Meth Almost died, need reality check

[Psynaught]

Hello Homkind,

I have had my second brush with death, a direct consequence of my methamphetamine addiction. For some context I am 27 years old, and I have been IV'ing the drug since I was 22. It has been on and off, due to moving a lot. I have lived in three states, and nine different "homes." I was estranged from my father until 2023, he found me and brought me to Georgia. We reunited in Independence Missouri, and he said that my appearance was so alarming. He knew that if he left me in Missouri, I would have died within a couple months.

I had some very bad outcomes due to this repetitive, harmful habit. I contracted HIV, I abscessed my arm terribly, to the point I could not lift my arm to brush my hair. It was like a bum arm, hanging by my side. I attempted to shoot in my bicep. Due to this drug, and the places and people it will pull you to I have been raped, a direct result of my meth use. Years of homelessness and living in shelters, my teeth are very thin, and very sharp. My immunity is decreasing rapidly; I am no longer undetectable. The HIV has woken up and to have any real chance at suppressing it again I have to stop my use.

Onto the most recent tragedy, I purchased some ice on Thursday. My dealer is usually very kind to me; she comes on time and always brings very decent meth. She is not a nice person, however because I am obviously sick and helplessly addicted, she and many others pity me, and I can usually escape getting beat up. This last Thursday she sold me meth that was heavily laced with PCP. I did not test any, I got to my space and shot it up. I shot .60 I will usually not do that much because the rush hurts too much. I did that amount because I was hurting and crashing, when I popped the tourniquet there was no cough, temporary blindness, I threw up and pissed myself without trying. It's like it took my ability to tense and stop the stream. I was petrified, this drug had been used on me during the night I was raped. I instantly remembered the feelings. I fainted and did not wake for the rest of the night and most of the next day. It was from 10:30pm on Thursday to 8:00pm on Saturday. The vein where I shot this went very thin, turned black and disappeared. I texted my dealer hysterical and upset, and she got mad and told me she will kill me.

I am certain that I will die relatively soon if I do not transform. When I say, "reality check." in the title I am humbly asking anyone with help in their heart to give me tough love, softer love, advice, or just anything you could say that you believe could help me.

I have five years of constant IV'ing the only break I took was 6 days as I was in the SICU after being shot twice by a cop. I was trying to suicide by cop, and I called 911 on myself and attempted to rush him and stab him. It was my fault entirely I was shot. Like I said, I am HIV positive, and I am deathly thin, and take many medications that are contraindicative with meth.

Bless you all, I am open to hearing anything, do not worry I will not get offended. If I thought I was going to be hurt I would not have posted this.
Please help.

Get help, probably rehab. You have to distance yourself from the drug right now and take it one day at a time.

30 years ago I got hooked on ice...I did not shoot it but smoked and snorted it. It was incredibly pure and the euphoriating high was like no other. Made by a Berkely PhD chemistry drop out. I was in CA and it was for a short period, only about 4 months but I went down fast.

One thing I had to do is I moved across the country, literally to NY so I had absolutely no access to the drug. That would be my advice. I just couldn't be around it. I would leave in the middle of an AA meeting to go score it was that bad.

So my advice would to be to seriously distance yourself, or get yourself into a rehab. I eventually got involved in AA and got 15 years clean and sober. Since then I have dabbled with coke a few times and a little adderal but never abused any thing the way I did 30 years ago.

 

[ind33d]

First, I think it is worth you taking time to acknowledge - without ruminating on any of it - that you have been through and continue to endure intense emotional stressors.

I am struck by your characterization of yourself as a sort of lost cause. I can relate to such tendencies. It can be near-impossible to see that the truth is often otherwise, especially when so much focus is put into undermining oneself and then justifying that behavior. Just from your few posts here: you are quite apparently intelligent and thoughtful, you are very young, you are in school and maintaining a job, you have a relationship with your father. These are all accomplishments, and also prospects which suggest you are more than capable enough to emerge from this period of your life all the better.

What's more, you seem to implicitly have aspirations.

I would suggest:

A. trying to get a handle on your methamphetamine use, starting immediately with safer use. Please, don't resharpen rigs/reuse them into blunt oblivion. Sterilizing the injection site and rotating sites - especially given your HIV status - is such a simple and worthwhile process.

Do you think you could attempt to lower and control your dosing over the short term? How much/how often do you use MA? What are the immediate causes of your use - as in, you use MA in order to... What?

It goes without saying that methamphetamine usage is likely effecting your thinking on all matters and particularly on the value of your life. In fact, it is not inconceivable that your thinking would change drastically without the consistent (and i.m.e., very dark) influence of MA.

B. working to address the issues behind the pervasive negative thinking regarding your life - and possibly, your MA use.

You have been through a lot. The loss of your mother seems particularly relevant here. Do you have access to talk therapy/counseling? That can be a fairly straightforward, accessible, and insightful but non-threatening way that you control to engage with some professional assistance, which I think is fully warranted here.

 

[Psynaught]

You need to find some people that you can count on in your life. For anyone who is totally lost and devoid of real friends or anyone they can count on, I truly feel that going to meetings are a great place to start. There are all kinds of people who are willing to be your friend. As much as Methamphetamine will teach you all that you need is Methamphetamine, you will have to break free from that orbit and admit you need friends, real friends who care about you. When your only lifeline to the world is a dealer who threatens to kill you offhandedly, then you´re alone. You´re likely not ever gonna get better if you try to do this on your own.

It´s common to sit with yourself in moments like this and start strategizing, scheming and bargaining with the universe for some way out of this. The truth is, as a Methamphetamine addict, you´re not likely capable of making any decisions for your life that will lead to long-term success... not right now at least. You should go and just listen to what people have to say. Go to an NA meeting where people who use Methamphetamine will understand exactly what you´re going through. Those people were once just as scared and alone as you are now, don´t doubt that.

I´m not saying meetings are the only way out of addiction. I think they are the best place to start because they are so widely available, especially since the advent of online meetings, however, you really should go in-person because you want to start cultivating people in your life who can help you. They will help you if you keep trying. That doesn´t even mean you can´t ever fuck up, it just means you have to keep trying.

I was alone like you when I started all of this getting sober business. I didn´t have any real friends left. I had lied to my family so much, they could never actually believe anything I said for years, so I had to find the only friends willing to have me. I am not preaching this as the only way, but I credit a large part of my success to the friends in the program who have always had my back. Granted, they´re not paying my rent, but they´ve also kept me sober throughout some times that previously would have crushed me. Right now I´m in the hardest fight of my life in sobriety and what I was taught and the love and kindness I found has kept me from complete ruin.

I highly suggest going to a meeting as soon as you´re able. Introduce yourself. Talk to people. That is the best place to start. After you´re clean for a little while, if you decide you want to try something different you can, but right now, it´s just a fact that you likely can´t trust your own mind.

The nature of addiction is getting high then paying the price, knowing you won´t, can´t do it again. Methamphetamine has a well laid-out trajectory that consists of getting high, depression, self-loathing, recovery, feeling better and then using again once the most miserable feelings are in the rear-view mirror. You need help. I´m not a Meth user but I know plenty about addiction. Lots of us do here. You can ask any one of us for help and we gladly will.

Good luck. We´ve all got love and support for you.

I second the advice of going to a meeting.

 

[streaM Freak]

. I certainly know that I am the problem, .

Sorry, but this is just not true. And yes I've read your posts. Reading your posts actually lead me to believe you are greatly underestimating yourself and what you can do.

I definitely second this advice from the user below me, and I apologize for not addressing more of the emotional aspect in my original post.

First, I think it is worth you taking time to acknowledge - without ruminating on any of it - that you have been through and continue to endure intense emotional stressors.

I am struck by your characterization of yourself as a sort of lost cause. I can relate to such tendencies. It can be near-impossible to see that the truth is often otherwise, especially when so much focus is put into undermining oneself and then justifying that behavior. Just from your few posts here: you are quite apparently intelligent and thoughtful, you are very young, you are in school and maintaining a job, you have a relationship with your father. These are all accomplishments, and also prospects which suggest you are more than capable enough to emerge from this period of your life all the better.

What's more, you seem to implicitly have aspirations.

I would suggest:

A. trying to get a handle on your methamphetamine use, starting immediately with safer use. Please, don't resharpen rigs/reuse them into blunt oblivion. Sterilizing the injection site and rotating sites - especially given your HIV status - is such a simple and worthwhile process.

Do you think you could attempt to lower and control your dosing over the short term? How much/how often do you use MA? What are the immediate causes of your use - as in, you use MA in order to... What?

It goes without saying that methamphetamine usage is likely effecting your thinking on all matters and particularly on the value of your life. In fact, it is not inconceivable that your thinking would change drastically without the consistent (and i.m.e., very dark) influence of MA.

B. working to address the issues behind the pervasive negative thinking regarding your life - and possibly, your MA use.

You have been through a lot. The loss of your mother seems particularly relevant here. Do you have access to talk therapy/counseling? That can be a fairly straightforward, accessible, and insightful but non-threatening way that you control to engage with some professional assistance, which I think is fully warranted here.

 

[Keif' Richards]

@Chaurus I feel you dude. I was a little bit confused by your post, but that´s the nature of text communication sometimes.

OP, you really need to understand, true love and Methamphetamine are a poor if not impossible combination. Addiction and love is a poor combination. I had a life and some accomplishments when I was using Heroin, but I was not capable of love. I could be a really good person, for instance, when I´m teaching, but when the cards were down, I would´ve done whatever was required to get my shit, lie, steal and everything short of harming another person physically. Life was good when I had Heroin, but I would become an animal without it. Love means you need to be able to depend on someone always, not for periods of time punctuated by misery. It just doesn´t work.

Methamphetamine, if you ask me, is a far more crazy-making drug than Opioids. It´s a lot easier for people to become separated from themselves with this drug. You can become fearless, mean, hypersexual; feelings of invincibility and god-like strength lead you to disregard the plight of normal people. Then you have the terrible crash. You might as well just be absent from life as you know it until you recover or get high again. How are you supposed to have true love with all of these ups and downs? How do you love someone when you don´t know which version you love, which you hate, do you love them all?

I´ve been in a relationship with a woman who I still love who suffers from Bipolar Disorder, I´m an addict. I got to feel what it feels like to not know what you´re walking into with a person´s personality. It´s incredibly destabilizing. You´re not going to have love if you can´t love yourself either. You seem to really hate yourself right now. I hear you that you are flirting with the idea of death. This is not you. This is what Meth addiction leads to. You get high for a really long time until you run out of Dopamine completely and you´re left as a tolerant, depressed, agitated zombie. You can get yourself back though.

I think you should consider checking yourself in somewhere. If you want to be free from this, you might need a headstart in the right direction. This could be detox, a psych ward or whatever, but you should be somewhere separated from the Meth where you might even be able to get some help. You will have a long road to walk after you get out. You need to get started though. This is not fun, is it?

Literally, if you need help finding a place, I will help you find where to go. It might be a hospital, the ER or anywhere in between. Let people help you out.

 

[SeekingOblivion]

I am Czech, Irish and Indian. I was born with mosaicism, which means my chromosomes are split, into two variants from the usual XY,XX chromosomes that determine sex at birth. Being pretty ambiguous in physical traits due to the myriads of conflicting hormones my body produces. Making friends with anyone was nearly impossible. The only people that would treat me normally, were people living on the lowest rung of the social ladder. The other kind of person that would accept me were people (usually men) that were kind only until they had me in their apartment and they locked the door. I fell for this strategy more times than I would like to admit; Grindr is a hell of an app. They say, "misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows." I see this quote manifest in my life constantly.

With all of this, it felt like addiction for me was only a matter of time. All of this is my long-winded way of explaining that I am intersexed.

I don’t think you owe anyone an explanation regarding your gender. No person deserves to be assaulted or otherwise mistreated. I have thought of your posts a lot over the past few days. You have conveyed tremendous personal loss and injury to your body and psyche. During this holy time of year and as we approach the new year, please know an internet stranger is thinking of you and praying for a brighter tomorrow for you.

 

[Keif' Richards]

@Brokenbeyondrepair722

I´ve officially developed a soft spot for you. I´m thinking about you on the regular. You have been through so much in your life. I can´t imagine how difficult it is to be an intersex person in this world. I found life and love hard enough being born with the right chromosomes, hormones and body parts. I´m sure it must feel almost impossible to find a partner in this world who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated; I mean treated like any other human being.

This is all the more reason why getting clean should be your top priority. If you are really in love with this person and think they are a force for good in your life, then you can potentially fix the rift that you are currently experiencing. If this person really feels like love to you, then you need to make that your mantra. You´re doing it for love. Love for yourself, love for others and love for your partnership.

Please, please consider checking in somewhere. I´m not saying it´s a 100% necessity, but it is the way I would go. It sounds like Methamphetamine is just too readily accessible for you to easily quit. You don´t need to figure everything out all at once. One day at a time, as they say. You´ve gotta be doing something though. You can´t just wallow in the bad feelings. It´s not good for you.

When I was starting out, my mantra was ¨1% better everyday¨. That meant, I could do practically jackshit, but I always had to do ¨something¨. This was for myself, not anyone else. I had to do 1% better to convince myself I was cooking. It worked. Some days, I´d do a lot better than 1%, other days I´d do much better. You need to focus on small gains. You start by walking into a meeting.

It is a single hour of your time and there are 24 hours in a day. There is no reason why you can´t experience a meeting if you´re able to get internet. They have meetings around the world in every language you could imagine. The meeting will help, but the act of going to the meeting is part of this too. It is you, leaving your house, showing up somewhere at the right time and staying through to the end. For some of us, this might sound like nothing; trivial. If you were like me at your rock bottom, the idea of showing up for anything at a specified time was not something I could do easily.

Go to the meeting. Introduce yourself. Tell people you want the help. Please, you do not have a lot of options here. We all see that you´re coming apart at the seams and it´s hard for those of us who know you don´t have to live like this. You can get better and things can be different. You know I had a very serious suicide attempt in my late teens in which I cut my wrists and almost bled out. I wanted to die because at that time, it was all just impossible and I had nothing to live for. That´s how I felt. I look back at that event and I am shocked that I felt so hopeless. Keif at that age couldn´t see all of the cool stuff I would get to experience if I remained alive. I was sure I had fucked it all up; my life was over.

If that´s how I felt, it´s no surprise you´re feeling it. You´ve gotta take that first step. You´ve gotta do that 1%. There is no reward without effort in this game. We will be your war dogs if you need people to guide you. I´m not the only sober person on here you know? There are lots of people who can give you great advice and support. let us know if we can help.

 

[Psynaught]

OP....listen to Kief, I have found him always on point. And search out a 12 step program and the support it will give you. You will run into members of this forum who go on diatribes against 12 step programs....but every time I check these people have never gotten sober for any length of time. I am old now and have gone back to dabbling in drugs (but primarily because I have sleep apnea and a ton of other problems...mainly stemming from me being very old). However I was 100% clean and sober for 17 years from utilizing AA.

One of the beauties of 12 step programs for your current situation is their recommendation regarding beginning and ending relationships: Generally don't start one...but also don't leave one your are currently in. So if you currently have a partner the program suggests you keep them. Now I know that your partner may leave you anyways (mine did...but she then had a miserable life never remarrying, while I have been happily married for 20 years) but your best chance of keeping your partner is through the program.

Having said all the above....you are probably going to need an inpatient rehab. I kicked Ice/meth 30 years ago just going to meetings but I moved from CA to NY to do so. You gotta get away from all access to the drug, IMO.