I need help

bdomihizayka

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 30, 2012
Messages
582
Location
Down the rabbit hole
I need help. I am an opioid addict. I just left rehab about a month ago and used heroin half a dozen times. The first I overdosed (chalk that up to at least a dozen now) and the rest of the times I get high- but not the high I want or remember. I just feel warm and dumb. I don't get talkative anymore, I don't get energy, I don't enjoy doing anything and each time I get high, I can't wait for the feeling to go away.

AND THEN I WANT TO GET HIGH AGAIN!!! I k know what the highs going to feel like, that it's not fun anymore, but my reptilian brain remembers those early days and screams for the drug. The cravings are so uncomfortable- I start sweating, no appetite, no interest in anything at all. I don't know how to beat them.

Basically I want to be high when I'm sober and sober when I'm high. And I don't have a habit again yet- I don't know where I'm going with this, but at the moment my head is above the water and in screaming for help. I want this demonic party to stop for good.
 
I know exactly how you feel because I too felt the same way, however I have never overdosed. There will never be a high like that first one, ever. I believe your overdoses were caused by trying to get that high again but unfortunately it will never come again unless you were to quit for a long time and let your tolerance go back to before you ever tried opiates. This was the battle I faced when I was addicted. Get drugs, do drugs, don't enjoy the high, want to feel normal, feel normal, want more drugs again because maybe this time that high will come, nope. It never comes back sadly and that's what leads many to overdose, as I believe that is why you overdosed as well. If I were you I would quit while you're ahead. Do you really want to go through those withdrawals all over again?!
 
You are caught in a loop. You need practical ways to address that moment when your reptilian brain takes over. I believe that we can strengthen parts of our brains by artificially at first creating new thoughts--in this case from your rational mind (the voice that you already have but gets drowned out by the craving). When your whole being is screaming, "WANT!NEED!" like a two year old having a tantrum, it can be hard to switch gears. But if you could almost look at it like having to parent yourself through the mind-tantrum, you could stay focused on what you truly need. You do not need that drug but you can step outside the mental/physical urgency that says you do by literally creates another self to calmly observe what is going on. You can strengthen that part of you for the battle of beating addiction. This is why the issue of "willpower" is so controversial in recovery (and what defeats so many people with a sense of failure and weakness). Willpower is certainly needed but it is not sustainable without deeper changes in the brain. Those changes (learning to recognize and tap into your own innate strengths) take time and practice. But the benefits go way beyond addiction. Addiction/dependence saps a person of any trust in their own power to heal and it can be the hardest thing in the world to believe in trust when you feel hopeless. That's why I say it may feel artificial at first but stick with changing small things like your language to yourself and you can begin to build strength in that calm, rational part of your mind.<3
 
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