All I wanted was to serve my country

[KillerCrotchRot]

Hey all. I'm new here. I was 17 on Sept 11th so like allot of my friends I went down and signed up to fend off <some ass clown brain washed wackjobs> that hated our freedom. Little did I know at the time that It was all a farce and i was serving to secure opium and oil futures for our country.

So I got my self injured one day and the army doc threw a ton of pills at me. I liked them! A little to much so I requested a meeting with my commanding officer. He seemed legitimately concerned and ordered me to get help.

The help I got was an order to seek treatment. That came in the form of a methadone clinic. That went on for 2 years until I was piss tested and booted out for being a drug addict.

It's been a dark 10 years of being opioid dependant. I got of the methadone and on suboxone. I tried my best to get off. I traded everything I had. Friends, possessions, money, trust literally everything I had just to get clean. I made it 8 or 9 months of every day being worse than the last until I had nothing more to give.

So I've been on op's for almost 10 years. 2 years methadone and 6 or 7 years on suboxone. The last 2 years I had tapered and quit but I'm 6 months back on 2mg's.

I don't have veteran benefits because I was kicked out for being a junky. I was young and just wanted to do right. Now I'm old and can't do anything right. I can't write anymore as I'm crying and I might wake the one shred if light in my world.

I don't have any hope. Been around to long for that. I like reading stories about ppl who have made it 5 or 6 days. I don't know what to do. There is no help for me. I was betrayed by my country and feel abandoned.

 

[flyhighk]

Oh sorry brother, that sucks but don't lose hope, you WILL get help.

I'm moving this to The Dark Side, wishing you the best

 

[cj]

Hey man this stuff is hard! Don't beat yourself up over it. Getting off after having so long on them is going to be very difficult unfortunatly. Have you thought about just finding a dose you can live with and staying there indefinitely? Or is there a reason you can't do that?

 

[herbavore]

I agree that your country betrayed you. I also know what it is like to fight in a war you come to realize was wrong. My husband is a Vietnam veteran and the scars he has from being a part of what he considers to be immoral are worse than those suffered from combat. Rationally he knows that he was young, poor and naive, but he still beats himself up for it 45 years later. Try to let that part go to the best of your ability. You did what you thought was right at the time and you are courageous enough to have made up your own mind when you had enough information. That says a lot about you that you can be very proud of.

You can quit opiates. It is a hard road and if you stay around here and read long enough you will see that people have to find their own way and come to their own solutions that fit their own lives. This may be maintenance and it may be sobriety from opiates or it may be complete sobriety from all substances. Here are the things that do seem to be necessary across the board for everyone though:

Get help with whatever underlying issues keep you wanting to use. This is so important because if you do not treat these issues (depression, anxiety, guilt, anger, PTSD, fear) you cannot sustain a life without drugs. After all, the reason that the drugs appeal in the first place is as an antidote to emotional pain. If you quit and that pain is still there, you are going to want to have relief again and that spells relapse.

Get support from a community. This could be a group of non-using friends or family. It could be NA or AA or SMART Recovery. It could be an outpatient drug program or a veteran's support group and of course it could be the good folks here at Bluelight! (I recommend BL as an added support system no matter what other support you are getting IRL.) Get as much help as you can from as many directions as it comes. There is a temptation to isolate and hide because of the terrible stigma our society subjects people to when they are battling addiction or drug abuse habits. This temptation is actually a very sneaky ally of addicted thinking. Hold your head up and say without shame, "I have a problem and I'm addressing it." Anyone that tries to shame you for that should be ashamed of themselves.

Educate yourself and encourage those that love you to educate themselves about addiction. Understanding what is happening to your brain and body can really help to fight against blaming yourself (or having others around you blame you). The more you read, the more you will come to see that the whole science of addiction theory and thus addiction treatment is still evolving. The more you know, the more you can tailor your treatment to what feels right for you.

Spend time doing something meaningful to you. This dovetails with getting help for underlying issues. All we humans really want is to be loved for who we are, for our lives to feel they have some meaning and to live simply in this great miracle we had the good fortune to be born into. The good news is that the love we seek is inside us, meaning is something we create and learning to live simply and in gratitude is easy once you make an effort to do so. You have everything you need to heal. You need support along the way, but you have the resources.

Often it is this very place where you have found yourself now--a place that may look like nothing but despair and desolation but actually contains the kernel of the survival instinct that can jump-start your recovery. I hope that you will stay around, get to know Sober Living and The Dark Side and use them as much as you can. In TDS we have a number of threads that can act as daily affirmations that you can use to help set the tone for "just today". These include:

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...Positive-from-Your-Day-vs-It-s-All-Around-You

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...or-Ver-4-Infinite-Chances-in-an-Amazing-World

 

[P.o.T.u.S]

Bein on subs is maintenance so u should stay on as long as u feel the need..if u are happy where u are at dont torture yourself and try to stop..dont beat yourself up to much about the opiates u have had a tougher life than most being in the military and life is hard just being a civilian..are subs causing problems or are u having a hard time aquiring without VA benefits?

That sounds like the US military..u like those pills?! Hit the methadone line..what a load of shit

 

[Dresden]

That's really sad. I hope you get to feeling better and get control of your opiate addiction to your satisfaction.