I believe my only way of becoming free from this is viewing it as the prison it is. When I was a teenager, I used to pay homeless people to buy beer for me. Weirdly enough, it worked every time. They never stole the money, I tipped them, and the deal was good.
I smoked too, and asked someone to buy me cigarettes too. He told me, in the midst of whatever haze he was in, "I can't buy you cigarettes. I was a slave to cigarettes for 40 years."
I was very confused, because alcohol enslaves you too. But it doesn't enslave you in the same way coke or cigarettes do. The alcohol blots out your mind and the day you had, and basically numbs you. You're slave to alcohol if you're an alcoholic, sure. But you are not waiting hand and foot on the next dose, it is kind of a slow roll into a deep sleep.
Coke and cigarettes enslave you in a much more inhibiting way, IMO. You are so in love with the feeling that you will get your brain moving at top speed to score more. You will quite literally slave away in order to get your fix, be it selling possessions, driving across the state, in my case, staying upper six hours straight just because that's only when my dealer could be free. Fantasizing about it the whole time. Recently I scored a lot after a week break, and started rationing it like I always wanted to. What I found was total misery. I would be at work, doing fine, then go do a bit and suddenly nothing around me matters. I don't get talkative on coke, I get quiet and irritable and can't stop thinking about re-dosing. As bad as the cravings are after a few days off, they are nothing like the cravings I get when I know it is available to me whenever I want. Those cravings turn me into an emotionless robot who will do anything, sell anything, skip work, steal money, etc. just to get the next fix. And my tolerance is so high at that point that I am not getting the euphoria anymore. It's like itching a wound at that point, and I am a slave until the stash is out.
Probably 1000 times at this point (a bit of an exaggeration, but it truly is getting close to that if I keep going) I have told myself after a brief period of sobriety (only 1-2 weeks at most) I will just do one dose a day and suddenly a 40 dollar bag will ostensibly last me a week. Every single time I believe that wholeheartedly, and every single time, regardless of oversleeping and missing work risking my livelihood, being unable to perform as a bandmember, unable to hang out with my best friends, acting sketchy around family who are worried about me-- throwing all of that away, intentionally, and eventually dosing over and over again until I am a paranoid mess no matter where I am. I could be in the most comfortable room in the world, and once I'm beginning to chase that first rush 30 minutes of amazing pleasure transform into minimum of 4 hours of mental torment, hallucinations, intense anxiety, delusions, etc. I throw everything away every time, and actually intentionally forget about that once I'm sober. That is pure insanity. That's the advice I have. Don't torture yourself the majority of your life to enjoy a small fraction of it in a way that is ultimately confusing and dirty feeling. I will come back to it, and again and again and again, but dying for this would be one of the saddest outcomes for a human I can imagine. The only truly enjoyable dose is your first of the day. Everything after that is hemmoraging money and brain power and your social status. You are throwing it away because you cannot comprehend how something can cause you pleasure and subsequently cause you misery. It's a lie that we choose to believe because that first rush is so good. I can't figure it out either, but when I'm sober and remember how bad it gets this keeps me sober. I will post a long and detailed thread if I ever manage to limit my usage to one dose a day, like I always tell myself. You will never see that post.
