Misunderstood and Alone

After the intervention failed, I really couldn't say that my friends and family didn't care about what happened to me. They tried the best way they could to deal with a problem they had no experience with. They did manage to get me to stop using heroin for 18 days. But without the dope, all the pain I was using drugs to relieve came back with a vengence. Add to that, the new pain of withdrawal, which even I had no experience with, and I just plain hurt... spiritually, emotionally, and now physically, too. Of course I ended up seeking relief from that, the only way I knew would really work. Once I made the decision to get high again, any sympathy or understanding for me pretty much ended, because all anybody saw...was me making the choice to use. Since a year had gone by since the murders, most people thought I had "gotten over it", and so nobody even considered that without a lot of professional help, nothing was going to change. And that included me. I had no idea how to heal from these wounds...so I did the best I could to conceal the wounds...I wanted people to think I was strong...that I was OK. So I didn't seek counseling, or therapy...I didn't know what they were...and I didn't know they could help me. I didn't think anything could help the reasons why I hurt. But I knew what took away the pain...at least enough for me to be OK. So to be OK, I had to use. There was no choice about it, at least, not in my mind. And once I did that, I cut myself off from all the people who knew me or cared about me, and that forced me to live and hang out with people who only cared about...the next high. So it seemed as if the last and only friend I had left  in the world at that time was my dog Kilo. He was an amazing animal; very smart, very loyal, and he was even protection for me when I was on the street, too. He loved me no matter what I did...and although at that time I couldn't possibly know it...I was about to lose him, too.