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Meth/Amphetamines: Serious Discussion Only - V.2: MERGED with amps quitting thread

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I have abused benzos for 10 years, opiates for 5. During the worst years I included horrific self injury (cutting) to the point they wanted to do skin grafts on my legs. The depression I was self medicating with the benzos nearly killed me. A lot of police in my house, a dozens and dozens of ER visits fucking bonkers on benzos and bleeding like a stuck pig. Several psych wards stays, a lot of wrestling with hospital security....this went on for years, however the tiny part in side of me who wanted to keep fighting kept trying every goddamn psych drug out there. Eventually we started seeing progress after I fired the shittiest, most dangerous psychiatrist I've ever seen and got myself a new one with brains. I slogged forward for years. I still have bumps in the road, and I still drink poppyseed tea occasionally, but the scarring all over my body has faded and I am slowly planning potential careers. I'm 29, and completely lost my 20s to madness, with benzos playing a huge part in it.

After something major last year I was sectioned for 2.5 weeks in a psych ward. Late one night I tied a noose to my bed and dropped into it. Suddenly, I had this thought that if I died, I might miss something like an interesting documentary. A completely ludicrous thought, who fucking cares about missing a TV show? but it was suddenly extremely important to me. I sat back up, caught my breath, went to bed and handed the noose in in the morning. It killed something within myself I think that needed to die. A while later I was released from hospital, on even better meds, and I now continue to walk forwards.

Your post really touched me.
It reminded me greatly of my brothers story from so many years ago; unfortunately however he didn't quite take the same motivated steps that you did, had equally poor luck with psychiatrists and didn't make it.
Keep fighting mate, this roads a rocky one.
 
<snip>..fuck im getting tired of trying to get sober. im going to my friend's funeral today, he shot himself in the head a week and a half or so ago. im picking up bars hopefully that helps but i'm going to bawl like a baby.
 
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<snip>..fuck im getting tired of trying to get sober. im going to my friend's funeral today, he shot himself in the head a week and a half or so ago. im picking up bars hopefully that helps but i'm going to bawl like a baby.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend 8( losing our close friends always hurts but don't hold back those tears. Crying is always calming so let those tears flow. <3
 
Amphetamines are the death of me.

After almost 5 months, I relapsed & overtook.

The damage is minimal (3 20mg vyvanse), but the implications are enormous.

Events:
- Last week: Manipulated doctor and got vyvanse prescription, turned it in to pharmacy.
- 24 hours later changed my mind, called the nurse, told her I don't want stimulants.
- Today I got a phone call, “Your prescription is ready for pick up.” ?!
- Filled just a 3 day supply as I had to pay out of pocket
- Took one at 1:00, another at 5:00, the last one at 7:30

Now I have to feign illness in order to skip outpatient and not get dropped. I have been exceptionally responsive to treatment, so I THINK I just might get away with it.

I'm numb to emotions now. I can't identify them, except that I know I feel bad enough to start repenting before I even "come down". sigh
 
im getting so bored with life. im depressed. i have been sober over 6 months now and i just feel blah. i wont lie...getting high has crossed my mind, alot. its probbably a good thing im broke, i have 5 dollars to my name right now. fuck. this is the longest ive ever been clean. i dont know what to do.
 
Ive been using for about a year and a half now. When I first started, it was once-a-month thing but up until Feb this year that I went hard. At least once a week, 4 to 5 days bender. I was also unemployed up until not long ago that I got a job. I was so sure of myself that I could control my usage. I realized that its now controling me as Im typing this. Im starting work in about 3hrs and I havent slept or eaten for 2 days, I have some left over saved for later if I feel tired. I am scared of this shit so much but dont have enough willpower to stop. My partner knows about my problems, hes afraid that I will get in deeper but doesnt know what to do. Im quite stubborn and will do whatever I please and zero discipline. I had a break for about 1 month and got back into it. One of my many flaws is whenever Im angry or upset at something/someone (mainly my partner) I would turn to it. Maybe subconciously, its an excuse to use, to make myself feel less guilty but now I guess I have an excuse to quit and let go. I just hope that I will be strong enough to, at least, have a long break, as long as I can stay away from it. Right now, my job is the most important thing to me so doesnt matter how fcuked up I am, I have to show up. After today, I WONT touch it again, will clean out my place and get rid of all things related to it. All I need is willpower
 
it took jail & prison to get me off the shit. i was as addicted to the lifestyle as the drug. i've tried it since and i just get too paranoid. thank God, or i'd probably be right back on it. cravings reduce, over time. i had almost none in jail/prison. but when i hit the street....they emerged. cravings for the lifestyle, too, i wanted to find a quarter paper ho & get busy. i wanted to engage in other meth-related activities for the rush behind them. i'm much stronger now, thank God!
 
Guys you really don't understand what this relapse means. .

I WILL have to tell outpatient I got a 3-day script because I will have to drop on Friday morning. I took them Tuesday night. I don't think they'll be able to tell I didn't take them as prescribed. But what if they can???

Theoretically I could continue flushing my system, running/sweating, and eating whole foods.. do the drop & not say that I got the prescription. If it shows dirty I'll look really guilty then. I told outpatient about how I abuse them historically, that I "set up" the doctor and then turned down the script. Because I was so proud. Then ... so unexpectedly ... I had amphetamines "ready for pick up". and that's just what I did.

Tonight I lied about going to meditation group because my teacher is in from Germany..it's true but I'm not going there... so now I have to make up some sort of verification.. I'm GOING to lie as much as I can because this is DCFS..

I hate the way amps make me out of control & out of touch. I'm crying like mad and I'm not myself.

What do I do??

Edit: I never got dropped for this one
 
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SxCrAvEr said:
Maybe subconciously, its an excuse to use, to make myself feel less guilty but now I guess I have an excuse to quit and let go.

I can relate to this, then as my addiction progressed, it became almost a form of self punishment. I would feel so, so terrible about the mess I had made of my life due to this addiction, so one part of me would say 'So go smoke some more. That's what you are, a meth addict. This is what you do. So go prove it, come on, have a puff' and I would, and that'd confirm to me how fucked up I was.

SxCrAvEr said:
I just hope that I will be strong enough to, at least, have a long break, as long as I can stay away from it. Right now, my job is the most important thing to me so doesnt matter how fcuked up I am, I have to show up. After today, I WONT touch it again, will clean out my place and get rid of all things related to it. All I need is willpower

Willpower is important, but there are also other ways you can support this to help yourself beat this addiction. Right now, you're probably feeling scattered and pretty damn shit - I can relate to the feeling of being up for days and getting this incredible urgency that something had to change, I couldn't continue - I would get in a state of extreme agitation and distress and be sure I couldn't continue. What I found though, was this conviction lasts as long as the mindstate. Once that mindstate loses its urgency, I found the urge to quit did too. After I'd slept and was getting high again, and feeling good, I'd almost chuckle to myself and think, oh silly girl. It's not that bad. I'm sure it'll be better this time.

For this reason it was important to me to make plans when I was relatively sober and stable. During those scattered nights I'd make a note of those feelings and think, I'll think about this again when I wake up. In that way, I think I was able to make plans that were more rational and more realistic.

For me, it was a huge learning experience. It took me 7 years of addiction to finally quit - it took me that long to learn what I needed to do to quit. It was still incredibly hard. But, if there was one benefit from quitting and relapsing so many times, it's that I became very, very aware of what quitting felt like - and what helped me during these times, and what didn't. I had many, many chances for trial and error!

Don't forget it is possible to quit, no matter how far along into addiction you get. I can tell you some of the more specific things that helped me if you're interested, but there's a lot of shit, and this'll get too long :)
 
...For this reason it was important to me to make plans when I was relatively sober and stable. During those scattered nights I'd make a note of those feelings and think, I'll think about this again when I wake up. In that way, I think I was able to make plans that were more rational and more realistic....

I think that is a great idea.
Everytime after a few day bender, I feel like shit, and always tell myself that I would stop because I dont want to be an addict (My father died of heroin, he was an addict and they took him to rehab but he was too weak to fight withdrawal and he died just a year after I was born.). Then I would stop for a few days and when the cravings hit me, I forget all those quitting promises that I made to myself and all I could think about was loading that pipe and the rush and the adventures that it would take me. Sometime I just wanna give up and let it take control over me but in general, I dont like to be beaten at anything so I would fight against that thought and have a short break then it starts all over again, like a vicious circle.

I would be really glad if you could share those things that helped you to quit. Ive been searching for NA/AA/DA meetings in Sydney but couldnt find any. ALso tried calling a few numbers but no answer.
Thank you in advance
 
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I would be really glad if you could share those things that helped you to quit. Ive been searching for NA/AA/DA meetings in Sydney but couldnt find any. ALso tried calling a few numbers but no answer.
Thank you in advance

Here's some info for Sydney. If you have any problems contacting someone, please shoot me a PM :)

Sydney Metro Area Narcotics Anonymous Phone: 61.2.9519.6200 http://www.naoz.org.au

Sydney Metro (Recorded Meeting Info) Phone: 61.2.8230-1645 http://www.naoz.org.au

A list of meetings in your area can be found at this link (there are roughly 100 meetings in the Sydney Australia area): http://portaltools.na.org/portaltools/MeetingLoc/
 
Hey SxCrAvEr, I'm so sorry I haven't responded to this earlier. To tell you the truth, I have been wondering what exactly are the things that helped me quit, and I've had trouble pinpointing them. I feel like I could say all the oft quoted things like exercise, meditation etc, and they were a small part, but they weren't what really helped me quit. I guess in the end, the key for me was, telling myself I just wouldn't use again. And you know, I used to hate people saying you needed to hit 'rock bottom' before you can quit, and I still don't believe that, but for me, I do think I needed to get to the end of the road with methamphetamine. I knew for ages it wasn't leading me anywhere, but the experiences I had on it were just so awesome, so euphoric, that I thought that was an end in itself. But even when I finally realised I'd reached the peak of experience on meth, that if I continued on it my life would only be equal or less than what I'd already experienced, I found it hard, because the high is just so seductive. I wrote this in another thread but it articulates what I really feel helped me stop using meth, because that meant not giving in to the cravings.


I'll tell you what helped me with the cravings when I was quitting methamphetamine, a crazy intense addiction I had for years and years.

For me, cravings were born out of the conflict. The conflict being - I could get it...but no, I shouldn't! It was that part of my brain that knew I could get high again, that really drove the shit feelings. It was that addict part of my brain that drove those thoughts for one purpose - to get high. If you take away the possibility of getting high again, I feel that cravings lose most of their power. During a methamphetamine recovery group I went to I learnt that during a meth craving, your brain releases dopamine - just a taste - to really drive you to get the real deal. That made sense to me, because in craving I felt the meth high - the adrenaline, the shakiness, the anxiety - but without the euphoria. Intense cravings remain to me as the 2nd worst feeling I have ever felt in my life, the first being suicidal despair. They fucking suck.

Anyway, after that long winded explanation, the best response I found for cravings was, as soon as they happened, telling myself, nup, not happening, I'm not getting on. Straight away, not even entertaining the thought. Doesn't matter why, I don't need to justify it, I'm just not, and that's the end of it. Because I truly believe it's the addict part of your brain that wants you to think it through, imagine yourself doing it, imagine the high. Because it knows the more you think about it, the harder it will be to say no. Justifying it wont work. I don't believe that anyone who quits a habit is 100% sure they want to quit. So in thinking about the reasons why you've quit, the addict part will grab onto that 1% uncertainty, and it'll grow into a rationalisation to use.

I find the best thing to think when you're craving is, I'm not doing it, I've thought through my reasons for this previously, and I don't need to go over them again now. Because during a craving, you're not rational.
 
First post about myself here...

I've never been one to believe in God, satan, spirits, souls, hell, possession and other things I often heard tweakers talking about. I thought it was some meth psychosis thing. Now though I still don't believe really, I do find myself questioning the possible existence of all of those, and it's disturbing to me.

Now you're going to say, eat something get some sleep it'll be alright. But I've been doing those things, as well as taking breaks of three days to a week. This drug initially felt like speedy ecstasy (only cleaner and more euphoric); now it just feels dark. It can be a euphoric darkness, but it's a darkness nonetheless...though I still lean towards some scientific explanation, much of the time, especially when I use alone and at night, I feel as though I've morphed into an evil version of me. Other times I feel like I'm not me at all, but rather various negative entities being channeled through me through me (these are not hallucinations, or delusions, I know they're not happening but it feels as though they are).

For lack of better word, it does feel as though I'm losing my soul, or at least part of it, to this drug... that part of me, that cared and empathized with others, is gone or dying. The disturbing thing is, sometimes I feel this way completely sober as well, exactly as though I imagine a -sociopath might feel. it feels good sometimes to see others in pain and that's a horrible thing and not who I am. Other times, sober or not, I feel this intense rage in me that I didn't know existed.

Friends I started using with (and whom it hit a lot harder than me, and hell it's only been a couple of months), they're no longer the same people. Some of them even developed have this permanent malicious glow in their eyes that never seems to go away. While I've merely 'felt', very different from my usual self, these former friends gone out and actually done horrible things, mainly just for the thrill of it. It's difficult for me to reconcile who they are now with who they once were. I mourn who they used to be, but they are no longer my friends and I no longer feel safe around them.

After my last use (this morning, that's all I had left), I've taken one step I at least feel good about: thrown my pipes, meth bong, torches, and butane cans. I'm tired of hiding all this paraphernalia (snorting doesn't get me off anymore)... I feel bad enough that I know how to use this stuff, let alone own it. Please don't feel judged fellow meth smokers, certainly there is no judgment from me, I just hated being addicted to such a conspicuous pipe and gear and I feel cleaner with it all gone.

Sorry... just been feeling so down and needed to rant. Thanks for reading.


I posted this earlier... coming up on 6 months off the crystal and otherwise at present completely sober. Spending time in treatment, being off the drugs completely, after a few weeks I noticed my thinking got much less drug oriented and much more goal oriented. I've gone back to school and hope to be active in harm reduction.

Funny, I've enjoyed a wide variety of drugs, but I have no interest in any of them at present... it's really only the crystal that I crave - the smoking act of it particularly. I have using dreams regularly, which are disorienting but when I wake up I remind myself that's not what I want to do. I'm glad I got out before I got in too deep, I guess, but it's exceptional the psychological hold that it seems to have, given that I was really only using it regularly not even a half year.

Overall though, I'm amazed things have come along as well for me as they have and I am grateful for that. By the time I got into crystal I had completely written myself off anyway. I had been struggling with thoughts of suicide since I was teenager, and I hated myself to the point that I could only stand to be on my own skin when I was on uppers. I always felt this sense of doom that I had no future and was destined to die young, either through suicide or through drugs. What astonishes me most is that the suicidal thoughts and crushing depression have been lifted (for the first time in 8 years), and I think I feel I may actually have a future now, something I never thought possible. I can actually face myself when I look in the mirror now.
 
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^ Congratulations on your 6 months off! It must be amazing to feel like yourself again. I'm really looking forward to it...
 
Events actually happen in the mind before (and after) they manifest in the physical realm. Thought >Action.

I know a wise person who has said that Stealing happens even if the item was not actually taken, if it so happens that the thought of stealing occurs. This is true because there was still movement/vibration of theft. So stealing continues until the tendency to steal dissipates 100%.

^ This can be likened to the idea that In thinking about substances, you are using substances. Tomorrow in court, I'm being held responsible for Using drugs. Never mind that I have been clean for 5 months now, except a little alcohol, spice, 1 vicodin script, and 1 day use of Vyvanse. I consider myself clean because substance use was not daily, and not abuse nor obsession. I am adhering to my morals, showing up for life, and flourishing like I never imagined was possible. The problem must be that I still think about substances; therefore a random old prescription pill of mine has been attracted to me. Because I think about substances, I will not have custody of my daughter. This is my conclusion. I can explain...

_________________________

For Thanksgiving I visited my Dad's; I hadn't been there since 11 months ago when I moved out in a drugged state. During my recent stay my Dad wanted me to clean the basement. What a wreck, and everything was where I had left it. You see where this is going? In anticlimactic fashion, I found ~10mg Adderall beads in a capsule. Nothing more.

Drug Test Repercussions:
I took the amp on Thanksgiving. +4 days later I had to do a drop. Yesterday (2 mere days before court).. the drop came in dirty...for MORPHINE. (?!) I definitely took Adderall beads- my pupils dialated slightly. And I haven't had morphine beads in many, many years. Other effects tell me I know I took amphetamine.

I have court tomorrow for getting back custody of my daughter. My lawyer was 90% that we could have her returned to me. Now because I found a bit of my old medication, took it, and didn't say anything when I took the drop.. It looks like I did morphine. Mind=blown. Apparently if I'd said something when I took the drop this wouldn't be nearly so bad. I "thought" that after 4 days it would not show up anyway. Rather, I didn't think well about this in any way. And what I have at stake? Parenting. It's almost too much to consider. I have been crying so much for 24+ hours that I look horrid; my eyes were swollen when I woke up today. I am going to present just awful.

So in the A.M. I have to go in front of the judge and say this truthful + idiotic statement:
"I was visiting my Dad for holiday cleaning the basement where I used to live. I found a partial capsule of my old medication, Adderall, and ingested about 7-10 mg. My last prescription was 6 months ago. I admitted to my counselor what happened. The drug test came back showing as Morphine; I don't know why."
 
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Events actually happen in the mind before (and after) they manifest in the physical realm. Thought >Action.

I know a wise person who has said that Stealing happens even if the item was not actually taken, if it so happens that the thought of stealing occurs. This is true because there was still movement/vibration of theft. So stealing continues until the tendency to steal dissipates 100%.

^ This can be likened to the idea that In thinking about substances, you are using substances. Tomorrow in court, I'm being held responsible for Using drugs. Never mind that I have been clean for 5 months now, except a little alcohol, spice, 1 vicodin script, and 1 day use of Vyvanse. I consider myself clean because substance use was not daily, and not abuse nor obsession. I am adhering to my morals, showing up for life, and flourishing like I never imagined was possible. The problem must be that I still think about substances; therefore a random old prescription pill of mine has been attracted to me. Because I think about substances, I will not have custody of my daughter. This is my conclusion. I can explain...

Mami, I respectfully disagree.

In my experience, our actions define us, not our words. You say that stealing happens, even if it only occurs in thought... I think that it is our ability to resist urges to steal, and commit acts we innately know as wrong, which define us as strong, civilized people. Humans are constantly fighting all kinds of urges to commit all kinds of heinous things, we are animals after all, with all kinds of animalistic reflexes. But it is our control over these primal emotions and urges which make us civilized. For example, I think all of us have been so angry at someone that we wanted to beat them senseless, but we control that urge. We can't be held responsible for that feeling, anger is natural, it is our response to that feeling which really counts. It's unrealistic to think that the tendency to do bad things will completely dissipate, we're not perfect people.

I have completely sympathy for your situation, it's totally unfair. But, you need to give yourself some credit. You say you've been flourishing in life despite thinking about drugs. That shows some serious strength on your part- you've been able to live a good life despite being burdened by desires to fall back into addiction. Thinking about drugs, is NOT the same as using them. If that were the case, almost no one in recovery could say they've made progress at all.

To relate this to amphetamines... amps make me way more impulsive, which make them really dangerous. Not only do amps decrease my moral inhibitions, they fill me with all kinds of energy which make me way more likely to do some really stupid things. I think that's why I've gotten into more trouble with amps than any other drug, even though I've used them for a fraction of the time.
 
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