Why are you addicted?

I was realy depressed when iwas 16 years old, never touched a cigarette, drank a beer, hit a joint,etc. I was a 3.0ish student and all i focused on was school. My last semester of H.S. i had enough credits to graduate so i began to party. I started with beer and cigarettes n weed. Then came my 2 addictions:

1. Opiates- Started my 17th birthday. I gotmy wisdom teeth pulled and got 90 vicoden 7.5 hydrocodone each. I killed the bottle in a six days with no tolerance or previous use. Theres the beginning of that story.

2. Benzos- Over my summer vaction after graduating i went into a summer long coke,and mdma binge with a friend.i lost 43 lbs over 3 months with no exercise wat so ever. After i went to rehab for that i got put on temazepam for insomnia because i would go days n weeks with no sleep. Since my script of restoril i havent stopped taking benzos for the past two years.
 
I'm not addicted anymore. I was addicted to heroin for about a year, I've been clean for 16 and a half months now. :)

Why was I addicted? Did there need to be a reason? ;)

There were too many reasons to be addicted. I won't go into all of it here, it's just a very complex issue for some people, and I'll leave it at that.
 
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Hey Captain,

You sound a lot like me...i just completed my 13th month clean from an IV Heroin/Dilaudid habit but recently I have been having a lot of trouble with temptation. I havn't given in, but god damn it's getting more and more difficult.

I don't know what to do. I am on suboxone but it does shit for my back pain (the reason I went into Pain Mgmt in the first place). I finally got my suboxone doctor to consider tramadol so maybe the combination will take away the pain.

The odd thing is, my temptation is not leading me to opiates, but it's pulling me towards benzos for the relaxation it gives the muscles in my back. I have been having dreams about valium, and find myself looking for it on a daily basis and I would do about anything to get a bottle of 10mg blue V's.

Ugh.
 
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Hey Captain,

You sound a lot like me...i just completed my 13th month clean from an IV Heroin/Dilaudid habit but recently I have been having a lot of trouble with temptation. I havn't given in, but god damn it's getting more and more difficult.

I don't know what to do. I am on suboxone but it does shit for my back pain (the reason I went into Pain Mgmt in the first place). I finally got my suboxone doctor to consider tramadol so maybe the combination will take away the pain.

The odd thing is, my temptation is not leading me to opiates, but it's pulling me towards benzos for the relaxation it gives the muscles in my back. I have been having dreams about valium, and find myself looking for it on a daily basis and I would do about anything to get a bottle of 10mg blue V's.

Ugh.

I know what you mean. Glad to hear you are over 1 year clean man, congrats!

Yeah, Suboxone on its own has limited analgesia.

If you have legitimate back pain, you should be able to get benzodiazepines from a doctor no problem - benzos can help analgesic potential with NSAID's, and it can consciously help people with being anxious about being in pain.

I wouldn't think getting diazepam as a pain patient should be much of a hassle. I got diazepam for sleep issues, but it left me groggy in the morning so I traded up for temazepam.

If (key word ->) responsible use of diazepam helps curb your cravings for opiates I see no problem with getting some. :)

Good luck man!
 
yeah, I agree...but unfortunately my family who I thoroughly fucked up in my addiction do not.

It also doesn't help my parents consist of a doctor and a nurse.
 
yeah, I agree...but unfortunately my family who I thoroughly fucked up in my addiction do not.

It also doesn't help my parents consist of a doctor and a nurse.

Would they rather have you back on full agonist opiates? Do they not understand pain? :\

Sorry to hear your parents aren't being very supportive. My parents helped me out with getting Suboxone, and insomnia meds. They know I have had insomnia my whole life, and want me to kick H for the long haul, so they are OK with me doing Suboxone maintenance.

Good luck L&C! feel free to PM me some time. :)
 
Pure escapism, I could go into my own world where I didnt have to impress anyone and no one was around to nag me, it was my thing to do, I could just relax. Sadly, that need to escape eventually took over and well now I am an addict.
 
Pure escapism, I could go into my own world where I didnt have to impress anyone and no one was around to nag me, it was my thing to do, I could just relax. Sadly, that need to escape eventually took over and well now I am an addict.

Sounds a lot like this other Captain I know... ;)

To be honest though I preferred heroin as a motivational tool, and not for "nods". Nodding is unpleasant if you want to be active, getting stuff done. The only time nodding wasn't as bother some is when I was so doped up I didn't care and I was probably closest to ODing I've came.
 
I'm addicted because:
-My dog was put down about a week ago.
-My "relationship" is a constant struggle to maintain self-esteem and overall awareness.
-College is terribly boring without being all hopped up on addies. My creative class has been going swimmingly.
-I've been excelling in college ever since I started smoking weed.
-I think freely instead of under constant duress from my co-workers.
-Driving is more enjoyable
-People just aren't that fun anymore
 
becuase i like to think i'm in control
i've never had any boundaries of any sort, i too am an all or nothing person, i am either so rich or devastatingly poor, i don't eat for days then binge on anything i see, i will run 15km one day then not visit a gym for a month...and so on

meth makes me feel like i'm in control. i can run 15km everyday, i can starve for days and not binge, the money one doesn't improve but 2 outta 3 aint bad hey!

lately though it's catching up wit me and i cant control my emotions at all and am pretty sure this will all just end in tears

i can see whats happening, but i still think i've got the upper hand :(
 
because we addicts can reach out and grab sunshine and happiness whenever we want, why stop?

Go on that ride and keep chasing the dragon, I love it. Eventually there will be a time to quit but for now, I'm young and Oxy makes my life so much better. Only problem is the tolerance and the come down. Let hope I can keep it under control this month. :D
 
I agree with the OP. As fucked-up as it is, I don't like life as much sober. The few times I have done it for a period of time, the rewards of sober life do exist, and are ultimately more meaningful than those achieved through drugs...but right now I am not in a place where I want to expend the energy pursuing those rewards, when I can instead have a few drinks, do a shot, smoke a bowl or otherwise just get high.

I love doing drugs with friends...I love getting high after a long day/night at work. For me it's sort of my easy answer to everything, especially to blocking out the feelings I don't want to have. I have had a couple of genuinely fucked-up experiences (violent death of a loved one, sexual assault, etc), and these still bother me when I'm sober. When I'm perpetually on drugs, that's all I really think about much. Sounds lame, but that's the truth. The only problem is that in the end, this ends up making it take way longer to actually "process" the difficult experiences.
 
You know, I just don't like feeling sober. Everything bores me. Everything sucks. People are idiots.

When I'm high, I'm not bored, shit doesn't suck so bad, and I'm an idiot so I don't care about the other idiots.

I like feeling high. That's why I'm addicted. I like to achieve euphoria.



Good ole' narcissistic antisocial drug user right there.
 
escape.

when things in life which trouble me surface, fight or flight instincts kick in, fighting means dealing with the problems, with which i don't have very good tools (coping mechanisms) to use. flight means drugs, to escape those feelings. to not have to deal with them.
 
lack of love

i feel like im in that movie fight club like i havent slept for years

nothing satisfies anymore

im searching always

from drug to drug

club to club

??
 
I agree with the OP. As fucked-up as it is, I don't like life as much sober. The few times I have done it for a period of time, the rewards of sober life do exist, and are ultimately more meaningful than those achieved through drugs...but right now I am not in a place where I want to expend the energy pursuing those rewards, when I can instead have a few drinks, do a shot, smoke a bowl or otherwise just get high.

I love doing drugs with friends...I love getting high after a long day/night at work. For me it's sort of my easy answer to everything, especially to blocking out the feelings I don't want to have. I have had a couple of genuinely fucked-up experiences (violent death of a loved one, sexual assault, etc), and these still bother me when I'm sober. When I'm perpetually on drugs, that's all I really think about much. Sounds lame, but that's the truth. The only problem is that in the end, this ends up making it take way longer to actually "process" the difficult experiences.

I did this exact same thing, except with opiates and weed and the occasional other drug like coke/lsd/e etc. I went through long periods of trauma and when I got out of it I used drugs for almost 4 years - addicted to opiates for about 18 months of that. Eventually I felt worse when I got high. But I still did it of course. So for me anyway, it worked until it stopped working and made me extremely self-destructive and violent towards myself (for a few days before I got help). So, my advice would be to stop and process like you need too. And if you can't do it by yourself, go to therapy... make sure the therapist is competent all that. Good luck. I don't know how long it's been since you experienced these things but I hope you find a way to enjoy life without drugs. I'm still working on it too. :\ But it's gotten a hell of a lot better. Still, I know I use sometimes to block the feelings of some things I still haven't processed. But I've processed a lot of stuff and am no longer so self destructive. I have the desire to stop. And mostly I have... but still working on stopping everything completely.
 
I used to do it out of boredom, and then it progressed to the "because sobriety sucks!" stage. It got pretty bad, and I ended up making a promise to myself and my gf that I wouldnt use anything stronger than nicotine for 3 months, and nothing stronger than weed for a year. That was 8 months ago, and I can finally say that being sober is fun, and sprinkling in some weed about 1-2x a week is a rather pleasurable treat - compared to the daily alcohol/cocaine binges that I did for months.

I find that I now have a negative association with alcohol, so I rarely drink anymore. It's been about 2 months since my last drink and cigarette. But the cravings for cocaine are still ever present, some days stronger than others (some days the thoughts just dont exist). I get through them by focusing on the negative aspect of it at all.
 
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