I can't seem to brake the cycle

[Fatjosh]

Hey everyone, I have been fighting to get clean again for the past few months after an 8 month relapse. I just keep getting to the 2 week mark and the crushing depression and inability to sleep without benzos is what keeps bringing me back. I can't keep doing this at this moment I am 48 hours into withdrawl and I just want this to be the last time. When I quit in 2012 I went through the withdrawl from 4 years of heavy abuse and after a week I started feeling better but with these shorter periode of use I find it less physically taxing and killing me more mentally. I just want to be clean again but with all the stress in my life compounded by the depression from withdrawl it's just soo much. I guess I just wanted to put this out there fishing for encouragement as once again I'm doing this alone besides the support of my girlfriend. Thanks everyone.

 

[Maya]

^Fatjosh a lot of us has been in your position including myself. You just have to push a little harder sometimes and mentally be strong, as hard as it is to accept, we are fighting ourselves, our own enemy is us. If you are able to say NO in a harder way you would be able to fight. You have to tell yourself hun that you can and you will break the cycle. You can do this we believe in you

 

[Xorkoth]

Maya is right, you have to believe it and it will happen. I was on opiates for 10 years straight with under 1 year off at the 6 year mark. In January of this year I literally wanted to die, I never thought I could escape the cycle. Now I'm 3.5 months clean and I feel great, my life turned a 180 and things are all looking up. We can do it, man. You have the power within yourself. But as soon as you tell yourself you can't, you won't.

 

[Freon]

I can definitely relate man. I was able to kick Heroin a couple years ago...(I'll still smoke a 30 bag every now and then but I don't get sick anymore) but I'm going on 9 years of smoking meth when I originally told myself I was gunna stop after I tried it for the first time...yeah right I smoked yesterday and my hook just reupped so no hope of getting clean this week. But there's always tomorrow right?

 

[adder]

I was addicted to benzodiazepines for 9 years. I tried quitting them many times before I eventually succeeded in December last year. I'm 24 now and I was sure that I was going to die before I turn 30. My mind felt so empty and I kept forgetting everything, I felt as if I was already dead, I could feel almost no emotions. But then I spontaneously decided that I would quit for good and I just knew that this time once I'm off benzodiazepines, I would never touch them again. I was so sick and tired of such life that the will to get my life back was simply stronger. A year before I quit benzodiazepines, I also quit methadone after being on it for over 2 years. I've been addicted to opioids since I was 14, the withdrawal was horrible, way worse than any withdrawal from morphine or heroin had ever been, but I knew I didn't want to live like that any more. I'm still on Suboxone, but once I have the money for ibogaine, I'm going to quit it too for good. Your strong will is all you need to succeed, your mind is the most powerful weapon you've got if you only discover it. You can do anything you want if you only truly believe it. Self-hypnosis and meditation also helped me a lot, it's possible to manipulate oneself into any stream of thoughts. Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed, it helps me a lot when I just stop thinking, stop analysing everything, it's pointless. There's really no secret about quitting drugs, it's about recognising the problem and having the strength to beat it. You need to want it for yourself, not for anyone else, you need to truly negate your current lifestyle.

Try visualising your life without drugs and dependence, it really feels so good not to be dependent on anything. It's an illusion that you need a drug to survive a day, a week, a month, a year, or your whole life. It's going to be tough. Around 8 months after I quit benzodiazepines I still suffer from the PAWS, the depersonalisation makes my life almost impossible, the reality is blurred with the world inside my head. Sometimes I don't know who I am and whether the stuff around me is real or not, sometimes my mind freezes so I can't properly articulate words. This is not the worst, it's much more difficult to simply hold on and live my life. I've got problems with the basic every day stuff, I feel my mind is often like the mind of a new-born baby, I have to learn everything from the beginning, and if I don't, I just won't survive. I mean that life is much more difficult than quitting drugs, so in order to learn how to live you need to beat problems step by step. Perhaps I'm too honest with you, but perhaps you won't have to learn everything from the very beginning. I'm mostly all by myself now, I don't have a soul mate and nobody fully understands what's wrong with me, my mum tries hard, but she's been through a lot in her life, including my problems too, so it doesn't seem fair for me to burden her with my madness any more. I've got no job and I can't legally do what I'm best at without a diploma, I was removed from the student roster three times all because of problems related to my addictions. So if your life is now at least partially settled, it's going to be much easier.

 

[wanting]

Fatjosh--I totally get you. Today, I am clean for 14 days, and while the physical symptoms are easing, I miss the feeling of being effortlessly happy. It's a crusher. From what everyone has told me, you have to go through the hell of the physical to reach the hell of the psychological before you can climb back to health. My physical symptoms for the past two weeks have been awful, even with supportive meds from my doc. I'm counting on another two weeks of dealing with the head-game of it all. I'm sending positive thoughts your way.

 

[Xorkoth]

That (nearly) effortless happiness will come back in time. Though life is never effortless and you'll always have ups and downs. But without addiction, the ups are more frequent and (particularly) the downs are SO MUCH easier to handle. When I was addicted to opiates, I woke up every morning dreading the day, feeling horrible, until I would take opiates at which point I would still feel horrible, in a different way, even though I didn't feel AS horrible.

Once I got off opiates (in my case I used ibogaine which really helped and eliminated the PAWS stage), I found myself waking up every morning feeling good again. And most of my time is spent feeling good. Of course I have downs, and those were the times I used to use opiates to mask, but nothing is worth going back to that place for me, so I just deal with the downs like a "normal" person and then I work through them, get stronger, and feel good about myself, which feeds into feeling good more often. It's really worth it man, life on the other side is SO MUCH better, you just need to deal with getting off of them first.

And it really does feel amazing to no longer have to worry about a substance to not feel horrible. Such a massive stress removed from my life.

 

[Fatjosh]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I know the only person who can fix this problem is me and I have hope as even with the relapse cycle iv been in, I never gave up. I was sober for a year before I relapsed when I got hit with a curveball that rocked my world and I relapsed for 8 months but since then it has been 2 weeks clean one week fuckin up and then another two weeks clean u get the picture. When I got clean befor it was all physical but this time it's very much all in my head. Xorkoth I did use dmt right after I got past the physical withdrawl in 2012 and I do believe that had somthing to do with my recovery then although it is not ibogaine. Literally up until the day I relapsed I never thought I'd use opiates ever again I had no cravings at all but I caught my fiancé of 7 years cheating on me and it rocked my world and I said fuck it....I know it was stupid but it's the only way I knew how to cope with pain like that. I believe in the healing power of psychedelics it's just that all I have access to r mushrooms lately and iv been meaning to give them a shot I took some about two weeks sober a few moths ago but I only took 3 grams and it really wasn't very healing but I may try again with a higher dose it seems like ever since I broke thru on dmt other psychedelics don't cut it but maybe I just gotta push it a little further with the fungus.

sorry if I didn't specifically address everyone's reply it's hard on my phone. But thank you all for the encouragement. I messed up a little last night but I'm not going to beat myself up over it I'm just going to keep trying. One of the weird things about my addiction is that I only dose once a day at night to sleep(210mgs of oxy) which has translated into one fucked up trigger which is when it starts getting dark I get that panicked I need to score feeling. I feel pretty good in the mornings it's the nights that get me. I never crave during the day because I never use during the day and even my physical symptoms r better during the day but once it's dark I'm a mess. Iv been doing my best but I guess I just have to truly believe to achieve so I'm going to keep trudging along. Thanks again guys.