Hi and welcome Scream!
I know how you feel, wanting to be free. (I PMed you too)
And Fresco, god love ya, I know that stem and vein powder works wonderfully for you, but it's not the answer for all of us.
For me, I had to face my kick. And while it wasn't as bad physically as "real" opiates, it can be just as much of a psychologically distressing mind-fuck as an "real" opiate.
Scream, feeling guilty is part of beating yourself up. Be kind to yourself. You got hooked on something that makes life feel better, bearable, good. I personally often think that we addicts/alcoholics and so on are more "normal" than the earth-people, which is what I call people who have never had a problem with a substance. Speaking from experience, because I still do this a lot, if you compare your insides to other people's outsides, you're gonna lose every time. Eff them, or our perceptions of them.
Thing is, as an addict (and/or alky) our perceptions just get effed up. Even more than earth people. But really, we're all nuts on some level. What's the world made of? Dirt, water, and several billion people trying to figure out how to cope. There's nothing 'wrong' with getting a habit going. It's not like you woke up one day and said, "hey, think i'll fuck up my life with some substances today. whee!"
Rule 62, which is "don't take yourself so GD seriously" is good to follow, but sould be extended to: don't other people so GD seriously either.
What's at stake? No, really, let's not talk about the perimeter, like relationships and jobs. What's REALLY at stake? Our sanity, our peace of mind, our lives.
I've recently slipped back into kratom usage. FML! And I know I gotta quit again. It's gonna happen while my gf is out of country. Seems like I'm kicking one thing or another every time she goes on holiday alone.
Anyway, this time I'm not feeling guilty. Learned my lesson there. Does no one any good, least of all me. And I'm not going to expect certain earth people around me to "understand". I've got to walk the road in sobriety on my own, with the support of my AA brothers, not kowtowing to people who don't get what it is to have an addiction.
Listen, things are as they are. If we clean, things will be as they are. If we don't, things will be as they are. That's not a depressing message of hopelessness, it's a statement of fact. Direct truth, yo. Perspective.
Yes, quitting sucks, and I'm going to get to do it all over again. And yes, AMEN, to whoever quoted someone else from the Wire about saying getting is clean is easy, it's life that's hard. TRUTH.
On a certain level, we must surrender to life. It'll suck, or it won't. It'll be great, or it won't. ANd it will be both those things and everything in between, clean or not.
There's this seed in us all though, that knows that life can be better, that life will be better without substances and the swings and all that. All drugs work great in the short term, and then quit doing what it was that we started taking them for once we're addicted. Damn.
On one hand, we could woe-is-me this whole position, or we could look at it as I am trying to see it now: that we get the amazing
opportunity to learn how to live all over again.
I'm counting my slip or whatever we call it as part of my recovery process. Because I have NOT given up, and I have learned even more from this one. Long term sobriety is still in my future. I know it.
I've listened to a lot f AA/NA speakers. Nearly al of them say something like it having taken everything it took for them to get to where they are, which is long time sober and HAPPY with it.
I'm going into rolling thoughts now and my arms want to stop, so I should quit typing.
Main point: be kind to yourself, take some distance for perspective, and know that life isn't nearly as hard as we make it in our heads.
Love and peace to all,
pods no mo
For me, I just feel like I switched addictions, and that makes me feel guilty, considering kratom does the same thing to me as "real" painkillers. It actually feels worse for me, anxiety-wise, when I stop cold turkey.
I'm doing as slow a taper as possible, and even with going down 1 pill (gram) per day, I feel it. I have some 15X I take a teeny, teeny bit of it when it's unbearable and I'm sweating or whatever.