queenscarlet88
Bluelighter
Every time I leave Bluelight for a couple years, I come back, reread some of my old posts, and marvel at my own incredible stupidity and recklessness. I reread old posts and say to myself, "I was doing so well! How did I not see that at the time?"
I think about how much I've taken for granted, how much I've thrown away with drug use. For whatever reason, I keep rehashing the same lesson:
No matter how much you think you've already hit bottom, ingesting a fucking mind-altering chemical really CAN always make things worse!
Compared to many people on this forum, my struggles and my drugs of choice are almost laughable. The worst of it was benzo addiction and withdrawal. Yes, that was bad, but I had the luxury of a supportive family, the ability to take some time off work to finish my college degree. In other words, I had the infrastructure of a full and purposeful life, and was able to increasingly slide into that structure as I became sober and learned how to take at least a little fucking responsibility.
Today? That's not really the case any more. The structure of my life is crumbling.
I work as a tutor. I'm down to working maybe 10 or 15 hours a week at this point. The rest of my time I spend online. I play video games and I watch people play video games on Twitch. I spam memes in Twitch chat. When possible I don't shower or leave the apartment except to buy junk food and stuff my face. I'm watching my own life decay, but instead of doing anything to improve it, I alt-tab back to Twitch to watch, of all things, Hearthstone tournaments.
Hearthstone is not an MMO. It is not a game like World of Warcraft--it's not the type of game that usually swallows up people's lives. No, it's a mostly nonsocial, EXTREMELY repetitive game, and individual matches are decided more by random luck than by actual skill. It's a game in which you repeat the same very limited strategies over and over again. There are decisions for the player to make, but only minimal skill is required to understand which decisions are usually best. It's a simple game that's meant to be played on phones and tablets, at the gym or on the bus. Yet this is the game I've chosen to make into a lifestyle.
There are various reasons for this. My most recent bout of drug abuse has left me delusional and borderline psychotic. I'm preoccupied with fears that people are scheming against me. I took some mushrooms because I figured, with these delusions already so strong, what did I have to lose? Ha! The Law of Drugs Making Things Worse asserted itself with a vengeance. Now, not only am I worried about people plotting to murder and eat me, I'm convinced that I'm going to literally burn in hell for eternity once they've finally acted on this plot!
You know what's really pathetic about this? The delusions and psychosis are being induced not by PCP, not by psychedelics, not by withdrawal from heroin or some other drug that legitimately makes people suffer. No, this "extreme state" is the product of GOING BACK TO WEED. For years I've been the person in the group who sits quietly and gives weird, blank stares when I smoke weed. With this latest experience I've graduated from "uncomfortable staring" to "delusions of persecution and fear of being imminently devoured by Satan's hoards." This experience, by the way, happened a year ago. I just ... haven't gotten better. So I stay in my apartment. And I play Hearthstone.
More generally I just have an unshakeable sense that something is deeply wrong with me, that everyone else can see it, and that nobody else is going to tell me what it is. Like a scarlet letter visible to everyone but me.
Enough of this. I've created this thread because I need to start envisioning a drug-free recovery for myself. What does it mean to recover, to live free of delusions, to move past persistent and engrained habits of self-destruction? Because despite everything I will not abandon my fundamental optimism. Here is what I know:
Of course, as almost anyone would agree, there is nothing wrong with using medication to treat these kinds of problems. It's just that, in my experience, pharmaceutical interventions have tended to make these problems worse. Either the drug works, in which case I abuse it, or it makes me feel worse, which is counterproductive.
Sorry for all the rambling. Here's what I'm hoping for: Has anyone recovered fully (whatever that means to you) after traumatic drug-induced experiences of psychosis, delusion, and/or obsession? If so, how?
I think about how much I've taken for granted, how much I've thrown away with drug use. For whatever reason, I keep rehashing the same lesson:
No matter how much you think you've already hit bottom, ingesting a fucking mind-altering chemical really CAN always make things worse!
Compared to many people on this forum, my struggles and my drugs of choice are almost laughable. The worst of it was benzo addiction and withdrawal. Yes, that was bad, but I had the luxury of a supportive family, the ability to take some time off work to finish my college degree. In other words, I had the infrastructure of a full and purposeful life, and was able to increasingly slide into that structure as I became sober and learned how to take at least a little fucking responsibility.
Today? That's not really the case any more. The structure of my life is crumbling.
I work as a tutor. I'm down to working maybe 10 or 15 hours a week at this point. The rest of my time I spend online. I play video games and I watch people play video games on Twitch. I spam memes in Twitch chat. When possible I don't shower or leave the apartment except to buy junk food and stuff my face. I'm watching my own life decay, but instead of doing anything to improve it, I alt-tab back to Twitch to watch, of all things, Hearthstone tournaments.
Hearthstone is not an MMO. It is not a game like World of Warcraft--it's not the type of game that usually swallows up people's lives. No, it's a mostly nonsocial, EXTREMELY repetitive game, and individual matches are decided more by random luck than by actual skill. It's a game in which you repeat the same very limited strategies over and over again. There are decisions for the player to make, but only minimal skill is required to understand which decisions are usually best. It's a simple game that's meant to be played on phones and tablets, at the gym or on the bus. Yet this is the game I've chosen to make into a lifestyle.
There are various reasons for this. My most recent bout of drug abuse has left me delusional and borderline psychotic. I'm preoccupied with fears that people are scheming against me. I took some mushrooms because I figured, with these delusions already so strong, what did I have to lose? Ha! The Law of Drugs Making Things Worse asserted itself with a vengeance. Now, not only am I worried about people plotting to murder and eat me, I'm convinced that I'm going to literally burn in hell for eternity once they've finally acted on this plot!
You know what's really pathetic about this? The delusions and psychosis are being induced not by PCP, not by psychedelics, not by withdrawal from heroin or some other drug that legitimately makes people suffer. No, this "extreme state" is the product of GOING BACK TO WEED. For years I've been the person in the group who sits quietly and gives weird, blank stares when I smoke weed. With this latest experience I've graduated from "uncomfortable staring" to "delusions of persecution and fear of being imminently devoured by Satan's hoards." This experience, by the way, happened a year ago. I just ... haven't gotten better. So I stay in my apartment. And I play Hearthstone.
More generally I just have an unshakeable sense that something is deeply wrong with me, that everyone else can see it, and that nobody else is going to tell me what it is. Like a scarlet letter visible to everyone but me.
Enough of this. I've created this thread because I need to start envisioning a drug-free recovery for myself. What does it mean to recover, to live free of delusions, to move past persistent and engrained habits of self-destruction? Because despite everything I will not abandon my fundamental optimism. Here is what I know:
- I will not be dependent on illegal drugs or pharmaceuticals.
- I will find my way back to a life that I care about
- I will recover!
Of course, as almost anyone would agree, there is nothing wrong with using medication to treat these kinds of problems. It's just that, in my experience, pharmaceutical interventions have tended to make these problems worse. Either the drug works, in which case I abuse it, or it makes me feel worse, which is counterproductive.
Sorry for all the rambling. Here's what I'm hoping for: Has anyone recovered fully (whatever that means to you) after traumatic drug-induced experiences of psychosis, delusion, and/or obsession? If so, how?
