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How long can one be sober to be consider not a addict??

shahab6

shahab6

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How long can one be sober to be consider not a addict to opiates??

If they are consider going back to it.

I'm taking a break from oxy, but I am planning to go back, but I want to know how long can one stay sober to be considered not a addict?
 
It all depends on your personal view on things... But I guess most would say you'd have to fight the withdrawals off first.
 
I think once an addict you will always have that addiction in your brain, hence when you start up again and think you're just going to do it "one time, only on weekends, etc" it grows into full blown addiction very fast. But over time you can change your life and move on and suppress the cravings in your own ways...
 
Mentally - it depends on the severity of your (former) addiction and your personality type. thats why you can hear someone referred to as a "recovering addict" still after 10 years sober. most likely once an addict, always an addict.

If you're talking about physically, like "how long do I have to wait until I can do opiates casually and not experience withdrawal" thats a tricky question. If you're dead set on doing it I'd wait at least 2 months after your W/D is over. Because after the physical WD comes a whole nother group of symptoms depending on how long you've been using. Give it some time, a few months, to let your body get use to "itself" again.
However I know some people that have kicked dope or oxy habits, gone a whole year without using, than took a couple of vikes to see if they can take opiates casually, and they still felt mild W/D the next day.

No judgment , but if you are gonna kick now you should just say fuck it and not go back, even if you wanna do a one time thing or an only on weekends thing. never a good idea. find something else to do with your time. real talk...
 
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previouslyhere;8389109 No judgment said:
I wish it was that easy, for one I have legit pain. Sometimes the pain gets bad that I really do need painkiller.

I can't take Advil all the time, I believe opiate are better for the body then some of these new painkillers.

And sometimes I get depressed, which then I need opiates to be able to get out of my depression..

Then I have social anxiety, for me to be with a group of people and in order for me to be social I need opiates.

then there is being bored, again I need to take Opiate not to be bored..

and then there is the stress of School, work, family etc.. Then I start obsessing about my look, etc....

so it's more complicated being sober, if somehow I could solve those problems I would be able to stay sober forever. but unfortunately it's impossible to solve those,
Click to expand...
 
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impossible to solve if you keep taking opiates for every problem you run into instead of working on them
 
An addict is always an addict. There's no such thing as a "recovered addict". That's why people who have been clean for decades still refer to themselves as "recovering addicts". I know when I quit meth I'll never be able to touch the stuff again, cos I'll always be at risk of relapsing.
 
Long-term physical addiction can last up to a year post-withdrawal in typical circumstances, since it takes a while for your endorphins to start pumping normally again.. therefore the pain and fatigue of withdrawal can extend a long time, depending on how long you've been using.

Psychological addiction is forever, though!
 
In the US, "addiction" is diagnosed as "substance dependence" via the DSM-IV-TR criteria and this is a lifelong diagnosis.

That long list of reasons you cited as reason to use are rationalizations. I don't doubt that you have legitimate pain, I do as well... I just think you would take any excuse you deem quasi-legitimate to feel more comfortable about what you know are the actual and potential consequences of this.

Stress, depression and anxiety are not reasons to use, they are reasons not to. Self-medication can turn into addiction much faster that other routes... when you self-medicate you mentally justify your use and allow yourself more at a quicker pace with less consideration and apprehension of the consequences.

After a while you still have depression, stress and anxiety and probably exacerbated all three while creating an addiction problem far more problematic that what you formerly used to justify your use with.
 
Once an addict, always an addict. Though that's the old cliche, it's the truth. I've been through three rehabilitation programs in the past nine months, and have only been back out in the real world for a little over a week. I have relapsed twice, and have used drugs other than my drug of choice quite a few times. The urge to use never goes away, and there is always some point during my day that I start thinking of how nice it would be to use and how much easier life would be. I was addicted to prescription opiate/opioid medication and heroin, and not a day goes by that I don't think about getting high.

It's all about choices, to be honest. I can choose to stay strong and not use today, or I can choose to fall into temptation and go back into old habits in a heartbeat. The real question is, "is it worth it?" I struggle with this, and have to remind myself every day of who I was and how broken I was last August after overdosing on heroin, hydrocodone, and alprazolam and how badly I wanted to be normal again. I was addicted to opiates/opioids for the majority of seven years, and I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Even though I'm clean now, I'm still an addict and always will be an addict. It's something that I've had to accept and embrace in order to be who I am today. It's a process, not an event.

Hope this helps,
stonedandrolling89 <3
 
i think the definition of being an addict must involve a psychological aspect.

there are plenty of people out there who take medication for physical reasons and are physically dependent on the medication but i would not define them as addicts.

there are addicts out there who abuse drugs but arent physically dependent on any substance who would still be considered addicts.
 
If you're still hanging out for your next hit (however far away that might be), you're still classed as an addict in my books....
 
Most AA and NA say that you are addict all your life. Even if you are sober and been sober for years that if you aren't watching your disease could come back and you'd fall right back into drugs. I'm not sure that I 100% buy that, but I have less of a problem with that than I do all their higher power shit.
 
^^^ That is not always true. I was a alcoholic for years and it was actually much worse then my opiate addiction. But if i relapse im not right back to where i started because i try my best not to let myself get that bad again. Something changed that made that addiction seem more disgusting then any other.
 
In the case of opiates along with some other classes of drugs if you use a good quantity, frequently enough, your body becomes accustomed and you are physically dependent. The question of addict as a matter of personality or character is a different thing I think.

This an addict is always an addict stuff gets said a lot- largely because experience and observation bears it out. But I have noticed that when a orthodox drug counselor or support group member is presented with a case of someone who had an addiction but is using moderately they say that either he wasn't really an addict or a full relapse is around the corner. Meaning I think that the "always an addict" thesis is a proposition that is held as universal and proven even in cases where the proof isn't in.

Addiction is complicated and made up of many factors. To spite the one size fits all approach to addiction that is very prevalent in some of the more common treatment approaches, each addict has a unique situation biologically, socially, psychologically. In spite of this, I think it is rare that people who have been addicts are able to go back to a substance that caused them grief without experiencing more grief.

I happen to know Kurrupt's statement "Your always an addict, until the day you die, all it takes is one use and your right back where you started... " is not universally true. I've experienced and observed periods of moderate use in former raging addicts- but its not necessarily commonplace, I'm not recommending anyone give it a try. Far more rare is some one maintaining moderate use. Statistically I'd say its rare but I don't buy the universalized-addiction as a single entity approach.

On the simpler addiction as physical dependence issue you are no longer an addict as soon as withdrawal has ended and your tolerance has returned to your pre-use levels.
 
It's all about where you actually stand at the current time in terms of the reasons why you became an addict in the first place. You can be clean for 10 years, and you may still have the same fixation / mindset regarding opiates as you did at the worst of your habit. I consider the mental aspect of addiction to be about 99.9% of the issue.

Instead of focusing on how long you have been clean, try to evaluate what made you want to go clean (for any period of time,) and whether you can have a sustainable relationship with opiates that you can remain comfortable with. The moment you start making compromises and concessions for a drug you have begun to stray. I suggest not only to avoid this, but to consider why you ever end up there to begin with.
 
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