Thank you once again, for the replies!
Before I just go on a bit of a personal rant about everything [not in a bad way], I just have one question:
Is Kratom a partial agonist opiate? That surprises me very much. Does anyone have a source stating that? I did read one study that said Kratom was an opiate, but nothing else I've read has said that. It's completely legal here in Canada, and if anyone knows, I'd like to answer that question once and for all.
I think I'm going to lean into my lorazepam [Ativan] prescription and start [and finish] this 25g bag of Red Bali Kratom, and if I feel fine by Friday night, that will be all she wrote.
I've been hanging on in a halfway addicted state for a while, and I know I've beaten the physical addiction several times. Now being in this limbo state is starting to bore even me so I have to move on. WHICH WOULD BE A LOT EASIER TO DO IF I DIDN'T HAVE TO GET BACK TO A SOCIETY SCARED STUPID OVER A VIRUS WITH A 99.5% SURVIVAL RATE FOR PEOPLE AGED 0-69.
Off-topic, but this is NOT the world I wanted to get back to. And Canada [where I live] spending one BILLION dollars a day to fight this wimpy virus WILL cause serious and lasting economic damage when the virus itself never would have. And this is NOT a society that I want to get back to. Did this REALLY have to happen now, when I am doing so well? But then, that's when it dawned on me - I HAVE been doing well, and every time when I use for a few days in a row, I realize how well I was doing when I went 4-5-6 days off completely and was feeling fine, and say to myself "WHY did I have to use for a couple of days? I was over the worst of it!"
On that note, this may be some indication of how silly I am in thinking I am addicted:
I started smoking cigarettes at some point in my opiate addiction [in 2018 - when I was 36]. For perspective, I smoked four cigarettes in July. Yes, for the entire month.
Just recently, I made a decision:
Rather than smoke eight cigarettes next month [or however few/many, probably between 4 to 20], I decided to just get a pack of nicotine gum. Every time I'm with a friend who smokes, I'm going to take a piece of gum, plant it in my mouth/gums, and spit it out 10 minutes later, so that the little non-interest I have in smoking disappears completely.
That way, instead of ending November having smoked 12 cigarettes [or however many - let's just say - WELL under 1/day, closer to about 1/2 per day, or 15 in a month], I will end November having chewed 12 pieces of nicotine gum.
And since I like to start my new year's resolutions early, in December, when there is no pressure and so by the time I get to January I'm already making progress on my goals, and I keep them going - I really only recall starting that last year or the year before, and it worked great come January! So by January, I'm going to be like "Am I SERIOUSLY hanging on to a 12-piece/month nicotine gum habit? It will be even more moronic than the small smoking habit that I have. On that note - I WOULD like to still smoke a cigarette in my life, but they are simply too ubiquitous and low-commitment, IMO. And that makes them so hard to quit.
For the record, I am NOT nicotine-dependent. For example, in the past 12 days, I took four days off each time I smoked, and had 2-3 per day when I did smoke, and that is a a LOT for me. I normally have max two, and at least three days between cigarettes. As I said, my monthly average is maybe 15.
Is that not just some flipping weird holding on to a potentially life-ending habit? I mean, shoot - here I am just flirting with addiction here.
Of course there is no perfect solution.
I maintain what I have said [likely on here - but to many people I know, friends and family]:
I think if you're doing something once a week to once a year, where at any point you can take a full year off if you HAD to...that you are in control of what you are doing.
I am just at the borderline where I feel that I am not in control...for cigarettes, I AM in control, and I STILL choose to smoke, but I JUST bought the pack of nicotine gum, so I think I'm going to go between now and December or January chewing a piece of gum for those times I am tempted, at which point, I will just forget about the actual feeling of smoking a cigarette, and be done with smoking AND nicotine gum by January.
I DO NOT think that 15 cigarettes a month is problematic...the issue is that I worry that can become an outright smoking habit. And I'm simply not willing to take that risk.
With opiates...I'd like to incorporate them into my life somehow, as I have NOTHING else that I find to be as perfectly suitable to my biochemistry...but, meh. I may have to put this one behind me.
Both of my parents have health conditions as a result of poor diets all of their lives. My father does not remotely judge me if I were to use once a month. He'd say that is no big deal. Meanwhile, my mother WON'T SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT. Had she been less of a complete moron when it comes to drugs [she believes in "Just Say No", and has applied that to friends and family multiple times - AND IT HAS NEVER WORKED FOR HER, AND YET SHE STILL APPLIES IT], I would have opened up to my parents earlier about my addiction, and I would have been down the road of harm-reduction and addressing the underlying issues causing the addiction much earlier on.
Here's one example - I was being extorted for money by someone close to me, and the information that both my mother had AND that I had would have resolved that matter, and possibly prevented 75% of the problems I had with opiates [most of my history of use with opiates has NOT been problematic, as I used them once every two months roughly, for YEARS and YEARS].
But in the past, my mother has outright told me to stop paying spousal support to the mother of my children, as I am already extremely generous as I pay for 100% of the expenses of my children, AND their mother gets to keep the government check. So why did I do it? WELL, GEE - MAYBE BECAUSE IN CANADA, UNTIL ONLY AROUND 2007, FAMILY COURTS WERE LITERALLY THE MOST BLATANT EXAMPLE OF ANTI-MALE DISCRIMINATION IN MODERN WESTERN CIVILIZATION, AND IF A TOKEN MONTHLY PAYMENT GUARANTEED I WOULD SEE MY KIDS, IT WAS WORTH IT TO ME.
And that's when I just HAD to stop sharing things with my mom. It is simply a MASSIVE piece of sh*t thing to do, to encourage someone to stop paying money in a system that is stacked against him. I will grant - this was in 2012 when she was telling me this, five years after Canada's family courts FINALLY became egalitarian, how HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT? All I know is that family courts in Canada were anti-male for MY ENTIRE LIFE. I had no way of knowing this had only JUST changed, and my kids were toddlers! In Canada, children need to be 12 years old before they can decide what parent they want to live with.
So my mother, by not minding her damn business, could have pushed me into not paying children support, and potentially losing 90% of the times I had with my kids for nearly a full DECADE [as my children are still not 12 yet].
That was when I realized that I could not talk to her any longer.
NOT to say she is the only person who is that ignorant at times - after all, I AM in Canada, where we are spending $1 BILLION per day on a virus where, as I said above, there is a 99.5% survival rate for people ages 0 to 69.
ONE BILLION DOLLARS A DAY. If it cost one MILLION dollars to save a person's life, that money could save ONE THOUSAND LIVES A DAY!
So - like I said - it's not ONLY my mother who is so stupid.
But there is a point to my story - by the time I got extorted for a good portion of my lifesavings, I simply DID NOT tell my mother what was going on.
This is NOT what happened, but picture a situation being something like this: my brother told me he had testicular cancer and was dying, and was too embarrassed to tell anyone else about it, and his doctor wouldn't help him - and he needed multiple tens of thousands of dollars to get access to another treatment...only later, I found out ALL OF THAT WAS LIES. At which point, I was mentally defeated, having never done so much to help someone close to me, and ended up attempting to replace the relationship I had with the person who did it to me with someone WHO DID SOMETHING EVEN WORSE TO ME.
Now here's the whole unfortunate part of this:
Had I simply been able to open up about this matter to my mom by saying, as per the FAKE example above "Hey, my brother / your son is dying of cancer - I have given him $100,000 to help cure it", she would have informed me that was factually incorrect, and my downhill spiral wouldn't have happened.
As I said, the REAL example did NOT involve my brother...but ultimately what I'm saying is that it was pretty much family stress that led to a spot where I had done everything a human being could conceivably do to, for example, save his marriage, show love and support to his children, be a supportive partner to a girlfriend, be a good brother, etc, to the point that I had OBJECTIVELY spent $100,000+ going OUT OF MY WAY for everyone, to the point where I was like "F*ck it, I'm just going to get high on opiates day and night until I die."
Now to be clear here - I am NOT blaming my mother. SHE was not the person who lied to me about money being needed that led that relationship to collapse, that led me to spending time with an even WORSE person after, ALL OF WHICH caused me to be heavily addicted to opiates in 2017 and 2018.
It's just...you know...IF I COULD ONLY SAY "Hey mom - I'm doing 40mg of oxycodone tonight. There's basically no medical way possible that I can die from taking that orally, especially given that it is a time-release pill...but could you just call me tomorrow at 4pm to make sure I'm awake? I just want someone to know this is happening."
And if I could just have THAT sort of relationship with her, I would have uncovered the root cause, first MAJOR issue that led to several other equally major issues that cost me two years of being addicted, and could have cost me my life. I don't take drugs in a way that would kill me [high amounts in one session, combined CNS depressants, or intravenous use], I'm thinking more likely suicide, or possibly taking a fake pill with fentanyl - but my will to live was gone, and even though I would say 99.9% of the opiates I got were real [only ONE time that was not the case - and I was explicitly told they were fake Percocet pills], and HydromorphContin beads would be really hard to fake, I would think, but hypothetically, I could have died from taking a fake pill that contained fentanyl, or the street Xanax here, which is not known by even the DEALERS WTF is it that they contain.
Again, it's not my mother who robbed me blind and put me in the spot where leaning on drugs was a tempting thing to do - but, regrettably, I have to acknowledge that the first person who caused me major personal issues which led to my downhill spiral was a situation where, had I shared the information with my mother, she would have told me information about this person which would have prevented me from going down that road.
This isn't some situation where someone would have said "That person sucks - don't talk to them." I'm not in HIGH SCHOOL - neither physically, or in terms of my mentality. But this was a situation where my mom could have said "Oh - so and so [mutual friend/family person] told you they need $50,000 to buy a mechanized wheelchair after the car accident they had? Oh no, no, no - his/her parents/work had insurance on her, and that is covered. He/she is lying to you / extorting you."
And I would have resolved the first MAJOR situation to me that trumped all others, and precipitated another major situation.
Again, I can't blame my mother for this - it's just sad to me that I couldn't share with her the information that someone close to both of us had done something seriously bad to me, which caused me to replace that relationship with another person who did much worse to me.
It would be like - imagine your wife cheats on you with the Best Man at your wedding. Your marriage is destroyed, and that makes seeing the kids a nightmare. But all those problems aside, you get a new girlfriend, and she is a complete cheating whore gold digger, who you later found out stole a credit card and maxed it out, etc.
It was just a situation like that - where, had I been able to share some of these details with my mom, she was equipped with the knowledge that would have prevented me from going down the road I did. I once SPECIFICALLY TOLD my brother that the girl he was dating ruined the life of the brother of MY BEST FRIEND. I was like "THIS IS MY BEST FLIPPING FRIEND AND YOU ARE MY BROTHER, AND I AM TELLING YOU, THIS WOMAN LITERALLY DESTROYED A FAMILY HERE, AND I CAN GIVE YOU EXAMPLE AFTER EXAMPLE OF SPECIFIC THINGS SHE DID TO OBJECTIVELY PROVE THAT."
Three months pass, and my brother was literally in THE worst state of his entire life, and hasn't fully recovered to this day, IMO.
In my life both before and even DURING my addiction, I was a mover and a shaker, and a man who could get the job done - I don't have time for petty drama, like my mother insisting I cut off spousal support at a time that it didn't bother me remotely, where I could easily afford it, WHERE MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY EX WAS PERFECTLY FINE, and while life was good. I DO NOT take kindly to people infringing in my life with drama and bullsh*t, just because they want to start a fight with someone - ESPECIALLY when that fight could cost me my life/visitation with my kids.
But when *I* intervene with someone and tell someone that a person is a bad person, THERE IS A DAMN GOOD REASON FOR IT.
And in the case with my brother, I HAD to stop talking to him, because I knew exactly what the girl he was dating did to literally MY BEST FRIEND. As she was dating HIS brother, and so I witnessed it firsthand.
Another thing is - I don't fight people who want to go down that road. It would have to be my own CHILD for me to spend any significant time telling a person to not see someone or date someone. But it's just that when I tell someone that, it isn't because it's some popularity contest - like the rafts of people [admittedly, mostly leftists, here in Canada] who would not talk to someone because they vote for Donald Trump or something like that. Meanwhile, we elected a drama teacher here in Canada.
When I get involved with anything, there is a reason and purpose for it that is of importance. And had my mother not previously NOT told me to cut off all financial support to my ex, and potentially be thrown to the wolves in Canada's family court system at a time in history where the courts only JUST started to be fair to men [and I didn't and couldn't even know that at the time, as it had only been five years since family courts in Canada became egalitarian], and had my mother not told me to do that probably once weekly for 1-2 months before I told her to STFU, I would have been sharing more information with her.
I'll put it this way - I ONLY get involved in people's marriages or relationships in the STRICTEST of circumstances. I can think of at least two mutually abusive spouses who have had such a relationship for 20+ years now, and you know what? I leave it alone. They always just keep coming back to one another anyway, so whatever. I don't give a sh*t.
Well...I do [heck, one is my flipping uncle], but I know I am powerless to do anything about it.
But as I said way above somewhere [lol], my mother is a "Just Say No" person when it comes to drugs and other bad practices. She didn't get the memo that that policy NEVER WORKS. Angrily ranting to me to cut off spousal support at a time when things are great, and I have no complaints, is NOT going to help. WHO would possibly think that?
My approach would be to ask a person "Don't you think it's unfair that you pay spousal support AND pay for all the kids expenses AND your ex gets all the government child support money too?" And if the person said "I make $150,000+ per year. I get to see my kids whenever I want, and things are fine. Everyone is peaceful, and things are going well", then I might just say "Well...just so you know, you ARE paying more than you have to, so if your ex ever starts treating you poorly, just remember - you're doing WAY more than you're required to", and then drop the subject.
The weird, decades' long mutually abusive relationships...I don't understand them, but whatever. Those people are together for decades for reasons I don't understand, and probably can't understand. I do have a friend whose boyfriend is simply taking advantage of her, IMO - where she cooks and cleans for him and does so much, and he is the laziest person I know. I finally only recently told her if she needs a man to go down on her, and is fine just going down on her, that she could call me. FYI, her boyfriend has not even had sex with her for a year. He receives blowjobs from her, and more and more, isn't even doing that. Again, she's just cooking and cleaning for him, and he is being lazy.
So yeah, I intervened there, but I'm not pushy about things.
Again, the issue here is that the person who originally did the thing to me that caused me to go downhill is someone who, had I told my mother the details, she happened to have information that would have prevented me from being in that particular situation, and I would have not gone downhill, opiates-wise.
Which brings me to one LAST thing about this entire topic:
It doesn't matter if use once a month or if I maintain full abstinence. The reality of the matter is, it wasn't an "addictive personality" that made me use drugs. Say ALL of my kids die in a car crash in five years from now - I'm here to tell you, I WOULD USE DRUGS, WHETHER I USE DRUGS ONCE A MONTH UNTIL THAT DAY, OR AM FULLY ABSTINENT UNTIL THAT DAY.
The reality was, it was simply a constellation of perfect [bad] events that got me to the point of using opiates daily, that caused me to go through this. Had I not used a drug in my LIFE up until that point, I would have probably found them.
And that's why my mother's moronic abstinence only push will simply not work - because if I go through another life crisis, things WILL be bad for me - MOST LIKELY, in drug use terms, but if not that, something else will give.
This is why I don't particularly care if I am abstinent - the important thing is feeling like I am in control of what I am doing.
Here's some perspective. As a hypochondriac, this past June, I smoked 19 CIGARETTES in the entire month - yes...19. I can tell you, I absolutely DID NOT feel like I was in control there.
With opiates, I suspect I will need to get to the point where I am using consistently 2x a month or less before I START to feel in control again. I think what will happen is that I will look back, realize it's been six months since I last used and that I no longer think about it - and then I will realize I now control my opiate usage.
And I could be using once a month, fully under control, and my mother will STILL bitch about it.
I mentioned that both of my parents have health issues, related to bad diets their entire lives. My mother does NOT have Type II Diabetes, but that is an example of the sort of health ailment she has, that she caused herself from bad diet.
I have tried a MILLION times to explain "Opiates are actually less toxic than alcohol - opiates are actually the SAFEST drug a person who is healthy can use, as they are INTENDED for long-term and daily use. The drug you are prescribed for your BLOOD PRESSURE actually has a worse side effects profile than oxycodone, and if I use 40mg oxycodone once per month, I am doing LESS damage to my body than you are with your blood pressure medication."
But no.
It always falls on deaf ears - because it's not about being logical to her.
What I've found works, is just saying this:
"So let me get this straight - you had such a bad diet your entire life that your pancreas can barely produce insulin, and you're judging me for using oxycodone in a controlled, disciplined setting once a month?"
And she ALWAYS shuts the f*ck up when I say that.
The thing about me is, unless a person's bad habit is impacting me in some way, I don't scold them about it, because that approach NEVER works. On the flip side, I've tried to just sort of be there for friends, and do the harm-reduction method, and I find THAT does not work either.
The "solution" to the drug problem in The West [or in the world] is...well...I don't think there is one. That's why if one of my children ever becomes seriously addicted, I will probably just cry. Because I know there is no solving these things.
I think I may relapse later in life even if I do everything right, because enough bad things may happen in my life, where relapse looks like the answer. Oh well.
In fact, writing all of this has made me realize what a great spot that I'm actually in. Man, I'm lucky. I wish Covid-19 wasn't so economically destructive...but I ultimately don't control that. If people want to destroy Canada's economy over a virus that they don't even know one single person who has died from or been seriously ill from, so be it.
I guess I just wish I could have told my mother about just normal things in my life, and she didn't need to be such a b*tch about it, and I would have shared more, and possibly found out about a person who was taking advantage of me, that I was unaware of certain facts that my mother was privy to.
Here's an example: I told my mom I used 2x 0.5mg lorazepam [Ativan] for sleep one night, and since I hadn't used my prescription for a week, and so my tolerance was low, I felt EXHAUSTED. I told her that rationally I KNOW that 1mg of Ativan could in no way kill me, but that I felt so tired that I felt like I was going to sleep for 15+ hours. I told her just to be safe, I would appreciate if she could call me to wake me up, just to ENSURE that I was alive, and my ringer on my phone would only be set to make a sound for her call only.
She immediately started scolding me and said "Why did you take two, if you hadn't taken any in a week, and your tolerance is low? Why couldn't you take only one?"
I was thinking "YOU F*CKING DUMB B*TCH. I TOOK 1MG OF THE WEAKEST BENZODIAZEPINE IN EXISTENCE, THAT I AM F*CKING PRESCRIBED TO TAKE, AND TOOK IT RIGHT OUT OF MY PRESCRIPTION BOTTLE, AND THE FACT THAT I HAVEN'T TAKEN IT IN A WEEK IS A GOOD THING, BECAUSE IT PROVES I AM BEING RESPONSIBLE ABOUT MY USE, BECAUSE EVEN WITH THE BOTTLE RIGHT NEXT TO MY BED ON MY NIGHTSTAND, I STILL DON'T USE IT. I'M FINE, BUT I FEEL EXHAUSTED AND I JUST GET PARANOID SOMETIMES, AND I WOULD JUST APPRECIATE YOU WAKING ME UP SO THAT I CAN HAVE SOME PIECE OF MIND, AND NOT BE SCARED AND GOING IN MENTAL LOOPS OVER A NON-ISSUE BECAUSE OF MY HYPOCHONDRIA."
I then told her that both her AND my doctor want me to be abstinent of opiates for the future [I don't think I will have to be - it seems to me that I'm getting back to a once a month or two schedule, WHICH I AM PERFECTLY FINE WITH], but that he isn't b*tch about it, and that he doesn't scold me when he tells me this idea - he tells me in respectful terms that since I was addicted before, that I run the risk of further addiction/relapse in the future, and so it's best that I don't use any. But when he tells me, I actually end up being more motivated to do it, because he isn't frankly, just so rude to me.
Then she pretends that she is like him and says something like "I'm not saying you're going to die from 1mg of Ativan. I'm just saying if you hadn't taken it in a week, you should have only had one."
Yeah, BULLSH*T. I can't even take a prescription drug I got from a pharmacy that SPECIFICALLY SAYS ON THE BOTTLE TO TAKE 1-2, AS NEEDED.
And that REALLY says it all about my mother.
So you know what happened the next day? SHE FORGOT TO CALL ME.
And that's when, even though I think my mother's methods are annoying, after a long period of relative peacefulness, I realized there REALLY IS no way I can communicate this with her.
I told her "So...you scold me like I'm about to DIE when I take a drug, then you don't even CALL ME TO WAKE ME UP, WHEN THAT WAS MY CONCERN???"
If a child told me "I took this marijuana, and I feel paranoid...I think it feels like it's laced with something else. I'm going to try to sleep it off - can you call me in the morning to wake me up, just in case it is laced?" I wouldn't flip out at them about it, act so rash about it as if I too thought they were going to die, THEN FORGET TO WAKE THEM UP.
Had she said "Look...if you took two of your pills, you'll be fine, but I really don't have the time to deal with your paranoia", I would have been ok with that. But the fact that SHE flips out too, RAMPING UP MY PARANOIA AND ANXIETY EVEN MORE, LEAVING ME IN A SPOT WHERE I WANT TO SEEK OUT ANOTHER DRUG TO DEAL WITH THAT, and THEN she forgets to wake up me...that was when I told her outright, that I just won't be telling her anything about my drug use ever again.
I said "If you REALLY thought I was at such risk, as you were basically screaming at me when I was looking for someone to calm me down, WHY THE F*CK WOULDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP LIKE I ASKED?"
I told her that I realized that she knows damn well I'm not remotely in a bad spot with drugs, and ALL SHE DOES IS MAKE ME FEEL LIKE SH*T ABOUT IT.
She recently bought a home blood pressure testing kit, and has had to go on a drug to lower her blood pressure. Could you IMAGINE if every time she is stressed out after getting a high reading, I said something like "Well - that's what happens when you get involved in everyone else's business. What did you expect would happen when you live like that? Do you really think you would be healthy?", and just went ON AND ON AND NEVER SHUT UP, would that POSSIBLY have a good effect on her? Would that POSSIBLY make her more likely to alter her habits in a way that would reduce her blood pressure?
That's why the entire situation is sad to me. I think it's a good thing to be able to tell people if you are using drugs, or have certain issues, etc, and people hide their problems precisely BECAUSE they get in trouble for actually sharing them. Long ago in my life I decided that I will NOT get in trouble for doing the right thing. I can't tell you how many times something happened like...someone's boyfriend angrily calls me asking where his girlfriend is, and I'm like "I gave her and her friend [both my friends] a ride to the bar/restaurant, then picked them up after and dropped them both off together at [location]. I wasn't with them, as they just asked me if I could be the DD, and I said yes, so I don't know."
Then the guy starts screaming into the phone blaming me, and I'm like "I'M JUST THE F*CKING DD, MORON. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND, TAKE IT UP WITH HER. IT'S NOT MY FAULT THAT SHE DIDN'T TELL YOU WHERE SHE WAS GOING AND ISN'T HOME YET."
Then people DOUBLE DOWN on their asinine thinking on the matter. There are people who literally bring up situations at their work that absolutely ARE problematic, and then they get fired for them. And I HATE situations like that in life. I CANNOT STAND when I do the right thing, only to get in trouble.
And I'm not the only one who just wants nothing to do with people as a result of these sorts of things happening.
But the sad thing is...it sucks when I can't just honestly tell my mother "I took twice my 1mg of Ativan this time, because I just had a really bad week all week, and it really reached a breaking point today. I just want to tell you how much I use for the next three days, since I REALLY don't want to go down the road of benzodiazepine addiction."
But NOPE...I can't do that.
What I've realized is that I am so competent and capable that I literally don't need anyone for anything. It's just sometimes NICE to have a non-judgmental ear to tell these things too, but I've found that people in general are more trouble than they are worth to me. I am independently wealthy, and even in my drug-addicted two years recently, I was more responsible, more reliable, and even HEALTHIER than likely 90% of people. I bet if you had measured various health markers for me that full two years, I would STILL be better off than most people.
And now seeing all these morons wearing masks for a virus that has about as much chance of killing them as a mosquito has just made me realize just HOW MUCH smarter I am than everyone else [bad analogy since most mosquito deaths are in Africa...but my point that this virus is NOT a big deal, and we'll probably all get it anyway, and is not worth taking economic suicide over, is objectively correct].
I guess let's just say...it's nice to be able to just honestly share information and have a non-judgmental ear to correspond with.
KIND OF LIKE THIS THREAD, AND LIKE THIS ENTIRE BOARD. I have had nothing but great experiences here, and while I was already doing quite well by the time I started posting on this board, I am doing even better now thanks to the various members and moderators of this board that have helped me.
Seeing all these mask wearers, I'm just thinking "Wow...I spent my entire life trying to communicate things with people who view base reality differently than I do. Unbelievable."
I can't blame myself for being a misanthropic shut-in...and because of that, I simply can't lie to myself and say that opiates will have no place in my future. If I am fully abstinent moving forward - fine. But as of the current time, I just see that as being unrealistic.
I can't remember if I said above, that my mom will always shut up with her useless judgments of me when I say "Didn't you have such a horrible diet your entire life that your body can't produce insulin on its own? So with your bad health, who the hell are you to tell me anything about being healthy?"
And when I do something like that [insult her], she always shuts up.
In fact, to anyone who has read this far, let me say this one thing I've found about human nature:
In general, fight people where they are weakest, not where they are strongest. And EVERYONE has a weak point. If someone who is judging you harshly is overweight, point that out. If they are losing their hair, point that out. If they have no money, point that out. I HATE to say this - HATE HATE HATE to say this - but I find that ANY EFFING TIME that I'm with a person who is judging me harshly that as soon as I judge them in the same way, they STFU.
I'm not saying to just call someone fat for no reason. I'm saying if a fat person is scolding you for using drugs, and if you are, say, 185-lb and they are 255-lb, I would suggest saying "So...you're 70-lb heavier than me, and you're telling me that I'm a bad person or doing something bad to use low amounts of drugs once a month? Yet you think it's optimal to walk around literally 70- to 100-lb overweight?"
And I can't even tell you how often the person immediately forgets about me, and goes right into defense mode. It's like "Oh...suddenly you're not being an a**hole to me, and realize that you have issues of your own that you don't want subjected to cruel judgment."
I absolutely understand why some people would never want to talk to another person ever again, at this point in my life. I'm sad to say that I might be that person too, but it is what it is.
It was one of the hardest experiences [journeys?] of my life, but boy, am I glad to be back. 
Bluelight!!
