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im so depressed..

losangeles1993

losangeles1993

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 12, 2017
Messages
228
okay so for those who don't know my story I recently just turned 24 and ive always experimented with drugs until Halloween 2015..

I was drunk and a Fake friend persuaded me into smoking H on foil..i did it in his car and I fell in love the very next day I was at his house smoking ...I kept that habit of smoking black tar about $20 to $60 a day until about December 2016..when I was kicked out of my house for stealing from my brothers..

i was now homeless and on a downward spiral and it was winter in Los Angeles which gets very cold..it doesn't snow but it rains pretty badly..so here I am homeless in downtown and I'm sleeping in a stair case on cardboard and I'm stealing everyday ..I have no where to go because I lost all my friends and my girlfriend because I stole from them..i went into my beautiful girlfriends purse too many times..i even pawned her older sisters wedding ring and I pawned her favorite gold Jesus necklace which shes still looking for..yeah, I'm a real fucking piece of shit when I'm using...

so when in downtown I meet a couple of other local junkies and I run with them..they show me the ropes.i thought I knew it all but these guys and girls have been boosting and sleping on the streets for years..im a city freak .even when I was living at home I always scored in downtown LA and would sneak on rooftops and watch the city.im an artist so downtown is full of inspiration for me.i love my city.i will never leave here..

so my new friends would be the ones hitting my veins when It was my first time IVing.they cared me in a very weird way...so here I am about a month in being homeless I started jumping from shelter to shelter on Skid Row (skid row is the biggest homeless place in all of USA) and I wake up everyday and I'm SICK as a dog! everyday!

so enough is enough I tell myself..i missed Christmas and I missed New Years and I haven't called my family or my girlfriend so they think I'm dead.i thought they hated me but little did I know they were searching the streets every night looking for me.i tried so hard to get into a rehab but I couldn't the waiting list was 3 to 6 months so finally I call my bigger brother and I break down and I tell him I'm sick of this life.he comes and gets me right away from Compton..I got kicked out December 9 2016 and I was coming home March 12 2017...3 LONG HARD MONTHS ON THE STREET..i was a mess I was 23 and I had track marks and I ruined everything that once made me so handsome...or so I thought..

OK so now I'm home and IM ON LOCKDOWN...I CANT LEAVE THE HOUSE ..NO ONE KNOWS IM BACK NOT EVEN MY NEIGHBORS OR MY RELATIVES..they keep it a shameful secret..theyre ashamed of me..it wasn't until about mid April when I was able to leave again..and I was sober 35 Days...the first day I was out (I had to go check into probation was my excuse) I had a needle in my arm and running with the same junkies I used to within 2 hours...only difference was I'm in new clothes and I look good and have a place to crash at night...

now when I get back home that night my family knew I was high so they made me get on suboxone 16mg a day but I only take 8mg or 4mg depending on how I'm feeling..now every chance I get I have a needle in my arm...I am so ashamed ..my family thinks I'm doing good and my girlfriend visits me all the time and shes so proud of me...

so when I turned 24 on June 5th I said enough is enough and ive been clean this whole 15 DAYS SINCE IVE BEEN 24 ..im taking a little bit of suboxone but I have like 29 8mg tablets at home..i have to go back to downtown after tomorrow to get more suboxones from my doctor and take a piss test and go see my Probation officer (ferreals this time lol) and I'm scared to death of using ..

I don't wanna die and I don't wanna be a junkie..im still a very good looking young man and I don't want to be sleeping on a card board box again because I shouldn't be living like that ! no one should!...im so depressed and nothings fun for me and ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT ALL DAY IS HEROIN!! I WATCH HEROIN MOVIES ALL DAY ..I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO!I'm really worried if I use Imma shoot up a half gram and hopefully not wake up im losing this fight against H

so my questions are..how long until heroin is completely out of mind and will I withdrawl from suboxone even tho ive been using It for 15 days I never used it for this long...im so confused and sad ..many days I feel like getting my brothers gun and ending myself...few weeks ago I found myself holding the gun and the only thing that stopped me was a phone call from my girlfriend...

I also go to AA meetings where I'm very well liked ive been going since March and everyone is so fond of me being I'm the baby in the group..i thought getting thru the dope sickness was the worst but clearly its staying sober which is much harder than getting sober.I JUST WANT MY OLD LIFE BACK PLEASE GOD!!....
 
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It sounds like buprenorphine hasn't been doing enough for you in terms of managing cravings. Although it is a pretty horrible long term solution, the only thing that made buprenorphine really work for me in terms of suppressing opioid cravings was to potentiate it with cimetidine 600mg. But using cimetidine long term can caused unwanted side effects, so it's not something that I'd ever recommend doing every day, so it will only be of limited value.

To be perfectly honest, it sounds like you'd benefit a lot more from methadone than you are from buprenorphine. It is far superior in terms of managing cravings and the highly structured environment of the clinic sounds like it might benefit you. Methadone is more of a commitment than buprenorphine, but if you are in the US and are struggling on buprenorphine with cravings, methadone is definitely worth looking into. ESPECIALLY if you are concerned with continued use while on buprenorphine.

While you look into or learn about alternatives to buprenorphine, try perhaps lowering your dose a bit. A lot of people enjoy the subjective effects of 1-2mg doses. Personally, once I'd become tolerant (after about two weeks), without also taking cimetidine no dose of buprenorphine was able to effective control my cravings.

There are also behavioral things you can do to work on learning how to more effectively bounce back from and manage cravings. I'm thinking mindfulness based practices, particularly a technique called urge surfing. Support groups like AA can be very helpful if you feel comfortable with them, but they don't really teach the specific skills that formally address managing cravings outside pretty surface level stuff. If you want to get more psychodynamic often looking outside of peer support recovery communities can be valuable. Particularly when working with mental illness, it can be a lot easier finding folks with extensive experience in mental health outside the addiction treatment industry.

Since you're in LA, I HIGHLY recommend you check something called Against the Stream out. It's not just folks recovering from substance use disorder. There are at least as many with non-drug related concerns (ranging from the intense, such as a mother dealing with the loss and trauma associated with the loss to suicide of her only daughter, to the developmental, like a young adult struggling in life becoming an adult). It's a very different thing than AA, but given your situation it would be foolish not to look into it: www.againstthestream.org It's a good place to begin learning the skills necessary to overcome urges without depending entirely on medication to do so.
 
I'm on the website right now checking it out thank you..and my suboxone dr. wanted me to go on methadone but I have a lot f friends on methadone and I they tell me it feels good..they're nodding and popping benzos after they dose...methadone has been something ive always wanted to try but I hear the same story with many Delete repeated word people ...they have a 3 year heroin habit and it turns into a 15 year methadone habit...I just feel like theres no hope. they have an against the stream class coming this Sunday in Santa monica...ill definitely be their ..its meditation ...and did where di you move this post to??
 
I moved your post to the Sober Living forum. Folks in your situation are kinda our bread and butter here, so to speak :)

A lot, if not most people, who are able to successfully integrate MMT into their treatment seem stay on it around 6 months to 3 years from start to finish. The length of time you're on it though isn't really what is important. What matters most is whether or not MMT is enhancing your QOL more than it's holding you back from living your life.

There are certainly people who have been on it for a decade or more, but these are a minority of patients. For the most part, unless there is some other serious shit you're dealing with in life, MMT is not exactly worth it in terms of that cost/benefit analysis. It places a lot of limits on one's life, which can be very helpful in early recovery, but gets to be a burden as time passes and the patient figures more stuff out about what works for them and what doesn't in their processes of recovery.

There will be a daylong from 10am-4pm and a normal meeting at 7:30pm at their Santa Monica location this Sunday. Unfortunately I'll be out of town, but you should definitely check it out if you can.
 
dude you've been super helpful to me I appreciate you big time..imma private message you something.
 
You need hobbies and activities not connected to heroin.

Continuing the obsession by watching movies about heroin use isn't helping.
 
Hey, LA1993. You're in good hands with TPD giving you advice. Sounds like you're in a tough spot, but you can get out for sure. For me, getting off heroin took quite a few tries, so my main advice is just not to give up. No matter how down you feel, just keep fighting. Eventually things will click for you, and then the path gets easier.

Like TPD my main recommendation is to work hard to get two things working for you: medication and behavioral stuff. Having both of those squared away makes life way easier.

In terms of medication, I also found that suboxone didn't cut it. On subs I always craved and eventually went back to using. TPDs suggestion about methadone is spot on. Given the story you told us, it sounds like methadone might be a lot more helpful for you than subs.

In terms of behavioral stuff, you might look into local intensive outpatient programs (IOPs). These are offered through many hospitals and clinics. They vary in quality, so doing a little research is a good idea. But personally, I found IOP very helpful in terms of keeping me motivated, especially early on.

Keep us posted. And please do remember: never give up on yourself.
<3
Sim
 
thank you for all your guys words..seriously you guys care for me more than my own family...makes me feel good inside
 
Hang in there dude, you are certainly not alone, shitty as it may be, you are not alone. I last used April 30th, it will get better
 
lol wait what skid row is an actual place?? Bro I don't have any answers for you. All I can say is you have a really long road ahead of you and that this shit is extremely hard to shake off. I been at it for 10 years. I mean ithink the key is to have a better life to go to. just focus on your girl and being a good bf and brother and shit. GL
 
Watching heroine movies will make you jones out and fantasise about using and this will make you miserable. Even though your clean I would get on that wait list for rehab. Its not a cure all by any means, but it will help you out on coming up with a strong recovery plan and introduce you to different aspects of treatment you can use to live a much more comfortable and enjoyable life.

Addiction is much more than just the drugs.

Im clean from opiates five years in august.. don't slip onto the alcohol like I and others ended up doing. I pulled the ripcord on that shit almost forty days ago.

I feeling great and so can you.. make recovery your number one priority or you will throw yourself under the bus over and over.

You can do this!!
 
Rehab could certainly work well for the OP. I think rehab would be a great idea after getting off buprenorphine down the road, particularly if the OP is still in this same situation with his family. Hell, if he could find a rehab that allow him to take buprenorphine, it sounds like he might really benefit from getting some distant from the family in a less hostile, judgmental environment.

That stuff just makes the process so much more difficult. Hostility, judgement, fear, hopelessness, confusion, ignorance, etc. No bueno.
 
Yes indeed haha a very distinct smell. Nothing like it, not even in any prison I've been to.

Btw I remember you saying you've been going to AA or NA meetings, correct? If you don't mind the abstinence only thing you probably would enjoy Refuge Recovery. They have meetings Thursday and Sunday evening in Santa Monica right off the expo line (literally right off).
 
Some areas are also much more intense than others. It seems like I often find a pile of poo or two on Crocker :) the area near HHC exchange is definitely one of the clear parts of that area. I feel like it has to do partly with location on the edge of skid row and that the place gets treated with a great deal of respect by residents.

Personally I love the area around skid row. Despite a plethora of shady characters it is a very vibrant area full of really interesting down to earth people from all walks of life. Hard times bring the community together in meaningful ways despite challenges posed by the environment and circumstances of life down there. It is faaar from utopian, don't get me wrong. It is a hard fucking place where you rarely don't have to watch out for yourself, who you're with, what you're doing, LE, etc. But there is no shortage of individuals of truly outstanding character.
 
I knew I had a problem when I would go into HHCLA with thousands of used needles.

The lady looked at me and was like "TWO THOUSAND?!" :eek:
 
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