Yeh I was talking to a friend who's been hooked on oxies for years and everytime I talk to him he says over and over how bad he wants to get off the shit.
Months ago we were going to do it together but we wound up being terrible influences on each other and started to actually use more together.
I saw him 2 days ago and I told him I'd been tapering for a couple weeks and how easy I thought it was. I mentioned that the best way for him to stop oxies was to just start tapering. He straight out told me he can't because he doesn't have the will power to do it. That anytime he's attempted he always winds up taking more oxy.
The core of really everything in life I think comes down to will power. I never considered myself someone who had much of it, but when I saw how envious he was that I was finally getting clean, it made me feel so good about myself. Even after I told him it was will power that he needed, he kept asking me "what my secret was". Its almost like he didn't even hear me. Like willpower didn't seem like something real to him.
When you use drugs for a long enough timeline, you've conditioned yourself SO MUCH to give into that instant gratification. Thats the ONLY force that really keeps drug addicts going. When they wanna feel good nothing will stop them, that primal part of their brain will find a way to get opiates into their body.
But theres another part of your brain that doesn't rely on instant gratification. It realizes things like investment are what brings happiness into your life. Denying temptation so you can have some substance in your life, something thats worth more than being high all the time.
People challenge themselves in so many different ways in life. Some people hike to alaska and fend in the wilderness. Others take themselves off drugs. All I can say is this taper has been a sort of life defining moment in my life. Not to say I'll be off drugs forever. But just to give myself the opportunity to see, that I CAN have willpower myself. It wasn't something I had to work for, it wasn't something I had to earn, it was just something I did.
Willpower is a very strange thing I think for drug addicts to understand. I think they think that just because they're on drugs they can't have any. But the FIRST day you make a decision to exercise will power, the second day you'll feel like you have it. It was literally that quick for me. I think you need to get the idea out of your head Jake that you NEED subs to hold your life together. When you taper your dose and start getting anxious, thats your addiction trying to sabatoge your recovery. That anxiety is your primal brain screaming "I WANT WHAT I WANT WHEN I WANT IT", but you really need to use that part of your brain that denies what it wants. Its odd that this far into my taper, I can say I'm 100% sure theres NO FUCKING WAY I'm not getting clean. Once you get deep enough into will power, it becomes your new addiction. Right now I can wake up and take 100gms of pods, or I can exercise will power. Doing 100gms tommorow will only further ensure that a year from now I'm gonna hate the person I've turned into. While if I choose will power, I might actually like myself a year from now. Neglecting the fact that you have a choice in life, is exactly what your addiction needs to survive. Not having will power is literally the oxygen that keeps an addiction breathing. I just can't think of any single force so responsible for bringing good things into peoples lives. Watch the movie "Into the Wild", its a true story about a kid who throws his whole life away basically to just have a will. And even though he dies at the end, he dies with a smile on his face. Thats how I want to die, and if I keep giving into my reptilian brain, the one that wants what it wants, I'm never gonna have what **I** want, and thats just happiness. I think thats what it all comes down to in life.. unleashing your will to survive.
benadryl helps for anxiety.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
