This is me...And introduction.
Insanabile cacoethes scribendi
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Spokane, Wash
Posts: 15
This is me...And introduction.
Hello, everyone! I'm so glad I found this forum! I just got back from an N.A. meeting and was still feeling like talking about recovery when I stumbled upon this site via google. (isn't google a wonderful thing, friends?). Anyway, as this is my first post, (it is so much easier to take the initiative and speak online than it is in real-life, at least for me since I suffer from severe shyness and awkwardness in social settings, especially when I don't know anyone), I'll introduce myself and give my story. I apologize if it's a bit long.
You all can just call me Skayda. It may sound a lot like "Skater" but has nothing, whatsoever, to do with that activity. It's actually from a character in a series of books. Though the character's name was spelled without the "y" and means "Shadow". I thought it was a good name for an internet handle since a person's online name is kind of like the mirror or shadow of their real selves, etc, etc and I've been using it off and on for years.
I've also been an addict for several years. I knew I was addicted to opiates even years ago when I was in active addiction, though, you all know how we do that; "I'll deal with it tomorrow...after this bottle runs out that it...I promise I'll quit...etc, etc." Yeah, that was me. For me, I could say my addiction to opiates started when I passed my first kidney stone. But, really, if I want to honest, it began much, much earlier than that. Both my mother and my grandmother suffer from addiction to narcotics and I know that this disease is more likely to be if you have family members who suffer from it as well.
Growing up, my mother drank and went through treatment for Alcohol when I was in the fourth grade. I remember my little brother and sister and I being taken from our babysitter's in the middle of the night to go live with foster parents when my mother was taken to treatment. (I ended up calling my grandmother, my mother's mother, and she came and picked us up and we lived with her and Grandpa for the next year and a half while our mother got her life in order). My stepfather, really my Mom's boyfriend about five or six years after she was out of treatment and we were all a family again, was addicted to gambling and would steal money from my Mom's purse and once he gambled away all of our Christmas money.
As I've gotten older, I've learned of other family "secrets" that have been kept hidden or "we just don't talk about that" like my Grandmother, (Mom's mother), being addicted to Valium while my Mom was growing up and Mom remembering her childhood being with a zombified Mom and an aunt who blamed her for "being such a bad little girl that Mommy has to medicate!".
My mother worked as an LPN for a lot of years and in 1995 she opened an "Adult Family Home". In the last eighties she fell off a cliff and broke her back and her leg and has a metal rod in spine and leg now. I believe her introduction to opiates began then, when she broke her back and leg, but as I was writing, she opened an AFH in 1995 and I, being a Registered Nursing Assistant, went to work for her. At the time, I only dabbled in opiates, like if I had a particularily painful menstral cramps. (I used to get such painful cramps that I'd black out...thankful not any more, though).
Well, My Mom remarried about three years later and they closed the business down and moved to another town. It was around that time I got my first kidney stone. I don't know if any of you have ever passed a kidney stone, but I had no idea what was wrong and I thought I was dying. My boyfriend rushed me to the E.R. and they gave me IV pain medication and sent me home with a prescription for another narcotic pain med. For the next year I was getting kidney stone after kidney stone and always on something narcotic for pain. I had lithotripsy twice and spent many, many nights in the E.R. Soon, as you can all imagine, I found myself needing the meds more and more and soon began to abuse them.
I used my kidney stones as an excuse to get more meds and would "E.R. Hop" about once every three days or so. I also had a friend who was an opiate addict and we would take turns with the E.R. and share our scripts with each other. My mother became more and more addicted to opiates, too, with her new husband, and also meth. Opiates were always my DOC but I did do meth with her a few times. Her husband and her went through treatment for it while they lived in Mississippi and when they moved back to Washington state they didn't get back into it, but found a new DOC in opiates. My Mom and I started off just like my old friend and I did; but E.R. hopping and sharing scripts and she would share her meds she was prescribed by a pain doctor with me and vice, versa. Her husband was on fentynal patches and my Mom would steal a few for me and save them for when I came to visit. It really was a very messed up mother-daughter relationship.
Well, anyway, my Mother right now is doing better. Both she and my stepfather have gone through treatment for opiate addition and they are both currently attending meetings, (my mom goes every night), and the Doctors weaned my stepdad off the patches. (He was in a bad car crash years before and had a back back and neck) and doing relaxation and other things for pain. Seeing and witnessing my parents continued success with their struggle for recovery was a big influence on me in my own decision to get sober and try to stay sober. I have been on methadone for the past few years now and a few weeks ago I started outpatient treatment. I haven't gone to the E.R. for drugs since I started the methadone and I have been going to N.A. meetings twice a week.
My mother and I call each other almost every day to encourage each other in our recovery. So our relationship has gone from co-dependant for the bad reasons to co-dependant for the good reasons. Currently, I am going to two group sessions at my counseling center a week as well as N.A. meetings at least two or three times a week and waiting to hear back from my doctor about the Bupenipherine, (suboxone) program. I've gone through the active use, detox, relapse cycle so many times over the years. My doctor and I both agreed that the right treatment for me and my disease in order to get on with my life and whatnot is opiate substitution therapy. With suboxone my craving will subside and even if I do relaspe and take a vicodin or something I won't be able to feel it because suboxone blocks the opiate receptors in our brains from being able to feel other opiates. My counselor at the drug outpaitent program also knows and feels that this is a good thing for me. I am hoping that one day I'll be completely free from ALL chemicals like my mother is doing, even the suboxone, but until that day I'll continue to go to my meetings, work on the 12 steps and just take things as they come...day by day.
Thank for all for reading and I'm so sorry it was so long!
~Skayda
You all can just call me Skayda. It may sound a lot like "Skater" but has nothing, whatsoever, to do with that activity. It's actually from a character in a series of books. Though the character's name was spelled without the "y" and means "Shadow". I thought it was a good name for an internet handle since a person's online name is kind of like the mirror or shadow of their real selves, etc, etc and I've been using it off and on for years.
I've also been an addict for several years. I knew I was addicted to opiates even years ago when I was in active addiction, though, you all know how we do that; "I'll deal with it tomorrow...after this bottle runs out that it...I promise I'll quit...etc, etc." Yeah, that was me. For me, I could say my addiction to opiates started when I passed my first kidney stone. But, really, if I want to honest, it began much, much earlier than that. Both my mother and my grandmother suffer from addiction to narcotics and I know that this disease is more likely to be if you have family members who suffer from it as well.
Growing up, my mother drank and went through treatment for Alcohol when I was in the fourth grade. I remember my little brother and sister and I being taken from our babysitter's in the middle of the night to go live with foster parents when my mother was taken to treatment. (I ended up calling my grandmother, my mother's mother, and she came and picked us up and we lived with her and Grandpa for the next year and a half while our mother got her life in order). My stepfather, really my Mom's boyfriend about five or six years after she was out of treatment and we were all a family again, was addicted to gambling and would steal money from my Mom's purse and once he gambled away all of our Christmas money.
As I've gotten older, I've learned of other family "secrets" that have been kept hidden or "we just don't talk about that" like my Grandmother, (Mom's mother), being addicted to Valium while my Mom was growing up and Mom remembering her childhood being with a zombified Mom and an aunt who blamed her for "being such a bad little girl that Mommy has to medicate!".
My mother worked as an LPN for a lot of years and in 1995 she opened an "Adult Family Home". In the last eighties she fell off a cliff and broke her back and her leg and has a metal rod in spine and leg now. I believe her introduction to opiates began then, when she broke her back and leg, but as I was writing, she opened an AFH in 1995 and I, being a Registered Nursing Assistant, went to work for her. At the time, I only dabbled in opiates, like if I had a particularily painful menstral cramps. (I used to get such painful cramps that I'd black out...thankful not any more, though).
Well, My Mom remarried about three years later and they closed the business down and moved to another town. It was around that time I got my first kidney stone. I don't know if any of you have ever passed a kidney stone, but I had no idea what was wrong and I thought I was dying. My boyfriend rushed me to the E.R. and they gave me IV pain medication and sent me home with a prescription for another narcotic pain med. For the next year I was getting kidney stone after kidney stone and always on something narcotic for pain. I had lithotripsy twice and spent many, many nights in the E.R. Soon, as you can all imagine, I found myself needing the meds more and more and soon began to abuse them.
I used my kidney stones as an excuse to get more meds and would "E.R. Hop" about once every three days or so. I also had a friend who was an opiate addict and we would take turns with the E.R. and share our scripts with each other. My mother became more and more addicted to opiates, too, with her new husband, and also meth. Opiates were always my DOC but I did do meth with her a few times. Her husband and her went through treatment for it while they lived in Mississippi and when they moved back to Washington state they didn't get back into it, but found a new DOC in opiates. My Mom and I started off just like my old friend and I did; but E.R. hopping and sharing scripts and she would share her meds she was prescribed by a pain doctor with me and vice, versa. Her husband was on fentynal patches and my Mom would steal a few for me and save them for when I came to visit. It really was a very messed up mother-daughter relationship.
Well, anyway, my Mother right now is doing better. Both she and my stepfather have gone through treatment for opiate addition and they are both currently attending meetings, (my mom goes every night), and the Doctors weaned my stepdad off the patches. (He was in a bad car crash years before and had a back back and neck) and doing relaxation and other things for pain. Seeing and witnessing my parents continued success with their struggle for recovery was a big influence on me in my own decision to get sober and try to stay sober. I have been on methadone for the past few years now and a few weeks ago I started outpatient treatment. I haven't gone to the E.R. for drugs since I started the methadone and I have been going to N.A. meetings twice a week.
My mother and I call each other almost every day to encourage each other in our recovery. So our relationship has gone from co-dependant for the bad reasons to co-dependant for the good reasons. Currently, I am going to two group sessions at my counseling center a week as well as N.A. meetings at least two or three times a week and waiting to hear back from my doctor about the Bupenipherine, (suboxone) program. I've gone through the active use, detox, relapse cycle so many times over the years. My doctor and I both agreed that the right treatment for me and my disease in order to get on with my life and whatnot is opiate substitution therapy. With suboxone my craving will subside and even if I do relaspe and take a vicodin or something I won't be able to feel it because suboxone blocks the opiate receptors in our brains from being able to feel other opiates. My counselor at the drug outpaitent program also knows and feels that this is a good thing for me. I am hoping that one day I'll be completely free from ALL chemicals like my mother is doing, even the suboxone, but until that day I'll continue to go to my meetings, work on the 12 steps and just take things as they come...day by day.
Thank for all for reading and I'm so sorry it was so long!
~Skayda
Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Baghdad
Posts: 2,822
Originally Posted by Skayda 
Hello, everyone! I'm so glad I found this forum! I just got back from an N.A. meeting and was still feeling like talking about recovery when I stumbled upon this site via google. (isn't google a wonderful thing, friends?). Anyway, as this is my first post, (it is so much easier to take the initiative and speak online than it is in real-life, at least for me since I suffer from severe shyness and awkwardness in social settings, especially when I don't know anyone), I'll introduce myself and give my story. I apologize if it's a bit long.
You all can just call me Skayda. It may sound a lot like "Skater" but has nothing, whatsoever, to do with that activity. It's actually from a character in a series of books. Though the character's name was spelled without the "y" and means "Shadow". I thought it was a good name for an internet handle since a person's online name is kind of like the mirror or shadow of their real selves, etc, etc and I've been using it off and on for years.
I've also been an addict for several years. I knew I was addicted to opiates even years ago when I was in active addiction, though, you all know how we do that; "I'll deal with it tomorrow...after this bottle runs out that it...I promise I'll quit...etc, etc." Yeah, that was me. For me, I could say my addiction to opiates started when I passed my first kidney stone. But, really, if I want to honest, it began much, much earlier than that. Both my mother and my grandmother suffer from addiction to narcotics and I know that this disease is more likely to be if you have family members who suffer from it as well.
Growing up, my mother drank and went through treatment for Alcohol when I was in the fourth grade. I remember my little brother and sister and I being taken from our babysitter's in the middle of the night to go live with foster parents when my mother was taken to treatment. (I ended up calling my grandmother, my mother's mother, and she came and picked us up and we lived with her and Grandpa for the next year and a half while our mother got her life in order). My stepfather, really my Mom's boyfriend about five or six years after she was out of treatment and we were all a family again, was addicted to gambling and would steal money from my Mom's purse and once he gambled away all of our Christmas money.
As I've gotten older, I've learned of other family "secrets" that have been kept hidden or "we just don't talk about that" like my Grandmother, (Mom's mother), being addicted to Valium while my Mom was growing up and Mom remembering her childhood being with a zombified Mom and an aunt who blamed her for "being such a bad little girl that Mommy has to medicate!".
My mother worked as an LPN for a lot of years and in 1995 she opened an "Adult Family Home". In the last eighties she fell off a cliff and broke her back and her leg and has a metal rod in spine and leg now. I believe her introduction to opiates began then, when she broke her back and leg, but as I was writing, she opened an AFH in 1995 and I, being a Registered Nursing Assistant, went to work for her. At the time, I only dabbled in opiates, like if I had a particularily painful menstral cramps. (I used to get such painful cramps that I'd black out...thankful not any more, though).
Well, My Mom remarried about three years later and they closed the business down and moved to another town. It was around that time I got my first kidney stone. I don't know if any of you have ever passed a kidney stone, but I had no idea what was wrong and I thought I was dying. My boyfriend rushed me to the E.R. and they gave me IV pain medication and sent me home with a prescription for another narcotic pain med. For the next year I was getting kidney stone after kidney stone and always on something narcotic for pain. I had lithotripsy twice and spent many, many nights in the E.R. Soon, as you can all imagine, I found myself needing the meds more and more and soon began to abuse them.
I used my kidney stones as an excuse to get more meds and would "E.R. Hop" about once every three days or so. I also had a friend who was an opiate addict and we would take turns with the E.R. and share our scripts with each other. My mother became more and more addicted to opiates, too, with her new husband, and also meth. Opiates were always my DOC but I did do meth with her a few times. Her husband and her went through treatment for it while they lived in Mississippi and when they moved back to Washington state they didn't get back into it, but found a new DOC in opiates. My Mom and I started off just like my old friend and I did; but E.R. hopping and sharing scripts and she would share her meds she was prescribed by a pain doctor with me and vice, versa. Her husband was on fentynal patches and my Mom would steal a few for me and save them for when I came to visit. It really was a very messed up mother-daughter relationship.
Well, anyway, my Mother right now is doing better. Both she and my stepfather have gone through treatment for opiate addition and they are both currently attending meetings, (my mom goes every night), and the Doctors weaned my stepdad off the patches. (He was in a bad car crash years before and had a back back and neck) and doing relaxation and other things for pain. Seeing and witnessing my parents continued success with their struggle for recovery was a big influence on me in my own decision to get sober and try to stay sober. I have been on methadone for the past few years now and a few weeks ago I started outpatient treatment. I haven't gone to the E.R. for drugs since I started the methadone and I have been going to N.A. meetings twice a week.
My mother and I call each other almost every day to encourage each other in our recovery. So our relationship has gone from co-dependant for the bad reasons to co-dependant for the good reasons. Currently, I am going to two group sessions at my counseling center a week as well as N.A. meetings at least two or three times a week and waiting to hear back from my doctor about the Bupenipherine, (suboxone) program. I've gone through the active use, detox, relapse cycle so many times over the years. My doctor and I both agreed that the right treatment for me and my disease in order to get on with my life and whatnot is opiate substitution therapy. With suboxone my craving will subside and even if I do relaspe and take a vicodin or something I won't be able to feel it because suboxone blocks the opiate receptors in our brains from being able to feel other opiates. My counselor at the drug outpaitent program also knows and feels that this is a good thing for me. I am hoping that one day I'll be completely free from ALL chemicals like my mother is doing, even the suboxone, but until that day I'll continue to go to my meetings, work on the 12 steps and just take things as they come...day by day.
Thank for all for reading and I'm so sorry it was so long!
~Skayda
You all can just call me Skayda. It may sound a lot like "Skater" but has nothing, whatsoever, to do with that activity. It's actually from a character in a series of books. Though the character's name was spelled without the "y" and means "Shadow". I thought it was a good name for an internet handle since a person's online name is kind of like the mirror or shadow of their real selves, etc, etc and I've been using it off and on for years.
I've also been an addict for several years. I knew I was addicted to opiates even years ago when I was in active addiction, though, you all know how we do that; "I'll deal with it tomorrow...after this bottle runs out that it...I promise I'll quit...etc, etc." Yeah, that was me. For me, I could say my addiction to opiates started when I passed my first kidney stone. But, really, if I want to honest, it began much, much earlier than that. Both my mother and my grandmother suffer from addiction to narcotics and I know that this disease is more likely to be if you have family members who suffer from it as well.
Growing up, my mother drank and went through treatment for Alcohol when I was in the fourth grade. I remember my little brother and sister and I being taken from our babysitter's in the middle of the night to go live with foster parents when my mother was taken to treatment. (I ended up calling my grandmother, my mother's mother, and she came and picked us up and we lived with her and Grandpa for the next year and a half while our mother got her life in order). My stepfather, really my Mom's boyfriend about five or six years after she was out of treatment and we were all a family again, was addicted to gambling and would steal money from my Mom's purse and once he gambled away all of our Christmas money.
As I've gotten older, I've learned of other family "secrets" that have been kept hidden or "we just don't talk about that" like my Grandmother, (Mom's mother), being addicted to Valium while my Mom was growing up and Mom remembering her childhood being with a zombified Mom and an aunt who blamed her for "being such a bad little girl that Mommy has to medicate!".
My mother worked as an LPN for a lot of years and in 1995 she opened an "Adult Family Home". In the last eighties she fell off a cliff and broke her back and her leg and has a metal rod in spine and leg now. I believe her introduction to opiates began then, when she broke her back and leg, but as I was writing, she opened an AFH in 1995 and I, being a Registered Nursing Assistant, went to work for her. At the time, I only dabbled in opiates, like if I had a particularily painful menstral cramps. (I used to get such painful cramps that I'd black out...thankful not any more, though).
Well, My Mom remarried about three years later and they closed the business down and moved to another town. It was around that time I got my first kidney stone. I don't know if any of you have ever passed a kidney stone, but I had no idea what was wrong and I thought I was dying. My boyfriend rushed me to the E.R. and they gave me IV pain medication and sent me home with a prescription for another narcotic pain med. For the next year I was getting kidney stone after kidney stone and always on something narcotic for pain. I had lithotripsy twice and spent many, many nights in the E.R. Soon, as you can all imagine, I found myself needing the meds more and more and soon began to abuse them.
I used my kidney stones as an excuse to get more meds and would "E.R. Hop" about once every three days or so. I also had a friend who was an opiate addict and we would take turns with the E.R. and share our scripts with each other. My mother became more and more addicted to opiates, too, with her new husband, and also meth. Opiates were always my DOC but I did do meth with her a few times. Her husband and her went through treatment for it while they lived in Mississippi and when they moved back to Washington state they didn't get back into it, but found a new DOC in opiates. My Mom and I started off just like my old friend and I did; but E.R. hopping and sharing scripts and she would share her meds she was prescribed by a pain doctor with me and vice, versa. Her husband was on fentynal patches and my Mom would steal a few for me and save them for when I came to visit. It really was a very messed up mother-daughter relationship.
Well, anyway, my Mother right now is doing better. Both she and my stepfather have gone through treatment for opiate addition and they are both currently attending meetings, (my mom goes every night), and the Doctors weaned my stepdad off the patches. (He was in a bad car crash years before and had a back back and neck) and doing relaxation and other things for pain. Seeing and witnessing my parents continued success with their struggle for recovery was a big influence on me in my own decision to get sober and try to stay sober. I have been on methadone for the past few years now and a few weeks ago I started outpatient treatment. I haven't gone to the E.R. for drugs since I started the methadone and I have been going to N.A. meetings twice a week.
My mother and I call each other almost every day to encourage each other in our recovery. So our relationship has gone from co-dependant for the bad reasons to co-dependant for the good reasons. Currently, I am going to two group sessions at my counseling center a week as well as N.A. meetings at least two or three times a week and waiting to hear back from my doctor about the Bupenipherine, (suboxone) program. I've gone through the active use, detox, relapse cycle so many times over the years. My doctor and I both agreed that the right treatment for me and my disease in order to get on with my life and whatnot is opiate substitution therapy. With suboxone my craving will subside and even if I do relaspe and take a vicodin or something I won't be able to feel it because suboxone blocks the opiate receptors in our brains from being able to feel other opiates. My counselor at the drug outpaitent program also knows and feels that this is a good thing for me. I am hoping that one day I'll be completely free from ALL chemicals like my mother is doing, even the suboxone, but until that day I'll continue to go to my meetings, work on the 12 steps and just take things as they come...day by day.
Thank for all for reading and I'm so sorry it was so long!
~Skayda
Keep coming back, you'll find a lot of support here.
Insanabile cacoethes scribendi
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Spokane, Wash
Posts: 15
Thank you guys for the warm welcome. I've been meandering around the forums reading this and that and I have to say that there is a lot of inspiration and love and hope in the posts I've been reading. Just reading the different threads has given me a lot of strength. God bless you all!
~Skayda
~Skayda
Resident
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 4,150
Hi Skayda.
Welcome and good luck. I find the same thing as you when reading other people's threads. A lot of caring and concern and hope. Try posting and giving other people encouragement too. It is very therapeutic and as a side benefit your spelling will get better correcting the mistakes the spell checker points out with the red underling I hate that stoopid spell checker. Ha Ha got you checker. I didn't correct a word this time and I am not stupid.
Keep plugging and keep smiling.
Welcome and good luck. I find the same thing as you when reading other people's threads. A lot of caring and concern and hope. Try posting and giving other people encouragement too. It is very therapeutic and as a side benefit your spelling will get better correcting the mistakes the spell checker points out with the red underling I hate that stoopid spell checker. Ha Ha got you checker. I didn't correct a word this time and I am not stupid.
Keep plugging and keep smiling.
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