Recovery ⫸⫸ THE RECOVERY THREAD 2021 ⫷⫷

[Blankenstein]

Huh, thought I’d check in on this thread and see how people are doing. Havent logged in for a few days.

I don’t even remember writing my last post. Doing stupid amounts of drugs when I’m back for a week is fucked.

I don’t even remember my week off and then back at stupid fucking work in the middle of fucking nowhere for 2 weeks. Miserable, missing out on life, time only goes faster the older you get. Wasting the money I make on drugs. Not doing the things I want on my time off, to surf and spend as much time in the ocean harvesting my own food free diving/spear fishing

This time away and the solitude really has made me do a lot of soul searching. I mean I wasted (still am) a lot of years doing drugs and not getting qualifications that would have enabled me to get a career where I would feel fulfilled and happy.

I’m involved in an industry that pays well for people with not a lot of qualifications, but they take your pound of flesh, you have to work away for extended periods of time and you miss out on a lot of stuff.

im in my thirties now and I still have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going. I need to stop using for a start. But I often will stop and then have to confront other things so start using because then all I have to focus on is quitting using again instead of dealing with what I’m actually doing with my life.

I mean these 2 weeks I only bought 12 beers so drank for 2 nights and then brang 30mg of Valium. So I’m being relatively healthy and running every couple of days (trying not to aggregate injuries).

I don’t know where im going with this, just needed to vent. All I want to do is get home and nod out on the couch with some opiates and benzos and chill with my dog and watch Netflix and forget about how I’ve wasted a lot of years. But at the same time that’s the last thing I want to do

anyway that’s my shitty depressing update...

hows people going this thread seems a little dead? @chinup how you going? Keeping the binge drinking to a minimum?

@somnilicious you still going well? Sticking on the methadone and the trucks going well?

@meprobamatedowned how are you going with the no booze? Laying off the benzos? Hope you’re going strong.

@Atelier3 how are you going man? Getting back into the groove and staying of the up?


How’s everybody else going? Sorry if I missed anybody I have very limited internet here. Took me like four goes to post this..

 

[Jabberwocky]

@Blankenstein sorry you're feeling so down.

it does really suck- i used to basically do the same thing. just waste my free time getting so wasted i don't remember it. i don't really remember any of my 20s.

working away does sound really hard- is it possible to use the downtime while you're in the middle of nowhere to study for some other qualifications? my cousin got an open uni degree (not sure if there's an equivalent in the states but its a uni that's very flexible and you don't go in person) in his downtime while serving in afghan and iraq. if there is something you want to do then go for it.

i was very busy last week with work and also my birthday- which was a massive binge followed by a day of feeling a little bit poorly. still drinking way more than i should. my boyf is actually now in agreement that we are drinking too much, he keeps saying he'll cut down with me then goes to buy booze. like he started drinking at like 2pm yesterday. so hopefully if i can properly get him on board that will help, but anyway my rental contract is nearly up then i'll be back at my parents til our house purchase is done, where i can't binge drink.

 

[Blankenstein]

T

@Blankenstein sorry you're feeling so down.

it does really suck- i used to basically do the same thing. just waste my free time getting so wasted i don't remember it. i don't really remember any of my 20s.

working away does sound really hard- is it possible to use the downtime while you're in the middle of nowhere to study for some other qualifications? my cousin got an open uni degree (not sure if there's an equivalent in the states but its a uni that's very flexible and you don't go in person) in his downtime while serving in afghan and iraq. if there is something you want to do then go for it.

i was very busy last week with work and also my birthday- which was a massive binge followed by a day of feeling a little bit poorly. still drinking way more than i should. my boyf is actually now in agreement that we are drinking too much, he keeps saying he'll cut down with me then goes to buy booze. like he started drinking at like 2pm yesterday. so hopefully if i can properly get him on board that will help, but anyway my rental contract is nearly up then i'll be back at my parents til our house purchase is done, where i can't binge drink.

Thanks for your reply @chinup I really appreciate it.

yeh I have attempted University twice (I’m in Australia). Each time I have gone down a massive spiral into amphetamine addiction. Did it during high school as well.

where I’m working I’m with only one other person at the moment who I get along with quite well and we had a bit of a discussion about it today. He is quite an intelligent person. He is my age and a geologist and we get along quite well, both are pretty introverted but once we get to know each other it’s a good yarn. I opened up a little about my issues with addiction and my concerns about attempting to study again

working in the mining industry for the past few months has made me quite depressed. Being involved in the destruction of the environment I find difficult to come to terms with.

And yes I know im hypocritical because I use products that use gold, iron etc... and I eat meat etc... so obviously am involved in the destruction of the environment.

I used to work in a job where where my friends/colleagues were sooo passionate about plants and the environment. It was great. The pay was terrible, but I loved the community and passion for the environment. I love people that are passionate about the natural
World and conservation.

I dunno... I just find it hard to come to terms with a lot of the destruction that humans cause to the planet.

I think being out here and seeing first hand how mining happens is making me think a lot. Also since I have very limited internet I’m reading and thinking quite a bit. I need to do something to help conserve the planet. I’m thinking about giving uni one more crack and if I spiral again, I don’t know what I’m going to do... like seriously. Reaching an age where time is getting quicker and if I can’t find my place and purpose and follow through, yeh I dunno. Pretty fucking bleak.

I will never succeed in studying if I use amphetamines. Going back to amphetamine addiction scares me so much. I can’t ever go down that path again. or also if I continue to use opiates/benzos/alcohol and other drugs I’ll never achieve anything.

I just know I need to make a change. I don’t know how I’ll do it or if I will. I fealt like I was on track in 2019 to make some big changes, but had quite a bad mental breakdown and ever since haven’t really recovered properly. If I don’t make some drastic changes and follow through with a plan, I dont know what I’ll do...

I’m also finding the racism out here quite difficult to deal with. Lots of people/most people I deal with when the subject comes up are very anti aboriginal. It makes me quite upset. Obviously the history of Australia is pretty fucked and I have no idea how to fix that problem, but fuck I dunno man... it’s just horrible hearing that stuff.

I want to leave a positive mark on this planet. I want to be at peace. How I achieve this I do not know.

enough about me...

That’s great your partner is getting on board with you not wanting to drink. I think it must be very difficult to have a partner with the same addiction issues as you and not wanting to address them. I have never been in that situation. Sorry I can’t remember if I’ve asked you before,but is your goal total abstinence? Or do you want (or think if you can) to have the occasional

I can relate to not being able to binge drink at certain places. I almost (well, actually do) find it easier to not drink or use if it’s pretty much impossible eg. If I’m getting drug tested or if I’m taking Antabuse.

good luck with your new house purchase! That must be pretty exciting and you must be stoked.

 

[Jabberwocky]

can't blame you for studying triggering stimulant abuse- they help in the first instance but stop pretty quickly, but by that time you don't have a choice in the matter.

it sounds like you have a pretty firm idea of what you'd like to do, i.e. something conservation related. i imagine there are some pretty sweet programs for that in australia (sorry for thinking you were a yank no idea why i thought that!). i would really consider whether you can find something that you can do part time so you can work as well, will give you more variety and less time pressure. plus money.

definitely agree that its better to work in something you care about with other people who are passionate about it than something better paid.

has gotta be really difficult seeing that first hand. never been to a mine but been past the odd disused quarry and it really is just a scar in an otherwise beautiful landscape.

i'm not sure if you are or not, but don't beat yourself up for the work you've been doing. in my old lab they did loads of animal testing, like injecting agressive cancers into mouse brains and stuff, it was horrific. i had to make my peace with it by deciding that people suffering from the diseases we were researching deserved a chance. and also, if i wasn't doing my job, someone else would, just a tiny cog in a huge machine. made me feel better somehow.

am super drowsy today. still not sleeping well regardless of whether i drink the night before or not. started using a sleep mask though as the blinds here let a lot of light in and thats helped a bit.

 

[Blankenstein]

Yeh I need to make peace with it. I think I’ve just been a bit disillusioned lately. I have a lot to be thankful for. A lot of people don’t have a job and can’t afford food so I shouldn’t be too much “woe is me” and just be grateful that I have a job, a roof and great friends.

I’m fineI’ll figure it out. Probably haha... sorry for complaining so much...

wow that does sound pretty intense with your old job. Must have been super difficult. nothing is ever clear and simple...

no offence taken at all about being called an American.

sucks about not sleeping... whenever I quit any substance it takes a while for my sleep to return to normal. If I consume alcohol 5 of the 7 days of the week I will have terrible sleeps for the 2 days I don’t drink

 

[birdup.snaildown]

This is the day after I let my old friend etizolam out of the basement. I figured he'd done enough time down there, punishing himself for my sins... and I've been such a good boy recently too.

So, after six oversized Japanese beers and a handful of joints, I asked my wife for the key to the basement.

She tried to reason with me, because she loves me but I had to treat her like she was controlling me. It's a shitty strategy, but I know it works.

She said, "Why don't you have a half?" Then, very quickly, she realized if I didn't get they key I'd huff and I'd puff and I'd blow the house down.

I don't envy her position, the woman I forcibly coerce into protecting me from myself... only to blame her (sometimes) when she doesn't do a good enough job.

I told her to give me the bottle. I said it without hesitancy or doubt. We've known each other a long time. By now, she knows I am a stubborn beast.

With a look of sadness in her eyes, she gave me the bottle.

Thankfully, this wasn't one of those full moon nights. I am too tired, in my old age, to be a maniac.

Thank God, two hours later, I fell asleep.

I slept for sixteen hours straight - right through the entire fucking morning on my day off.

...

I wake up at lunchtime to an empty house. There is no alarm. There are no birds waking up the neighbourhood with their annoyingly cheerful songs. (Get a job you feathery bastards.)

I wake up tired. I lie in bed and stretch and yawn. I could easily go back to sleep, but I don't. Instead, I slide lazily to the edge of the bed and drop to the ground.

My feet are uneasy as I walk to the bathroom.

Everything is weirdly quiet. As I urinate, the sound of the stream is amplified. The silence is eerie, almost apocalyptic.

My daughter is at dancing practice, but that's not it.

It's never this quiet when there are no people in the house, because now (for the first time in what feels like a year) there are no people in my head.

In this state of relaxation, I realize just how stressed I have been.

 

[Jabberwocky]

evening all hope everyone is well.

i am very tired despite sleeping 12 hours in a beer/temazepam haze last night, think my long run today is finally taking its toll.

am drinking strong beer, gonna get an early night.

@birdup.snaildown be careful about those sudden shocks you get when a drug does its job. i am glad you have had some insight as to how stressed you've been but i hope you now take steps to reduce your stress rather than go for the chemical crutch.

i say this because, the first time i ever took a benzo, it was prescribed with no heads up about how addictive they are. i'd been crying and suicidal for weeks. then within half an hour of taking this pill i wasn't crying anymore and ddn't want to die. cue a 6 year benzo habit that i only kicked when i got addicted to heroin.

 

[JessFR]

This is the day after I let my old friend etizolam out of the basement. I figured he'd done enough time down there, punishing himself for my sins... and I've been such a good boy recently too.

So, after six oversized Japanese beers and a handful of joints, I asked my wife for the key to the basement.

She tried to reason with me, because she loves me but I had to treat her like she was controlling me. It's a shitty strategy, but I know it works.

She said, "Why don't you have a half?" Then, very quickly, she realized if I didn't get they key I'd huff and I'd puff and I'd blow the house down.

I don't envy her position, the woman I forcibly coerce into protecting me from myself... only to blame her (sometimes) when she doesn't do a good enough job.

I told her to give me the bottle. I said it without hesitancy or doubt. We've known each other a long time. By now, she knows I am a stubborn beast.

With a look of sadness in her eyes, she gave me the bottle.

Thankfully, this wasn't one of those full moon nights. I am too tired, in my old age, to be a maniac.

Thank God, two hours later, I fell asleep.

I slept for sixteen hours straight - right through the entire fucking morning on my day off.

...

I wake up at lunchtime to an empty house. There is no alarm. There are no birds waking up the neighbourhood with their annoyingly cheerful songs. (Get a job you feathery bastards.)

I wake up tired. I lie in bed and stretch and yawn. I could easily go back to sleep, but I don't. Instead, I slide lazily to the edge of the bed and drop to the ground.

My feet are uneasy as I walk to the bathroom.

Everything is weirdly quiet. As I urinate, the sound of the stream is amplified. The silence is eerie, almost apocalyptic.

My daughter is at dancing practice, but that's not it.

It's never this quiet when there are no people in the house, because now (for the first time in what feels like a year) there are no people in my head.

In this state of relaxation, I realize just how stressed I have been.

Sometimes I wonder if our loved ones fully realize just how hard it is for us too, knowing that we are hurting them with our drug use.

There was another thread here where I talked about it, about how the hardest thing, for me at least, to live with, is the knowledge of how much my addiction has caused me to hurt my loved ones. Mainly family, I'd say friends except most of my friends have been using with me.

When I was heavy into heroin and was lying to my family I often wished so badly I could somehow get them to understand what it's like for me. How much I wanted to let them help me and just couldn't.

Of course it goes both ways, I don't think I appreciated then just how much anxiety I was causing them by disappearing for weeks when I was using.

At the time I hadn't had as much experience on the other side, worrying for someone who's seriously got a problem with drugs.

I actually ended up apologizing to my mom a few years ago for what I put her through when I realized just how much anxiety I must have caused her.

One time I got a call from my boyfriend who said he'd gotten a call from a woman trying to track down her daughter (me). She'd been calling random phone numbers I had previously called from, which included his.

I called her back and said I was sorry, I just couldn't talk to her because of the things I had done, borrowing money and not repaying it. Making charges to her credit card, all sorts of horrible shit to try and get money for my habit.

Addiction is so hard for everyone because often noone involved wants to hurt anyone else involved, but they just seem to do it anyway.

 

[Jabberwocky]

completely agree @JessFR - neither party is able to appreciate the suffering the other is going through.

i remember thinking my mum was an idiot cos she thought i was gonna die- at the time she actually thought both me and my dad were gonna die- but looking at my using and the places i was hanging out, including using in a flat that someone was murdered in an hour after i left and having a boyfriend who got stabbed 10 times and left a trail of blood all the way to my house, it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possiblity that i wouldn't have survived.

its difficult because i really was a completely selfish, self absorbed, lying, manipulative junkie, basically every reason people hate junkies applied to me. so my famly didn't believe a word i said, so it would be pointless even trying to explain that i wasn't just on some bender that i could stop if i chose. and cos the drugs were working so well at masking the underlying causes of my addiction, i couldn't have articulated why i was in so much pain that i needed to be completely obliterated all the time.

 

[JessFR]

completely agree @JessFR - neither party is able to appreciate the suffering the other is going through.

i remember thinking my mum was an idiot cos she thought i was gonna die- at the time she actually thought both me and my dad were gonna die- but looking at my using and the places i was hanging out, including using in a flat that someone was murdered in an hour after i left and having a boyfriend who got stabbed 10 times and left a trail of blood all the way to my house, it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possiblity that i wouldn't have survived.

its difficult because i really was a completely selfish, self absorbed, lying, manipulative junkie, basically every reason people hate junkies applied to me. so my famly didn't believe a word i said, so it would be pointless even trying to explain that i wasn't just on some bender that i could stop if i chose. and cos the drugs were working so well at masking the underlying causes of my addiction, i couldn't have articulated why i was in so much pain that i needed to be completely obliterated all the time.

I had similar feelings with the story I mentioned above when I found out my mom had been calling random phone numbers trying to find me. At the time I guess I didn't entirely appreciate how much anxiety I was causing her.

To me, I knew I was alive, and my only priority was heroin. I used a lot and it was highly unlikely that I would just randomly overdose. And you don't tend to think too much about other stuff at the time.

But if you're my mom, obviously you're gonna be overwhelmed with anxiety and fear if you know your daughter is addicted to heroin and hanging around other addicts and criminals. And if she just stops calling or answering your calls, in hindsight it's obvious to me now how she must have felt.

At the time I didn't appreciate it as much, but since then I've had more significant experiences myself with worrying about people with serious mental health or drug issues and not hearing from them for a while.

To this day I always feel like I have to be careful to make clear why what I say can be trusted because I don't expect my family to believe me. And yet, I get the sense that they do.

And oddly, that doesn't make me feel much better, I kinda wish they still didn't believe anything I say without proof.

Because, I know that it's possible I could end up going down that path again, and I don't want to hurt them again, and I worry, for myself and for them, the danger I might pose if they trust the things I say.

In some ways it'd be easier if I knew there was less potential for me to manipulate them.

Id like to think I wouldn't do the things I did again, but I wouldn't have thought I'd do them to start with. I know from experience that I am capable of a lot more than I wish I were. And I'd rather not worry that I might again be tempted one day.

I just hope that if that ever happens they'll remember that when I'm actively using, like seriously into it, nothing I say can be trusted, anything could be a manipulation.

 

[Jabberwocky]

its so easy to see these things in hindsight. i guess its another way that your brain just doesn't work properly when you're on drugs.

its kinda obvious that your mum would be insanely anxious in that situation, as was mine, but at the time we knew we were alive so what's the issue?

my family seem to trust me again too. when i first got out of rehab i genuinely sort of believed if i wasn't 100% honest then i would relapse so i was about everything. that's kinda slipped a bit but not in any big way. i know what you mean though about feeling you have to prove everything still.

my parents would know if anything was going massively awry because my dad is still on my bank account and he gets fucking phone notifications whenever there is any activity on there. its been 2.5 years!!! but to be fair it does keep me from going out and buying more booze, or buying booze in the first place, so its still helping me. even if it is annoying when he brings up random places i've spent money in conversation.

when he first got on there he went back through my statements for years and i think that's when they realised just how bad a problem i had. thankfully that was just before rehab and he waited til i was in rehab to do that. it felt like a massive violation at the time. they'd actually wanted financial power of attorney over me but they couldn't because you can't nominate someone as a drug addict as you're rightly deemed to have poor judgement.

 

[JessFR]

Oh God. I won't even look at my years of bank statements. I'm too afraid too. I dunno if I could cope with my mom doing that.

The last year or so I was using though I was homeless so most of the money I made was cash from begging, stealing, prostituting, whatever.

But still, any money into my account would immediately be withdrawn to cash.

Given I virtually never use cash other than to pay dealers, just the cash withdrawals alone would be terrifying.

 

[JessFR]

Thing is, I dunno about you but I'm gonna guess that like me when you're not actively using, you're generally quite honest, reliable, and trustworthy.

And... In some ways that's bad, because it makes it all the easier for you to screw people over when using, because it seems so hard to believe that the same person who would previously be so honest and trustworthy could have such a dark side and be capable of such horrible manipulative deceptions.

I just hope my mom and my brother remember what I'm capable, so if I ever get that bad again they know not to believe a single word I say. And not to give me a cent. Enabling me isn't gonna help me, I'm just gonna feel guilty for it until you inevitably cut me off.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Thing is, I dunno about you but I'm gonna guess that like me when you're not actively using, you're generally quite honest, reliable, and trustworthy.

i would like to consider myself as such. in fact i take pride in the fact that if i say i'll do something, you can consider it done, or if not then you will be forewarned that it won't be done, i'll tell you why and the revised timescale.

so even when i was using lying didn't come easy to me. i think its an autistic thing as well, we're supposedly honest. i'd always have a twinge of conscience when it was my parents or people close to me, but still lie anyway.

had a really hard day, basically took a mental health sick day but without telling work. a genetic counselling appointment presented information that i already knew, but in a very frightening way. not on purpose, they were doing their jobs, i just hadn't considered those facts in conjunction before.

i don't like fear and sadness so instead mostly feel angry at the patriarchy because that is why there are no good screening tests for ovarian cancer.

 

[JessFR]

I was an exceptionally good liar, and manipulator.

I wish I weren't, but living like that, you tend to just learn to be over time.

You OK @chinup?
You're right, it's bullshit. Everything is designed first for men, and women and up screwed over because of it.

Everything's designed for a man's height, safety equipment is all designed for a man's build. It's such sexist bs.

 

[Jabberwocky]

yeah, if you can't lie in that life you're a lamb to the slaughter....

yep. its so annoying. i don't want to derail the recovery thread but in the case where i might actually fucking die because male doctors (because for most of history women weren't allowed to be doctors) don't take an interest in problems that exclusively concern women, the patriarchy suddenly effects my recovery. my fucking boyfriend gets annoyed with me making this about sexism but hopefully one day he will learn.

in my own field of genomics, the vast majority of sequenced genomes for the first few years, and still to this day tbh, belonged to white men. its literally killing anyone who is not a white man.

 

[JessFR]

Yeah, it's very easy to think sexism, or any other kind of discrimination isn't a big deal, when you're not the one affected by it.

And yeah, being a serious junkie for any length of time tends to mean you wind up learning how to lie and manipulate people.

 

[somnilicious]

Coming up on six months on MMT with the occasional Delta -8 toke. I've started taking steps towards getting my Hep-C treated. Its always been a scarlet letter that I've internalized, which made me separate myself from others and I'm afraid may be beginning to impact my health. Other than that it has just been life as usual. Hope everyone is doing well.

 

[Jabberwocky]

good to hear from you @somnilicious and great you're looking to get your hep c treated. shit like that is always scary. i get what you mean about internalising this stuff, it becomes part of your identity somehow.

i am doing ok. had the first friday in a long time of not drinking excessive alcohol. had 2 drinks after dinner. was feeling very sketchy after my covid vaccine yesterday but a bit better today.... planned to run 20k to my parents, my guts are in turmoil but i'm hoping to still be able to do it or at least make a decent shot cos i have psyched myself up for it now.

 

[ions]

So back when I was in a legal trouble I would get phone calls by police and courts and lawyers. It was all intimidation at the time and had stress for many years, especially while on haldol, risperdol, for answering my phone. I'm impressed by how far I've come to actually placing calls to people and businesses many years later getting over the drama of not having police calling my phone telling me to come into their headquarters. Nerve wracking AF. I just ask you one thing. Stay out of my dreams.