How do you find addiction to be as you get older?

[Jabberwocky]

I am 30 now and heading to 31 and no doubt it's done some damage through boozing off and on weekly. It makes it worse I got my Masters in Business and haven't really used it yet 3 years later and have now been out of work the last year and a bit. In all honesty this is the last thing I expected upon graduating but hey it can happen

It has me thinking though, do you manage addiction better as you get older or does it get worse?

I personally found a period where drinking alcohol was manageable until all of a sudden it's now caught up to me. I was already depressed and anxious but the booze definitely made it worse and me taking meth in the last semester of university was one of the dumbest things I had done. It literally made me lose motivation for anything. I quit several months later and then just stuck to drinking, since that time I've had odd jobs here and there but couldn't function like other workers. I'd always find it hard to get out of bed and found it hard to motivate myself. Any how am getting better I guess, am drinking less but even a big session these days impacts me for the next 2 days. Copping nose bleeds has made me want out and am trying to now not drink at all.

So it goes....sorry for the blab, just needed to get it off my chest after sitting in front of a computer all day.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

Good luck.

Seeing how drugs and addiction effect people when they get older is one reason why I stopped using all drugs when I was 29.

I have seen people who have used drugs or been addicted to them for decades, even if it was just smoking pot regularly and tripping and it's not a good thing. I have also seen what happens to people when they drink or abuse alcohol for decades and it's not pretty.

 

[nygiants1313]

Well at 20 my withdrawal was 3 days and day 4 I was ok just a lil down. Now obviously at 26 it looks like an impossible feat with a full time career and responsibilities.

I would say the older you get addiction hurts you much more mentally. "Where'd my life go, should have stopped years ago, I'm screwed now." Also with more time in active addiction most likely means a lot more money spent, jobs lost, family members or friends trust diminished, and bonds broken and possible lisence priblems, criminal record charges the list goes on. Many drugs screw the body up too.

My apologies I kind of listed why addiction is much harder to deal with at a later stage vs the manageable aspects of addiction.

At a young age you think you are under control and don't know how bad the future may be, but at an older age you realize how fukd you are. Regardless no Bueno

 

[szuko000]

I agree that it is harder to get clean as you get older for two main reasons, age and responsibility.

Age has a great effect on how well you rebound from pain or "damage" as it were. A direct example of this is when I was younger i was an alcoholic. I would drink at least 375mL of vodka a night and wake up for an 8am class with little issues. Sometimes i would go way over board and have to skip but 9/10 times i was barely hung over. Slowly that stopped happening and I would get hungover for longer periods, that is once the alcoholic phase stopped. So when I was 20/21 I could drink and wake up early provided i drank water before bed and what have you, tried drinking excessively now and i will be hungover. Maybe i wont be dying but i can no longer avoid the hang over and my father who rarely drinks will be slow and drained of energy for days and hes 62. So age definitely effects how easy your body adjusts to poisons or any type of injury.

Then we have responsibility which is self explanatory. When I was in college missing a class wasnt a big deal, it wasnt even a problem as long as you did well on the exam. Some classes you didnt even have to attend class as it was 40% mid term 60% final so thats like no responsibility where as with a job one absences is "bad." Maybe not terrible but thats one day i chose to stay home for personal reasons that now i may regret if i get sick.

The best part is age increase linearly with responsibility, in general. So as you get older and take more time to heal you arent allowed to take as many days off if you are even able to take one as now you have rent and kids to care for. I think those are the two biggest issues when it comes to recovery and it is why once i and my g/f are clean we will continue to eliminate substances we use for recreation. I feel it is just in good practice to try to be "running" once you get to 30. Then you can say "yeah i fucked up when i was younger but i got it straight by the time i hit 30" which is quickly becoming the new age of independence anyway, only (fools?) think they can be independent at 18, hell i was still a junior in HS at that age. Not to say it cant happen but that is at least how i make it so i feel ok about all this. "as long as i am not sleeping with the same view through my skylight when i am 30 as i had when i was 15 all will be ok"

In short i find it is way harder as i age just because i am older.

 

[nygiants1313]

^^^^^fuk the hangovers dude. The alcohol hang overs are #2 on my list of "whyd i do this to myself moments"

1---opiate withdrawal
2---alcohol hangover
3-amphetamine comedown

Its like now it takes 2 days to get hydrated no matter how much water i drink when it comes to alcohol.

Even the day after amphetamine i can go to work with a little glow, rehydrate and by noon be ok, get home just as im getting beat, and be ok.

Funny enough when i would get hammered beyond belief and wake up drunk, i would never get a hangover.

But i havent drank hard in forever. Before opiates, alcohol gave me mild euphoria or just overall happy feeling, while being very social. after being hooked on opiates for almost a decade at the ripe ol' age of 26 now, alcohol lost its magic and makes me very depressed and crave opiates, and NOTHING good comes from it.

 

[realtalkloc]

I have seen people who have used drugs or been addicted to them for decades, even if it was just smoking pot regularly and tripping and it's not a good thing.

Really well said and so true.

 

[phactor]

I am 30 now and heading to 31 and no doubt it's done some damage through boozing off and on weekly. It makes it worse I got my Masters in Business and haven't really used it yet 3 years later and have now been out of work the last year and a bit. In all honesty this is the last thing I expected upon graduating but hey it can happen

It has me thinking though, do you manage addiction better as you get older or does it get worse?

I personally found a period where drinking alcohol was manageable until all of a sudden it's now caught up to me. I was already depressed and anxious but the booze definitely made it worse and me taking meth in the last semester of university was one of the dumbest things I had done. It literally made me lose motivation for anything. I quit several months later and then just stuck to drinking, since that time I've had odd jobs here and there but couldn't function like other workers. I'd always find it hard to get out of bed and found it hard to motivate myself. Any how am getting better I guess, am drinking less but even a big session these days impacts me for the next 2 days. Copping nose bleeds has made me want out and am trying to now not drink at all.

So it goes....sorry for the blab, just needed to get it off my chest after sitting in front of a computer all day.

Mine got way worse, addiction doesn't get better, it escalates. This is because of a variety of reasons, but as I aged my body couldn't take it nearly as much but I still kept going. I also got physically addicted very very quickly (I am talking like one or two uses and I would be in withdrawal).

I got clean right before I turned 31, I cannot even imagine how I would feel had I kept going (I would likely be dead to be honest).

Besides some fun times when I was younger, nothing good came from my addiction. It only held me back and made me hate myself. Now I have a life worth living and I will not give it up just to use.

You should probably seek treatment. I've had alcohol withdrawal seizures, they suck.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

^^^^^fuk the hangovers dude. The alcohol hang overs are #2 on my list of "whyd i do this to myself moments"

1---opiate withdrawal
2---alcohol hangover
3-amphetamine comedown

Its like now it takes 2 days to get hydrated no matter how much water i drink when it comes to alcohol.

Even the day after amphetamine i can go to work with a little glow, rehydrate and by noon be ok, get home just as im getting beat, and be ok.

Funny enough when i would get hammered beyond belief and wake up drunk, i would never get a hangover.

But i havent drank hard in forever. Before opiates, alcohol gave me mild euphoria or just overall happy feeling, while being very social. after being hooked on opiates for almost a decade at the ripe ol' age of 26 now, alcohol lost its magic and makes me very depressed and crave opiates, and NOTHING good comes from it.

Yeah alcohol hangovers suck. I had a few horrible ones with those. The worst were the ones where I would wake up still drunk, and then have to deal with that and then the hangover from it. I'm glad when I was drinking nightly in large amounts or on weekends that I never had access to a car.

 

[Acidtek]

I've just switched from heroin to subs after a good few months every day use. I have just turned 29 and have been on and off heroin and subutex for a good 10 years and with every relapse the withdrawal is getting worse for me, my body can't handle the pain the same and mentally it is crushing me, I've been off heroin for 4 days and on the subs so I need to keep the momentum going, but the first day was like death, I've been using IV and using the same site for a few months which is my femeral, pretty stupid I know, and what a horror that is, wondering if I'm going to get an infection or DVT. And the question, the thing that hurts the most is the fact that I didn't learn last time round and have just thrown away 18 months clean

 

[vancbc]

I'm 41. I'm 22 months drug-free and 10 months sober (alcohol-free). In my experience, addiction just kept getting progressively worse. I was going through the motions of a successful life (buying a home, professional advancement, getting married, etc) but it got harder and harder to hold it all together. As I aged, my addictive behaviours became more reckless and towards the end I spent most of my time either drinking in the evenings and on weekends or feeling like total crap. I tried to manage my alcohol addiction by drinking less, but I guess age or years of abuse take their toll because even with just a couple of drinks in an evening I struggled the next day.

It's quite amazing how much life can turn around in as little as 10 months. I was always proud that I was a "functional addict", but it's only in retrospect that I realize how messed up I was. I hardly even recognize the man that I am today from what I was in those 20 years that I was progressing down the road to active addiction.

 

[Gil NayO]

Good Stuff vancbc

 

[jesus&paychecks]

Aging and addiction is a pretty complex issue to think about. Obviously addiction doesn't leave the brain as we age. But I know a lot of people who as they grow older, start families, find jobs and hobbies that they like, are no longer willing to accept the consequences that come with using. With that being said, the hardest thing I have come to learn is that nothing changes just because I say "ugh, I am tired of being sick." So, we have to take action in a way that changes the way our brain communicates with our bodies.

I know people in recovery who talk about some "burning bush" moment, during which, the desire to use drugs and alcohol left them. I have never experienced that, and I struggle with the obsession more than I typically like to admit. But, I am also a full-time single father, I am am unwilling to risk my kiddos well-being for my using. And that is kind of what this deal is about--becoming so unwilling to deal with the bullshit of addiction that we start doing things differently.

 

[phactor]

It's quite amazing how much life can turn around in as little as 10 months. I was always proud that I was a "functional addict", but it's only in retrospect that I realize how messed up I was.

That is a very very common experience, I had it myself. It wasn't until the very end that I realized that I was not a functional addict. I always knew I was an addict but I couldn't accept the unmanageability part of it. I really think that many of us get these thoughts because we want to believe we can eventually learn how to use. I did all the controlled drinking shit myself and it never worked, substitution was a big one as well.

Turns out I hadn't been in control of my life for a very long time. Today, its hard for me to even understand how I didn't see how crazy it was. I also simply do not understand how I was able to use all those years. It was hell on earth for me but I did it for at least a decade.

 

[Erikmen]

I agree that it is harder to get clean as you get older for two main reasons, age and responsibility.

Age has a great effect on how well you rebound from pain or "damage" as it were. A direct example of this is when I was younger i was an alcoholic. I would drink at least 375mL of vodka a night and wake up for an 8am class with little issues. Sometimes i would go way over board and have to skip but 9/10 times i was barely hung over. Slowly that stopped happening and I would get hungover for longer periods, that is once the alcoholic phase stopped. So when I was 20/21 I could drink and wake up early provided i drank water before bed and what have you, tried drinking excessively now and i will be hungover. Maybe i wont be dying but i can no longer avoid the hang over and my father who rarely drinks will be slow and drained of energy for days and hes 62. So age definitely effects how easy your body adjusts to poisons or any type of injury.

Then we have responsibility which is self explanatory. When I was in college missing a class wasnt a big deal, it wasnt even a problem as long as you did well on the exam. Some classes you didnt even have to attend class as it was 40% mid term 60% final so thats like no responsibility where as with a job one absences is "bad." Maybe not terrible but thats one day i chose to stay home for personal reasons that now i may regret if i get sick.

The best part is age increase linearly with responsibility, in general. So as you get older and take more time to heal you arent allowed to take as many days off if you are even able to take one as now you have rent and kids to care for. I think those are the two biggest issues when it comes to recovery and it is why once i and my g/f are clean we will continue to eliminate substances we use for recreation. I feel it is just in good practice to try to be "running" once you get to 30. Then you can say "yeah i fucked up when i was younger but i got it straight by the time i hit 30" which is quickly becoming the new age of independence anyway, only (fools?) think they can be independent at 18, hell i was still a junior in HS at that age. Not to say it cant happen but that is at least how i make it so i feel ok about all this. "as long as i am not sleeping with the same view through my skylight when i am 30 as i had when i was 15 all will be ok"

In short i find it is way harder as i age just because i am older.

Exactly!

The addiction issues you face when you are on your 20's are completely different for those you get when you are on your mid 40's. Besides, when you are younger you have an entire life ahead of you and your recovery process is faster.

This is totally different when you are older. Well said about responsibility. You may have kids to look after. Your job is much more important when you are older in addition with society in general that can be really harsh on older people as we are supposed to be all grown ups by now.