One screw up, and so much lost.

March 17th will be 30, yes 30 months clean. 30 months on this damn methadone program. 30 months struggling month after month to lower my dose. 30 months struggling just to get to the program to get medicated. Struggling to get to the program and home for the hubs to get to work on time. Struggling to find babysitters to get my monthly group in. Struggling and fighting so hard just to make contact with my counselor, who've I had since April 2010 and have yet to even meet, or even speak to.

January, I fucked up. I did. I can blame the snow. I can blame the ice. I can blame the program being closed the only day I was able to attend group. I can blame my mother in law for bailing out on us 3 different afternoons that month. But it was my fault I didn't make it to group in the month of January. February 1st when I realized the month was over, I called. Right away, "Hi My name is...Who do I speak to about....? What are the consequences going to be if my counselor doesn't return my calls or meet with me? I left voice mails for my counselor. I spoke to her higher up. I came in to see her where told she'd be with me in a few minutes, and after an hour of waiting and then finally asking what was taken so long, being told she walked right past me to leave for the day. Which wasn't the first, or last time she has totally blown me off.

Needless to say, they took away 7 of my bottles. Now I have to go back to weekly pick ups. So many people think, "Whats the big deal, you came daily in the beginning?" Or, "You did weekly pick-ups for months before the bi-weekly's." It's not that I have to come in every week. It's that I've only fucked up once. Never a dirty urine. Never raised my voice and cop't an attitude like the rest of the junkies who don't get their way. Never missed a treatment plan, a group session before this. Nothing. And they rip my bottles away. Yet, I have the person right behind me in line bragging about how they still only come twice a month and have never been to a group since moving program locations, 18 months ago. Go ahead and tell me life isn't fair, hell my 5 year old just told me the other day, but god damn it, this is just not fair. 

And to add insult to injury, my much awaited dose decrease had been denied. That makes no sense at all to me as well. Then the nurse is going to tell me to talk to so-and-so right then and there to clear it up? Um, I wish I could. I really wish I could. But I have a husband who cannot leave for work until I get home. I have three kids who are going to be waking up very shortly. I just cannot drop everything to meet with someone right then and there. Maybe if they would meet with me right then and there, I could have, but considering they usually make me wait 1-2 hours sitting in a waiting room, and then, only after all that time waiting, tell my my counselor either just left for the day, went to a meeting, took someone else who just walked in, or my favorite, went to lunch.

The drastic personality I tend to have is telling me to just quit cold turkey. I can do it, really.
Yea, sure. Then I think, "Um, Nicole....You start feeling withdrawals if you don't take your dose until the afternoon, are you really able to handle 3-5 days of that, slowly getting worse, and then finally getting better? Is losing a few bottles worth risking the fight and urge so intense to ease the pain? A fight you don't know if you can win?"

I want off, but I want off the right way.

Then I start thinking, "Well you've been told time and time again, to get anywhere in this program you need to be loud, obnoxious, and just plain rude. You were just told this, this morning! Yell. Get loud. Make threats. You're good at that with your husband and father, why not these people? You can be just as big of an asshole as most of the people there, as well as half the staff." Yet, while I do tend to get a little loud and mean when arguing with my husband and father, I am not going to do that with a group of people simply doing there job. But then again, if my counselor will actually answer the phone when I call in 2 minutes, maybe I will do just that.

All I want is just to free this hold Heroin has left on my life. I am suck of it controlling every aspect of my life. Is that really too much to ask?