- Joined
- Aug 4, 2010
- Messages
- 7,556
I'm pretty offended you didn't call me first @Iceman1216. What's the point in having the phone number of one of History's greatest junkies if you won't use it? Sidebar, my phone is cracked and a replacement is in the mail. Anyways....................
I was already preparing for one of my signature diatribes, long, winding, 90% of which is me being a jackass, but I'm gonna try to be succint here.
Maintenance is a miracle, plain and simple. It comes in many shades. Some folks use maintenance as a means of stepping down in a more relaxed fashion to complete abstinence. This will often entail a few months of usage and then an attempt at abstinence.
Here is an analogy. Let's say you have trouble sleeping. It's a big issue for you and you're trying to get it under control. There are undoubtedly many factors that have led to your insomnia, some are idiopathic and some are due to things out of your control and some that are in your control. You investigate what others are doing to deal with their issue of insomnia. You find that the following things are all important in getting healthy sleep and maintaining healthy sleep habits in turn.
- Laying down at the same time every night
- Not watching TV/being on the computer
- Avoiding Caffeine
- Using supplements like Melatonin prior to lying down
So, what is going to best enable your success? Presenting a United Front and doing all of these things at just the right time, religiously. You don't drink coffee til nine, do Facebook til ten, then pop a melatonin at 11 and hope to be well rested by your alarm at 6. Does this not make perfect sense?
In my experience, sobriety is just like this. We all are well aware of what can be done to help us maintain stability and stay on the right track.
- Support groups. This can be whatever the hell works for you. For me, 12-step meetings have always been great. Perhaps therapy. Whatever... accountability. Support. Fellowship with others who have similar goals.
- Exercise and proper diet (I know, I know, I even laughed a little bit myself when I typed these words)
- Non drug-related pursuits like work, family, friends
- Staying away from people, places and things that are not conducive to keeping clean. For a lot of us starting out, this translates into EVERYTHING THAT YOU CURRENTLY KNOW AND DO.
- Medication, including maintenance
My main point is this: Maintenance is not a silver bullet and I have never met a single soul for whom I can truly say otherwise. There is a large subset of people in treatment who believed this and now just use the fact that their Opioid habit is checked off to use their money and time on other drugs.
I talk a lot about the recent rise of Methamphetamine in my home area of Boston/New England. I know many people who are on the clinic who are now hopelessly addicted to Meth and also heavily dependent upon Methadone.
Maintenance is a miracle, really. The answer to your question Mike is, yes, it can be like magic, but only if someone is willing to make all of the necessary changes in their life. It doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't truly fix anything. But, it allows you time to figure out every single other thing besides Opioids in your life that you're doing wrong. Once you feel you've fixed these things, then you can attempt to withdraw from maintenance.
I also believe that many people will never get off maintenance successfully and are better off on it and I think the stigma of chronic maintenance is detrimental to the self-esteem of many people.
I was already preparing for one of my signature diatribes, long, winding, 90% of which is me being a jackass, but I'm gonna try to be succint here.
Maintenance is a miracle, plain and simple. It comes in many shades. Some folks use maintenance as a means of stepping down in a more relaxed fashion to complete abstinence. This will often entail a few months of usage and then an attempt at abstinence.
Here is an analogy. Let's say you have trouble sleeping. It's a big issue for you and you're trying to get it under control. There are undoubtedly many factors that have led to your insomnia, some are idiopathic and some are due to things out of your control and some that are in your control. You investigate what others are doing to deal with their issue of insomnia. You find that the following things are all important in getting healthy sleep and maintaining healthy sleep habits in turn.
- Laying down at the same time every night
- Not watching TV/being on the computer
- Avoiding Caffeine
- Using supplements like Melatonin prior to lying down
So, what is going to best enable your success? Presenting a United Front and doing all of these things at just the right time, religiously. You don't drink coffee til nine, do Facebook til ten, then pop a melatonin at 11 and hope to be well rested by your alarm at 6. Does this not make perfect sense?
In my experience, sobriety is just like this. We all are well aware of what can be done to help us maintain stability and stay on the right track.
- Support groups. This can be whatever the hell works for you. For me, 12-step meetings have always been great. Perhaps therapy. Whatever... accountability. Support. Fellowship with others who have similar goals.
- Exercise and proper diet (I know, I know, I even laughed a little bit myself when I typed these words)
- Non drug-related pursuits like work, family, friends
- Staying away from people, places and things that are not conducive to keeping clean. For a lot of us starting out, this translates into EVERYTHING THAT YOU CURRENTLY KNOW AND DO.
- Medication, including maintenance
My main point is this: Maintenance is not a silver bullet and I have never met a single soul for whom I can truly say otherwise. There is a large subset of people in treatment who believed this and now just use the fact that their Opioid habit is checked off to use their money and time on other drugs.
I talk a lot about the recent rise of Methamphetamine in my home area of Boston/New England. I know many people who are on the clinic who are now hopelessly addicted to Meth and also heavily dependent upon Methadone.
Maintenance is a miracle, really. The answer to your question Mike is, yes, it can be like magic, but only if someone is willing to make all of the necessary changes in their life. It doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't truly fix anything. But, it allows you time to figure out every single other thing besides Opioids in your life that you're doing wrong. Once you feel you've fixed these things, then you can attempt to withdraw from maintenance.
I also believe that many people will never get off maintenance successfully and are better off on it and I think the stigma of chronic maintenance is detrimental to the self-esteem of many people.