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Old 08-31-2012, 06:24 PM
  # 7 (permalink)  
Pigtails
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Join Date: Jun 2011
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No, please don't do it, please listen to my experience. I had over 6 months of solid sobriety. Then I decided, much like you, that cocaine had never been my problem, sure I did it sometimes while I was out drinking, but I wasn't always abusing it like I was with alcohol, so why couldn't I just have a little bit now and again when out with friends, so to enjoy the same state of mind that they were in, and not have to sit there like a sober bump on the log?!

So I did some coke. Naturally (come on, if you dig deep within yourself you will know this is true) it only made me want to do more, more often. The problem was that I was not truly living a sober lifestyle-- hanging out with friends who drank and did drugs, in places where people drank and did drugs, etc., meant I was still yearning for that kind of lifestyle, or at least not committed enough to staying SOBER, which for me means not letting myself escape from my problems, not using substances instead of dealing with life and working on myself.

It got to be where whenever I was out with friends (which I had severely limited compared to the past), I wanted to do coke, which let me tell you is way more expensive than alcohol and which can be a lot more dangerous to use in one setting/episode than alcohol (for me, alcohol takes its toll over time, but when I do coke I can TELL that it is really really bad for my body and mind, RIGHT AWAY!). I also started smoking pot with my boyfriend, thinking hey at least I'm not drinking.

Well, let me tell you that addiction is addiction. We do that stuff- drinking, drugs, sometimes even stuff like being in bad/unhealthy relationships or horrible choices- to not have to focus on ourselves, to not have to be in our own heads. I am convinced that there is no way that anyone who was ever addicted to anything can switch to another highly addictive substance (which to me is any drug or alcohol) and not start to see old patterns resume. We turn to substances instead of inwards. We need to stop that pattern if we are ever to have any hope.

Not to mention, doing drugs lets us let down our boundaries and causes us to crave alcohol. For me it was only a matter of time before I had returned to drinking. Although I had a huge emotional life event that I used as an excuse to drink, I know my resolve would have been stronger had I been substance-free. Instead I had a lot of guilt over having already succumbed to doing drugs, and figured well I failed at sobriety, why not just go back to my drug of choice. (I've also started to realize that I DID have a bigger problem with coke than I had wanted to admit-- it fueled my drinking, and vice versa). If you have to ask yourself/us if you should do it, I think the answer is to stay on the safe side and NOT do it. And, medical marijuana aside, the consequences of doing illegal drugs can be HUGE-- do you really want to risk it? In my opinion there is NO safe or moderate amount of drugs to do (again, I am not getting into pot for the general population [I honestly think it's safer as a social drug than alcohol for people who can handle such things "socially"-- we are not one of those people!!!] but for us addicts IMO pot is just another addictive drug).
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