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Recovery Clean and on Auto-pilot

I heard that red is best for a kitchen because for some reason it makes you hungry
 
jess, you are really early in. don't give up. it isn't supposed to be good at this point, apart from the odd fleeting moment. a few weeks into being clean i felt like you, but also so fucking angry that all the people in rehab could laugh, and i just couldn't. i didn't smile. i was a completely joyless individual. a lot of that was due to my dopamine system being so out of whack cos of all the crack but PAWS will have contributed too. i was just alternating between despair and rage, over nothing. everything i had been masking for so long (i was on one drug or another daily for 16 years) was coming to the surface.

sometimes distraction is the only thing that works. i'm really glad you found some peace in the woods. focus on that and not the fact some interventionist god didn't answer your call.

i'm sure that once you have maintained your recovery a bit longer you will feel less like a crap person in every relationship, because there will be some distance between you now and you when you were using, when you won't have been at your best.

just stick with it, it gets better and it really is worth it most of the time. even right now part of me wishes i could fuck off all this recovery bollocks cos i am hurting pretty badly, but i know using would make everything worse.
 
Yeah, I didn't mention the rage. So much anger. Anger at god, myself, the world - I really feel like I could just burn it all down.
 
glad its not just me then. i mean lets face it, to get addicted to opiates in the first place some pretty shitty stuff has generally happened, so there's rage over that, rage over all the shitty things people did while you were using and thus vulnerable, rage against yourself. rage against everyone. i still am quick to anger, especially to my mum who i have a lot of issues with, but i can control it better and calm down.

and early in you can't even express yourself to the people you're angry at cos you are supposed to be grovelling or something cos of how shitty you've been when you were using, and even if you do they wont listen cos hey, they weren't as bad as you cos they didn't use drugs (in my experience at least). and also you know that its just completely out of proportion or you don't feel able to express it well, so you end up just sitting there in this anger.

my first couple of weeks in rehab i just fucking hated my parents cos they'd taken my drugs away even though i went in voluntarily at their expense when my other option was homelessness cos they changed the locks to my house, which they'd been paying for for a long time by that point.
 
unfortunately i can't answer that, it varies for everyone.

what i can say is that it doesn't really have an end, it just diminishes gradually, you'll start to notice the odd fleeting time of feeling good. then maybe you'll get a full day of feeling mostly good, then a full week, then be back to feeling as crap as you did the first few weeks for like a month and thinking about jacking it all in. for now i'd try to distract yourself as much as possible, and i bet pretty soon you'll catch yourself having enjoyed some of the distractions. try and make as much of the distraction as possible recovery related, but make sure you make time for stuff you know you actually enjoy, so that you're actually giving yourself the opportunity to have some fun.
 
cos life is better clean.

when i was using everything was tedium, or actually shit, punctuated by occassionally the drugs doing a 10th of what i wanted them to. i knew nothing could change apart from the for the worse if i kept using but i couldn't stop. i was heartbroken i'd never leave the country again, cos travelling is something i really love when i get the chance. i knew there was life out there but it wasn't for me.

even when i was a functioning heroin addict, which i was for over 5 years before i became a very not functioning crack addict, it was mostly shit. just that monkey on your back all the time. i couldn't stay out with my colleagues after work cos i'd start getting sick. the stress of not being able to score is a million times worse with a real job to go to. i'd flake out on my friends all the time cos i just wanted to stay at home using. or i'd come out super late and super fucked and people would be asking what was wrong with me behind my back. and i hated myself so much, i had everything, a good education, good job, decent friends, owned a house, holidayed abroad, and i hated myself cos i couldn't kick the gear. honestly not hating myself every day makes it worth it for me. the fact that i can actually enjoy my life is a bonus.

one other thing- when i got clean i had loads of stuff 'in the post' that i just hadn't dealt with cos i'd been using. 6 years of not dealing with anything cos i was smacked out my face all the time hit me back to back. i had to finally grieve for parted friends, realise a lot about my own behaviour, and process all the intensely traumatic things that happened to me while i was using, i was subjected to a lot of violence and sexual violence. i know you weren't using so long this time, but you almost certainly have some unprocessed shit that your brain is digging up now because you just didn't feel it when you were using. for me it felt relentless, and i was crying for weeks, but i finally got to the end. that's not to say i'm fine with all the stuff that hit me, just my brain has stopped clobbering me with it.
 
Ya know, everything you mention, is exactly what is going on inside my head.

If you could say something to your old active addict self, what would you tell that girl?
 
owww thank you! it really warms my heart to know my experience wasn't for nothing.

i guess i'd tell old using me that being clean wasn't like waiting for the dealer when you've not been able to score for ages. cos i honestly thought i would be just desperate to use all the time.

i'd also say that i hadn't completely destroyed my life. i used having lost everything as an excuse not to try to get clean, cos i didn't think i could ever rebuild it. luckily i got a decent job. financially i'm still fucked and i can't see me ever fully recovering, but i've been able to take a foreign holiday, am not stealing food, and can afford everything i need. i even bought a bass and a tv, two things i lost cos of using.

whether my using self would believe me is an another thing entirely. i didn't want there to be hope, because then i couldn't justify using anymore.

one thing i still need to remind myself often is that my pain isn't special. in rehab i tried to convince myself and everyone else that cos what i'd been through was so awful, while other heroin addicts don't need heroin, i was actually justified in using it. and i still feel like that occasionally and it feels very compelling when i do, so its dangerous.
 
I've tried so hard to accept that it's ok to feel shitty all the time cuz I'm clean but... I cant accept it and I don't know why.
 
you won't feel shitty all the time. right now your brain is paying the chemical debt incurred by using, and you're processing more stuff at once than is normal because you've got a backlog to work through of stuff you didn't really feel while using. it gets better.
 
I've been drinking and smoking weed whenever I can. I take sleeping pills and still can't sleep more than 3 hours a night. I'm so fucking sad and angry all the time. I can't focus on anything. I can hardly do anything. Last night, I tried to talk to my mother about how I was feeling. She took it as me blaming her for everything. She turned it into me thinking she was a horrible mother and asking too much of her. At the end of it, I felt even worse which I didn't even think was possible. I've been in so much physical pain too. All the metal detecting I did in SC coupled with the most brutal period I can remember having is only adding fuel to a raging fucking fire.
 
You’re really going through it Jess and I feel for you so much! I can promise you though that you will get through this and it will be just a horrible memory in time. Like chinup has said, your brain is literally just forcing through all the shit it had on hold. Like if you haven’t looked at an email account for ages and log on to 10,000 messages. Takes a while to delete/ignore that shit.

I’ve never been an addict but I have a pretty crazy eating disorder and have had it since childhood. The one thing that always helped me get perspective was making gratitude lists. It seems cliche and hokey but really, it actually does work. I started off thinking for hours for 1 thing to be grateful for and overtime I was filling pages. What it seems to do is It brings your thoughts to positive things and you become more positive. I am the last person to spout the positivity vibe shite but this one thing really did make such a massive difference to my life. It’s probably the one Main reason I haven’t been inpatient for the last few years and kept my weight up enough to maintain.

You will get through this, you are a good mother because you’ve fought hard for those kids through really tough situation. That’s not an easy feat!

keep your head up, keep pushing through, you will get there! X
 
JessTD said:
I just miss being able to feel normal. Clean or using, I know I've achieved both before.
Click to expand...

YOU CAN DO THIS!
Don't let the negative chatter in your mind convince you otherwise❤

When my friend T was getting off of heroin, she listened to this whenever she was overwhelmed or just feeling down. She called it her anthem. Give it a listen:
 
My mother and I haven't spoken in 2 whole days. I had apologized to her, but apparently I was so in the wrong that I'm getting the silent treatment. I really don't think I was that much in the wrong though. I still apologized FIRST. Ugh. She always holds all these grudges. I guess she expects me to be on my best behavior and constantly be groveling because if I do anything less then I'm a cruel, ungrateful child.

Jesus christ i gotta get the fuck outta here.
 
oh my fucking lord. reminds me so much of my mum. as far as i can tell, your mum likely blames herself for you being an addict, but doesn't want to because that feels bad. also its untrue, she won't be entirely to blame, but she certainly will have played a role. my mum made some atrocious mistakes bringing me up and still isn't prepared to admit she's ever done anything wrong in her life. your mum won't want to admit she played any role because you were the one who actually put drugs in your body and that is less painful for her.

with mine, at certain times in early recovery everything i did was wrong. like she'd be constantly pissy with me and i'd ask if i'd done anything wrong, and she'd be like 'its always about you isn't it!' and its like no its fucking not but when you are being pissy to me and not other people it actually is about me. ffs. like i just couldn't say anything right.

she made a massive step change when i actually broke down in tears cos she was being so awful to me and told her just the headline info about the sexual violence i'd been through. she stopped blaming herself and me at that point i think. its still difficult though, i don't think me and my mum will ever have a good relationship because we are just too different, she thinks i can learn not to be autistic lol.

it took me about 8 months to get the fuck out of my parents house and into my own place, any earlier and i'd likely have relapsed, but i think my relationship with my mum has improved with the distance. its still awkward though cos she'll be like 'i miss you have you missed me?' and i really can't say no. thank fuck when i went to my parents for lockdown i didn't have to hug her cos she wanted to maintain social distancing.

honestly i'd just avoid her til you're feeling better, difficult when you're still in the same house i know.
 
It's not my mom's fault. I had an ideal childhood and was raised well. I was such a good kid. I made great grades, I never got into trouble. I was obedient, humble, talented, and smart. But I ended up getting in with the wrong crowd and was very naive about drugs as my mother had greatly sheltered me. I was given crack by my boyfriend when I was 15. I didn't know what it was and by the time I found out, I was already hooked. I've been in active addiction off and on since then. She's talking to me now, but yes I feel the same way about how I can't do anything right in her eyes.
 
that is great that your mum gave you a good childhood, and should make it much easier to sort things out with her when you're feeling a bit better. i'm really glad she's talking to you too.

that is fucking nuts about your boyf giving you crack when you were 15!! at that age i don't think you really stand much of a chance against that shit. i'm so glad i didn't get into light and dark til my 20s, when I'd already got a decent way into my education.
 
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