What Happens to a Dream Deferred? What Happens to a Life-Time of Addiction Deferred?

[Franciscus Sylvius]

I'm posting this for two intended audiences: the first is the one comprising those just beginning to experience drugs and the second (though not secondary) audience is those who are lucky to to survive, live with, and struggle to conquer the aftermath of prolonged drug use. Mostly, it's intended for the those who have used more addictive drugs, and by more addictive I mean that that the sudden cessation results in a living hell for the users. I want to start with a bit about myself, in the hopes that others will identify with my story, or if not, at least take something away from it. And also, share your story with me, and above all, what makes you chase that dream you initially neglected, and put away the drugs? Why, after reading so many horror stories, does the first time user choose not to listen (as I did) and do it anyway? Share.

I've always wanted two things, since I was a child. I wanted to become a medical doctor, and I am en route that path to this day. The second thing is strange, especially for a 6 year old: I wanted to "see things differently". I didn't know what that meant, but I was exposed to drugs at a very, very early age, and I had an obsessive, time-consuming infatuation with learning as much as possible about different kinds of drugs, their various effects, and I had a strong desire to use them. Needless to say, I eventually found them in junior high, my use exploded in high school, it and became exponentially worse thereafter.

There are many threads out there sharing the same foundation as this post, but I hope what I have to offer here may reach someone who happens to stumble across this particular thread.

High school was a blur. I was an honor student, and excelled in math, literature, physics, chemistry, biology, whatever it was I was good at it. I was also an athlete, and I played some varsity games as a freshman. I was good at that too. But then I became really good at drinking, finding drugs, and getting high. My grades fell and I barely graduated, though I somehow won the "Morality Award" at the graduation ceremony. The guilt was tremendous, because by that time, I was a thief, an expert liar, a phony. Anyway, I botched my college grants, loans and financial aid to Rutgers and failed out after two semesters of heavy drinking and using.

All of my relationships with women, I ruined with my heavy drinking and drug abuse. I abandoned the woman I loved and will always love, while her father was dying with brain cancer. I wanted to "focus on my studies" (At this point I was back in college and doing well academically, but I was also destroying my body and emotional intelligence with drugs.)This happened six years ago, and I am unable to forgive myself. I can't seem to do it.

I can go on with the number of awful circumstances I brought on to myself, but I would need a few hours to really remember every miserable thing I've done and how I've hurt those who loved me the most because I was selfish, concerned only with bathing myself with euphoria and pleasure. I'm sure this part of the message relates to many on bluelight, and I urge you to share your horror stories and how you triumphed. For myself, I continue to relapse. I do not want to, and my excuse is that I cannot stand the constant depression, fatigue, lack of concentration, self-doubt, fear, and anxiety with which I plagued myself as a result of my addiction, so I unwillingly succumb to the desire to feel numb.

Now, I know I will not achieve my dream, which I put on the back burner for years, if i continue to use. I will die, or get put in prison, or a mental institution if I don't stop for real. That said, I was able to go back to college, earn a degree in molecular biology, get an internship, take the Medical College Admission Test, and now I am applying to graduate school for molecular biology, to focus my intentions as a prospective MD and also pick up my GPA.

The point is that addiction strikes everyone. Intelligence is not a factor, addiction does not discriminate race, creed, color, socioeconomic background, etc. I did have an awful, unhappy childhood, and that in many cases increases the risk for drug use But those who have "normal" childhoods or even spectacular ones are still at risk. It doesn't matter.

Knowing this truth that I have disclosed, it is no secret, really- PLEASE DO NOT PICK UP DRUGS!!!!!!! Don't! If you've never used a drug before, and you want to see what the hype is all about, forget it! In the end, you will want to just crawl up into a fetal position and die. I always made fun of DARE programs as a kid. I always made fun of the tight asses who told me the same thing I'm preaching now. Please don't do it.

Now, there are many who say that they can drink and smoke pot without it ruining their lives, and they KNOW and TRUST themselves enough to know the truth of it. I am not one of those. I never believed in moderation. When I was shit faced at every party i went to, I thought it was just normal. But it wasn't. And you have no way of knowing if you are one type of user or the addict. So you're best bet is to keep away, develop a mature mindset, and make a mature decision whether or not you want to try some substance, like pot. In all cases, stay away from opiates. No matter what, not once, not ever, never.

I basically wrote this as a stream of conscience so if I missed anything or if some parts don't coincide with others or if you want clarification, please inform me and i will address your inquiry. I look forward to hearing your stories as well.

 

[CfZrx]

Keep us posted! Graduate school? Nice! I'm recently clean...still suckin down kratom to keep the fever away, but will try to taper that out too

 

[herbavore]

I think people use drugs--or other possibly addictive activities-- for many legitimate reasons; if legitimate is the wrong word then maybe understandable is a better one. Human curiosity, boredom, a need for adventure or in the case of early psychological damage or ultra-sensitivity, to dull or numb pain. Sometimes, with certain drugs for certain people the outcome is not only not harmful but beneficial. In my own life, I credit psychedelics with saving my life as a young teen and enhancing it as time went on. If I am honest however I will also say that I saw people irreparably damage themselves with those same drugs. So your point that one never knows is well taken. But does one ever know the outcome of any risk?

Drug use and abuse and drug addiction, has had a heavy impact on my life. While I feel lucky to be a child of the 70's that benefited from that time of exploration and expanding consciousness, my brother was not so lucky. He got addicted to coke in college, then crack as an adult and had two strikes in a three strike state, had lost his family and job and all his self-worth by the time he was 40. The heaviest impact for me has been losing my youngest child to the madness and psychosis of mdpv addiction and then to an overdose of morphine 3 weeks after his twentieth birthday. I will in some ways never recover either myself or my life as I knew it before. Many people in my life question how I cannot hate drugs or at least specific drugs. TBH I do hate specific drugs but I don't blame them for the destruction as much as I blame the insanity of the War on Drugs mentality that infuses addiction with criminality and enough shame to destroy family support, community support and the most important of all, self-worth. This is not to say that people do not have personal responsibility--of course they do. But we market drugs to people! Addictive drugs! And then when addiction does occur for all the known, mysterious and as yet disagreed upon reasons that it does only in certain individuals, we call those individuals weak and immoral and criminal (except in the case of alcohol on which case you get off easy with just weak and immoral8)).

You ask a question that feels almost like the central question of my life these days: what would have stopped you. I can tell you everything that did not stop me and does not stop anyone else. Fear does not work. Facts that should perhaps inspire if not fear then at least caution don't seem to work. Religious doctrine doesn't work nor does secular moralizing. Early education like DARE doesn't work. Peer pressure (when you lose an entire circle of friends over your use, say), cultural mores, your best friend or lover telling you you are going too far--these don't work. In other words I don't think you are going to stop from anything other than the voice inside yourself. Maybe the voice inside you responds to one of those things that I said would not work. I guess what I mean is that they do not work universally. Maybe the voice inside you is so cautious that you decide never to try altering your consciousness in any way. Maybe the voice inside you is capable of moderating behaviors that are not ultimately in your favor--with drugs, relationships, habits,etc. But maybe the voice inside you says, I'm curious. And then your curiosity led you down the rabbit hole. We would have a lot less amazing art in the world had no one ever gone down the rabbit hole. We would have a lot less empathy and compassion for each others humanity, too. I am getting closer to being able to accept that what makes kind and compassionate people is the messes they have navigated--either imposed from without or within or a combination of the two. I imagine that your work as a doctor will be a hundred times more healing because of the path you took earlier in your life. In a way it is like any other tragedy from cancer to losing a child--you would not recommend it or wish it on anyone but you cannot deny the depth your life gained from having experienced it and survived.

So survival is the key. I believe that had my son not died that night he would have found his deeper, authentic self once again. The one he knew as a child and like most of us, let the pressures of the world turn him away from. This is where I believe psychedelic therapy can be necessary and why I support it. MAPS, Johns Hopkins, and many other foundations and universities are contributing to this growing field. Unlike the addictive or dependency creating drugs that modern psychiatry "offers" (read:markets and in the US now imposes through the criminal justice system in some cases), psychedelic therapy is capable of transforming one's perception of self and of the world we each have a place in, in only a few guided sessions.

If life is a journey to explore the mystery through learning ourselves, then any door we open is fraught with risk. I spent the first years of my life crippled with an unnameable anxiety, afraid of everyone and everything except nature, the next years floundering in a completely disconnected hell and then a lot more years in the illusion that I could find safety and provide safety for my children. What I believe now is that safety is an unrealistic expectation as well as a misguided desire. The only thing that can keep us safe is knowing that we have a home inside ourselves that is unshakable, ever-present, eternal. Then we live. We are free to go out boldly into love, into testing the limits, into physical or emotional challenges, into whatever life throws at us or we throw at life because there is a relationship with the self to come back to.

I think your desire to see things differently was and is a wonderful aspect of you and you are lucky to have it. I know that will bring gifts to your professional life as well as your personal life. Thanks for sharing and making a thought-provoking thread.