Onewithwings

How do I keep using dreams from affecting me? Last night I had a dream that I smoked crack!! I am in early recovery (45 days clean) and the using dreams are frequent, it's always one substance or another, and they always throw me for a loop. How do I deal with this?

loveon2legs

Hi One,
I had all those dreams too, just remember they are just dreams...you don't have to act on them...my using dreams have all but disappeared, yours will too, just give it time...

Big Hugs xo

TenNinetySix

I had/have them a lot too.

Did you wake up terrified, afraid it was real? Soooooo disappointed in yoursef, horrified that you'd screwed up your sobriety???

I had an Old Timer with 40+ years of sobriety tell me to be grateful for using dreams because it's your subconscious handing you the gift of realizing over & over again how very much you want to stay sober. You use in the dream, then you wake up & you are so grateful you didn't really... So you don't have to use in real life & screw up for real.

Once I started thinking of them like that? They started dwindling off. I've got a little over 5 months clean now, & they've eased up on me considerably.

Maybe that will help a little. Hope so.

wow1323

i use to have dreams about drinking and smoking when I was preggers. Half way through the dream I would realize I was pregnant and freak out. When I woke up I was just grateful it was JUST a dream.

doggonecarl

I guess you could call it a using dream; I had it last night and it affected me in a positive manner.

In my dream I’m helping my 2 cousins clear out their apartment. They get me high on some primo pot. Somehow we work out an exchange where I end up with the pot. I’m stoked. When it is time to leave I go to retrieve it from the freezer and it’s gone! I am so pissed that someone would do that. Pissed and disappointed that my stash is gone. No, disappointed isn’t strong enough. Crushed is more like it, and crushed because I figure out it is my cousins who took it. Then I wake up.

My first thoughts are that I’m still upset. Then I realize it was a dream. Once I thought about it, and why I might be having the dream I remember that part of the reason I quit drugs was that I was sick of the lowlifes and generally untrustworthy individuals that I had to deal with because I was a drug addict. People ripping me off, me ripping other people off. Liars, cheats and thieves…that was my circle of friends back then.

The dream was a good reminder to stay clean and not to back to the life. It’s one thing to look fondly back on a great buzz, but don’t forget the other stuff that goes with drug abuse. Then there is the reason I’m having a dream about getting high in the first place. I’m almost two months sober; my drug use, except for the rare intermittent relapse, ended over 20 years ago. But lately, since I stopped drinking, I’ve thought more about using. Something. Anything. I think this is probably because I have addled my brain with some substance or another ever since I was 18. Since I’ve quit drinking, the drug using part of my nature has been awoken. The part in the dream where I’m getting high is what I long for…the part about being ripped off is the more rational part of my subconscious mind “thinking it through to the end.”

Having this dream has quieted my thoughts about using.