TakenByTheSky

Hi everybody, i'm Rhiannon. I'm 17 years old and i'm sure that's young to be on here but I need advice and I know I went wrong but i'm trying to change so please help, and don't lecture. This is long, I know. But I poured my heart out. Here's my story.
I'm a recovering addict of opiates. A little backstory, I lost my father young and had a very unhappy childhood, a life I would rather not post much about. I have severe anxiety problems, so bad that when I am stressed my hair will fall out in clumps, my face will break out in blistery acne, and I have had heart palpitations that have caused me to pass out on many occasions. I have dealt with migraines, reflux, panic attacks, and insomnia due to the anxiety I can't control. I started using drugs not for recreation, but to try to stop the anxiety that won't go away. When I was in 7th grade my anxiety was so bad I had gone 4 days with no sleep and no eating and couldn't get rid of that nagging top-of-the-roller-coaster feeling in my chest and gut. I was so exhausted and upset that I couldn't stop crying and when my hair began to come out in clumps on the third day I went insane and started yanking it out. I tried to eat and threw it all back up instantly. I was throwing angry fits of rage and punching myself in the legs and head until I was covered in bruises like a toddler or something. Looking back, it sounds ridiculous. I went insane. I decided I was dying slowly and wanted to end it. I told my bestfriend and she talked me out of it when I was telling her I was ready to hang myself. I'm glad I didn't but I almost wish I had just gone early so I wasn't living the life I live now. I started drinking alcohol that week, stealing it from various family members, and consuming it in large quantities. Trying to make the pain go away and just fall asleep for a while. It worked. I started drinking a lot. Whiskey and Everclear are my favorites. I saved up babysitting money and started buying tons of alcohol; the college guys who lived up the street would go get it for me, and I would sell some of what I bought for double what it's worth at school for more money for my habit.
I used to have a few shots of vodka every day before school, and if it was a bad day I would carry a dark waterbottle full of whiskey around all day, drinking all through school. My bestfriend got into it around the same time. 8th grade year we became real partiers and started hanging out with a group of college guys that introduced us to most of the drugs we did and let us drink and smoke weed and have our fixes at their house almost every day. They would pick us up from school and bring us over their places where we'd all get hammered and high and then they'd drive us home around midnight most days. Only on school days though. We'd get really ****** up and sleepover on their couches on weekend nights and all through summer. If no ones hosue was available we would pool our moneys for a cheap motor lodge room and share beds. Looking back, it all feels scummy and I feel like such a loser. That cycle of self destruction went on all through 8th grade, 9th grade, and the majority of 10th.
Months later while I was heavily into alcohol, I started drinking with friends and they kept offering me cigarettes. After the first few parties, I said yes. One of my new "friends" told me that it would help my stress. It didn't, & i've been a heavy smoker for 3 years now. I'm down to half a pack a day.

After the alcohol and cigarettes, the drugs I abused were in order:
-Marijuana (was told it would relax me. It did.)
-Xanax (bought on street, trying to control anxiety. couldn't get off of it got after abusing it for almost a year)
-Percocet (bought on street for migraines, was on it off and on for 2 and a half years)
-Adderall/Vyvanse/Ritalin (bought from friends at school, needed to stay up after not sleeping for many days at a time. bougth whatever was available, many types of uppers, all snorted, usually right before school)
-Mushrooms and E - started to get more recreational after I left highschool and got severely depressed
- DMT - tried it at a party, did it at many more parties because I enjoyed it
- Tremadol - cheaper fix when i needed percs, I was an addict by this point
- Vicodin and Valium - started doing those when my dealer cut me a deal. that ended fast though, i wanted my xanys and percs more.
- Oxycontin - started doing straight oxys when a friend and i got a deal on 160 for $200, and started doing them constantly
- K - tried a few times at a friend's weekly parties, never stuck with it
- Coke - tried small amount once, never again.

Basically I just got off the percocets and oxycontin about 5 months ago, I went down from the multiple straight oxycontins i was taking every day, to 2 perc 10s a day, to 1 and a half perc 10s a day, to one perc a day, to half a perc every day, to a xanax every day, and then to just drinking double every day, to being clean. It took 3 months to get clean. I relapsed twice when I was suicidal again, which only made it worse. The relapses made me hate myself so much I wanted to die all over again and ended up going on drinking binges both times. I just relapsed again today at 9pm when my mother and I were fighting over my academic "un-achievements" I guess you could say. But I decided not to cry or hurt myself or drink - so I came here.

I don't know what to do. I just don't know how to handle this. I can't get outside help. My family knows I drink, smoke cigarettes, and smoke weed - but if they knew of my addictions I would be disowned. And in a little over a year I turn 18 and they will gladly never talk to me again. I have to do it on my own. I'd love to talk to an adult about it or maybe get help but I don't know how to do that without my parents finding out. The hell they'd give me alone would most definitely make me hurt myself, relapse, or worse. I also don't know how to handle my friends. My dealers have continued to be my bestfriends despite getting clean and just knowing that theyre right there, and the durgs are right there with them is killing me inside whenever i'm with them. My bestfriend i nthe world is still doing some drugs (only recreational. DMT, weed, shrooms, some adderall) She has dealt with the same addictions but was enrolled in rehab. It's hard to be with her and not do them too but I know if I start with "just one", I'll somehow get into it all again. I can't do anything "just a little".

Anyway right now i'm only drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. I was smoking weed up until a month ago as well but quit that. I've decided to go a little at a time. After I gave up ALL recreational drugs and hallucinogenics, I gave up all the pills I wasnt addicted to (the speed, valium, vicodin, etc), then I gave up my addiction (Oxycontin) and replaced it with taking a few xanax a day then got down to 1 xany a day and then none. Then I quit marijuana. Next i'm going to quit drinking and when i'm sober a few months I will try to quit smoking as well.

I'm scared though and I feel like if I could go 5 months clean (with 2 relapses only once in the first month and again at the end of the second month), and then 3 months WITH NONE, I can't be doing well if i'd start AGAIN now. I hope I get better. I feel hopeless like i'll never clean up. It's disgusting. :P Don't know where to go from here.