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Recovery The 2023 Recovery Thread

I totally agree.

Again as you mentioned, not to take away from the strength of AA sentiments - for me personally, there's a world of difference between compulsive and controlled drinking. Or anything, for that matter, but don't allow me to go there because I can pretty much justify anything. It's a horrible skill that I try to funnel into optimism as opposed to evading responsibility these days.

I'm not irredeemable either, as you said.

I'm fucking proud of my progress as well, as you said.

I need to just keep my self awareness and remain honest with myself. Make sure that I don't forget what got me here in the process.

By the way I'm specifically talking about periodically drinking vs daily drinking and hard drugs, if it matters for sake of conversation.
sounds like you’re very self-aware, which is a curse and a blessing in addiction. us deep thinkers and people of prose tend to get locked in our own heads, either justifying or redeeming ourselves. hyper self-awareness can be funneled into that energy needed to overcome things like this. the occhiolism of it all can really put things into perspective, help line up goals and future prospects for yourself, and really allow you to make the change necessary. you’re already on the right path, you just gotta use those tools in your toolbox to adjust accordingly everyday, which can be difficult. especially if you ‘can’t find the tool you need in your toolbox’, if that makes any sense at all. sometimes it’s innately difficult to find the emotions or feelings throughout the day to regulate or overcome obstacles.
 
occhiolism
Sick word!! New to me and very applicable.

Yeah re: awareness, it can come off as insecure, and in ways is.

I've been meaning to carry on with a bit of self doubt to keep an open mind, while also a bit of confidence to apply what I learned in the more open minded self doubt situations.

However, nothing is ever perfectly balanced, and often comes in waves, especially for someone who myself who cycles through emotions with seasons and when I am at a baseline, as you alluded to, emotions can be difficult to suss out.

I need to practice patience, too, which I believe can go a long way. Because once I start defining things unknown, or give value to one thing over another, occhiolism, handy tool albeit sometimes frightening, is lost.

Hopefully that makes sense/follows
 
The problem I have with my wife comes down to me being a stubborn bastard.

I'm not going to change.
So, she might as well just make the best of it.

I don't want her to change.
 
speaking of ladies, i’m going on a date this friday with this girl who i’ve been talking to for 3 weeks. and holy cow do we resonate so much. i’ve never found someone who i could so easily talk to at first. we’ve got a lot in common, and she’s an RN in the NICU department. I love a woman in scrubs so much, too. so we’ve chatted about medical jargon & issues in it & science and we both enjoy anime & we have a really similar style and music taste. excited is an understatement 🥺💕

i haven’t told her about any of my addiction problems in the past, as i don’t wear my sobriety on me sleeve at all. i usually save that for when people see me for who i am sober rather than tell them upfront and then be perceived differently than i actually am; or judged from the start. but i’m really really excited regardless.
 
Sick word!! New to me and very applicable.

Yeah re: awareness, it can come off as insecure, and in ways is.

I've been meaning to carry on with a bit of self doubt to keep an open mind, while also a bit of confidence to apply what I learned in the more open minded self doubt situations.

However, nothing is ever perfectly balanced, and often comes in waves, especially for someone who myself who cycles through emotions with seasons and when I am at a baseline, as you alluded to, emotions can be difficult to suss out.

I need to practice patience, too, which I believe can go a long way. Because once I start defining things unknown, or give value to one thing over another, occhiolism, handy tool albeit sometimes frightening, is lost.

Hopefully that makes sense/follows
it is a sick word, i just learned it last week hehe 😆 i also need to practice patience and learn to love the way time treats us. i’m very impulsive as a human and struggle so much with trying to practice that. super proud of you and makes complete sense. it is frightening because sometimes the smallness of what we’re going through can get lost when we’re ironically in a giant universe where every person struggles in some way shape or form.

baseline is scary for me and i don’t know if i’m there and only because i take gabapentin and kratom every morning. i sometimes wonder if this affects my personality, even if it’s ever so subtle, and if i should just come off of it so i can be my most genuine and true self.

sounds like we have a lot in common. the ‘waves’ come to me throughout the day. i usually wake up manic and ready to accomplish goals and by 2pm i’m just completely bed ridden wishing time would move faster to the next morning so i can experience the morning mania again, yearning for some form of productivity; only because my body still thinks i should follow the societal standards of ‘productivity = value’ even though my brain is very aware of the fact that it isn’t true.

hope you’re having a good night man :)
 
@tokayeahok

In my experience, those two give me almost similar sensations of slight disinhibition. I wonder if it makes the impulsivity harder to control? Or perhaps takes the edge off anxiety?

I can relate to morning productivity. I wake up almost as if I forgot that people and society annoy me. I get to work, strut the halls, then once others trickle in around 7 and mostly 8, I plug in to my music and mostly keep my head down. Aside from my neighbor who is fucking hilarious and we talk about how stupid management is in ear shot of most others. I'm so over it.

Hey I'm excited for your Friday with the RN. Just don't ask her for a desoxyn script and im sure your interest in her as a person who you enjoy talking to will be evident and she'll love that.

At the end of the day, people just want to feel like they matter
 
Not feeling good today

only taking 36mg a day of lope at the moment and my whole body aches, tired but cant go to sleep as got to work

hoping soon i level out and i may just totally drop off at 36mg or just take 12mg for a few days and then drop

need to get better fast, so tired of this all all now

unless this feeling is the tail end of bupe WDs ? its about 21 days now no bupe, cant recall
 
@tokayeahok

In my experience, those two give me almost similar sensations of slight disinhibition. I wonder if it makes the impulsivity harder to control? Or perhaps takes the edge off anxiety?

I can relate to morning productivity. I wake up almost as if I forgot that people and society annoy me. I get to work, strut the halls, then once others trickle in around 7 and mostly 8, I plug in to my music and mostly keep my head down. Aside from my neighbor who is fucking hilarious and we talk about how stupid management is in ear shot of most others. I'm so over it.

Hey I'm excited for your Friday with the RN. Just don't ask her for a desoxyn script and im sure your interest in her as a person who you enjoy talking to will be evident and she'll love that.

At the end of the day, people just want to feel like they matter
yeah man they both can be internally disillusioned to me sometimes as well, it’s a tricky thing to navigate; our world and the people and spaces in between.

yeah for example i just woke up just now and am waking up, and given a good solid 25 minutes to wake up in my routine bubble bath, i’ll be ready to conquer the world. as much as i can, that is. but when noon/early evening rolls around it just feels like the chemistry in my brain shifts, almost as if i’ve had a drawl of whiskey and it’s made me sad. sounds silly but that really is what it feels like; that feeling of drinking one drink and it just taking your mood down instead of up.


LOL that gave me a good laugh. I love a cute girl in scrubs. I love scrubs in general though, as a pre-pharm major in my early 20s. I miss my internships so much for pharm tech positions. Good times. Yeah she’s not like most nurses i’ve met down south. MOST (not all) RNs i’ve met are very conservative in their beliefs and surprisingly closed minded when it comes to people with any type of SUD, due to their experiences turning their head and being snooty towards people exhibiting drug seeking behavior or overdoses. I’ve only had a handful of RNs that I really enjoyed meeting during my stint of ODs. I was never the patient to drug seek because i inherently knew from the get-go narcotics would never ever be given to me. that’s another story though. it just surprises me that not most of nurses are siding with harm reduction considering they were taught in ethics in nursing school.
i’ve talked to the girl i’m talking to extensively about addiction, addiction medicine, and the science surrounding it and she’s just the coolest. not snooty, she’s the ‘watches anime & eats chicken nuggy’ type which makes me quite more cozy and her more approachable than a snooty, extreme conservative nurse.

anyways good morning. have a good day ozzy buddy xo
 
My wife woke me up about twenty minutes before I'm supposed to be at work. My head was pounding like a butcher softening meat. I drove halfway to work, then pulled over and called in sick. I said I had a flat tyre. I hate lying. My boss says I can come in later when I fix the tyre. I tell him no (another lie) I have to pick my daughter up from kinder.

As soon as I open the car door back home, I vomit onto the floor. My head feels like somebody ran over it with a train. Vomiting feels good. I get down on my hands and knees and purge onto the concrete.

I slept all day, vomiting occasionally. Hard to keep any food or water down. I nibble a weed edible (containing an eighth of a gram) throughout the day.

My night shifts starts more than 24 hours after I started drinking yesterday. I am still hungover.

...

Why do I only do this with alcohol?

Every other drug, I consume in relative moderation.

No other drug makes me feel like shit for an entire day after consuming it.

I don't like being drunk. It's not worth it. I like the effects of three or four beers, but not ten. So why do I keep drinking?

Alcoholism is a hard habit to break.

There is one last can of cider. I open it, don't take a single sip, light a joint and ash into the can.

This cycle has been happening forever, but there's an upward trend. I'm not giving up just yet.
 
@Frog Dreams

I personally like shutting off my overly analytical brain. But my reality is never as happy as it seems on commercials and such that advertise alcohol.

Being coherent is great usually.. personally I just need to find peace and calm myself. I'm planning a big life change to do just that. I hate feeling stuck, and too influenced by my environment.

I don't know, it's really difficult and something I can't control as well as I'd like.
 
@Frog Dreams gaba type drugs are bitches right - I frequently praise my good fortune for generally disliking them beyond, say, a weekly (often fortnightly) benzo for sleep. You drink more than you desire to when you begin due the disinhibitory nature of said substance. Alcohol and Amanita eh...you could hardly get two more different vibes imo, interesting

Am six days off all opiates. I've used medicinally for 15 years as and when required. Usually weekly, occasionally more, often less. Plenty of 2 or 3 week breaks too.. This is only the second time I've had to adopt a daily dosing regimen. This time I was on for 3 months, up to 60mg Oxycodone daily. Tapered down to 10mg meant to drop down to 5mg but kind of accidentally hopped off six days ago at 10mg. Happy that the wd was well manageable, definitely well over the worst now, and it was much easier than my only other opiate wd was a couple of years ago (I did use for a much shorter period this time though, and at a lower dose.

Still feeling pretty unpleasant though but have nothing to do and no responsibilities for another whole week so things could be much worse
 
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@Frog Dreams

I personally like shutting off my overly analytical brain. But my reality is never as happy as it seems on commercials and such that advertise alcohol.

Being coherent is great usually.. personally I just need to find peace and calm myself. I'm planning a big life change to do just that. I hate feeling stuck, and too influenced by my environment.

I don't know, it's really difficult and something I can't control as well as I'd like.
cutting off the analytical & somewhat romanticized brain is so okay, in my opinion. i took care of myself and got cozy with the fact that i don’t have to be artistically, over-analytical, use big words & sound smart and, well, analytical and that it’s okay to just be simple. that’s what they say, ignorance is bliss. and it’s okay to be somewhat ‘ignorant’ and ‘normal’ whenever you want.

if that makes ANY sense at all, lol.
 
if any of you want to come to my zoom meeting tonight, it’s an alternative recovery group. it’d not AA or NA or doesn’t revolve around any traditional recovery spaces. we’re not abstinence based ie if you smoke, or want to take ket every now and then or go roll on mdma at the rave, it’s still sobriety as long as you aren’t doing the substance that’s killing you and causing inherently shitty behavior etc, you’re still doing just fine. the guy who runs it runs a ketamine / BR-NAD+ detox, where they detox people (mostly opioids and benzos, but will help from other substances) with ketamine infusions and BR-NAD+ infusions and it’s really promising. there’s a lot of good things coming out of it.

anyways if any of you guys wanna join, let me know. we always have fun chatting shit and we’re open to anyone. we’re just not like traditional AA/NA meetings so if that’s what you normally enjoy, it may not be fit.

i also encourage you if you are in traditional recovery spaces, that you can join, because i want to make it prominent that we don’t shun people who are in those spaces at all. we welcome anyone, we just have a different approach :)
 
My wife woke me up about twenty minutes before I'm supposed to be at work. My head was pounding like a butcher softening meat. I drove halfway to work, then pulled over and called in sick. I said I had a flat tyre. I hate lying. My boss says I can come in later when I fix the tyre. I tell him no (another lie) I have to pick my daughter up from kinder.

As soon as I open the car door back home, I vomit onto the floor. My head feels like somebody ran over it with a train. Vomiting feels good. I get down on my hands and knees and purge onto the concrete.

I slept all day, vomiting occasionally. Hard to keep any food or water down. I nibble a weed edible (containing an eighth of a gram) throughout the day.

My night shifts starts more than 24 hours after I started drinking yesterday. I am still hungover.

...

Why do I only do this with alcohol?

Every other drug, I consume in relative moderation.

No other drug makes me feel like shit for an entire day after consuming it.

I don't like being drunk. It's not worth it. I like the effects of three or four beers, but not ten. So why do I keep drinking?

Alcoholism is a hard habit to break.

There is one last can of cider. I open it, don't take a single sip, light a joint and ash into the can.

This cycle has been happening forever, but there's an upward trend. I'm not giving up just yet.

mate - i am in the same boat as you right now, last week i was iin a such a state i was waking up every day at 5 am puking my guts up for 4 hours EVERY DAY, embarrassing myself in front of my wife and kids, etc, my wife actually marched me down to the doctors one day

I am kicking buprenorphine addiction (prescribed) and now i have substituted that with alcohol (vodka) a lot of a vodka

go to your docs and get prescribed baclofen it helps with alcohol dependence and i think its slowly working
 
good morning BLer’s :) just waking up having a smoke and some coffee, in the bath. doom scrolling, took my medication, just talking to said girl i mentioned earlier. she works third at the hospital so i have to catch her just in time before she gets home at 7:30am to chat with her. only one more day til our date, i’ve been counting down the days like a silly teenager.


getting woken up finally, may go on my walk a little earlier today. yesterday i hardly wanted to do it but forced myself . it was really cold even for living in south carolina, so it took me a good mile or so to get the endorphins running and my blood going haha. but nevertheless i did it, and went 4 miles again at that. i always talk to my granny or my pal russell so it makes the time go by quicker.


have a good day guys, just wanted to check in
 
The ego will shut you off from your emotions to protect you. But this creates an inner conflict. One part will want to stay down in the ditch, the other will want you to climb out.

Allow yourself to feel. Make the painful realizations. Don’t run from the uncomfortable emotions, don’t numb them, don’t smoke or drink them away.

Sit with them instead, experience the frustration, and bawl your eyes out. Allow yourself to feel down and experience the dark places.

If you’re neck-deep in shit, accept it fully.


Everything else is just lying to yourself.

^^^I’m trying to be strong enough to do this
I want to face this and be rid of it!
Why is cleaning out the closet always the hardest job?

I want to recover.
I want to be rid of this pain.
I want to join LIFE again.
People need me.
I need me.

I have realized that I need to clean my closet. Face The Darkness and release it.
I don’t want to be giving the most horrific times in my life free rent in my mind and body.
Need to throw them out!

Courage everyone.
So much love to you all.
Keep trying everyone.
We have a lot to look forward to.
❤️
 
if any of you want to come to my zoom meeting tonight, it’s an alternative recovery group. it’d not AA or NA or doesn’t revolve around any traditional recovery spaces. we’re not abstinence based ie if you smoke, or want to take ket every now and then or go roll on mdma at the rave, it’s still sobriety as long as you aren’t doing the substance that’s killing you and causing inherently shitty behavior etc, you’re still doing just fine. the guy who runs it runs a ketamine / BR-NAD+ detox, where they detox people (mostly opioids and benzos, but will help from other substances) with ketamine infusions and BR-NAD+ infusions and it’s really promising. there’s a lot of good things coming out of it.

anyways if any of you guys wanna join, let me know. we always have fun chatting shit and we’re open to anyone. we’re just not like traditional AA/NA meetings so if that’s what you normally enjoy, it may not be fit.

i also encourage you if you are in traditional recovery spaces, that you can join, because i want to make it prominent that we don’t shun people who are in those spaces at all. we welcome anyone, we just have a different approach :)
Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for.
I really need to do some counseling and this sounds like a good fit for me.
Could you send me the link and instructions on how I do zoom?

Thank You!
Much Love to you. ❤️😊
 
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