
Life After Heroin Is Beautiful and Boring
One of the hardest lessons around being sober is learning to appreciate the ordinary, the mundane, and the normal.

man i'm 40 days clean and don't feel like i'm getting close to normal anytime soon.It's boring for sure but what I struggle with are inner tension, nervousness and anxiety. Had these things before, yet the drugs put a cuddly blanket over them and I forgot their intensity, then even their existence over time - repeatedly, was always my cause for relapses. Even professionals tell you that withdrawal is primarily physical discomfort and is often described as being flu-like - which is probably an understatement. But in rehab I've seen people in withdrawal, sweating, shivering and still socializing - I just can't. Hate it to even just prepare food and avoid leaving the room as much as possible, minutes become hours when everything is overwhelming and boring at the same time. Also physical withdrawal can be somewhat managed with things like loperamide and there are pharmaceutical possibilities to avoid a good part of the withdrawal entirely but what remains is the post-acute stage which doesn't seem to fade away anytime soon.
Memantine is interestingly a great aid both with acute as well as PAWS but it's not well known, hard to get a script for and can be too expensive (off-label). Also again a mental dependence, it agonizes D2 receptors so they won't recover on it. Stopping mem. was much heavier than 200mg/d morphine after 2 years with it, and it still remains to be..
Is it just me or a common phenomenon, which the clinical withdrawals covering only a few weeks fail to cover?
![]()
Life After Heroin Is Beautiful and Boring
One of the hardest lessons around being sober is learning to appreciate the ordinary, the mundane, and the normal.www.vice.com
3 months i think is the shortest period of time for a good success rate. That's when you start to think normally.
Well that is pleasant to hear it worked for you.
It did fuck all for 3 people I know, all for heroin. Not all from Aus.
Just doped up and chucked out Done, courtesy of their close partnership with the local hospital.
What year did you attend? It has been there for years......
I would rather a holiday in Pattaya, just an hour or so away which is far more enjoyable - Jomtien beach, bars, food, no culture but sex if wanted!
As for your view - Khun Krap - perhaps your next step is a glowing review on VICE!
was pete doherty in hope with you? LOLI was literally one of the 5 first clients, so I want to say either late 2014 or early 2015. My memory is a little hazy because I was in a really bad way. Are you sure it was "Hope" they were talking about and not "The Cabin" ? I actually went to both and the Cabin's in N. Thailand, while Hope is in the South, about 3 hours outside BKK. I kicked Heroin at the Cabin around 2012, but I had heard murmurs that it had gone downhill, they've now rebranded to something else.
I think rehab is in some ways, what you make it. If you put in a lot of work and genuinely want to get clean, you'll get something out of it ime. It also takes time, not some quick jaunt (I think anything under 3 months is basically a waste of time). I'm sorry it didn't help for your 3 mates, but it doesn't sound like the Hope I experienced. I was also there for quite some time, I think 6 months in total, with the first 2 literally just returning to sanity.
I'm not sure I'm going to be writing a glowing review on Vice anytime soon, but maybe I will write a piece for a publication that's a little more serious some time in future. FYI, I also lived in Thailand for a a little over 2 years and I still think N. Thailand is my favorite part of Thailand! Was not a fan of Pattaya at all.
was pete doherty in hope with you? LOL
well didn't do shit for doherty anyway LOL he's still banging smack and doing crack justnot that often cause hes getting old but it's good to know that it worked for u bro.Nah, he was there after me. Funnily enough, he was at "The Cabin," another rehab in Thailand I went to and he was there before me and I went to Hope before him. Our paths never crossed. It was funny, some of the lady junkies at the rehabs were all excited that he went to the rehab. lol. I was with a pretty famous female writer, Cat Marnell, in rehab at Hope though. She was kinda my pal there as we both like to write and laughed a lot.
https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/cat-marnell-how-to-murder-your-life.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-nine-lives-of-cat-marnell-122770/
lol that article is hilarious. the lack of self reflection, that most people probably can't afford to fanny about in some recovery resort in thailand and in fact actually have to work for a living pretty soon out of rehab (lol i had to work while i was in secondary care). i guess she considers shitting out this garbage to be work and is probably getting a pretty penny for it.
she shouldn't have time to get bored. she should be treating saving her life as a full time job. early recovery for me was hours on public transport, which trust me is not beautiful though waiting for it is boring, going between gym, therapist, drugs services, NA. ha i'm clearly pretty jealous of her. honestly i hope she stays clean and hope her recovery process involves gaining some perspective.
This woman's suffering is probably more comparable to ours than we would first think, since we all share the same affliction.
Shit the bed? Rehab in thailand? Wowsers, I can't even afford it in this country? Ye it's boring, I don't have the answer. Part of me wishes I worked full time again so I was forced to do more but lockdown hasn't helped my calendar. Having time out from life helps in some ways, but makes some parts harder.
Well saidcompletely agreed. its hell whether you're rich or poor.
my issue with the article is more the seeming lack of awareness that her circumstances are so vastly different to most people in early recovery. she writes about what a car crash she was, and then living it up in a thai rehab resort. i feel like it paints a poor image of heroin addicts because she doesn't even seem to allude to the huge amount of psychological work and pain involved in getting clean. it reads like she's on a jolly, not that she's trying to save her life.
completely agreed. its hell whether you're rich or poor.
my issue with the article is more the seeming lack of awareness that her circumstances are so vastly different to most people in early recovery. she writes about what a car crash she was, and then living it up in a thai rehab resort. i feel like it paints a poor image of heroin addicts because she doesn't even seem to allude to the huge amount of psychological work and pain involved in getting clean. it reads like she's on a jolly, not that she's trying to save her life.
Shit the bed? Rehab in thailand? Wowsers, I can't even afford it in this country? Ye it's boring, I don't have the answer. Part of me wishes I worked full time again so I was forced to do more but lockdown hasn't helped my calendar. Having time out from life helps in some ways, but makes some parts harder.