine, it helps with the cravings, when your on Ibo the last thing on your mind is heroin. I've been going to the obligatory NA meetings, I forgot how elitist and judgemental the people can be!

I sit in them and inevitably feel like I'm going to have a panic attack, gripped with fear, wanting to 'share' but the words won't come out.
It keeps me busy though, gives me a focus and something to do every day.

Unfortunately heroin addiction is a 'chronic relapsing disease' and is incredibly hard to get off and stay off. Although I definitely feel a difference this time to the last time I cleaned up.

Last time I was so determined, I stopped using altogether and tapered off methadone over the next two years!
I had used heroin and methadone for ten years at that point and technically I should have suffered with PAWS. I actually hadn't heard of PAWS then though so maybe that had something to do with it.

I didn't get PAWS, the only symptom I had was severe depression and I'm talking suicidal depression for nearly a year, in fact I'm amazed I didn't relapse. Ibogaine helps a hell of a lot with the depression side of things, I guess I feel flat but I'm definitely not suicidal this time round.

The physical difference this detox is huge, endless low grade withdrawal (PAWS) which really gets to you.

Unfortunately the longer you use opiates every day the more your brain adapts to it. The serotonin/noradrenaline/dopamine pathways actually end up hard wired to a constant flow of opiates and this is what causes all the problems when they're stopped.

It can take up to two years for the brain to re-adjust, which is a very long time to suffer PAWS!
The average is around 3-6 months.

This is just the physiological side of it, physchologically it manifests in 'using dreams' - vivid dreams where I run around scoring, cook up and usually I wake up just as I'm injecting...! It's pure torture!

One of the hardest things is to remain positive, it's all too easy to look back with rose tinted spectacles and forget all the bad stuff about having a habit, all the crap is easily forgotten when your craving... It's so easy to talk yourself into 'just one little hit'

I forget all the times I've spent hours, in tears trying to get a vein, sick, knowing that once the amount of blood vs heroin in the needle reaches a certain point it will clot and the drugs will be lost..
I forget all the hassle of trying to get cash, then waiting around for hours in freezing parks/bus stops or dodgy council estates for a 14 year old on a bike to drop the gear to you.
I forget about the damage I've done to my body from 14 years of injecting, I get pins and needles in my arms, I have no superficial veins in my arms and hands any more so I really feel the cold plus my hands look like boxing gloves!
I forget the pain using causes my loved ones, my long suffering partner who has somehow stayed with me throughout this relapse.

One thing I can say though is although I didn't get the spiritual awakening that a small amount of people that have used Ibogain get, I'm talking about the ones that take it once and never want to use again.
I have found that it is slowly helping me see things a bit more clearly.
It's subtle, when I think about my life now and the reasons I used things seem to make more sense, it's very difficult to describe!

Every year I was on it I would swear to myself that I wouldn't still be using on my next birthday, having a date to work towards helps.
The years are whooshing past faster and faster, I turn 31 in less than a week and have wasted more than half my life using heroin. It makes me sad to think about it but I also know I'm still young enough to do the things I want to do...

Con-Dem Drug Strategy For 2011

Now this is scary....

How on earth do they think people are going to detox just because they tell them too?


In my experience addicts are inherently anarchic.. plus the nature of addiction is that change has to come from the inside, a person will not clean up for family/friends/partners etc.. An addict will not change until they are ready, often not until reaching that cliche 'rock bottom'

Putting people onto enforced methadone detoxes is not going to work Mr Cameron... They will just end up using heroin again..!

'To prevent unplanned drift into long term maintenence' .. I quote

Good luck with that one...!

Day Sixteen! & Another Iboga Death

Unbelievably, I'm on day sixteen!

I have good days and bad days, the night sweats seem to have stopped, although the insomnia is still there, some nights I hardly sleep at all and others I can get six to eight hours straight! Which two weeks after detox is pretty bloody good!

PAWS are bearable, just slight goosebumps and hot flashes, restless legs, yawning with watery eyes and runny nose, nothing horrendous anyway.

I read today about a massage therapist that travelled to Cameroon for an Iboga initiation and sadly died from a heart attack, she was about my age and fit and healthy as she was a tennis player.

It does make you think, and worry about just how dangerous Iboga can be! Anyone taking it needs to be 100% sure that it's the right thing to do. Although it has been used for thousands of years it does have the potential to kill you if not administered safely or if you have any heart or liver conditions.

Unfortunately, this is not going to help the cause, in the article linked to above they only mention the use of Iboga for heroin addiction in the last sentence! They focus more on the 'hallucinogenic root' aspect.

Medical Students And Addiction

I've done it a handful of times now,... given talks to medical students about my experience of addiction and treatment.
I've given talks to an auditorium of second years before, and yesterday my GP asked me to talk to some fourth year grads.
I do it because I've experienced prejudice in A&E before, and because these students are just so naive!
Some of the questions they ask... one yesterday asked what diamorphine is ??
Humans are prejudice, and doctors are only human, I know that when you need to go to A&E and you tell them your medical history and that your on methadone/heroin they're attitude changes straight away, you don't get adequate pain relief and your treated with a 'well you did it to yourself' attitude.
I learnt in the end, to just not tell them you were an addict.. which obviously isn't good if your not being honest with them, what if they are treating you with something with a known contra-indication to methadone/opiates/subutex etc..?!

I went in after breaking two ribs coming off my bike a few years ago and after telling them I was a heroin addict etc I was left screaming in pain for HOURS... and told if I didnt stop moaning I would be escorted out!
Now I know, if I hadn't mentioned that I would have been seen by a doctor and given some pain relief while I waited.
I walked out in the end and just scored, it was easier, and helped the pain....

Anyway, these students mouths always hit the floor when I tell them about what I used to do, explaining about injecting heroin and crack at the same time, and how good it feels.
They cant believe people take more than one recreational drug at the same time!
I always make sure they understand that it's not only the lower end of society that end up heroin addicts, but plenty of doctors/nurses/lawyers too.... especially anaesthetists!

I told them all about Ibogaine too, and how it's the only thing that's ever helped really.. out of ten odd trips to rehab, years of counselling and psychotherapy a plant from Africa has the power to break addiction!

Maybe, I planted a seed in one of they're heads, and they go on to work in addiction, and start researching Ibogaine... you never know!

Day 7 - Post Ibogaine, The Experience!

Thought I'd write a little about the actual experience as I haven't yet!

I worked my dose out at the standard opiate addicted persons 15-20mg/kg dose, at 65ks that meant about 1600mg Ibogaine HCL, I took this plus 1000mg TA Extract the first time and it blew my head off and really took me a long time to recover after, so the second and third times I titrated the dose over 24 hours, this last time I took 600mg HCL initially then another 400mg TA about 6 hours later, both ways of dosing had the desired effect, I just didn't want the nausea and intense hallucinations.

My First time was the strongest, at the full 19mg/kg dose all at once. I did throw my guts up, projectile vomiting, but didn't really have any massive spiritual awakening. I did hallucinate, everything went green and purple and I was in the blitz being bombed by the nazi's!

I was quite upset I wasn't shown anything that could help me change my current behaviours, people say it takes some time afterwards for the bits to fall into place.
Also that war type, violent visions are quite a common theme.

Some people say they felt the ibogaine scrubbing them clean from the inside out, a lot of people meet with the plant spirit too.. unfortunately I didn't get that.
I'm quite a spiritual person so was hoping to have a full on psycho-spiritual experience, shame I didn't.

It's what seems to keep people clean in the long run, that and the occasional booster dose...

Ibogaine has been called an 'addiction interuptor' and that's exactly what it does, it will not keep a person clean long term unless there is a determination from that person. Maybe this is why it seems to work in better with people in they're thirties and over?

It breaks the cycle of addiction, takes away 95% of the acute withdrawal symptoms and PAWS but you also need to keep working at your recovery.

Counselling, therapy, yoga, exercise etc all help a great deal.

Physically, I'm feeling 'ok' still lethargic and suffering with restless legs/night sweats and insomnia but it's all bearable, knowing that I don't have to find cash and score every day makes up for it!

What's really amazing this time is I haven't gone into the chronic depression I did when I came off methadone, ibogaine re-sets dopamine/serotonin receptors to a certain degree. This is what causes PAWS, it can take up to a year for the brain to re-adjust to making it's own happy chemicals and not being flooded with opiates constantly..

It also gets harder the longer you are taking it, I know I struggled a lot more this time around than last time..
Three shots at iboga detox in the last eight weeks!

But I persevered because I knew, the first time I took it that this stuff actually works! It's just how you use it..
I made the mistake of thinking I wouldn't need boosters the first time and paid the price, going back into withdrawal after four days and having to relapse as I couldn't get more Ibo..

The 'trip' isn't scary at all, (mind you I've taken my fair share of hallucinogens in the past) It kind of makes you feel safe, but you know something powerful is going on! After about 6 hours the main vision part is over and you go into a kind of catatonic 'dream state' where you can move much, sleep or eat... This feels like it's never going to end and is quite hard to get through..

Weirdly, Ibo also seems to reset your senses too, food tastes strange, you can suddenly smell in stereo technicolour, and sunlight is so bright, taking a puff on a cigarette tastes like an ashtray full of water.!

My partner made me laugh today, he said 'so from where I'm sitting it seems like people coming off heroin are either crying, laughing uncontrollably or masturbating' ... haha .. sounds about right!