about to lose job and home

[Jabberwocky]

i've been a heroin addict for nearly 5 years and functioned. even though i've moaned on here in the past.

i've been a crack addict since september and its a different story. over ?30k gone. the last 4 months i've paid my mortgage by withdrawing from my savings but they're gone. i'm back in work next monday after 3 weeks signed off sick, but thats payday so i don't even know how i'll make it in, if i do i likey won't have slept.

i've been at my parents and really thought i'd be going back with the plan not to use. i haven't enjoyed myself or been excited about anything since the light got me.

i've been going to NA meetings almost daily and plan to try and get practical help from them when i get back. but i can't be trusted on my own for a minute, and can't expect 24 hour care.

i have my dream job but i don't know how anymore.

i feel suicidal.

is there a thread anywhere for practical advice about what to do?

after 3 weeks away this is my best chance to get clean outside rehab but instead i've already arranged to binge as soon as i get back and i don't even know why.

i just tried going for a run cos i'm craving bad right now but its not helped. when i got here i couldn't run 10 mins, now can do 40, but health doesn't motivate me.

 

[herbavore]

My brother was a crack addict and he used to describe for me the intensity of the hold that drug gets on you. I'm sorry that you are struggling with it but at the same time that is one step up from giving into it completely. You are trying your hardest to help yourself and it will pay off. Right now you probably feel incapable of any control but this is not true. I think recovery truly is a small-step process. Get support everywhere you can. Can you afford therapy? Addiction undermines self-esteem that was no doubt already low enough to be one of the underlying causes so it is really a formidable foe. Working on the issues that got you there in the first place may feel like too much too soon but they might prove to be the key that unlocks something really powerful:compassion for yourself.

As far as practical solutions I think anything you can do to strengthen your faith in yourself and your own abilities--from self-help books and podcasts to SMART recovery online meetings to CBT and mindfulness--would be where you should focus. It's really hard to develop both acceptance of yourself and a willingness and openness to changes that you can make but it's a goal that makes life a lot easier to live when you embrace it.

 

[Jabberwocky]

hey, thanks for taking the time to reply.

i give into it completely when i get paid then when the money runs out decide i wanna quit. ha.

you're right that i feel incapable of any control. i'm getting paid midnight the day of my first day back at work and i'm petrified. i'm trying to arrange for someone to have me stay over and drag me to work because otherwise i'll score at midnight and go in late on no sleep and spend all day sneaking out for a smoke. i'm pretty sure i have major disciplinary action coming so i can't afford that. i hate myself for knowing that i need this level of care just to get through one day of work.

i can't afford therapy, and had it 10 years plus a longish inpatient stint, thats partly why i'm trying NA, psychiatry didn't work. the fact i've had no reply from my scream to help to one of the ladies from NA is making me feel more hopeless.

i don't even know why i want to use. in my time away i've enjoyed myself for the first time this year. i've added up the money i've spent and the debt i've got into. i can see clearly i don't want any of the consequences and the crack itself is rarely enjoyable now. but the addiction wants feeding.

if i fuck up sunday night, i'll fuck up my job and my mortgage payment will bounce, so i have what NA call 'the gift of desperation,' but the need for crack feels stronger.

i can't cut up my bank card cos i know the details by heart to make telephone transfers to others so they can score for me. if anyone can think of any way i can make it so i can't access my money on sunday night, that'd be really useful.

 

[Xorkoth]

You can go to the bank and get a new card which will deactivate the old one and then cut up the new card. Sorry I don't have time to post more right now but I will later.

 

[Jabberwocky]

i know my account number and sort code by heart so i can transfer money to people who will score for me even when i don't have my card (i lose it with stupid regularity since this shit escalated)- i need to not be able to do this. it also gets round the daily cash withdrawal limit. not good.

i got no reply about getting a babysitter to get me to work on Monday. I know it fucking pathetic but i just don't think I can handle having money for the first time in 3 weeks and getting to work in the state i need to be in to not lose my job. I've never asked for help in this way before and now just feel hopeless.

 

[herbavore]

Chinup, you have really set yourself up in your mind. By that I mean that you have convinced yourself (on good past evidence, I admit) that you yourself are not capable of letting your rational mind be in control and that you need someone else to force that upon you. I don't doubt for a minute that would be the best scenario for you before that paycheck comes but why set yourself up for failure by telling yourself that you know you will not be capable? Like I say, I understand the experiences of the past would predispose you to think that way but language--the words we choose to talk to ourselves internally--is incredibly powerful. On the one hand you have your rational mind saying, "Stop! You are going to lose everything you have worked so hard for." But you also have addiction talking saying, "Why try? You know you'll fail." It is at this point that you have to align yourself with your own wisdom. No one is coming in from the outside and showing you what you have to lose--that is you talking to you, your most authentic voice. The problem is that your true voice, the voice that is for changing the old pattern, is offerning something that looks both scary and painful (giving up a trusted source of comfort and escape) whereas the voice of addiction is offering the familiar and the known. We humans have a really hard time with the unfamiliar even when addiction has nothing to do with it. I really hope you can find a way to mentally support your own best interest. I sympathize with the struggle but struggling is always preferable to giving in when it is really your life--at the very least the quality of life--that is at stake.

 

[Teen Age Riot]

Herbavore, you show exceptional insight and express empathy/relativity so well. Especially the first bit about chinup's battle with lack of confidence in believing she can do it.

Chinup, I've been thinking for most of the evening (and yesterday) about how I can offer you some useful advice, but unfortunately I ain't got nothing for yer. You clearly know yourself inside and out, forwards, backwards and sides. You're in a difficult situation and I don't envy you a bit.

Much love Missus, and good luck with the week ahead

('tis Marmz here*)



* I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but my thoughts and intent are genuine )

 

[Jabberwocky]

why set yourself up for failure by telling yourself that you know you will not be capable?

you're right. i guess in my head its a prepare for the worst, hope for the best scenario. i have never ever been able to overcome those cravings rather than give in and i know they will be strong.

i'm feeling less hopeless about the lady not replying. i'm trying to dig deep and find the self esteem to ask someone else, i've never felt worth helping. i freaked people out with some inherent darkness aged 4 and was suicidal by 6 so i feel too broken to repair so not worth people's time.

but i know i have to prepare myself mentally to try and give in rather than do the typical addict thing of already blaming the world for me fucking up. got told the other day recovery is an inside job no one else gonna do it and this is my best chance.

arranged to transfer my money to a trusted persons bank for bills later in the month, but that doesn't take away the payday/first day at work problem cos i have bills coming out then so will need money in my account.

my prearranged binge fell through, and after about a minute of rage and despair i felt relief. i knew that if i did as much as we were gonna, the me i've started to see glimpses of would have been wholesale replaced by addiction again when the money ran out. i'll still use when i get back which i know is dumb, i need to learn myself that i just can't.

Marmz!! thanks! and no worries, though i'll bear a grudge til death for IRL shit, i'm not petty enough to do so to someone on the internet for having disagreed once or twice!! and thank you. though i'd say i don't know myself inside out. i'm shocked. i never thought i could get an addiction like this, be so stupid use all my savings, all the debt available to me, jeopardise my dream job i worked so hard to get. and that makes me afraid. if i can do that, what's to say i don't go a step further and actually lose everything?

 

[monstanoodle]

I'm really torn-up by your present (well, at the time) situation chinup, I'm SO SO SO FUCKING GLAD that you didn't go down the IV route.
I though, while reading your first few posts that it could have taken you, but I'm so fuckin glad it didn't happen

PAWS (Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome) is fucking nasty, but you can definitely get through it when a REALLY intense episode hits you.

I suppose that is all I can suggest (also with tremendous will-power), and I wish you nothing but the best.
I'm always here btw.

 

[herbavore]

Concentrate on building your confidence. Addiction makes you feel powerless but you really are not. One of the ways this happens is the all-or-nothing mentality that most of us use against ourselves when trying to change. We think that if we cannot achieve our goals in a short span of time we are failing and failing translates in our minds to being failures. But that weakens rather than strengthens. You have made lots of difficult changes to achieve your goal of getting past this very compulsive drug and I hope you can at least pat yourself on the back encouragingly for having done so.

 

[Jabberwocky]

fuck i just saw this.

well i lost the job.

i'll keep the home by handing over power of attorney to my parents. i think i'm technically too far gone to hand it over without a court but i hope we can somehow get around that cos reading that made me want to die.

monsta- its funny you say that since i'm adamant about trying an IV speedball before i go in. i'm adamant on giving myself the best chance possible of accidentally killing myself instead of having to face whats coming so IV it is. argh my head is fucked.

herbavore- as you can see. the changes didn't work. i became a full time crack whore. but i thank you for trying to find light in the dark, i truly do, because right now i need that more than anything.

i set a date for rehab today and it has messed me up big time i didn't feel suicidal before but now i don't feel like i can face the enormity of what i need to do.

 

[Jabberwocky]

i'm in the process of ripping off a 2x1 inch very thick scab that shows signs of being infected underneath because its the easiest way to self harm and i'm in such a state.

how is deciding to go to rehab fucking me so badly? i'm going to cause myself so much pain and need another course of antibiotics-- if you want to know how badly crack fucks your health consider that this will be my 6th course in a year and the last one i'd had before that was 11 years ago. i'm way over the amount of diaz that should put e to sleep given the booze.

i don't even crave the dark or light. i just feel defeated. i don't have NA's 'gift of desperation,' I just feel like i can't do this.

argh fuck and i've run out of booze shit shit shit

 

[Beenbetter]

I’m gonna pray for you chinup. I wish I could offer advice but fuck,, who wants to hear that from someone who is on their way to the same situation you are in. I know It’s in you and I both to get clean. I just hope it’s not too late when we do.
I wish you the best and will be praying for you.

 

[Jabberwocky]

thanks. i don;t have the faith to pray. but i'll hope for you.

i know its in me but i don;t know if its worth it for how comprehensively my life is destroyed.

i've convinced my mum that the now massive gaping open wound on my arm is because the dressing ripped it off when i removed it. i usually regret self harm by the next day but i don't. i'm su glad i munched all those benzos last night i think i'd be in a bad bad way right now.

legal fucking power of attorney due to mental capacity.