Relapse the moment right before you mess up!

[Jabberwocky]

@jane douloureux thank you so much for this information, i'm going to look into whether these supplements are available over here, anything that might help is worth a shot. i'm so sorry you've suffered AN too, it seems to have effected a lot of people in H&R, particularly the women, and its an absolute fucker.

 

[Jabberwocky]

disordered eating it’s difficult to have to face food everyday

I remember when i got out of rehab, my family was told how to behave around me, and instead they just... Idk if they were doing it on purpose to taunt or torture me, but it was always "food this, food that, let's all go eat, when are we all going to eat? Where should we eat?" and when i was around, everything was about food "that muffin you are about to eat is going straight to your abs" and in return i stopped eating again, not as bad as before, and it never evolved into ana again, but to this day it still triggers me, and makes me angry and sad at the same time to remember they did that. It made me feel like i was not a part of the family, or idk, but i feel like i never truly recovered from that stupid fucking disease. I still count calories and avoid a ton of foods, and never stayed on my normal weight for more than a few months at a time. If these kind of things are triggering for you guys just let me know and i will stop.

 

[n3ophy7e]

I remember when i got out of rehab, my family was told how to behave around me, and instead they just... Idk if they were doing it on purpose to taunt or torture me, but it was always "food this, food that, let's all go eat, when are we all going to eat? Where should we eat?" and when i was around, everything was about food "that muffin you are about to eat is going straight to your abs" and in return i stopped eating again, not as bad as before, and it never evolved into ana again, but to this day it still triggers me, and makes me angry and sad at the same time to remember they did that. It made me feel like i was not a part of the family, or idk, but i feel like i never truly recovered from that stupid fucking disease. I still count calories and avoid a ton of foods, and never stayed on my normal weight for more than a few months at a time. If these kind of things are triggering for you guys just let me know and i will stop.

We will edit stuff out if it's too triggering (we will let you know of course)

 

[Jabberwocky]

fucking hell @strangeaeon it sounds like your family didn't listen at all to the advice. or were incapable of following it, but it doesn't sound like they tried. i'm not surprised that made you feel like you weren't part of it.

 

[nznity]

The anticipation is more euphoric than the high itself meh.

 

[Jabberwocky]

She questioned who was this person who thought it was ok to eat cookies and whatever you wanted and told me I was heading into my late twenties and the weight might never come off.
why would you see that your daughter for the very first time ever is embracing recovery and say something like that

fucking hell. well done for making it to 2018 with that shit going on.

while we're talking about our triggering families i might as well throw in my own experiences. mine were when i was in recovery from my drug problems, which was the first time i got into the healthy weight range. except then i went over to the unhealthy weight range. i was concentrating so hard on not relapsing on heroin that the ED didn't get a look in. then my mum started commenting on my weight, telling me clothes were far too small (then also telling me off for spending money on clothes that fit), and commenting on what i was eating. i asked her once to cut it out pointing out how horrible a time she'd had in my worst AN (she took a long time off work for stress). did she fucking stop? no. less than a year ago at that point she'd been having a go at me for my clothes hanging off and how much she wanted me to gain weight.

anyway eventually i decided to lose weight and was convinced i could do it without relapsing into an ED cos i was working hard on myself. well, i was wrong and have been bulimic for the last 18 months. its much better than it was. funnily enough, and i'm sure to no ones surprise, it was at its worst while i was staying with my parents last summer. at least i lost some weight lol.

 

[hylite]

And at the end of the day just a while ago.

I regurgitated trying to vape a dab for relief. I managed to draw it in but then I started to heave from it all. I'm so sick. And now weakness, fatigue, brain smog and what is that word. . . . probably horrible to even say it.

I'm sorry. Health is so good.

 

[hylite]

Anhedonia

 

[hylite]

Omg. So I haven't even looked it up yet if pregabalin can be taken with anything. But I took it as a med for six days or eight with a break and maybe two double dose some o the days. I don't remember.

So right now I am just sticking to the 1mg folic acid yah AND the three Methotrexate once a week. So I don't know and now just have to be sick. So there i go. I can work towards sme prednisone too. I don't know. Not to well right now.

 

[Sweet Jane78]

I feel the same. Whenever i think i have made real progress i fuck it up again and over the years i just dont see myself getting out of this anymore idk
Btw 26 days is hell of a long time! How did u manage? It really hurt to understand that IT DOES LAST FOREVER meaning that we will have to fight it forever even when we feel like it has become way easier or even gone away for good, it is just there sleeping waiting for us to mess up again but it never really dies. Like Cthulhu.

Yeah, I hear about people who have decades of clean time and still relapse. I guess that’s just the way it goes. How’s it been going with you lately? I beat my 26 days and made it to 31 this time before I went out. It’s been a week straight of using and I feel like shit. I’m going to throw out the rest of what I have and try again. That’s all there is to do.

 

[Sweet Jane78]

i would honestly get as much help as possible from every single avenue. you don't know in what context someone is gonna say or do something that gives you a valuable insight. down side is it does mean a lot won't necessarily be useful but in early recovery i found treating my recovery as a full time job really helpful, the most activities i did, the more distraction.

the 6 months wasn't like white knuckling it the whole time. i had up and down sides. the first time i laughed was a big thing and that was when i was still in rehab. the major instability let up around the 3 month mark. i'd been horrendously addicted to crack as well so that will have been affecting me too, i don't know which effects were specifically from heroin.

it is possible that your friends know. i didn't exactly advertise that i was a heroin addict but a few friends knew, and they told me a lot of people had been asking what was wrong with me when i'd been out having used a little too much. and then when i got way worse it was fucking obvious, you could tell i was a junkie just by looking.

i did NA for a while but sort of fell out with it. it was really useful early in and i made decent friendships with other people in recovery. also learned addicts are fucking nutters, some people who seemed sound turned out not to be. i also did courses at my local drugs services, classes at local gym, meditation classes at my local buddhist centre, therapy. literally everything someone in recovery suggested that wasn't obviously stupid, i did. i had to own up to the fact that i didn't know shit, given how much i'd fucked my life up, and just listen to other people. i also did a lot of reading about addiction- the anatomy of desire by marc lewis really chimed with me. plus gabor mate's realm of the hungry ghosts and chasing the scream by johann hari.

i actually really wanna get back into NA meetings, less interested in working the steps. i split up with my sponsor cos she didn't like my step 3, as it didn't have the sort of higher power she thought i should have. but i do spiritual work by study at my local buddhist centre. i didn't actually intend to pick up a religion, i was brought up to be massively anti religion. its really not necessary for recovery and don't listen to anyone who says it is. but some sort of spiritual work is useful and i've found the framework of buddhism to work well for me.

cravings can be so intense when you're really early on, but every time you fight through one, you are building up your ability to fight them next time. and just remember, if it was easy you'd have done this years ago, your addiction will use a lot against you but recovery is possible. i have a full time job and a nice house with my partner, mundane as shit but beats using.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I appreciate it. I’ve since read two of the books you mentioned. I’m about to start the third one. I’m kind of feeling like the NA 12 step program isn’t for me. There is a 24/7 NA zoom meeting that I found which is convenient and makes me feel like I’m not doing this all alone. “The opposite of addiction is connection” I think I remember reading.
Oh, I also just recently found this organization called The Phoenix. It’s a community of people in recovery to connect with outside of a meeting environment. They have virtual and in person events.
I fell back into using this last week and I’m ready to give myself another chance to get better.

 

[Black_Amexxx]

You shouldn't feel self-loathing or guilt or any of that just because you're using drugs. Put the guilt and the shame to where it belongs.

You can and should feel bad about yourself if you've screwed over people who care for you, and that you're supposed to be caring about, in order to keep yourself supplied. If you've stolen from friends, or lied to your family or made people suffer or broken their trust for the sake of your habit. If you need to kick yourself up the arse, kick yourself up the arse for stuff like THAT. But there really is no reason you should feel awful just for the drug - taking in and of ITSELF.

It's not a bad or immoral thing to be using, it doesn't make you a bad person, it doesn't mean you're weak or morally flawed or deficient or some lower-class human, or whatever similar bullshit some people like to spew about drug users. From your own words in the original post, you're clearly liking it, it's clearly giving you something on some level you feel you can't do without. You need to ask yourself why that is. But in the meantime if you feel you have to have it don't beat yourself up over it, it's obviously fulfilling some function for you.

Keep in mind also that historically, before prohibition, any respectable person could walk into any pharmacy and legally acquire various opium preparations, and later morphine and heroin. Opiate use wasn't criminalised and it wasn't pathologised. And please don't fall into the black and white thinking trap of going, 'oh I broke my period of abstinence, I' ve fucked it all up now, might as well stop giving a toss and go right back to the races '. Too many people do that and it's self-defeating.

I just hope you're being very careful if you're anything like me. My tolerance drops very rapidly whenever I've reduced or cut out and it's a major risk factor.

Fkn sage words right there @The UltimateFixx - thank you

 

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I appreciate it. I’ve since read two of the books you mentioned. I’m about to start the third one. I’m kind of feeling like the NA 12 step program isn’t for me. There is a 24/7 NA zoom meeting that I found which is convenient and makes me feel like I’m not doing this all alone. “The opposite of addiction is connection” I think I remember reading.
Oh, I also just recently found this organization called The Phoenix. It’s a community of people in recovery to connect with outside of a meeting environment. They have virtual and in person events.
I fell back into using this last week and I’m ready to give myself another chance to get better.

that is awesome!! how did you find the books?

yes 'the opposite of addiction is connection' is said quite a lot in recovery circles, and i think there is some truth to it. its much harder to give into our self destructive impulses when we have strong connections to ourselves and those around us. that organisation sounds cool too.

12 steps isn't for everyone. i think more important is the idea of continuously working on yourself, and 12 steps is a convenient framework to do that but is by no means the only one.

 

[Sweet Jane78]

that is awesome!! how did you find the books?

yes 'the opposite of addiction is connection' is said quite a lot in recovery circles, and i think there is some truth to it. its much harder to give into our self destructive impulses when we have strong connections to ourselves and those around us. that organisation sounds cool too.

12 steps isn't for everyone. i think more important is the idea of continuously working on yourself, and 12 steps is a convenient framework to do that but is by no means the only one.

I really liked both of them. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts it was interesting to read the stories of the people that the doctor treated and his interactions with them. I also appreciated getting the perspective of someone with a process addiction. People with substance addictions are seen in a more negative light by society, however the process of addiction is the same throughout any type. I found his scientific explanations of why some people are more predisposed to addictive behaviors due to early life experiences and environments versus the genetics.
Chasing the Scream really tuned me into the war on drugs and how it’s just been perpetuating the problem for all this time. Decriminalizing and showing more compassion for addicts proved to be successful in I think it was Portugal? Less crime, less overdose deaths and I think even less drug usage over all. Despite that, I doubt the US will ever make big enough changes.
If you have any other addiction and recovery reading material that you’ve found interesting and/or helpful please let me know.

Same goes to anyone else who reads this. Reading recommendations?

Thanks again!

 

[hylite]

I can take a hydrocodone right now but I get instantly addicted and then withdraw after just one.

So then if and when I pregabalin will it make me start kindling because I have PAWS really bad and I am not sure if pregabalin really helped at all. It;s really hard for me to tell. ?

 

[Jabberwocky]

Yeah, I hear about people who have decades of clean time and still relapse. I guess that’s just the way it goes. How’s it been going with you lately? I beat my 26 days and made it to 31 this time before I went out. It’s been a week straight of using and I feel like shit. I’m going to throw out the rest of what I have and try again. That’s all there is to do.

wow can you really throw it out? i could never. only once or twice did i do that. when my best friend came out of rehab to live with me and i was like shit here he comes i better flush this shit
aye, those week long runs after not using for a while make me feel like shit aswell... i dont go to the bathroom, get super bloated if i eat (which i dont)
what made u relapse? i have karate class in one hour and i can still go buy some powder but i dont want to be late for training idk im sad as fuck oof if i had my glock with me i would go straight to hell for killing myself. aint that so unfair? that the people who commit suicide go to hell? like you already feel bad enough to blow your brains out, and boom you wake up in the land of eternal torture, fuck that

 

[Jabberwocky]

I can take a hydrocodone right now but I get instantly addicted and then withdraw after just one.

So then if and when I pregabalin will it make me start kindling because I have PAWS really bad and I am not sure if pregabalin really helped at all. It;s really hard for me to tell. ?

brother are you self medicating? i support that shit but it sounds like its making you very anxious, rethink your meds maybe?

 

[hylite]

brother are you self medicating? i support that shit but it sounds like its making you very anxious, rethink your meds maybe?

i do all day

thanx i am currently on methotrexate treatment 3 pills a week. and 1mg. folic acid daily.

so i guess i can say i'm on acid.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Omg. So I haven't even looked it up yet if pregabalin can be taken with anything. But I took it as a med for six days or eight with a break and maybe two double dose some o the days. I don't remember.

So right now I am just sticking to the 1mg folic acid yah AND the three Methotrexate once a week. So I don't know and now just have to be sick. So there i go. I can work towards sme prednisone too. I don't know. Not to well right now.

i get told that pregabs potentiate opiates and could cause an overdose but i find that very unlikely to happen to me given my immense tolerance to both. i love pregabs with methadone and cbd its the shit. u know what i can take for them sweats? methadone makes me sweat like cray. The following supplements have worked wonders on me: vit c for idk what, magnesium for depression, folic acid for idk, iron helps me not be all lethargic all day, and cbd for not being hyper, i am very hyper

 

[Jabberwocky]

@chinup @Sweet Jane78 one of you is british no? ever heard of thelema? i went into them oasises in california years ago, it was some creepy shit, but i learned about Aleister Crowley, and to this day am still utterly fascinated, i was going to recommend one of his books called Diary of a Drug Fiend, it's exactly what the title says but something at the end of the book helped me alot. Mind you, he was no ordinary drug fiend, he was a literal wizard, and a war veteran, and if you are into astrology, his chart is the evilest shit u will ever see.