VainAlchemist
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2016
- Messages
- 4
This is my first post here, as far as I can recall. This isn't one of those "Help me!" threads, because I know what I need to do (=get my ass to rehab ASAP), and have known for a while, even though I still haven't done so; I merely need somewhere to vent and to attempt to connect with any others who may have gone through something like the following.
For the last 11 months, since late May 2016, I've been stuck in a vicious addiction to Rx-stimulants, primarily Adderall but also Dexedrine, i.e. whatever my "friend" has happened to get a script for at any particular time.
I had successfully quit a 5-month meth habit two months prior to embarking on this one by striving to be a part of the 5% of former meth users that never touch the stuff again; I was able to quit it by sheer force of will, something which I treasured and which motivated me, even if only slightly. Yet I somehow thought that I wouldn't get snared up in amphetamine addiction again.
I've been paying for that stupid decision quite dearly. Only in July, 2 months after reinitiating my amph addiction, I was already starting to go through rough mental withdrawals the days after only taking 30-45 mg at a single time (and using lorazepam to soften the comedowns and get sleep the same night). By October, 5 months into it, the withdrawals started to become physical as well, and by this time, I started to need Adderall just to not feel the pain of not having any stims in my system.
Towards the end of December, I quit my job which I had been at for the 7 months prior, 6 of which were spent in the cycle of using-and-withdrawing. I'm honestly surprised I was able to keep up the façade for that long. By now, almost midway into the new year, I'm no better off. I've been jobless for 4 months, but my stimulant addiction has only deepened. My grandma has been disappointed in me for being what basically amounts to a bum, and I'm sure she and everyone else at home have realized I'm on something, yet something in my stubborn head has been preventing me from mustering up the courage to admit I'm addicted to drugs and that I need to go to rehab, i.e. that façade I mentioned a few sentences ago.
I've been telling myself I'd go to rehab for the last 6 months, but I still haven't. I may still be alive, but I'm merely existing, and hardly living. My overall health is in worse shape than ever, and on top of that, I've increasingly been going on multiple-day benders in which I forgo sleep, force sleep the second night, and end it by taking more on the third day, even though I know I'll be disappointed with the dysphoric effects.
I took my last 15-mg Dexedrine XR 6 hours earlier. I forced myself to go on a one-day tolerance break yesterday, but its effects were still underwhelming today. Not that I expected anything different. For the last 6 months, stims only make me functional and feel normal at the peak of effects.
At this point, my only options are 1) to find a job (which I know won't happen) and 2) to go to rehab. I hit rock-bottom a long time ago, so hopefully I will call the number that a counselor at the amphetamines.com hotline gave me for the Illinois SAMHSA hotline yesterday.
For the last 11 months, since late May 2016, I've been stuck in a vicious addiction to Rx-stimulants, primarily Adderall but also Dexedrine, i.e. whatever my "friend" has happened to get a script for at any particular time.
I had successfully quit a 5-month meth habit two months prior to embarking on this one by striving to be a part of the 5% of former meth users that never touch the stuff again; I was able to quit it by sheer force of will, something which I treasured and which motivated me, even if only slightly. Yet I somehow thought that I wouldn't get snared up in amphetamine addiction again.
I've been paying for that stupid decision quite dearly. Only in July, 2 months after reinitiating my amph addiction, I was already starting to go through rough mental withdrawals the days after only taking 30-45 mg at a single time (and using lorazepam to soften the comedowns and get sleep the same night). By October, 5 months into it, the withdrawals started to become physical as well, and by this time, I started to need Adderall just to not feel the pain of not having any stims in my system.
Towards the end of December, I quit my job which I had been at for the 7 months prior, 6 of which were spent in the cycle of using-and-withdrawing. I'm honestly surprised I was able to keep up the façade for that long. By now, almost midway into the new year, I'm no better off. I've been jobless for 4 months, but my stimulant addiction has only deepened. My grandma has been disappointed in me for being what basically amounts to a bum, and I'm sure she and everyone else at home have realized I'm on something, yet something in my stubborn head has been preventing me from mustering up the courage to admit I'm addicted to drugs and that I need to go to rehab, i.e. that façade I mentioned a few sentences ago.
I've been telling myself I'd go to rehab for the last 6 months, but I still haven't. I may still be alive, but I'm merely existing, and hardly living. My overall health is in worse shape than ever, and on top of that, I've increasingly been going on multiple-day benders in which I forgo sleep, force sleep the second night, and end it by taking more on the third day, even though I know I'll be disappointed with the dysphoric effects.
I took my last 15-mg Dexedrine XR 6 hours earlier. I forced myself to go on a one-day tolerance break yesterday, but its effects were still underwhelming today. Not that I expected anything different. For the last 6 months, stims only make me functional and feel normal at the peak of effects.
At this point, my only options are 1) to find a job (which I know won't happen) and 2) to go to rehab. I hit rock-bottom a long time ago, so hopefully I will call the number that a counselor at the amphetamines.com hotline gave me for the Illinois SAMHSA hotline yesterday.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
All the thoughts that hold the need in place are being manufactured in our own heads--and most of those thoughts pre-date drug use and go way back into childhood. Thoughts about how to fit in, succeed, stand out, be 'worthy' of love, etc.--most people amass a whole repertoire of ways to undermine themselves with thinking things like, "I have to be on a drug to feel normal", "I am a failure compared to other people", "If people really knew me they could not love me" and all the other garbage messages we internalized and feed back to ourselves daily. Getting rid of the drug habit will only last so long as long as the need to address uncomfortable or painful feelings is still burning inside you. So go deeper than the drug use and find out what is fueling it for you. Face your fears about yourself--most if not all of them turn out to not be real.
