About me
 

Hello everyone, my name's Luis I'm 18 years old and I'm an addict. Though my drug of choice is marijuana, I'm addicted to doing all drugs in general, whether it be oxy, xanax, booze, ecstasy, lsd or shrooms, I just must not be sober I'm also addicted to cigarettes, I smoke about 3-7 a day. When I'm sober the only thing on my mind is getting high on something, the only thing I want to do is get high, this has lead me to become basically anti social, and depressed. I spend a lot of time by myself or with my girlfriend, but she works and goes to school essentially full time, so I'm mainly by myself most of the time. I had a best friend for almost 10 years, we became addicts together, we would steal, con and rob people, whatever just to get high. Our friendship ended when he started taking me for a fool, trying to bull **** me and had become a compulsive liar, not to mention he watched me get stabbed in a fight.

I went to rehab when I was 15 for stealing a gold chain from my mom, for $20 worth of weed (Pathetic, I know) I ended up getting kicked out of rehab after 30 days because I disrespected the staff. I dropped out of high school at 16 and moved to my dads house, ended up going to job corps and got my GED. I decided to do something with my life and applied at my city's college and got accepted. I have come to realize lately that I'm depressed, I have low self esteem and a complete lack of motivation, I can't stop smoking weed, I have a job, my own car and go to school but I'm doing poorly in school 'cause I don't have motivation to study and do what I have to do to get good grades, I have everything going for me but I don't like doing anything but getting high, everything is so dull and boring when I'm sober.

My depression is killing me inside, I feel so empty and lost in this world, I just lack the will power and motivation to quit smoking weed, because I know for a fact and feel that weed is the source of my problems, I just can't, and don't really want to stop, but at the same time I do... It's what is driving me crazy. All of this is what has lead me to this place today, before you. I want to make changes, I just need help, I don't know how to stop. I have been smoking weed for 7 years, and every day for the last 3 or 4, so I'm here today to hopefully learn from someone else whose been through what I'm going through, and learn to live sober.

Hi Requiem

Welcome to SR. I smoked weed for a long time. I know the catch of kinda wanting to but not wanting to - I think we all do, regardless of our drug of choice.

The only way that worked for me was quitting - full stop. Kinda half way sorta stopping never worked for me.

The important thing is to take it a day at a time - and reach out for support whenever you need it. SR is great for that - the people here helped me decide what I had to do.

You may find you need outside, real life, support too - there's a giant list of recovery resources in our substance abuse forum, if you want to take a look.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...i-recover.html

D

Hi Luis and welcome to SR.

You do really want to give up but it is the drug which is telling you you don't. Addiction is powerful and it will do anything to get you to keep using.

Your depression will only get worse if you continue to take drugs. Try to seperate in your mind the crazy ideas that your addiction gives you (like you want to carry on using because it makes you feel so good) with what is really true and what you really want.

I hope you read plenty here about all the available resources and then reach out for help. You can do this....you just can't do it alone.

Welcome to SR! I'm glad you found us and joined the family.

Welcome, Luis. I'm so glad you've decided to reach out for help. At your age people tend to keep going with their addiction for many more years, so be proud of yourself for knowing what needs to be done. It's obvious you are intelligent and capable of having a great life - it all lies ahead of you.

Reading other people's stories on SR made me want to rise above the hell I had made for myself. I wanted what they had acheived. Everyone understood and had been where I'd been - I didn't have anyone in my life that really got it, until I came here.

I hope you'll check out the Drug Addiction forums here. Have you tried NA? Right now you're in a vicious cycle - there is a way out and I believe you're ready to remove the poison from your life and begin to work on why you feel the need to get numb. Please let us know how you're doing. We care about you.

Luis welcome to SR, being 18 makes getting clean and sober pretty tough, your addicition will start telling you stuff like "Hey, I am only 18, what is wrong with getting high some times?", "Hey you are young, you can handle this if you want to."

Your addiction will work very hard at convincing you that it is not that big a deal, or you are not really addicted, you can handle this if you want to no matter what age you are, but at 18 it has an additional weapon, your youth!!!!

I am an alcoholic and far from being a spring chicken, an old, old rooster would be me, but I know personally 2 young men in AA that successfully for over a year been clean & sober. One of these young men got clean and sober at 16!! He sounds as though he was a lot like you, if he wasn't smoking dope or drinking he was popping or snorting pills, he just did not care until it started to ruin his family life, personal life, academic life as well as his athletic life.

He went through rehab and then straight into NA & AA, I knew him when he first came to AA, he was a hot mess.................... but he wanted to be clean and sober far more then he wanted to live wasted. He got help & support from everyone in AA that knew him & I assume NA as well.

He followed suggestions given to him, he went to lots of meetings, he got a sponsor and he took the steps, he has made a ton of clean and sober friends, he no longer hangs out with the using and drinking crowd.

I really do love to see his smiling face when I see him at meetings now, it makes me happy to know that he is not letting his youth slip away in a cloud of alcohol & drugs like I did. (Mine was mainly alcohol but I smoked my fair share of dope when I was young, alcohol was my ultmate down fall.

I just want you to know that there are plenty of people about your age in AA & NA, there is hope, do not throw in the towel.

Luis,
WELCOME! Please keep posting here...you will find people who understand and can help and who care. You are a very insightful young man...much wiser than your years. The fact that you are coming to these realizations now, at 18, is wonderful. That means you don't have to wait, like many of us did for 20 or 30 YEARS before getting help and getting sober or clean.

You are taking positive steps in the right direction. Is there perhaps a counselor at your school you could confide in? Depression is a serious thing, and the pot is not going to help that...which I'm sure you know. Just like for me, drinking made my anxiety and depression worse, but that's part of the reason I drank in the first place. Because it made it go away at first!

Stay strong, and keep moving in the right direction for you.

:welcome

Hi Luis and Welcome,

I'm so glad you're reaching out for support.

Have you talked to your dr about your depression? It's possible that the depression is a result of your drug use, but it's also possible that the drug use is a result of your depression and that medication could help you.

Having smoked pot for a a very long time (like 25 years) I would always say that pot was not addictive. Imagine that, doing a drug for 25 years and claiming it's not addictive? It's crazy right? I underestimated the psychologically addictive properties of marijuana and I am still struggling to say goodbye once and for all to pot. Somehow I managed to quit everything else but pot remains in my life, so I can totally relate to your post Luis. I wanna stop but I feel cravings and anxiety when I try at least for a few days then it's relatively smooth sailing until somehow I convince myself it would be OK to smoke a little and before you know it, I'm smoking a little (or a lot) every day. It's better than drinking, cigarettes, or hard drugs but it's obviously all wrong for us in spite of this. Welcome to SR, you'll find good people here and lots of support, but I think in the end it all comes down to us and what we are willing to endure to reach our goals. I wish you well.

I have heard of this, I beleive it is called "The Marijuana Maintenance program" LOL

I know quit a few folks in AA in my area that were using "The Marijuana Maintenance program" and then woke up one day, got totally honest with them selfs, quit smoking dope upon the realization that they had simply substituted dope for booze and picked up a white chip & reset thier sobriety date.

I do not feel that I am substituting pot for booze. Both were present in abundance in my life throughout the past 25 years and I have taken the appropriate steps to get where I am going, I'm still on the road towards the goal of total sobriety and freedom from addiction which IMO is more than a recovering alcoholic who refuses to even consider quitting smoking cigarettes can ever say about themselves yet oddly I hear nothing about the "Nicotine Maintenance Program" and the inherit folly of such a path, as though smoking and drinking don't go together like, well...smoking and drinking.

Congrats Luis for taking the first step!!! You recognize your addiction and want help. That was the eye opener for me. It took me several years and several tries and tons of research but realizing I am a better person without alcohol was what started me on a mission to become sober. So proud of you and wish you success. You can do this and being here with the support of others is what is needed. You are not alone :)

I would just like to say from a few posts I have read that there is no "better" addiction really. Some are more dangerous then others but the fact that we are all here looking to rid our addictions is wonderful. I may have quit drinking and working hard to stay on the sober road but I do smoke cigs. I want to quit those as well but for me to quit both at the same time might ruin everything and lead to total relapse. I plan on starting my quit smoking program next week but for me it is simply...baby steps...one at a time. My focus right now is stay sober.

God Bless and huggs to all!

Yep, that's the truth. I've set dates before where I was suppose to quit, but I always procrastinate, and say "tomorrow," "tomorrow," "tomorrow," but tomorrow never comes. I did learn some things from the time I spent at rehab, and I know what I have to do to get sober, I simply have to desire it, and that's my problem. I don't have much to look forward every day, not much support at all as my girlfriend is merely a sex toy rather than a girlfriend. And my mom is simply naive about addiction and doesn't realize it isn't easy for me to simply stop abruptly.
I've thought about it, but I don't want to be registered as a drug user nor do I want to take a pill for the rest of my life simply to be happy. Only disorder I ever had was a behavioral one when I was a little kid in school, getting in trouble all the time. I was always happy as a kid, I had a good childhood, I had tons of friends.

I'm convinced my years of drug use has lead to my depression. During my teen years the only thing I considered fun was hanging out with friends and getting ****** up, I wasn't your regular teenager who found it fun to go hang out with friends sober at the mall and socialize, I always just wanted to get stoned, it was an instant gratification which made me happy, so why else would I want to do anything else if being stoned made me as happy as I wanted to be, this was my thought process, unfortunately now days high is my normal state of mind as all I do is smoke all day, and I'm really tired of this life style, I don't see myself going anywhere if I keep smoking.

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to read my first post and supporting me, I'll definitely stick around for a while, and hopefully one day I can help someone like me on this forum.

Luis, I so hear what you are saying and in my case because cutting back or weaning off the bottle didn't work....I would just go back and drink heavier and heavier amounts.

How did I start my recovery? Just quit. Plain and simple quit. I know what alcohol does to a person and I knew that I would continue to hurt my husband to where he would be miserable and leave me, never fulfill my goal to be a teacher, alienate and aggravate friends/family (none who really know that I am an alcoholic) and I would end up dead from overdosing on the bottle. Literally drinking myself to death in a binge.

My advice is to not so much look around at what you have now but imagine what you can have without addiction running and controlling your life. I was a functioning alcoholic but never attained anything once I started being a slave to the bottle and at the age of 35, I was starting my life all over again but not by my choice but by the choices and lifestyle I was leading as a drunk.

You are on track and when you are ready and sick of the addiction then you will take the plunge and stop. You have all of us at SR routing for you and there are plenty of support groups out there as you are not alone.

God Bless

I've often wondered that myself and the only logical conclusion I can come to is the lesser of two evils on more planes than just one.

On one plane you have cigarettes being less mentally intoxicating and for less of a period of time than alcohol/marijuana. cigarettes > alcohol/marijuana

On the other plane you have the loner nature of an addict/alcoholic and cigarettes tend to be a social event. cigarettes > solitude

I'm a non-smoker and if cigarettes were a person I'd think about risking jail time to kill him/her because my dad can't quit smoking. I'm more anti-cigarettes than anything but given the beds we've made, I'd say cigarettes are rightfully ignored during recovery from the DOC.

Luis,

I apologize!

I tend to read the entire thread before I post my initial thoughts (I think I've got some adult ADD! :D).

Anywho, I wanted to tell you that I thought you had an incredible insight to who you are at 18 - I'm nearly twice your age and I don't think I skimmed the surface of where you're headed. Great things await you my friend!

Hi Luis! Welcome to SR! I am CrackQuack, 11 month clean. My drug of choice is crack cocaine.
We often blame the drugs, calling them the source of our problems. When in reality the drugs (be it weed, crack, coke, heroin, etc.) are not the SOURCE of our problems. They are the result of us acting out against the real source. Ourselves. Something inside of us.. Resentments. Depression. Hatred. Things in the past. Things we don't want to deal with. Stuff like this is the TRUE source of our problems and why we picked up the drugs, therefore, becoming addicts, in the first place.
I must congradulate you on realizing you are having a problem, in the first place, at such a young age. Many younger people refuse to believe there is a problem until they've gotten older. And, sometimes, that can make it all the harder to stop.
Have you looked into attending NA (or AA) meetings? Therapy? Going back into treatment?
You've got your GED (I got mine in active addiction too!), and you're going to college (I start next month!). Make it count by checking out some meetings, attending a whole bunch of them, listening at them, maybe talk later, and see how you like them. In the meantime, keep coming back to SR too! This place is a wonderful site for recovery!
And really think about cutting those "trees" down. If ya don't know what I mean, really put some thought into not smoking weed. Try it for a few minutes at a time and work your way up to a whole day, and go from there. Give it an all or nothing shot, but don't put yourself down IF you can't do it right away. Many of us relapse (gosh, I smoked crack AND claimed I was clean for a few minutes! Oh yeah- and then I got honest and would relapse over and over for 6 more months, but I kept at it and have been clean 11 months- Feb 3rd is my 1 year!). Anyway, addiction is cunning. It will tell you that you can't quit. But you can.
Many crackheads (I really should say former now) have done it, many alcoholics, many junkies.. Many of us are doing it! Join us and feel the natural high of being successful.
And please talk to a doctor about your depression, ok?

Thats some true talk, Crack Quack. I too believe that our drugs of choice have more to do with an attempt to heal, comfort, and run from difficulties (mental or physical) in our lives.
Luis: It's very commedable that you are recognizing this type of behavior as a problem now at such a youg age. I just turned 35 shortly before this recent 9 day alcohol,xanax,percocet binge. I think I got drunk for the first time when I was 14.. That means it took 21 years for me to realize that Alcohol can never EVER touch my lips. I cannot control it even though there have been plenty of times in my life when it looked like I was. For me Alcohol is not an option.. Neither are any other psychoactive substances (although weed actually did restore my appetite after quite a few alcohol binges, but I didn't continue when I was eating well again) For me it's kind of like having an ALLERGY.
It's good that u want to get away from it all now, and here is a great place to start. Talking to a professional abot depression is an excellent idea too.. It is a real illness that manifests in man forms.. I myself have a type of bipolar disorder which causes severe depressive episodes. The good news is, these things are treatable, and not just with drugs but other techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy etc.. etc..
So welcome and good luck!

I agree with your there, Untox.

..hey Luis, how you doing man? I hope you're still thinking about quitting pot. I know I am so I decided to try again. Yesterday was Day 1 and today is Day 2, maybe we can do this together?