One of my friends is Bi and for a little while there, every time we'd get high together things would start getting very sexual on his part. It made for some pretty uncomfortable experiences, I.E. being on acid at a show and him just grinding hard on me...and whispering in my ear to 'let it all go man' - goddamn. While a crowd of people see me just standing there totally frozen like a statue not knowing what to say or do and hoping the fucking song would end already so he'd stop rubbing his dick on my leg.
Lol, I have a friend who is almost definitely bi but actually married now and still pretty solidly closeted. A while ago when I was a lot younger and a bunch of us were out, all fucked up on copious amounts of MDMA, back when I could handle clubs and the DnB rave scene, one of my friends not unkindly tried to bring it up to him, that we would all still accept him and there was no reason to hide it from us. I'm not sure from a psychological health standpoint whether this is a good thing to do or not for someone who is obviously not ready to come out but it was really awkward, he basically became very defensive and emotional to the point of tears, at which point my friend tried to backtrack somehow and rescue the situation (again - not unkindly - we were all on MDMA and loved up and at the time were a very close group - but, equally, empathogen-induced honesty from a psychologically untrained but just well meaning friend might not always be what's needed in certain delicate situations).
After that none of us ever spoke of it again, but there were some other incidents including one time we were all doing MDMA in at the time a very small room, most of us shirtless coz it was hot and we were young and, fuck, does there need to be a reason, and at some point while we were sitting together on the bed (there were actually like 8 of us on the bed, again I was young and lived in a very small room, maybe not ideally suited to having a lot of people over for massive drug parties - and in fact we did get a lot of complaints from neighbours although at the time I didn't give a fuck). Anyway so we were just chatting and suddenly he starts kind of caressing my chest in a fairly sexual way. I have nothing against some man to man physical affection, don't get me wrong, but it made me pretty uncomfortable and I fairly promptly made an excuse to get up, mess with the music, then just stay standing and kind of away from the guy. I'm just gossiping now - but it's funny to reminisce - it was all a long time ago now but I miss those days in a way - anyway there was also another incident where he came on to and had a far more explicit sexual experience with my openly gay friend - again, while we were all on MDMA, but this time in a house - so they were in a room alone together except for another friend who passed out early, so they thought, but apparently woke up and heard a bunch of shit. This I think was during the time my closeted buddy was actually engaged. He's a cool guy on the whole and we get on well, but, damn, is he committed to just staying in the closet forever. I guess he can stay there if he wants, it's none of my business, I think it's surely kinda sad though that he can't fully accept himself somehow even now. But, I know what that's like, if not in terms of not wanting to accept your sexuality, definitely other more abstract parts of oneself... Eh, again, this is all just petty gossip by now but again, it's enjoyable to reminisce on those times.
I know the feeling. I, too, have always been able to hold my personal life together even in the depths of drug addiction, which is mostly a blessing, but it also allows me to justify pushing further into drugs more easily. I have a tendency to prolong addiction phases even when I know I'm addicted, because I hate anxiety (who doesn't?). I feel I need to be able to perform at work and band, which is actually true, but in most cases it would have been much less suffering to just jump off early on, rather than develop something more full-blown and spend months tapering and suffering the whole time and then dealing with more protracted PAWS.
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Yeah that's not very long. Though the clonazepam is worse to take daily than etizolam, since the half-life is much longer. Either way I think you['re probably just in for anxiety for a while, it will peak a couple of days in without any benzo usage, and will last a week give or take before starting to reduce... at least in my experience. If you can not take clonazepam and only etizolam, and wait as long as you can between doses, until you decide to jump off, that will help. And like I said if you can get some gabapentin or pregabalin, those will help a lot. Gabapentinoids are miraculous for drug withdrawals of all kinds, most especially opiates, but also benzos.
Yeah it's both a blessing and a curse being able to stay vaguely functional by most appearances, although, definitely more of a blessing, I think, on the whole, I do not relish the thought of a serious rock bottom type scenario and somehow wonder if I would even survive it... The work thing is my own constant, oppressive shadow over my life, and honestly I did come very close last year to shit truly hitting the fan in the depths of kratom AND benzo addiction, on top of my usual modafinil, phenibut, polydrug cocktails in an effort to force my mind into motion, but at that point nothing was enough and I could conceivably have cratered my business through sheer inaction for months, maybe have incurred debts, had to endure director misconduct and bankruptcy proceedings, I could have really fucked myself and have been in a terrible place both materially and psychologically... that was when I decided for the first time ever to try being completely sober, from everything, and even tried some online 12 step stuff, something I thought I'd never do... at that point finally I just surrendered to the need to give myself some time to stop trying - and I maintain even now that the most valuable thing I got out of AA/NA type stuff was the idea that if you're suffering from serious addiction, in the early stages of your recovery -
you don't need to do anything else except not use. And from that finally I could put myself first, and recognise that my own health and wellness should be my first priority - and giving myself that permission, that if all I did in a day was not to use a drug, no matter what else - that day was a success - was really helpful.
But of course, eventually, that's not all you need to do. Real life and it's incessant demands eventually forces it's way back into your list of priorities... and as happens so often, these insights faded a little and again I started to get into the trap of just feeling like I just HAD to somehow MAKE MYSELF CAPABLE OF WORKING, drugs or not, health be damned... all that said, I'm still in a far better place now than I was, and I guess I'll just keep riding this inner battle until I finally finish sorting things out so I don't have so much pressure to work all the time which was my primary objective in getting sober in the first place, and remains my objective, despite this recent blip.
Noted about clonazepam versus etizolam, maybe I'll try tapering with just etizolam instead, I thought for some reason clonazepam would be better because of the longer duration... and yeah, I do really like pregabalin but unfortunately I think it just makes me too stupid and unfunctional... gabapentin also sadly while it surely prevents seizure risk does very little for me psychologically when I'm using it following a heavy benzo phase. I did feel something nice from it about 2 months into my planned total sobriety when my GABA system must have had some time to recover but otherwise, even when I was just using phenibut a lot, I didn't really ever feel much of anything on it. But, that's fine, I don't need to be feeling drug feelings all the time... that desire is what got me into this situation yet again.
