After a fairly steep upwardly productive and more or less satisfying last 2 years of my adult life, of having entered my 30's and without a single, major catastrophic fuck up and somewhat started to stabilize and better organize my life.... i suddenly made the dumbest mistake of all.
some background: am eastern european, met my taiwanese girlfriend in israel, left for asia after both of us roaming around europe, living/working in vietnam now (cheaper, easier and less regulated than taiwan, in addition to accessibility to... stuff... in taiwan, the effects of the opium wars still linger on centuries later in people's mentality, mindset and, well, law).
have about 7 years of history of opiate dependence (morphine/heroin mostly) in total, eventually managed to kick and stay off using iboga. a number of so-called 'flood doses', long periods of micro-dosing and so on - i remember how paralyzed in awe and disbelief i was when i discovered that THIS SHIT ACTUALLY WORKS!! spares you the agony of the acute withdrawal syndrome, eliminates any of those long dragged lingering post-wd symptoms (such as insomnia, demotivation, depression, anhedonia, alcoholism, etc.) and makes you feel re-born and re-vitalized, light and happy to be alive and breathing.
it furthermore: took care of a list of gastro intestinal ailments that had haunted me for as long as i can remember up until then, the (as i realized) not-unrelated bouts of depression and after ~2 months of micro-dosing, believe it or not, my hepatitis C was gone too.
since then, of course here and there now and then i'd scratch that itch, allow myself to indulge on occasion, and if i feel i'm getting carried away i pinch myself i stop.
up until my recent settling in saigon.
and more specifically, when i ended up in a situation of having few grams at my disposal in my possession (omitting details).
the exception turning an exception to the exception, or just fuggit - after all, once you pull the needle out you step into a place where nothing really actually matters, especially for a few minutes.
now, LUCKILY, i first KNOW of iboga and second, happen to have a good, reliable source of quality bark whom we happen to also be in rather friendly relationship with.... i can't imagine if that were missing.
now, a few observations.
heroin in southeast asia seems to be all the same, quality wise. coming obviously from the same source (which ought to be laos, or myanmar, i would guess, perhaps partly cambodia), white, compressed into brick-like chunks and readily H2O soluble. BUT! it is strangely different from the brown stuff we had in europe, or from the smack i've myself prepared from morphine sulphate and acetyl chloride - it's nowhere near as euphoric, barely anything you could call a rush, at least in the sense of how i remember it. there's also an unfamiliar 'synthetic' smell/taste to it, you can feel it sometimes when you exhale after pulling out the needle from the vein. i get that with synthetic opioids usually. what's your guess here? it is definitely heroin, or anyway, everybody from here to cambodia is definitely selling this as heroin and that's what all the junkies are taking too. and while NOT bad, it's nothing spectacular neither as potent as many often say it is.
prices however are a very tricky thing - vietnam is at least easier, still kind of being within the fold of the civilized world, but cambodia... jesus fckn mohammed! it's def not for everybody. and the long timers there, the permanent expats, appear to be a cynical and jaded bunch like none i've ever encountered anywhere else. end of the day, of course i pay more than the vietnamese junkie.
then... i notice that as one gets older he tends to also get hooked quicker and more severe. withdrawals become increasingly difficult with every next, and particularly with age. i suddenly realize why some people remain on the junk throughout their life times. after a certain point it does become too late.
so, otherwise, i read a lot here, educate and teach myself -- code, trading, blockchain related stuff, some interesting areas of research and what not, finding a gig here and there online, few bucks here a few there doing what is essentially for me practice, but mainly at the moment and since i been here i been teaching english. its paid decently, its easy enough altho schools and students do vary -- from really bright, smart, intelligent and curious kids/students with desire to learn and pleasure to work with, from those that are dumb as a sack of nails, are a total waste of time (not to mention everything else too) and so on...
so last sunday i get a call and an offer to go teach for 3 days, 3 hours an evening just outside saigon - "just", as in 2, 2.5hrs with the bus... in some ultra-conservative (fanatically) catholic village of disgustingly provincial mindset - i had been there, once, in the beginning, and i hated it. but i definitely need the money, i figured, so i said yes. packed with me as much smack and meds along as i could afford thinking that i'll be able to properly ration it til my last class and even if i arrive back sick as a dog, at least i'll get paid pretty much upon arrival.
however, day 3 into it, withdrawal begins to kick in.
and it gets to a point where it's truly unbearably bad.
the whole thing was an utter nightmare, and how i made it back, how long that took... truly traumatizing.... and i def didn't expect the wds to be THAT bad...
out of curiosity i asked somebody, what options do they offer to local junkies here in vietnam.
just a handful of overcrowded, counterproductive rehab centers, that's it.
fuck.
in cambodia at least you can get literally anything from the pharmacy (no healthcare, so people are left to their own pharmacological responsibility, and one can buy anything from anabolic steroids to oxycodone and everything inbetween from any pharmacy), and can more or less painlessly manouever your way out of such situation.
fortunately my 'cure' above mentioned should arrive in another week or so, and with that i am closing that page in my life.
...and after that, i have to get on with fixing much of the mess i've caused in the process, but that should be easy enough.
anyway.
thought i'd share this little personal experience of mine...
