New Year, Cold Turkey - Kicking the Alcohol, Amphetamine, Ritalin, Cocaine, Carisoprodol, and Cannabis

[rasklat]

Hello friends. I feel like shit. Wondering if anyone has any advice.

My days have usually gone like this for many months:

Ritalin before breakfast
Amphetamine whenever I fancy, up until 5-6pm
Near-constant beer after midday
Tobacco all day
Cannabis and wine/spirits in the evening
Often 500mg Soma
Evening meal once/if the speed allows

These days are usually fun and productive.

Several days a week, cocaine would join the party, when I started coming down off the speed/ritalin but didn't want to commit to another dose for sleep purposes. I would naturally drink and smoke loads more these evenings. And usually polish it off with a few Somas, occasionally a Xanax/Valium.

These days were fun at the time but demonstrably damaged my ability to achieve the following day. I also think I was doing real damage to my nose with the coke.

They are my normal day-to-day days, when it's just me, working for myself. When friends turn up it is nearly always an absolute bender well into the next day, often with additional drugs like MDMA and ketamine.

Anyway, I've basically been using that handful of drugs (in the title) to regulate every part of my life. For work, for pleasure, to be social, to be introverted, to sleep, to wake up, when I feel good, and when I feel bad.

I decided I want to see what life is like with none of it. And what better and more cliche a time to quit than the new year?

I didn't go to bed until 9pm on New Years Day so this is literally day 2 sober for me. Sleep was awful last night. I had a brief nightmare where Tyson Fury was about to rape me! Which is actually quite hilarious in hindsight. I've never ever had a dream like that before and it's almost like the universe saying "I'll teach you for trying to quit drugs!" He didn't rape me as I was semi-lucid and managed to wake myself up. But it was a horrible night going from hot to cold and falling asleep briefly just to lie there awake for another hour.

Today, I just feel like shit. Flat, and miserable. I have loads of shit to do. Loads. But I just can't bring myself to do it. I just want to cuddle up somewhere warm and mindlessly consume media. Either that or resume booze/stims and crack on with my work.

I know that's a whole load of horse shit I just wrote but if anyone's got any advice, I'd love to hear it.

 

[jasperkent]

I know that's a whole load of horse shit I just wrote but if anyone's got any advice, I'd love to hear it

I'm 64 and in my lifetime I've been addicted to alcohol, benzos, caffeine, cocaine, kratom, methamphetamine, nicotine, opioids, and various combinations thereof. I've had varying degrees of success battling these habits.

Currently I don't drink alcohol and I don't IV anything. I'm off opioids unless you count kratom (technically it IS a partial opioid, though it is not an opiate). I rarely do hard drugs. I consume cannabis most days. I smoke cigarettes and drink coffee all day, every day.

Cigarettes are my primary concern. Every male on both sides of my family has died of lung disease of some kind, so genetics are against me. My goal this year is to cut my smoking in half. I should quit completely but I know myself and I know I will not.

My advice is to NOT try to quit everything all at once. That sounds overwhelming. Maybe pick 2 or 3 things to quit first, then see how it goes. OR, just try to cut back on everything.

Let us know how things go.
We're rooting for you.

 

[rasklat]

My advice is to NOT try to quit everything all at once. That sounds overwhelming. Maybe pick 2 or 3 things to quit first, then see how it goes. OR, just try to cut back on everything.

Let us know how things go.
We're rooting for you.

Thanks for the response man. Congratulations on all you've achieved. And I feel you on the cigarettes. My lungs sound like fucking bagpipes some mornings but I don't even bother thinking about quitting them just yet. I know I'm not stable enough. I would relapse as soon as a bad situation arose. It's very much on the to-do list but I need to sort out a few things first. The fact that you've managed to kick all those drugs means you surely have it in you. Not to say it'll be fun or easy, but from the little I know about you, I really think it doable.

I'm going to see how tonight and tomorrow goes, and then I may adjust my sober ambitions. Maybe one ritalin and three beers every other day. If I was only productive half the time I could very much live with that. We'll see. I did/do really want to go 100% sober for almost recreational or philosophical reasons, as in to experience life as I haven't since I was a child. But if that involves sacrificing weeks of my life to drudgery I'm not sure it's worth it.

One thing's for sure, whatever the fuck happens, I'm having a substantial break from cocaine.

 

[jasperkent]

One thing's for sure, whatever the fuck happens, I'm having a substantial break from cocaine.

Good idea.
Use the money you'll save to buy yourself a little gift of some kind-- something you can hold on to that won't be gone in a matter of hours.

 

[silver_lining]

Keep it going!

 

[washingtonbound]

I'm 64 and in my lifetime I've been addicted to alcohol, benzos, caffeine, cocaine, kratom, methamphetamine, nicotine, opioids, and various combinations thereof. I've had varying degrees of success battling these habits.

Currently I don't drink alcohol and I don't IV anything. I'm off opioids unless you count kratom (technically it IS a partial opioid, though it is not an opiate). I rarely do hard drugs. I consume cannabis most days. I smoke cigarettes and drink coffee all day, every day.

Cigarettes are my primary concern. Every male on both sides of my family has died of lung disease of some kind, so genetics are against me. My goal this year is to cut my smoking in half. I should quit completely but I know myself and I know I will not.

My advice is to NOT try to quit everything all at once. That sounds overwhelming. Maybe pick 2 or 3 things to quit first, then see how it goes. OR, just try to cut back on everything.

Let us know how things go.
We're rooting for you.

Nicotine is a nightmare I am dealing with now. In the past I was an occasional smoker and would often go months without smoking at all, now since traveling for a couple months I have unfortunately gotten hooked. The best is to get rid of that shit completely. I am down to about five cigarettes a day now and am trying to go cold turkey, didn’t think I’d ever be dealing with this but here I am.

 

[rasklat]

If anyone is interested - after writing this I spoke to a friend who was in a similar boat and has also quit everything, he told me he's basically dedicating his life to his health, exercising and eating well. I realised over the course of the phone call I only felt so bad because I couldn't face the project I really need to face, while sober, drugs and alcohol were too thoroughly embedded in how I work on that project. I said fuck it, I postpone that fairly urgent project, for inner peace's sake. Nearly all the stress and tension evaporated.

I haven't touched anything but cigarettes since New Years Day, I've done loads of work on other less urgent but still important projects, and I've been eating well and exercising lots. I feel good. Tomorrow I will attack the big project I previously couldn't.

I do still regularly have the instinct to have a drink, or skin up, or make a speedy beverage, but as soon as I realise what I'm thinking I just stop, with no judgment. I simply move on.

I've found the Waking Up app unbelievably useful. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants more control of their mind, whether getting clean or indulging in hedonistic chaos. It's available for free if you can't afford it, but I suggest supporting it if you can as it has and will change the lives of many, many people for the better. It might have saved my life during the torture of 2020.

In summary, I'm sober, and things are swell. I hope you're all happy, content, and fulfilled, whatever you're doing. Much love x

 

[garygroundwork]

man that's good

good for u. how many weeks has it been?

any depression?