How to find a healthy balance with psychedelic/ dissociative habits

[<SpaceHead>]

Hello, I posted this thread in The Dark Side aswell, as it is about addiction, although I thought I would post it here too because it is about psychedelics and dissociatives and I greatly value the opinions of many of the folks who frequent PD. Mod's let me know if this doesn't belong in PD. I recently made a commitment to be sober for at least three months to myself, and now I find myself at the end of week 11, planning to take drugs again next week. Although I have been troubled by some extremely dark thoughts recently, as I'm sure so many of you know sobriety can bring some of the darkest parts of you out with nothing to disrupt or distract your thoughts it can be a bit too real.

My addiction has changed over the years, but was mainly based in using a huge variety of psychedelics and dissociatives in various and often ridiculous combination's very frequently. At least one trip a week, often times more, and copious amounts of pot all day every day for six years. I know I've read about habits that are far more intense than this. At my worst I was doing ketamine every day, and finishing huge tanks of nitrous on the week ends and many times I would push my mind into very peculiar and uncharted territory on a very regular basis out of boredom, habit and an obsession with experiencing new and novel states of mind. My problems don't really come from psychotic type reactions to the states I put myself in, but exhaustion from the stress and effort it takes to maintain such states, and feeling distant and isolated from the more sober people around me. I have not met too many people who have had this same psychedelic habit for this long, most end up using opiates or amphetamines or alcohol, which I have dabbled in but haven't ever really became addicted to.

Everyone told me tripping is just a phase and I would grow out of it. I never seemed to grow out of it so I had to develop personal discipline. After a particularly bad period I made a system of using zen meditation every day before I did any drug, tripping every other week and dissociating only once a month. This was great progress but as the year went on I would get attached to random things like kratom, phenibut and eventually methoxetamine creeped up on me. By the end of the summer I had a week back on ketamine and the clinging obsessive feeling greatly disturbed me, I decided I would find out what true sobriety was like for at least three months. I did two weeks totally sober then took a large dose of ibogaine which succeeded in removing the constant urge to take drugs in my mind, although it showed me cold and empty dissociative hell worlds inside myself and helped to reveal the underlying problems that cause my drug abuse.

So here I am, sobriety has had its great moments of clarity, although I have had very intense self critical thoughts to the point where I don't see meaning in doing anything and fall into cycles of paralyzing depression. It's almost as though depression itself is a self indulgent drug that is also addictive. My life is filled with amazing people who do amazing things all the time and I am so lucky to be able to share this, but I feel immense guilt and sometimes believe I am not worthy of it at all and deserve to destroy myself with drug addiction. This is in no way logical, but this becomes my logic when I fall into this state. I used to take large doses of psychedelics and would be forced to let go of these thought loops and be free to love myself and the people around me. I still use zen meditation as much as I can, but it too, like sobriety is a process of facing things, becoming aware of your own thoughts and accepting the fact that you are thinking them. Before my six years of tripping I was heavily medicated on lithium, adderoll, wellbutrin and lamictal for severl years. I have spent most of my teenage and all of my adult life taking usually several drugs every day to regulate the way I feel and think.

I will be taking pot next friday, followed by a combination of mushrooms and dxm on saterday. Tryptamines on dissociatives are by far my favorite drug induced states of mind, so I feel I deserve to return to this amazing place since I have proven to myself that I can be sober if I really want to. My plan is to smoke pot once a week, I am quite tired of being a pot head, but pot can be an amazing psychedelic if a low tolerance is maintained. And I plan to cut my old regimen in half, trip once a month and dissociate every two months. Although I have a certain fear that the pressure that has built up while being sober will explode into a self reinforcing cycle and I will be back where I started after so much work. But then again I am far from the point where I could even imagine never taking drugs again. Sometimes I day dream about taking opiates, the ultimate escapist drugs, I am partly scared to take psychedelics again and think EVEN MORE than I do when I'm sober. Although I have had several friends walk the opiate path and I am aware that it's not a very effective escape mechanism because you just end up in hell at the end of the road. So I guess I am not sure what I am asking, if anyone has had a similar experience, if anyone has suggestions about using again after being sober, either way thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to read this is helps me a lot just to communicate it to a community who has had real experience with addiction! Thanks for listening!

 

[ASquishyApple]

It was a good read. Thank you for posting.

I think I myself could very easily end up in the same position as you if i really sought after psychedelics or dissociatives and found a steady source like I've always wanted to. This may be one of the reasons I have yet to do this though. The closest I came was when i acquired half a gram of 4-aco-dmt. At one point, I was tripping every other day sometimes every day even. I found that I didn't really build up too much tolerance to it but I always kept my doses low anyway.

I don't see psychedelic drug use (or any drug use really) as much of a problem though (dissociatives are slightly different though) as long as you still take care of everything that needs to be done. With psychedelics though in the broad sense, there's not much risk if any for actual physical damage to the body or physical addiction. I mean until drug use gets in the way of life then I don't see a problem unless you're doing permanent damage to yourself.

 

[mad_demon_man_ant]

I feel for you man. I feel like ive been going through something similar. Im supposed to be starting to see a psychiatrist soon and im going to give being sober from psychs for awhile a try. I tried multiple times and failed. But now im determined because i can see the damage ive done to my brain which i can only hope isnt permanent. Good luck to you man, sincerely.

 

[Bi0hazardOpeth]

Keep some ibogaine around in case you need a stop relapsing detox at some point. Be careful, to set up mental cues of when to cut yourself off or go back to being sober if it starts going in the wrong direction at all.

Psychedelics 4 times a year is a good stable base for people who can have drug problems. Think of it as 1 trip a season, hard to overdue it that way =]

 

[Roger&Me]

I have spent most of my teenage and all of my adult life taking usually several drugs every day to regulate the way I feel and think.

I think you've really answered your own question: deep down you probably know its healthiest to give regular, sober living a try for a while. Psychedelics are not necessary, or even very useful, for cultivating a rewarding inner life. In fact, they are so irrelevant to a normal life that its kind of laughable.... the only suitable analogy I can think of is its like living a big mansion, with thousands of rooms, and you become transfixed by one really wacky closet. If it gets to the point where you even have to consider whether your usage is healthy or not, just stop -- step out of the wacky closet and get some perspective.