Finding the underlying cause for your use

[MONSTA!!]

Hi,

I've been using heroin and various other opiates for about 10 years now, I'm 30 in a few months and I'm starting to really get sick of the merry-go-round.

I've been on Subutex for about 2 years, I've used it for four in total as I had a brief stint where I was completely clean. Despite being on the subs at least once a month I will end up going on a bender, I have a good job and can afford to spend large amounts on heroin. I will usually spend about a week using a gram of heroin and crack injected together a day, then realise I need to stop and spend a further 5 days in mini withdrawal as my body reacclimatises to the subs.

I know I need to address the underlying issue of why I go back to using, but how do I do that? The rational side of my brain doesn't want this, but the carnal side of me always ends up winning when that thought pops into my head.

Does anyone have any advice on discovering the reasons for drug use and remedying the situation?

Thanks
MONSTA!!

 

[Foreigner]

1) It feels good.
2) It feels more pleasurable than any pleasure life can offer sober.
3) If you have underlying issues like mental health, or you just feel apathetic toward life, it can make all that seem like it doesn't matter.

I know people love to pick apart the 'root reasons' for drug use, and there are usually some, but mostly it's just like that you get hooked on something that feels awesome and your body just wants more of it.

 

[phactor]

My personal understanding of my underlying cause is that fact that I am an individual with the disease of addiction and am an addict.

 

[herbavore]

1) It feels good.
2) It feels more pleasurable than any pleasure life can offer sober.
3) If you have underlying issues like mental health, or you just feel apathetic toward life, it can make all that seem like it doesn't matter.

I know people love to pick apart the 'root reasons' for drug use, and there are usually some, but mostly it's just like that you get hooked on something that feels awesome and your body just wants more of it.

I do wonder about #2 in your list, though that doesn't mean that I disbelieve it. I just wonder how that can be so true for some and so completely untrue for others using the exact same substance. For me that statement does not jive with my direct experience and yet I have friends and family members for whom it would be absolutely spot on. I don't bother with asking "why" but I do ask "how". To me, this is the mysterious core of addiction.

OP, I have a theory--and that's all it is, an opinion--that we live in a time where we are in an epidemic of disconnection. Newborn humans like to be swaddled tightly when they are not being held and we are all trying to grab hold of something and every time we get a handhold it evaporates. I feel like our entire modern world is in a state of free-fall. The old institutions that gave people a sense of belonging have long been useless or even discarded as downright harmful-- (I'm thinking dead religions, the diseased modern nuclear family, cultures that value things over people and the list goes on)--but what do we have to collectively wrap ourselves in now? Each person must still struggle with all the eternal struggles--existential loneliness, ego, mortality--and now the layers of modern struggles like the cult of image, ideas of financial success being personal success, the insatiable hunger for stuff. And each person is having to do this without any real road-map. My children's generation has been heaped with so much pressure to perform on so many different levels, to achieve perfection in every aspect of their lives. Even the strongest, most grounded natures and personalities struggle under the weight of all this nonsense; but what happens when you have a very sensitive nature, when your emotions overwhelm you to begin with?

I think the best antidote to all this is to see your life as nothing more than a journey to know yourself, through compassion for yourself and through compassion for others. We clutter our minds with so much expectation but what if this one simple task--to compassionately understand yourself (and thus, your connection to others) was it? It makes life fascinating, challenging, pleasurable, rewarding and something that I am coming to appreciate more and more: calm.

As far as what you said about the divide between your rational brain and your carnal self, I do believe that sometimes we have choices to make. Choices are rarely the moral/immoral dilemma they are made out to be. They are simply different tracks that produce different futures. The older I got the easier it has become for me to sometimes listen to my rational mind; not because I can truly predict what either future will be, but because I am aware that one choice will more than likely cancel out the other and it is my rational mind that knows this. I am a very impulsive person, ADD, quick to act without much forethought, if any. I value that aspect of myself because it can also be very useful but I have learned that the rational mind that I used to feel was some sort of grumpy kill-joy that got in my way is actually something that I value very much as well. The two of those learning to live together in one brain? Well, that's where the fascinating/never boring part comes in.

 

[infectedmushroom]

I understand the desire and need for some sort of rational explanation for using, but addiction isn't rational, IMO.

The reasons for my use have become more and more apparent the longer i'm clean, and you might find the same happens with you.

Give it a go.

=)

 

[lman_15]

“Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.”

That shit right there. Gotta figure out why the pain not why the drug use. The drug use is a symptom of the pain we experience. It is the remedy or solution. However, figure out why you are experiencing pain wether emotional, psychological or physical and resolve that. Then you got yourself a real fucking solution.

 

[JackiePeyton]

Humans needs some daily reward, something to look forward to. Normal people tend to put this into simple things, like a favorite food, or taking a nice bath. Addicts go for the drugs. The trick is to give yourself a reward in place of drugs. For many it becomes running because of the endorphins.

 

[wezface]

Herbavore, what you wrote really hit home. You said it far better than I have been able to express myself. I also feel like we as a generation are suffering from a disconnect. We no longer have to support ourselves as far as surviving, and thus our purpose is far more abstract and it's more of a struggle to grasp something as important as survival or as ingrained as ensuring the future of our species. When you look at societies that are still practicing the hunter-gatherer, tribal lifestyle, are isolated from the outside world and its influence, you see an enormous difference in the things that are accepted and known, and you see a huge difference in the levels of happiness and contentment. You don't see depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder or ADD. You have this huge family unit, you have agape (an all-encompassing, altruistic sort of love), you have the desire for success as a tribe or community overwhelming the desire for personal success. You don't see the idea of ownership we have, the need to acquire stuff. You see only survival, and the desire to be happy and live and ensure a good life for future generations. And I think that in getting away from the community aspect of our culture, by isolating ourselves and focusing on individuality and privacy, we've really been indoctrinated with the idea that this particular set of values (personal success over happiness, the acquisition of stuff and its relationship to social status, the need to be independent and the value of not needing anyone and not relying on others) is going to make us satisfied, even though I'm pretty sure we all know it won't.

 

[twistedhunter]

^^ i like what this guy has to say.

 

[custard]

i have to go to bed soon so i will make this brief. i've gotten to a point where when i make choices in my life, be it regarding drugs or otherwise, i ask myself if i am doing this out of love, or out of fear?

when i look back on why i've been addicted to various drugs, the simplest way i can answer is due to fear.

fear of life's meaninglessness. fear of lonesomeness, emptiness. fear of disconnectedness from myself and those around me. fear of my ego, and the inability to cope with my own anxiety and self-criticism.

drugs have taught me a lot. they have deepened my understanding, brought me to a place of profound beauty and joy, quieted the chatter of my mind so that my love and creativity are free to blossom.. but drugs have also brought me devastating ugliness and pain, and have taught me to lie to myself, to believe that the highest degrees of beauty, connectivity, joy and peace of mind can only be achieved by directly altering my brain chemistry. i am through with running from myself.

 

[wezface]

^^ i like what this guy has to say.

*girl

Custard, your decision and your attitude are inspiring. I hope you can find a way to find that beauty without drugs; it is out there, just waiting for you to embrace it. It is in the beauty of every sunrise and sunset, every changing season, every child's laugh. It is in sacred geometry, the pattern of existence, the pulse of the world and the universe from the crunching maws of maggots decomposing for the next generation of plants to feed animals to feed maggots, to the heartbeat of you, to the spinning of the outer core and the forming of magnetism, to the sound of radiation from the universe's creation. It is all connected. Feel that connection, tap into it, and you will never be fearful or lonely again.

 

[phactor]

As an addict, I will find any excuse to use. I used over everything essentially, but ultimately it was because I hated myself, wasn't comfortable with others and felt totally destroyed. I essentially wanted to die and was too much of a coward to do it any other way. The great news is that way anymore.

I have to be careful with things like "finding the underlying cause" because my mind goes to "well if I do that and fix it, then I can use like a normal person again!".... nope, I cannot do that.

 

[MONSTA!!]

Thanks for the replies, I was hoping this thread would generate some interesting discussion. Personally, I do realise that I am an addict and always will be to some degree. The reward pathways in my brain have been altered and the memories and desire for heroin and crack will always be there.

I do feel however that there is something deeper, something rooted in my conscious mind that is also causing me to use. I feel that if I can discover that then it is half that battle. I understand that this is a personal and individual thing, some of the replies are also very telling, if there is infact some reason for use few people have discovered theirs.

 

[wezface]

It's pretty well known that the majority of drug addicts have above average IQs, and there's a lot of speculation that we're using these substances to escape our own minds when they won't stop running in circles. Personally, my brain never shuts off. It analyzes things mathematically, constantly, looking to catalog every single variable needed to equate a probability, or an angle. Like if I pass a sprinkler, my brain starts cataloguing variables: water pressure, wind speed, angle of projection, even the hardness of the water contributing to the weight, ambient temperature, etc. And only then could I UNDERSTAND where that drop of water will land. So I think it comes from a place of trying to understand all the patterns of the world mathematically, which I know is impossible (There are not infinite variables to the way everything happens, but enough to take a supercomputer billions of years). But I can't help it, I literally SEE these things, like chalk drawings overlaying the world around me.
So I'm running from that. It's the only way I can shut it all off and just exist, and it's the reason it's been so hard for me to quit. I can't deal with my own brain.

 

[phactor]

^^

What is interesting is that my mind runs the exact same way, but doesn't look at it mathematically. I am constantly analyzing sociological trends, impacts of things like ethnicity, social class, upbringing, culture etc etc. I try to categorize everything. I found that not using actually allows me to deal with this actually. Because I can use it to my advantage.

 

[wezface]

I do the sociological/anthropological thing as well. Anthropology intrigues me and I always wonder what kind of traits are biological evolution, social evolution, economic evolution, personal evolution or just quirkiness and the variables behind the making of that behavior. This is again something where if you could factor in every single variable, you could predict absolutely a person or group's behavior, and I find that fascinating, though it's a little disheartening for the idea of free will.

 

[engineercchad]

Being in active recovery, I learned that despite my justifications to use (my "pain," and I put that in quotes because I deal with it better without drugs affecting every aspect of life much more easily) that I just "liked to get high". Final answer.

 

[BlueSaffron]

THe underlining cause? Thats easy - I'm not happy. I have a job I dont like, live with someone I dont want to live with, feel stagnated in my personal growth and like I haven't accomplished anything in my life, and I'm in love with someone I probably can't have. Dope puts a nice warm buffer between me and all of that... I'm working on fixing it though. I dont want to have to do dope to feel good, I want my LIFE to make me feel good. But yeah, no mysteries here - I use because I'm unhappy with my life.

 

[-=SS=-]

Addressing the underlying cause is the best way of stopping it altogether. You have to go back into your memory and think about the time you first used. What were your circumstances at the time? Your age? Your emotional position? Etc. Put the question into your brain and the answers will come over time.

My example. I used cannabis from 15 - 24. At the age of 24 I was realizing how unhappy I was, how unproductive my life was becoming, how unhealthy etc..

At first I thought it was because I was unhappy that I started using it. That was my present state though, not the original cause. The original cause was being a teenager, being part of a group of friends who wanted to have fun, but for me personally not having the confidence to walk away after trying it a few times.. not intuitively seeing the danger and just having the balls to go "fuck this, this will not end well. I can find new friends if need be, because I am OK". I didn't have the confidence in myself to walk away and make that change, so I got sucked in to it.

Obviously my example is tame really, but the idea is the same.. just look back your life and examine the circumstances surrounding the first use. Contemplate it all. Unwind the ball of string a bit.