All my friend's have become drug addicts, now I'm here all alone.

[ThatMan!OverThere!]

A year ago my life was great, Everyone I hung out with usually just got stoned during the week and drank on the weekends and only once in a while indulged in other shit, just to make a fun time even funner. But now that's the only thing any of my friends do for fun. We used to play music, dance, go swimming, play hacky sack, eat and sleep on a daily basis, bathe, sleep on matresses, all kinds of fun stuff. Now all they do is drugs. Not drugs and party, not drugs and dancing, not drugs and play music, just do drugs and sit there and talk about drugs.

It's so fucking lame, I'm the pretty much the only one with a job, a car, or hobbies. Whenever I go to hang out with them, they just sit around and talk about drugs the whole time, I can't go more than 30 seconds without hearing the name of a drug. It's like a real life trainspottings, everyone just laying around on concrete floor you can't even see cause of all the trash, using mcdonalds bags for pillows blowing every single last dollar they get on drugs, and chainsmoking cigarettes, day in day out. The past few months I've just been sitting at home all the time. Everytime I go over to one of my friends house, I just find myself thinking what the fuck am I doing here? This Place is disgusting These are my friends? and get bored as fuck and leave, cause they never want to go outside or do anything cause they're too fucked in the head to function enough to do anything.

They don't even feel like friends anymore, they've all distanced themselves from me, I haven't recieved a phonecall from someone that wasn't a relative or telemarketer in months. They lie to me to avoid hanging out, and I can sense I can get on their nerves. They think that I'm missing out on the point of life which is to have fun, which in their mind is only possible by sniffing as much white shit up as you can without dropping dead. And everyone I ever meet at parties is like this, everyone I meet at raves is like this, everybody I meet walking around town is like this, it's fucking everywhere.

I know I need new friends, the only reason I still talk to the ones I have now is so I'm not home alone. The thing though Is I can't fucking get along with sober people, they're so boring too, just in a different way. Pretty much every sober person I've known, they're life consists of go to work, go home and watch TV, repeat. I feel like there's nowhere where I belong anymore, All my friends are just letting there lives go to shit, and I don't want to go down with them, but at the same time sober people are just too tamed and uptight, I can't open up feel comfortable around people like that. I don't want to be comfortable around people like that. I still wanna party, I still wanna stay up till sunrise on the weekends, I just don't wanna smell like garbage and not have a dollar to my name either.

I just don't know what to do? I can't fucking stand being alone anymore, everyone's fucking changed and I'm still the same fucking person, like there ain't soul in the world that I can see eye to eye with anymore.

 

[soundsystem00]

Gotta love addiction. Don't worry, you are doing fine. Just remember who they have become, and pay close attention, because it could just as easily happen to you. That is how everything began for me. I too, was in your shoes, and went a long time without caving, but once I did, it was all over. I look up now, after almost 10 years of struggle and addiction, wondering to myself "what the fuck happened to me? to my life? to my dreams?"

Just keep your head up and PLEASE don't cave. I don't know you, but do it for me. Please.

Go to church, you will find sober people there. Or go to NA/AA, you will meet people that are sober, but have that edge to them that you may like in a friend.

 

[PendulumAM]

I know how you feel in terms of having no one to hang out with or just talk to. I had to leave my college town because of my heroin problem and everyone I hung out with was either a current addict, in jail, missing, in rehab or dead. Now even moving back home, all my high school friends are either hard core drug addicts or pregnant really young. I'm 21 and want to have fun but cant afford to get in trouble or mixed up with drugs again. So I am interested to see how people answer you. But I am also shy, which doesn't help with meeting new people.

 

[Larson0]

gotta look for activity forums and such. most areas have people who meet up for bike rides and dont care who comes along, uhhhh yeah i dont know lol im just getting over my addiction. i had a few examples when i was posting this but i forgot all of them. plus who the fuck wants to hang out with people riding bikes? just search around in your area and on forums for activities and you'll find someone. aa/na meetings might be a good idea because they were once junkies and had to find a way to cope with life so maybe check them out. i just hate them preaching that bullshit

 

[footscrazy]

I can see that you miss your friends but I really think you're being just as narrow minded as you say they are when you class all sober people as tame and uptight. There all kinds of people, there aren't just 2 categories, druggies or sober people. People are very good at picking up underlying attitudes and your generalisations about sober people may well be putting them off you.

I'm not really sure what you want. There's plenty of wonderful, interesting people out there but you sound like you've already made your mind up about the world's population. Maybe if you drop the judgements about what you expect people to be like, you'd find that people will surprise you with how complex, interesting and awesome they can be, drug user or not.

 

[herbavore]

When I was young I thought very much like you. I divided the world into two groups of people: my peers and everyone else. Only my peers mattered, older people and kids did not even exist for me. Then I subdivided my peers into two groups--those that did drugs and those that didn't. Mind you, this was the 70's so it was easy to divide the world this way. My tribe did drugs. When, after years of abuse, I quit, I felt like I was between two worlds. But as Footscrazy said, this was a construct that I had completely fabricated in my own mind. The process of maturing is a process of seeing. Once I began to see the world as infinitely complex and I allowed other people to reveal themselves as multifaceted, I found a whole new comfort in living. When we put others in boxes, we limit ourselves as well. It was very liberating to leave this kind of thinking behind and the world has been expanding ever since!
I do agree with the other responders that people who have struggled with drugs and are trying to build their lives differently can be some of the most non-judgmental people around. That's why there's so much love here in TDS
One last thought: are you interested in anything like mountain biking, surfing, rock climbing? I find that getting involved with people that like to do what you like to do exposes you to lots of different kinds of people but there is a kind of central glue to make it easier to get to know each other. It's a tough spot to be in, losing your whole group of friends; so just remind yourself that it's ok to feel lonely for a bit while you sort it out. Keep posting here--it will help!

 

[xxsicknessxx]

I agree try looking for acitivities.. car shows... conventions, church, aa meetings na. Im sober but thats after 9years of abuse. I caved in also. wow was that a mistake. I thought it would bring me closer to my brother instead my brother is gone for the next 3 years and I only just got back. I almost lost my mind, body, soul and family... almost.

Im sober now, im not boring and I understand the drug aspect. I find I get along with people who have had a drug problem better then people who have no exp at all with drugs. I get what you mean that sober people are boring but its not true you just got to work at it. Your in the right, don't fall for drugs like your friends. Maybe someday some of them will wake up and you will be there to help them. Just stay strong and do not cave in

 

[effie]

Hey,

Got to echo everyone else who has said good work for not sinking into addiction too, and for being self-aware enough to realise that you don't want that lifestyle..

I think you are looking at things in a very black and white way here - people are either completely sober and dull, or completely taken over by drugs and are dull. This really isn't true for everyone! There is a happy medium - people who take drugs in moderation and manage to have lives outside drugs, and people who don't take drugs but know how to have fun. It's just a matter of finding them.. I agree that it is a good idea to think about if there are any interests or hobbies you could persue, or classes you could join.. maybe some voluntary work.. or maybe some old friends seperate from your current bunch who you could reconnect with? If you like getting a little wasted at nights outm maybe you could try to meet some that way?

Good luck

 

[Termino]

I was in a similar situation many years ago. We had all partied together - smoking & drinking mainly - then we got into coke. That was fine now & then but a group of friends got REALLY into it. Back then they were freebasing and would lock themselves into the back rooms for hours. Things got deeper and deeper: dealing, robberies, arrests, and a couple friends went to jail. One guy was a really good runner and could have been Olympic material, but he just let everything slide in favor of drugs. Lives were ruined, families destroyed, and more. I'm so glad that I wasn't caught up in their shit. I ended up just letting those friendships go and finding new people to hang with. I began by looking up people who were more acquaintances than friends, or maybe you could call them second or third tier friends. Through them I met others and eventually built a whole new set of friends.

I understand how you feel, but I'm sure that, like me, you can eventually find friends who party for fun rather than for a lifestyle. You'll have to kinda look for people who may not really seem like the druggie type - the 'stealth' partiers so to speak. Don't be judgmental about people. You'd be surprised at how many straight-looking people smoke bud. Not only that, but there are certainly people who don't partake but don't mind if others do. Get out & try to meet as many people as you can... eventually you'll find someone to hang with, then another, then another... Just don't go down that same road as your friends - it's a dead end full of pain & suffering.

 

[max_]

Something alike is happning to me right now. My best friend and I just decided to stop using anything other than pot or alcohol, with the occasional psych, but we haven't actually tripped since we made the decision to stop killing ourselves. We wouldn't talk about anything that wasn't drugs. And if we weren't high, we would talk about getting high, and when were we gonna do it. I've been "clean" (ie I still smoke weed) for a couple of weeks now, and when I hung out with my friend we just stay quiet because we have nothing to say. Getting high was our life. And that trainspotting thing you said, we got the same exact feeling. We found ourselves a couple of times sleeping on floors, or surrounded by garbage, dirty, not eating for days.
My social life other than this guy who almost went to hell with me, is basically dead. Not only because people bores me, but also because I bore them and myself, I realize that I was doing nothing. I thought a lot about it and it comes to start over, do stuff, go to a shopping mall with your favourite plain blond girl (I know, but it was a very nice sober day!), go to concerts, theatre, watch a movie, download a new album, start a sport or the gym, anything, it doesn't matter if it's lame or if you do it alone, yes, go to a concert alone, whatever, it's a lot better than staying home on a saturday night.
So this is my advice: Do things.(Specially the things you used to do with your friends before they fucked up, or things you've stopped doing because of your own drug use) Even if you have to do them alone.

 

[dhopeless]

You need to find people that, like you said, take drugs FOR A REASON other than getting high for the sake of getting high. For a long time I was in that group; hippies, if you will. Smoke some weed if your having a good time to enhance it, a tab or acid or a line of molly when appropriate to enhance the situation. Once I got into opiates, my dad told me "See, when we were young we were doing drugs...but not for the same reasons as you guys are. We were trying to acheive something, not just 'get all fucked up'." And that's the difference. Trust me, there are people like that out there. And I agree, straights are boring. Not all of them, not all the time, but it's hard to hang out with sober people even for the responsible drug user at times. You might try moving out of wherever you live. The town I live in is a dead end, I want to get the hell out of here and meet people that like to party but also want to make something of their lives.

 

[captainballs]

Reading this really enlightened me to the effect that serious addiction has on friends. The more distance I have put between myself and constant heavy drug use, the more i realize that friends who are open-minded and cool about drugs (like OP) still eventually feel rejected by drug addicts because they're human beings like anyone else. It's a difficult social situation because the drug addicts themselves are wrapped up in a lifestyle that must be hidden from the world due to social stigmas and legal consequences, so they start to feel like they are being consciously rejected from society. Their personalities and habits change because of this lifestyle, and unfortunately it has the effect of drawing a hard line in the sand between them and people who don't share their lifestyle.

I've been on both sides of that dynamic, although right now I'm on arguably the better side - the clean side. I've noticed that my number one drug buddy, who I used to trash apartments and basically live like a con artist with, doesn't pick up his phone, won't respond to my text messages, and definitely can't be relied on for a ride even in an emergency. Then, I see him, and he's like a broken record with the, "oh, so that's your number. I just changed phones," which is total bullshit because I announce who it is in the first line of my text messages. I forgive him on a higher level because I understand what it's like to have to put the drugs on the top of the priority list. But it does piss me off because all I want is a friend... I'm not calling him to get together and score dope or to use him as part of a scam set-up.

Knowing what it's like to be that asshole and ignore your friend's calls, I can say that the antidote is distance. Let them sort it out. Their lives are going to get worse no matter what - mine did. But you can't hold their hands through it by being that friend who's willing to get shit on.

As for the realization that there is almost no difference in the disappointment with people in general vs. people with drug problems, welcome to the layer cake lol. Learning to be successful and a contributor in this environment is that art of living practically, as the world will always be like this until it stops spinning.

 

[n3ophy7e]

I just don't know what to do? I can't fucking stand being alone anymore, everyone's fucking changed and I'm still the same fucking person, like there ain't soul in the world that I can see eye to eye with anymore.

I know your main group of friends are causing you grief, but have you got any friends who you haven't seen for a while who you could catch up with?

There has already been a lot of good advice in this thread so I won't repeat on any of that. But I really think you should try to find some other activities that you enjoy, and then try and find a group of people who you can parttake in these activities with. The internet is an extremely valuable resource for finding new social groups, like, more than you might even imagine.
What types of things do you like to do, or what types of things can you imagine that you'd like doing? Any sports/exercise? Do you collect anything? Do you like to play cards or board games or anything like that? Think of what you would like to do, then simply google (as an example, I don't know what kinda stuff you're in to! :D) "card playing groups *insert your town/city here*", or even just "social groups *your town/city here*"

Now, having said all of that I KNOW how daunting it is to go out and meet new people, but it's better than sitting at home alone getting bored and feeling miserable. And hey, you might not meet anyone who you would be friends with when you get out there, but at least you tried. And the chances are much higher that you WILL meet some new friends, which will make it all worth it

Do you think this is something you would be willing to try?