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Recovery The Twiary

Attended my first AA meeting tonight in 5 years. Last time I went to a meeting I wasn't even of legal drinking age, but my problem with alcohol back then was terrible. Really enjoyed it actually, besides the talk of God. Talked with the MC after and explained I'm not an alcoholic but a drug addict and asked what the general feeling there was concerning non alcoholics and he said it wasn't a problem at all. Will definitely go back there. Still might try out an NA meeting or two that I've heard good things about. But overall I liked the vibe of the meeting I went to tonight and am actually excited to go back. Was really dreading going at all but once I got there I was glad I went
 
I'm glad you found a good meeting. I feel uplifted after a good meeting. I'm reminded of things I've forgotten that are beneficial. It's nice to be in the company of others that understand addiction, the struggle and that it's important to stay involved in sobriety. Happy for you:)
 
Likewise...I'm so glad you had a good experience at that meeting. We all know meetings can vary a lot in how they appeal to us. I always feel really lucky when I find a group/meeting I like. Just knowing it's there if I need it can be a big help.
 
Just wanted to update. I know I haven't been on here in awhile. I've still been attending meetings regularly. I go to 2 meetings every wednesday, and I've really enjoyed this new one I've found. I go for the 6:30 meeting and stay for the 8pm meeting because they're always really small (last time I was the only person there besides the "chairman" of the meeting) and they're basically like free therapy sessions. I haven't started doing the 12 steps yet, don't know if I will because it relies so heavily on a belief in God. Last wednesday since I was the only person at the 8pm meeting me and the chairman just sat and talked because he wanted to know if I had a sponsor yet/was going to work the steps and I wanted to know how the fact that I still use cannabis and alcohol occasionally and that I haven't found God would play into me actually starting and completing the steps.

Aside from all that, school is going really well. One of my teachers asked me a few weeks ago "what's changed?" because I've "finally gotten my shit together" since I started attending her classes last year. I didn't tell her I finally quit heroin, but it's nice to know that there's an obvious change in my character, even to the outsiders perspective who don't know I'm an addict. I'm somewhere around 7 months clean now, but unfortunately I still haven't beaten the needle addiction.

I hope everyone on here has been well. The girl I've been seeing for awhile now has blossomed into what would be considered a serious relationship and I pretty much spend all my free time with her so my checking in here will be sporadic and infrequent. Thanks to everyone that was there for me during the beginning of this new start on life. I don't want to call this a success story yet or anything, especially with these winter months coming up which is the true test for addicts in recovery, I suppose being dumped is even more of a test but hopefully I won't have to deal with that anytime soon. My desire to stay clean is still strong, and as more time goes on, that heroin using part of my life seems like it's own separate thing now that's in the past and I've established the beginning of this new chapter in life that is my recovery. The pretty much daily use of needles is the only thing still reminding me of the addict inside me, and I'm no closer to conquering that than I was 7 months ago when I started my recovery.
 
twang said:
Just wanted to update. I know I haven't been on here in awhile. I've still been attending meetings regularly. I go to 2 meetings every wednesday, and I've really enjoyed this new one I've found. I go for the 6:30 meeting and stay for the 8pm meeting because they're always really small (last time I was the only person there besides the "chairman" of the meeting) and they're basically like free therapy sessions. I haven't started doing the 12 steps yet, don't know if I will because it relies so heavily on a belief in God. Last wednesday since I was the only person at the 8pm meeting me and the chairman just sat and talked because he wanted to know if I had a sponsor yet/was going to work the steps and I wanted to know how the fact that I still use cannabis and alcohol occasionally and that I haven't found God would play into me actually starting and completing the steps.

Aside from all that, school is going really well. One of my teachers asked me a few weeks ago "what's changed?" because I've "finally gotten my shit together" since I started attending her classes last year. I didn't tell her I finally quit heroin, but it's nice to know that there's an obvious change in my character, even to the outsiders perspective who don't know I'm an addict. I'm somewhere around 7 months clean now, but unfortunately I still haven't beaten the needle addiction.

I hope everyone on here has been well. The girl I've been seeing for awhile now has blossomed into what would be considered a serious relationship and I pretty much spend all my free time with her so my checking in here will be sporadic and infrequent. Thanks to everyone that was there for me during the beginning of this new start on life. I don't want to call this a success story yet or anything, especially with these winter months coming up which is the true test for addicts in recovery, I suppose being dumped is even more of a test but hopefully I won't have to deal with that anytime soon. My desire to stay clean is still strong, and as more time goes on, that heroin using part of my life seems like it's own separate thing now that's in the past and I've established the beginning of this new chapter in life that is my recovery. The pretty much daily use of needles is the only thing still reminding me of the addict inside me, and I'm no closer to conquering that than I was 7 months ago when I started my recovery.
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It must have been nice to have the teacher say that--a recognition and reflection from outside that your internal progress is real.:)

Remember that recovery is not all (or even mostly) about drugs. It's about reclaiming yourself and your life from needs that rule and limit you. Keep digging deep to understand those needs and find new ways to meet them. The needle fixation is a lot like a smoking habit it seems--where the habit (ritual) itself is the addiction. Have you ever considered doing hypnosis for that? I think it is a good application for changing habits.
 
herbavore said:
Have you ever considered doing hypnosis for that? I think it is a good application for changing habits.
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I have not considered that, and wouldn't even know how to go about finding someone who specializes in such a thing. Any ideas?

I wanted to make a post here because I've officially been clean over a year (I don't know the exact date but it was sometime in April that I got my first whole year of sobriety) and everything has been going great. I am still shooting my buprenorphine, but I have lowered my dosage since then. I was shooting about 16mg/day and now I'm down to 8-12mg/day.
HOWEVER, Yesterday I was on the darknet looking for something non-opiate related, and right there on the front page were offers for heroin. This is nothing new. I was searching for something similar on the darknet back in december 2017 and saw plenty of heroin for sale while navigating to what I was looking for, and it didn't phase me at all. But yesterday, out of curiosity when I saw those heroin offers for sale I started looking into it more to see what the prices/quality was like. Read some reviews from different vendors blah blah....but then all of a sudden I got the urge. For the first time since getting sober over 13 months ago I thought it would be nice to try out some high quality, non-black tar dope. And that addict inside me completely took over and made a small order for a half g of dope.

It bugged me all night but I was still super excited to get it in my hands. I logged onto the same place this morning and I had a message in my inbox that read "invalid key, couldn't read your message" from the person I had ordered the dope from, and they had canceled my order because they couldn't open my message I sent with the details of my order. I'm not sure wtf happened because I know I didn't make any mistakes on my end when sending the message, but I ignored the sign and went ahead and placed the order AGAIN. 5 minutes goes by and my inner voice had been screaming since I initially read the message "THIS IS A SIGN. DO NOT FUCKING BUY THIS SHIT AND COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS" but the addict in me still kept trying to quiet that thought. I distract myself for another 15 minutes or so and then I snapped out of it and logged back on there and canceled my order before the seller could accept it.

This was the closest call I've had since getting clean. Even last night when I envisioned myself getting the dope next week, I played out this scenario in my head about just keeping the dope in my lockbox just to know it was there if I ever needed it, or getting it as a test for myself to see if I could hold it in my hands, smell it, and flush it down the toilet to see how much will power I had, but I knew I would probably just use it as soon as I got it. I wanted to get on here and post this, write it down for others to see so that way it's technically not a secret that I'm holding within myself. Posting this on here makes me feel a degree of accountability to those of you who were so generous and helpful when I was first getting clean last year. This was beyond a momentary lapse in judgment and I don't know if it was divine intervention that the vendor was unable to read my message or what, but whatever happened I'm glad it did because these last couple days I've been having a very, very strong urge to use again, and I haven't felt that way AT ALL since I first got clean in April 2017. I'm not sure what's going on, or why this is happening to me after doing so good this past year but the craving has come back with a vengeance, trying to convince myself that I can use just one more time for old times sake. I'm not sure what's going on with my head but I want it to go away so bad because I've turned my life around completely and life has never been better than it is right now. I have so many things to live for right now, which I haven't been able to say in a long time. I can't imagine why these urges are storming the gates of my mind after everything that's happened. I thought I was safe from this. I thought that part of my life was behind me. I was so confident and even cocky about never having the urge to use dope since getting clean...until yesterday. I guess we're never safe, which is an important lesson I suppose. I just hope I learn from it
 
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