Stimulant abuse healing

[Zephyn]

How long did it take you to recover from stimulant abuse? I downplay the extend of my use to myself and others.. Mostly talking about maybe 3 or 4 times a week crack on and off but mostly on for a few years, mixed with meth binges. Its been months now and I am not sure I'll ever be normal, or if this is my problem. I've heard figures like 2 years, but those are from the same people who insist total abstinence is the only way to heal. I know when I was a teen and overdid mdma and mephedrone etc it took around 2 or 3 years to recover.. I had a lot more support then though. Am I looking at a similar time frame from what would be considered moderate crack use?

 

[Zephyn]

The thing is though, in the past YEAR I had maybe 3 2 week long relapses, so I can't understand how that could set me back so far to where I'm still suffering. Had to be from something else?

 

[Jabberwocky]

The thing with drug abuse is that it often creates, reveals, interacts with, or compounds mental health problems.

In my case I had years of uncontrollable stimulant use (amp sulfate and cocaine) before I was diagnosed with bipolar and ADHD and realised that mania and poor executive functioning/impulse control were interacting with my drug use. And that childhood trauma was feeding both the drug use and the mental health problems.

So the recovery from what you think is just drug side effects might actually be impacted by how you are accepting and addresssing other psychological or psychiatric issues. Dealing with those issues may speed up recovery drugs.

I had terrible trouble stopping meth the first time I was addicted to it because the comedowns triggered extreme and treatment resistant anxiety and depression. No medications helped at all, but following ECT and some therapy focussed just on the psychological issues and not the drug use, I easily managed a period of 4 years sober.

The only thing that knocked me off the rails again was quitting my bipolar meds, experiencing significant life stress, and going manic.

The second time I tried to quit meth was, relatively speaking, a piece of cake based on what I’d done and learned the first time around. I still slipped up a few times but because I no longer had the psychological and psychiatric issues so severely the recovery process was much easier and much faster.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

What kind of persistent negative symptoms are you still experiencing?

 

[Jabberwocky]

what are your symptoms?

at my worst on crack i smoked at least an 8th a day. i noticed a vast improvement within a month- like in rehab i started out a joyless automaton. i couldn't laugh and i was so pissed at these people around me who could. then one day i laughed at something dumb and started feeling less hopeless.

i had residual psychosis for at least 6 months, but it got less frequent and less severe, with auditory hallucinations taking longer to go than visual.

cos i was on heroin too i don't know how much of the later anhedonia and mood swings were due to stopping that. i feel like my brain is healing way slower from opiates than from crack but obviously as i was doing them both at the same time and don't know which caused what symptoms i don't have any evidence for that beyond my gut. i can only differentiate the joylessness and psychosis as being due to crack as i was on heroin for a lot longer and didn't get that til i got bad on the light.

healing is a gradual process and will depend a lot on your lifestyle, general health, and what support you are getting. be patient with it and compassionate towards yourself. it really is worth it.

 

[dragonix]

trying to get far out into the wild camping surviving in nature far away from the stims I was destroying myself with once this job fuggin ends already few days before Xmas

Other than that I still cannot stop so the Dao will point the way but I need to heal with some meetings getting into a program to patch up the cracked psyche

 

[Snafu in the Void]

the Dao will point the way

The way, the Tao, it cannot be avoided. Flow with the river. Exist without effort. The way.

Love to see another Tao reference on BL