(CONTINUED...)There is a joint hanging out of my mouth; I bought some really nice weed today, had it delivered. Amphetamines may make me a better writer, and teach me extraordinary things; and I may love psychosis like The Mad Hatter loves tea parties: but, I need to take along break from meth. It feels good to not care about my life; to not be afraid of death. The reason people smoke cigarettes is suicide. Each cigarette is a rebellion against the bullshit; and every time I put a needle in my vein, I take pleasure in the fact that I am killing myself. It's all part of the appeal.So, anyway, since last time, I ended up taking the rest of the meth...(+107:11), Day 5My weed arrives. Haven't hooked up with this dealer for ages. His bud is always cheap and of the highest quality; I don't know if he's going to be working 24 hours a day, like my regular guy, so I buy an ounce. Better be overstocked, if anything. I open up the big envelope; inside is a zip lock bag stocked with what I have come to expect from him. I can tell just by looking at it.I mix up a shot in a spoon and – using the barrels, with removable 27 gauge tips – I deliver it into my vein, perfectly. There is a small rock remaining, half the size; I mix it up and fuck up the delivery. I don't care, though. It's just nice to be done with that crazy drug for a while. 20 mg is nothing; I spray it down the back of my throat. That's the last of the meth.(+112:17)I roll up a joint, using a 0.3 gram chunk of the new super weed, mixed with a finely ground combination of my previous two strains. By the time I'm halfway through smoking it, I am grinning like an idiot. I continue to drink my beer, and take long meaningful drags – until there is nothing left of either. I start singing along to a Johnny Cash song, Folsom Prison Blues.I feel a perfect combination of these three drugs: meth, alcohol and marijuana; I feel euphoric, as if I have just had a shot. This was a strange way to quit smoking cigarettes, but it worked surprisingly well. The worst of the withdrawals have probably already occurred. Being stoned is amazing, combined with the alcohol and the amphetamine binge. Which, brings us back to the beginning...There is a joint hanging out of my mouth; I relight it.I am coming down pretty hard, now. I should probably eat something and get some sleep, but I don't think I'm going to do that. I'm going to stay awake, one last night.Too tired to stay awake, need to get a couple of hours of sleep before going to work; but, I'm worried I might sleep for ever., Day 6I wake up, to my alarm, and – somehow – I'm refreshed enough to get moving straight away. No hangover. No snooze, today. No spraying deodorant on and rushing out the door, still wearing the clothes I fell asleep in. I get up and eat the dried up pieces of cotton, left over from filtering shots. I collect them, then eat them, because I always lose at least 1 unit of water when I mix up; sometimes – if I'm particularly drunk, for example – as many as 5; so, since there was five grams to begin with, the collected pieces of cotton I used – assuming roughly 50 units per shot – will contain somewhere between 10 and 50 mg of meth. I find that this range, taken orally, is perfect as a little booster to take the edge off that first day of withdrawals. If anybody's reading this, and thinking – why the fuck does he lose 2-10% of every shot – it's because I use pieces of cotton that are quite large, becausae my hands aren't that steady and I don't want to accidentally barb the needle against the spoon. Anyway, so I eat this and I grab my second last beer – of an additional twelve I purchased last night. I do some math in my head. I drank 17 beers last night.Sometime later, I emerge from the house clean and refreshed. It is a beautiful day.I listen to Nick Drake at the tram stop, gazing up at the clouds. In the past five days, I've had a bowl of curry and two samosas. That's all. I've hardly even had any water to drink. Maybe a litre of water in total, 200 ml a day, maximum. So, the cotton I ate before was digested immediately. I feel good. The trip to work is really pleasant. I sing, as if nobody can hear me, despite the peak-hour traffic lined up beside the bus stop. People walk past me, and hear, “Tell me, tell me, what have I done wrong? Ain't nothing gone right with me; must be I've been smoking too long.” I don't have the greatest voice in the world, but that doesn't mean I should be any more ashamed to sing than an ugly person is to go outside. “I've got opium in my chimney; no other life to chose. Nightmare made of hash dreams; got the Devil in my shoes. Tell me, tell me, what have I done wrong? Ain't nothing gone right with me; must be I've been smoking too long.”I am actually running considerably early for my 9 am start, so I stop at McDonald's for some breakfast, on the way. I'm in top form at work. I'm not sure how it's possible to function this well, without any sleep or food. Once upon a time, I wouldn't have been able to handle it. It bothers me that I'm so accustomed to dealing with this sort of situation.I roll two joints, using the same three-strain combination of weed I tried last night. Each joint is a quarter of a gram. I grab the last beer, and go to University. I'm late for class, as usual. It's tough trying to work and study at the same time, schedule-wise. I light the joint and open the beer. Put Johnny Cash on my headphones. I walk across campus, holding a bottle of Carlton Draught in my left hand, and a smoking joint in my right. I have always treated tertiary campuses like this. It's not high school. I'm an adult and if I want to smoke a joint there's not much they can do about it, except asking me to put it out. I think it's weird that people are surprised to see someone smoking a joint on a university campus. I mean, I'm a fucking art student; what do they expect?It starts raining pretty heavily. I have to hold the joint inside my hand, and puff on it continuously, to avoid it getting wet. The wind picks up so much that a fountain starts spraying buck-loads of water sideways onto the walkway. I walk a little faster, and it rains harder still. I am getting soaked through, and I'm cold – I'm only wearing one thin layer. I'm getting close to class, when I realize I've been so focused on not letting the rain extinguish my joint, I haven't had much of the beer. So I start going rapidly back and forth between the two: taking long drags of the joint; guzzling a large mouthful of beer; exhaling; and, so on. Since I am not smoking tobacco anymore, all of my joints are now green. I leave behind me a trail of scent so thick, that even an idiot could use to determine the culprit. I walk directly past staff and students, blowing smoke in their faces. I am about 100 metres away from the classroom, when I realize I am fucked up. I enter an undercover courtyard, and go down the stairs. I am walking slowly. I am totally relaxed. I still have the tiniest little bit of my joint left. I stand outside the door of the classroom and smoke it, before going inside.I find an exercise in class disinteresting, so I leave and attempt to buy a coffee – but, there's an EFTPOS minimum. I have no apetite for food, so I get two large coffees. I figure maybe I'll need the energy. I drink them in class, one after another. They're fucking massive coffees, ridiculous; once I finish the first one, I really don't want to drink the second one: I down them both in twenty minutes. Then class ends, and I have an hour break, so I walk back home and roll a joint. I smoke a joint on the way home. I do this, intentionally, in front of the other students – because, the needy ego in me wants to impress people.Anyway, I'm sitting at home at my computer and I notice my heart is beating really fast – like faster than I would have thought it possibly could – but I'm not to fussed. Just the caffeine and the meth, working together, trying to kill me. Nothing to be concerned about. It'll go away in half an hour.Back at uni, an hour and fiteen minutes after the palpitations and the spasms started. I'm twitching violently every three seconds, or so. I look like I have Tourrette's syndrome or CP or something. Clearly, there is something wrong with me; though I don't arouse any suspicion. Everybody, including the teacher, just assumes I'm on some kind of exotic drug. And, well, I am I guess.Minus the exotic part.I try to control my heartrate by varying the pace and volume of my breath. I breathe deep, as if I'm meditating, and release. I try to relax, but it's no good. I'm just drawing attention to the fact that I'm high as a kite: sitting there, eyes all glazed and bloodshot; my body spasming as I meditate. Clearly I'm fucked. And they all know it. But it's not the drug. This is something new. Something horrible.I manage to force myself through the entire class. For brief periods of time – 30 seconds or so – I manage to concentrate hard enough to stop the twitching. All of my energy is focused on this task, I pay no attention to anything the teacher says. Not that that's unusual. I fucking hate philosophy. My next class is just as bad, if not worse. Fucking modernism this, post-modernism that. I'm so sick of all the bullshit. It means nothing to me. I refuse to learn it. I refuse to learn practically everything. People should refuse to learn more often, whether or not they are twitching like an electric eel. Everything should always be questioned. The world would be a much more interesting place if everybody was raised alone for the first fifteen years of their lives, each in their own isolated facilities. Academia mass produces replicate mindsets. I'm so tired of these fucking uni students, I think, twitching, my face distorted by this terror. They just fucking repeat what they hear. They don't think. They listen; they write shit down; memorize it; and repeat. I don't write anything down. Note-taking, in this fashion, is the dullest form of learning imaginable. I put up with it, because I have to. Every other student in the class enthusiastically writes this shit down. I don't; I tolerate it, that's all. One of my teachers said the other day – attempting to pass it off as an off-hand remark aimed at the class, despite her completely lack of subtlety – “Don't you find that, even though you rarely read notes afterwards, the act of notetaking itself helps you learn the material?” I'm thinking about this, and I'm twitching. I'm thinking, fuck I'm having a heart attack. I'm thinking I want to fuck this fat old bitch. Fuck her till she screams “Neitsche is dead!” I think about her big saggy tits, then I swap to a girl in the front row. Twitch. Heart attack. Fucking repetition, as a serious teaching aide, in university, that's what she's selling us. Like cult members repeating mantras until they brainwash themselves, the academic world is enslaved by knowldege; we are told what to think, rather than what to think about. If I could write about Sartre or Camus in any way I saw fit, then I'd be happy to study philosophy: but, I can't do that, I need to work within the framework of the past and the present. We are not encouraged to transcend our society, or our place in history; we are told that imagination is limitless, yet we are told to remain within the dotted lines. We find ourselves, upon being born, continuing someone else's path; humanities path. Our contribution is to be progressive; it must exist in the correct context in terms of modernism and post modernism. We must have a target audience. We must be able to critically analyse our own work, by everyone else's standards. Art theory and art are incompatible. Twitch. Fuck the girl beside me. Repetition. Saggy tits. Heart attack. Finally, the class ends.I leave quickly, to avoid the embarrasment of being asked what's wrong with me. There's always a reason I run off. I don't know why I need to make excuses to myself. I don't want to talk to them. I don't like them. Literature and philosophy majors are not my favorite kind of people. Philosophy, particularly, is a big pile of shit. It's a fucking joke. Bunch of pretentious assholes selling thoughts. Existential philosophers contradict themselves all the time, including the “almighty Neitsche”. He also says some really obvious shit. If I hear “God is dead,” one more time, I'm going to grab whoever said it by the head and vomit into their ears. How the fuck is this a memorable statement? Why are we still talking about it; I mean, wasn't he just – succintly – summating a trend that was, at the time, rather obvious? Fucking Netische. Western philosophers don't know shit. They're empty; they're spiritually bankrupt: the question they are asking – meaning without God – has no answer. Like trying to review a book you will never read, or a blind man describing the colour orange; try as they might to compensate for their lack of faith, by rationalizing, they're efforts are pointless. Intellect – specifically, this progressive human intellect that enslaves us all – is not capable of understanding. Logic has no place in the philosophical/religious world. The only difference between a man of faith and an atheist/agnostic philosopher is the absence of God. Philosophy is religion without God. Since intellect is – as the Buddhists always say – a distraction from spiritual enlightenment, our spirituality dimishes as we develop and become more intelligent.“God is dead,” (I stop writing to vomit into my own ears) because the mighty humans – and all they have accomplished! – have lost their humility. We think we know so much about the nature of life; we know nothing. We are scratching the surface. Yet everybody insists that they know there is no God. And then they say, “Well, how do you know there is a God?” I don't know. I do actually, because I've met God on numerous occasions, but let's just say – for illustrative purposes – that I don't. Either way, I can't answer the question. The me that hasn't transcended space and time might say something about faith. You know that “bullshit” Christian response.Faith. Ha. Idiots! Am I right?If it's not tangible – if we can't see it like a tree or a rabbit – then it doesn't exist; if an opinion has not been established, and accepted by a large group of people, then it is not an opinion. I stop when I enter the lit building. Modernism. Twitch. Post-modernism. My heart is going to explode. I sit down, and try to gain control over it. But I am panicked already, it's too late. This is a panic attack like nothing I could imagine. I think, maybe, I should call an ambulance. Slowly, I make my way down the hallway the correct room. The door is closed. I can hear murmured voices inside; teacher asking questions, she has provided the answers for. Old books I don't give a shit about. Virginia fucking Woolf. James Joyce. Every writer we read is dead, just like Neitsche: safe in the grave.It's not as if there haven't been any good books in the past fifty years; the reason we focus on outdated and irrelevant “classics” is because everything is easier to understand in retrospect. This progressive disease that we call progress – twitch – has, by now, had time to establish the popular opinions. Literature is not art, for scholars and literary critics; it is a code, yet to be deciphered. It is an exercise in reverse engineering. And, it is a competition. Whoever proves to understand a text, and all it's complexities, to the nth degree, becomes the authority on said book or author. These Proust scholars, and Sartre scholoars; how pathetic, they are. Some believe that they understand more about the work than the author: and, maybe they do; maybe they know everything, but they feel nothing. They read and they analyze according to a preset list of paramters. Like scanners; robots; computers. History is a subset; they apply other approved opinions, like Freud and Aristotle. Then they defecate onto the next generations hungry mouths, and on it goes. Us – the mighty human race! – forever trying to perfect the imperfect.I am sitting outside the classroom, trying to build up the courage to go inside; to go in and wait out the clock. I stare at the door for a long time, maybe thirty minutes. Dozens of people walk back and forth in the hallway, but nobody from my class. Finally, I walk in. I sit down. I twitch. Post-modernism. Modernism. Intertextual references. The surrealist movement. Ha, I think. Everybody should be their own movement. People are looking at me, whispering amongst themselves, trying to work out what I'm on; after fifteen minutes, I think – fuck this – and get up to leave. Nobody stops me. Nobody says anything. This slightly offends me, considering how I'm spasming like a lunatic – but, for the most part, I'm relieved. It's a clean break; I'm free.I wander around in circles, not sure what to do. I consider calling an ambulance, but what if it's just an anxiety attack. That would be embarrassing. All I need to do is lower my heart rate. I wander into the university pub. A girl from one of my classes, is sitting by herself drinking white wine. She calls me over. I join her. “Does alcohol raise or lower your heartrate?” I ask her, in between twitches. I explain the situation, with the meth and what not. She says, she thinks it lowers the heartrate. I google it on my phone to be sure, but I can't find the right answer. The girl from my class, let's call her B, she yells out to the bartender, “Hey! Does alcohol raise or lower your heartbeat?” The bartender says, “It lowers it.” I approach the bar. Twitch. Heart attack. “You sure?” I ask him. He nods. I think, fuck it, I'll just drink slowly and gauge the reaction. I order a pot of Boags.As I continue to drink – one, two, three, four beers – my heartrate gradually returns to normal. I find myself staring at this girl's tits. She's beautiful; six or seven years younger than me, curly blond hair, denim mini-skirt. I want to fuck her.Another student, from our class, arrives. He's her age. He is also a virgin. A 22 year old virgin. Weird. There's seemingly nothing wrong with him. He says he never had the opportunity. I am confused. I ask him, “Were you raised by mormons or something?” They laugh. I continue to drink. As time goes on, I realise – more and more – that I am the odd one out. Just six or seven years between us, and I can't relate to them. I'm lacking the cultural reference points. And, I don't care. The conversation becomes disinteresting, after a while; I've never had much patience for prolonged social contact. This girl, despite the fact that I want to fuck her, she's not interesting enough to maintain my interest. And, she's too young. She keeps talking about clubs and fucking, doing her best to impress the two of us. I scam a cigarette off the bartender.Come home only to find myself in a junky hovel without any junk: there aren't too many more depressing situations than this; having to exist, to experience my life, without drugs. It doesn't take long for me to embrace the self-loathing provided – in abundance – by the withdrawals. I go into a deep introspective state and learn a lot about myself. Withdrawals and hangovers are great for self-criticism. I'd say I've probably learnt more during these hellish after-drug periods; during the journey back: than I have on the journeys themselves. I discover, for example, that my gums are seriously fucked up. It's been at least 5 years since I've gone to the dentist. I can feel holes in my teeth with my tongue. I've been able to for a long time; yet I still don't go to the dentist. I repress it on a regular basis, how uncomfortable it makes me feel sometimes. If I'm in junky mode, and I haven't washed or brushed my teeth for a couple of days, I probably won't even realize. I haven't had a good look at my gums for years. Now, ironically, it's the meth – which, causes a shitload of dental damage – that makes me realize, I need to go get a checkup. Most likely will require a number of surgical procedures to get me back to – I was going to back to my old confident ways, but that'd just be a lie. I've never been confident. I never understood why I had bad breath so soon after brushing. I think most people with bad breath, don't realize that it's fucking gum disease doing it; that it's not an inherent – and inexplicable – biological flaw in some people. As if, a select few are doomed – God knows why – to exhale the odour of horse shit. This, I realize, is at the core of my psychological problems; and, to my surprise, Google informs me that it's easily fixed.During the psychosis and the withdrawals, I also – and perhaps more importantly – come to terms with the psychosis I have been experiencing for, probably, my entire life. I can't pinpoint when it began, but I have been repressing it my entire life; pretending that it doesn't exist; acting like a “normal” person. Everything became clear to me.The next day I went to the doctor, for a psychiatrist recommendation, and made a dentist appointment. Soon, I will be complete: for the first time ever. I've already decided, at this point, that I'm going to start dating again after my teeth have been fixed. Haven't been in the same room as a naked woman for well over two and a half years. I am losing interest in masturbation, and – therefore – sex; I am also losing interest in drugs; I just need to find somebody to love.People are so harsh on meth and heroin. Typically these are people who've never let themselves love either one. They say, like good little parrots, “Heroin is the Devil!” or, “Meth will fuck up your life!” Very little positive is ever said about these two drugs. Yet they improve all the senses dramatically, inspire boundless creativity, allow people to fuck all night, and – through psychosis – provide a deeper level of personal insight than psychedelics are capable. It has an enormous amount of potential; more potential, in terms of it's practical applications, than any other drug – in my opinion. It's no co-incidence that the Third Reich was so successful, before it collapsed on itself. Hitler realized the potential of methamphetamines. So do I.You see a lot of these hipster movies like “Spun” about trailer trash tweakers; but there aren't very many movies that explore the various cognitive and physical benefits meth provides. “Limitless” comes to mind. If only I could tame a crystal and utilize all of it's power, I would truly be limitless. If I spent all my time on meth doing productive work, I'd be lightyears ahead of the game. The potential is there, but people fuck it up. They start taking a dangerous addictive drug, without any intention of doing so responsibly. They abuse it; and, by doing so, they ruin whatever potential it had for them in the first place. Sigmund Freud didn't fuck it up; neither did Stephen King. Amphatimes are like steroids for the mind, body and soul; they give you a distinct advantage of the rest of the population, in every category. Consumed in the right quantities, it can be used – I think 0- to permanently raise mean intelligence quotients. Not to mention reaction time, stamina, memory, confidence, artistic abilities, sexual prowess. The benefits are huge; but so are the drawbacks.Injecting meth is not a good idea, unless you take absolute care when doing so at all times. And, nobody does that. We're all a little reckless. So one day you're drunk and you stab your vein ten or twelve times with an increasingly blunted needlepoint, struggling to find a vein. Even if you do find it, and administer perfectly, meth is toxic to the vascular system. Depending on your sensitivity, repeated use of the drug – assuming every shot is perfect – can cause veins to collapse. It damages your teeth more than any other drug, and it's far worse for your veins than – good quality – heroin. It is also highly neurotoxic, and it is – in my opinion – the most addictive drug on the planet.So the pros and cons weigh up pretty even; those who burn twice as long, burn half as fast; all's well in Inglewood; don't look the Baron in the eyes; car batteries are not sex toys; etc.I get home. Feel like utter shit. Can't do any more meth. All I have to rely on is some marijuana and a couple of cold beers. Then I realize I've got pills too. I forgot about them. Real MDMA, apparently, which is far from my favorite drug. But, under the circumstances, it's perfect.I crush up the pill on my desk. The surface is encrusted with filth. But, fuck it, it's going up my nose not in my vein. I snort half of it down. It burns, and I can taste it – bitter – dripping down the back of my throat. I quickly drink three more beers and smoke a joint. I blast some music, and sing along. I feel good. The pill is indeed MDMA. Not too strong. I'd say something like 100mg., Day 7I sleep at work, even though it's the day shift. I lock myself in the office and close the blinds. A couple of staff members visit throughout the day, to find me clearly in a state of post-awakening as I open the door. It's impossible, combined with the withdrawals, to disguise my tiredness so I don't bother. If people already know you're doing something, best not to act like you feel guilty about it. What are they going to do, anyway? They don't have any seniority over me. If anything, I'm in charge; the office is mine for the day. These staff members, of various shapes and sizes; these men and women, with their judgemental eyes: I don't care what they think. I sleep approximately six hours, out of an eight hour shift. More than enough to reset myself into a second binge. I make sure to eat a lot, too, even though I'm not hungry. I force it down: Indian food; pizza; juice; milk; coffee; fruit; potato chips. Anything I can manage to eat. The more the merrier.I get three hours sleep.The house is littered with empty beer bottles and used syringes. I notice a small pile of powder on the desk, beside me; it is whatever remains – maybe one sixth – of the pill from last night. I scrape it up into a line, but I can't find anything to snort it with. The hollowed-out biro I was using as a makeshift straw has since been adapted into a cigarette holder; it has a burnt-out roach jammed in one end. I walk around the room, trying to find something I can roll up into a straw shape; there is nothing but empty packets of syringes and cigarette lighters. I sit back down and scrape the powder into a pile on to the corner of the desk. I lean down and position my nostril directly above it, careful not to breathe until I am ready. The powder flies up into my nose. It burns, slightly. I pinch my nostrils together, using mucous membranes as bread for an MDMA sandwich. I can feel it instantly. It washes over the depression; suffocating my emotions, replacing them with a warm artifical void.Minutes later, I find a syringe with about 5 mls of clotted blood. It looks as if it hasn't been rinsed for remaining traces of meth. I take it into the bathroom, and add another 10 mls of boiling water; take off the needle point, remove my pants, and shove it up my ass. I empty the syringe, and clench my cheeks to ensure that it doesn't leak back out as I withdraw. Finally, I swallow a piece of cotton I find on the floor; it has been used – at some point – to filter meth from spoon to syringe, which means it should contain traces of amphetamines. Finally, I roll a joint: with 0.3 grams of high quality bud. The MDMA and the meth are subtle, they serve as a nice little boost to help me out of my depressive state. I go into the living room, put on a movie, and light my joint., Day 8After work, I give my dealer a call. At around 7:00 pm, he drops by another half gram. When he sold me the first one, I bargained him down. He said it was a hundred dollars cheaper only that once. But, that's bullshit. I'm not paying an extra hundred. He didn't lose money on the first deal. He offers fifty offf. I tell him, I'm not going to buy off him again unless he agrees to my terms. I tell him he can either have my business and make a bit of money, or I'll go somewhere else. I'm an excellent liar, which is one of those questionable skills I guess. But it comes in handy. I would've made a good lawyer. As for this dealer guy, I'm ready to take the bluff as far as I need to, in order to convince him I'm serious; but I hope it doesn't come to that, to me walking away: because I'm not serious. I play hardball. I don't settle for one dollar less; he either sells to me at my price, or he doesn't sell. I often bargain with dealers; most of the time it works, for a little discount – or a bonus – and sometimes it doesn't. A hundred dollars discount is a record. He really didn't want to agree to it, his body language became increasingly awkward as he attempted – and repeatedly failed – with his negotiating. I take the little bag and head back home, glancing over my shoulder, in true paranoid fashion – to make sure he is not following me home.My veins are fucked, so I decide to smoke instead – but I don't know how. I've hardly ever smoked meth, or any other chemical. It's going to be really bad for my teeth and gums. I think back to those extreme close ups in “Spun” of dull red lips and yellow teeth. Oh well, I'll find out soon enough how difficult – and expensive – the dentist is going to be; after all these years of neglecting my teeth and eating poisons, it's no wonder. In fact, I deserve it.It is a price you have to pay for abusing rather than using.I google “How to smoke meth on tinfoil,” and follow the instructions. Previously, I'ver only ever sprinkled it in a cone with weed or smoked it in a crack pipe. And I've never smoked seriously. Like, maybe once or twice in twelve years. Chasing the Dragon is new, and a little exciting. But it's a frustrating process for a beginner on a budget. It's cool but it's inefficient; I struggle to see how someone completely accustomed to, and at ease with, this particular method of consumption... I struggle to see how even they could not lose a bit of smoke. It's expensive stuff. Too expensive to allow it to evaporte into thin air. So I look up other methods, and quickly come across the lightbulb; which is also something I've never done before. I really enjoy it, I smoke all night.The effects of IV are much preferable to smoking/vaporizing meth. There are a number of good things about smoking, versus IV, that I observed, like: increased hallucinatory properties; the surprisingly smooth taste of the smoke; and, the complete lack of introduced bacteria. Although the last trait, can be seen either way. You have to be extremely careful when preparing a syringe, which makes IV a clean and controlled proccess. Smoking is the opposite, it's a mess. For someone like me, who – given the opportunity, quickly regresses into some kind of urban filth-dwelling swamp monster – it's not ideal. What mainly appealed to me was the fact that it was a new experience. Also, it was nice to be able to take a break from my veins for a while. I built a little pipe out of a biro casing, an old school style light-bulb, and a roll of sticky tape. Instead of putting a lighter flame on the glass, I lit a candle and hovered my pipe above it. This turned it into a kind of telescope. In order to make sure I was in the right position, while remaining in position, I peered through the biro mouthpiece, wiggling it around like a periscope. The candlelight shone through the crystals, giving them a heavenly golden glow, which – at the peak of the hallucinations – took artistic form.When you hold a lighter close to a light-bulb, it goes black. The glass itself doesn't burn, just a tiny surface layer. You can easily wipe it clean with a bit of alfoil. After about 150 mg of meth, over four or five hours, all I had to do – to see a magnificent piece of art – was hold the bulb up to the candlelight, sideways, and look through the glass. I saw the most extraordinary renderings. Landscaps and portraits, each one exquisite. I'm not sure how the hallucinations worked. In fact, I'm not sure that they were hallucinations at all. I think my mind was functioning so well that it managed, upon first glance, to find familiar patterns in the chaos. In that tiny light-bulb, I saw huge epic drawings of sprawling landscapes. Like nothing I've ever seen before. Each one stylish and unique; each one beautiful. Then I would peer down the mouthpiece again, for that abstract art. Crystals and candlelight; because of the limited perspective, it looked as if it had been enlarged. Like the pipe really was a microscope and what I was witnessing was chemistry itself.Meth melts into liquid form when you heat it to the right temperature; then, if you keep the flame on it, it combusts into a massive amount of smoke. A tiny crystal can produce numerous lungfuls. This is my main criticism of smoking; I find it difficult to consume it fast enough to achieve a rush. Though, I was distracted by my extraordinary little canvases. I think, if I was using a crack pipe, I'd have more luck. But, I don't want to invest in something that is going to destroy my teeth any more. I need to start looking after myself.As far as other methods go, snorting chemicals is not something I've ever enjoyed doing. If you do pills, a lot of the shit gets stuck in your nose; and a lot of pure chemicals, like meth, feel like fire against the mucus membranes. I don't like the idea of having remnants of this highly corrosive chemical inside my nostrils, up against such sensitive skin. So, whenever I snort something, I have to flush it through with water after a couple of minutes. Then you have the dregs drip down the back of your throat. None of it is pleasant. Snorting is the least pleasant method of consumption.The way to go, really, with everything – assuming, of course, that it's orally active – is to eat it. This is how nature intended us to consume. Sticking things in veins and up our asses might work, but the body doesn't anticipate it happening; so we're ill-equipped to process it. Plugging is like snorting. Both involve putting drugs into an orifice that is not designed for insertions of any kind.I prefer plugging, slightly, but it's apples and oranges; the delicate tissue in the anus and nasal are rapidly destroyed by meth. But, so are your gums, tongue, teeth, and – to a lesser extent – throat. Meth is just bad for you, full stop. The only method of consumption that is relativey safe is oral consumption via either gelcaps or dilution in water.A common mistake that people make when injecting meth is to use the minimum amount of water required for their crystals to dissolve; obviously the more dilute it is, the less damage it will do to your vascular walls. I started whacking ice in high school; this incredibly hot ultra-skinny druggy-type, who was also a fashion model, introduced me to the world of needles at the age of sixteen. Almost thirteen years later and I have only collapsed one vein, despite being utterly reckless and neglectful of proper procedures. I've had a lot of nightmare hits, when I'm way to fucked to whack anything. I've had shots so bad that they've induced recurring nightmares. At times, I've had more than fifty fresh injection sites on my body. Still, only one vein collapsed. And now, inexplicably, it's back; my long lost celaphic, has finally come home: I'm not going to use it, or anything stupid like that, it's just nice to be complete again. To have the whole set.People exagerate the dangers of meth and of IV drug use in general. With proper care, frequent breaks, and moderate use, I don't think I ever would have had a problem. I have done more damage to my veins than I thought possible. Those drunk nightmare shots, when I was desperate and broke; I didn't give up until I delivered it into my bloodstream. The meth and the alcohol fucked with my perception of time; I didn't realize that, sometimes, half an hour might have passed since I began the process. When it was finally time to accept defeat, I'd find myself covered with holes. A hideous junky version of Spongebob Squarepants. Then, sometimes, I'd go again. I'd tell myself that I fucked the last one up from the beginning; that this time will be different. Of course, by that time there wouldn't be any room for fresh sites; so, either have to slide into pre-existing sites or go for deep veins – in my forearm or upper arm – which is difficult enough to do sober. Once, I hit a nerve on my way to a vein. A bolt of constant pain ran from my arm to my brain, like an electrical circuit. I knew that the vein was on the other side of the nerve; I'd just come in at the wrong angle, somehow. The smart thing to do would have been to pull out and start again. I went through the nerve, hit the vein, delivered, and then pulled back out. If you've never done this, you have no idea how painful it is. I don't care if you've given birth to triplets. Think about the nerve ending in a tooth. Now think about piercing it with a sewing needle.I wish I had been more careful with my veins: they used to be big and healthy; now, the king, my right celaphic, once a massive tree trunk with dozens of tiny brancehs, is now just a sapling; and the rest of them zig-zag back and forth down my arm, abd have shrunk to about half their original size.This, after twelve years of abuse. These days, I'm more careful. Those horrorific drunken attempts, at least they helped me to discover some restraint. They are etched into my mind, with other personal traumas; most of which, incidentally, are self-inflicted. Still, I am reckless and impatient; if I keep going the way I am, I won't have any veins left.Instead of hitting the veins as I usually would, I do one shot and then top up the high – when required – by taking hits from the light-bulb pipe. I don't bother to look at the beautiful art behind that thin layer of glass. I just smoke, and drink my beer, and make more of a mess. I spill candle wax and bits of liquified meth residue on the carpet. There are black stains and white stains; don't know if I'll be able to get them out. Fucking dirty way to consume drugs, if you're a careless slob.I make sure to gently brush my teeth and rinse with mouthwash every time I hit the pipe. Don't want to end up with no teeth left, in a month's time; it's pretty fucking ridiculous, considering the state of my gums, that I'm smoking this highly toxic shit in the first place. Like, directly after I discovered that I had advanced gum disease – including, probably, some jaw bone loss – I decided to act with total disregard for my dental health. I justified it, and probably will continue to do so, by reminding myself that I need to take a break from the needle. At any cost., Day 9Stayed up all night again. I've slept something like 16 hours in 8 days. Averaging 2 hours a day. Yet, I'm not tired at all. I don't look like I've just crawled out of a hovel. When I'm on the tram people smile at me. Old fellas talk to me, as if I'm their grandson. And I'm really enthusiastic, in response. Nobody suspects that I'm in the middle of a prolonged meth binge, at this point.I have a night shift today. Would have been a good time to take a break, though coming down from eight days on meth – at work – might not be the best idea. It's proved ill-advised in the past. So, there's only one choice really; I have to get high at work. Yes. I'll take my stack of overdue assignments with me and I'll get super high and do them all, while everybody is sleeping.Brilliant, I think; but there's this confusing part of me that's conflicted. Not sure why. I'll be better at my job than ever before. I'll be a fucking super employee.I'm really scattered, so I have a pipe and another beer; to bring me up, and settle me down. I grab a whole bunch of supplies. Books, homework, DVDs – and, of course – alfoil, a biro casing, and a lighter. The one thing I forget is a lighter, so I borrow one from one of the clients, pretending that it's for cigarettes. I wait until lights out, before I get started.I'm so tired, I can hardly work out what I'm doing. It takes me a while. I put the television on, to drown out the sound of the lighter. “Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo,” is playing; I've never seen it before; it is, by far, the worst piece of shit I've ever seen. But, it's kind of hilarious in that scattered hysterical daze that settles on you in the absence of fresh crystals. It's not laugh out loud funny, and I'm not in a laughing mood. I don't even smile, but I am – on some level – thoroughly amused. I smoke, slowly as usual, careful not to release more smoke than I'm capable of inhaling. Still, I lose some smoke – which I really can't afford to do. Again, I find it – chasing – a frustrating and dissatisfying experience. Then the lighter runs out. Fuck, I think. I search the office for a lighter, but find only matches; which means I need to strike the match, then pick up the straw and foil while it's burning. What I already found to be a difficult proccess was about to come even trickier. That's what I thought; but, it didn't for some reason. I juggled matchbox, foil and straw; sliding the match underneath my little pile of rocks. I expected them to combust over time, like they had with the lighter; instead the entire pile combusted immediately into a massive cloud of smoke. I wasn't ready, so I missed a lot of it, but it still fucked me up.Another way smoking is different to injecting, you get less energy. The rush from smoking isn't like the rush from IV. I actually felt tired after chasing two dragons. Time was finally catching up with me. I lay down, re-assuring myself that I was just taking a rest., Day 10I wake up, in the office, at work, surrounded by bits of burnt alfoil and other suspicious items. By some miracle, I happened to get up before the handover staff arrived for the day shift; having neglected to set an alarm. I jump to my feet and fold all the bits and pieces into a large sheet of alfoil, shoving it deep into my bag. Then, I lie back down and go to sleep. I have weird dreams, of which I can only remember tiny fragments.Wake up to a knock on the door. The office smells – quite a lot – of burnt meth. I invite my replacement in, glancing around nervously for anything I might have forgotten to conceal. I am clearly in some kind of state. Thankfully, the only people who know what burnt amphetamines smell like, are those who indulge in recreational drugs. This middle-aged conservative-type who was taking over from me that morning, he suspected something was amiss; maybe he even suspected drugs: but, it was nothing more than that – a suspicion. He didn't ask me what the smell was, which is good because I wasn't prepared to lie; but the fact that he didn't ask is meaningful in itself. Upon walking into the unit, he raised his nose and sniffed. The action was very deliberate. He sniffed the air, then he looked at me straight in the eyes. I smiled: oblivious; innocent. And, that was all there was to it. If it had been the smell of burnt cannabis, I wouldn't have got away with it. Another benefit for the smoke or whack debate, I guess, but I'm not likely to repeat the experiment. When I was high on meth, it seemed like a good idea to smoke some rocks in the office; it's not a good idea. It's a paranoid claustrophobic environment of which I have no legal basis for refusing staff entry, regardless of the time of night; if someone, however unlikely, had dropped by – like management, to check on me – well, I would have been totally fucked. I was paranoid while smoking; I didn't enjoy it all that much; and, I could have lost my job.I grab another six pack of beer on the way home. There is a small amount of meth left. One small shot and a pipes worth. I do the shot first, then spread the pipe out over the night. I don't sleep. Time flies by, and – before I know it – it is morning again.There's something wrong with my right hand; my hands, they're different colours. The right one is bright red, and it looks slightly larger than the left. At first, I think I'm hallucinating. Then I look it up. I've done myself some serious damage again. It was that shot last night; I knew I shouldn't have had it. I should've taken a break. Fuck. What do I do? My arm, the one with the red hand, hurts like a cunt. Every time I move it, there is a dull ache from under the elbow; or, a sharp stabbing pain in my forearm, near the wrist. Fuck. I start to panic. I'm going to lose my arm, like in fucking Reqiuem. Shit. God damn, I'm an idiot. I deserve to lose my arm. No, I don't. Don't listen to that, God. I beg your forgiveness. Don't take my arm away from me. Don't let another vein collapse. I don't promise to do anything, if my request comes true; I always fail to live up to my promises, so I don't make them anymore. God prefers it that way. I've got work in a couple of hours; can't call in sick again. It's better, I figure, if I go to work and explain myself; make up some story about my arm. I realize, I'm going to be late; it's quarter to. I grab two beers and some other odds and ends. I roll a joint and put it in my pocket for the way back.When I get to the tram stop, something isn't right. The sun is rising. I got the fucking hour wrong. It's 6:45, not 7:45. Gives me some time to jerk off and have a shower before heading out.Time dissolved: I don't know if I fell asleep, or what, but one hour felt like three minutes; the clock rolled forward from 6 to 7, and it was time to go., Day 11I am careful not to use my right arm. I shove the hand into my jacket pocket, to support it – like a sling would. When I get to work, I tell them I've injured my arm. I tell them I need to take threee days off. On the way home, I stop at the doctors for another medical certificate, excusing me from work. I have to wait for two hours for an appointment. I reluctantly show him my arm. I tell him not to judge me, and not to make any notes on my record. Then I roll up my sleeves. I say, “Do you see any difference between this arm and the other one? He says, “Yes. The right one, it's red.”I ask him, “What does that mean?”He tells me, it's not a major concern. I haven't hit an artery. There is still blood flow to the hand. My veins are probably just swollen and/or clotted due to moderate vascular damage. He says, “Lay off the drugs for a while.” I thank him, for not moralizing on the subject, and take my certificate.I feel a bit better about my arm, until I get home.There is no circulation going to my fingers. I can see blood clots – or are they just freckles – in my veins. My fingertips are turning purple. The veins in my hand are struggling to deliver blood – particularly to my thumb, my index and my pinky finger. I can see the blood clots moving around, travelling back and forth through the network. Or maybe they're not moving. Maybe, they're freckles. I can't tell. I am hallucinating too much. My skin looks three dimensional again.The knuckle on my index finger turns bright red. The vein leading up to it is so dark, it is almost black. The entire finger starts throbbing. There is no blood going to it. I rub the veins, desperately trying to dislodge the clot that is preventing blood flow. After five minutes, the finger returns to normal. This happens a number of times, with different fingers. Sometimes part of my hand too. I'm getting pins and needles from forearm to fingertips. Fucking thrombosis.I remember, from when my grandfather was sick, that alcohol – and aspirin – thins the blood, aiding in the treatment of blood clots. So, I keep drinking, beer after beer. Until I run out. But the hand isn't getting any better. If anything, it's getting worse. It looks like an old man's hand. Like it has aged twenty years over the past 24 hours. I consider calling an ambulance, again. But – what are they going to do? Give me some aspirin? Fuck that.I call the meth dealer. Despite the fact that I think having another shot will kill me, I have decided to do so. Meaning, I suppose, that I don't care if I die. As long as it looks like an accident. Suicide has never been an option. It would fuck up my family. They'd never recover. But, an overdose/heart attack as a result of drug use. Well, that's not their fault.My dealer says he'll drop by at 7:30 pm.There is some cream in my bedroom cupboard, that I used to use to treat swollen veins. Hirudoid cream. The tube is pretty much empty. I only manage to squeeze out a drop, which I use on the back of my right hand.Throw on some shoes and run down to the pharmacy, to get some aspirin and more hirudoid. The pharmacy is closed, so I get some beer instead. I find myself running out of breath; I am wheezing a bit, by the time I get home. The clots are in my lungs, I think. Quickly discarding the thought as paranoia. I haven't eaten or slept properly. Of course I'm running out of breath. I open a beer on the way home, and drink it – walking on the tram tracks.As soon as I get in the door, I grab the empty tube of hirudoid and cut it open with a pair of nail scissors. Scrounge every last bit of cream I can find, rubbing it all over both hands, and my right arm. I purposely avoid putting any on my left arm, because I am going to use it in a minute when the dealer arrives.The dealer calls, five minutes after he's supposed to be here, to say he can't make it. I am relieved. I'm not going to die, after all. Then I realize, I still have the dregs from the bag. I loaded a 29 gauge with 20 units of water earlier in the day, hoping to get a decent shot out of the crystal remnants. But I don't want to use a 29 gauge. If I'm going to do this it has to be perfect. I can't risk introducing any more bacteria into my bloodstream. There's a bit of burnt residue in the bag from my fingers, so I'm going to have to wheel filter it. But I don't have any empty barrels.I call Choper, the mobile needle and syringe service; they say they will be here in an hour.I look at my hand. The veins are bulging and healthy, but my fingers are still reddish-purple. There is an open wound on my index finger tip from a bit of broken light bulb. I open it up and squeeze it. No blood. The circulation, in that arm, is still fucked.I sit there, in a daze, waiting for Choper to arrive. I am hallucinating a lot. Much more than the peak of a strong acid trip. My red velvet curtains are descending rapidly into the floor like conveyor belts in maximum overdrive. I am seeing things, creatures, out of the corners of my eyes. I look at a dark patch on the carpet, that writhing with movement. It transforms, instantly, into a landscape. The carpet fibres form tables and chairs and people. I am looking down upon an olde time pub, full of men and women dressed in 19th century clothes, drinking and laughing, and generally having a good time. The detail is extraordinary. Like the landscapes I saw in the light bulbs, but much more complex. And animated. It is absolutely convincing. I scan the rest of the room, to verify that it is just a hallucination. I look at another patch of carpet, and I see nothing. No movement. No landscape. Just fibres. I look back at the dark patch, and see the olde time pub. A drunken man slaps his friend on the back and leans forward, exclaiming some silent – but, apparently hilarious – joke. Everybody laughs. They are all, these carpet fibre people, having such a good time.Choper calls to say they have arrived. I duck outside and make sure my neighbours aren't watching, before grabbing a 10 pack of 27 gauge, along with 2 empty barrels and 4 packs of sterilized water.I come back inside, and duck into the study to mix up my shot. I hit the light switch with my wounded index finger. The finger bleeds. I look at my hand. It is hardly red. I'm not going to lose a vein. Hooray. That would have really fucking depressed me. My fingertips are no longer purple. I am bleeding. Thank God, I am bleeding.Attach a wheel filter to a barrel, push some water through to moisten it. Detach. Mix up in my little baggy, to get the bits of crystal stuck to the plastic. The bag has a hole in it – fucking typical, dealers, seriously? - good thing I'm holding it over the spoon. I carefully mix it together and pour it into the spoon, then grind it up with the back of the syringe; add a bit of cotton; and suck it up into the barrel again – straight into the barrel, without a needle point. I chuck the wheel filter back on, along with a 25 gauge point; front dock it into the other empty barrel; empty the contents – through the filter – from one syringe to the other. Chuck a 27 gauge tip on the new barrel, flick it and push out excess air. Done. Took me less than 2 minutes. I go into the lounge, and sit down cross legged in front of the heater. I swab by fingers and the inner elbow of my left arm.I have to go through my bicep a little bit to get to one of my secondary veins – which, like most of them – is just a branch/continuation of the others. My muscles are small, so it's not an issue anyway. It hurts a little bit, but I don't let that phase me; I'm concentrating; this has to be perfect. I register the vein and return the contents of the now-bloody syringe into my arm. Get a little rush off it. Nothing spectacular; about what I was expecting from a dreg shot, really.Sit down and watch a movie called “Kids”. It's supposed to be shocking. I don't find it shocking. I drink beer and smoke many joints. I eat a packet of pistachio nuts.Two or three hours later, sometime around midnight, I fall asleep., Day 12Wake up on the floor, in front of the heater. I feel like absolute shit. The drugs, the lack of sleep, and the lack of food; they've all caught up to me at once. My body aches all over. I am severely dehydrated. I turn off the heater and stumble into the kitchen for some apple juice.Examine my hands and arms; the right is still a bit darker than the left, but – otherwise – they look, and feel, fine.I still haven't done my assignments for university. I'm going to fail if I don't get them done in the next 48 hours.Call my dealer. He tells me, he'll be back on tonight – sometime around 6:00 pm. This gives me six hours to eat, bathe, and gather supplies. I haven't had a shower or a bath for three days. There are no clean clothes or towels in the house. Need to get some more hirudoid cream, and eat as much food as I can stomach. Maybe even get an assignment done. The first draft of my alcohlics anonymous article is, maybe, half done. I wanted to attend one last meeting, from a different perspective; one last meeting, on meth: to complete the narrative. Tomorrow; Thursday's meeting: this will bring my AA research to an end. I have to go to the dentist, in the morning, as well.I write for two hours. The article is nearly completed now. It's going to be excellent. I've been thinking about how I should write it constantly, my thoughts rocket-fueled by meth. When I submit the draft for workshopping, it will be almost twice the maximum length for the assignment. Sort of like how this is twice the maximum length of most of bluelight's attention span. If you're still reading this, thank you for having the patience to stick with me. I'm trying to do something different. It's not too often that you get the opportunity to read such a long trip report. I'm up to something like 15,000 words, and it's all true. Something I find frustrating about people, is their inability to be open with me. Many times, I have revealed my deepest darkest secrets; and it always backfires. They keep theirs hidden. When they think something about me, they don't say it. They laugh when they are not amused. They smile, when they dislike me. I don't understand why people aren't just honest with eath other. That's kind of the point of this document. I've tried not to misrepresent anything, or exagerate or under-exagerate. It's not the most complimentary depiction of me, but that's okay. Unlike the rest of the world, I'm not particularly concerned with how people perceive me; just what I can get away with.I call my dealer. He says he'll be around at 7:30 pm. I have my doubts.Go to the pharmacy and get some hirudoid cream. I miss the tram, so I walk home. As I wander, I crack open the tube of cream and spread it on the backs of my hands. This guy yells from his ute something or other about me being a faggot. He thinks I'm putting on moisturizer or something. I don't bother to inform him that I have obstructed my veins by slamming an absurd amount of meth into them, in a short period of time; because I don't care what he thinks. I don't even turn to look at him; I just wave him off with a tired gesture and continue on my way. I feel sorry for him, a bit. I always do – feel sorry – for these fight-types. I've been friends with them, before. They're invariable depressed, but completely unaware of it. This guy yelling at people from his car, he needs therapy more than I do. He's seriously maladjusted. Poor guy, probably been utterly miserable his whole life. Probably hates people that are seemingly wealthier than him, because he resents his meager existence. Probably harbours homophobic thoughts towards men who are even slightly affeminate, because he is uncomfortable with his own sexuality; and, too repressed to experiment. The average Aussie bloke is an outdated concept. These guys that adhere to what used to be the cultural norm, twenty years ago; they're behind the times. Maintaining outdated cultural standards makes as much sense – less actually – than keeping Latin alive. Personally, I've never been that fascinated by cultural differences. They are all arbitrary. I don't see that they are good or bad. They just are.I grab some more beer on the way home. Sit on my porch drinking it, listening to Nick Drake. All three of my cats are sitting around me, purring. My disabled neighbour walks past. She looks at me, layer upon layer of bags under her eyes. I wave. She stops and says something. I take off my headphones. “What?” She repeats it, something about a bunch of kids in Box Hill teasing her, asking to be her boyfriend. We talk for a while; her standing at my fenceline, me sitting on the porch drinking Carlton Draught with my cats. Then, she invites me for coffee later in the week, says “Goodbye, neighbour!” and dissappears down her driveway.The room is boiling, on account of all the heaters in the house being on for an hour. I sit down in my armchair, and wrap a tourniquet around my right arm. I'm not entirely sure why I use the right, since it's the one with the most pronounced circulation problems; and I've already collapsed the cephalic, which is the largest under-elbow surface vein. I think, sometimes, I keep shooting just to prove to myself that my veins are functional. I go for the smaller of the two veins, because I think the larger is damaged; but I'm not sure. I get blood, and empty a bit back in. But it hurts a bit. I'm nervous, and drunk, and scattered. I re-register, to discover that I'm not in the vein. I don't want to dig around. I have to be careful. I pull out and swap the tourni over to the other arm. Swab quickly and try the secondary, again, behind my bicep muscle. I'm not getting it. I pull out and try again. Nothing. I give up. If I keep going, I'm going to seriously injure myself. That's it. 80 mg, now reserved for oral consumption. I drink a bit of water, then put the syringe in my fridge, and mix up another large shot. I don't weigh it. It looks like 70 or 80. Since it is unlikely I will be able to have too many hits, given the state of my veins, I need to make sure that – when they work – they are large enough to get me where I want to be. I go and sit back down in the lounge. The heater is still blazing. It is like a sauna. I put tourniquets on both arms, and leave them loose. I try to hit the main vein on the right arm. The big one. Doesn't work, but I get a tiny bit of blood. I swap to the small one, that registered briefly earlier. No good. I tighten the tourni on the left arm. Pull the plunger back, to clear the needle, and spray a couple of units out to make sure it's flowing; doing this prolong the use of a needle, despite whether or not it contains blood. I don't like to do it. I hit the main vein in my left arm. Pulling back on the plunger is difficult. I get an air bubble at the plunger end of the pick, meaning in the barrel has coagulated. I move extremely slowly, so as not to increase pressure on the vein. I get blood, and empty three quarters of the hit. Bingo. Fucking eureka. I check all 5 of my usable veins. None have collapsed; I go on to live another day.I want to have one last shot. Just one more. After that, I need to set fire to the rest of the syringes. Or contaminate them. Or break off the needles. This must be the last shot, or I'm going to do irreversible damage. I think I can get away with one more. I mix it up. Go back to the lounge. I am careful not to overdo it, not to get impatient. I try a couple of spots, get a bit of blood, and a big clot. This dark chunk of red shit flies into the barrel and settles down near the needle point. If I shoot it back into my bloodstream, it might go straight into my heart and kill me. I pull out, turn the needle upside down; and flick it, sending the clot tumbling down to the plunger side. I make sure the flow is okay, and try one last spot; but, it doesn't work. I have to give up. It's better to give up than fuck myself up. That's it. All of my usable surface veins need time to repair themselves. None of them collapsed. The thrombosis will go away, eventually. While this hasn't been the healthiest twelve days of my life, I have officially survived it. My veins, however, can clearly no longer sustain prolonged needle binges; I need to give each vein time to recover, before re-using it.(edit: MISSING SECTION...)I attempt two more shots, but I can't find a usable vein in the crook of my arm. I'm not going to start using my legs or my hands or my femoral vein. Even if I collapse all the superficial veins in the crook, I can live a normal life; the same cannot be said for any other part of the body. My hands continue to swell up, red, and then return to normal; particularly the right one. I am very careful with both arms. I do not flex the muscles; I let myself lie limp. Every now and then I check them, to make sure they are still there; and am relieved to discover that none have collapsed.After the sun rises, I go to bed and quickly fall asleep., Day 13Wake up, feeling absolutely horrible. You can sustain yourself in a cycle of drugs without sleep or food for a prolonged period of time. When you break that cycle – after you finally give in and go to sleep – you experience all of the negative effects you've been avoiding for the past week, or month. It all catches up with you. I feel like absolute shit.It's been nearly 24 hours since I had my last shot. My hands are looking a bit better. I eat some food, and hydrate myself, but I can't shake the aftermath. The house is a fucking disaster area. My head is full of images of veins and blood and memories of hallucinations. My eyes hurt, as if I've received a fist in both. I have lost a lot of weight. I can feel my cheekbones, sharp against my skin. My eyesocket has even lost weight. I find bones on my face that I never knew existed.I have a shot. Delivery is fine. Blood is flowing okay, in the right arm. Feel much better. All the negative effects are gone. I open a beer and roll a joint.I have trouble with the second shot. Get some blood in the chamber, but I don't give up. I keep going past the three minute mark. The blood in the syringe has thickened when I find myself, again, properly inside a vein in the left arm. I inject slowly. There is no pain, or discomfort. All good., Day 14Forgot I had a dentist appointment; my first in over five years. I have a bath, and a shave. Grab my keys, and my headphones. Head out the door; and jump on a tram. I walk from the tram stop, listening to music, and smoking a joint. When I arrive, I am extremely fucked up.The waiting room is an anxious environment. I'm not sure if I should say something to the woman behind the counter. I try and smile, as we establish eye contact, but it comes out all wrong. Eventually, I approach the bench. She gives me a clipboard, with a form to fill out. I am finding it difficult to write. In the section that requires my name and address, I have to cross out a couple of mistakes. When it comes to medical history, and what not, I am confronted by a question.“Are you on any medication?”After some hesitation, I write “No.”Being in a dentist's chair is weird after not visiting for 6 or 7 years. It's a creepy place, the dentist. Particularly when you're coming down from two weeks of prolonged methamphetamine abuse on top of being hungover and stoned.My dentist, an Indian woman, tilts the chair back. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to go with it. Awkwardly, I lie back. My body is stiff. I am in an odd position. My head isn't on the headrest.She's about to confirm that I have gum disease; that I need surgery. I can feel it. And, it's my fault. I don't have anyone to blame but myself.She peers around inside my mouth with a little mirror, pointing out that my gums are a little inflamed but otherwise okay; she doesn't even think I have any cavities. I almost don't believe it. I was expecting to hear “bone loss” and “skin grafting”. Not even a cavity? Is it all in my head? The veins, the teeth; everything?Maybe my hypochondria extends further than I thought. HIV and cancer are a constant concern, but I recognize them as irrational fears. Perhaps all my fears are irrational?The dentist, she asks me, “Do you want a shot, for the pain?” She's going to remove the tartar from my gums.I remember the clipboard. “Are you on any other medication?” Maybe the meth and the anaesthetic will have a bad reaction. I tell her, “No. I'll be okay.”This probably goes without saying, but don't go to the dentist when you're high. Lying back on a chair, while two people poke around inside your mouth. The sounds of suction and gurgling and power tools. Metal hooks milimetres from your inflamed gums. It's not a good place to be when your head is fucked up. My face distorts into a horrified expression. I keep imagining her slipping and cutting a big hole in me. I keep wondering, “Do they know I'm stoned?”The dentist, and the dental hygeinist, keep asking, “Are you sure you're okay; are you sure you don't want an injection?” Like, they're seriously concerned about something.I try to calm myself down. I try to relax my face. I insist, “I am okay.”On the way home, I call work and extend my sick leave for another three days; this covers me for the whole weekend.Day 15Last shot. Get a blood clot. Accidentally slam it.Go to The Auburn to get beer. Veins hurting. Sitting out in the rain, on the way back waiting for the last tram. A taxi driver picks me up, asks me if I want a lift for free since he's on his way home. I don't bother asking where he's going. End up in the wrong suburb. Drink a beer. Smoke a cigarette. I catch the tram as far as I can. Put the beer in my trenchcoat pocket before getting on, then forget about it and sit down. It spills onto the inner lining of the coat. I have to walk through the rain, soaked with beer, carrying the remaining drinks with my fucked up arms. I swap hands back and forth, to reduce the impact of the bag's weight on my veins. It's Friday night; too busy to call a taxi. Stop for a burger on the long walk home. I only have a couple of coins. I have trouble determining what I can afford. I change my order six times. The girl behind the counter is amused. I keep walking, stopping frequently to rest my aching arms. Eventually, I get home and smoke another joint. I need to remember to take a joint with me everywhere I go.Day 17I wake up on the floor. There is a black stain on the carpet, in front of my face. Smells like burnt meth. Other similar stains are littered across the ground. Instantly, as soon as they day has begun, I feel depressed. Every time I see these stains, I'm going to react negatively. And I don't need any more negativity, especially as soon as I wake up. I grab a pair of nail scissors from the coffee table and crouch down on the ground, trimming the shag down until the stains are almost gone.