Cocaine doing coke alone

[jessepinkman779]

Obviously my family and friends aren't happy, but I've got to live my life for me too. I've been honest and told them even though I'm using more I've still cut down massively. They want me in rehab but I know it wouldn't work because as I said I don't want to stop completely. I'd be happy if I could just use coke Fridays and Saturdays, then not touch it in the week so that's a goal. Plus that would give me something to look forward to all week. My brother is my biggest critic, but he drinks loads and smokes loads of weed so I don't see what I do as being any different. I don't drink I just do a bit of coke. He even had a few lines off me recently. Then, he went mad at me for using daily again. I know I'm an addict, but that's just something I have to accept and live with. My goal is an 8th each weekend to last Friday and Saturdays, then none during the week. However, without using coke life is so miserable and difficult to cope with. The coke makes me better, more helpful, polite, loads less stressed and much happier even at relatively low dosages compared to an Oz a week.

So, I accept I'm an addict, but for the foreseeable that's how it will remain. I honestly can't deal with life without coke. That might sound sad but it's my reality. I don't cause anyone any trouble, I don't bother anyone and I do coke privately. That's the best I can do at the moment.

Everyone on this thread has been a great help so thank you all. I've gone from an Oz per week down to about 4 grand per week very recently. That's a win in my book. It pisses me off when family members who get drunk and smoke weed every night judge me, but it is what it is.

Just an FYI I know NA helps a lot of people and I'm not running it down. It's just not for me at the moment. Stay safe everyone.

 

[streaM Freak]

Hey - glad to hear you're still flirting with the idea of sobriety or at least cutting down. You accomplished cutting down, and that's huge - don't let anyone tell you it's not.

Just wanted to address this part of your last message:

However, without using coke life is so miserable and difficult to cope with. The coke makes me better, more helpful, polite, loads less stressed and much happier even at relatively low dosages compared to an Oz a week.

This right here is the crux of it all. Just so that you are aware. These two sentences of your own words here are, when you're ready, what you'll need to face head on.

They are valid concerns, and I'm not here to convince you that you are things that I don't know about, but I challenge you to challenge yourself on that.

Being sober sucks sometimes dude!! Fucking for real!

My worry about addiction is that the longer you are reliant on a drug, the further you are getting from your sober self. Lost time from working on your self. Lost time, further away, and who knows maybe after all these years, your sober self isn't even as difficult to manage as you thought? Maybe you've learned things? Maybe it's the realization that you aren't high that is really a big part of this. Being high is nice.. I get it.

Love ya man.

 

[jessepinkman779]

Hey - glad to hear you're still flirting with the idea of sobriety or at least cutting down. You accomplished cutting down, and that's huge - don't let anyone tell you it's not.

Just wanted to address this part of your last message:



This right here is the crux of it all. Just so that you are aware. These two sentences of your own words here are, when you're ready, what you'll need to face head on.

They are valid concerns, and I'm not here to convince you that you are things that I don't know about, but I challenge you to challenge yourself on that.

Being sober sucks sometimes dude!! Fucking for real!

My worry about addiction is that the longer you are reliant on a drug, the further you are getting from your sober self. Lost time from working on your self. Lost time, further away, and who knows maybe after all these years, your sober self isn't even as difficult to manage as you thought? Maybe you've learned things? Maybe it's the realization that you aren't high that is really a big part of this. Being high is nice.. I get it.

Love ya man.

Yeah, you're right and very wise words. I understand there's got to come a time when I have to face myself sober, but that day scares me because if all the cans I've kicked down the road so to speak will also be there waiting to be addressed. Thank you again.

 

[streaM Freak]

But you're still a growing learning human.

Don't underestimate yourself @jessepinkman779

 

[danosaurous22]

The one thing that could make me quit is really really truly thinking about dying a horrific, early, and pathetic death because of it. I can't imagine how ashamed I would be of myself to leave my body and see how everybody reacts to my death in a squalid apartment because of something entirely self-centered. I got such horrific heartburn today from vomiting on a ton of coke (maybe it was the coke going into my stomach or esophagus too, I have a hole in my nose and when I snort it sometimes feels to just go straight through my nose back down my throat) and realizing that if I had to go to the hospital for this, I might not out of shame and guilt and whatever else. And I thought about how humiliating it would be to be forced to stop by a health complication, instead of my own volition.

I don't know about you, but I am at a crossroads in life where I have taken it about as far as I can without ruining everything in my life. I still have some things, but some bonds have been broken, social status lost, and recovery will definitely mean being quite low and out of it for the foreseeable future if not forever-- it's that sobriety thing where getting sober now would make me much less personable and much more irritable about things for a long, long time. It would mean getting back into hobbies and probably finding much more success and productivity in life, but I would just be gritting my teeth through my weeks and my mind would just be in another place a lot of the time. But if I don't quit soon, I don't think I'll accomplish any of the things I really want to in life. And then there's the possibility of my life being cut short and never even getting the chance to try to accomplish those things and right all of my wrongs.

It's such a fine line though. I'm just seeing the dark truth of it where you will never know where the cliff drops off until you tumble down, either into social/financial ruin, health problems, or serious mental problems. I've gotten so close to all three so frequently that I'm having a harder and harder time seeing how painful each would be to confront and explain to loved ones in order to get back on my feet.

 

[danosaurous22]

For me there is a suicidal part of it I don't really think about. But that's basically what it is-- I push the dosages so high and ignore the serious heart and chest pain and breathing problems, I must be seeking oblivion in some way. Maybe I'm just pushing it out of my mind and prioritizing the addiction to pleasure, or I have a delusion of being invincible, but it's possible this is just a way to say to myself how done with my life I am as it is. I don't actually want to die or kill myself, but I clearly don't value life enough to prioritize it over cocaine. Based on what I knew about cocaine before I abused it, I would've thought even just one of the doses I do throughout a binge would be enough to kill a grown man. But somehow I have done probably thousands of massive doses over the past couple years, and I just keep on going. I can only imagine the hell that IV users live in, with the much higher strain on the heart, the destruction of veins and limbs, and the profound mental disturbance it must cause to get that high. I get very very high, but it's never like a blackout into pleasure. That would be the death of me as soon as I tried it, I just know it.

 

[streaM Freak]

The one thing that could make me quit is really really truly thinking about dying a horrific, early, and pathetic death because of it. I can't imagine how ashamed I would be of myself to leave my body and see how everybody reacts to my death in a squalid apartment because of something entirely self-centered. I got such horrific heartburn today from vomiting on a ton of coke (maybe it was the coke going into my stomach or esophagus too, I have a hole in my nose and when I snort it sometimes feels to just go straight through my nose back down my throat) and realizing that if I had to go to the hospital for this, I might not out of shame and guilt and whatever else. And I thought about how humiliating it would be to be forced to stop by a health complication, instead of my own volition.

I don't know about you, but I am at a crossroads in life where I have taken it about as far as I can without ruining everything in my life. I still have some things, but some bonds have been broken, social status lost, and recovery will definitely mean being quite low and out of it for the foreseeable future if not forever-- it's that sobriety thing where getting sober now would make me much less personable and much more irritable about things for a long, long time. It would mean getting back into hobbies and probably finding much more success and productivity in life, but I would just be gritting my teeth through my weeks and my mind would just be in another place a lot of the time. But if I don't quit soon, I don't think I'll accomplish any of the things I really want to in life. And then there's the possibility of my life being cut short and never even getting the chance to try to accomplish those things and right all of my wrongs.

It's such a fine line though. I'm just seeing the dark truth of it where you will never know where the cliff drops off until you tumble down, either into social/financial ruin, health problems, or serious mental problems. I've gotten so close to all three so frequently that I'm having a harder and harder time seeing how painful each would be to confront and explain to loved ones in order to get back on my feet.

I can relate to your existential thinking. But as you can see it's sort of working against you at this point.

I remember parts of our conversation in your thread - have you slowed down on usage? Any slowing down should be considered a win.

 

[streaM Freak]

For me there is a suicidal part of it I don't really think about. But that's basically what it is-- I push the dosages so high and ignore the serious heart and chest pain and breathing problems, I must be seeking oblivion in some way. Maybe I'm just pushing it out of my mind and prioritizing the addiction to pleasure, or I have a delusion of being invincible, but it's possible this is just a way to say to myself how done with my life I am as it is. I don't actually want to die or kill myself, but I clearly don't value life enough to prioritize it over cocaine.

I'm not trying to be a dismissive dick, but does your work cover therapy? I remember we had a long conversation somewhere else and I feel like you could use someone who really gets the real you.

 

[danosaurous22]

I used a lot this last week-- that is, 2.5 grams over the week and I just bought more yesterday. I only buy a gram or half gram at a time but that will last me all night if not longer. I boof it primarily, so I use a lot but reach a point where I am simply too high to keep dosing, which is strange to say happens with cocaine but I get there. It can get profoundly disturbing and challenging to deal with for hours at a time, but once I come down I will get right back into it. I do at most .1 or a little more per dose, in the past I would eyeball probably .5 at least when I was deep into it. Pretty insane side effects once I got there, once I got full body shakes all over with a clear head, not a seizure I don't think but every part of my body was shaking uncontrollably. The mental side of it is the hardest part though, and it sticks with me long after it wears off.

It has become a total dead end for me though, it's an entirely self absorbed isolated activity that leads to repetitive shit. Boofing it is extremely pleasurable compared to snorting it, but leads me into a spiral of sexual depravity that is just terrible for my body and mind and makes it almost like what I hear a meth binge is like. I've figured out that cocaine is just firing off little fireworks in your brains pleasure center, and sex is the best use of your brain when it's all lit up to experience the most pleasure. Nothing else really does anything for me when I'm that fucked up, and it's a ten minute rush in exchange for hours of insanity and inner turmoil at this point. But if I'm sober I will obsess over that rush and forget the other part. I tried snorting a gram I bought recently, it gave me horrific heartburn and just did not get me where I wanted to be. It wasn't even that appealing to me at all, I of course kept using it but it felt like I was just stuck in a loop I couldn't control rather than chasing a rush. I really never looked back after boofing the stuff, maybe most people just don't end up getting to try it or think it's weird but snorting is nothing in comparison. Way less body load and physical side effects too, stealthier too and longer lasting. It is just very easy to use way more and get too fucked up.

My biggest problem with coke is how much it scrambles me up nowadays. Just a half gram or a gram will lead to a trashed apartment, drinking 16 tall beers, then going to work right when I'm done with the beer. Plus, binge spending on stupid shit and draining my bank account by the time I come down. I'm not sure if others can relate, it really messes up my life bad and it is a wonder I still have my job and do well at it and have some good relationships. I can put on somewhat of a front and be likable, but when I'm alone my life has become a horror show that would shock almost everybody I know- the state of my apartment, my drinking, sleep schedule, just genuinely barely scraping by but still acting like a normal person. They can probably tell something's off about me, but the appearance I put on is truly lightyears away from the mess I go home to every night, physically and mentally. It's truly like a junkie's home, littered with trash and never cleaned and no cooking or food, just beer cans everywhere and a terrible dirty mattress and a card table chair next to my computer and speakers. I'm not sure how to fix the home life thing, therapy won't help it and NA won't help it and friends and families have offered to help, but I just can't accept help because I can't show them how bad it is. They would probably flip out and never see me the same way again. And the shitty home life leads to using just to cope with how terrible it is living there.

 

[danosaurous22]

I should get therapy but I worry about how I would do with it. I have a bit of an ego but also can be super hard on myself, and combined I fear this could lead to me kind of using therapy to just paint a compelling picture of my life and control the narrative. Babe they could see through it but I worry I would just almost fool them into a different interpretation of my life. I also fear that my situation is so severe they wouldn't really be able to help and would suggest drastic measures that could disrupt my life. I'm really barely living a life right now, even though I only use a gram a week or so. It's like the coke has wrecked my brain, the perfect storm for all of the other mental issues I have with just being pretty dismissive of my own life and masochistic and self absorbed. It locked right into place and now those traits have gotten worse yet I've found a way to stay motivated to work and survive-- cocaine. So depression comes and mania comes, and they both come and go, but now I have a way to just keep on going through them without really getting too emotional about it.

 

[streaM Freak]

Don't let the shame ruin you my man. Don't let it.

You're too smart for a stupid emotion like shame to cause you to ruin your life.

 

[danosaurous22]

I try to explain to my friends too, I was miserable for a very long time before coke. I always go through phases of extreme hopelessness and periods of extreme "mania" for lack of a better word, where I feel like I'm perfectly fitting into the life I want and achieving at a very high level and I'll write a billion songs and work my ass off at work. But when the depression comes, I start to think that was all just bullshit ego stuff and I suck again, then the mania makes me weird but productive again (in a weird way that others don't understand that well, almost like they'd rather I was normal and less productive than acting strange but getting tons done), etc. The tough part about living in this world too is people come at me sometimes like the stuff I make and do while manic is incredible and what I should be pursuing with all my might, but then I can also tell that they just don't really connect to me when I'm like that, so it's almost like in others eyes they're trying to bring me down when I'm manic and then pump me up when I'm depressed, which makes me feel like I can't do anything right even when I'm getting praised and advised. I know this is a lot to type out and rather personal but it's just coming to my mind at the tail end of a binge. Maybe it's bipolar, but my whole life has been periods of weird inspiration which makes me feel alone and periods of weird lows that make me feel alone as well, yet I navigate and utilize these periods naturally now to be the best person I can be. But everybody wants me to be something I'm not no matter which side I'm at

 

[jessepinkman779]

I try to explain to my friends too, I was miserable for a very long time before coke. I always go through phases of extreme hopelessness and periods of extreme "mania" for lack of a better word, where I feel like I'm perfectly fitting into the life I want and achieving at a very high level and I'll write a billion songs and work my ass off at work. But when the depression comes, I start to think that was all just bullshit ego stuff and I suck again, then the mania makes me weird but productive again (in a weird way that others don't understand that well, almost like they'd rather I was normal and less productive than acting strange but getting tons done), etc. The tough part about living in this world too is people come at me sometimes like the stuff I make and do while manic is incredible and what I should be pursuing with all my might, but then I can also tell that they just don't really connect to me when I'm like that, so it's almost like in others eyes they're trying to bring me down when I'm manic and then pump me up when I'm depressed, which makes me feel like I can't do anything right even when I'm getting praised and advised. I know this is a lot to type out and rather personal but it's just coming to my mind at the tail end of a binge. Maybe it's bipolar, but my whole life has been periods of weird inspiration which makes me feel alone and periods of weird lows that make me feel alone as well, yet I navigate and utilize these periods naturally now to be the best person I can be. But everybody wants me to be something I'm not no matter which side I'm at

I can relate to everything you've said.

 

[CptCook]

even though I'm using more I've still cut down massively.

It's a good thing you had the strength to cut down. It shows you have some control over your use.

Just wanted to share my use of coke these past few days.

I've been using everyday the past week. Spent about 240 usd, I'm worried I'm getting into addiction.

 

[danosaurous22]

To me it's like war: appeasement just doesn't work. You just can't deny that feeling when it hits initially, at least I can't. It becomes a perfect little empty hole I can hide inside of, far far away from anything that isn't euphoria. One gram is better than a ball, that's for sure. You don't stay up for days (at least that's my case) and your tolerance doesn't get so bad that you are getting nothing from your doses, though it does change the high if you binge even a half gram. But a gram ends up being something that I can better fit into my life, which is almost worse. When I binge on a ball, the money of it and the still all too short binge I go on (really it ends up lasting me about as long as a gram since I just fight the tolerance harder and harder with bigger doses) makes me rethink my life a lot more and it wrecks me way harder, I end up needing to recover a lot longer and don't come back to it for a week or so. With a gram, I end up just buying grams every other day and it's on my mind a lot more since it feels much easier to reach and less destructive.

Something I like to think about with coke-- that nothingness you get immediately after the familiar rush. Suddenly, I'm just totally at a loss of what to do with myself while I'm flying so high. I just hop from activity to activity video to video cigarette to cigarette always thinking it could be better, that I need to really find something to do now that I'm feeling so good. It's the sensation of no longer being able to experience good feelings from anything, even coke, because of the chemical imbalance it's created. It's such an enigmatic feeling though and the strangeness of what it does to your perspective is part of the experience for me too. You basically take your whole view of the world and what it's worth apart and can't put it back together until you don't do coke for at least several hours. But by that point you can't really even remember how bad it felt, only how novel and overwhelmingly powerful that feeling was. Even though it was really just experiencing the feeling of feeling nothing. It's such a torturous drug for this reason, I always compare it in my head as I'm coming back to having pricked myself with a pin over and over again, thousands of times, for 24 or 48 hours straight. I don't even IV, it just feels like you're hurting yourself just so that you feel something and literally can't stop hurting yourself. That at least gets to the way I feel totally drained after a binge, as though all of the blood as been sucked out of me and I'm still just walking around, working, talking to people, having to pretend like I have any energy left to even just exist. Everyone can tell that I'm basically a shadow of a person, but if they haven't experienced this addiction they probably are just really confused as to what has happened to me. It's not really acting tweaky or insane, it's just a thousand yard stare where even trying my hardest I can barely squeak out a sentence or express a convincing emotion. I've been in this state so many times around every possible person (loved ones, family, friends, partners, coworkers, strangers, bosses, Jesus freaks, etc.) and it's always just so weird to be so far out there but still convince myself I can pass as a human being in that state. Every single part of life, every thought, every interaction, every action becomes totally meaningless and it's like walking a tightrope. That's the side of cocaine addiction that I believe is impossible to understand if you haven't gotten to the point of no return. Repeatedly trivializing every single part of your life and having to face the embarrassment and shame of that in front of an audience.

 

[SoCalShordie]

Currently on coke and im getting bored, anything fun to do while it lasts? I usually enjoy ketamine and weed alone but this is def a more social experience and I don’t have anyone to yap with. thanks!

Lol I’ve done coke many times alone. If I’m bored, I would just hop on here or some other online community and talk to people lol

 

[CptCook]

To me it's like war: appeasement just doesn't work. You just can't deny that feeling when it hits initially, at least I can't. It becomes a perfect little empty hole I can hide inside of, far far away from anything that isn't euphoria. One gram is better than a ball, that's for sure. You don't stay up for days (at least that's my case) and your tolerance doesn't get so bad that you are getting nothing from your doses, though it does change the high if you binge even a half gram. But a gram ends up being something that I can better fit into my life, which is almost worse. When I binge on a ball, the money of it and the still all too short binge I go on (really it ends up lasting me about as long as a gram since I just fight the tolerance harder and harder with bigger doses) makes me rethink my life a lot more and it wrecks me way harder, I end up needing to recover a lot longer and don't come back to it for a week or so. With a gram, I end up just buying grams every other day and it's on my mind a lot more since it feels much easier to reach and less destructive.

Something I like to think about with coke-- that nothingness you get immediately after the familiar rush. Suddenly, I'm just totally at a loss of what to do with myself while I'm flying so high. I just hop from activity to activity video to video cigarette to cigarette always thinking it could be better, that I need to really find something to do now that I'm feeling so good. It's the sensation of no longer being able to experience good feelings from anything, even coke, because of the chemical imbalance it's created. It's such an enigmatic feeling though and the strangeness of what it does to your perspective is part of the experience for me too. You basically take your whole view of the world and what it's worth apart and can't put it back together until you don't do coke for at least several hours. But by that point you can't really even remember how bad it felt, only how novel and overwhelmingly powerful that feeling was. Even though it was really just experiencing the feeling of feeling nothing. It's such a torturous drug for this reason, I always compare it in my head as I'm coming back to having pricked myself with a pin over and over again, thousands of times, for 24 or 48 hours straight. I don't even IV, it just feels like you're hurting yourself just so that you feel something and literally can't stop hurting yourself. That at least gets to the way I feel totally drained after a binge, as though all of the blood as been sucked out of me and I'm still just walking around, working, talking to people, having to pretend like I have any energy left to even just exist. Everyone can tell that I'm basically a shadow of a person, but if they haven't experienced this addiction they probably are just really confused as to what has happened to me. It's not really acting tweaky or insane, it's just a thousand yard stare where even trying my hardest I can barely squeak out a sentence or express a convincing emotion. I've been in this state so many times around every possible person (loved ones, family, friends, partners, coworkers, strangers, bosses, Jesus freaks, etc.) and it's always just so weird to be so far out there but still convince myself I can pass as a human being in that state. Every single part of life, every thought, every interaction, every action becomes totally meaningless and it's like walking a tightrope. That's the side of cocaine addiction that I believe is impossible to understand if you haven't gotten to the point of no return. Repeatedly trivializing every single part of your life and having to face the embarrassment and shame of that in front of an audience.

Very interesting.
That nothingness you described, is probably due to the anhedonia it causes in the brain. I felt like that for a long time while my depression was at its worst.

 

[CptCook]

I just hop from activity to activity video to video cigarette to cigarette always thinking it could be better, that I need to really find something to do now that I'm feeling so good

I relate to that feeling of feeling like you need to do something more rewarding and meaningful to not 'waste' the high. I never had a binge that lasted days though.

I'm actually scared because I think I'm getting hooked. I used coke about 50 times in my lifetime, so I'm not a long time user, but lately I had a relapse and it's been difficult to stay off of it for more than 1 day. I have very few money but I feel like spending it and then stop using, because then I wil have a good reason to stop and maybe the psychological addiction will become less severe. Today I lied to my mother saying I was going out to buy weed, when in reality I bought coke.
Do you think I'm already hooked and lying to myself?
Damn. Only now I realize that trying coke (I actually started on coke alone, nobody ever offered me) was one of my worst decisions (and I had a couple of bad ones).

 

[streaM Freak]

Even though I'm currently not really addicted (I guess), I relate to that feeling of feeling like you need to do something more rewarding and meaningful to not 'waste' the high. I never had a binge that lasted days though.

I'm actually scared because I think I'm getting hooked. I used coke about 50 times in my lifetime, so I'm not a long time user, but lately I had a relapse and it's been difficult to stay off of it for more than 1 day. I have very few money but I feel like spending it and then stop using, because then I wil have a good reason to stop and maybe the psychological addiction will become less severe. Today I lied to my mother saying I was going out to buy weed, when in reality I bought coke.
Do you think I'm already hooked and lying to myself?
Damn. Only now I realize that trying coke by myself (I actually started on coke alone, I had the curiosity to try and bought it) was one of my worst decisions (and I had a couple of bad ones).

Sometimes "hitting rock bottom" financially or emotionally can seem like a strategy. In my opinion it isn't. Having stability in other aspects of life helped me quit. When i was in constant debt to dealers sure i wanted to quit because it fucking sucked, but if nothing changes for the better then nothing will change for the better.

 

[danosaurous22]

The addiction to it is like a door that you can never shut. Sure, you could just stand outside of the door for quite a long time if you distract yourself well enough and are able to convince yourself how horrifying the other side of the door is. But for other people, that door is locked or has never been opened. You can never get rid of your own ability to just walk through the doorway, because getting coke and sliding back into it once you know how to get it and what you crave in it sliding back into that lifestyle is as easy as taking one step through an open doorway. Easier than almost everything else in life and also more pleasurable. But also more horrifying.

If you can relate to that sentiment then I think you're fooling yourself to say you're not addicted. I've known people where that's not how they feel about it, it's a part of their life that's gone now or something where they need a very specific set of situations and feelings to "open up" that door to use, and then the come down or everyday life closes it for them. But addicts like me just can never ever shut the door and stop looking at the other side of it, and there's no rock bottom in that situation unless you're counting dying, total financial ruin or jail. Everything else just becomes a funny story in your head and another reason to try to get it right this time and do just enough to unwind and escape the world for awhile. Then the world starts becoming an escape from coke and you're just nothing and dosing at least once a week, binging once a week. It's a trippy trippy thing that goes way beyond just partying and acting like an idiot. I'll always end up dreaming about coke at least a bit when I dream, and I'll vividly remember the way I schemed or scammed my way into getting coke in the dream after waking up. In the dreams, it always ends up getting taken away by a loved one, or dissolving accidentally in water, or I can't find it. And I'll vividly remember how much I panicked to get it back in all of those situations, sometimes I do get it back and then the dream ends up taking it away again and I scramble. I never even end up doing it in the dreams. It's purely the sensation of having it and the overwhelming obsession with holding onto as much of it as I can.