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a futile war with the roots of addiction

Soulgasm

Soulgasm

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 13, 2009
Messages
452
I'm at a crossroad in my life. I'm clean of everything but immensely unhappy in life. I don't blame the drugs for my opiate addiction; instead the substance abuse was a symptom of a greater problem. I won't go into details right now but I got some mental issues I need to work through. Trouble is, I have done EVERYTHING in my power to solve these issues without drugs. I wish wish wish I could just lead a fucking normal satisfying sober existence. This is my second extended sober run in the last few years and they've both felt almost the exact same way. I feel good and all physically but my head feels like it's gonna explode and each day is an up and down rollercoaster (but mostly just down). I was happy before this shitstorm of mental health problems befell me, really happy. I just want THAT again. But I honestly feel I might never be able to pull myself outta this loop of despair. My whole life around me is suffering. I don't socialize with anyone anymore and I feel like my life is fading away. I'm never really living in the present moment and I feel like I've grown into a jaded antisocial apathetic asshole. The only two respites I have are exercise and meditation, which I do on a daily basis and their benefits, while extraordinary, are only temporary and then I fall back into that negative headspace again.

Shit, at least with heroin I was able to get out of the house and see people, enjoy the small things in life, and live in the moment. It was a gigantic crutch, no doubt about it. But maybe I'm not ready to quit yet. Sorry to ramble; I actually had a question I was getting at if I can remember it. Oh yes: Is it even worth being sober if you don't know how to address the root of your problem? I love being healthy everyday and not waking up sick and broke but this shit ain't working for me. Fuck, I can't even remember the last time I met someone new. This is no way to live and, as fucked as it is, my life was far better on heroin and an assortment of other intoxicants. There it is, my version of fading back to reality and realizing how fucked it is and why I started with dope in the first place. Any encouragement or expressions of "fuck life, just get high" are welcome, as long as they come from your heart :). I've given sobriety so much time and effort and it just doesn't seem to be the right thing for my life right now. I'd rather be a drug addict with a heart full of love than a sober asshole, and that's what I think I've become.

I'm not looking for validation or an excuse to relapse. I could give myself that shit anytime. Just looking for some true honesty and experience..
 
As great as drug abuse sounds you have to take a look at your thinking. I have been where you are at and I still struggle daily but if you have been sober that long you deserve RESPECT. That is amazing and you are not giving yourself nearly enough credit. Once you have had your fun with drugs and the glory days are over you can never get that back, IME. All it brings you anymore is more pain and more misery...no good times left to be had. I have been an opiate addict and a benzo addict and struggled with substances for a long time. I deal with some of the same shit EVERY day and I know it sucks. Like you I just want to be clean and feel good without all the BS.

Just wanted to encourage you...stop beating yourself up. I know its easier said than done.
 
Fair enough man. I appreciate the input and encouragement. Those are definitely my main vices these days...opiates and benzos. So much relief yet so much pain.

I don't know. When I think of the glory drug days I think about older fonder days, gallivanting around eating psychedelics and mdma. Opiates and benzos were always more of an escape from the bullshit. And lately I've had to put up with a whole lot more bullshit than ever before. I'm just taking it one day at a time and praying to shiva that shit gets better au naturel.
 
I'm right there with you man. Let me know if you find the secret of life and I will do the same. No answers yet, just a shitload of questions.
 
Give yourself time. Recovery takes work and time. It means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and experiencing the rewards that brings. The looking back at your drug use with rose tinted glasses is addiction calling you back in. The reality is drug use for most of us became a living hell, try to remember that sickness and how bad it could be at times, the enslavement to a drug, etc. The only way to work through addiction recovery is to start changing your behaviours or you might as well still be living as an active addict. Find some new hobbies and make it a goal to start interacting with people. Let people in. It is fear that is stopping you breaking out of the isolation habits that we all develop. Try a musical instrument. Find things that bring joy into your life. Otherwise you are just existing instead of truly living. Do this and I promise you will not look back.
 
Soulgasm, I am curious about your life. Are you leading a life that you have chosen or one that you were handed as a prescription? Are you having experiences that once made you happy but now do not or is it that nothing you are doing holds any engagement for you? I'm asking all this because one of things that I do that causes me the most unhappiness is telling myself that there is nothing I can do to live a different life--usually there is a lot I could do and it is just too damn scary to make the changes. I've never used drugs for creating happiness so I'm not familiar with what it must be like to know that you could access happiness anytime through a substance; but I can empathize and imagine that it must be tough to get past the temptation to use if you do have that experience. But I am very experienced with being unhappy because I am holding myself back from making some change that scares me. A friend of mine once said that you have to ask yourself what it is that you are telling yourself "no" about? And then examine all the fear-based rational that you put in the way of saying yes. This could apply to relationships or your work or where you live or a creative endeavor--anything. What life would you want for yourself if no one told you that it was impossible? This is not something you ask once and your life is fixed once you answer it. It is actually what life is all about IMO. You can get yourself unstuck from some old pattern or circumstance and then find a few years down the road that you are stuck in something new that is no longer serving you well. Time to change things up again! I find it freeing as well as scary to know that most everything concerning my own happiness is actually right in my own hands.
 
Have you gone a year or more without any substances? It takes a long time to get back to normal and no offense all i see are the rationalization a to use again. Trust kevin know how much effort it takes to just go to the store sober after battling addiction for so long. You need to look at it as life or death, you go back to drugs you die, so no matter how much effort you are putting in to be happy, (which i may assume isnt a great deal) you need to multiply it by 100 effort wise to find happiness. After 3 years of total abstinence while fighting to improve the happiness within yourself, i think you'll look at it differently.

If im way off and you have been clean for years and have pushed yourself in an ungodly way to find happiness be it making new friends , or family, projects. Hobbies, music, travel, kids, exercise, therapy, volunteer work, and anything else, then ill vector first to say go dabble with your drugs, but until you can honestly say thats be done i say, keep going and dont give up . We know how hard it is ive been there/am still there but its gonna be alright.
 
jammin83 said:
I'm right there with you man. Let me know if you find the secret of life and I will do the same. No answers yet, just a shitload of questions.
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Deal! :)

herbavore said:
Soulgasm, I am curious about your life. Are you leading a life that you have chosen or one that you were handed as a prescription? Are you having experiences that once made you happy but now do not or is it that nothing you are doing holds any engagement for you? I'm asking all this because one of things that I do that causes me the most unhappiness is telling myself that there is nothing I can do to live a different life--usually there is a lot I could do and it is just too damn scary to make the changes. I've never used drugs for creating happiness so I'm not familiar with what it must be like to know that you could access happiness anytime through a substance; but I can empathize and imagine that it must be tough to get past the temptation to use if you do have that experience. But I am very experienced with being unhappy because I am holding myself back from making some change that scares me. A friend of mine once said that you have to ask yourself what it is that you are telling yourself "no" about? And then examine all the fear-based rational that you put in the way of saying yes. This could apply to relationships or your work or where you live or a creative endeavor--anything. What life would you want for yourself if no one told you that it was impossible? This is not something you ask once and your life is fixed once you answer it. It is actually what life is all about IMO. You can get yourself unstuck from some old pattern or circumstance and then find a few years down the road that you are stuck in something new that is no longer serving you well. Time to change things up again! I find it freeing as well as scary to know that most everything concerning my own happiness is actually right in my own hands.
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I wasn't gonna go into my personal life, but I guess it is kind of vitally important to my situation (and you expressed some interest :)). I suffered a traumatic brain injury and stroke a while back. Shit turned my life upside down, and I don't say that lightly. I'm still living with some rather serious repercussions from this incident. To the casual onlooker, I seem fine. But it feels like fucking world war z in my brain. I've become rather ocd about restoring my brain to it's former glory, but nothing has worked; just minor improvements. All of this befell me right as I was making my way into the professional adult world. I showed a lot of promise and had finally managed to work out all the little kinks that had plagued my life and straighten shit out out. All of that came to a grinding halt. So, as you can imagine, I went through extreme anxiety, depression, failed expectations, and loss of every confidence, loss of direction, extreme poly drug abuse bla bla bla the whole shebang. It brought me to my knees in a way I never dreamed possible. I wouldn't wish any of this on my worst enemy. I cried out to gods I didn't believe in to have mercy and heal me. No dice. I'm glad I started out in such a good mental space cause, if I hadn't, I surely would have killed myself by now. The world has felt like such an alien and unfamiliar place ever since.

You could say my substance abuse came from myself and from doctors. I've struggled with all kinds of drugs my whole life (main ones of concern were heroin and benzos) but it was always something I could pick up and put down. And I was doing a really good job cleaning up my act both physically and spiritually before I fucked up my brain. Then all this shit befell me and doctors handed me all the oxycodone, morphine, and fentanyl I wanted for six months. It was kinda ironic, I had JUST kicked the habit then woke up in the hospital hooked up to multiple opiate IV's. To make matters worse, now I needed to consume my DOC just to control the massive amount of physical pain I was in for a while. My body healed but my mind never really did. As you can probably surmise, I kept abusing the fuck out of opiates after I no longer medically needed them cause they were the only thing that offered up any psychological relief. I have no qualms with heroin; it probably saved my life cause I would have killed myself without it in that first year. But, alas, now drugs are the only thing I look forward to. And that's baaaad.

nygiants1313 said:
Have you gone a year or more without any substances? It takes a long time to get back to normal and no offense all i see are the rationalization a to use again. Trust kevin know how much effort it takes to just go to the store sober after battling addiction for so long. You need to look at it as life or death, you go back to drugs you die, so no matter how much effort you are putting in to be happy, (which i may assume isnt a great deal) you need to multiply it by 100 effort wise to find happiness. After 3 years of total abstinence while fighting to improve the happiness within yourself, i think you'll look at it differently.

If im way off and you have been clean for years and have pushed yourself in an ungodly way to find happiness be it making new friends , or family, projects. Hobbies, music, travel, kids, exercise, therapy, volunteer work, and anything else, then ill vector first to say go dabble with your drugs, but until you can honestly say thats be done i say, keep going and dont give up . We know how hard it is ive been there/am still there but its gonna be alright.
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I have not. I understand where you're coming from, but this really isn't about the drugs. I know wd's and I know paws. The psychological shitstorm I'm going through isn't either. It's not drug induced, it's me. Like I said, drugs are only a symptom of the underlying problem. I know the underlying problems will be much easier to work through when sober from everything and that is why I have been sober the last two months, holding onto hope. But I'm fading fast and I don't know how much longer I can hold on. It seems as thoughI'm losing my grip on reality and the world is becoming more and more unfamiliar and uninviting. I get "supermarket syndrome" really bad and get extreme vertigo and social anxiety whenever I'm in public places. My life use to revolve around spontaneous adventures and surrounding myself with as much new stimuli, people, and culture as I could. Now all that shit gives me a panic attack. I've lost my identity and isolate myself in my metaphorical castle. I feel like I'm becoming more hostile and unfriendly towards the outside world each day. Drugs do alot of bad things,but they also do alot of good things and have offered me the only chance of re aligning with my old life in this dark time. I was an esoteric dude before and now I feel I'm just fucking all out weird. I keep moving through new jobs cause none of the shit I liked before really interest me anymore and I'm so antisocial now. Shit, I dunno, I might try going to grad school soon but I feel like I'll just be an outcast there too. I've tried putting myself out there, I really have. I guess all I can do is keep trying.


I appreciate all the feedback from everyone in this thread; lifes just kinda overwhelming right now.
 
Hey, Soulgasm, thanks for filling me in. Just goes to show that you never know what is going on with a person with just a brief conversation--what may feel like a general topic where sharing a similar starting point is taken for granted does not apply. I am incredibly sorry. I cannot imagine suffering a serious brain injury and at that particular time in your life, too. So, that makes everything different and yet (and this is something I have learned from my own tragedy) in some way, it remains the same. Out of all the trite and useless things I heard (said by kind and very well-meaning and wonderful people mind you, but useless just the same) when my life got fed to the dogs, one rang true for me and still does: having your heart (and your life) truly stripped open leaves you standing in the most isolated and alone place you will ever be in and you have a choice there. You can shut down or you can open even more. I would not wish tragedy of any kind on anyone but I do think that when it happened to me was when I finally and truly became a friend to myself. I hope that some grace can come out of this for you.

Have you ever tried any kind of body work or bio-feedback?

I really am sorry. Both for what you have been through/are going through but also for assuming things. <3
 
No need to be sorry, I appreciate your response :). Shit just ain't going my way. I will try to open up. I have been hoping that someday I'll be able to take away something positive from all this but I don't know...

What is this body work and bio-feedback you speak of?
 
Biofeedback sounds interesting. I've never heard of it but could definitely see how useful it could be. Do psychiatrists often carry out this type of therapy or do you have to go to someone more specialized? And I've really been meaning to get into yoga for a while now. I'd really like to go to a class or studio or somewhere I could meet new people. I meditate as often as I can and it's done me a world of good.
 
I think you are lucky to find a psychiatrist today that is more than a medications manager (and that's if you are lucky--usually they just prescribe a whole cocktail of meds and then you are on your own with all the side effects, etc). Practitioners are specifically trained to do it. They are starting to use this more in pain management so it is available in more areas now. What part of this glorious planet do you come from?:)
 
Shiyatttt. Man, american health professionals are a sham (and I mean this as a huge generalization cause I know there are great ones out there). I have had to take just about every aspect of my recovery (physical, psychological, neurological, tapering, etc.) into my own hands to get anything done. And I have good private health insurance; I feel for those less fortunate. So goddam hard to find a caring doctor here nowadaze. I've been reading about all these new therapies and technologies they have for stroke rehabilitation over in Europe- Incredible! It'll probably be a good decade before we see any of that if the god-forsaken fda even sees enough profit in it to clear them. All these money grubbin corporate got dang politics. I've been resisting going on SSRI's for so long. I basically think they are the devil encapsulated. But maybe I should just hop on that train and blend in with the rest of soul sucking corporate Amerika. Nahh, viva la resistance!

I am a nomad but hail from southwestern USofA these days.
 
Hey, you can rant all you want to me about the amerikan health care system. It sucks. Right now my husband has a cancer that there are two drugs for that are known to work very well. The cost of those two drugs? $16, 000.00 per month. Who the hell could manage that? Insurance won't pay. The VA won't pay. (And at those prices how could they?) Apparently, there is some Lymphoma society that would pay about 5K, but where does that leave you? Even if it were $1k a month we couldn't do it. How can they justify these prices?

I stay away from doctors as much as I can. I try diet first, then acupuncture. If neither of those helps (like when I had rotater cuff problems) and I have to see a doctor, I go to my gp who truly listens, respects my opinions and always steers me down the least invasive path possible.I had to look a long time for that doctor but fortunately for me he's young so I'll die before him!=D I was prescribed anti-anxiety and anti-depressants after my son died. No thanks, I'll take the depression and see what I can do with it. I've found that the best thing for me is not to be afraid of my emotions--just let 'em happen and they seem to evolve much more easily instead of keeping me stuck in them.Viva la resistance, indeed.

Being a nomad sounds good. I can manage it for brief spurts and then responsibilities call me home. I like the freedom that comes with not belonging to a place.
 
That is absurd. I have watched multiple relatives go bankrupt paying the ridiculous prices for these cancer "treatments" and die horrible deaths all the same. That's the main reason I don't think the pharm industry should be so privatized.

Anyways, back on topic. I have had a lot of time recently to really evaluate my mental turmoil. This has honestly been my first full month of complete sobriety (yes, even from weed and booze haha) in my adult life and it has given me the mental clarity to correctly identify the true symptoms that are causing all of this trouble. For a while, it got very hard to differentiate between pre-existing mental health issues, withdrawals, intoxication, post-stroke brain damage, stroke induced mental problems, and normal person problems. Everything got retardedly confusing and I responded to this by just throwing more drugs onto the problem in hopes to get just a moment of mental peace, that mental peace that used to come so easily to me naturally through meditation. But I think I've really identified my true underlying problem: obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I've always been a little ocd about certain things, mostly things involving symmetry. For example, I'd come home from getting a haircut, look in the mirror, and think my sideburns looked uneven. Then I'd spend the next hour with a pair of scissors trying to make every part of my haircut exactly exactly symmetrical on the left and right side. I would obsess about that one pimple on the right side of my face that totally threw my whole vibe off (in my mind). I would also get this way about my brain and my knowledge of the world, theories, people, science, history, and everything else. I would spend hours and hours and hours researching things online that I thought I ought to know. These quests for knowledge would begin out of healthy genuine curiosity then progress to the point where I felt compelled to know everything right now! After a while I was able to almost completely vanquish these obsessive compulsive tendencies as I realized they were completely useless and only holding me back. I came to these realizations mostly through meditation and the adoption of a unique set of mental and spiritual values. I won't lie, my moderate use of psychedelics, opiates, and benzodiazepines at the time helped me to see how inner peace was based on our perception and that one must first quiet the mind and look inward to solve their problems. However, I really used them as tools at this point and would always try to apply the lessons they taught me to my sober mindset to further my being instead of using them as a crutch. But I pretty much totally quelled these unhealthy tendencies in the years leading up to my stroke and traumatic brain injury.

Fast forward a few years, and this brain injury really brought my ocd tendencies in full force and like x100 what they were before. This is the main thing that really bummed me out about this whole ordeal. I had worked so hard to conquer all these issues and had gotten to a place where I was LOVING life and all this shit came back worse in the blink of an eye. It really puts some pessimism into your life. I'm really just now realizing all of this as I'm typing; I feel like an idiot that it's taken me so long. One of the long term consequences of this aforementioned brain injury (that I'm still dealing with but trying different therapies to improve) is that my peripheral vision on one side is all fucked up. Now I really have been attributing all this anxiety and mental health issues directly to this brain damage and that is what really made me feel helpless but I'm coming to realize that these problems are a result of MY response to all of this. I got depressed immediately following my accident (which is a normal response as far as I'm concerned) an just attributed all that depression and the anxiety it caused to my brain injuries and it became a self perpetuating cycle. Furthermore, this peripheral vision impairment brought back my ocd tendencies rooted in my need for everything to be symmetrical (lame, I know).

I know my brain injuries will heal with time but I need to learn true acceptance and to overcome these tendencies in the meantime. I'm like 99% sure I'm exhibiting symptoms of ocd that have been exacerbated by this incident. It feels like there's an alien in my mind just forcing me to dwell on this imbalance in my visual field and every other thing that isn't exactly perfect in my life. It has almost gotten to the point that I just sit and obsess over this shit 24/7 for no reason and, because of this, I can't really focus on the truly important things in life. Drugs have been giving me a temporary escape from this and I think that escape has really been the roots of my recent problematic addiction. Since this is all MY reaction and it all under MY control though I think I am really the master of my own happiness and I can come up with a healthy lasting solution to this thought pattern. I want to get back to the state of inner peace I had before all this bullshit and I know it's within reach.

That brings me to the whole point of this ramble (sorry to write a novel!). Herbavore, I was just reading up on some stuff and came across this thread: http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/746389-Dysthymia-Apathy-OCD-amp-Anxiety
where you give four steps for dealing with ocd. I really like this approach and I think it's something that could help me alot. It's kind of similar to how I would deal with anxiety when I had more control over my life. I would basically let any anxious thought that presented itself pass into my concious mind and, instead of fighting it, I would examine it in detail and then determine what good it really did me to worry about it and usually these thoughts would lose their power and resolve themselves. The same can be done quite successfully with cravings (for opiates or cigarettes or whatnot).

I would really like to develop a strategy to control these obsessive thoughts that can stop them in their tracks. I had a few inquiries about these four steps you were talking about. Do they become second nature after a while so your brain kind of just does this naturally or do you have to consciously implement them over and over? Did you suffer from ocd or was that all from second hand experience? Also, I was wondering about exposure therapy as that was also brought up in the thread. What would be the best way of approaching this?

Sorry for the barrage of questions and I can open up another thread in mental health or whateva if that's more appropriate. I'm just trying to handle all this shit in the most holistic way possible. I've been reading up all day on ocd and have learned that psychs usually just load you up on ssri's for treatment (something I DON'T want). In fact, I'd rather just avoid the psychiatric route altogether other than for the occasional benzo. Once I can learn to quiet my mind and get a little bit of inner peace, I feel like the rest of my problems will fall into place. Hell, maybe I'll even come out of this whole mess of events a better person. Good vibes to all.
 
Soul, I do not have any direct experience with OCD myself but ironically all 3 males (husband and two sons) did, especially my late son, Caleb. Because of his struggles with anxiety I read up a lot on it when he was little and that is where I found out about it being basically the extreme end of the spectrum.

The fact that you have a lot of experience with the transformational power of mindfulness, the four step approach will probably seem somewhat familiar to you. I do have anxiety but it went from truly debilitating when I was young to barely a problem ever now. During my son's downward spiral into addiction (he was quite young) I really struggled with extreme fear and anxiety again, the illusion of control, helplessness, anger and a host of other emotional responses that helped neither of us. I turned to meditation but even more than meditation I used the tenets of mindfulness which are so similar to the four steps Shwartz outlined for OCD--basically they both call on you to be an observer of your own thoughts>reaction>habit loops. When I would get really anxious about my son I learned to quite rationally ask myself, "Is this worry helping him right now? Is this worry going to do anything concrete to ensure his safety?" and just that brief injection of rationality into my emotionally flooded state would allow me to step back from my usual frantic track and calm myself so that I could help to calm him. I know some people will say, "So what? He died anyway." But I will always be grateful for the time it gave us to express love, not fear. That helps me a lot now. But it helped me even more in dealing with his death and the recurring firing-squad of guilt that shows up in my mind like clockwork. Again, I have learned to say, "Ok, old friend. You're back again? Will you bring him back for me today then?"

Your impulse (wisdom) to stay away from the drugging industry is sound. I would actually write to that clinic (Westwood clinic ) and ask them if they have further information for you for dealing with this after a stroke.

I really admire your explorations and courage. Sincerely.<3
 
Thank ya herbavore- your words have been extremely helpful and I appreciate it :).

I've mellowed out a bit lately and am starting to feel like a sane human being for the first time in a year or so. I'm working on getting into both a clinical trial for my vision and grad school so headed in the right direction (I hope!). Still, normal shit like reading and socializing and whatnot has become considerably harder for me since my injury and it causes a lot of anxiety and negativity at times so I'm really up and down emotionally and get frustrated as fuck all the time. It makes me really wish I hadn't taken my brain and mental health for granted in my youth like I did. It was a little too much for me and I did some dope the other day. But fuckit; it is what it is. I made an appt next week with a new psychiatrist so I can (hypocritically) hop on some meds, maybe a low dose of ssri and clonazepam. I hate the idea of habitual psychiatric drug use but I think all this stress is keeping my cortisol levels through the roof, hindering the neuroplasticity I really need right now. Plus, I've been totally dysfunctional lately so hopefully I'll get a little spur from medication to start going to yoga, try biofeedback & cbt, pick up some hobbies, meet a nice girl, etc. and I can start to apply healthy habits to my life. If I can just break out of this circular pattern of negative thoughts into a sea of positivity, it would be incredible. I think I might even try and get a dog now that I'm semi-responsible and don't feel like my head is imploding anymore. Cause dogs are the shit.

Anyhow, shitttt, I'm starting to find that balance again I'm thinking. This isn't how I thought my life would turn out but it ain't to bad. Things could be a whole lot worse. Hopefully I've gotten through most of the bullshit in my existence and my karma will turn around a bit ha. I'm a bit apathetic but it isn't such a bad thing. My outlandish agnostic spirituality is flourishing as always. I might get a little bit of dmt soon and see where that leads me haha

For some reason that fight club quote keeps coming to mid. "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Yeah, that's kinda how I feel atm. Cheers darkside, hope all is well.
 
Soulgasm said:
This isn't how I thought my life would turn out but it ain't to bad.
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As Antsy McClain and the Trailer Park Troubadores would say, "You're on the right side of the dirt."=D

Cheers, soulgasm. Glad that you are feeling stronger. And hooray for agnostic spirituality! Your fight club quote reminds me of something that came to me by way of Buddhism: when your heart is truly broken open, you have a choice. You can either shut down or open even further. In my own life, the most terrible place did in fact offer this choice. Opening has led me to some surprising places.Good luck on the clinical trial!
 
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