Why did/do you use drugs? (please contribute!)

I'm just interested to hear from people the reasons behind why they have had the relationship with substances that they have had. I realise that a lot of people may not be entirely sure or may find this question difficult in lots of ways but I think it can also be a very cathartic thing to discuss. Reading a thread started me off thinking about my own reasons and I think that understanding the reason I have gone the route I have is key to helping me be strong in my recovery and the same is probably true of other people. I'd like to hear from other people. I will (try to) go first:


I started using substances at quite a young age, and I guess my original motivation was primarily experimentation and a simple desire to try different things. I think even then there must have been something more going on though as I spent every available opportunity from the age of about 12 getting intoxicated and that is more than just experimentation. I was always looking for something new but if it wasn't there I was abusing what was. I think I very quickly formed an identity as a drug taker, it became more than just something I did but something I was. There are probably deeper reasons behind why I would feel the need to do this relating to self-esteem. Identifying as a drug user became something of an obsession and lead to some quite fucked up thought patterns. I was competitive in being a fuck up, and even now when I talk to people who more fucked up than me I get these really bizarre thoughts where I feel like a fraud and like I need to go back and use more to show that I really am fucked up. It's very strange.

Somewhere along the line forgetting myself became a major impulse. It wasn't really a conscious action to begin with I just gravitated towards 'oblivion' drugs that took me out of myself. Eventually it moved into being a process I would go through clearly before using though....I can't face whatever aspect of the day ahead or the way in which I am either feeling now or going to feel so I will use instead.

All through my using were shallower themes such as simple compulsive behaviour and thrill seeking but as I got older these became quite extreme seeking out ever increasingly intense and disturbing experiences. It became almost at points like self-harming where I would damage myself with drugs and the way I was acting because I didn't really like myself. This pattern of thought still exists even now after going through many attempts to get clean and having stayed clean for a little while, and they are often triggered by hearing other's war stories relating to using. It goes....oh they are fucked up...I'm not worthy of complaining about a drug problem....I feel like a fraud....I want to forget that feeling....so I'll take drugs in a damaging way....then not only will I forget feeling like this but I really will be fucked up and I'll be able to hold on to that sense of identity. The thought of being in that comfort bubble of using and fulfilling that identity begis 's to outweigh the thoughts of no actually it's really really shit when you use.

I don't really know where I'm going with this but I wanted to write it down and I would like to hear other people's thoughts and experiences if anyone else would be so kind as to contribute. I feel like often the recovery forums here concentrate very much on the here and now of people's using or recovery which is of course important, but lack discussion of our motivations and critical examination of our actions that might help us grow and users tandem ourselves better.

I am going to bed, but I will tell my story tomorrow.

^ goodnight chef!

Hmm this is a great question! A difficult one but a good one nonetheless.

Well hmm let's see. I too started at a really young age. I drank for the first time at 11 smoked weed for the first time at 12 and was addicted to both benzos and opiates by the time I was just turning 14. Let's see what started this? I feel like the experimentation was the reason behind me trying drinking and smoking weed. And maybe peer pressure? Not really the right word, I wanted to do this stuff. I saw my mom, my sister, my whole family drinking and smoking I wanted to do it too damnit! When I was 13 my mom found out I was smoking pot, the first thing she said to me was, can you get me some? Here's $40. so as you can surely imagine, this didn't turn into a good thing at all. I don't know how it started or how it ever got brought up but my mom just started handing me Xanax when I was freaking out and any kind of opiate if I had any pain whatsoever. Shit I can remember so well one time I told her I had a headache and she gave me a 100mg morphine to my 13 year old-only had been taking 5mg hydrocodines-ass. I was fuuucked up for a really long time and I remember falling in love with opiates at this point even though I spent the next 12 hours puking, how I felt when I was high was the best IMO, anything was worth it! Soon I had a pain everyday and was always asking my mom for whatever kind of pain pills she had that day. By the time I was 14 she was giving me them everyday and the stupid hydros she had just weren't cutting it anymore. I told her that. So her response? To start giving me oxycodone 15mgs which I fell head over heels in love with quick and hard. I soon was branching out on my own and started getting even more pills behind my moms back. I was then introduced to the oxycodone 30mgs. I lived in Florida at the time and this was during that huge explosion of these pills. I was right in the middle of it. I was getting them practically for free. I loved the way they felt, especially when snorting some coke on top of snorting the Oxys. I loved the confidence it gave me and I could forget about all my pains mentally and physically (for hours when I first started) then I started needing more and more and the high just wasn't even but a few minutes. But I still had that mind set of fuck it anything is worth just that few minutes where my brain can shut off! I did those fucking things for 3 years by the end of it I was doing anywhere from 15-20 a day yes a day. I got my mom to go to the quack doctors and get a script of them, I was in what seemed like heaven, til I started getting the super downsides to it. I had to drop out of high school and get my GED ( which I did get with honors, so there is that) I just couldn't stay awake for the life of me in class. I was up all night snorting pill after pill. Well my moms addiction to crack got really bad right before I turned 18 so she thought it would be a good idea to move us both back to Texas where we didn't know where any drugs were. Well that was all fine and dandy for about a month and a half and then I got introduced to heroin. I had never shot up before trying heroin. The first time trying it I was fuuucked fucked up for a good 24 hours and then had a nice like 8 hour puke session. It made me think back to my first morphine experience and I re-fell in love all over again. I was hooked. I wanted that high more than anything in the whole world. I loved the way the needle made me feel, I felt so smart because I could put this drug straight into my blood stream. Again it was just a big confidence boost. I always felt good about myself. I started losing weight again and I was loving my body. I thought I had that shit under control which was another ego boost for me. I got my ex bf( he was my bf at the time) addicted to heroin as well, and I just thought I had everyone playing at my finger tips and had everything figured out. I got clean for about a year and a half maybe two years then my addiction came back full swing out here in Portland. I was taking hydros all the time and they again were just not cutting it for me. I went back to the needle, back to having that confidence, back to thinking I had everything figured out. I used for 14 months out here and now have been clean for 21 days as of today my using out here was all just about maintaining a constant state of numbness and maintaining my habit and not getting sick. So now being completely clean for the first time since I was 11. I feel like my using had just a lot to do with my shitty self worth and self confidence. And well the simple fact of I like feeling good and I like not feeling things so I can feel good.
EXjunkiegirl23

Attenuation of self-hatred, elevation of moods and senses, spirit searching.

I'm looking forward to extending this post, but yea basically what he ^ said. I'd just replace spirit search with spirituality, but they're the same thing.

I mean spirituality in a particular sense though: merely the innate drive we humans tend to have to want more (qualitatively, not quantitatively) out of life, and the desire to want to become better people in terms of our own selves and in terms of our relationships with out people in our lives. I don't explain it very well, but this understanding of spirituality is about how we relate with other people and the world. It's about at being peaceful, although that is only a side effect (and not the goal) of living in truly spiritual ways. To be spiritual is to exemplify the essential goodness that defines us as human. Exemplifying that goodness in our relationships/how we relate to all non-human elements of our world, is the basis for all spiritual practice (with this definition).

LOL really don't want to turn sidetrack this thread, so I may delete that part about what I mean about spirituality and spiritual practice... iono

toothpastedog said:

I'm looking forward to extending this post, but yea basically what he ^ said. I'd just replace spirit search with spirituality, but they're the same thing.

I mean spirituality in a particular sense though: merely the innate drive we humans tend to have to want more (qualitatively, not quantitatively) out of life, and the desire to want to become better people in terms of our own selves and in terms of our relationships with out people in our lives. I don't explain it very well, but this understanding of spirituality is about how we relate with other people and the world. It's about at being peaceful, although that is only a side effect (and not the goal) of living in truly spiritual ways. To be spiritual is to exemplify the essential goodness that defines us as human. Exemplifying that goodness in our relationships/how we relate to all non-human elements of our world, is the basis for all spiritual practice (with this definition).

LOL really don't want to turn sidetrack this thread, so I may delete that part about what I mean about spirituality and spiritual practice... iono

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No, it's important to be honest like this.

There's non-drug ways to support spirituality, and it's important for us to recognize what drugs do for us so that we can find non-drug options

I started when I was 20 years old. I just couldn't take the pain and loneliness anymore. I felt deeply alone and rejected by society and I thought I was bad. Opiates took that away and I fell in love with them. Trauma is why I started. Plus I was using other drugs since I was 11, so it was easy for me to start.

My parents divorced when I was three. In my mothers house was unconditional love, acceptance, and I truly felt loved. However, she shared every other weekend and summers with my dad. He and my stepmom were verbally, emotionally, and often physically abusive by proxy. I started smoking weed and taking pills pretty early but the defining moment was at age twelve I was sent to live with my dad. I felt so abandoned by my mom and stepdad. Did they not think I was good enough to be with them? This lead me to experiment with drugs...anything to get out of my own head. Acid, marijuana, alcohol shrooms, and pain pills to finally the summer that I was fifteen years old. I knew my dad was an addict, I had seen him high too many times. I started going through his belongings and came across a box. I opened it and low and behold were some 15mg ir morphines, a small bag of cocaine and syringes (alll used which will come up in my story again later). I checked online how to shoot the morphine...It was the most amazing thing that happened to me at that point. All the abuse and abandonment melted away. It felt like walking through a crowd of people that hate you and at last finding a sanctuary of those that care and respect you. I had tried cocaine before but never IV. That was a completely different drug than sniffing. I started taking pills from my friends parents, and from my dad...I mean what was he going to say to me...he would have to out himself for something he told my stepmom he had stopped long ago. I began shooting up everyday, heroin when I couldn't get morphine. It made me feel ten feet tall and bulletproof. I was better at school when I was on, I was amazing at sports when I was on, I could talk girls out of their panties when I was on. This lead to a series of incidents that lead me to get kicked out of school in february 1999. My parents abused the hell out of me even worse. They had my grandparents from balston spa come down and watch me, and within a week my grandmother was calling my mom to get me out of there that if I didn't leave they would end up killing me or I would be dead from suicide. I moved to pittsburgh where my mom lived and got an apartment. I had worked from age eleven in my dads restaurant and though he took my paychecks, I still got tipped out by the servers for doing side work and whatnot. I got an apartment near moms, made a dope connect and it was off to the races. Women, wine, drugs (I always hid my opiate habit, too much stigma) At age sixteen over the summer I learned how to spin records. I started playing at clubs in pittsburgh which lead to even more debauchery. I added womanizing compulsively to my repertoire...I mean if you were sixteen and seventeen years old and you had access to some of the best nightclubs in pittsburgh wouldn't you. Eventually I graduated high school, and went to college...I still did shows on the weekends and my drug abuse had gotten so far out of hand that I did not know if I could ever get off the merry go round. Then it finally happened...the drugs stopped working. I was dependent on benzos opiates and alcohol.

I stopped getting gigs because I would show up fucked up. I stopped attending school because I got kicked out. I got kicked out of my apartment for not paying rent. I couldn't fix my car. Got in trouble with the law....and all the while the drugs that made me super manboychef no longer even made me regular manboychef. My dad had ended up getting sober so I moved back up with him, got back into working in restaurants...still dabbling here and there. I rose through the ranks so fast, becoming a souschef at age 19 (which came with a rental property by the restaurant. A nice little two bedroom house that I could walk across the parking lot to get to work from), and executive chef at 22. I worked in great restaurants...however use was creeping back into my life. I was drinking like a fish and taking benzos again for the pressure. Eventually I ran into a connect for pain pills and it was off to the races again. I rose faster than a shooting star in the restaurant business because I was once again getting all the positive aspects of the drugs, and all the positve aspects of OCD and Panic Disorder. I was super organized, I was on time with my menus and my plates, and I could run the line blindfolded. My crew actually respected me...little did they know what chef's helper was. I ended up getting a girl pregnant...we had a kid. I got sober and sent her to rehab. Detoxed on my couch alone at home. Went back to work. She came home we had a wonderful baby boy. Apple of my eye. With him around I couldn;t help but stay straight. He needed me. Flash forward a year, I stepped down from executive chef to sous chef again so I could work on my relationship (which was failing miserably) I began drinking again and smoking the odd joint here and there. Then finally all the cheating, lying, stealing and other misdeeds that my freeloading ex put me through pushed me over the edge. Full blown mental breakdown on the line in the middle of service. Got sent to the psychward because I was going to slit my wrists with my chef's knife because I could no longer carry it all on my shoulders. Never been the same since. I got sober again. That last relapse was only a couple months.

I am sober raising my family, and my ex is still pulling her shit, and getting high. Finally I had enough. I called a lawyer and talked to him about getting custody, because in her state she couldn't even take care of herself let alone a child. She finds out and calls the cops on me saying I was abusing her. (which I wasn't...most that know me can understand how I am). I end up having to leave my house and stay at my dads for the night. When I came home the next day it looked like my house had been broken into. My dog was in the street, all my valuables were gone, and My son and Ex were gone. Nevermind the material things I had a severe panic attack and began calling hospitals and police stations to see if a robber had kidnapped them or worse. Well it turns out she stole most of my belongings that could be pawned. Drove off to where her mother lived and filed an order of protection and no contact order for herself and my son. If I called cops called me back and told me I could be arrested. After spending all my savings in court and becoming manboychef most hated woman abuser in all of fayetteville due to her spreading lies via social media (to my family even, my granny wil go to her grave believing tht I was beating her). That really hurts. I spent all my savings in court, lost my house, lost my car...started using again and ended up on the streets till a 60+ old woman let me live in her basement if I slept with her when she wanted it, and she would give me morphine. I also did "dates on the side" that she would set up for me. I gave up on life. The one thing I was good at; being a dad. Was now replaced with being a bottom of the barrel junkie, and selling my body just to get high and have a place to sleep.

that is part one of the story. more to come

The first spark and interest was young teen spiritual longing and a curiosity with psychs. Sometimes it's still there, sometimes I think I experienced the divine and felt the universes love and then rejection.
Mostly it's about comfort though. Just trying to feel ok.

Mine is a lot more simplistic than a lot of people expect or want it to be, I thought I was having fun.
I always say I was a social drinker, and I'm just real social. I liked to go out after work and drink with who ever I could find, even if my friends didn't want to I'd go and just hope I'd run into someone and if if I didn't I was becoming a regular and the other regulars would talk to me and the bartenders. Soon I was blackout drunk every night. I did a few drugs here and there during this time but nothing Major and nothing I did often enough to get addicted to but a big problem was that I was mixing the alcohol with psych medication I never should have mixed it with.

I would love to see stargazer's story up here. It is really good and inspiring.

Me too!

Well, my childhood was seemingly the American dream. I had a great mom and my dad was a defense attorney who also did some family law. We lived in the rich area of town, where everyone was upper middle class. Six bedroom, six bath, two story house, three lots from the river with a huge pool. Then when I turned 11, the shit hit the fan. My dad was arrested and charged with pilfering his clients' escrow accounts and trust funds, which he had access to. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. My life was in upheaval. Thankfully we were able to stay in the same area of town, albeit in a much smaller 3-2 bungalow...

I felt like I no longer had anything in common with the friends I had from before, and started hanging out with the slackers and kids from broken homes, or at least those with the home life that wasn't like the Stepford wife- type of previous years. I started drinking the alcohol in my parents liquor cabinet when I was like 12 and started smoking pot shortly after I started 7th grade. By 8th grade I was basically a daily smoker... I was hanging out with the "bad boys", I always got along much better with guys because I had problems with girls being jealous of me even though I didn't feel like I was pretty... I had low self esteem.

Fast forward to high school, my freshman year I was a little chubby because of all the pot smoking/ munchies... that year I was introduced to ecxtacy. Oh man I loved it! Every weekend it was some shape or new stamp, double stack or triple stack beans... rolling and also met a senior who had some really good acid. Blotter and I tried gel tabs a few times.... and of course I smoked a lot of pot and hung out with the same crew. That summer my buddy taught me how to surf, so I became obsessed with surfing every day. I returned to school 10th grade and the friends I hadn't seen since the year before didn't recognize me, I had lost the chubby baby fat and my blonde hair was really lightened from the sun- I started getting different attention from guys. But I never liked the boys in school like that, they were too immature for my likes. Then I met Ozzy. A guy took me down the road where I lived to his house, there was people there partying and smoking out, and we were also going to buy some beans. Ozzy was in his late 30s and he definitely noticed me. It wasn't long that night till I was in the back of the house with him and the coke dealer. I tried crack for the first time and LOVED the rush! Soon I was Ozzy's girl. I saw the tracks on his arms and begged him... I always had a romantic idea about the needle... sick, twisted, maybe... I grew up with a mad crush on Kurt Cobain- Nirvana was my first all time favorite band, why couldn't I be like Courtney love! I desired that dark addiction, and by god, Ozzy had no problem teaching me all I needed to know! First we used cocaine almost every night but I really liked pills... I had a girl who would steal dilauded and Demerol from her mom's safe and give them to me, I guess she liked me but I didn't mind using that to benifit myself! Ozzy taught me how to shoot them. Instead of going to school, i spent my days with him. We would ride the bus to downtown to one of the rehab centers/ methadone clinics for his court ordered drug counseling from a charge he had, and met some connections in the parking lot. Now, I didn't have to worry if that girls mom was out of pills. Now, I had a full blown, daily heroin habit at the age of 16. The occasional day I did end up in school, the rumors flew. I didn't care, I kindof liked it actually. Yea, I am a junkie! I am with a man twice my age! I also functioned... I got my lifeguard certification and did that as a job for the summer, I wore a long sleeved rash guard to cover my arms. I remember going to get my CPR-PR (CPR for the Professional Rescuer) recertification the next year and nodding during the exam! I told the examiner I had been cramming for finals and just was, oh so tired....

Well that's basically how I began my over a decade-long battle with addiction to opiates. I was in my mid 20s when the pill mill doctors started sprouting up around Florida like weeds, so I used them as my major source of drugs for the next handful of years, till those were all basically shuttered and heroin became the cheaper option again.... I finally pumped the brakes on my steep downward spiral a few years ago and went to the clinic. It's not easy I still have strong urges to fuck up sometimes, even though ive been on a stable dose for close to 4 years... but most days are manageable. I tell my self that anyways.

Boredom.

Self-hatred.

sweetzoe: I had low self esteem.

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burnt offerings: self hatred.

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(along the same lines)
I think this is a common thread among people that start very young on hard drugs, like you and me. It gives you a sense of belonging. You are part of an exclusive club....people with a habit. I totally understand romanticizing the needle to a fetishistic point. Mine was first junkie diaries, and then trainspotting that made it almost a mystical ritual for me. I am glad you are doing better. I am also in florida in the orlando area. If you ever want to meet up and hit a meeting or something PM me. aifhl is also from around where I am, so he would probably go too.

I am very interested in people's stories. Please, more?

manboychef said:

(along the same lines)
I think this is a common thread among people that start very young on hard drugs, like you and me. It gives you a sense of belonging. You are part of an exclusive club....people with a habit. I totally understand romanticizing the needle to a fetishistic point. Mine was first junkie diaries, and then trainspotting that made it almost a mystical ritual for me. I am glad you are doing better. I am also in florida in the orlando area. If you ever want to meet up and hit a meeting or something PM me. aifhl is also from around where I am, so he would probably go too.

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Manboychef Sounds good to me! I'm north of y'all, in the Jax area. That would be really great to have someone go with me to a meeting, tho... I don't do meetings very much because I dont like to go alone. But it is a bit of a distance between our areas, so idk if you are still interested in meeting up. I'm sending u a PM.

okay dokay!

THECATINTHEHAT said:

I'm just interested to hear from people the reasons behind why they have had the relationship with substances that they have had. I realise that a lot of people may not be entirely sure or may find this question difficult in lots of ways but I think it can also be a very cathartic thing to discuss. Reading a thread started me off thinking about my own reasons and I think that understanding the reason I have gone the route I have is key to helping me be strong in my recovery and the same is probably true of other people. I'd like to hear from other people. I will (try to) go first:


I started using substances at quite a young age, and I guess my original motivation was primarily experimentation and a simple desire to try different things. I think even then there must have been something more going on though as I spent every available opportunity from the age of about 12 getting intoxicated and that is more than just experimentation. I was always looking for something new but if it wasn't there I was abusing what was. I think I very quickly formed an identity as a drug taker, it became more than just something I did but something I was. There are probably deeper reasons behind why I would feel the need to do this relating to self-esteem. Identifying as a drug user became something of an obsession and lead to some quite fucked up thought patterns. I was competitive in being a fuck up, and even now when I talk to people who more fucked up than me I get these really bizarre thoughts where I feel like a fraud and like I need to go back and use more to show that I really am fucked up. It's very strange.

Somewhere along the line forgetting myself became a major impulse. It wasn't really a conscious action to begin with I just gravitated towards 'oblivion' drugs that took me out of myself. Eventually it moved into being a process I would go through clearly before using though....I can't face whatever aspect of the day ahead or the way in which I am either feeling now or going to feel so I will use instead.

All through my using were shallower themes such as simple compulsive behaviour and thrill seeking but as I got older these became quite extreme seeking out ever increasingly intense and disturbing experiences. It became almost at points like self-harming where I would damage myself with drugs and the way I was acting because I didn't really like myself. This pattern of thought still exists even now after going through many attempts to get clean and having stayed clean for a little while, and they are often triggered by hearing other's war stories relating to using. It goes....oh they are fucked up...I'm not worthy of complaining about a drug problem....I feel like a fraud....I want to forget that feeling....so I'll take drugs in a damaging way....then not only will I forget feeling like this but I really will be fucked up and I'll be able to hold on to that sense of identity. The thought of being in that comfort bubble of using and fulfilling that identity begis 's to outweigh the thoughts of no actually it's really really shit when you use.

I don't really know where I'm going with this but I wanted to write it down and I would like to hear other people's thoughts and experiences if anyone else would be so kind as to contribute. I feel like often the recovery forums here concentrate very much on the here and now of people's using or recovery which is of course important, but lack discussion of our motivations and critical examination of our actions that might help us grow and users tandem ourselves better.

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Well I started weed because in my anxiety started kicking in during highschool along with major stress, bipolar, IED (intermittent explosive disorder), ADHD, and finally insomnia. Weed i still have to say was better than any of the prescriptions my docs have given me since for the last 5 years: 120 xanax bars, 90 30mg adderall, 30 10mg ambien, 200mg a day of zoloft. Its horrible and im waiting on the day i can remove half my medications to be able to just smoke Medical Marijuana to get off these ridiculous medications. It is no fun at all!

There are several reasons for why I use drugs. None of my reasons apply to every drug I use; some of them, like anxiety or boredom, are the case only for a few drugs. There is no one cardinal or substratal or universal reason or hypokeimenon, so to say, for the presence of my drug use. Even whilst my reasons are different for different drugs, I still may use a single drug for different reasons depending on variables such as my mood, setting, the ambiance, and so on.

But, to make things simpler, I'll just enumerate all the different reasons that come to mind.

Assuaging anxiety
Relieving depression
Reducing ennui
Curing loneliness
Forgetting thoughts that provoke guilt or shame
Decreasing stress
Improving energy
Enhancing sex
Feeling high
Facilitating social interactions
Treating insomnia
Exploring my mind
Having fun
Novelty
Social disinhibition
Insobriety is less insufferable
Joie de vivre
Augmenting creativity
Managing anger
Force of habit
Too much free time
Nothing better to do
Somebody gratuitously offers me a drug and I take it
I can resist anything but temptation
I feel like it
Introspection
Potentiate meditation
Change my perspective; take the world at a different angle
I just really like drugs
To self-assay a drug I haven't experienced before
I feel more normal, less queer and not as heterochthonous
I'm self-destructive
Curiosity
Eudemonia
Hedonism
Spontaneity
Caprice
There is no more reason to not indulge than to do so

And that's all I could think up in a few minutes.