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Recovery The 2023 Recovery Thread

just woke up to today. getting ready to go drive an hour and a half to my screening for the sublocade clinical trial! i’m excited! a bit sleepy since i went to bed late but we move! took 600mg of gabapentin, some kratom, and coffee.

having a bubble bath and trying to wake up a little.
 
Can I just post this here for a support post and friendly reminder. An addendum.

To add empowerment. Thnx. <3

Mine are hurting my chest.

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I guess less caffeine will help as well.
 
It's going to be another day of record breaking heat temperature. It's been unfathomable hot here. Weirdly.
. . because it's seems to be everywhere too.
And the UV rays are scorchy and burny. I'm slower than slow already. The dogs know too. It's hot !!

Drink water. Stay hydrated !! Even in the Winter. 👅

So far so good. Just getting started. 🌼
 
"When you're in your own mind, you're in enemy territory"

Just thought I would share this article that is written in context of depression and possible solutions. Having some "issues" lately and it brought some relief. Gotta drs apt at 9am tomorrow and looking forward to some insights and perspectives that I am missing.

"Trap #1: Social Withdrawal

Social withdrawal is the most common telltale sign of depression.

"When we're clinically depressed, there's a very strong urge to pull away from others and to shut down," says Stephen Ilardi, PhD, author of books including The Depression Cure and associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas. "It turns out to be the exact opposite of what we need."

"In depression, social isolation typically serves to worsen the illness and how we feel," Ilardi says. "Social withdrawal amplifies the brain's stress response. Social contact helps put the brakes on it."

The Fix: Gradually counteract social withdrawal by reaching out to your friends and family. Make a list of the people in your life you want to reconnect with and start by scheduling an activity.

Trap #2: Rumination

A major component of depression is rumination, which involves dwelling and brooding about themes like loss and failure that cause you to feel worse about yourself.

Rumination is a toxic process that leads to negative self-talk such as, "It's my own fault. Who would ever want me a friend?"

"There's a saying, 'When you're in your own mind, you're in enemy territory,'" says Mark Goulston, MD, psychiatrist and author of Get Out of Your Own Way. "You leave yourself open to those thoughts and the danger is believing them."

Rumination can also cause you to interpret neutral events in a negative fashion. For example, when you're buying groceries, you may notice that the checkout person smiles at the person in front of you but doesn't smile at you, so you perceive it as a slight.

"When people are clinically depressed, they will typically spend a lot of time and energy rehearsing negative thoughts, often for long stretches of time," Ilardi says.

The Fix: Redirect your attention to a more absorbing activity, like a social engagement or reading a book.

Trap #3: Self-Medicating With Alcohol

Turning to alcohol or drugs to escape your woes is a pattern that can accompany depression, and it usually causes your depression to get worse.

Alcohol can sometimes relieve a little anxiety, especially social anxiety, but it has a depressing effect on the central nervous system, Goulston says. Plus, it can screw up your sleep.

"It's like a lot of things that we do to cope with feeling bad," he says. "They often make us feel better momentary, but in the long run, they hurt us."

The Fix: Talk to your doctor or therapist if you notice that your drinking habits are making you feel worse. Alcohol can interfere with antidepressants and anxiety medications.

Trap #4: Skipping Exercise

If you're the type of person who likes to go the gym regularly, dropping a series of workouts could signal that something's amiss in your life. The same goes for passing on activities -- such as swimming, yoga, or ballroom dancing -- that you once enjoyed.

When you're depressed, it's unlikely that you'll keep up with a regular exercise program, even though that may be just what the doctor ordered.

Exercise can be enormously therapeutic and beneficial, Ilardi says. Exercise has a powerful antidepressant effect because it boosts levels of serotonin and dopamine, two brain chemicals that often ebb when you're depressed.

"It's a paradoxical situation," Ilardi says. "Your body is capable of physical activity. The problem is your brain is not capable of initiating and getting you to do it."

The Fix: Ilardi recommends finding someone you can trust to help you initiate exercise -- a personal trainer, coach, or even a loved one. "It has to be someone who gets it, who is not going to nag you, but actually give you that prompting and encouragement and accountability," Ilardi says.

Trap #5: Seeking Sugar Highs

When you're feeling down, you may find yourself craving sweets or junk food high in carbs and sugar.

Sugar does have mild mood-elevating properties, says Ilardi, but it's only temporary. Within two hours, blood glucose levels crash, which has a mood-depressing effect.

The Fix: Avoid sugar highs and the inevitable post-sugar crash. It's always wise to eat healthfully, but now more than ever, your mood can't afford to take the hit.

Trap #6: Negative Thinking

When you're depressed, you're prone to negative thinking and talking yourself out of trying new things.

You might say to yourself, "Well, even if I did A, B, and C, it probably wouldn't make me feel any better and it would be a real hassle, so why bother trying at all?"

"That's a huge trap," says Goulston. "If you race ahead and anticipate a negative result, which then causes you to stop trying at all, that is something that will rapidly accelerate your depression and deepen it."

The Fix: Don't get too attached to grim expectations. "You have more control over doing and not doing, than you have over what the result of actions will be," Goulston says. "But there is a much greater chance that if you do, then those results will be positive." "

<3
 
This is a real thing and helped me greatly.
I used to wake in panic for decades. After being provided this tool by therapist my mornings are "normal" as I use this while I do my out of bed exercises instead of just grunting through the routine of it.
Thanks for posting this as it is definitively helpful in my experience.
Peace
 
No opiates...
But I'm afternoon sipping and smoking pot with no real direction or motivation. Did that work at my friend's house which turned into a real headache due to unforseen problems. Got payed extra though and my friend was more than happy with his 2 new toilets and all the floor patching it took. Waiting for my dad to get angry when he finds out how much of the booze I drank and then ask me to buy another bottle...
 
Hey guys. This is my first time posting or talking about anything like this to another soul at all. We all have our reasons for beginning the use of drugs.... Sometimes you lose someone very close to you, and you just can't figure it out. You just can't get to process it. I lost my dad, and my mental health problems that I thought I had dealt with came back up, and I pushed away all of my friends irrevocably, and I didn't want to or even mean to. I burned those bridges. I can't change the past, but I can change how I think and approach things. I can rewire myself. Instead, I chose to start doing Heroin. At first it was codeine, a 30mg one day, some days 60mg, and then I started with bigger doses, some days 160mg, 300mg. And then I was illegally removed from my rented apartment by my landlord who threatened my physically. Being much bigger than me, I felt uncomfortable to be there, so I left at the advise of the police. I went to cram into my mom's 1 bedroom apartment, sleeping on a mattress on the floor - and then I realized the string of events of constant loss that had occured to me over the last 6 months. I then decided to order pure Diacetylemorphine (lab tested by myself to be pure at a harm reduction facility on a very expensive machine) and I started first with oral/snorting, then a few weeks later smoking/snorting/oral, and then for some reason a few weeks down the road I went to IM, and that's when I noticed that I was beginning to lose my self. I didn't care at all because I knew I had destroyed my life, and lost the things that mattered to me. Every single thing that mattered to me. I then proceeded to IV. Because I didn't give a fuck at all. I was replaced with a facsimile of my former 'alive self'. I became another creature - one who didn't care about anything whatsoever (I realize the tameness of my description of how i was, but believe me in how much of a change it really was to legitimately lose my own self within my own consciousness), and didn't realize that because the self-reflection is what was sedated. Opiated. It's been now 5 or 6 months of constantly building a massive Heroin/Hydromorhpone tolerance, and that whole duration of usage feels like it's only been 1 day. I lost all that time. I realized I was letting my own soul become lost, and I managed, over time, with much uphill battles and setbacks and fights with my own demons of addiction and pain and fear, to find the space within me that cared that I was about to become lost forever. I decided to order one more 1g bag, and then I would go cold turkey for 2 days until I could move onto Suboxone. That failed. I'm now on day 3 - I couldn't make it these last 3 days without a classic opioid, withdrawals being absolutely unbearably hellish. I have withdrawed from H in the past from binges, but never a 5-6 month straight usage. I've been using VERY (to me) small doses of Codeine (extracted from Tylenol 1, using CWE, and then a 2nd CWE using activated charcoal to remove the caffeine) of about 1400mg combined with a potent kratom extract, which did NOTHING for my withdrawal. So I remembered that people used Loperimide for withdrawals, and here I am sitting here in my mom's living room totally soaring high on Loperimide (yes, really), withdrawals lessened to tolerable levels, with motivation to move into the next phase of recovery from this. Tomorrow, I have an appointment for a clinic that will help me to move onto Suboxone with a micro-induction over the course of a week while continuing usage of prescribed Hydromorphone, eventually reaching the desired Suboxone dosage and slowly tapering the Hydromorph all the while, eventually tapering the Suboxone. If anyone is reading this and you notice that little bit of curiosity in your consciousness to know what the more hardcore routes of administration are like or feel like for any drug, please consider abstaining from drugs entirely to remove that aspect from you, before you get lost inside of your own Hell prison - before you set yourself on a flaming path of destruction that you don't notice or don't care is happening (against your will) - like the path and prison I built for myself. But this is not a sad story. I am breaking out of prison. I am coming home. I will be successful at all costs.

I am alive. And that much is enough to celebrate. We are all here, on this Earth, having this life experience. Isn't that enough to celebrate? If you're down and reading this, life is something to be cherished, not something to be destroyed because of your pain. Even if you are completely down in the bottom of hell, sober as an addict drug virgin (like I used to be), with drugs staring at you in the face, there is a path to healing that pain before you go down the road I did. Trust me on that. I made the conscious choice to go down this path. You have the conscious choice not to. Make that choice before you completely lose and wind up in an unimaginable Hell that simply cannot be described. If you are alive right now, you can do this. I believe in every single person who is alive, that they have the strength and will to make the right decision. Anyone can make a right choice.
 
This is my first time posting or talking about anything like this to another soul at all. We all have our reasons for beginning the use of drugs.... If anyone is reading this and you notice that little bit of curiosity in your consciousness to know what the more hardcore routes of administration are like or feel like for any drug, please consider abstaining from drugs entirely to remove that aspect from you, before you get lost inside of your own Hell prison - before you set yourself on a flaming path of destruction that you don't notice or don't care is happening (against your will) - like the path and prison I built for myself. But this is not a sad story. I am breaking out of prison. I am coming home. I will be successful at all costs.


I am sorry about all of your suffering that you have endured.

I am so glad that you pulled yourself out and are so much stronger now. Keep going and you know you will be alright.

YOU ARE better than all of that and you CAN do this TOO !!!! Also thank you for sharing. Awesome job !!!!! <3<3<3<3<3
 
i start sublocade and induction next week, which should be interested considering i just take kratom and have been off of full agonists for awhile - i still have to abstain from kratom for 24 hours though, before induction(it’s randomized whether i’ll be induced on a weeks worth of subutex or one day). i’m excited and the people there are really kind. the girl who is handling most of my material and case is 24 and is super sweet, which makes the process even easier. definitely someone who id consider my friend! i’m excited to see how induction goes
 
I am sorry about all of your suffering that you have endured.

I am so glad that you pulled yourself out and are so much stronger now. Keep going and you know you will be alright.

YOU ARE better than all of that and you CAN do this TOO !!!! Also thank you for sharing. Awesome job !!!!! <3<3<3<3<3

Yes we are !!

WELCOME BACK. 🌻

I really appreciate you saying that :) it means a lot to have heard that from someone responding directly to me on this topic, which I haven't really ever had, let alone have had a positive response. I feel and honour your words with my heart, and I just want you to know that it means a great deal to me in a really deep way to have read your support for me. I know that with my motivation to quit, and with your kind words, that for certain I am going to be able to get through this. No doubt in my mind. Thank you.
 
I really appreciate you saying that :) it means a lot to have heard that from someone responding directly to me on this topic, which I haven't really ever had, let alone have had a positive response. I feel and honour your words with my heart, and I just want you to know that it means a great deal to me in a really deep way to have read your support for me. I know that with my motivation to quit, and with your kind words, that for certain I am going to be able to get through this. No doubt in my mind. Thank you.
I know. And there are so many good people here to have an understanding of what is in our hearts.

And this is what is wanted for you too. To live and be able to be happy.

Actually your post is very inspiring and made me feel that strength that you are able to share so well with your kindness.

Thank you for that and your voice for us to keep going on as well.

That was a very true and deep experience and I am so glad that you made it through. Beautifully.

But, yes . . thank you for your strength !!

Hang on. Thank you for being here too !! !! <3🌻🕊️🕊️
 
i start sublocade and induction next week, which should be interested considering i just take kratom and have been off of full agonists for awhile - i still have to abstain from kratom for 24 hours though, before induction(it’s randomized whether i’ll be induced on a weeks worth of subutex or one day). i’m excited and the people there are really kind. the girl who is handling most of my material and case is 24 and is super sweet, which makes the process even easier. definitely someone who id consider my friend! i’m excited to see how induction goes
I hope that you're doing well.

I would be so nervous.

No, . . but that's very interesting !! :)<3

Very helpful of you too.
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I hope that you're doing well.

I would be so nervous.

No, . . but that's very interesting !! :)<3

Very helpful of you too.
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well, turns out i got disqualified yesterday because i told them i wasn’t in active addiction - they want proper withdrawal reporting and kratom wasn’t illicit enough an opioid for them to consider, so i’m out the study. i did make $50 from traveling there and back which i used on hispanic food and bought a piece of art from a friend.

i’m doing well, i woke up, took some gabbys & kratom, coffee, and just got back from taking the trash off. dishes, swept the floor; and procrastinating mowing the lawn.
 
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