I just want to stop....

[Fatjosh]

im new here but i have been lurking for quite a while. And i guess im just venting. im 21 years old and i have been addicted to opiates for four years. i never thought my life could be like this but it is and i just want to stop but im terrified of the withdrawls i face. i took my first recreational dose of hydrocodone when i was 14 i broke a bone in my hand and had surgery and my doctor gave me giant bottles of 5mg vicodin. i was already smoking weed but i was far from your average stoner i was always top of my class i never ditched school and i had everything going for me. i didnt really say to myself im going to take a bunch of these pills and get high i just hated waking up in the middle of the night because my pain had broke throught the meds then id have to wait an hour for them to kick in when i took more so i began taking a couple extra so i could sleep through the night. by the time i was healed 6 weeks later i had gone as high as 40mg at night (i would save up my whole days doses so i could sleep) when i had healed and ran out i had no problems i had a little bit of the runs but not really withdrawls. after that i really didnt touch opiates for 3 years. i always remembered the nice buzz i got from them but i just never sought them out. when i was 16 my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer and he died after almost 2 years of fighting he passed the day befor i graduated highschool. needless to say with a cancer patient in the house our medicine cabnet was stocked. a couple weeks befor he passed i had strained my back at work and grabed 30mg of vicodin from his stockpile. this was my undoing...my anxiety melted away in the warm embrace of the opiates i felt like i was happy for the first time in so long it was reliefe from the nightmare i had been living. so i just kept taking them at night to sleep i guess i justified it because it was "just vicodin". i dont know where this attitude came from in my group of friends oxy was like heroine but vicodin wasnt a big deal...or so i thought. i used opiates to deal with the loss of my dad which was my stepfather almost my whole life my father commited suicide befor i was born so he was the only father i had ever known as well as the fact that with him bedridden with cancer we lost our home. so the next 6 months flew by befor i got to a dose that was hard to afford and experienced my first w/d and realized i was addicted. so i just kept going for the next year in which at 19 i took on the roll of "the man of the house" which i promised my dad i would i did the only thing i knew that i could do to bring in an income to help support my family of 5 which was me my mom, my girlfriend, my great grandma, and my mentally handicaped cousin that my parents adopted. I got my medical cannabis card here in california and started growing pot. all the while my addiction was getting worse and worse somtimes i couldnt find vikes so i started taking 30mg roxicodones i had access to but only as a last resort by now i was at about 70mg of hydro/60 mg of oxy. about a year into supporting my family my mom starts dating a new guy named steve i like steve but i wasupset that a weekafter first meeting him he was staying at my house which made it impossible to hide maintaining my garden. steve became privy to how i paid our $1300 rent with no job at the time. thing were ok i was taking things pretty well i think. 3 months into their relationship 2 things happen first was that i decided to quite opiates second being steve proposed to my mom. This threw me for a loop who gets married after 3 months? this was sprung on me towards the end of my withdrawls from stopping the pill habbit nobody knew i had. the W/D were horrible it was the hardest 6 days of my life but i had done it and i thought i would never go back. i relapsed a month later the day of my mothers wedding. I was in the cerimony and as he put that ring on her finger all i could think about was my dad puting a ring on her finger 15 years before. It was like everything closing in around me i like steve but it just seemed so wrong i suppose its cause he was just thrust into our family so suddenly i just lost it i couldnt hold back the tears i just left. i went home and called a buddy to score some vikes i told myself it was just going to b tonight, then just one more night, and one more ect. and befor i knew it i had been taking them for a month and i was back to my opiate prison although it didnt seem so bad cause my tolerence had gone back down so it was cheaper. after a year and a half of growing to pay our rent and 1000$ power bill i couldnt do it anymore the pressure was too much shit happens when u grow and we were almost out of backup money for if i didnt make 3000$ that month so we moved from our nice new home to a tiny rundown house with my grandpa all the while my tolerence going up and up and just when i was getting to a dose i couldnt maintain my mom had surgery on her sholder and entered pain management and got prescribed 200 norcos and 180 15mg roxies. shetakes most of the norcos but started giving me the roxies really cheap so i would sell most of the roxies to buy vicodin and that has been going on for the last year. I have always had horrible acid reflux and i always took cimetidine for it until 6 months ago when i got sick and saw blood in my vomit at this time i was eating 150mg of hydro 1 time daily. I went to the doctor and he told me it was blood from my throat bleeding but i wasnt sure because of all the asprin so i started just taking the oxy's. now presently i am taking anywhere from 150-210 mg of oxy a day and it is so stupid my problem is that i guess i have the all or nothing attitude i try to wean myself down but its hard cause if i take 8 oxy's instead of 10 its like im still spending a bunch of cash and i kno if i just took those 2 extra i will feel good instead of just ok. i want to stop so bad but i just cant my life is so hard right now that i feel like opiates r my only refuge from the stress i have on a daily basis.... so i guess thats my story and i dont really kno what i expect from telling it, but it kinda helps to have just write it down and get it off my chest thanks for listening, josh

 

[herbavore]

Josh, that is so much to deal with all at once! Losing your Dad to cancer, supporting your family (do any of them work??) and then having your mom seemingly "replace" your Dad after just three months---any one of those can throw you to the ground. You know what you have to do, which is quit, but how to do it is the question. I know that because of your role in your family, an inpatient program is probably not what you can do. Do you have any outpatient programs that you could get into to get the group support for what you are doing?

 

[Fatjosh]

Hi herbavore thanks for your reply i kno that quiting is the only answer to my problems. An inpatient program is out of the question and i live in a rural town with no real NA meetings, there is a church that does some sort of drug program but its such a small town u can fart on one side of the town and by the time u make it to the other everyone knows already and iv lived here my whole life so everyone knows me. im basicaly on my own besides my wonderful fiance. I dont think i would b here if it wasntfor her she is very supportive, but that only goes so far when u r coldsweating for days. i seriously wish i hadnt quite the first time because now i kno what im in for and it terrifies me. i was always so driven i had never had a problem achieving my goals and now i only have 1 goal and that is to get off opiates. I just have terrible withdrawls. I have other friends that have habbits as well but the ones who have actualy went thru withdrawls kinda act like it wasnt so bad, im not a wimp but it makes me feel like a total bitch cause i cant just stop. When i was 15 i did cocaine for 6 months straight and stopped one day on a whim when i thought "i cant b doing this it isnt what i want out of life". I want so much out of life but pills consume me. I have been thinking of trying kratom along with immodium and benzos but it just seems like i cant afford to spend a week in bed. thanks alot for your input and support

 

[Captain.Heroin]

It is possible to get off opiates, not look back, and feel forever stronger afterwards.

It takes a lot of us multiple attempts at getting clean, but you can do it.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Just keep trying and working on yourself and your life. Almost no one quits on the first try. Get support online. Try counseling - they have to keep it secret. Try reading some books about addiction, mental health and self-help. See if your doctor could treat you. There is never a "good" time to detox, unfortunately. It's very easy to put it off thinking we can't afford to be sick for a week. But we can't afford to be addicted to opiates! Best of luck You're not alone

 

[Mycotheologist]

Was it the scaphoid bone by any chance? They gave me hydromorphone after my surgery for that. Did nothing to kill the pain so I didn't even take it.

 

[Vomit fox]

I know how you feel. I'm 21 myself, and started at 17 for 4 long years on opiates. My dad didn't pass just a drunk in and out of prison, and my mom fried her brain after overdosing on coke. I had to get a job early and drop out of college to support them. Jobs were scarce during that time, I lost mine and my family was evicted, we moved our own ways for a few months staying with friends and family except me and my brother. We lived outta of our car, I was forced to quit opiates and move to northern Cali out of my car we got jobs saved up for two months and got an apt where I moved everyone back in to be together. After 6 months of getting shit together i thought I could dabble again, but it got out of control. Needless to say I'm 21 and gettin off of it all over. From 150 mg opana or h everyday. Right now I'm 33 days clean. I got faith in you, especially if your a smart driven young man like myself. I was always top my class taking honors classes and such and working out everyday I was really healthy. But if your as determined as I am to become everything you want to be you'll make it man. I feel brand new, I was scared at first, but now I embrace it. I believe in you bro, its not hard don't make a big old thing, just another shitty thing in life to get over like being broke for awhile or getting over a bad time.

 

[Mycotheologist]

Lifes hard for everyone but drug prohibition makes life a whole lot harder for people who choose to self medicate. Every intelligent person by now can see some of the many reasons why drug prohibition has failed so horribly, I wonder when the governments of the world will finally concede to sense and begin to regulate the substances. The Colombian is openly in support of ending prohibition now because the war on drugs has an exceptionally negative impact on that country. Its just a matter of time but I wish they would hurry up about it because the sooner these draconian anti drug policies are dropped, the sooner things will make a radical change for the better.