Falling back into addiction: How to break the habit

Legally High

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Messages
224
Lifelong addict here, on yet anouther harrowing tale. Currently take Dexedrine to get up and ambien to go down. Antidepressants as well, keep rotating them trying to find a good one.
Also weed.
How to stop the cycle? slowly lower the uppers and downers. No grass immediately until special occasion. That's my thoughts.
 
When was the last time you took a vacation? I don't mean that in a condescending way, just that it seems like your substance use has a lot to do with "performance" related goals. Perhaps having some time off where you were able to fall asleep when your body was ready to and get up when your body was ready to would help you find a new balance? Just a thought.
 
It sounds to me like you are in the perfect place to reclaim your life/self. When your entire life is dependent on the effects of one drug and then another to counteract the former and yet another (the AD) to hopefully placate you into accepting this hell as "living", people often don't even have the clarity necessary to question the insanity of this. At a time when I was in a terrible and real emotional crisis someone said to me that "trauma, all trauma, lives on the surface. There is a deeper self." At the time I thought this person was crazy, way off the mark--what about childhood trauma, buried so deep and expressing itself unconsciously through a person's entire life? What about bone deep depression? But I let the words stay a while and I came to understand what was meant: There is a self that is safe from the worst of what life does to us, what we then in turn do to ourselves with our anxiety driven thoughts and our desperate attempts to escape the discomfort and pain of our emotions.

Getting to that level within is always possible but takes some personal sleuthing--what works for me may not work for you. But one thing that we all have in common is the need for faith. You have to develop hope and faith in your own abilities to heal your life. This can be the hardest step because if you are an adult in any modern culture you have been conditioned to doubt yourself for many years. For me many different things have been helpful in breaking the habits and cycles that bolstered a disconnection to myself. Buddhism (the broader concepts, not the religious beliefs) and mindfulness, along with the very concrete forms of Cognitive Behavioral therapy and the use of psychedelics were all instrumental. I have seen religion do it for some and breathwork/meditation do it for others. Nature--really spending time in a non-human dominated environment is also a powerful way to connect with your deeper self.

The bottom line is that you may have built a life around expectations that may not truly be your own; or you may not have faced some trauma that continues to fester inside. What do the drugs give you and what do they rob you of? Those are good questions that everyone should ask of any substance they put in their bodies.
 
I really appreciate the well thought out responses. I'm starting to think most of it is poison. Im stopping stimulants including caffeine. I took robotussin today of all the nasty substances. I feel depressed and alone. All these chemicals have only brought me more misery. Lost years. But I sincerely thank you for the insights they were very helpful.
 
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