Recovery Recovery and excercise

[eat_pasta]

Hello guys /girls,
I have a few days off H , now usually around day 4 i usually start feeling better but still get cravings which i believe is due to my natural feel good chemicals still fluctuate in my brain through the day - are not enough to keep me from feeling urges. This fluctuation can go on for quite a bit every time it gets down to a fuck it i go get high or fuck it i wont do this shit again . Whenever i choose the second option is like i go through the eye of the needle but right after i get a huge surge of feel good chemicals (endorphin s) and feel so good and stable .. but ..i can't keep on going through this for more than a few days in the raw and at some point i do need a fix ..even though my use has dropped a lot the last few years i would like to be free from these urges as most of you i believe..I would like to know whom of you have succesfully treated those urges with natural ways like cadio /excercise/ herbs/ diet and how ?

 

[Snafu in the Void]

Exercise is invaluable during recovery and probably the best thing you can do for yourself, and particularly for opioids. It helps heal your brain and rewire your natural reward system. Aerobic exercise is best for this.

I've become addicted to running. Runner's high is real. Also keeps your mind off it and is great for triggers.

I can't reccomend it enough.

 

[Senior Moderator]

As Snafu said, exercise is SO beneficial to staying clean!! Those natural endorphins you get from exercising act as natural mood stabilisers, so you feel more calm and more focused through the day. It also helps you sleep at night if you've done some good solid exercise during the day. The endorphins released during exercise are also really good at reducing or completely getting rid of cravings. Lastly, exercise gives you something to do and focus your attention on, instead of using. You can actually quite easily get addicted to the endorphins released from exercise, I would argue that it's the healthiest addiction one can get

I cannot speak highly enough of the benefits of exercise to help with recovery from addiction. And I speak from personal experience as well. I really hope you get in to some kind of exercise and do it every single day, cardio is great, weights training is even better, and you can also do bodyweight training where you simply use the weight of your body to do exercises that strengthen your muscles. A simple search on youtube will bring up heaps of workout videos for you to do every day, and the best part is you don't need any equipment or a gym membership or anything. You don't even need to leave your bedroom if you're still feeling like shit from withdrawals.

Let us know how you go!

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Exercise is great for mental equilibrium in any case, whether someone has drug problems or not. So I can only recommend it.

What I wouldn't recommend though is trying to use it as a distraction from / replacement for drug use. Because for one, if anything really was a replacement for anyone's substance of choice, nobody would ever have a problem quitting. For another, if I have a sudden yen for dope while say at the supermarket, what am I gonna do, drop to the floor in the canned goods aisle and do 100 push-ups?.. Xd

(Intentionally slightly flippant there but you get my drift.)

The best advice I can give is to find or re-discover some activity you have a real passion for, that you find fulfilling in itself. Incidentally it has to be incompatible with being high.
For me that's for example horse-riding (don't wanna be high when I need to control a half-ton animal), outdoor swimming (need to preferably not drown), photography (better be clear in the head when balancing my £3000 Leica on its tripod on some mountain ledge), writing (don't get much done if I'm nodding off while gently drooling on the paper).

The point is that I don't do any of these things instead-of-dope. I do them because I want to be doing THOSE THINGS and I believe that's crucial to finding a new direction, you have to genuinely want SOMETHING ELSE. No amount of doing sports or whatever else is gonna keep you clean if you're miserably pining for a hit the entire time that you're doing it.

PS for the record I am NOT abstinent, because I do not wish to be ; but following my passions and pursuing new interests has got me to a place where I have a full life and don't have to stop myself from constantly using, as I no longer have a desire to be constantly using. No reason why what makes for happy moderation shouldn't make for happy abstinence. Good luck

 

[rollsuponem]

Vital for me

 

[tokayeahok]

Yeah man, start exercising to get those natural endorphins going. also high intensity stuff promoted BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factors - which help repair those synapses and create new pathways in your brain! i know it’s hard doing it at first especially around day 4-5ish, start with a brisk walk in nature and work your way up to a higher intensity exercise you enjoy