XxGoldenxX

i've been battling with this reoccurring ...feeling/thought, im hoping someone can relate and maybe help me understand this.

i suppose this might fall under this idea of "heroin chic" or maybe an identity crisis

I've been working on getting clean since August and for the most part doing ok but i can't seem to get away from the image of drug use. In some twisted way it seems dark and dangerous and its the hardest thing to get past. I saw a picture of a girl i use to go to school with and she looked....bad. Way too thin, pale and obviously on drugs. A picture that most people would look at and say "im glad that's not me anymore" But some reason it makes me wish i was still her. Its as if i want to be seen as a junkie, but i don't know why.

I don;t know if this is because that image is all ive know. I started using very early and its become a part of me. Or if its because when i look at her i feel such pain and concern that i want to stay this way so that people might look at me that way....might care about me. Yet at the same time i hardly ever let anyone into that part of myself. Most people i know have no idea im an addict. Then there's the situation where im around someone who uses and i let them know my history just so that they know im one of them...that i "fit in" with them.

I feel like this is so messed up. I don't understand this at all.

wpainterw

XXGoldenxX: I'd like to speculate that these feelings originate in the more primitive part of your brain (as in AVRT theory) and have as their objective an attempt to pull you back into your addiction. But this is mere guesswork and perhaps others have another explanation. If I am right then perhaps some familiarity with AVRT might help you.

W.

DisplacedGRITS

Golden, perhaps you're not just addicted to the drug but to the whole lifestyle and identity. i know that as an alcoholic, i don't just have a problem with alcohol. for me, alcohol was an answer to all of my problems. what i have to do in recovery is find a new answer. that has to be for my entire life. you can't just drop the drug and expect the rest of your life to automatically fix itself. there are things that led you to your drug use. until you address them and find a new answer for those problems, you're at risk of turning back to drugs. maybe you need to find a new lifestyle to identify with? i'm going to AA now and it's helping me a lot. it's giving me something else to focus on and it's addressing the problems in my life, not just my drinking. of course, the main thing is to not use! but simply living to not use isn't really living, is it? perhaps you should look into some 12 step programs or other recovery programs. believe me, your situation isn't uncommon. i identified myself as "Lisa the Lush" for a long time. it was how i related to people because i didn't know any other way to be. i'm slowly unraveling that person now and rebuilding her into someone i can look at in the mirror and be happy to see. someone with an identity that isn't based on a substance. you can do it too.

fantail

Golden, I know what you mean. I'm not sure how old you are, but most of my teen years were in the nineties and there was very much a cultural depiction then of drug use as avant garde, counter-cultural. Maybe that's every decade? I only know what I grew up with. But the whole image of the "beautiful disaster" was something I identified with deeply. I started using drugs as a teenager more as an expression of my dissatisfaction than anything else, I think. A way of asserting some authority against what I saw as mainstream culture.

Then I switched to alcohol, and continued in that vein but on a happier note... drinking was part of my carefree alternative life.

And then it took over and it wasn't very pretty any more, and I'm glad I've stopped. But at 32 days sober I don't know yet the healthy expression of those parts of my personality. It's like I used drugs and alcohol as a short cut instead of developing more meaningful ways of expressing myself.

I also think there's something about darkness, depth, sadness, etc... I sometimes feel this way with depression. I have it well under control now, and most of the people currently in my life don't associate me with it at all. And sometimes that makes me feel weird, because although I'm very very glad not to be depressed, that part of me is important and it's taught me a lot of things.

Anyway, not sure where I'm going with this, but I guess it's to say that I agree, and I hope both of us figure out a way to live out that part of ourselves in a way that isn't destructive.

Lyoness

Hi Golden! I agree with and appreciate what all the other posters have said. And I totally understand where you are coming from, too. It's like GRITS said, we get addicted to a whole lifestyle and changing that is essential to healing our wounds and our addictions.

Even though I'm a lot older than the "heroin chic" and Goth, etc. I still have had my own identification with darkness, depression, being on the outside. It does become an identity. Like that which pushes us to the outside we then accept and then live only in that place. And I think it's all part of living and growing and accepting who we are. The problem comes if we get stuck somewhere and can't move on or change, even if/when we want to.

Reading your post, I think you do already have a lot of insight and awareness into what is going on. I often have the same feelings, like I want to ID as "cool" or "junkie" or "one of you" too. It is part of the whole drug subculture that exists. And for a lot of us, we first found family or comfort or release from pain/self-medication through alcohol and/or drugs and the cultures around them. And if we start young, for me it was 16, it is so hard to learn a new family and culture and so on.

Are you doing any counseling to help with your addiction? It is essential, like GRITS said, that we look at all of our stuff, the stuff we may have denied, our wounds and so on to be able to get truly clean and create a new life for ourselves. Maybe outpatient counseling and groups might be something you can check into for assistance in doing this. I'm doing OP counseling and finding it is very necessary.

And NA or other support can be essential, too, especially in finding a new family/group to identify with.

And thank you for posting this thread! I think this is something we can all relate to.

Take care.

iwanthealth

you can find your own style without becoming addicted to a drug that will own you.

you could run around dressed as Pocahontas and you'd get attention.

if your trying to find the right person to be concerned about you, you can do that without the costs of heroin.

you can't always send out an SOS and hope for someone to rescue though.
sometimes that could mean sorting out a lot of the responses you will get, lol.

it helps to take action to find what will work for you.

in this case, it seems like maybe a look that you truly feel comfortable with, sober, could be a start, but search for the wisdom that fits you the same.

shauninspain

I can relate to that, mostly with alcohol. I used to paint and write a lot of poetry. A part of me felt that I did my most creative work when I was drunk, or stoned (on grass). But an even bigger part of me fell almost in love with the image of the 'struggling artist', the 'social misfit' and the 'deluded genius'. For a couple of years 1998-2000 I lived in a tiny caravan, in the middle of nowhere. Dressed in my paratrooper boots, long hair, and combat trousers I would walk to the 'local' shop (over a mile away) at 10am to by my 4 liters of super strength cider.

I'd march home, to write or paint, telling myself that one day, when I was dead, and my body had laid undiscovered for a couple of weeks, someone would discover my paintings and my writings and I would be hailed as the 2nd Vincent Van Gogh.

All those people who saw me whilst alive would recount their sightings of this strange and possessed man on TV documentaries. Experts would describe my scribblings as an new form of poetry, and revolutionary. Films would be made and books would be written about my life! I really believed it all.

I ended up drying out in a psychiatric hospital!

So yes I can understand that your use of mood and mind altering substances play a huge part in who you think you are.

doggonecarl

I clung too long to the allure of drugs and being a druggie. I felt rebellious, I felt I was enlightened so much more than the straights that didn't get high.

But in reality, and certainly by the end, I was a thieving, lying, self-absorbed person addicted to substances that took me to a fantasy world where I was cool.

It's much cooler being clean and sober.

Udntknowme

I agree also with much of what has already been said. This is one of my biggest struggles. For me, it's a matter of framing--the "cool" factor is merely a fantasy. I mean, I've been there now. Whenever the thought of how cool I would be, or how great that lifestyle is, pops into my head, I try and show it the reality of what my use was. That isn't to say that sometimes I don't glorify drug use, but instead that I realize that glory is made up!