Holiday Cravings
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 5
Holiday Cravings
Hello Everyone,
Last year at this time,I had to have a procedure to blast a kidney stone out of my ureter. This, of course, involved, an ample supply of 10mg Percocets.
So, for most of the xmas season, I was high (on the plus side, this helped at the mall, where my wife relentlessly dragged me).
This year I am staying clean. However the memories are bringing back cravings. I am doing OK dealing with them through prayer and constantly reminding myself of how bad it will get if I start again. I am truly committed to staying sober (day 56, I think), but the cravings are still strong. I don't think they are getting stronger, but seem to be constant of late.
Besides keeping busy, any advice? Just writing about seems to help also.
Thanks for listening and happy holidays!
Last year at this time,I had to have a procedure to blast a kidney stone out of my ureter. This, of course, involved, an ample supply of 10mg Percocets.
So, for most of the xmas season, I was high (on the plus side, this helped at the mall, where my wife relentlessly dragged me).
This year I am staying clean. However the memories are bringing back cravings. I am doing OK dealing with them through prayer and constantly reminding myself of how bad it will get if I start again. I am truly committed to staying sober (day 56, I think), but the cravings are still strong. I don't think they are getting stronger, but seem to be constant of late.
Besides keeping busy, any advice? Just writing about seems to help also.
Thanks for listening and happy holidays!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 5
Originally Posted by coffeedrinker 
do you have a sponsor?
No official sponsor, as I have not officially joined NA. My giving up percocet was a result of a sort of "self-intervention" (if you will), and while I have discussed my problem with everyone from my therapist, primary Doctor to my parents, the cravings persist.
My Wife, one close friend, and this board serve as my sponsor...
Writing here seems to help me.
The truth shall set you free
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5,267
Welcome to the boards pinkolive
This is what I did in early recovery to subside triggers and cravings...
BASIC TEXT: STEP 4
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
In doing this step I can honestly say, made me realize why I had suffered, and what the cause of that suffering was!..
Moral means; " A standard". So I had to look at my standards for myself, and the standards I had set other people (THE CAUSE OF SO MUCH RESENTMENT)…
My sponsor suggested that I list all of my guilt’s, resentments, fears and sexual conduct because between these I would find the cause of my emotional pain or spiritual dis-ease…
Why do this step?… Well, if you are a product of your past and you are unhappy now, then something has gone wrong in the past!.. If you have spent, drank, used drugs, eaten to get away from bad feelings, then it is suggested you look at the cause of these bad feelings…
There is a cliché that says, “The straw that broke the camels back”… Well, making a fearless moral inventory takes straws off our backs; it makes life less of a burden. It lightens the load!…
When you are full of resentment it is like farting, everyone close to you gets a whiff! But when you are on a spiritual path it is like wearing a lovely colon, everyone close to you gets a whiff!…
The idea of a fearless moral inventory is to start to see what is in our character defects that causes resentment, guilt, and fear from other people to us or us to other people…
If this doesn’t help you can always have your misery back.
Stay strong…
Ivan
This is what I did in early recovery to subside triggers and cravings...
BASIC TEXT: STEP 4
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
In doing this step I can honestly say, made me realize why I had suffered, and what the cause of that suffering was!..
Moral means; " A standard". So I had to look at my standards for myself, and the standards I had set other people (THE CAUSE OF SO MUCH RESENTMENT)…
My sponsor suggested that I list all of my guilt’s, resentments, fears and sexual conduct because between these I would find the cause of my emotional pain or spiritual dis-ease…
Why do this step?… Well, if you are a product of your past and you are unhappy now, then something has gone wrong in the past!.. If you have spent, drank, used drugs, eaten to get away from bad feelings, then it is suggested you look at the cause of these bad feelings…
There is a cliché that says, “The straw that broke the camels back”… Well, making a fearless moral inventory takes straws off our backs; it makes life less of a burden. It lightens the load!…
When you are full of resentment it is like farting, everyone close to you gets a whiff! But when you are on a spiritual path it is like wearing a lovely colon, everyone close to you gets a whiff!…
The idea of a fearless moral inventory is to start to see what is in our character defects that causes resentment, guilt, and fear from other people to us or us to other people…
If this doesn’t help you can always have your misery back.
Stay strong…
Ivan
Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: far left of center
Posts: 237
Craving doesn't start until you pick up the first... what you are suffering from is the mental obsession. Its a subtle yet distinct difference. For me, I take the first whatever and it produces an overwhelming craving for more. What typically precedes it is obsessive thoughts about the substance- how good it will make me feel, how it would taste, or just a longing for oblivion.
I don't know if you're in a 12 step program, but my experience with it is that the process gave me the ability to relate my life to another and in doing so I've recovered.
So what are you writing about? Do you have the NA workbook? While I, a heavy crack heroin user, recoverd via the aa big book, I believe NA covers the same ground.
The body suffers from an allergy (an abnormal reaction to a substance) in that consumption produces a craving for MORE. We keep using thinking the next hit must be better than the last and will get us over the top. But that feeling is the result of taking the first hit. If never take it, we never experience the craving... which leads us to-
The Mind suffers from a mental obsession that this time we can handle it, it will be different, it will fix me. Given enough time or just the right combination of circumstances, we succumb to the idea, pick up and set off the craving again. At some point we come to terms with this and accept we need to stop, but this leads to the real problem . . .
The spirit is broken - a spiritual malady. We are restless irritable discontent, angry, fulll of self pity. Simply nothing feels right. Our egos tell us "grow up! Be a man! Snap out of it!!!" But no watter how we try we find we simply can't change our outlook on our own. We need some sort of spiritual help - an awakening. This is a scary proposition because my prejudice has some distorted idea ab out what that means. For me, the best description is in appendix II of the AA big book:
"a profound alteration in our reaction to life."
That's exactly what I needed. Then I realized that spiritual simply means "non-material." In other words the solution to my problem requires a change in my reaction to life brought about by non- material means.
Can you identify with any of this???
If so, then here's what I would suggest to write about at this time:
Contemplate what I said about the body? Do you experience a craving once you begin to use? Write about 3 specific times you picked up and experienced the phenomenon of craving and kept usingto overcome it and ended up rationalizing your way out of a previous commitment.
It can be as simple as not doing the laundry, as personal as calling loved ones and making excuses for not attending a family function, professional as calling in sick to work, or as tragic as cashing out your bank account so your child support check bounced. Its not about the degree of the commitment broken ( we are real good at rationalizing ) its about experiencing craving once we pick up.
And get to a meeting and listen.
Good luck
I don't know if you're in a 12 step program, but my experience with it is that the process gave me the ability to relate my life to another and in doing so I've recovered.
So what are you writing about? Do you have the NA workbook? While I, a heavy crack heroin user, recoverd via the aa big book, I believe NA covers the same ground.
The body suffers from an allergy (an abnormal reaction to a substance) in that consumption produces a craving for MORE. We keep using thinking the next hit must be better than the last and will get us over the top. But that feeling is the result of taking the first hit. If never take it, we never experience the craving... which leads us to-
The Mind suffers from a mental obsession that this time we can handle it, it will be different, it will fix me. Given enough time or just the right combination of circumstances, we succumb to the idea, pick up and set off the craving again. At some point we come to terms with this and accept we need to stop, but this leads to the real problem . . .
The spirit is broken - a spiritual malady. We are restless irritable discontent, angry, fulll of self pity. Simply nothing feels right. Our egos tell us "grow up! Be a man! Snap out of it!!!" But no watter how we try we find we simply can't change our outlook on our own. We need some sort of spiritual help - an awakening. This is a scary proposition because my prejudice has some distorted idea ab out what that means. For me, the best description is in appendix II of the AA big book:
"a profound alteration in our reaction to life."
That's exactly what I needed. Then I realized that spiritual simply means "non-material." In other words the solution to my problem requires a change in my reaction to life brought about by non- material means.
Can you identify with any of this???
If so, then here's what I would suggest to write about at this time:
Contemplate what I said about the body? Do you experience a craving once you begin to use? Write about 3 specific times you picked up and experienced the phenomenon of craving and kept usingto overcome it and ended up rationalizing your way out of a previous commitment.
It can be as simple as not doing the laundry, as personal as calling loved ones and making excuses for not attending a family function, professional as calling in sick to work, or as tragic as cashing out your bank account so your child support check bounced. Its not about the degree of the commitment broken ( we are real good at rationalizing ) its about experiencing craving once we pick up.
And get to a meeting and listen.
Good luck
Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Midland, NC
Posts: 1,266
I'm a recovering opiate/cocaine addict, 14 months clean, after a ten year battle with pain pills. I know how you're feeling. Hang in there, it does get better. Remember, we're only as sick as our secrets....so, coming here and confessing our cravings really helps.
Maybe, go and check out some meetings, that will help you also.
Congrats on your 56 days
Penny
Maybe, go and check out some meetings, that will help you also.
Congrats on your 56 days
Penny
Grateful to be free
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Arizona
Posts: 3,680
The horror of withdrawl helps me not go back there too. That is one type of hell I have no interest subjecting myself too ever again.
I just keep playing things I hear at meeting over and over in my mind...you never have to use again, you never have to go through withdrawal again, you're remembering only the highs, don't forget the lows that brought you here...and of course...keep coming back!
I don't crave the drugs...I crave the escape, when the going gets tough...heck, I just want to know I have an ace up my sleeve. that if I can't handle what the day throws at me, I have an escape. Using gave me that...I could escape for a little while. But the prices was too high. The people in NA tell me I can escape...without the hangover, without the depravity, without all that crap that made me feel even worse once the stuff wore off. And I want that, and they tell me they can show me how to get it. I wan that "high" that doesn't wear off, that is real, that is based on something other than whether or not I can get a fix.
so I am doing what they are doing, and I've strung together more clean days than I ever did alone. And even though I feel pretty empty and clueless, I never feel hung over or ashamed of what I've done. And the meetings are free, no other fix I had ever came without a price tag.
anyway, that's all I got
I just keep playing things I hear at meeting over and over in my mind...you never have to use again, you never have to go through withdrawal again, you're remembering only the highs, don't forget the lows that brought you here...and of course...keep coming back!
I don't crave the drugs...I crave the escape, when the going gets tough...heck, I just want to know I have an ace up my sleeve. that if I can't handle what the day throws at me, I have an escape. Using gave me that...I could escape for a little while. But the prices was too high. The people in NA tell me I can escape...without the hangover, without the depravity, without all that crap that made me feel even worse once the stuff wore off. And I want that, and they tell me they can show me how to get it. I wan that "high" that doesn't wear off, that is real, that is based on something other than whether or not I can get a fix.
so I am doing what they are doing, and I've strung together more clean days than I ever did alone. And even though I feel pretty empty and clueless, I never feel hung over or ashamed of what I've done. And the meetings are free, no other fix I had ever came without a price tag.
anyway, that's all I got
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