I'm trapped & unable to stop.

issokay

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 14, 2011
Messages
127
Location
Central Texas
I first used over 15 years ago. I was clean for over ten years. After a painful injury I was prescribed narcotics and as the story goes for so many, here I am 6-7 years after the injury, and I've been using for a few years now that rx's no longer work for me. I mean I can take thousands of mgs of morphine that I do get as a legit rx but it does little for me. At this point I haven't let myself go through the withdrawal in probably at least a year now. I don't know how I've been able to fund it. I've pawned everything I've owned. i've lied, stolen from/to people I love. my life partner wants to leave me, but I love him, he thinks I only care about the drug. But that isn't true. I want to save my relationship, while still not having to be in pain, just taking my ms contin and morphine as prescribed. But I do heroin multiple times a day as much as I can and rarely go more than a day without it. I don't commit robberies or anything like that. I'm not violent. I've done a lot of damage to my and my partner's credit though, trying to get money, & I have close to $1,000 in checks I have to pay IMMEDIATELY to avoid jail/warrant being issued for my arrest. I have a fear of institutionalization. I try to stop but when that sick feeling comes on I do ANYTHING that isn't going to hurt others to get it. How can I get to where I can just make myself take what I'm prescribed, which is a lot in comparison to most people. Most cancer patients don't get prescribed as much as me. But I do have serious pain issues. I won't lie. I do also use to chase that good feeling I had when I first used, rarely actually finding anything like it. I'm screwed up my veins, caused further physical disability to myself from a near OD a few years ago... my tolerance is so high now if I ever had to have surgery I doubt they'd be able to or be willing to give me enough pain meds to keep me out of pain if something happened to me. Can anyone advise me of anything other than 'just quit' type of advice?
Thanks
-A good person, despite the stigma...
 
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Most people have to lose a lot before they realize how bad it has gotten. Are you willing to lose your family and husband and your freedom?
 
Lots of people get on low dose bupe injections for chronic pain. I've heard it works well. Although it seems impossible now, people with legitimate pain issues can live comfortably taking relatively small amounts of medication. My father has lived in pain since he was 18 due to be hitting head on by a drunk driver. His right leg was broken in so many places they were going to just amputate it but decided to use a rod first. He was in a full leg cast up to his hip for a year. He also has his ankle fused together and required to get special shoes with a 2 inch build up in the heel. Most people in his situation would be in pain management getting oxycontin, opana or methadone. I don't know how he does it, but he gets prescribed 90 tramadol 50mg pills a month and takes Aleve......and that's it. There are times when he is limping really bad and is in obvious visible pain but he just refuses to take stronger drugs even though he would basically have his own prescription pad as no doctor would deny him whatever he asked for because the injury is horrific. I wish I could be like him, but I was born an addict. I'm the kind of person that gets a tooth pulled and goes home and takes all 10 of the Vicodin I get from the dentist at once just to get a buzz. I've been an opioid addict for the last 7 years, doing everything from tramadol to heroin but my DOC is oxycodone. At one point I had a 300mg a day Oxy habit. I never thought I was doing something dangerous until I overdosed on fentanyl laced heroin and died for 2 minutes. I have lost everything I once had in life, the woman I love more than life itself and most of the people who care about me have basically written me off as a dead man walking. I'm 30 years old and live with my parents because of my addiction. There are times I think to myself how easy it would be to just end it all because I'm so tired of the guilt and pain. But I don't. Because I do know one thing, it's never too late to get sober and try and enjoy my life. I may never get back the woman I love or the money and toys I once had...but I can try. Life gets better the longer you stay sober. I've had years of sobriety before, I can do it again.
I've asked my father why he refuses to take anything stronger than tramadol and his response was something I think a lot of people in chronic pain don't realize. Nothing is going to take all the pain away to the point where you were before your injury. Sure, you can get high and forget about the pain for a while but it always comes back. He said he would rather just feel a tolerable amount of pain all the time than go through the ups and downs you will go through with stronger opiates. He also knows that the more powerful drugs you take the pain level always returns after your body gets a tolerance to that drug and it just gets worse and worse the stronger pain meds you take. Someone like me would never be able to deal with a horrific injury and chronic pain on that level. I'd be on fentanyl patches and opana, probably heroin along with it and probably be dead in a few years. But I don't have any discipline or self control. But the point is, it can be done if you exercise some self control.
 
i don't mean to be rude here but your thread title is incorrect, it's not that you're unable to stop, it's that you wont. the honest to god truth is that everyone CAN stop, it's a choice. you either want to abstain from heroin or you don't. addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful but you do have the strength to not use, everyone does, you just need to find it. do withdrawals suck? YES, will they kill you? NO.

I'll pray for you to have the strength to abstain from using heroin. you clearly see that your significant other is at his last straw, he sees what your addiction has turned you into. there's really only 3 places for an addict in the depths on the devils grip; jails, institutions, or death.
 
i don't mean to be rude here but your thread title is incorrect, it's not that you're unable to stop, it's that you wont. the honest to god truth is that everyone CAN stop, it's a choice. you either want to abstain from heroin or you don't. addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful but you do have the strength to not use, everyone does, you just need to find it. do withdrawals suck? YES, will they kill you? NO.

I'll pray for you to have the strength to abstain from using heroin. you clearly see that your significant other is at his last straw, he sees what your addiction has turned you into. there's really only 3 places for an addict in the depths on the devils grip; jails, institutions, or death.

Just got back from an NA meeting didn't you?
 
Just got back from an NA meeting didn't you?

lol yep

op, you're gonna feel like hammered dogshit for a week, but once you quit h and just do your regular meds you will feel better. you dont have to quit forever, just procrastinate getting high another day...
 
hah holy shit y'all are right that shit is literally NA doctrine verbatim.
the only thing missing is what seems to be the prevailing topic of every NA meeting I've been to in recent years and the main reason I stopped going -- "NA WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE IF YOU LET IT. MEETINGS MEETINGS MEETINGS. STEPS STEPS STEPS. IF YOU DON'T WORK A 12 STEP PROGRAM YOU WILL SURELY DIE IN THE STREETS W/ NOTHING TO YOUR NAME HAVING GIVEN AWAY YOUR BODY, YOUR DIGNITY AND YOUR SOUL FOR DRUGS. LEFT MORALLY BANKRUPT. NA IS THE ONLY PERMANENT WAY OUT, ANYTHING ELSE IS BUT A TEMPORARY FIX. YOU MIGHT LEARN SOONER OR LATER, BUT THERE ARE THOSE AMONG US WHO DIE NEVER HAVING LEARNED. WILL YOU BE ONE OF THE FORMER OR LATTER? THE CHOICE IS YOURS. IT'S ALWAYS YOUR CHOICE. here, take this meeting list, those numbers may save your life; and if you actually have ANY DESIRE to get clean right now you'll be making 90 meetings in the next 90 days."
maybe that ridiculous constantly expounded upon cult like attitude that NA is the ultimate lifesaver and is the only possible way to true salvation from drug addiction is just prevalent in my area though? I don't know.
 
NA works for some people. Some people go in and out all the time (that's me) and some people are just there because they're on probation and have to go lol. The thing that I don't like are the same few people every meeting that have to share something every time there's a chance. I call them "preachers". They always talk like they've been clean for so long that they're the ultimate source of knowledge about addiction and everyone should look up to them and they know everything. They usually always basically say the same exact thing just in a slightly different way, kind of like they have a generic speech ready and they just change a few words to make it relevant. And it always ends with "I don't know I'm just grateful to be here and I love you guys, I pass". It gets kinda old. They do seem to always act like the 12 step program is the only way that will ever work for anyone. I was clean for 4 years one time before I ever even knew about NA. But, it does work for some people and it could work for anyone if you legitimately stuck to the program and got involved and really tried. Anyone can get clean if they truly want to and put their mind to it. That applies to you OP. You just gotta want it!
 
I flushed everything I had to get high on down the toilet one day when I was high. I honestly could not come to the action of doing it sober. That said, I was ready to quit for a long time before that and I guess the actions of me high somehow convinced me sober that if im willing to destroy the means of my addiction while fucked up, sober me should listen. I can relate to your struggle, a lot of us can. I hate being two different people but that's just how I was born I guess. As for stopping, you will find two different points of view on here- one being sign yourself up for an addiction treatment program and find an NA meeting online near your house and just head down there. The second being to CT, 'man up,' and forcefully put yourself the living hell that is opiate WD and the following mental cravings until one day you realize you went a week without thinking about using. You know who you are better than anyone, and which one is most likely to work for you. My suggestion, is to take the addiction program route and just man up to attending 1 NA meeting and see how you like it. I feel for you, I wish you the best and either way its going to take strength, dedication, and faith in believing one day it will be better. Good luck brother.
 
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