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Recovery I can't go on, I'll go on

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simco said:
My mother died yesterday. What a blurry day it was. Not all bad. But sad, of course.

I mentioned at the start of this journal that my relationship with my mom had always been complicated. She was a sweet, creative person. But she was also a paranoid schizophrenic. And for the last ~7 years, dementia came down on her, chewing through what personality she did still have. So the death was slow in coming, though the last phase came incredibly fast (it was just a couple days ago that she went onto hospice). With no siblings and my folks divorced, I had been my mom's caregiver (until she needed to live in a closed facility) for most of my life.

The reason I'm bringing all this up is that I know that--to the extent that outside events affect addiction--a lot of my impulses to use of had to do with my mom. For the last 2 years, it had become a ritual for me to visit my mom in her facility, then go home and shoot up. The awfulness of spending hours in locked geriatric psych wards, and my mixed feelings about caring for my mom always left me spent and worn out after a visit.

Mind you, this was by no means my only using... during the last 2 years probably a third, maybe a half, of the times I got high were after these visits; the other times were just because I was an addict and loved heroin. [It's a subject for a completely different thread, but I've never really understood it when people (especially in NA meetings) say they will or won't "use over" a given event. Personally, I never needed a reason to use. But it is true that when I feel run down, attacked, or beaten, I lose sight of long term goals such as cleaning up.]

So, this morning, my emotional landscape is completely new, at least in one big way. Of course, the thought of getting high is there. But the ghosts aren't any louder than usual right now. I'm just very curious to see how this event is going to impact my recovery.

PS: It was quite a sight to see the hospice nurse dosing my mom with liquid morphine hourly. That part did get me going quite a bit. But luckily, I was preoccupied with the other stuff going on, so I didn't dwell on it at the time. Have been thinking about it, though.

mater requiescat in pace
Click to expand...

Other than not being schizophrenic, this sounds exactly like how my grandmother's life ended. She ended up in a very sad, paranoid place, at least until the dementia took hold (luckily it was the nice kind of dementia where she just lost her short term memory and became much nicer to her grown children), but then she couldn't care for herself whatsoever and I know that really messed with her head (she lived independently until the last two years of her life, so for 94 years).

How has the loss and grief been affecting you? Do you know much about grieving and that whole process? I have to say I was totally unprepared for the effect of loss the experience of her death would have on me.

I ended up in the difficult position where I became the family caretaker for the emotional needs of the rest of my family, one which it has been particularly difficult to recover from. I basically lost all the constructive progress I've made since getting clean when it comes to my sense of self and identity when faced with this very intimate connection to mortality. I ended up in place or total depression, sloth and torpor (well, it didn't help that some fucked up shit went down in my little world literally the week before I learned of her stroke and flew out to spend the last week of her life with her).

I ended up taking a month of basically dragging myself around until I spent an amazingly regulating quite night having the kind of sleep over with a very wonderful, kind friend (it was supposed to me about introducing her to MXE, it turned into us just kind of hanging out, her taking care of me, talking about very personal things, meditating, being physically close and intimate in a non-sexual way).

It was so interesting, because I went from like 0 to 60 in a matter of hours with her - by the middle of the night I was an entirely new, rejuvenated person just from her compassionate company. The next day after she left I spent some time with my mom and went from 60-0 again in a matter of minutes (my mom is still really having a difficult time integrating her grief). Thankfully I have this retreat to look forward to, as I had been imagining it would be just what the doctor ordered. Luckily it's been more helpful than I could imagine, allowing me to basically get back to the place I was at just before her death (amazing what sitting for ten hours a day paying attention to your breath and body-mind will do).

For instance, I have been wracking my soul trying to figure out what to do about grad school (I have a limited window of opportunity in terms of financial support from a family friend). I had talking about my plans with my friend that night, and I totally omitted even mentioning what I had concluded was best for me! I was sitting there in the meditation hall the other day and, out of seeming nowhere, with perfect clarity the insight bubble into consciousness about exactly what I needed to do, which was essentially the conclusion I'd reached just before my grandmother passed away.

Anyways, I'm rambling. Take good care of yourself. Try not to have any expectations about what this process is going to be like for you. Try and do everything you can to surround yourself with kind, loving, compassionate dear friends who want to support you in your time of need.

I can't imagine what its like to lose a parent :( <3
 
Thanks to everyone for your sympathies. I'm sure there will be emotional blowback from my mom's death. But right now, I'm mostly happy that her suffering is over.

Meanwhile, I'm just trying to take things slow. Finally got some decent sleep last night. Between residual WD-related insomnia and death-related adrenaline in me, it had been quite a while since I had any real rest. So today seems better.
 
All things considered, it sounds like you're doing really well my friend. Keep up the good work!

Given how you have been struggling to maintain abstinence from your opioid of use, have you ever considered something like a course of buprenorphine or methadone therapy? An extended detox (6 months of maintenance) or, for those with longer or more severe opioid use disorder are by far the most effective way of treating the condition. It is shat on in twelve step circles, constantly denigrated as less than a legitimate for of medicine.

Yet, methadone and buprenorphine boast an exponentially high rate of success both in terms of abstinence and moving on in life more generally from substance use compared to the measly 4% success rate of standard abstinence only models (the fact the rate of success for those who undergo the standard course of abstinence only inpatient treatment and those who simply go to meetings speaks volume for the inadequacy of the common abstinence focused inpatient treatment model promoted by places like Hazelton).

It is very unfortunate that most people on ORT do not feel comfortable at most NA and AA meetings given their immature and harm attitude on the treatment. Things are changing a little bit as ORT has become, at least insofar as buprenorphine is concerned, the gold standard of care for those with opioid use disorder in legitimate abstinence only based treatment models. It is even becoming mainstream in programs that push the contradictory message of ORT being an effective, legitimate and necessary for of medication, yet that those on ORT aren't really sober like those not on ORT. Any compitent medical professional (sadly the vast majority of those who work in the American treatmeant industry do not fall into those category) implicitly understands the fallacy of this catch 22, that taking a necessary, legitimate and properly prescribed medication as directed somehow makes you less than abstinence or less than sober is ridiculous).

And as ORT has become more accepted with the introduction buprenorphine treatment and the shifting attitudes that have come with the demographic of heroin uses changing, with heroin leaving the confines of the ghetto and barrio and increasing numbers of white middle and upperclass kids experiencing opioid use disorder. Now there are more and more sponsors and long standing members of the abstinence only community who support ORT. It is frustrating of how they send their message on ORT is so often still belittling, mixed and contradictory, and especially that the most effective form of ORT (a course of methadone maintenance followed by some form of buprenorphine detox or extended detox maintenance) is nearly always vilified among steppers.

Woe is she who comes out at their meetings about how they are succeeding using ORT... unless they have a really healthy sense of self, which most in early recovery almost always do not, it is a recipe of the disastrous of becoming ostracized from one's primary system of support.
 
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The death of my mom is obviously overshadowing other life stuff right now, but I really want to journal a bit more about my recent slip while things are fresh in my mind.

I believe that each stumble during recovery can help us do better in the future, provided we look for the lessons the slip can teach. So... In this post, I want to try to remember what events led up to the lapse (that's what I'm going to call it, saving a discussion of the idea of lapse vs relapse for another time).

The timing of the events is foggy for me. But here's a bit of the timeline...

About a month after my initial 'clean date', my mood cratered. In my previous quit attempts, I'd never had a honeymoon period. But on this quit I did, and it lasted that first month. The honeymoon ended slowly, so I didn't realize it was even ending. But as it died, my thinking got very cynical and depressed. Maybe it was PAWS, or maybe it was just my own tendency towards depression. But looking back, I can identify a few key changes in my thinking and behavior:
* I started to resent the people in my support network. Several times, I told people that I was feeling bad, like I was reverting to old habits. And, to be frank,
their responses rang hollow. None of my friends/family has had addiction problems. So from some I got blank stares; others gave me advice that seemed
laughably off-point; and my wife (my main confidant) continued to insist on a 'tough love' approach, reminding me that she'd divorce me if I relapsed. I was
probably expecting too much from these beautiful people; they were trying their best. But over the weeks, I felt a gulf opening between me and them, and for
me, feeling disconnected from those I love is a huge part of what makes me want to use. Alienation, cynicism, feeling worthless. Pretty soon, I'd developed
a very familiar me vs. them dynamic in my head. An important thing here--I'm not saying it was their fault for not giving me what I needed. Rather, the widening gulf was my fault...I firmly believe that I used relatively minor disappointments as a pretext for walling myself off.
* I started to act dishonestly. Feeling cut off, I ended my policy of brutal honesty. When anyone asked how I was doing, the answer was always, "fine." At this time, I also texted a few of my old connects who also happen to be kinda 'friends.' The texts were benign in content. But I knew I had no business talking to these people, and I hid this tourism from the people in my life. So the gulf widened further.
* I started 'pantomiming' drug use. I have some xanax lying around, Rx'd to me about a year ago. For absolutely no reason, on two occasions, I crushed up a xanax and snorted it. Snorting xanax is stupid anyway, and I had no real idea of what I was trying to accomplish. But I realize now that the ritual of chopping it up and railing it was what I was after, reminding me of when I used to snort dope. Not long after that, I scored some coke (as I wrote about on the December Getting Sober thread) and did a bit of that. Like the xanax, I've never liked coke, and I ended up tossing most of it. But again, I found myself face down over a plate full of powder.
* I tested my naltrexone. This was obviously a huge leap downwards. One day (probably three-ish weeks after the coke thing), my wife forgot to administer my daily oral naltrexone. And then the alarm bells started going off in my head. "I wonder if missing that one dose would let me break through the antagonist," I kept thinking that morning. The next events are very murky, but within an hour, I'd gotten cash, copped, and railed some dope. Oddly, I was kinda relieved when it had no effect due to residual naltrexone in my system. Again, I tossed the remaining drugs. And I told myself that since a) the drugs didn't work, b) I only snorted the dope; didn't bang it, and b) junked the bulk of it, that I hadn't really slipped. That opened the wiggle-room that my imagination needed to start in on me. After that, getting high was all I could think of. Obviously, I didn't tell a soul about this, hoping that silence would make the event less real. So that gulf I mentioned got even wider.
* Finally, I made the plunge. The cravings were all over me. I had lost sight of WHY I was trying to clean up. Life seemed just as shitty off drugs as it was on them (this was false, but I made myself believe it). Again, this part is murky, but I fell apart completely. I still can't bring myself to explain how I got around the naltrexone, but I did. I let myself go down a horrible path of deception, failing to comply with the med regime, while appearing to be a good little soldier. After a few days off the antagonist, I figured I was ready for a small 'vacation' from recovery, so I scored again, and again I snorted the dope. After this, things escalated like crazy. The next day I was back to IV'ing it, and I went on like that for several days...long enough to rekindle my dependence enough to feel WDs (though not major ones). And with that back in place, I COULDN'T jump back on the naltrexone for fear of precipitating withdrawals. I realized that I had made a horrible mistake, but I felt trapped, not only by looming dopesickness, but also by the inability to quit the deception and get back on my naltrexone. Luckily, I was able to finally regain enough control to quit for a week and resume my pills, which to my thinking marked the end of the episode.​

So what did I learn from all this, and what am I changing so it doesn't happen again?


  1. As much as I'd like my family and friends to be all the help I need, I see that at this point I need to look farther for support. This is why I've started attending NA meetings regularly. I have so many disagreements with the NA program. But I must admit that I do find huge value in the ritual of gathering with other people who are fucked up like me and listening to their stories (and occasionally sharing my own, though not much). Why NA? It's the only gig in my one-horse town.
  2. Lying and other forms of dishonesty always seem to be implicated in my lapses. Eventually I lie to cover up the drugs. But before that, I start lying to cover up my feelings, and this seems to be really toxic for me. I'm not so sure how to fix it, other than, as they say in NA, to practice honesty in all my affairs. I need to treat honesty like a skill I want to master, and that means practice. The confessional nature of this entire thread is one way in which I'm doing this. I need to think of more.
  3. When I start fucking around on the margins of drug use, I need to shut that shit down immediately. I certainly don't think snorting xanax or coke MADE me go back to heroin. But I think those episodes were a kind of testing of the waters. Emotionally, they revived feelings I need to distance myself from. At the risk of talking out my ass, I think that neurologically, part of kicking heroin is going to involve unwiring the pathways that associate concrete acts like snorting powders with huge improvements in mood. Maybe vigilance for this kind of miming will be sufficient. Failing that, I suppose I may prepare myself for trying to find a sponsor...someone I can talk to about this kind of behavior in the heat of the moment.
  4. I realize now that at least in my early recovery, oral naltrexone isn't going to cut it. I told myself I'd never be such a dishonest fuck as to cheat on those meds. But now I realize how laughable that was...I'm a fucking heroin addict! Of course I'm going to circumvent what's keeping me away from what I want, even if doing so makes me want to die with shame. To fix this, yesterday I initiated the process of going onto vivitrol. Hopefully within a week or so, the order will come through, and I'll get onto a med that's much harder to cheat on.

Obviously this little laundry list is incomplete. I feel like the main thing I need to do is to learn skills to help me remember why I'm going through all this hassle to begin with. But I'm hoping that having enumerated some of the things that went wrong, I'll be better prepared to avoid repeating them in the future.
 
I hope the viv works for you. I have met a few people who found it to be a lifesaver, but it was far less preventative and helped them more bounce back from slips, preventing a small lapse from turning into a bigger relapse. The literature indicates that naltrexone, oral or via viv, is not significantly more effective than placebo, and far less so than ORT, but it is definitely work try.

I really have to say your head is in a fantastic place sim. You have clearly gained a lot of insight from your recent experiences. Who says a lapse or relapse necessarily has to be a bad thing. After all, life is what we make of it!

Remember that it takes about 90 days of abstinence for your brain to even begin to deal with and heal from having habituated it to exogenous endorphins and the like. Try and take you time with this, it for the long haul if you're in it at all. Plan ahead, it sounds like now you have a better perspective having gained a bit more time away from substance use this go around than before. I think you'll pleasantly surprised with your if you keep up this good work.
 
toothpastedog said:
I hope the viv works for you. I have met a few people who found it to be a lifesaver, but it was far less preventative and helped them more bounce back from slips, preventing a small lapse from turning into a bigger relapse. The literature indicates that naltrexone, oral or via viv, is not significantly more effective than placebo, and far less so than ORT, but it is definitely work try.

I really have to say your head is in a fantastic place sim. You have clearly gained a lot of insight from your recent experiences. Who says a lapse or relapse necessarily has to be a bad thing. After all, life is what we make of it!

Remember that it takes about 90 days of abstinence for your brain to even begin to deal with and heal from having habituated it to exogenous endorphins and the like. Try and take you time with this, it for the long haul if you're in it at all. Plan ahead, it sounds like now you have a better perspective having gained a bit more time away from substance use this go around than before. I think you'll pleasantly surprised with your if you keep up this good work.
Click to expand...

Thanks, man! I do feel like I'm making progress, though it's really helpful to be reminded to take this slowly... I've never been long on patience.

As far as ORT goes, I have seen people get shouted down in NA for it, and for a while I refused to attend 12-step meetings for exactly that reason. It's so sad and ignorant, especially since, as you note, it really does constitute the state of the art in opioid addiction treatment. My own choice to favor naltrexone instead of ORT is due to a few factors. Mainly, I was in a fairly good suboxone program for about 6 months. It always baffled me...my friends in the program did great. But bupe just never helped me move forward. Despite all manner of tinkering with dosage and brands/formulations, I continued to crave like crazy, and frankly, I kept right on using after about the first six weeks in the program.

Methadone, on the other hand, I haven't tried. And I do know many people for whom it's been a godsend. Really, my reluctance on that front is not based on science or even experience--just an enormous urge to be rid of opioids. I know that's not rational.

Ultimately, choosing naltrexone came from deep introspection; I've been around a long time (I'm old as hell...well, in my mid-40s ;)) and have a strong sense of my own system of priorities and my mental reward system. I truly do believe that if I can last for an extended period of time under the belief that I simply cannot use heroin (in this case due to naltrexone), that I will find other ways to cope with my demons. Maybe wishful thinking, but I hope not.

Lastly, I'm aware of the poor clinical results of naltrexone. I'm certainly not an expert on the literature. But I am kind of an expert on clinical trials in general (my training and job is mainly in statistics). And my own sense is that it's incredibly hard to do research that leads to conclusive results when it comes to addiction recovery, simply due to the astronomical number of confounding variables. Without an enormous N, well-designed studies of the subject can certainly help guide us. But as we've both said in other threads, addiction recovery is so profoundly individual and personal, even an apparent failure in efficacy in the aggregate doesn't by any means guarantee failure for some patients. Given my knowledge of myself, I'm just saying I'm willing to roll those dice!
 
I for one found methadone to be infinitely more helpful and supportive of long term recovery than buprenorphine (I was first on buprenorphine for about 1.5 years and a year after getting off that spent about 2.5 years on methadone via clinic). I think that had largely to do with the fact I was benefiting much more for the limited agonist effects of the buprenorphine and less its antagonist effects, and found a full agonist to be necessary in methadone at addressing my cravings for opioids (buprenorphine helped for a while, but nowhere nearly as much as methadone did).

More so I attribute my success to the structure of the clinic, fucking horribly frustrating though it was at times (its rigidity was the reason I got off before I initially had been planning to in fact, which turned out to be a great thing in the end). Having to attend the clinic to dose for the first couple months, then being held very accountable for take homes, frequent drug tests and the carrot versus the stick of having take homes restricted for successive lapses, the required counseling, the groups and the support of all the nurse and tech staff (especially the manager of the clinic who was there when I started out, I was very sad to see her leave considering the new manager was a bit inexperienced to say the least) really made an incredible difference. Even going to the clinic and seeing some very sad cases in some of my peers there also was as good as going to twelve step meetings, stark reminders of where I didn't want to end up again or see my addiction progress into.

And you're absolutely right about the literature. Most research that has been done relates to methadone, with the vast majority of all MAT programs studied and the best, largest studies being on methadone maintenance considering how long it has been used and its effectiveness. It is very frustrating though.

Maybe NSA will pop in with a suggestion to some literature on naltrexone though, or I'll see if I can dig up a good study. I do believe I've seen some with substantial subject populations that seemed pretty legit. Still, it is very frustrating with the limit scope of research related to addiction, especially from the US.

The war on drugs, prohibition and a general lack of funding, not to mention the rather backward state of addiction related science and medicine where we live, make good research hard to come by.

And BTW, the more you share about where you're at, the more confident in your success. It's never a straight path with substance use disorder, but you'll see you have a lot of truly potent tools.
 
Sim -

I am thinking about you and hoping you are doing ok. I'll catch up on your thread tomorrow when I'm not so exhausted after an insane week.

My good vibes are on their way in your direction!

- VE
 
I'm not usually superstitious, but I do have a fear of jinxing a good thing. But...I'm gonna risk it and say that I'm starting to think that my mom's death is going to help my efforts at quitting heroin. That sounds cruel to say. But honestly, I think my mom would be really happy to hear it. My mom was never (even when I was a kid) able to give me a lot of support, due to her own challenges. She WANTED to be a support for me. The schizophrenia and then the dementia just made it impossible. By moving on, I think she's really given me a gift.

I was very worried that when she died, the smoldering sadness and anger I nursed for her would explode, and I'd have even less control over my compulsion to use. But so far, the facts have been very different. Instead of an earthquake of bad emotion, since Mom died, I've been feeling sad but calm and lightened of a huge weight. Now, who knows how this will affect my recovery? But my feeling is that it will affect it in a good way.

Over the years, I had lost sight of how exhausting it was, caring for her and watching her suffer. Since I have no siblings and my folks are long divorced, the pressure was intense; very much an 'us against the world' feeling. The horror of watching her personality vanish, replaced with a carousel of awful temporary states of mind, took way more of a toll on me than I had realized. It had a cumulative, corrosive impact on my own sense of well-being.

Now that she's gone, I feel wistful and sad. But, if this makes any sense, I feel like sadness after a death is a very human, very healthy thing. A huge chunk of my emotional capital has shifted from dysfunctional fear and anger to something that--while tough--is totally natural.

The last few days, I just haven't felt the gloom and hate for the world that has been the norm for me for several years now. Of course, maybe those old feelings will come roaring back (hence my worry of jinxing it). But meanwhile, I'm in much better control of my emotional self than I'm accustomed to. And that's gotta be a good thing, recovery-wise.

There are, however, two things I could see backfiring here:
  • Grief is complicated, and I'm only in the earliest stages...obviously the feelings will change over time, and who know how they'll change? Could be for the worse.
  • I've always identified with it when people mention that part of overcoming an addiction involves a grieving process of its own. It's very true that if I let myself think about it much, I feel very upset by the 'loss' of heroin from my life; as much as using hurt me, I miss it. So the question I have is: what happens now that I'm carrying two grieving processes at once? Well, my hope is that the healthier one will let me loosen my grip on the dope grief. But who knows?
It's so rare in adult life that a major problem simply ENDS. Usually we have to settle for compromises and uncertain futures. But insofar as my mom's illnesses were problems for us to face, they truly are OVER now. The suffering is simply gone. I don't think anything like that has ever happened to me before.
 
Sim, I'm sorry I haven't been on here. You're a fucking trooper mate. I just want you to know my thoughts are with you. I haven't any adequate words, other than to be amazed at your self reflection at this time in your life. That strength will see you through.

I want to thank you for posting your experience in relapsing.. It's helped me this morning to take my naltrexone. I literally started down the same path - withdrawing from my support network (Why I haven't been around here.) and last night having a few beers (oddly felt buzzed on, even with naltrexone) later adding benzos to the mix. This morning I work up scheming about not taking the pill. Your post has woken me the fuck up. Bless your cotton socks mate.

You helped this sad old junkie hang in there for another day, I wish I could give you something in return but I think you have everything you need so I'm just gonna send you my love mate.
 
:\ Simco...I can relate very intimately to your relationship with your mom. Our situations are different, yet vastly similar. I am the youngest of 6 (I'm 55). My siblings ghosted my parents, as they are TAKERS, and my parents had nothing left to give.

My dad died in 2001, days prior to 9/11 events. My mom lived alone until she fell in 2005 and needed a THR. I held the POA, so ultimately the surgeon and I forced her into assisted living post surgery. LONG STORY, but she couldn't live alone and was too abusive for home healthcare folks.

I have never regretted my decision, though I have carried the burden of judgment (from siblings/spectators). She was given the gift to walk again...to be cared for...to come and go as she pleased (often with my husband and me). I cut/colored her hair, mani-pedis, provided wardrobe, etc. EVERY need and most of her wants were realized.

It was never enough. She bitched incessantly and often threatened to "knock my GD head off". I joke that I donned "riot gear" to visit. It wasn't much of a joke. She had always been evil personified. She made the lives of fellow residents a living hell. I protested to the staff and had her sent to senior psych ward for 14 days on 2 separate occasions. She returned each time, even more aggressive and threatening. She kept me in the crosshairs for her kill shot...still does. There is evil in her stare. Yet I remained loyal to fight as fiercely for her as I did with her.

About 3 years ago, she began to show signs of Dementia. She suffered several strokes and episodes of heart failure. She became unstable on her feet and was forced into a wheelchair. She technically was DOA in a diabetic coma on Thanksgiving Day 2015. Although revived, she is now completely bedridden. She is at the mercy of the very staff she has verbally abused for almost 12 years. She is silent now, but still very angry.

I am unwell, dealing with disease/trauma for 2+ decades prior to her fall. I have never failed to be THERE for her, day or night. I understand the burden you speak of, the weight on your shoulders...in sickness and health, til death...well, you know.

I am sorry for your loss, yet I pray for my mom (almost 91) to die, before stress kills me. Yes, I know I will grieve, as will you. I guess I just wanted you to know that you're not alone with those feelings.

(((HUGS)))
 
simco said:
I'm not usually superstitious, but I do have a fear of jinxing a good thing. But...I'm gonna risk it and say that I'm starting to think that my mom's death is going to help my efforts at quitting heroin. That sounds cruel to say. But honestly, I think my mom would be really happy to hear it. My mom was never (even when I was a kid) able to give me a lot of support, due to her own challenges. She WANTED to be a support for me. The schizophrenia and then the dementia just made it impossible. By moving on, I think she's really given me a gift.

I was very worried that when she died, the smoldering sadness and anger I nursed for her would explode, and I'd have even less control over my compulsion to use. But so far, the facts have been very different. Instead of an earthquake of bad emotion, since Mom died, I've been feeling sad but calm and lightened of a huge weight. Now, who knows how this will affect my recovery? But my feeling is that it will affect it in a good way.

Over the years, I had lost sight of how exhausting it was, caring for her and watching her suffer. Since I have no siblings and my folks are long divorced, the pressure was intense; very much an 'us against the world' feeling. The horror of watching her personality vanish, replaced with a carousel of awful temporary states of mind, took way more of a toll on me than I had realized. It had a cumulative, corrosive impact on my own sense of well-being.

Now that she's gone, I feel wistful and sad. But, if this makes any sense, I feel like sadness after a death is a very human, very healthy thing. A huge chunk of my emotional capital has shifted from dysfunctional fear and anger to something that--while tough--is totally natural.

The last few days, I just haven't felt the gloom and hate for the world that has been the norm for me for several years now. Of course, maybe those old feelings will come roaring back (hence my worry of jinxing it). But meanwhile, I'm in much better control of my emotional self than I'm accustomed to. And that's gotta be a good thing, recovery-wise.

There are, however, two things I could see backfiring here:
  • Grief is complicated, and I'm only in the earliest stages...obviously the feelings will change over time, and who know how they'll change? Could be for the worse.
  • I've always identified with it when people mention that part of overcoming an addiction involves a grieving process of its own. It's very true that if I let myself think about it much, I feel very upset by the 'loss' of heroin from my life; as much as using hurt me, I miss it. So the question I have is: what happens now that I'm carrying two grieving processes at once? Well, my hope is that the healthier one will let me loosen my grip on the dope grief. But who knows?
It's so rare in adult life that a major problem simply ENDS. Usually we have to settle for compromises and uncertain futures. But insofar as my mom's illnesses were problems for us to face, they truly are OVER now. The suffering is simply gone. I don't think anything like that has ever happened to me before.
Click to expand...

What you expressed in your above post sim is very much, sounds almost exactly like in some ways, what I experienced myself recently with the loss of my grandmother. As I said before, even with her struggles with mental illness, I still would imagine that what I went/am still going through pales in comparison to what you are experiencing. Of course, one cannot really compare one's suffering to another's, but you understand what I mean.

Sending you some love dude! How you let this experience affect you, whether you learn from it, whether it helps you to continue on your path of growth and development and all that jazz, these things are ENTIRELY up to you my friend.

Know that you are loved.
 
Sim- Im very sorry to hear of your mothers passing. To make an extremely long story short- my relationship w my mom was.difficult-she was a severe alcoholic and not the most loving person.

Strangely, when she died I finally felt allowed to love her. I could love her without her anger and judgement.

This thread is amazing- Im so glad you shared this. I have royally fucked up my sobriety and am not sure what my next step is going to be.

Something that disappointed- no more than that- that's deeply hurt me is that Ive reached out as Ive been falling to supposedly good friends- that told me to reach out to them if need be- and they didn't reach back. Something Ive learned that will sound ridiculous-is sobriety really is a verb. Action, whatever that is-has to happen. Also- I need to make sure I get a stronger support system in place. Hope you are having a good day Sim.
 
DixiChik said:
:\ Simco...I can relate very intimately to your relationship with your mom. Our situations are different, yet vastly similar.
...
I guess I just wanted you to know that you're not alone with those feelings.

(((HUGS)))
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Thanks so much! Yes, our situations really are vastly similar. I haven't gone into detail about the earlier phases of caring for my mom, but they are very similar to what you describe. I'm so sorry to hear you are shouldering that. One thing I will say, though: I do feel good about the care I gave to my mom. Even if it made me tired and resentful, at least I know that I did do my level best for her. When all the failures entailed in my addiction weigh on me, at least I can feel good about that one thing. I hope this might bring you some peace, too.

<3
Sim
 
Everyone, again, my sincerest thanks for the kind posts. I'm so glad to hear that all this writing is helping people (me included).

Gotta admit, I woke up this morning with a bigger dose of sad than I've had so far about my mom. (Or maybe its SAD b/c it's so fucking cold here ;).) But I knew this would come with the territory.
 
I did have an event happen the other day that I want to jot down, especially in the context of the ongoing post-mortem of my recent lapse/relapse.

On Friday I was buying weed from a guy a met through rehab (I know, those damn rehab/NA connections!). I don't usually go through him, but he had some interesting stuff, so I went over to grab some. While we were going through the motions, he mentioned that he had some total fire H, and how much did I want?

The interesting part was how easy it was to decline. I had my usual Pavlovian response of salivating and sweating when I saw it and smelled it. But somehow I just walked away.

I credit some of this to a change in my thinking due to some excellent posts I've read recently on SL. Instead of simply thinking of this project as an attempt to quit narcotics, I've started thinking of it--at least in the short-term--more medically. I've realized that genuine change for the better is only gonna happen if I give my brain a chance to change the pathways that I've ingrained in it over years of using. I'm realizing that lapsing would be like prodding a wound I'm trying to heal, or knocking on a broken bone as it sets.

Somehow, the mental switch from the very abstract idea of "quitting" (with all its baggage about the future, and it's flabby impact on the here-and-now), to a mindset of trying to heal a damaged (physical) part of me, seems to make a difference in how my priorities and impulses fall out.

Anyway, I sure was glad that I got the fuck out of there without a major problem.
 
You fucking rock simco! I'm so proud of you. I have had experiences like this with pretty much all of the drugs I have had bad experiences with. With me it has always been fairly easily to walk away when I'm not dealing with a close friend offering it up to me (strangers and drug dealers are a lot easier to say no to than loved ones offering you drugs IME).

More recently though, during the summer, as friend of mine offered to give me a qp of some high quality nug for my birthday. Even though I really enjoy cannabis and don't find it particularly problematic (never struggled to control its use, for instance). However, the time was unfortunate. I had just gotten out of the hospital and was just about to embark on a regiment that required abstinence, at least from anything detectable in a standard drug test.

Despite wanting so badly to accept his kind off of tons of great cannabis, my rational brain decided to speak up and kindly say no thanks. It was sad to turn down something that I wanted to accept. If the present circumstances hadn't been present I would have accepted, particularly considering it was something on the more benign side of substance use (cannabis is far from entirely benign mind you, but compared to my heroin, benzodiazepine, amphetamine and cocaine use, for instance, my cannabis use has been quite benign indeed).

Not sure what I'm trying to say, but what I'd like you to hear from this post if anything is bravo simco!

Regarding grief, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I found it hard to predict where it was going to take me each week, each day. I cycled through depressive, melancholic, restless, reflective/meditative and pleasant feeling states during my very early grieving process recently.
 
toothpastedog said:
You fucking rock simco! I'm so proud of you. I have had experiences like this with pretty much all of the drugs I have had bad experiences with. With me it has always been fairly easily to walk away when I'm not dealing with a close friend offering it up to me (strangers and drug dealers are a lot easier to say no to than loved ones offering you drugs IME).

More recently though, during the summer, as friend of mine offered to give me a qp of some high quality nug for my birthday. Even though I really enjoy cannabis and don't find it particularly problematic (never struggled to control its use, for instance). However, the time was unfortunate. I had just gotten out of the hospital and was just about to embark on a regiment that required abstinence, at least from anything detectable in a standard drug test.

Despite wanting so badly to accept his kind off of tons of great cannabis, my rational brain decided to speak up and kindly say no thanks. It was sad to turn down something that I wanted to accept. If the present circumstances hadn't been present I would have accepted, particularly considering it was something on the more benign side of substance use (cannabis is far from entirely benign mind you, but compared to my heroin, benzodiazepine, amphetamine and cocaine use, for instance, my cannabis use has been quite benign indeed).

Not sure what I'm trying to say, but what I'd like you to hear from this post if anything is bravo simco!

Regarding grief, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I found it hard to predict where it was going to take me each week, each day. I cycled through depressive, melancholic, restless, reflective/meditative and pleasant feeling states during my very early grieving process recently.
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Thanks, TPD!!

It's kind of funny that this has come up, as I hadn't thought through it much until about the last week. Certainly wasn't planning to raise it in this thread. But your story underscores it enough that I will.

I'm actually starting to think seriously about either taking a break from, or possibly just scaling way back, my cannabis intake. Right now I tend to use weed regularly, but I don't think excessively...probably ~6 evenings per week. But just a few pulls each evening after dinner.

I'm torn about how to handle this.

On one hand, I truly do believe that getting baked releases some of the hectic energy I'd otherwise devote to wanting to use heroin. It calms me down in several ways, at least a few of which, I think, lessen my compulsion to use narcotics. Also, I don't have any evidence or belief that the cannabis has negative consequences for my overall quality of life. So part of me says, dude, if the weed seems even a bit helpful, go with God. (The one negative consequence I CAN think of is that obtaining weed occasionally brings me into contact with people I shouldn't be around, as per my last post on this thread. But that's rare. Usually I can obtain it in a way that's completely benign.)

But on the other hand, the truth is, without other drugs in the picture, I'm starting to get a bit--for lack of a better word--bored with weed. These days, it's just not floating my boat like it used to. It's really as simple as that. These days for me, smoking pot is just kinda...meh. And who knows? Maybe quitting weed (thereby removing illicit drugs from my scene altogether) would actually HELP my recovery.

The obvious solution to this is simply to smoke if I feel like it, and hold back if I don't. Unfortunately, I'm habituated enough to my evening vape that if I don't actively remind myself, "hey, let's cool it tonight," chances are good I'll go ahead and get baked. I don't need to swear on the Bible. But if I do want to cut back, I need to psych myself up for it a bit.

I feel a little weird about all this because I often encourage folks on SL not to worry about weed when they're fighting addictions to other substances/behaviors. Sometimes I feel like a ganja evangelist %). I suppose I'm just reminding myself that each situation is unique when it comes to recovery. What's best for us is rarely obvious. Well, for now I'll keep thinking about it.

But I'd be curious to hear other folks' stories or thoughts. Has anyone else suddenly found weed to be a let-down?
 
Good morning Everyone. Its interesting that you've mentioned how your perspective on being clean is changing Sim.

The level of sadness and disappointment in myself lm feeling about my latest and longest relapse is horrible. Truly not wanting a life w drug use - not even occasionally And we all know that's not possible anyway. Im ok w that actually.

The grief I felt from my mothers death was like riding a surf board- some days I could stand up and some days I could barely hang on. There are still those kind of days as I imagine there always will be. No matter how strained - she was my mother. There is a sense of relief from her passing away (she died 1-1-11)-as I stated before, I felt I could freely love her for the first time in many years.

Im trying to figure out a plan - a better plan this time- for my recovery. I realize, more than ever how much it truly means to me. I really did learn. I have struggled w cravings after I got clean. The whole time. Now Id prefer not adding all the stress that using brings and the subsequent starting over again. Uuggh

Your insighfulness and honesty in this journal is so helpful. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. I know how difficult it was admitting that you relapsed was The members your NA group have a gem in you. :)
 
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