traceyh415

This past week, I was deep in the heart of the Smokey Mountains for the Southern Conference on Harm Reduction. While I did everything humanly possible to talk the organizers out of having me, I was brought in to discuss the negative and positive realities of sharing stories about drug use and abuse as a woman. I was excited to attend but the trip was LONG- two flights and a forty minute car ride. The day I arrived, nothing at the hotel was open so I had to walk into the town. This involved walking along the grassy side of a busy rural highway. I channeled my inner Eileen Wuornos and hiked down to the breakfast place. The after church crowd was filing in, discussing the sermon. What was pretty clear from this trip was that Harm Reduction or pretty much anything cannot take place with some level of cooperation from the religious community. Coming from the "godless" Bay Area, this was a culture shock but not wholly surprising.  These types of events energize me as I see there...

I want to talk briefly about my love/hate relationship with abscesses. I've had like 34 of them :(. First of all, if you inject drugs and you have never had one, congrats. I feel like the key to avoiding them is really keeping a sterile field at the injection site, using sterile water, and new syringes. Being a homeless junkie, it get REALLY hard to keep a sterile injection area. Even in the best case scenario using alcohol wipes, just the environment all around me was fucking filthy. Syringes were kept in my sock, my gross pockets, or in some kind of bag with god knows what swirling around in there. Also, as a person who injected tar, god knows what kinds of bacteria and folgers coffee I injected over the years. Secondly, I would get super excited to pop one. So gross. So wrong. So true though. They get red, painful, and your skin gets swollen and tight. It is as if mother nature compels you to do something. They gush out gross green stuff. The human body is truly amazing. The f...

Well readers this has been kind of a shit week for me. My dog Sadie, who has been my baby for the past 12 1/2 years had to put sleep Monday morning. She was 14 so it wasn't wholly unexpected but is was extremely sad. I was grateful I could be there with her to the very end. Of course, I wanted to know what drugs they were using to put her to sleep to make sure she would be feeling no pain.  In addition to this, I threw my back out. It isn't even a cool story like "oh I was lifting at the gym" or "I was carrying this pack on a ten mile hike". I pulled a muscle in my back angrily cleaning up kid toys. It was super humbling to have to lay my old ass down. SIGH. Oh well.  In other news, I am leading a writing workshop for women who has histories of drug use and abuse in North Carolina this month. That is pretty exciting. It's a volunteer gig which are generally the best ones. Plus, I will get to see lots of my Harm Reduction friends.  A news crew ...

Well family, another day is coming to a close. I am sitting on my bed in a t-shirt and boxer shorts figuring out how to inspire the world. In today's edition, I really want to discuss how the media portrays us. Pretty much on a daily basis, a journalist of one type of another want to get the "inside story" by interviewing current and former opioid "addicts". While some may be kind hearted and many are sympathetic, they aren't us. I look at the books coming out about the "epidemic". They aren't US either. I want to hear stories written by us. What constitutes US: - Have you used toilet water to fix? - Have you gone to work dopesick? - Have you had to drive you kid to school holding your cheeks sick? - Have you traded a family heirloom for some pills? - Have you washed the dope man's dishes? Watched their kids? - Have you cried over a lost bag? - Have you burned out all forms of credit? - Are you on house arrest? Do you have to pee ...

" 'it's so insane how this drug has taken hold over me. " Another person lost to drugs. Another person lost to the world. I have corresponded with thousands of people over the years- a few messages from time to time. This person was different. I had been corresponding with them off and on since 10/2013. That's a long fucking time. I had recently looked at their pictures, remarking to myself they must be doing well if I haven't heard from them. Things start as they do- sniffing some pills. Then more pills. Then more pills. We started with some questions about if you could OD from snorting oxy. " I usually do, at a minimum, 120mg of oxy a day. the average I do is about 200mg. the max is about 300mg. I haven't moved onto the needle, and I really don't have plans to" There were some times when the using stopped. Smoking weed with friends. Taking classes. Playing xbox and paintball. "you truly bring me hope that there are still goo...

I put the car in park and peered around at my surroundings. I’d driven to a brick and wood panel house, one of those houses that was obviously designed and built in the 70s. It lay under an ancient oak tree, it’s long and twisted branches reaching out over the house and front yard with their shadows giving a false sense of comfort in the midday heat. One fallen branch would easily destroy the house. A rough looking dog house was nestled at the base of the tree housing an equally rough looking mangy Siberian husky. The husky was not the only animal I saw. In fact, the yard was infested with pets and strays alike. The house sat down the road from a low income trailer park, where parents would gift puppies to their children, not understanding how much dedication and money raising a dog truly takes. Some of these neglected and forgotten pets inevitably migrated to this house, where the owner set out food every day for all of the unwanted dogs as well as her pets. I turned off the ig...