chloe78

I have a question for those in recovery...
At what point did you consider recovery?

I have an addict husband and am trying to understand why he won't get help and i thought it be best to ask here. Thanks in advance.

Stagebear

I suppose the best answer is when things got bad enough. The problem is that is defined differently for each person.
I had work issues which cost me my job. I could have gotten into severe trouble, instead lost my job with a decent reference. It was enough for me.

Dee74

Hi Chloe

I'm sorry for your situation.

I think everyone's bottom is different.

I pushed the envelope to it's limits - I didn't think I was sick so why should I even think about recovering?

Eventually the life I was living bought me to my knees, and I've come to be glad about that.

Yr husbands journey is his own...I hope you are taking care of yourself - have you thought about NarAnon?

D

Nallabelle

I dont know what your husband uses, but for me, I considered recovery 100 times. Using was easier. It wasnt until using was harder (either to obtain the pills or pay for them or lie about it) that I quit. Some people just "surrender" but something inside me was incapable of doing that, even though thats what I wanted and knew what was right.
I truly believe that losing everything- or nearly so, is the reason many of us finally quit. Quitting is scarry and a lot of work, physically and mentally.

smacked

Well.. some people never quit.

Some of us do.. and for me, I just had to get bad enough, sick enough, and at risk of dying enough to open my eyes to another way to live. I don't know that one thing did it. I've been in the ER many times, told I shouldn't be alive, and wont be if I keep it up. I still used. I've lost jobs, relationships, self worth, (insert consequence here), and still used. I honestly dont' remember much of the past 14 years of my life.. I don't know why I quit. But I do know that nothing could have 'made' me quit. I just got sick of killing myself, I guess. Luckily I decided that before I really did. Lots of people don't.

foglift

After using vicodin for three years (yet not needing them for pain anymore) I woke up one morning craving my vicodin fix and thought this is rediculous.... feeling controlled by a substance that I only took because It made me feel good and helped with confidence and depression. That type of thinking really bit me in the a**. Plus I bore easily and I hated the regimen of doing the same thing day after day which got very old. I started doing things that were unacceptable to me such as lying to my doctor and my wife.

Threshold

I decided to go into recovery when I saw that what had started as a coping mechanism had become the thing that was now consuming my life and killing me.

When my own behavior disgusted and frightened me enough, when it had nearly killed me on multiple occasions, when it was destroying my relationships, when I realized I was totally out of control...I considered recovery.

Even after that I needed several months of reading, dancing with the idea, arguing with myself, talking to recovering addicts, and ugly idiotic relapses before I was ready to really do this thing.

then, after I got clean...I had to struggle, argue, debate,and say "sh*t...this isn't for me" before I'd commit to a program, then I had to haul my butt to a number of meetings.. and hear a bunch of addicts talk about their lives and realize that I was just like them...and think, "hey, maybe if it worked for them...it could work for me"...

that's what it took

and I'm sure hoping it 'takes'

everyone's "bottom" looks a little different, your experience may vary

MDB79

When the possibility of loosing what's more important to me (wifey and daughter) became a probability.

Gmoney

I lost me.

ex D-Boy

I "considered" recovery when I first started selling coke and OC's in order to support my dope habit. Didn't follow through much

I "considered" recovery when I started injecting myself with the drug as opposed to snorting it. Didn't follow through much

I "considered" recovery when my family begged me(in tears) to leave New York, take a leave of absence from school , and go into a 30 day inpatient program. Didn't follow through much

I "considered" recovery when my habit got so large that I was unable to sleep through the entire night without waking up dopesick and needing a shot. Still didn't follow through.

Like all the others have pointed out, when the pain and heartache of using outweighed the euphoria and pleasure of using was when I put a plan into action and got sober. Its different for everybody, all you can do is hope for the best. ~~ Scott

jane_668

Same here. I considered recovery many times each time promising myself not to do it again only to end up using in the same day. Some people truly want to recover but it's a very hard cunning road. It's like you're in a middle of complete chaous, almost killing yourself but your mind still telling you:"one more time won't be that bad. You can alsways try tomorrow knowing that that there may not be a tomorrow". Addiction is a very complicated disease. If it's all about wanting to recover, we'd all be recovered . I guess what really forces you to take recovery seriously is when using becomes more painful than not using. You know what's like to use drugs and each time ending up in a different mess. Plain old story. At the end I was sick of all the chaous and madness.i couldnot plan any single day ahead because I didnot know if I'd be in wds or too high to do anything. I'd get panic attacks thinking that I'm dying. Using is scarey but recovery is more scarey. I'm not used to face life without drugs and till now, whenever I get stressed or in a mess the first thing that gets on my mind is using eventhough I value my recovery and it's so dear to my heart.

He'll get clean when it's time for him to get clean or he may never get it at all. Do you want to keep waiting for him to recover to continue living? My suggestion is to try and detache yourself from him. Love him but dont try to save him because you'd be enabling him. Live your life and if he loves you then he'll follow.

change4penny

I thought about recovery a million times. I mean, I knew I was an addict. You'd think that after I overdosed one time on the side of the highway, after being on a three day binge of crack cocaine and pills, that would have been the moment that I wanted to quit...IT WASN'T.
You'd think that after I was arrested for the first time in my life, being handcuffed and taken to jail...for having a pipe in my purse that I would want to quit...I DIDN'T
You'd think that after my husband, kids and parents begged me to quit, I would....but NO.
You'd think that my mom's sudden death would have changed me....I ONLY GOT WORSE.

For me, I got up one morning, feeling the lowest I've ever felt. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw death staring back at me. I cried out to God to either help me or to take me.
I checked into rehab that afternoon and have been clean from opiates and cocaine for 14 months (tomorrow).

Everyone has a different bottom, but one thing is for sure....You will hit bottom. After more than ten years, I finally hit mine.

Penny

windysan

Answer = When I finally became completely and thoroughly disgusted with myself

bval

For me it took my finally seeing that the consequences (which became pretty severe) so heavily outweighed the benefits (which became non-existant) that no matter how hard I tried to reason differently, getting clean became my only practical option.

It also helped that by that point the drugs had completely stopped working and I was taking them purely to not be dopesick ... not sure I'd have ever quit before that happened unless I'd been locked up somewhere, and even that'd have likely been temporary.

ChillyBones

Thats the worst thing about addiction. Addiction has a grip on you so tight that you develop tunnel vision and focus on staying high. An addict will only quit when they are ready and no other time. It doesn't matter how bad people try to help you or moan at you to get sorted, the ball is in the addicts court.

Rock bottom, surrender, looking in the mirror one day, that sense of 'impending doom' when you take that little bit too much, realising you haven't showered for 4 days, losing your job, being totally broke and waking up in the middle of the night needing more to get back to sleep.

Any of these kinda things can be a trigger but it has to be triggered in the addicts messed up mind.

I went to purchase some pills from my pharmacy and they wouldn't sell me anymore as I was getting them too often. I went to another pharmacy and they said exactely the same thing (I had 19 different stores on rotation!) The shame, oh the shame.

Another time I went to draw out some money from the atm and I had no funds avaliable. I nearly had a panic attack as I didn't have any pills left at home. This is when I quit. I had been broke for ages but the drugs masked my responsibilities so I didn't care.

When you become an addict you also become quite selfish and are too numb to realy care about anything besides getting high or staving off the dope sickness. Your husband needs his own trigger in his own head. Until then, I dont see much happening

Is your husband a funtional addict? Does he work, socialise, partake in hobbies? I did and it wasn't until I started staying in all of the time by myself that I realised that I had more of a problem than I thought.

Good luck anyways, I really feel for you as I know that it would have broke my partners heart if she'd had known about my addiction

ChillyBones

Timebuster

Nice share ChillyBones

My addiction kick… my…ass…so…bad… It was time for me to say, ok, ok, I give up - I surrender. After that life changing moment my stinking thinking took a 360 degree turn. I was going to go to any length to recover.

Ivan

NAchic

I agree..that was a nice post chillybones. Reminded me of never wanting to go back to relying on drugs to live my daily life, revolved around needing the feeling of being high to do absolutely anything. Thanks.

Aysha

I have so many bottoms. The next more extreme than the last. I wont go into all the times I should have gotten help. I would be here for a long time.
I first considered it back in 96 or 97. After I had lost a pregnancy and because my BF at the time and family gave me an ultimatum. I was there 3 days and threw a tantrum and left.
I have been an addict since I was 12 yrs old. Hardcore since I was about 21 or 22. I am 34 now.
Not until Dec of 2006 did I really completely break down and beg for help. I ended up in the ER and they sent me home. I eventually tried treatment and left again. Tried to end my life in May of 2007 and thank goodness was unsuccessgul. Between all the stays in the hospital , mental hospitals and in and out patient programs over the past 2 and a half years. I still wasnt really ready. If I was I wouldnt have ignored all the advice from people who had found and kept sobriety.
I have some really scary bottoms. But none were ever enough to really want to stop.
I just relapsed last weekend. Once again I have lost my job. my vehicle, my self respect and the trust and respect from everyone around me.
But one thing I didnt lose was my life or the will to try again.
Thats only a matter of time if I dont get it together and fast.
I am in jeopardy of losing my family. Either by them getting sick of my ****, sickness or death. It is all a matter of time. I dont want to be left alone like this. I dont want to regret wasted time later on. When I should be cherishing this time with family instead destroyin myself.
Out of all those bottoms of near death experiences, jail time, moral sacrifices and just a plethora of consequences. It is losing my family that has gotten me to be serious. And not even that is enough. It is just food for thought that helps me keep trying. I think I am finally sick and freakin tired of always having to start over everytime I go gettin high and losing everything that took so much hard work to gain back. I am plain sick and freakin tired of myself.
It didnt take some major catastrophy for me to get serious. It did to build to this point. But just the simple disgust in myself has really put me in overdrive to get this recovery and keep it. I am not too far clean. But I have already taken some crucual steps that I have resisted for so long. Whatever it takes this time. No joke. At all cost I want to be clean and remain that way.
Like already said. He has to want it. He has to be the one to seek it and work for it.
In the meantime. Take care of yourself. Be supportive but dont sacrifice your own needs, health and sanity for it.

Missybuns

I sought recovery when I could no longer feel love.

basIam

Everyone has the same bottom, just a different tolerance for pain.

Mine was realizing I was going to die, either a slow, lonely miserable death, murdered downtown while copping, or in a drug/alcohol induced pass out.