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MrsGamp

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 3, 2020
Messages
1,280
Location
Australia
I need to examine my life and change and do it soon. But ironically if I am straight I am more deluded and in denial than when I am high.

Not that I'm exactly ever ravingly off my face. My DOCs are booze and Dex.

Was deluding myself for months that the Dex thing was okay because it was helping me drink less and seemed only thing that enabled me to get out of bed.

Only a few months ago I was managing on 25 mgs per day - but now a "moderate" day on Dex for me is 50 mgs (10 x 5mg tabs). Most days it's at least 15 x 5mg tabs.

The last few weeks I've been flat out bingeing and have fallen into a pattern of 20-25 tabs over 24 hours, followed up by loads of booze plus Valium or Xanax and then 24 hours at least of bedridden exhaustion.

Of course once that passes I ALWAYS think and BELIEVE "oh I'll just have 4 or 5 today...". Then the 4 or 5 Dex start to wear off and I feel flat, so I drink, to avoid taking Dex, and then under the influence of drink end up taking more Dex ...

The non-Dex days are just non-days.

There is nothing I want to do unless I have Dex. (Sorry this is a trifle repetitive).

I don't want to do anything or speak to anyone. I don't want to try. What is there to "try"?
I'm usually flat ass broke for three or four days per fortnight ..because of how expensive the Dex is.

If I don't have any Dex I begin my day with a big mug of red wine and I just drink steadily all day,,usually lying in bed reading books about serial killers or concentration camps.

If I don't even have wine I take mirtazapine and try to kill the time by sleeping as much as possible.

Actually I prefer the wine routine - being an alcoholic "shut in" reading rubbishy books isnt much to shout about, but it seems less abominable than pretending to be dead for 72 hours on Mirtazapine/benzoes..

I missed my therapy group last week because I had no Dex and was too hungover the next morning to make it. I despise myself because I called up and said there had been a "crisis" with my dad.

I really wanted to give group a proper try. I just didn't have enough pills. Which begs the question: can I be said to be "giving it a proper try" if I refuse to go unless I am artificially perky?

Anyway it's a "closed" group and my counsellor warned me that if I missed more sessions I can't attend anymore ... flakes aren't welcome, and I can understand that - the premise is progress by getting to know each other properly, and obviously dickheads just dropping in when they feel like it would fuck that up ...

I still have my one-on-one sessions available if I want them. I'd like to just tell my counsellor the truth: that I didn't show because I got ripped. But I've got residual paranoia about such admissions because of years of family court torture, when I learned that EVERYTHING can be subpoenaed, and hence lied habitually to ever doctor and psychologist I ever saw. I had to back then...I don't have to now: my counsellor has promised she won't blow the whistle on me just for illegal usages of anything ...but it's a bloody hard habit to break, misleading doctors and psychs and saying "oh I'm basically fine". I just seem to do it reflexively now.

I'm a long way gone...

Lost my courage. Lost my desire. I am too apathetic without Dex and/or booze to want anything. Too apathetic,,sometimes, to even ...enjoy eating. To even want to eat when I am hungry. To even open a curtain. It's scary. Where've I gone?

Had a scary dream the other night about Dex. In the dream there was a prison. There were crusts of bread that were left overs from the last meals of hanged men. The other prisoners were desperate for this bread, because it made you feel amazingly strong and clever and tireless. It was called "The Bread of Hell".
 
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I'm coming out of an addiction to crystal meth and alcohol. About 1/2 a gram and a 26-40oz bottle liquor or a bunch of beers by the end. I do have a script for lisdexamfetamine (vyvanse) that I take though. Overuse it a bit like 2-3x my script and gonna run out early. It'll be mild coming off a week of that compared to 4 months or so of every day meth use thank god. I'm smoking pot now too, much more than before. 1/2g a day ish now.

It's a bad withrawal both amphetamines and alcohol simultaneously. I just did that for a couple days reecntly, couldnt handle it an started drinking again. After binge drinking for a week and 3 nights dxm I quit the booze too, never did ant meth, Now I'm about 2 weeks off meth and a week off booze. Still using, just in a different way. I feel way better than I did before because it was hardcore what it was doing to me at times. I pretty well lost my mind. This is pretty mild in comparison and I'm not really even too upset about the dex running out. Its fine, and better when I just take it normally anyway. Next fill it'll be my challenge to not abuse or get rid of the script. It has a positive effect on me taken as prescribed, fun to overuse a bit, but if I can't take it properly next I'm finished. Just made the decision, fuck it.

When in that withdrawal meth+alcohol I was completely wiped out. sweats, shakes, constant sleeping, felt physically sick, heavy, depressed, lost, all that shit. Its tough to do. But it can be done, I honestly did bail but it can be.

I've been going kind of a tapering style cutting things out, going milder, substituting some pot in. It's made a healthy difference in my life and its happenings so far. Like taking a step forward. Could you cut down, stop the alcohol? I think that's the big one of the two. Cut down on the dex?

It doesnt have to be total abstinence, any step towards scaling back your roll here and coming back to good health it a positive move. You could go the abstinence route too, it's the stronger thing to do but itll be tough for awhile. I'd advocate for that too, just depends what your goals are and what you want to do. What you're able to do.
 
As for your counselor I'd say yes tell the truth. I always tell any doctor or counselor or whomever the truth of my use. They can't treat if they don't know right?
 
If you're having trouble maintaining abstinence from your DOC for the first few days/weeks, I would honestly suggest looking into an inpatient treatment. Any time I've legitimately gotten sober I had to go through treatment. Even if you don't "stay" sober forever, having a month for your brain/body to clear out could do you well. After my meltdown in June, I've since gotten off of Adderall, Klonopin, coke/smack, everything basically. I've had one slipup with some coke, but I really don't think I could've done any of it without going to treatment, because I would've just kept getting high.

I wouldn't necessarily rat on yourself to your counselor unless you think it'd help them understand. If you just had one slipup you might as well just go to the group and see what happens from there. Don't wanna ruin that opportunity for yourself.
 
I have also been caught back up in this cycle of addiction. A 2 day binge has spiraled into a 2 and a half week marathon.

Had a scary dream the other night about Dex. In the dream there was a prison. There were crusts of bread that were left overs from the last meals of hanged men. The other prisoners were desperate for this bread, because it made you feel amazingly strong and clever and tireless. It was called "The Bread of Hell".
That's intense.
Are the programs and treatment centers/counselors where you'r at, both current group and Australia in general, pretty strict on rehab admissions and accountability?
IME here in the us, minnesota and florida, it seems to be more of a game and endless cycle where many use treatment to get out of a jail term and do this over and over until once great counselors and effective programs become run down and fade away. Like @deficiT said I wouldn't throw yourself under the bus if you want to keep going, even if you don't get kicked out it's just something else to have weigh on you, you already feel bad for it no need to poke that wound anymore. Other option depending on how cool and understanding they are, bring it up at group and utilize the support system that is meant to be there to help
 
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well, I'm pretty much fucked right now because I can't get any Dex.
Yesterday I bought a packet of cold tablets with pseudoephedrine and that's the only reason I'm not in bed right now.
My guy is meant to have some pills tonight ...,.but he said that on Thursday and Friday....
Am about to open my third beer of the day and it's only 11am....
I don't know HOW people manage without drugs! HOW do you do that?
 
I don't. Can't. Literally do not know how to function completely sober. Since I was 13 yrs old the longest stretch of legitimate sobriety has been between 8-10 months and that whole time was one big anxiety filled shit show of the most epic of levels.
 
Dear @MrsGamp,

I agree mostly with what others have posted and think the time may have come in your life where an intensive inpatient rehabilitation program is the only viable option.

Your state of being seems quite similar to mine when I finally relented and went to rehab. Very dysfunctional on multiple fronts but propped up by a high intelligence fuelled by stims that keeps dragging itself from crisis to crisis without ever resolving any of them or the life regrets about failed opportunities or the toxic relationships that are contributing to them. Each time you get a bit of a grip on one one of the others sideswipes you in a vicious whack-a-mole cycle.

You’ve got the dad thing, the ex thing, the brother thing plus probably a great deal of unresolved grief about your career and unrealised intellectual and/or creative potential. The nice thing about the right kind of in-patient rehab is that it will allow you to shut the door on all that anger/trauma/disappointment and just begin resolving each part of it on a bite-size piece by piece basis. You also get the benefit of a comprehensive mental health assessment which might reveal underlying conditions that can be treated. I went into rehab as a sketchy IV drug addict but came out as a properly medicated bi-polar person with ADHD and was clean for 5 years mostly as a result.

However, I suspect the biggest thing you need (based on reading all your posts and comparing to my own experience) is some modest life goals outside of just sobriety for the sake of sobriety. You need to find yourself a tangible reason to get sober or at least to be able to control your intoxicants and be happy and functional while on them. For me it was being there for my kids and getting a Masters to prove I was as smart as I thought I was. You already have a PhD so it will be something different for you but I expect you need some goal outside of your house, your home, your family and your addictions to work towards.

If you have private health insurance I can give you more details on the program that helped me sort my life out (caveat: as is clear from BL, no guarantee it will keep you straight forever but its still keeping me a long way from the misery and despair I was once in).
 
MrsG imagine a year in which you have an unlimited supply of all the substances you would want. What do you see that year looking like.. what would you do. Share a day if you want.
oh Christ. And I am not blaspheming - I actually do wish Jesus would help me! Or God, or the Holy Spirit ... from this no doubt you can tell I'm a non-recovered Catholic...
well. If I just had a steady supply of dex, I think I'd be alright. For a while, anyway. I'd go arse over tit eventually, but for the foreseeable future, I'd be okay. I don't think long term, to be honest. I sort of visualise that at some point in the next ten years I'll surely get terminal cancer from smoking. And that'll be a boon for everyone. Or I might die in my sleep.
Actually that aint likely, is it? You don't die except painfully, and I am only 46.
 
Dear @MrsGamp,

I agree mostly with what others have posted and think the time may have come in your life where an intensive inpatient rehabilitation program is the only viable option.

Your state of being seems quite similar to mine when I finally relented and went to rehab. Very dysfunctional on multiple fronts but propped up by a high intelligence fuelled by stims that keeps dragging itself from crisis to crisis without ever resolving any of them or the life regrets about failed opportunities or the toxic relationships that are contributing to them. Each time you get a bit of a grip on one one of the others sideswipes you in a vicious whack-a-mole cycle.

You’ve got the dad thing, the ex thing, the brother thing plus probably a great deal of unresolved grief about your career and unrealised intellectual and/or creative potential. The nice thing about the right kind of in-patient rehab is that it will allow you to shut the door on all that anger/trauma/disappointment and just begin resolving each part of it on a bite-size piece by piece basis. You also get the benefit of a comprehensive mental health assessment which might reveal underlying conditions that can be treated. I went into rehab as a sketchy IV drug addict but came out as a properly medicated bi-polar person with ADHD and was clean for 5 years mostly as a result.

However, I suspect the biggest thing you need (based on reading all your posts and comparing to my own experience) is some modest life goals outside of just sobriety for the sake of sobriety. You need to find yourself a tangible reason to get sober or at least to be able to control your intoxicants and be happy and functional while on them. For me it was being there for my kids and getting a Masters to prove I was as smart as I thought I was. You already have a PhD so it will be something different for you but I expect you need some goal outside of your house, your home, your family and your addictions to work towards.

If you have private health insurance I can give you more details on the program that helped me sort my life out (caveat: as is clear from BL, no guarantee it will keep you straight forever but its still keeping me a long way from the misery and despair I was once in).
RE:
However, I suspect the biggest thing you need (based on reading all your posts and comparing to my own experience) is some modest life goals outside of just sobriety for the sake of sobriety. You need to find yourself a tangible reason to get sober or at least to be able to control your intoxicants and be happy and functional while on them. For me it was being there for my kids and getting a Masters to prove I was as smart as I thought I was. You already have a PhD so it will be something different for you but I expect you need some goal outside of your house, your home, your family and your addictions to work towards.

a "modest life goal" for me would be finding a reason to get the fuck out of bed every day ....

I appreciate what you say about rehab. But there is no insurance and there is no money. THERE IS NO MONEY!

Right now my dad is literally shitting into a bin because his toilet is fucked. He doesn't have the mental wherewithal to call a plumber, and I doubt very much any plumber would deal with his toilet unless it was cleaned very thoroughly ... and I just can't clean his toilet unless I get some pills. It's worse than the "worse toilet in Scotland" out of Trainspotting.

I JUST CAN'T DO HIS TOILET WITHOUT PILLS!!!!!

I can't do him, either. He's probably on his own right now and I dare not ring him. I'm so fucked up that I'm neglecting my father because I don't wanna miss out on (what is probably a non - ) opportunity to score pills.

I'm a pig. A d a beast.
 
maybe thats because your mostly living to get high? What else do you have going on? <3
Nuttin' much, I admit.
I wasn't always like this though.
When I was a wee girl and a young woman I was so ambitious! Used to get up at 5am before my daughter woke ... to write. That's how I got my PhD ... and I wasn't on drugs then, I was breastfeeding.
I wonder if the menopause has anything to do with this slump. Because I am certainly "menopausing". It's surprising how much I miss the 28 day cycle: the tension and then the glorious release in floods of gore.
 
Good question. I sometimes feel if I could have just one little WIN on some level ... like having a real job again. Getting some writing published again. Or perhaps getting more involved in activism. Just SOME sort of achievement after my ten year long losing streak.

Something to make my daughter proud of me again - she used to be so proud of me ...
 
I know what I am doing right now seems destructive, but not entirely. I know this sounds self-pitying, and maybe a better person would rise above things ... but when I am not on drugs it really does feel like there's just been too much pain. My Dad's madness. My guilt. The wretched violence with my last partner. The fucked up custody dispute: I was a great Mum - when I was allowed to be one. I've seen my daughter I think THREE TIMES THIS WHOLE YEAR. We talk and text but it aint the same ... I am so nervous when I have to see her now...I'm a novelty and a bit of a joke. I was once her Mother, her real mother. The one she knew best and depended on. Until she was six she never spent more than two nights away from me ...

Have you ever heard of a "fading kitten"? That's a kitten that fails to thrive. I feel like my daughter's father took my kitten away. And while she has survived, it's like our original relationship has been delegitmized. He managed to make it all feel bogus and sort of not "real"..... I often dream
of having babies that seem fine at first but then something weird happens, like they begin to shrink, or turn out to not be "proper" babies ...

I hate him so much for doing that to me - just out of hate. Just to show that he would NOT be defied by me.
 
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As for your counselor I'd say yes tell the truth. I always tell any doctor or counselor or whomever the truth of my use. They can't treat if they don't know right?
btw I did tell her the truth and she was a honey. And I am still going to group. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite because the other women just struggle along without pep pills ... so depressed, like me, yet they manage to get there.
 
I know what I am doing right now seems destructive, but not entirely. I know this sounds self-pitying, and maybe a better person would rise above things ... but when I am not on drugs it really does feel like there's just been too much pain. My Dad's madness. My guilt. The wretched violence with my last partner. The fucked up custody dispute: I was a great Mum - when I was allowed to be one. I've seen my daughter I think THREE TIMES THIS WHOLE YEAR. We talk and text but it aint the same ... I am so nervous when I have to see her now...I'm a novelty and a bit of a joke. I was once her Mother, her real mother. The one she knew best and depended on. Until she was six she never spent more than two nights away from me ...

Have you ever heard of a "fading kitten"? That's a kitten that fails to thrive. I feel like my daughter's father took my kitten away. And while she has survived, it's like our original relationship has been delegitmized. He managed to make it all feel bogus and sort of not "real"..... I often dream
of having babies that seem fine at first but then something weird happens, like they begin to shrink, or turn out to not be "proper" babies ...

I hate him so much for doing that to me - just out of hate. Just to show that he would NOT be defied by me.
And he was soooo Satanically clever. Yeah, I went to pieces because he drove me fucking mad with his stalking ... I ended up on a mental ward in 2009 for not much more than a week ... and I didn't get to spend a single night with my daughter for TWO YEARS after that. And once she was gone, I hit the booze - but she was GONE.

I was made to take a "hair test for alcohol". It came up positive despite the fact that I'd abstained for 6 months before the test.

18 months later, turns out this "hair test for alcohol" was utterly bogus. There was a class action i the UK against the test vendors by parents who had lost custody because of this bullshit test.

Until the alcohol hair test was exposed, I was "prima facie" an alcoholic. No-one believed me, not even my own lawyer.

18 months of not being allowed to have my daughter overnight because of utter utter bullshit.
 
@MrsGamp I am so sorry for what you are going through. There is no pain in the entire world like that of a mother who is separated from her child. I know so personally. Just remember that even though she doesn’t talk to you often, she retains her love and affection for you just like you do for her. Children have remarkable abilities to hold onto memories and emotions. You don’t have to “do” anything to make her proud of you. Children don’t need the sort of superficial distinctions that we look to as adults.
Your ex had no right to use a custody battle as a way to get back at you and have control, but it is all too common with abusers. Remember you’re not alone. If you ever need to vent to another mother who understands pm me.
 
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