Rehabicable
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2011
- Messages
- 74
Hi there just wanted to make a thread kind of telling my story, where I'm at and what I've learned. I have been addicted to opiates about five years now and am only 21. I started off doing oxys but as I'm sure everyone has heard a thousand times eventually progressed to heroin because it's cheaper and stronger. I used throughout high school and went to treatment for the first time when I was 17 and have been in 5 different treatment centers since. Eventually my addiction got me serious criminal charges and wound up in federal prison at the age of 19. (Canada)
So I have been fighting this thing for awhile now and have tried basically everything, I became religious in both NA and AA, holistic treatment centers, 12 step treatment centers and every kind of addiction programming that I can think of such as CBT, individual and group therapy, etc. I have gone through periods of replacement addiction where I would obsessively work out and run 2-3 times a day. Obviously over the years I became very frustrated because nothing I did seemed to work, no matter what I did I would never stay clean for more than a few months and for a long time was very hard on myself. I have been to over a dozen funerals in the past 18 months all my good friends who have died from opiate overdose. So most recently I went to prison and this was a true wake up call for me; understand I am a skinny lanky whiteboy that looks kinda nerdy. I was terrified going in with all the stigma around it however I quickly realized I would be okay and became quite comfortable, I made alot of friends and even played on the lifer basketball team. I got clean in prison which wasn't easy; it was easier to get heroin in there than the streets. But for the entire 15 months I was in before getting parole I stayed clean, got my high school diploma, started lifting weights and gained a bunch of weight and just overall improved myself. So I have been on parole two months now and I have managed to stay clean. I get drug tested randomly and if I fail I go back for the rest of my sentence, (a year or so), so that might be helping but I truly feel I have discovered what I need to do in MY recovery. I go to NA casually maybe once every week or two, the biggest thing for me is therapy I have found a psychologist that I love and see her once a week. I am the kind of person that would bottle everything up and so just being able to talk and vent and express your emotions is imo crucial, I believe that is what helps so many in AA or NA. I stay healthy physically, workout and eat clean. I also meditate quite religiously and have found something like spirituality, (was never even close to religious growing up). I've learned that there are so many things that people tell you you need to do and not all of them will work for YOU in recovery. You don't HAVE to go to rehab, alot of them are just bullshit but there are some good ones too. Treatment centers are a business at the end of the day; even the very best ones have a 10% ish success rate. Not everyone will get clean the first try but you have to just keep trying that's what matters, find out what works for you. Therapy is huge for me because I was able to look into myself and my past and find out why I was using heroin to numb my emotions. I believe all addiction stems from some kind of deep set emotional issues but that's just my opinion. Thanks for reading this crazy long rant I hope some of you can relate and send me good vibes and support. Coming up on 18 months clean which is the longest I've been clean by a year.
Namaste
So I have been fighting this thing for awhile now and have tried basically everything, I became religious in both NA and AA, holistic treatment centers, 12 step treatment centers and every kind of addiction programming that I can think of such as CBT, individual and group therapy, etc. I have gone through periods of replacement addiction where I would obsessively work out and run 2-3 times a day. Obviously over the years I became very frustrated because nothing I did seemed to work, no matter what I did I would never stay clean for more than a few months and for a long time was very hard on myself. I have been to over a dozen funerals in the past 18 months all my good friends who have died from opiate overdose. So most recently I went to prison and this was a true wake up call for me; understand I am a skinny lanky whiteboy that looks kinda nerdy. I was terrified going in with all the stigma around it however I quickly realized I would be okay and became quite comfortable, I made alot of friends and even played on the lifer basketball team. I got clean in prison which wasn't easy; it was easier to get heroin in there than the streets. But for the entire 15 months I was in before getting parole I stayed clean, got my high school diploma, started lifting weights and gained a bunch of weight and just overall improved myself. So I have been on parole two months now and I have managed to stay clean. I get drug tested randomly and if I fail I go back for the rest of my sentence, (a year or so), so that might be helping but I truly feel I have discovered what I need to do in MY recovery. I go to NA casually maybe once every week or two, the biggest thing for me is therapy I have found a psychologist that I love and see her once a week. I am the kind of person that would bottle everything up and so just being able to talk and vent and express your emotions is imo crucial, I believe that is what helps so many in AA or NA. I stay healthy physically, workout and eat clean. I also meditate quite religiously and have found something like spirituality, (was never even close to religious growing up). I've learned that there are so many things that people tell you you need to do and not all of them will work for YOU in recovery. You don't HAVE to go to rehab, alot of them are just bullshit but there are some good ones too. Treatment centers are a business at the end of the day; even the very best ones have a 10% ish success rate. Not everyone will get clean the first try but you have to just keep trying that's what matters, find out what works for you. Therapy is huge for me because I was able to look into myself and my past and find out why I was using heroin to numb my emotions. I believe all addiction stems from some kind of deep set emotional issues but that's just my opinion. Thanks for reading this crazy long rant I hope some of you can relate and send me good vibes and support. Coming up on 18 months clean which is the longest I've been clean by a year.
Namaste
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