What made you decide to get clean?

[bcfly7x7]

Hey all,

So I wanted to post this thread to invoke thought about why you finally made the choice to get clean. Also if you relapsed did you remember why you decided to get clean before you made the choice to use again? Did you remember the hurt and pain that lead you to get clean in the first place, things you lost, people you hurt?

So I'll start with my reasons. For me I almost break down when I think of these things.

1. I missed basically age 3-9 of my beautiful daughter's life, also the same time with my wife and isolation from family and friends.

2. I thought about stealing medication from my 95 year old nana, who showed me nothing but love her entire life.

3. It was becoming an obsession, counting medication, trying to get it (legally) was still a challenge.

4. Lastly, the complete destruction my physical, mental and spiritual well-being. The medication stripped me of my very foundation.

I think it is imperative to remember that hurt and pain. If we choose not to remember our past, we are doomed to repeat in the future. That hurt, anger, and total devastation is what fuels me to be the man I was 9 years ago. Healthy, successful, ambitious and a never ending drive to learn and excel. To have emotions, to care, to hurt, to love, to feel loss, to have happiness, to have hate, to have desire. Without that WHAT ARE WE? Zombies.

Thanks for reading, hope to hear you all.

Bob

Ps this is NOT a debate or even a discussion on how to fix you if you did relapse. Just a platform to tell this specific side of your story.

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

I'm not entirely sure. My life had kind of fallen apart and looking back I was extremely unhappy. I had lost control of my life and I was very lonely and wanted to change. My life had been centred on drug use since my early teens and I didn't want to be that person.

In the summer of 2011 I came back from being on holiday with some mates and I had some sort of epiphany that I was wasting my life and fucking myself up. I didn't want to be ruled by drugs so heavily any more. Of course, that's when shit hit the fan and I really started to fuck myself up with my using...

It wasn't long before I had a full blown smack addiction again and by the end of the year I was out of work, felt totally alone, was addicted to methadone and just felt like I was falling in to a pit of despair. A number of people had been mentioning that I needed to try and get some help and try to change my ways. There was an irrelevant straw that broke the camel's back and I just decided to go to an NA meeting. I remember it pretty clearly, it was in a small basement room under a church in Edinburgh and I sat and cried like a baby. I left the meeting feeling better about myself though.

Between then and now I have been battling to try and change myself. I desperately want to be able to be proud, content and happy both with my life situation and myself as a person. Ironically, all my worst periods of using have come since I decided I wanted to try and make this change. It's been a rocky road...in the rooms, out of the rooms, in the rooms, out of the rooms over and over....a stint in rehab...deaths of friends....hospital visits....periods of stabilty (not many, although I was clean for seven months...two in treatment and five after)...periods of relapse...periods of happiness...periods of immense depression.

Three years on from that epiphany of wanting to change and I'm addicted to diazepam again and I've just done yet another opiate detox. It's hard and I'm still battling with my head and substance issues. I guess what it all boils down to is that I can see that drugs are holding me back from being the person I want to be (and by extension causes pain for many people around me). I look back at how badly I've been destroying myself and it makes me really sad. I'm filled with an immense amount of anger towards myself for the destruction I have caused to myself and others. I've pissed all my talents up the wall and badly damaged family members.

I'm not really sure what's going on with me if I'm honest, I'm definitely something of a lost soul. I've never really felt 'part of' even when I'm around my closest friends, other than on the odd occasion. I've remembered the bad times and relapsed anyway loads. I really hesitate to say it, but I feel like maybe this time I'm moving slowly towards beginning to understand myself though. I hope so. I just want to be happy really, and drugs stand in the way of this.

 

[Get2Think]

CAT, what is your relationship with methadone like today?

Bob - Congrats on your sobriety. Did you use suboxone/methadone?

 

[fizzymk]

Im currently going thru methadone w/d, Im about 7 days from my last dose, and was down to about 10-20 mg a day 3 days before running out, the worst for me has been the insomnia, hypersensitivity (bad smell everywhere), and drug dreams, the times I do fall asleep, its usually only for an hour or 2 and end up feeling worse after sleeping. Im hoping the worst of the w/ds will be done after 2 weeks.

How long did it take you to get thru the roughest part of the methadone w/d? Also, how much methadone were you taking before quitting?

 

[bcfly7x7]

Thanks cat, get2 and fizz,

I'll address all starting from the top.

CAT, if correct Edinburgh is Scotland, I have family there. You're not a lost soul, the soul or (spirit) (Greek for breath) is just misplaced. Harness that emotion and use it to continue to get clean. Like you said, find yourself, the true you, start doing those things you loved to do before using. Like you said, slowly, calmly, and with purpose. You already did it for 7 months. I wrote myself a note to look at if I ever think of using again. I take it everywhere, this way before I make that choice, and make no mistake it is our choice, I will force myself to read it. If ya need anything let me know.
Thank for posting.

Get2, I used methadone to get off morphine and oxy. Only a 5 day taper, from 25mg to 5 mg. For me it worked, but in your thread save me from the needle, subutex might be better in your case, but as a taper, unless you feel you are incapable of not going back to H, then subutex maintenance would be best. You can abuse methadone just like oxy or H, its a full antagonist, where subutex is a partial antagonist and you don't need as much for maintenance.
Good luck man, you can do this.

FIZZ

I wasnt on methadone but only to detox, I was taking oxy, morphine, gabapentin, soma, and xanax. I too had real bad insomnia, was up for 7 days straight before my body crashed. I don't know how long you were on methadone for, but if you say take one 10mg dose, it is synthetic and stays in the system up to 80 hours. I was on my meds for 7 years. Im 28 days clean and still going through major PAWS. I probably have another month before the worst is over. Another year before my body evens out to pre drug state. So it's a long road, I hate to say it but methadone depending on length of use will be longer. Are you taking anything for anxiety or insomnia? If not, try vistaril for anxiety non addictive, and ask your dr about Seroquol for sleep, this is addictive, but is will put your lights out, do you have someone that can dispense one a night for you so your not tempted to abuse it? Either way man, I hope you stay the course, it WILL get easier. Also I know you might not feel up to it but exercise will expel methadone faster. If thats not an option, try a detox bath, this will sweat your body and replaces your magnesium in the process. I do this and it not only helps, it relaxes you in the process. If you'd like to know more about it, feel free to pm me. Thinking of you fizz.

Peace,

Bob

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

CAT, what is your relationship with methadone like today?

I think it's a fucking vile substance that should be removed from medical practice. Detoxing from it was fucking brutal, as well as the process of reducing to a level I was ready to detox from. That said, if someone poured me out 30 ml and offered it to me now I would find it very hard to say no. I think that says more about me than the juice though. I've also been on a subby script and it was an all round much better experience. If I was asked by someone for advice I would tell them to avoid methadone at all costs.

Fizzy...it took me at least a month to be approaching anything like feeling normal when I detoxed from 19mg of methadone (having reduced from 80mg). Don't be disheartened though, my experience will not necessarily be the same as your experience. You might have an easier time of it!

Thanks for the kind words Bob. Ive just gone in to my second year of university, I'm hoping to be detoxed from the diazepam by christmas. Im doing my best to reconnect with the positive influences in my life, can't wait to get my shoulder fixed so I can start kickboxing again!

 

[Maya]

Posting this a millionth time on Bluelight, but I decided to stop due to a bad reaction on December 2012 from what was supposed to be MDMA and suffered for about a year. I have finally decided to lay off abusing and now living a healthier life. I exercise 5 to 6 days a week and had shifted my addiction to working out.

 

[harmacologist]

When a piss test was gonna mean jail time if it wasn't clean...

 

[the_ketaman]

Becoming homeless, committing a violent crime under the influence that I may be incarcerated for, losing the respect and contact with much of my family & friends, losing my self respect and the realization of how much internal & external damage I've caused in my world.

It look a long time & for it to be hammered into me over and over though. It wasn't as black & white.

 

[njirem]

decided to finally give up on it when it did nothing for me anymore besided make me feel even more anxies, alone and suidal.
Ive always been athletic and practised many sports but the last period i even lost that abilty, couldnt charge me up for it any longer.
Lost my job, money everything.
Only wanted to die, felt horrible, mentally and physical.

Im now close to 50 days sober and have never been more happy and alive in my entire life.
I am now holding on to it because being sober finally pays out for me, i can sleep, i can laugh, no more anxiety, good meds, i have friends, i can run 15km without running out of breath, i love food, animals, love life.

It never did anything for me (sobriety) but frustration and craving, long story short, what made me really give it up was getting something back for it!

 

[fizzymk]

decided to finally give up on it when it did nothing for me anymore besided make me feel even more anxies, alone and suidal.
Ive always been athletic and practised many sports but the last period i even lost that abilty, couldnt charge me up for it any longer.
Lost my job, money everything.
Only wanted to die, felt horrible, mentally and physical.

Im now close to 50 days sober and have never been more happy and alive in my entire life.
I am now holding on to it because being sober finally pays out for me, i can sleep, i can laugh, no more anxiety, good meds, i have friends, i can run 15km without running out of breath, i love food, animals, love life.

It never did anything for me (sobriety) but frustration and craving, long story short, what made me really give it up was getting something back for it!

That is great to hear, I always like to read success stories when it comes to w/ds. If you dont mind, which drugs did you come off?

 

[njirem]

alcohol, marijuhana, pregabaline, amphetamines