Heroin withdrawal in Iceland
On one of my trips, (Nov 11, 1996), after I’d picked up my bag/ounce, I decided I’d give myself a vacation. So I bought a ticket for myself to Iceland. I always wanted to go to Iceland, for some reason. Well, I always did like to travel. So I had an ounce of heroin and I was leaving for Iceland in 6 weeks. The days went by and the bag got smaller. Soon my trip was only a week away. But the bag was getting very light. I rationed it out into about 30 different bags. I buried about 10 of them in 10 different spots about 10 miles from my house. And I buried 10 more in ten other spots about 20 miles away. And 10 more about 30 miles away. I thought that if it wasn’t handy then I wouldn’t use as much. It doesn’t work that way.
Soon I was making 10 mile drives. Then 20 mile drives. The next thing, I was on my way to the airport in Halifax with the last 2 bags. I did one before I got on the plane and I left the other one in my Jeep for when I got back. By the time we landed in Iceland my nose was running and I was starting to sweat. I was going into withdrawal. I had brought 5 or 6 Dilaudid tables with me, foolishly thinking that was enough to get me through. Not a chance. I swallowed all of them as soon as I got to the hotel. Half an hour later, I got sick and puked them up. I was going into withdrawal cold turkey in Iceland.
I was so fucking lonely. Over and over, I got sick. I was so cold I stayed in bed for the whole three days I was there. Every time I got up I would run to the bathroom and get sick. There must have been 2 inches of vomit on the floor of the bathroom. I only left the room once in the whole 3 days I was there. I went to the Pizza Hut in the lobby of the hotel. Then I went back to my room and puked it up. I wasted the entire trip. I didn’t see any of Iceland except the airport and hotel. Finally it was time to leave. On the bus back to the airport I was delirious. I thought I was in Newfoundland and I was going to take a ferry home. I wish that had been true …
The flight home was possibly the worst experience I’ve ever had in my life. I had a window seat near the back of the plane, which was full of passengers. Just after we took off the stewardess came by and offered me a little bag of peanuts. I was starving. My stomach was empty from 3 days of vomiting. I ate one peanut and suddenly I felt sick. There was no time to go to the washroom. I sat there and puked all over myself, over the seat in front of me, and over the window. I was covered in vomit. It was so humiliating. Everybody moved away and I just sat there covered in my puke. I had no extra clothes with me, nothing to change into. I didn’t even go to the washroom to try and clean myself up. And the stewardess came along and offered me a napkin, one of those little tiny napkins they give you with your drink. I just wanted to die then and there. I sat there covered in my own vomit all the way back to Halifax, a five hour flight.
I didn’t think it could get worse but it did, oh, it did. In Halifax we had to go through customs. And sure enough they took me aside. Then the dog comes out. The fucking dog. (I found out years later that the Charlottetown police had asked them to search me on my return). The customs guys said that the dog detected drugs so they were going to search me.
And they did search me. First my bags. Then they strip searched me. That wasn’t enough. I couldn’t leave until I sat on a bucket and had a shit. I was completely humiliated, degraded, and outraged. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Nobody smuggles drugs from Iceland! So I had to strip naked and shit in a bucket with all the customs guys standing there watching me. The only reason that I was able to get through it was because I knew I had a little bag of heroin waiting for me in the Jeep. So I smiled and I shit. They put their gloves on and poked their hands around in my shit and, finding nothing but a bad smell, they had to let me go. I ran out to the parking lot, grabbed the dope and chased the dragon. And then I sat there with a great big smile on my face. Finally, it was over.
NOTE: As we discovered later, the RCMP were tapping Reggie's phone, and had alerted Canada Customs that Reg should be searched upon his return to Halifax.