Lost Not sure I see the light anymore of remaining sober

[OpiateKiller]

Idk man. I just don’t know why this happens.

Everything in my life on the outside is good but I can’t seem to find the joy to carry on sobriety wise. I’m working 60 hours a week I got my license back living in a sober house making good money have a girlfriend...

And yet I can’t seem to enjoy any of it. I’m consumed with the “spiritual malady and restless irritable and discontentness” and I’m unwilling to try to get out of it.

It’s just sad because so many times I’ve been so desperate on drugs so far gone wanting to die and yet here I am with none of those problems.

Alcohol is sounding better and better after each long day of work and I just question how people manage to maintain this..

How can I have time to go to meetings and do step work and help others when I work 6-6 Monday-Saturday. I’m so exhausted I’m so beat down.

I got a lot of stress on my mind a lot of my family got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and they’re in denial but I have noticed them far worse health wise coughing and sick and I’m just questioning can I find peace in sobriety. The problem is I don’t really view the world as a good place ever since 16 years old (10 years ago) I’ve been waiting for martial law and chaos and destruction and war.

I just don’t know how to balance recovery and life. I have never been able to do it long term. And I know if I push myself to hit meetings and stay connected I’ll be happier and stay sober but for some reason I can’t bring myself to do it. I did 90 and 90 meetings and for some reason I didn’t raise my hand and share once. I’m so consumed with the evil in my head and so afraid to live life it’s exhausting.

Everything in my life I should be grateful for I have so much more than so many people and all I can do is put on a fake smile and act like it’s all okay when deep inside me I’m starting to find myself severely depressed. It’s fleeting like my happiness is sometimes but..

I just don’t think I’m gonna make it much longer and it’s so sad but I’m not willing to do what I need to to remain sober. I don’t think I can. Every relapse I’ve been less and less invested in AA and it’s principles it really does get harder.

I’m great at work I put on a front to 90% of people but to the people who love me I’m closed off and anxious and angry I snap at my girlfriend for no reason I can’t be nice to her most days because I’m so consumed with how I don’t love my life or myself.

They say you’ll change when the pain is great enough or they ask if you’re done using and drinking. I could have answered yes I’m done 5 years ago I had had enough a long time ago. But I don’t know where else to turn for relief from
The reality around me. The only thing to ever consistently get me through the day is drugs and alcohol. I said it this last relapse I’d never get sober again and I think if I end up back deep on heroin or a maintenance drug I will 110% blow my brains out and that’s not an exaggeration.

I can’t do this anymore. And I can’t go back to where I’ve been in addiction. I’m scared and I don’t know what the fuck to do.

 

[Snafu in the Void]

Are you fully sober? What are you on right now if anything? Weed? Full monty sober??

I succumbed to the allure of alcohol after getting off heroin and meth. It was the easy intermediary. I was successfully able to stay off hard drugs in the long run using alcohol as a crutch (minus the few month relapse a year ago). Alcohol is definitely not the answer, but I don't need to tell you that. If you ask me it was better than going back to heroin and meth and all that jazz. Was able to stay away from opioids and meth for the majority of 9 years because of alcohol. Is it a good answer or option? FUCK NO. You know that.... but for me it was that one thing that kept me from relapsing.... however for you, you might get drunk and then THAT will lead you to relapse. It's NOT a good idea, you know.

Meetings are for people that benefit from meetings. I did at one point. I truly did. These days, if I go to a meeting, it's just wasting 90 minutes of my day going to a room to hear some shit I've already heard 3000 times. I do not benefit much from the social aspect of meetings. I could benefit from a sponsor, but I really don't need one. I truly believe everyone forges their own path towards sobriety and if you're being honest with yourself and meetings aren't doing much then stop wasting your time. Just be real with yourself. There are other paths, just don't be the one to fool yourself.

I just don’t know how to balance recovery and life. I have never been able to do it long term. And I know if I push myself to hit meetings and stay connected I’ll be happier and stay sober but for some reason I can’t bring myself to do it. I did 90 and 90 meetings and for some reason I didn’t raise my hand and share once. I’m so consumed with the evil in my head and so afraid to live life it’s exhausting.

I know exactly what you mean man. I want enough of sobriety to achieve the life I dream of or would be proud of, but I want enough of drugs TO AT LEAST FEEL NORMAL. I think I can find a balance... or maybe I'm bullshitting myself?.

The concept of never getting high again on anything SCARES THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF ME. Even if I'm in a great mood, that scares me. I get suicidal, seriously. It's fucked.

They say you’ll change when the pain is great enough or they ask if you’re done using and drinking.

You know how many times I've reached out to random family or friends or whoever, grizzled old veteran addicts and alcoholics and EVERY SINGLE TIME I hear the phrase "you haven't hit rock bottom yet, when you have, you will be ready".

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

Every single time I WAS AT ROCK BOTTOM ASS HOLE!!!!

Neanderthal thinking my friend. I hate it. People end up using that as an excuse to continue the pain. You don't have to be "finally ready" to change after indescribable pain.

Dude you know suicide is a retarded permanent answer to a stupid temporary problem.

If you are actively seeking to improve your life then that means its worth living. Fuck the noise. I'm really tired of my life, too. I haven't been laid in YEARS. At least you're getting laid I presume? If I was in my shoes but at least was getting laid or at the very least had a half assed girlfriend I wouldn't feel that bad about myself (considering I'm almost a middle aged college drop out junkie loser with no achievements and a negative net worth).

Everyone has their own hell.

Thanks for letting me rant with you.

 

[OpiateKiller]

Are you fully sober? What are you on right now if anything? Weed? Full monty sober??

I succumbed to the allure of alcohol after getting off heroin and meth. It was the easy intermediary. I was successfully able to stay off hard drugs in the long run using alcohol as a crutch (minus the few month relapse a year ago). Alcohol is definitely not the answer, but I don't need to tell you that. If you ask me it was better than going back to heroin and meth and all that jazz. Was able to stay away from opioids and meth for the majority of 9 years because of alcohol. Is it a good answer or option? FUCK NO. You know that.... but for me it was that one thing that kept me from relapsing.... however for you, you might get drunk and then THAT will lead you to relapse. It's NOT a good idea, you know.

Meetings are for people that benefit from meetings. I did at one point. I truly did. These days, if I go to a meeting, it's just wasting 90 minutes of my day going to a room to hear some shit I've already heard 3000 times. I do not benefit much from the social aspect of meetings. I could benefit from a sponsor, but I really don't need one. I truly believe everyone forges their own path towards sobriety and if you're being honest with yourself and meetings aren't doing much then stop wasting your time. Just be real with yourself. There are other paths, just don't be the one to fool yourself.

I know exactly what you mean man. I want enough of sobriety to achieve the life I dream of or would be proud of, but I want enough of drugs TO AT LEAST FEEL NORMAL. I think I can find a balance... or maybe I'm bullshitting myself?.

The concept of never getting high again on anything SCARES THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF ME. Even if I'm in a great mood, that scares me. I get suicidal, seriously. It's fucked.



You know how many times I've reached out to random family or friends or whoever, grizzled old veteran addicts and alcoholics and EVERY SINGLE TIME I hear the phrase "you haven't hit rock bottom yet, when you have, you will be ready".

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

Every single time I WAS AT ROCK BOTTOM ASS HOLE!!!!

Neanderthal thinking my friend. I hate it. People end up using that as an excuse to continue the pain. You don't have to be "finally ready" to change after indescribable pain.

Dude you know suicide is a retarded permanent answer to a stupid temporary problem.

If you are actively seeking to improve your life then that means its worth living. Fuck the noise. I'm really tired of my life, too. I haven't been laid in YEARS. At least you're getting laid I presume? If I was in my shoes but at least was getting laid or at the very least had a half assed girlfriend I wouldn't feel that bad about myself (considering I'm almost a middle aged college drop out junkie loser with no achievements and a negative net worth).

Everyone has their own hell.

Thanks for letting me rant with you.

Thanks for this response man it meant a lot to me.

Right now I’m like 4 months sober off any mind altering substance (went to detox in December to get off methadone meth and benzos) but I’ve had a long history of 6 months completely sober here or there followed by an ever deeper relapse usually ending in Iv heroin use.

I mean I did have a period when I got out of jail when I was just drinking and I was kinda happy idk I had a different perspective on life just happy to be able to drink and be not in a jail cell but... idk I lost the gratitude. It’s so hard to keep.

100% @ the you haven’t hit rock bottom hahah. Fuck that saying and that belief.

I’ve had my dad tell me him and my mom stood over me and discussed not bothering to narcan me because I was failed. I had no hope.

I overdosed and shut down a whole highway for 2 hours because I played pinball bouncing off of cars nodding out before I overdosed and a state trooper had to literally pull his car in front of me to stop me as I skidded the guard rail at 10 miles per hour for 5 minutes.

I’ve been through fucking hell and back. But I still don’t know if I can stay sober and it’s just really hard.

I think a lot of us are just way to hard on ourselves. I know for me I never give myself a break I’m so uptight and critical of myself and it’s a big reason I have turned to drugs.

We’re all just trying to survive and be happy and live.

All I’ve ever wanted in life was to be free. Free of the bondage of self. And I’ve achieved it sober and with alcohol and drugs too.

Right now I’m just down and fucking out and I haven’t felt like this since being sober this time and it really scares me.

One love man. I will push on I’m just broken. Tomorrow is my birthday and I have tears in my eyes and All I want is to just be free of these negative feelings. I want life to be beautiful and I hate when I can’t see it.

 

[deficiT]

Shit. I know how it goes, no matter what it seems nothing is ever good enough for me. I can rationalize all day and justify my mediocrity with comparisons to other people, but at the end of the day, we all have a different journey and what's taken one person a lot of work to obtain, another might come by it naturally.

People have always loved me but I've always felt like a giant phony, and everything has always just made me more miserable. Whether it's sobriety, therapy, good job, money bags, opening up emotionally, whatever. There's no peace in that. You have to be willing to fight for just that little bit of contentment that everyone really wants. And it's really difficult to get up day after day and fight the same fight.

I've found the only thing that's been able to keep me going is laughter. Nowadays I try my best to just keep that going, and leave the heavy lifting to the therapists. I've stopped taking shit quite as seriously. I'm still incredibly depressed, and I don't think I'll ever get over my addiction issues, but the bad days aren't quite as bad as they have been.

And I've lost everything at this point. Don't forget, you can always be more miserable. But you can be less, too.

 

[HatingThisLife]

Ive been following you since I joined and you were talking about locking yourself in a cabin to just go thru it with some coke liquor and benzos. You have gone thru so much to get where you are and your whole entire post screams PAWS. It does get better, it will get better I promise. I had 3 years clean at one point and it took at least 18 months to get over the ahendorrea (however it spelled haha). While your brain is healing you will be joyless bc your dopamine levels arent normal, serotonin levels not normal. Im struggling to get off H and part of it is I know after the acute with drawal its gon a be a longgggg time of shitty sleep and joylessness. But it eventually felt like life was worth living and started having fun again instead of feeling like I was just going thru the motions like a robot. If meetings arent for you what about seeing a therapist? If you had a sponsor you could share this shit with him and probably take some of the weight off your shoulders.

Go back and read all your posts from before you got sober, maybe that will give you some perspective and resolve.

Resolve yourself that you are gon a stay clean UNTIL it gets better. Make it a personal challenge even if everyday is a struggle. You already know drugs arent the answer, they will eventually bring you back to a worse place than you are now!!!

The world is shitty, there are so many shitty people out there but there are some good ones.

For that 1st 18 months I drank and smoked weed but I had moved far away from where I was using and had no connects so relapse from drinking wasnt a problem. Then I quit drinking and just smoked weed, helps with my social anxiety. It wasnt a problem for me.

Im rooting for you for what its worth. Just keep telling yourself it a long uphill climb to feel joy again bc its a long slippery slope downhill when you relapse. Everything you've done has to be reversed in your brain and it takes time to climb back out. Eat lots of omega 3 foods or take supplemental, helps restore the brain.

You CAN do this. You WILL become happy eventually. Dont rationalize an excuse to use. Find a way to twist your thoughts into something positive. Maybe a different job w less hours to give you more time to find things you enjoy doing.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I am also one of the people who quietly watched your posts and cheered without giving any advices. You were so determined that I knew I have nothing to add that would genuinely help you. I am very glad that you made through all that alive. Not to mention clean.

I have only 2 points that maybe obvious but sometimes obvious is exactly what we overlook.

Firstly you can't expect to heal so fast. I believe that it seems a long time but after what you have gone through it will take more than 6 months to heal. And I am talking on a physical level. This can be frightening but it shouldn't be. It means that you are going in the right direction and that it is normal you don't feel normal. You are still in a withdrawal, but this stage is not so dramatic from the outside. It would help if you could lower your expectations and take it one day, one week and than one month at a time. It is certainly easier said than done and I had few brief relapses after I stopped 6 year long opioid addiction/dependence but I made sure that relapses were not on hard opioids but kratom. I still have benzo dependence that is now almost 2 decades long and it scares the shit out of me. But I feel much better and much more optimistic regarding my opioid dependency. Now, after almost year and a half it is waaay easier than it was after 6 months. It takes time and it is not easy to be aware that it could take 3 more moths for the adhedonia/depression to lift and for your CNS to become more sensitive to regular stimulus. I hope you endure because it gets easier and more rewarding. Not easy, as life itself is not a picnic, but it won't be cloudy with rain all the time after 3 more months.

The other thing I wanted to say that is - please don't compare your situation with others. Yes you may have it better/easier regarding material goods than me but so what? I don't feel your pain and don't have your problems. I have it better than people in Congo, but that doesn't take away problems that I face in a country that was a communist country 30 years ago and than torn by 5 year war. Compare yourself with yourself and live as best as you can right there and when YOU were born and are living. You will have your ups and downs, as everybody does, but if you go 5 stairs up and fall 3 stairs down - you are 2 stairs up. And that's how recovery, or every other improvement works. It is not a linear thing. Please don't compare yourself with others and focus that 6 months from now you are in a better place than you are now. Whatever that better place means and is for you.

I believe that you can make it and that you don't have to OD and almost kill yourself or somebody else to hit rock bottom. Rock bottom is being dead. There is no other universal rock bottom other than that.

Having said all that, I know how hard can be to not sleep for 2 nights because 10% of benzo dose is reduced. I have caved lots of times because I couldn't take it anymore. And I am talking about week of feeling bad, not months. So I understand that it is not easy. I don't want to paint a picture how you must endure and it will be roses and sunshine any day now. Only you know you and I hope that you get to place where you are able to feel content and proud.

One more thing. Is there any possibility that your working hours could be reduced? Could you find some job where you would work 40 hour week? Your body is still hurting and it needs active rest. If you could do more sport like activity and rest a bit more I believe that it would speed up your recovery. But as I said, only you know you.

Take care. I wish you all the best!

 

[emkee_reinvented]

Idk man. I just don’t know why this happens.

Everything in my life on the outside is good but I can’t seem to find the joy to carry on sobriety wise. I’m working 60 hours a week I got my license back living in a sober house making good money have a girlfriend...

And yet I can’t seem to enjoy any of it. I’m consumed with the “spiritual malady and restless irritable and discontentness” and I’m unwilling to try to get out of it.

It’s just sad because so many times I’ve been so desperate on drugs so far gone wanting to die and yet here I am with none of those problems.

Alcohol is sounding better and better after each long day of work and I just question how people manage to maintain this..

How can I have time to go to meetings and do step work and help others when I work 6-6 Monday-Saturday. I’m so exhausted I’m so beat down.

I got a lot of stress on my mind a lot of my family got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and they’re in denial but I have noticed them far worse health wise coughing and sick and I’m just questioning can I find peace in sobriety. The problem is I don’t really view the world as a good place ever since 16 years old (10 years ago) I’ve been waiting for martial law and chaos and destruction and war.

I just don’t know how to balance recovery and life. I have never been able to do it long term. And I know if I push myself to hit meetings and stay connected I’ll be happier and stay sober but for some reason I can’t bring myself to do it. I did 90 and 90 meetings and for some reason I didn’t raise my hand and share once. I’m so consumed with the evil in my head and so afraid to live life it’s exhausting.

Everything in my life I should be grateful for I have so much more than so many people and all I can do is put on a fake smile and act like it’s all okay when deep inside me I’m starting to find myself severely depressed. It’s fleeting like my happiness is sometimes but..

I just don’t think I’m gonna make it much longer and it’s so sad but I’m not willing to do what I need to to remain sober. I don’t think I can. Every relapse I’ve been less and less invested in AA and it’s principles it really does get harder.

I’m great at work I put on a front to 90% of people but to the people who love me I’m closed off and anxious and angry I snap at my girlfriend for no reason I can’t be nice to her most days because I’m so consumed with how I don’t love my life or myself.

They say you’ll change when the pain is great enough or they ask if you’re done using and drinking. I could have answered yes I’m done 5 years ago I had had enough a long time ago. But I don’t know where else to turn for relief from
The reality around me. The only thing to ever consistently get me through the day is drugs and alcohol. I said it this last relapse I’d never get sober again and I think if I end up back deep on heroin or a maintenance drug I will 110% blow my brains out and that’s not an exaggeration.

I can’t do this anymore. And I can’t go back to where I’ve been in addiction. I’m scared and I don’t know what the fuck to do.

Hard situation.

read it all, and as a not sober person. That would like to be able to be sober and feeling at least normal. I feel like I know that shit.

But you are working 60 hours a week with maximum output. I on the other hand are on Disability, don´ t ask how and why because I am in no way more disabled as any other person.

Before you go in the drug's 'problem' why not examen the amount of work you are doing atm. To me it seems that you are doing an unreasonable amount.
Like i hate doing nothing. But my situation allow's me to use my time/ energy to clean and upgrade the house. When i want whatever way way. Work on art project's. Maintaining some sort of social network among which is Bluelight.

You are in a situation I was in 15/ 20 year's ago. 'being lived'. Is there any oppurtunity for you to take a break or do a step back?

 

[Nurse Ratched]

How are you doing @OpiateKiller . Still hanging on by the skin of your teeth to your sobriety? I am hoping so. You worked really hard for it. I followed your journey and saw you make it out the other side. I hope you are well and getting better every day.

 

[OpiateKiller]

How are you doing @OpiateKiller . Still hanging on by the skin of your teeth to your sobriety? I am hoping so. You worked really hard for it. I followed your journey and saw you make it out the other side. I hope you are well and getting better every day.

Thank you my friend. I appreciate you. I am doing better I had a great perspective change the other day. I made a mistake but it wasn’t a relapse thankfully but a good friend a beautiful girl I grew up with and was great friends with died of a heroin overdose the night I wrote this post.

Sobriety isn’t always easy but as long as we recognize this too shall pass I will be okay. God bless