is he gonna maake it?

[enquerencia1980]

I've now been clean for eighteen days. I'm off loperamide now too, for about six days, but I still feel pretty sick. Nothing like those first terrible six or seven days, but still kinda rotten inside. I wake up with mild diarrhea, then I do some sit ups and push ups, take a shower and shave, and then some dishes or other housework, then off to work. I feel fatigued throughout the day and by the end of my ten hour shift I'm completely exhausted. Before heroin I could work like that every day and still have the energy to party every night, but now it's a struggle just to get through the shift. I've been sleeping pretty okay, just don't feel rested when I wake up. I've noticed that I feel the most fatigued right after smoking a cigarette and for about two hours after, so I've decided to quit smoking even though I don't feel like I'm through the heroin withdrawals completely yet. I also still have some real problems in my lungs, and I figure it'll be good for me on a lot of levels, if the nicotine withdrawals don't piggy back on the heroin withdrawals and make me want to kill myself. But the last time I quit smoking it ran its course in three or four days and then I felt fantastic, so if I have to suffer more now to feel better later, it's worth it.

I'm wondering now if the dope I was getting was cut with methadone or something longer acting than just heroin, leading to a longer period of withdrawal, or if I just have a lot of damage in my body that's taking a long time to heal, and that I didn't notice when I was on dope. I suppose it doesn't matter, so long as I get better soon. I'm not even contemplating using again (or at least in not letting myself contemplate it seriously), and I've found myself wondering how I'm going to cope if I never feel better. In a way, embracing the permanence of my condition and just forcing myself through life feeling like I'm wearing a lead suit has given me its own kind of drive. After all, if I am stuck feeling like this forever, I can't very well just hole up in bed and hide from the world, so I kick myself in the ass and take the bull by the horns.

But I will get better, right? I mean, I know I'll get better eventually. Right?

 

[enquerencia1980]

What I was going through on those days after the acute withdrawals was called PAWS (post acute withdrawal syndrome), and I'm still working my way through it. I'm getting close to sixty days now, and I definitely haven't fully recovered. I still get flashes of old symptoms, but they're getting fewer and farther between. I believe when I get to ninety days I'll be more or less home free. But the ramifications on my life, well, my life will never be the same. But life is change. Everybody changes, and everybody moves from the familiar and comfortable into cold hard change. Addicts aren't that different from everybody else. Almost no one accepts change or breaks in routine without some struggle. So I'm different now, and I'll never be the same. But that's okay, and I'm not ashamed. This is my story, this is my song. I am fighting forever to be a better person, to live better, to love better, to enjoy life better, but don't we all have to work pretty hard at that stuff? I used to believe it was easy for some people, which made heroin seem like my ticket to making the whole thing easier. And it worked, until it didn't anymore, and by that time, it had been secretly destroying everything good about my life, and I woke up from a blurry dream of life into a sisyphian nightmare of seemingly endless struggle just to become an only slightly worthless person.

But coming up on sixty days, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, I struggle, yes, it's hard, but this is life, and there's so much beauty left out there for me to find. I'm committed to finding it, however hard I have to work to find it.

Good luck out there.

 

[Dresden]

If he doesn't want to quit, then I don't think it's going to get better for him until he does.

 

[Tacoma]

Theres nothing u can do except be there for him. Junkies never listen they'll keep doing it over and over again because they cant stop. Just make sure he knows your there for him if he needs to talk or wants help getting better or anything, thats what helped me through my drug addiction the most. Make sure u don't make him feel real bad about himself that'll just make him want to be high even more.

 

[enquerencia1980]

I find it sort of odd how now everybody is responding in the framework of my original post where I split myself into two characters. It's me going through this change, not my imaginary neighbor. I really thought that was obvious from the beginning. Also, I'm really not using anymore. It's been fifty five days. I'm clean, I'm going to stay clean. I'm keeping this thread going because I hope it will help somebody, but when people respond to this and talk about "him," and offer advice that "he" should quit smoking heroin, it makes me feel like people aren't reading the whole thing, and this is a story of change, and hopefully of redemption and success. It's these later posts that I really want people to read, because this is where things will start to get better, if they are going to, and I believe they will. I know I'll never use again, without any doubt, and I'm pretty sure that my life is going to improve on the long run, but only time will tell.

Good luck out there.

 

[enquerencia1980]

Maybe this will help:

I spoke to my neighbor today for the first time since the beginning of March. He's still clean, but he now drinks pretty frequently. Everyday, actually. But I remember when he used to drink, before heroin, and he would wake me up late at night with insane racket, create giant messes that spilled into the hall, and once or twice ended up in jail. However, since he quit using heroin, seventy-five days ago, I really haven't witnessed any kind of commotion coming from his apartment, and he is often awake early, without a hangover, cleaning house and taking care of the daily business of living.

I asked him, "if you're drinking again, what's going on? Are you depressed again, do you need help with this?" I had frequently offered him help for his heroin problem. I was willing to talk with him at any time, day or night, no matter what I had going on the next day. I don't know why exactly, but somehow, my day was always adversely affected if I knew he needed help and wasn't getting it. But this is what he said.

"I don't need help, but I'm also not afraid to talk to you. I realize I've been an alcoholic all my life, and I will be, all my life. But that doesn't mean that I can't live with alcohol. I just have to recognize what it is, and what it is for me. Before heroin I had no control. I couldn't say no, and I couldn't say when. With heroin I had to have structure. I had to ration it out, plan ahead, make my life work around it. And it couldn't. But look, grown up people with great lives have been great drinkers all throughout history, and not one has been a great junkie, at least that didn't die young. I don't have to live without alcohol, I don't want to. That's what made me turn to heroin in the first place. I just want to drink like a responsible adult. So I decided to drink every day, until I got it right. I always want to go overboard, and I did at first, every night. But after a week like that I wanted to stop altogether. Instead, I just said to myself, just have one. And ever since then it's been easier to just have one or two.

I don't get the shakes, and I don't lose control, I just drink a little, everyday. I even quit smoking cigarettes, because I realized that I don't need them anymore. I'm happy, and learning to be happier everyday. I rebuilt my resume, and I think I'm finally ready to leave this job that's been holding me back."

I was, and still am a little flabbergasted by all this. Can this really be a healthy choice? What do you think?

 

[pally pete]

Confused . com

 

[enquerencia1980]

So many people had responded to this imaginary neighbor concept, I felt like if I took it back to that fiction it might resonate with people better. Obviously, there is no neighbor. And, as should be obvious to anyone with addiction issues, drinking every day did not work out to be a good plan. Somehow I've managed to introduce Crack into the mix of things I'm addicted to. I have successfully stayed clean from heroin for over a year, but I don't know how much that's worth when it's become apparent that my brain does not produce the chemicals and hormones that are necessary for normal brain functioning, and whenever I feel off in any way I reach for a substance, be it alcohol, Crack, or even a cigarette or an energy drink. It's all bad news once your brain decides to make you put chemicals into it manually to keep it running. It's supposed to self regulate and now it doesn't. If this goes on much longer it may never be able to function optimally again. And that's the sad story of drugs. It's all fun and games until somebody loses their entire sense of self.

 

[###]

Immodium will/can help you much more than kratom. Try finding some benzos. Also an advise, so you don't lose you job etc., if you feel you cannot handle it right now, go to the maintenance clinic (Heroin, and Morphine are probably not available if you are in 'States', so I would advise you to choose Buprenorphine over Methadon.), stop being psychically addicted (often happens with time and tolerance), and start tapering or go CT when you have better conditions.
In case losing your job is not an issue currently (like won't going to happen.) pls just continue what you started and go trough WD with imodium, benzos etc.