Hey everyone.
This is my first real post on this forum (aside from my newbie introduction thread), so excuse me if this is the wrong sub-forum for this topic.
Okay, soooo.
Where to begin...
I guess I'll start at the end: I'm 24 years old, I just finished college (literally wrote my last exam a week ago), I have started a business and am beginning to do quite well with it, I've moved out of my parents' place and am renting an apartment for the first time in my life... And I'm addicted to booze and stimulants.
Now, the being addicted to booze and stimulants thing is nothing new (I've had both addictions for more than 5 years on and off).
However, the whole "holy shit I'm actually responsible for taking care of myself now" is new.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a town with a pretty decent college, so after I graduated HS, I never left my parents' place and did the whole college res experience thing. I just stayed in my folks' basement and paid my way through school by working mindless jobs at call centers, electronics stores, etc.
On the surface, that might seem like a good thing. And in many ways, it was (it did allow me to save money at a time when many people go deeply into debt).
However, it had one very negative effect: leaving me with enough money to buy tons of booze and coke, while making me feel secure enough to not care about being addicted.
I'm going to spare you the whole story of how I got addicted to booze, because my experience with that was pretty much typical (high school, drinking with friends, gradually drinking more often and by myself, etc). But I'll sum up the stimulant part of the story very briefly. I got put on ritalin at a young age, and not long after being prescribed, started using my pills recreationally. I really liked the buzz, and that made me curious about coke. It took me a while, but eventually I did find some coke, and almost instantly, fell in love with the drug. My use of ritalin and coke grew to the point where I was snorting ritalin about 5 days a week and using coke once a week (gram and a half typically, spread out over 2 hours or so). That's pretty much where I'm at now. Oh, and I also combine the coke with booze, and get drunk twice a week outside that one "special night" I have every week combining booze and coke.
So... booze 2-3 nights a week, ritalin 5 days a week, coke 1 night a week.
So as you can see, not exactly the healtiest lifestyle I have going on here.
And yet strangely, none of this even really bothered me while I was in college. I never had any bills to pay and I didn't really put much thought into what I was doing and the long term effects my behavior would eventually have.
It's only now that I've actually got an apartment, and have bills to pay, that I'm starting to worry.
Being self employed, I can't really afford to spend as much time recovering from hangovers as I could when I worked jobs. There is no possibility of just sleepwalking my way through a day half-assedly. Every minute spent working on a project has to count; if it doesn't, I'll just have to do the same work over again later. So, when I have a really bad hangover, I'll sometimes "lose" half a day or so of work, and make less money than I could potentially make. That, of course, affects my ability to pay my bills.
So my drug habits do a double dose of damage to me financially: one, they keep me from making as much money as I could; and two, they make me waste the money I do make (I'm spending about 300 a week on booze + coke these days, ritalin's covered by insurance).
Now I know what the answer is here:
"Get off the booze, coke and ritalin."
Well, I understand that, and I'm fully prepared to tackle these problems head on. I smoked cigarettes for 8 years (including about 4 years of pack-a-day use), and when the time came, I quit that shit no problem.
The thing is though, booze and stimulants are more complex, psychologically, than cigarettes. People go on and on about how hard it is to quit smoking, but the truth is, once you really think hard about how the whole thing gives you no pleasure anymore and just makes you feel shitty, the *DECISION* to quit is fucking easy. It's just a matter of putting up with the withdrawal pangs for a week or so.
With booze and uppers, it seems like the question is different. I actually do get SOME benefits from them. Booze DOES help me socialize, and so does coke. Ritalin does help me focus on work a bit. And they all do give me a bit of brief pleasure, even if the shitty aftereffects last way longer. PLUS, a lot of my friendships are built around these things; if I gave them up completely, I'd have nothing to really do with my current friends. So quitting these "pleasure drugs" isn't a straightforward decision like quitting smoking, because there actually are real plusses associated with them.
So basically, the question I'm wrestling with is this:
Should I try to shake my three major addictions completely, and become completely clean; or, should I just try to get my use under control, continuing to use, but less so than I do now?
Okay, actually, when it comes to the coke, there's really no question: I need to cut that shit out.
But booze is different. I feel like being able to get drunk once or twice a week improves my social life. I feel like I'd be losing a certain social plus if I gave it up totally.
Also, I'm really not sure what to do about my ritalin use. It helps me work in the morning, but man, the hangover sucks, and just keeps getting worse. This is something I feel I should quit entirely, but maybe not just yet.
Okay, so this has been a pretty long and disorganized post, but I guess, to sum up, I'll ask this question:
What do you think is better, being completely clean 100% of the time, or being mostly clean, but drinking and using drugs selectively to improve social situations and to concentrate better at work?
If you were in my position, would you give all these habits up entirely, or just cut back significantly? Do you think my assessment of these addictions (that, unlike nicotine, they do carry some significant benefits) is fair, or delusional?
Uhhh okay that was a pretty rambling post, I'm actually a little strung out right now as I type this...
Anyway, throw in your two cents, if you feel you understand basically what I'm asking here....
This is my first real post on this forum (aside from my newbie introduction thread), so excuse me if this is the wrong sub-forum for this topic.
Okay, soooo.
Where to begin...
I guess I'll start at the end: I'm 24 years old, I just finished college (literally wrote my last exam a week ago), I have started a business and am beginning to do quite well with it, I've moved out of my parents' place and am renting an apartment for the first time in my life... And I'm addicted to booze and stimulants.
Now, the being addicted to booze and stimulants thing is nothing new (I've had both addictions for more than 5 years on and off).
However, the whole "holy shit I'm actually responsible for taking care of myself now" is new.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a town with a pretty decent college, so after I graduated HS, I never left my parents' place and did the whole college res experience thing. I just stayed in my folks' basement and paid my way through school by working mindless jobs at call centers, electronics stores, etc.
On the surface, that might seem like a good thing. And in many ways, it was (it did allow me to save money at a time when many people go deeply into debt).
However, it had one very negative effect: leaving me with enough money to buy tons of booze and coke, while making me feel secure enough to not care about being addicted.
I'm going to spare you the whole story of how I got addicted to booze, because my experience with that was pretty much typical (high school, drinking with friends, gradually drinking more often and by myself, etc). But I'll sum up the stimulant part of the story very briefly. I got put on ritalin at a young age, and not long after being prescribed, started using my pills recreationally. I really liked the buzz, and that made me curious about coke. It took me a while, but eventually I did find some coke, and almost instantly, fell in love with the drug. My use of ritalin and coke grew to the point where I was snorting ritalin about 5 days a week and using coke once a week (gram and a half typically, spread out over 2 hours or so). That's pretty much where I'm at now. Oh, and I also combine the coke with booze, and get drunk twice a week outside that one "special night" I have every week combining booze and coke.
So... booze 2-3 nights a week, ritalin 5 days a week, coke 1 night a week.
So as you can see, not exactly the healtiest lifestyle I have going on here.
And yet strangely, none of this even really bothered me while I was in college. I never had any bills to pay and I didn't really put much thought into what I was doing and the long term effects my behavior would eventually have.
It's only now that I've actually got an apartment, and have bills to pay, that I'm starting to worry.
Being self employed, I can't really afford to spend as much time recovering from hangovers as I could when I worked jobs. There is no possibility of just sleepwalking my way through a day half-assedly. Every minute spent working on a project has to count; if it doesn't, I'll just have to do the same work over again later. So, when I have a really bad hangover, I'll sometimes "lose" half a day or so of work, and make less money than I could potentially make. That, of course, affects my ability to pay my bills.
So my drug habits do a double dose of damage to me financially: one, they keep me from making as much money as I could; and two, they make me waste the money I do make (I'm spending about 300 a week on booze + coke these days, ritalin's covered by insurance).
Now I know what the answer is here:
"Get off the booze, coke and ritalin."
Well, I understand that, and I'm fully prepared to tackle these problems head on. I smoked cigarettes for 8 years (including about 4 years of pack-a-day use), and when the time came, I quit that shit no problem.
The thing is though, booze and stimulants are more complex, psychologically, than cigarettes. People go on and on about how hard it is to quit smoking, but the truth is, once you really think hard about how the whole thing gives you no pleasure anymore and just makes you feel shitty, the *DECISION* to quit is fucking easy. It's just a matter of putting up with the withdrawal pangs for a week or so.
With booze and uppers, it seems like the question is different. I actually do get SOME benefits from them. Booze DOES help me socialize, and so does coke. Ritalin does help me focus on work a bit. And they all do give me a bit of brief pleasure, even if the shitty aftereffects last way longer. PLUS, a lot of my friendships are built around these things; if I gave them up completely, I'd have nothing to really do with my current friends. So quitting these "pleasure drugs" isn't a straightforward decision like quitting smoking, because there actually are real plusses associated with them.
So basically, the question I'm wrestling with is this:
Should I try to shake my three major addictions completely, and become completely clean; or, should I just try to get my use under control, continuing to use, but less so than I do now?
Okay, actually, when it comes to the coke, there's really no question: I need to cut that shit out.
But booze is different. I feel like being able to get drunk once or twice a week improves my social life. I feel like I'd be losing a certain social plus if I gave it up totally.
Also, I'm really not sure what to do about my ritalin use. It helps me work in the morning, but man, the hangover sucks, and just keeps getting worse. This is something I feel I should quit entirely, but maybe not just yet.
Okay, so this has been a pretty long and disorganized post, but I guess, to sum up, I'll ask this question:
What do you think is better, being completely clean 100% of the time, or being mostly clean, but drinking and using drugs selectively to improve social situations and to concentrate better at work?
If you were in my position, would you give all these habits up entirely, or just cut back significantly? Do you think my assessment of these addictions (that, unlike nicotine, they do carry some significant benefits) is fair, or delusional?
Uhhh okay that was a pretty rambling post, I'm actually a little strung out right now as I type this...
Anyway, throw in your two cents, if you feel you understand basically what I'm asking here....
