TheWriterGirl
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2016
- Messages
- 13
Hi everyone! Welcome to my first 24 hours of sobriety!
I'm starting this thread for several reasons.
1. I'm a writer, and writing about my experiences each day of withdrawal will help keep me accountable and grounded in the experience, no matter how crappy it is.
2. I've never really told anyone that I struggle with addiction to opiates. I'm actually a very upstanding citizen in my community. I'm the co-founder of a major non-profit. I spent years as a teacher, before becoming a successful marketing specialist for the public sector. I literally live to serve others. I volunteer all the time. I have a book deal coming out next Fall. Since nobody knows I struggle, including my spouse, and I'm pretty sure they'd all judge me, I'm turning here.
3. I'm "successful" by society's standards -- and so no one imagines that I could possibly struggle with such a demon. It's rather offensive -- to think that addiction somehow precludes a person from being moral, genuine, kind, or successful. Of course we, here, know it doesn't. We know addiction is just one part of us. But the world sees an "Addict" as a failure from the start. So I've never been able to admit it, even to my spouse. And I need to admit it somewhere, and talk to people about it. I need a community if I'm ever going to kick it.
That's what I'm trying to do today. I've been on them for--it horrifies me to realize this--5 years. I've been tapering down from as high as 90mg a day. Over the past months I've tapered to 40-60mg a day. Finally, in the past few weeks, I've dropped to 25-30mg. It's been kind of a mixed bag.
On the negative:
- My joints ache so deeply, and nothing helps. I have to simply lay here and ache.
- The chills and the sweats are the WORST. Nothing fixes this either.
- My diarrhea has surprisingly been less awful than in the past. But it's coming out with a yellowish tinge that worries me.
On the positive:
- I slept surprisingly well.
- When I was forced to leave the house today (I work from home), I made myself look nice. I found that driving around and listening to empowering music or nostalgic music from more innocent times played a great distraction. I felt better, and energized. Though when I finally got home, the pain was worse than before.
- I definitely feel the opiate haze leaving. And I miss it. I think I hazed myself away because, the more successful I became, the more people expected things of me. So I'd take opiates to deal with the stress. My first book deal was so exciting, but also so terrifying -- I find that when I really chase my dreams, I can catch them! ... but soon am not sure I want them anymore. The book deal filled me with such fear of failure, I needed more opiates to blot it out. Anyways, now that the haze is lifting, I feel my emotions much more potently than before. I feel anxious. I feel like a failure. I feel like I'm not brave enough to tackle my dreams. I think that haze is what I will miss most -- and perhaps being clear is the thing I need most if I am to re-connect with the part of myself that always wanted to change the world. I will never change the world hiding behind opiates.
So--Day 1. How many days until I'm better again?
I'm starting this thread for several reasons.
1. I'm a writer, and writing about my experiences each day of withdrawal will help keep me accountable and grounded in the experience, no matter how crappy it is.
2. I've never really told anyone that I struggle with addiction to opiates. I'm actually a very upstanding citizen in my community. I'm the co-founder of a major non-profit. I spent years as a teacher, before becoming a successful marketing specialist for the public sector. I literally live to serve others. I volunteer all the time. I have a book deal coming out next Fall. Since nobody knows I struggle, including my spouse, and I'm pretty sure they'd all judge me, I'm turning here.
3. I'm "successful" by society's standards -- and so no one imagines that I could possibly struggle with such a demon. It's rather offensive -- to think that addiction somehow precludes a person from being moral, genuine, kind, or successful. Of course we, here, know it doesn't. We know addiction is just one part of us. But the world sees an "Addict" as a failure from the start. So I've never been able to admit it, even to my spouse. And I need to admit it somewhere, and talk to people about it. I need a community if I'm ever going to kick it.
That's what I'm trying to do today. I've been on them for--it horrifies me to realize this--5 years. I've been tapering down from as high as 90mg a day. Over the past months I've tapered to 40-60mg a day. Finally, in the past few weeks, I've dropped to 25-30mg. It's been kind of a mixed bag.
On the negative:
- My joints ache so deeply, and nothing helps. I have to simply lay here and ache.
- The chills and the sweats are the WORST. Nothing fixes this either.
- My diarrhea has surprisingly been less awful than in the past. But it's coming out with a yellowish tinge that worries me.
On the positive:
- I slept surprisingly well.
- When I was forced to leave the house today (I work from home), I made myself look nice. I found that driving around and listening to empowering music or nostalgic music from more innocent times played a great distraction. I felt better, and energized. Though when I finally got home, the pain was worse than before.
- I definitely feel the opiate haze leaving. And I miss it. I think I hazed myself away because, the more successful I became, the more people expected things of me. So I'd take opiates to deal with the stress. My first book deal was so exciting, but also so terrifying -- I find that when I really chase my dreams, I can catch them! ... but soon am not sure I want them anymore. The book deal filled me with such fear of failure, I needed more opiates to blot it out. Anyways, now that the haze is lifting, I feel my emotions much more potently than before. I feel anxious. I feel like a failure. I feel like I'm not brave enough to tackle my dreams. I think that haze is what I will miss most -- and perhaps being clear is the thing I need most if I am to re-connect with the part of myself that always wanted to change the world. I will never change the world hiding behind opiates.
So--Day 1. How many days until I'm better again?
Last edited: