heroin problem escalating

[Jabberwocky]

i have got myself into a bad situation and its really scaring me.

i decided to deal with something horrible by not dealing with it and now i'm just destroying myself.

i should put things in perspective, i've been reluctant to write here for many reasons. this is a petty little problem in comparison to most.
but its enough for me to wake up starting to feel sick, i'm sure if i rode it out it wouldn't be too bad but i find it too difficult to cope emotionally on my own. whats happened to me recently weighs down on me unbearably.

the situation makes me despise myself. the negative psychological effects and the fact that the length of time it takes me to feel physical withdrawals has recently got a lot shorter makes me feel like i'm on a downward spiral.

i have completely lost control before, not with drugs, anorexia, and i know that in the position i'm in i'm extremely vulnerable to becoming completely consumed by disease and i really really don't want that to happen. i have too much to lose, before i could put my studies on hold to recover but now i have an amazing job and if i lose it, thats it.

i'm so fed up of feeling foggy and scared and basically ruled by this fucking drug.

today i will try to put off buying some for as long as possible, had a tiny bit this morning, will have scored by this evening. i really don't understand why i can't just try to decide not to buy any, say thats it and face whatever i need to face to get back control of my life. the sooner i do it the easier it will be.

only one person knows and they have offered to help if/how they can. i should accept help, but i dont know what to ask for and feel like it would almost certainly be too much. i'd like some advice about whether/how i can take this offer, its been made twice so i think its sincere. recent events make me feel like i don't deserve help and how i feel doesn't matter which makes taking help very hard.

i just need to get something off my chest somewhere. i have burnt a lot of bridges on here, please, i haven't come to cause any trouble.

 

[RedLeader]

Can you take a Friday or Monday off from work? Keep using meanwhile, and then get a hotel out-of-town and stay there to detox. For a small habit, 3 days will pretty much get you straight physically. I mean obviously this is just to detox, the hard part is staying off after that. But it sounds like you're obsessing over the withdrawal and are afraid to ask for help. So maybe try and quit on your own first in a way that cuts you off from your source. Then see how long you can hold out.

Dealing with emotional stuff is never easy. I've been off of heroin for ten months now and I still haven't dealt with a lot of my trauma. You just have to stay busy/distracted. Try and get some exercise in. Get on a schedule where you go to bed early.

 

[Libertin]

You know that the sooner you quit the easier it will be. Also, there's only one person that can help you, that's yourself. That's the difficult truth of the matter.

 

[herbavore]

Hey chinup,

I'm sorry that you are in this position and I can certainly understand your fear. Accept the help of your friend. If they offered I'm sure it was sincere and having someone that you place trust in IRL will mean a lot. I have no idea what your 'burnt bridges' are on BL but they are nothing to worry about at this point. TDS and the recovery forums are here for everyone that needs them. A community of people that know just how scared you are, and why, are going to be an invaluable resource for you. Keep us posted and use these forums as a tool.

 

[cashfl0w_d0nkey]

today i will try to put off buying some for as long as possible, had a tiny bit this morning, will have scored by this evening. i really don't understand why i can't just try to decide not to buy any, say thats it and face whatever i need to face to get back control of my life. the sooner i do it the easier it will be.

I think I can give you a little guidance with regard to this. You have to break the availability of heroin for the time being. Yes, some day down the road after sobering up, you will probably have opiates become available to you again and will have to deal with their temptation, but cross that bridge when it comes. For now, the issue is that you are not able to control yourself so long as heroin is readily available. It's like the rodent experiment with the redosing levers-- You're just going to keep doing it as long as the lever is there. Once you've broken the availability and have sobered up, you won't be stuck in the mindset of the everyday user, and you will be better able to deal with temptation should it rear its head again. Some tips for dealing with that when it comes:

--Don't hang out with regular opiate users
--Do not, under any circumstances, take opiates daily again. You have a decision to make if you ever find yourself a few days into a binge: Stop now, or keep going? At that point you absolutely must not keep going. Throw away your opiates; delete contacts from your phone; surround yourself with non-using friends. Remove yourself from the opiate environment. What defines how well you fare is not if you ever relapse, but how you deal with it if it happens.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Thank you all for your replies

Keep using meanwhile, and then get a hotel out-of-town and stay there to detox. For a small habit, 3 days will pretty much get you straight physically. I mean obviously this is just to detox, the hard part is staying off after that. But it sounds like you're obsessing over the withdrawal and are afraid to ask for help. .

congrats on 10 months clean. i hope things are at least getting easier for you.

I've actually sorta done this once. came home feeling amazing to something pretty awful so ordered some b within 5 minutes. the psychological problem is definitely more of an issue, and i end up using the physical one to justify using. it is really scary what an emotional mess i am without it.

i don't know if i'm ready to give up, i just don't want things to get any worse, so i have to rein it in. i don't know if there's any point in trying if i have no intention of properly quitting. i know thats what i ought to do, but i feel too depressed and apathetic towards my own health to really care about whats best for me. i guess were i to end up doing a couple more rounds of kicking it and ending up straight back on it i'd accept there's no other way.

You know that the sooner you quit the easier it will be. Also, there's only one person that can help you, that's yourself. That's the difficult truth of the matter.

you're right. i could write a million 'buts' here and they'd all be bullshit.

Accept the help of your friend. If they offered I'm sure it was sincere and having someone that you place trust in IRL will mean a lot.

Thanks for being so welcoming herbavore. my friend wants me to go to his to try and get clean next weekend, i could probably end up not using friday morning to sunday night. i have no idea if theres any point. i feel really ambivalent. i know i ought to, and see it through on monday at work if possible. i can't bear the thought of another human being, especially one i want to keep as a friend, seeing what i have reduced myself to. i am so disgusted with myself. i feel so guilty for putting him in this position.

You have to break the availability of heroin for the time being... It's like the rodent experiment with the redosing levers-- You're just going to keep doing it as long as the lever is there.

--Don't hang out with regular opiate users
--Do not, under any circumstances, take opiates daily again.

argh, breaking availability is pretty much impossible where i live, moving isn't an option. i have to find some superhuman willpower instead. i do have places i can go for a few days, actually have to soon and don't want to be ill then.

there was a follow up to the rat experiment:Rat Park which suggests that living conditions caused that behaviour. my living conditions are pretty perfect. i'm just fucked in the head somehow. there's always been something wrong with me.

the other 2 i can do, the 1st is already the case and the second is something i feel much more able to aim for.

 

[Libertin]

. ... i have to find some superhuman willpower...

You can do it. You just need to focus on good reasons to stop. Your honesty indicates to me that you've accepted responsibility and although you may not yet be ready to quit, you seem to be headed in the right direction. Continuing to use will probably lead to prolonged suffering, I'm sure you know this. When you decide to quit, you will bring an end to that suffering.

 

[Jabberwocky]

thanks, i hope you're right.

i know everything i have to do. i just need to stay motivated and fuckin do it. its so frustrating that a minutes stupidity can wipe out the benefit of hours of effort. if i can get to a point where i am not physically addicted anymore, not using daily, NEVER smoking before work again cos I'm fed up of being an idiot there, I will feel much happier. That would force me to spend some time working through my shit sober without feeling consigned to an eternity of utter despair.

I know that situation is risky in terms of it being really easy to slide back into a daily habit, but i can actually contemplate doing it and i have to do something otherwise the sense of panic gnawing at me will get worse and it'll just be more shit to numb.

 

[herbavore]

Chinup--read what I wrote to you up in the Introductions thread. You are right that if you are telling yourself that you just need to "rein it in" you are not going to do anything more than stop using for a few days at a time here and there. Push yourself into that scary moment where you make a commitment. You will never regret that push and you are the only one that can do it.

I totally understand when you say that you lack motivation because you feel apathetic about your own health and feel so emotionally or psychologically depressed that you might wonder what the point is. Recovery involves so much--from will power to courage to the tedious slowness of just changing habit after habit--but I think that faith and trust are probably at the top of the list. You have to trust that the person you were that was a happy little kid still exists. You have to have faith that even if you never were allowed by circumstances to develop healthy emotions that you can alter your circumstances enough to learn at any point in your life. You have to trust that whatever is holding this in place--location, fear, habit--all can be dismantled and reconstructed into a life that you feel comfortable in.

I think something that would really help you is to seek counseling that doesn't focus on the habit necessarily but on the issues that underlie your use. You need support for those to transcend the need.

 

[Jabberwocky]

the person you were that was a happy little kid

this really reminds me of an exit strategy i was taught in analytical therapy. it was the only way they could find to convince me to be nice to myself.

i completely hear what you're saying, both here and in the intros thread. but the idea of taking that first step makes me just want to scream.

i can't lose anything else. my only source of joy is gone. i'm in tears just thinking about giving up this ridiculously poor substitute. i know the part of me that wants it so badly is a diseased part of my brain.

i agreed to try and sort out the physical shit with my friend next weekend. i'm already convinced that he wont want anything to do with me after that and its devastating. i don't know if i'll go through with it, i'm scared of losing an actually decent friend, and having nothing to fill the void. i already feel like i've made another mistake. i worry he'll get pissed off at me for my undoubtedly unihnged behaviour, or probably ending up using the second i'm back alone. i don't really understand why he want to help me and because of that, and how painfully i learned to trust no one, i can't trust him.

i can't count on people ever again so drugs and my own resources are all i have. and my own resources are gone. most people i know would hate me if they knew what i really was.

you are right that i need to sort out the issues out the underlying issues but i lost all hope in that being possible a long time ago. i recovered from anorexia by learning to cope with hating my reflection and my body and myself and having to eat. it was so hard and it still is hard.

i'm sorry. i'm unable to write coherently and it upsets me that faith and trust are two things i cannot ever let myself have again.

this morning at least i did alright. i am trying to at least reduce use a bit over this week to make the weekend easier on my friend, and me. and it meant i actually felt alert at work. it was so nice not to feel braindead. i hope that motivates me to be sensible tomorrow morning too.

urgh i probably need to reattempt this when more sober.

 

[bunnyrabbitz]

Quit while you still have some semblance of control.

 

[Jabberwocky]

i don't know what the etiquette for posting like this is. i didn't think i should start a new thread. i have meant to check in sooner but i've been doing shit and was ashamed to. i scored the second i was left on my own and consider it a massive acheivement that i have managed not to get a proper physical addiction again.

i am at my absolute wits ends. i did what i often do and tried to run away from myself and got to a foreign land and found i was still me.

last week i basically whored myself out for brown and crack. it wasn't arranged like that, but i knew what the guy wanted and was prepared to do it just to have one evening of not worrying about the money i was spending on getting out of my mind.

and now i'm here visiting an old friend in a wonderful city and i can't stand myself and i have such insane cravings i just don't know what to do. i almost had fun last night, but i couldn't drown out the cravings. i could have easily scored something and asked the mate i was visiting if she was up for it and she wasn't.

i know when i get back the guy will phone me again and i will do it again. it makes me feel sick.

i look back at myself just a few months ago before this all started. i was a fucking mess. but at least i could stand myself. and i could feel good without drugs.

 

[24hr2go]

yeah running away does not really help. at best it just delays things. i run away alot, but i guess to the wrong places, columbia, brazil,thailand. end up wasted then sober up nothing changes. dont get yourself down about selling your body, been there done that. its no big deal, however i am sure others will object, each to there own.

the cravings for horse or crack? i have done alot of horse never crack (dont like uppers). only have physical withdrawals which i can handle.

ask yourself why you started using? find the reason then address it! everyone has there own reasons. maybe you need help addressing it? then just ask here.

what distractions do you have around you which you could use?

if you go back and your phone goes off, just make up an excuse. or perhaps you do it again, its not the end of the world.

dont know if anything i said will be useful.

life is strange you could be in a hole but that can all change just be positive and you will climb out.

 

[Jabberwocky]

thanks. it is useful.

part of me doesn't really care about selling myself. i fuckin do it at work and don't see the difference. but the thought of having to do it again, with that particular person, the thought that i did, makes me feel sick. but it was so nice to have been on it all night with a b left over and not worry about the money for once.

the cravings are for brown. though last night i just wanted ANYTHING, some guy gave me a bit of a spliff and it helped. i don't really like uppers either, or i like party drugs at raves, but thats different. but crack certainly.... makes it physically possible to... urgh.

i have been looking at the town i am going to tomorrow. promising myself maybe that will be the one. it looks beautiful. i want to be able to enjoy it and am worried i can't.

i started cos i got dumped. its so pathetic. as soon as he was able to pay for the lifestyle i was subsidising himself, he did one. we were both heading in a bad way and something needed to change, but not like that. and i have done some horrible horrible things. destroyed innocent peoples lives. i've always been a fuckup. 12 years of therapy and 2 psychiatric hospitalisations and here i am.

i wish i could sleep so that i could wake up for tomorrow and for a few hours i might have some hope that i will go somewhere i'm not me.

 

[herbavore]

The problem of trying to run from yourself is that it can't be done. Think if you had an enemy, a horrible person that constantly followed you everywhere you went telling you what a shitty person you are, what a failure and a fuck-up. You could run but they always find you and they always tell you the same story about yourself. At some point you have had enough and you can't run anymore so you turn to face this enemy and fight. You fight the way a desperate person fights--no holds barred. This enemy is the voice in your own head about yourself. He says things like"I've always been a fuck-up". I think that your true self is doing battle with this projection that you have been constructing. It feels easier to live as the projection--no matter how much pain it causes you--because that has become more familiar than allowing your vulnerable true self to exist.

It is an epic struggle to find peace inside yourself--peace that is not dependent on anyone's approval or love or acceptance. The irony is that when you do allow that peace to exist, when you can feel comfortable in your own being, love follows.

Try not to focus on shame. Shame is the most powerful tool for holding people in addictive behaviors.

 

[LeftAndLeft]

You sound a lot more like an anoretic than a drug addict to me, whether you're eating now or not.

People do love you, you know. Your friends, for instance. And they don't love you for what you're good or bad at, for what you succeed at or screw up. You don't love them because of what they accomplish, do you? You like their personhood, themselves, even when it's a bit screwy or leads to bad decisions. Why would you presume they're any different? Nothing you do can make people fail to love you. Nothing you do can make them like you more, either.
You are you. There's nothing wrong with that. It'll work for some people, it won't work for others. The only person that it really matters that you can please occasionally is yourself, who you were, and who you want to be.

Which does mean you want to back away from heroin, but you know that already. You just need to decide that you deserve to be free.

It's not easy to treat oneself well, but you have the strength to let go of the drugs if you want to. I think you know that, too. You just have to want it, to want to stop hurting yourself. And that comes down to trying to treat and see yourself the same way you see other people. (They're not all fuck-ups, are they? 'Cause I can easily assure you that you aren't either. Ask your friends about that if you don't believe me.)

Sorry for being a bit Delphic, but I had to chime in a bit. Best of luck, I know how it is to battle oneself.

 

[Jabberwocky]

thanks both for your very perceptive replies.

It feels easier to live as the projection--no matter how much pain it causes you--because that has become more familiar than allowing your vulnerable true self to exist.

i think that's the heart of it. and living like that means i am not constantly fighting against myself, which is so tiring.

You sound a lot more like an anoretic than a drug addict to me, whether you're eating now or not.

i think you're probably right, but i'm curious, what made you come to that conclusion? i find eating alone very difficult right now, and as i mentioned, my 'recovery' was based on learning not to turn anorexic thoughts into behaviours, not getting rid of those thoughts.

am feeling much better today... cos i scored yesterday. i must be the only person who goes to a UNESCO world heritage site and ends up buying methadone. i didn't look for anything, just asked a guy i'd got talking to what he recommended there and one of the things he jokingly mentioned was where the junkies hang out. he was quite taken aback when i asked him if he would get me something. i had a fun afternoon drinking and chatting with those guys and am not gonna let myself regret it.

the contrast between how calm and content i feel now and how panicky and desperate i felt on Sunday is amazing. i do think everyone deserves a break from time to time, just not as often as i convince myself i deserve one.

i don't know how to please myself. i try to do good things for others and it backfires. i try to make a good life for myself, its not enough. trying to see things from other peoples perspective does work sometimes, but other times i just get really upset and feel like they ought to hate me and i am a bad person for letting them near me.

 

[24hr2go]

hey chinup

how you feeling, coping today buddy?

 

[24hr2go]

ok i posted before i read you previous post 8)

 

[LeftAndLeft]

i think you're probably right, but i'm curious, what made you come to that conclusion? i find eating alone very difficult right now, and as i mentioned, my 'recovery' was based on learning not to turn anorexic thoughts into behaviours, not getting rid of those thoughts.

Just general knowledge of the subject? Had issues in the past, and spent a long time thinking about it, reading about it, and talking to other people with food issues of various sorts for years. It's a pet subject, really.
Most anoretics I've known have been very similar people. Perfectionistic, prone to blaming and punishing themselves for minor failures, tending not to see any of their virtues and minimizing their (usually substantial) successes and skills. They also tend to blame themselves for things going wrong even when they're beyond their control, because they feel the responsibility to make everything work all by themselves even when, in reality, it'd be physically impossible even with loads of people helping out.
They tend to be insanely bright, capable people who simply can't see their own virtues. There are variations, but it's a really common personality type amongst that subset of the population, and you seem to display a lot of it.

You really don't sound like a bad person. Far from it.