EyesOfAStranger

Day 17 and I feel like throwing it all away. And I'm not sure why. I know I have had bad days through this before, I know they will move on. And I knew on those days I still did not want to use. But today I do. It's different this time. I feel apathetic towards this whole journey.

I just feel so off, not myself. I'm tired of hurting, I'm tired of being "strong". I just want to give in to it. What in the world happened to make me suddenly quit caring?

Ugh. Just being honest. Just wanted to get those feelings out from inside of me. Don't know why I feel so defeated today, but I do.

buttercup89

Hey eyes! Hang in there! You have come such a long way and i am sure you will regret it tomorrow if you slip today. I be back soon and write more but hang in there!!!!!

TiredEnough

That's normal. Push on to 30 days and then assess how you feel.

EyesOfAStranger

Thanks Buttercup

Is it? That makes me feel a little better. Like I said I've had bad days, and knew I'd have more, but had this strong resolve that I would not give in, no matter what.

Today I can honestly say if I had some pills in front of me, within my grasp, I do believe I would have used them by now. And that scares me. Because I didn't feel that way before. Again, not sure why today I feel this way, I have no idea what set this feeling off. I'm disappointed with myself.

Push it to 30 days....I think that is great advice. That's less days than I've already gotten past. Maybe that is it, maybe I needed a new short term goal? Thank you for that. I guess right now I should stick with don't get any. It seems whenever I needed them they weren't around, or I could never find them. Now when I don't need/want I know right here to get them. Argh!

FT

In a word -- Don't.

I wrote on another forum yesterday about the "flat mood" thing, aka apathy. Try to remember what the term "homeostasis" means, if you ever learned it in biology class.

The reality of the situation is that the human body ALWAYS tries to achieve homeostasis. That's why the liver recognizes that drugs and alcohol are poisons and tries to eliminate them from the body. That's one of its many jobs. It tries to eliminate the very thing you used to try to force it to accept, by detoxifying, and by making more receptors to accommodate the flood.

The human body was never designed to be in a prolonged "heightened" state, which is why our natural high (from endogenous endorphins) comes in bursts after stuff like physical exercise, happy surprises, sex, (maybe a happy surprise, no?), and eating chocolate. Sometimes with other things, too.

If you force the body to be in a "heightened" state, multiplication of the pleasure receptor sites (i.e. dopamine receptors) occurs -- but these are damaged, unhealthy receptors that permit taking more and more drug without killing you -- for awhile.

The other bad thing, besides potential death of the human, is that after the receptor sites are multiplied, they never reduce back down again. Because of that, when you stop artificially forcing the body to accept high doses of alcohol and/or drugs, you naturally feel "flat," because the receptors "need" to be filled to even feel "normal," whatever that has become. Eventually, your ability to make more receptor sites is exceeded, and that's when overdoses often happen as the human tries to take enough drug for the former good feelings that have become more and more elusive.

An even worse (maybe) bad things, is that when you force-feed yourself drugs or alcohol, your body stops making its own pleasure chemicals (endorphins) because it doesn't have to. After you quit drinking or drugging, it takes time for your body to "remember" how to make its own pleasure chemicals again. And also to repair the damaged receptor sites so you CAN feel good again.

If you don't give your body enough time to do that, it will never be able to make its them. Don't make that mistake.

The good news is that your body WILL start making its own natural endorphins again, and they are BETTER than drugs or alcohol ever were. One way to speed things up is to add exercise to your routine. It really does help.

Hey, Eyes, I don't post here very often any more, but you are worth a post. No, I don't envision myself as having more sway than anybody else around here, but you rock. You are helping so many by being here. Stay strong. Helping others does become cathartic, if you haven't already noticed.

Hang in there.

FT

four812

Hello eyes… I have a great short-term goal for you. Stay clean just for today

:-)

Wellnessgirl

Push through this bad day. I remember feeling like that. I ended up giving up after doing so well and have always learned that I felt worse after giving into my addition then if I would have just pushed through the bad day(s). I am now celebrating 2 days of being sober instead of 5 years. It's a vicious cycle that can be broken. We are here for you.

OpioPhobe

Eyes - I think it is absolutely normal to waver at certain points during the process. Not using when you have a 'strong' resolve is the easy part. It's the rough days like today that decide how the story is going to end.

I think the feeling that you are somehow 'weaker' today than yesterday is just a mind trick. You have told yourself that you may have used if you had them within immediate reach. However, you don't know that for sure. In that situation you may have flushed them instead. Or perhaps you would have come up with a more creative fate for the pills. Either way the pills aren't there and you didn't take them, period.

There were plenty of times that I told myself something along the lines of "well...if you are dealing with cravings this strong now it is just a matter of time before you fold. accept your fate now, which is to keep using forever. you were a fool to try to escape in the first place." On almost all of those rough days I did end up folding. I suppose I am a glutton for punishment or maybe part of me secretly likes withdrawal. On the rough days that I made it I just stopped worrying about being 'weak' / 'strong' or anything else. It seemed absolutely hopeless and futile to keep on going on those days, but I did it anyway. I think it is expected to have days where you have to keep going even when it seems completely pointless to do so.

You aren't defeated unless you use.

cleaninLI

Eyes I won't repeat the awesome advice already given here! Just wanted to send my support to you! After work today come back here and chat with us! Make coming here your reward for the day! I remember your telling us you were so excited to come here you looked forward to getting off work so you could log in. Keep that excitement brewing....there are so many here that look forward to your awesome posts and love chatting with you......me included. So please come back tonight....I'm waiting for you...ok!

EyesOfAStranger

FT - that makes a lot of sense...I didn't really think to look at it from a physiological point of view. That helps a lot, actually, to make sense of it. Your words mean a lot to me - a lot. And I thank you for taking your time to stop and post, truly.

Today has just felt so different, not the urges or struggling that I have had on one of the "bad" days. Just this complete and utter "I don't care" kind of feeling out of nowhere. I wasn't expecting it, and it definitely caused me a moment of pause. Just this all consuming black cloud of "so what" - not sure how to explain it, not something I had experienced up to now. And even though I know from the ups and downs that I have already experienced that these feelings likely will change - with this there has been this weird impending doom-like feeling that this was it, this was to be the new normal for me. That this particular feeling was some how different than the others, and no matter what I tried telling myself I wouldn't hear it.

Opio, as always, you hit the nail on the head. You have described some of the feelings in the words I could not find. And you are correct - on each point you made. Four and Wellness, thank you for your words and support

You all have no idea how powerful your words are to me. You have done the work, you have made the changes, you have survived through this, and so wise about this disease. This I needed - because this has been the one thing that really threw me off my game. It didn't make sense, and somehow you have been able to put it in to perspective for me. The feeling is still there, but I feel a bit better to hear it is "normal" because it sure does not feel like it is. That it is a part of the process. And most importantly, it gave me the push to say to myself, no - you will not give in. I truly thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

EyesOfAStranger

Clean - thank you You have such a way about you...your kids are so lucky to have you as their mom.

Marcus

It is ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NORMAL!! Why do you think long term recovery is so hard to obtain for so many people? All it takes is a moment of weakness to p*ss it all away. Yes some people might be able to use once and get back on track, but very rare. Once you get the ball rolling and forward momentum heading downhill you are usually going to do just that - GO DOWNHILL! It might not be instantly or within a day or a week, but waking up the beast is never a good idea. I have over 2 years clean today and it took me 8+ years to get here because so many days I had like yours where I took the easy way out. Well I thought it was the easy way. Convinced myself I was going to use anyway so just get it over with. Said I DESERVED IT! I would use just this once and then hop back on the bike! WRONG!! Just once is a pipe dream for so many of us addicts. It just does not exist and until I was thoroughly convinced of this fact I was doomed to repeat the past. Thank GOD I finally woke up. I don't miss it one BIT!

HANG ON AND STAY STRONG!!!

EyesOfAStranger

Thanks Marcus Trust me, I know all too well I could never use just once and get back on track. That's why this is so scary for me....because if I did give in I'd be a full blown addict again, I have no doubt in that - not one bit. And this feeling I have today, the addict voice I'm sure, kept saying to me "who cares"? All the other struggles I have had, the urges, I still maintained my positivity in staying sober. Today it feels like that just doesn't matter. I should say felt....all you are helping me get that back now.

Thank you for your support, it really does mean the world to me to know that people you don't even know do genuinely care. A group of us that can understand at least one part of each other, no matter how different we all may be in other ways.

TiredEnough

Eyes, seriously, no lie, the longer you go without dope, the easier it gets. Just remember, it won't always be this hard. I promise you that.

FT

Eyes,

One other thing. Most of us who DID go back and use again found out to our dismay that you can NEVER get that "first high" back again. Not EVER. Your AV will try to convince you it is possible, but it isn't.

It goes back to biophysiology, once again. Because you have built up an abnormal number of opiate receptors, your tolerance level very very quickly rises back up to what you tolerated when you were at your highest doses. At first, it feels like you are back to "normal" and can take "normal" amounts of drug. This is a seriously scary misperception, and it sometimes leads to accidental overdoses.

I think you've been to that rodeo before, if I recall your history correctly. "You can never go home again" certainly applies to opiates. That "old familiar feeling" is an elusive one that can never be attained again.

I think you are ready to be a non-opiate user now, and I think you knew that when you quit this time around, too. You sorta knew this would happen, were wishing it wouldn't, and here you are again having some of the same bad feelings that caused you to use in the first place.

We're all here pulling for you, hoping you make the right choice. Seriously, keep helping others who also feel bad. It helps to know you aren't the only one who feels like this, who has ever felt like this. It feels so isolating and lonely and bad, and I completely understand it.

It might help you to go back and read Snowflake's thread, to see how he fell back into the pit. It just doesn't work. I haven't heard back from him, but I am very worried. You get to feeling like you know people on this forum, and it makes us very sad when one of us falls through the cracks, and we never get to find out the end of the story.

Your ending can be GREAT. Don't go away!

PurpleKnight

Hang in there!! Day 17 is fantastic!! You can do this!!

Dee74

The roads not easy Eyes - if it was we'd all just do it and there'd be no need for SR

It's normal to feel a, little overwhelmed tired and fed up. But push past that - use the support here. Remember why you came here.

You can do this

D

EyesOfAStranger

I'm holding you to that promise

You are so right about that - I have been chasing that high for so long, geez I can remember getting a buzz off of half a 5mg percoset (just barely remember though, it was so long ago). So I just kept going up and up in dose, and looking back I was never worried about accidently OD'ing. Oh yeah, that wouldn't happen to me. I didn't even get that messed up, completely out of the realm of possibility. Now, with a clear head on my shoulders, it's crazy scary to think how lucky I was. Yeah, I didn't get very messed up - because my darn tolerance was so high. I would take up to 15 30mgs pills a day, or 50 5/325s, or whatever I could get/had. It is a sobering thought (pun intended) that I am a prime candidate for exactly what you have described. I really am.

Another thing that has surprised me is how you remember the "good" feelings from the pills like it was yesterday, yet how quickly all that "bad" things that come along with addiction fade so quickly. I guess it's like how the workdays go so slow, yet the weekends fly by. I actually had to dig deep inside to remember all the crap, the reasons that I finally smartened up about. Because on the surface, I really started to believe again that the amount of money I spent was bad, and the amounts I was taking probably weren't good for me - but hey, I wasn't hurting anyone but myself. It wasn't so bad, what's the big deal. If the urges could go away as quickly as the "bad stuff"....well, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, then I guess we'd all have a merry Christmas.

I followed Snowflake's story from the beginning, because there were a lot of similarities in our situations. And I still go back and re-read the threads now and again as a lot of the tools I put in to place for myself came from the great advice given to him by many members here. I had reached out to him as well, and we corresponded back and forth a couple of times and now I have not heard back in quite a while. I am concerned as well. I was really hoping and believing there would be a happy ending to that story - and I'm still hoping there will be one day, but I am worried as well. Thank you again for your support, and sharing your knowledge

EyesOfAStranger

Thank you Purpleknight and Dee

You're right....and SR really has been such a positive experience for me. I knew this was going to be the fight of my life, just stumbled a little today and did not know how to get myself back up on my feet. Once again, thank you to all of you, for each grabbing an arm and helping me back up I'm still shaky, picture a drunk dog on ice, but made it through the day - and I do credit all of you for that.

Lostinhk

Hi Eyes,

For the last few days I've felt exactly the same. I feel like my acute symptoms were really short, almost gone by day 3 and then I gradually started to feel better until day 8 or 9 and it's just gone downhill from there - severe depression, insomnia, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, etc.

One if the things that has made me feel worse is that it doesn't seem as though this has happened to other people, I.e. Feeling worse before feeling better.

I'm determined to not go back to pills, but I'm at my wit send here. I'll continue to try to be strong, and I hope you can as well eyes.