• HEALTH & RECOVERY
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules Thread Directory 1 Thread Directory 2
    Mindfulness Links Addiction & Mind
    Sober Living Partner Program (SLiPP)
  • H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist | cdin | Lil'LinaptkSix

April Getting/Staying Sober and/or Clean vs Not Fooling Around.

Status
Not open for further replies.
CrowetheCat said:
Looks like I'll be hanging around this subforum for a while. I am officially out of heroin, and I may want to jump on the next bus and buy some, but I won't. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired
Click to expand...

Good for you - Hang in there!
I didn't get on that bus almost 8 months ago and here I am. The routine was exhausting… day after day after day after day, just so I had my morning dose. No way to live.
 
simco said:
curious what you mean by a "smart" meeting. i'm considering NA but feel iffy about it for a variety of reasons. any advice on what to look for, what to avoid, etc. as far as meetings go? personally, i don't have a problem identifying as an addict during a meeting, so i don't think open/closed is probably the important factor. but i'm totally in the dark about NA. any advice?
Click to expand...

I believe a SMART meeting is a non-religious help group for people trying to quit addictions, but I might be wrong.
 
First opiate free day (again) coming up tomorrow, taper shifted forward by a day for reasons I can't be bothered to explain.

I'm feeling it a bit now, but I've got a feeling that's because I had also consumed a fair few boxes of diazepam over the last few weeks but haven't for a few days and it's all drained out of me (well, other than trace). One more 30mg of dhc before bed (and I will load on promethazine to try and KO myself) and then it's man the fuck up time.
 
For SMART Recovery research Albert Ellis or REBT. Looks at underlying issues. Helps with self pity, shame, blame… seeing more clearly nature of one's thinking, emotive responses.

I could be wrong but this iirc is what I recollect. :)
 
I had a wonderful day today... I am adhering to my taper plan, walked 3 3/4 miles, had lunch with my walking friend, and actually killed some weeds in my yard. I feel so much better at a low dose of oxy's vs more. My thinking seems so much clearer.
Smoky: What does "iirc" mean? Also, from what I remember from Albert Ellis, he encourages us to look at our beliefs, and to challenge the beliefs we have that are not serving us well. I think whether or not we are an addict, it is good to see if we are on auto-pilot, i.e. are my beliefs just handed down to me from my parents, or are they truly well thought out?
To chime in a bit to some of the other posts, I find the mental part of tapering off now to be worse than the physical part. I sometimes feel lethargic, and like I don't care about anything. I know that it takes time, and also, that I have to do the work. That means I can't sit at home wishing. I actually have to do something.. like walk, call a friend, do some gardening if I want to feel better and less depressed. If we can't figure out what it is we like to do, one mental exercise is to imagine ourselves when we were 5 or 6 years old. What we liked to do then. oftentimes is a genuine interest. It is before teachers and TV commercials brainwashed us and we begin to lose our authentic selves.
I don't know if I shared this before, so apologize if I am being redundant, but right before joining BL I was watching Intervention... a lot. I wanted to find out how to score H and not look stupid doing it. I was so fed up with the tolerance I had developed to my prescribed oxy's, and how much I was paying to go every month just to get that prescription. I now think I was being crazy. I do not want to do H now or ever, OMG, how many horrid stories have I read about the strength of that addiction? I am glad to have that idea shut down.
CH: I sure hope you start feeling better here soon... it is quiet when you are sick. Sending healing energy your way.
 
P0kemama said:
I had a wonderful day today... I am adhering to my taper plan, walked 3 3/4 miles, had lunch with my walking friend, and actually killed some weeds in my yard. I feel so much better at a low dose of oxy's vs more. My thinking seems so much clearer.
Click to expand...

nice. that sounds awesome.
-Sim
 
Hey guys :(

Sorry I haven't been around for a couple days. At least it feels that way,
Still working on this relapse situation. Feeling like an idiot right now...
I need to drag myself out of this before it gets worse. I literally can't afford to let that shit happen.
Now I have this shit I don't wanna do but I can't give it back or resell it and the demon in my head is like "just do it" I couldn't stop myself. But just saying those words alone is a lie I KNOW it's a lie.. words like "can't, couldn't, etc." are useless words because we all know we CAN do whatever we want with our lives. It's just really friggin' hard sometimes. It's nice to have support from others who come back on their own time who have experiences to relate tho.
Well I suppose I should make tonight the last night... again ._.
but my boyfriend is going back to rehab again so I have a feeling I might have to postpone this "last night" to the beginning of May when he goes. Godamnit why is it that I'm making excuses to use til the last minute..?
That's exactly what my brain is doing to me. It's making excuses for me to just keep using. Until the last possible moment I can let myself.
It's such a trap..... *sigh*
 
Papa just the fact that you are posting while still on your relapse shows a lot
When I relapse I disappear for months and don't post again till I'm ready to quit again
You can see my previous posts in the clean time thread in the dark side
You made it to almost a month so you obviously can do it when you are ready just brush off this relapse and do it again
Don't be hard on yourself ;)
 
Hi Papaverium,

I know how you feel, it is hard to do sometimes, but it gets easier. I like to give myself the 1 day rule, i think about if i really need it for one day and then i make my decision, I do this with everything from socks, to buying oreos or waffles lol. I also relapes a bunch of time. I mainly withdrew and got clean because i would run out of money for a week, but once before i went four months and this time im doing it all the way. When i would relapse I wouldnt let that one time get in my way…most people relapse but as long as you make it that once and continue on a sober path it gets easier. Dont let that one bump in the road distract you from the goal.
 
Thanks you guys,
It's been pretty hard emotionally since I lost my job, and my lease is coming up soon, and I know we aren't resigning it so I have to find a place and my cat is pregnant, and my other one is getting fixed next week and I can't really afford to do it but I have to..., ugh I know everything will eventually work out. It's just so much easier to drown out the noise in my head than to focus on the sounds I really need to hear.
 
Verri,
That sounds really rough. I like totach's point, tho: you're still posting to this thread, which is great. I'm totally out of my depth here (being new to this whole quitting H thing), but my instinct is that you're riding out a rocky patch. That's different than saying, 'fuck it, i'm diving headlong back into my habit.'

One other thing--and if this is too personal, just ignore it--but are things cool with your bf? You've mentioned him a couple times in the context of this relapse. Could be fine and no big deal. But I've certainly been in situations where the chemistry was just not conducive to moderate behavior. Anyhow, just asking...
Luck.
-Sim
 
just got back from my first NA meeting. not quite sure what to make of it. i can definitely see why people get uncomfortable at meetings. but i can also see how it might be really valuable.

damn, though, one dude scared the shit out me: i'm pretty sure he is a hardcore, OG NA member and he was trying to put the fear of god into me. it kind of worked.
 
simco said:
just got back from my first NA meeting. not quite sure what to make of it. i can definitely see why people get uncomfortable at meetings. but i can also see how it might be really valuable.

damn, though, one dude scared the shit out me: i'm pretty sure he is a hardcore, OG NA member and he was trying to put the fear of god into me. it kind of worked.
Click to expand...

First of all, keep trying different meetings. Each one is unique and has its own feel.

Yeah those guys are at every meeting, keep in mind that everyone there has issues. Even the "old timers". Everyone has different approaches, my sponsor has like 30 years but he doesn't get in my face or anything like that. He constantly tells me that it is up to me to do the work and all he can do is guide me. He is super laid back.

I also wouldn't be surprised if that hardcore OG guy doesn't have as much time as you think. Lots of older people in NA are just fronting and have been in and out there whole lives. NA isn't therapy, but that doesn't mean that some people try to use it as such. Lots of people have issues when they get off drugs.

Feel free to PM me with any questions. I am super busy right now, but I will try to answer them. I will not try to push the steps on you, but all I can say is that they are the only thing that worked for me and I tried to "moderate", "control", "quit" and "taper" for almost a decade. Before that, I didn't care at all and just used.

Maybe read up on the stages of change as well.

As for SMART meetings, I have been to a few and they are good. But, there just are not that many. It hasn't really caught on and the requirements to host meetings are stringent.
 
Those that can be here on BL tapering and/or come back so quickly from relapses I don't know how you do it - but you do! It's amazing! :)

It wasn't my experience. It takes a lot of courage and perseverance to be in it while turning it around for the better while also going through so much pain. I couldn't barely post on BL when I was in it. All I did was work and sleep and work and sleep and feed the cat and work and sleep, work sleep and feed the cat some more. My thinking was very messed up, irrational and I was beginning to lose my memory.

I couldn't even grasp how BL worked at that time. I was out there for a year and a 1/2. Took me that long to return and get clean again. It takes what it takes though and takes some more which for me is what I needed.

Doing less is more indeed. That's what I began to do, every day less and less til I was able to quit completely. It was like losing my best friend at the time… a slow painful pulling away from something I loved but was so destructive to my soul
 
Yeah I had to go back out for a good 2 years after my first semi-legit attempt before I said enough, and yes, we very much have a relationship with the substances we use and/or behaviors we indulge in. I look at it as a relationship that started great but then turned into a bad BF/GF situation.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top