There are no withdrawal symptoms for crack - no withdrawal. That is why you can't stay in the 'detox unit' for more than 1-3 days when you go to treatment - there are no symptoms to treat.
They say it is out of your system in 3 days - the rest is mental. It is so hard to combat something that controls your every thought but it is possible. The only way I have found is through the NA program. It saved my life and it is the only way that I can live at all.
The first 7 days I had to pray for God to take the cravings away - it is your mind that takes you out with that stuff. I call it thought stopping. Here - read a couple of things: the first is advice to someone who wanted to stop:
Go to a NA meeting - no harm in it and a wealth of good can come
from it. There are cool people there who like to hang out, do things and have a good time in addition to recovering from active addiction. Just get to a meeting and check it out.
When I was 27 - that is when it hit me. I'd been partying my whole life 'successfully'. I thought I was grown by 27 but then I started smoking crack. I never knew what a monkey was until that happened. I didn't even realize what was happening until I looked back and saw that the things you hear about coke - the things that happen in your life - I looked back and realized I was on that road. I was losing everything and I knew what came next according to what I'd always heard.
Well, to make a long story short - here it is and I am 32. I have been asking why me for so long and that sh*t has stolen everything from me. I am trying my damnest to rebuild through the fellowship and friends I have in Narcotics Anonymous. I hang on for dear life and try not to die each day. It is a tough road and I never thought it could happen to me. I never knew that cocaine was different. I never knew what hit me. College educated, great jobs up until that point and just a partying chic. Man, life changes and there are things to come on the road you are traveling that you just don't want to see and don't need experience in. You don't have to lose everything - you can get off that ride right now through the help of NA. Run as fast as you can whether you think you need it or not. I cannot begin to describe to you the suffering that lies ahead.
Look for a meeting here at this site:
http://www.na.org/
Then this was advice to a friend having trouble staying clean for more than a few days:
You said it yourself several times about knowing that it won't be different. You can play the tape through right now. Are you trying to use that Thought deal about saying the cravings are not welcome? Give that a try. (He would say everytime he had a using thought - You are not welcome, all using thoughts are being handled by my Higher Power) Sounds like you are like me in the fact that you just think too damn much. My mind just takes me back out. What I have found is that if I turn on the radio - not on songs that say "I'm a loser or try to stay sober feels like I am dying or I'm f*cked up cuz you are" - that is my favorite music - the top alternative, I guess, yet I have been putting on Classic Rock as it all seems pretty positive like "Let the Good Times Roll" etc. Anyway, I find if I put on music loud enough and that doesn't mean too loud just loud enough that it distracts me - I can't run with my cravings. I read something the other day about a lady saying she sings because you can't sing and think about using at the same time. Try to 'thought stop' as our minds take us back again and again which I guess is just our disease talking to us.
Lastly, the book says "You never have to use again". That is a tall order so it also says just don't use today. Try to stay in the moment as I mind f*ck myself with that one too by thinking Yeah and then at midnight just do it again, huh? That sounds like eternity which it is but I have no business thinking about the past too much or the future. I need to be right where I am right now and that's all. I'm in the right place and so are you. And if we just Shut Up and Listen, God won't give us anything we can't handle. I think we sit here saying...but I can't, I just can't. We list all the reasons we can't...I'm depressed, I'm unique - no I really am! ...look at my track record, I just can't do it and all the while God and everyone else we let talk to us and most of them are doing the deal, are saying just SHUT UP and listen. Stop Thinking, Keep it Simple Stupid...we think too much so we need to find ways to shut that down. The book says that All feelings will eventually pass. They are just feelings. If we could just find a way to truly live for the moment as being clean right this moment is obviously all we are asked to do and isn't that freakin' simple enough? Don't use no matter what...not right now.
The book says (In Relapse & Recovery) that we are never forced into relapse - we are given a choice. It also says it is important to remember that the desire to use will pass - we never have to use again, no matter how we feel. I can't find where it is in my book but somewhere the NA Program says, We have NEVER seen a person who lives the program relapse. The trick there is learning to live the program but once we stop trying to 'justify our using' we do have a choice today.
Well, there's you a little meeting since you can't get to one right now. The answer is in NA. Period. Stop thinking, take suggestions. Period.
Theresa A.
www.iwantrecovery.com