GWillikers

Hello,

This is my first post here, but I've been reading the site off and on for quite awhile. Today I decided to join because I really feel like I have nobody to talk to now that my therapist has "dumped" me.

I told her that I smoked crack for the first time last week. Apparently, that is a big step in the wrong direction. I had originally started seeing her after getting a second DUI. I knew it was time to find help in getting my life together. That was two years ago.

Since then, I've drank pretty consistently with sporadic, half-hearted AA and NA attempts peppered throughout the whole period. I also had a few experiences with meth. Pot has been a pretty regular night-cap for me as well. But crack?? That's not me!! Well, apparently it is. Or, is becoming. Or, something...

I attended the meetings at the urging of my therapist, and did find them beneficial, but not enough to follow through with the steps. With both sponsors I've had, I would do the 1-2-3 and out routine before just stopping the calls out of embarrassment for being such a non-committed disappointment.

With the recent addition of crack smoke to my repertoire, my therapist said it was time to go for more intensive treatment than she could provide. She says it would be enabling me for her to continue to see me right now, but we could maybe pick up again a few months from now if I got into a program of some sort.

The thing is, I'd have to quit my job, and even if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to afford it. I'm not opposed to taking a 10 week stay in rehab, if somehow the world would just wait on hold for me, and then accept me without judgement upon my return. So, I'm hoping to do it through NA, AA, SMART or something that's either free or cheap. And that sounds like it requires a lot more willpower than I feel like I have right now.

Riding the bus to work for two hours each way each day for the past two years has me pretty depressed and consumed with loneliness. I get my license back in three months, but all of my friends have gotten married, started families, moved away, etc. during this time, and I see the loneliness dragging out indefinitely. Even at work, I sit alone in an office, staring at an Excel sheet, working for a boss that "doesn't like too much communication". I used to be a people person; now I'm a people watcher.

I live at home with my parents because they lent me a lot of money throughout college that I can't repay with my current salary. I also still have fines from the DUI, and medical bills from getting hit by a car earlier this year. (I was a pedestrian in a crosswalk, sober, not my fault, but it's taking over a year to get compensation.)

Getting a better job in my field, construction engineering, seems like an insurmountable task because every place I've looked requires a clean driving record. In my current position, I only get 32 hours a week, $26/hr, no benefits, and public transportation costs $20/day each way. I literally can't afford a crack addiction!

Living at home with your parents when you're thirty-one is obviously depressing in its own rite, but doubly so when your mother needs her knee and both hips replaced, is bi-polar, on an incredible amount of medication, and still grieving the death of my older brother. It's kind of a downer to be at home. She physically needs my help around the house, but it's her mental illness and emotional neediness that really saps my spirit.

So, that's about all the pit-party favors I have to give out at this point. It's comforting, validating, or maybe just less isolating to know that someone out there might read this, so thanks!

-GW

avocado

I read it. This place is helping me sort things out. Smoking crack one time is not the end of the world, but you obviously know it's a step in the wrong direction. Stick around, and things will improve if you want them too. Also, there's no shame in living with your folks at 31. These are tough economic times. It's important to stay positive and focused.

Mark75

Yea, she won't be of any help to you while you are still drinking and/or drugging.

Nothing changes if nothing changes... I know, you've heard that before... AA is not about will power, but you gotta want it, and be "all in"... half measures avail us nothing and all of that.

Keep comin' back

hypochondriac

Welcome to SR GWillikers

I reckon that going to a meeting everyday would cure your loneliness

I know it is tough with having to work but it is better than waiting til the point where you have no choice but going into rehab and loosing your job and all that.

And of course you'll find lots of support here x

Dee74

Welcome Gwillikers
Nothing I tried worked until I wanted to quit.

Unfortunately I was so dumb and stubborn, I nearly had to die to finally want to quit.

You have a change to leap free of the speeding train before it leaves the rails- a multitude of chances really...

pick one

D

least

Welcome to the SR family! :ghug3

GWillikers

I appreciate hearing that, and in a way I agree. I wouldn't hold it against someone else, regardless of my own situation. It just feels adolescent, unaccomplished, immature, loser-ish. I liked reading your post in PeterMichael's(sp?) thread too, Avo. This site is starting to seem like a pretty cool place to roam around...

-GW

Coldfusion

You might find NA better than AA, although they both involve the same Twelve-Step program. The important thing is to find people for strength and experience; but it needs to be face-to-face. If I can find a sponsor here in the middle of nowhere, surely there are people in SF willing to help.

Since joining AA, I have dumped my therapist. The wisdom in the NA and AA books is greater than anything from her, and it's cheap.

avocado

it is, man. stick around. for the record, i moved back in with my parents for a while and it sucked. it's never optimal, but it's just something many of us have to deal with. it's better than living on the streets.

GWillikers

I agree. I guess it's opening my eyes enough to see that I really do want it? I'll get into it for a week, Higher Power right there with me (no matter how much I HATED that concept originally.) Then it's like I just shut my ears to it all, say f- it, and get ripped. Sometimes I slowly wade my way into the deep end, a beer at a time, but lately I've just been jumping right in.

That's very true. And I have enjoyed the company of some of the people I've met there. But then I'll occasionally get this strange, creepy vibe, that they're only being nice out of duty to their twelfth step, or that it's all forced and fake. Then I start reading all the "cult" criticisms. And, while I believe that they are very situational, and exaggerated at that, they still leave a bad taste in my mouth about the program. That said, I'm probably going to go to one tonight and hope that the creep vibe just doesn't come up. Most of the people seem pretty cool.

I was trying to look at my crack-smoking like that. Like the shame and tormenting anxiety that followed was an exit sign suddenly going on, saying

"Hey, you don't have to put yourself through this anymore. The ups aren't proportional to the excruciating downs. If you're going to sell your soul, don't sell it so cheap!"

Then my parents had their friends over, I felt awkward about just 'being there', joined in with them on cocktails, and in a matter of hours was craving something harder than weed or alcohol.

It's almost a given that I never reach the point where I think to myself, "Yep, that was the perfect amount, and I'm satisfied." Food is like that. Sex is like that. Drugs and alcohol aren't. But I still CRAVE them so badly!

Dee74

I was never satisfied either.
Thats the hook that keeps us all coming back.

Maybe satisfaction is actually to be found elsewhere, GW?

Life is much better off the hook - I'm actually content these days.

D

miamifella

If you work constantly and have no friends, I wonder how you were able to get connected to crack dealer---especially since you had never done this drug before. Someone had to teach you how to use the drug. You don't just pick crack up at the corner store and follow the directions on the package.

There is more to this than you are telling us. I suspect that this "more" may have something to do with your therapists stance that you need intensive treatment.

GWillikers

I do like NA better than AA... I can be more open about myself without people looking at you like, "Damn... really?" There aren't as many NA meetings that I can get to by pub trans in time without having to ask to leave work early. My relationship with my boss is a little strange; it's her company and I'm her only employee, albeit illegally misclassified as an "independent consultant" for the last three years. She's also very moody and temperamental. I had to ask for time off for the DUI classes, and she was pissy about it. I think things would really get weird if I told her I needed time off for my Narcotics Anonymous meetings, like it would further sour my relationship with her and make working with her even more painful.

I can see that. While I was going, before my drug-induced, embarrassment-perpetuated sabbatical, I was getting a lot of good coping ideas and insight to general life skills out of listening to others and reading the books.

Recently, my therapist became sort of a confidant. I wouldn't say "friend", because it's not like we hung out or anything, and it would be an expensive friendship. But she was a good sounding board to go over my frustrations with, and also share my accomplishments. I looked forward to seeing her each week, like putting up a good report card on the refrigerator. I feel really let down and somewhat abandoned by her decision, even though I do get it.

I also feel like I can trust her more than I would a sponsor. The whole idea of Sponsorship seems awkward and unnatural to me. I don't want an untrained stranger dictating my do's and don'ts based on some theo/psychological understanding that may have worked for them, but sounds warped and neurotic to me. The last guy I was talking to had a lot of good perspectives, but kept impressing upon me the whole ego deflation idea with those seemingly contradictory, mind-f*ck statements like, "You cannot fix you." Or, "You're trying to play God. You want free will, but you have to give that up."

Wouldn't I be the one giving up free will, by my own free will?? I understand that it is not recommended to do this on my own, but can't I take some pride in accomplishments?

I think a lot of what he said was to satiate his own ego by seeing himself as having a rich, deep understanding, and selling it to himself under the guise of teaching me. I'd like to find someone a little more middle of the road. I don't think being a self-denying ascetic consumed by an awareness of of all their flaws is a very healthy way to live one's life.

But, smoking crack isn't a very healthy way to live one's life, either. So what the hell do I know?

PaperDolls

First of all welcome to SR GWillikers! I'm glad you found us.

I had the experience of a therapist "dumping" me. It was well over 5 years ago .... before I got sober .... until reading this post today, right now .... it never occered to me that she said she couldn't help me because I was still drinking. I just thought I was too much for her. Wow...... talk about a light bulb moment.

Until I got sober, nothing really changed ..... therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, meds ... nothing changed for me until I quit drinking. Rehab, therapy, meds, doctors, AA .... I needed all of that but none of it worked until I got sober.

Mark75

Yep

GWillikers

In SF, in the Tenderloin, you literally do pick up crack at the corner store. The dealers are like attentive waiters in a restaurant. "Need anything? Can I get you anything? Yes? No? Okay, have a good night."

As for the directions they're right there on the Internet. Didn't work the first couple times because I wasn't doing it right. Then last week I got it down and actually felt the high.

The "more to it" might be my past drug use. But I really am being transparently honest here. Two weeks ago I did meth over the course of two days. Six months ago I did the same. A year ago I did it with this guy I knew. In fact, only reason I got crack was because I couldn't get any meth. I don't know where they sell it. Accidentally bought black tar heroin, though. Thought it was meth, but there was a language issue and I didn't find out til I opened the little baggie. I tried smoking that, too, since I paid for it, right? But, again, there's a lot of conflicting advice on the Internet, and I didn't really feel anything.

Not like the 10mg oxycontins I used to steal from my mom. Those were worked, but I became obsessed with them. My mom doesn't take them, she doesn't use them, she smokes pot instead. I was having trouble stopping taking those and her 0.5mg xanax, until I bought her a tool box with a combination lock to keep it all out of reach. Now I'm cut off.

So, that's the all of it. Definitely a history of drug abuse. Weed and alcohol are the most consistent. But the others were beyond just "experimenting." I was looking for a high, an escape, to satisfy a craving, all that good stuff.

hypochondriac

It can be a weird social setting in some ways, but I really think that people there genuinely do care. It's like this place too. Everyone helps one another out of a sense of shared identity and because they know what it's like. And don't forget that drugs and alcohol do tend to make us paranoid. I'm sure if you tried a few different meetings you'd find some people you like who aren't too creepy x

Mark75

Ah, we are all flawed, no big deal... and that's the point, really... I mean, for example, my main "flaw" is pride.. Knowing that, understanding it, coming at it through inventory allows me freedom from that flaw... so when I am unhappy, frequently it comes out of that, pride thing... I can see it now... I can laugh at it, shrug my shoulders and move on...

Or, I can let it consume me, being resentful, and all that...

My choice by my own free will, LOL....

Weasel1966

Gw.... I agree with the therapist.

I really want you to consider how powerful crack is. It took me down.

It is a very clear sign you really are moving in the wrong direction. Crack will take you alive and spit you out a zombie.

Please take a moment to ready about my crack Christmas. Crack Is so not worth it.

Go get more help. You will need it.

my crack Christmas

GWillikers

Wait! Are you doing it now?? It noodles my brain up let a knot of spaghetti when I try to ponder these things! The sound of one hand clapping, trees in forests, ack!! I know it's supposed to clear your mind, but it just makes me start to obsess!

I try to think of the 'I' as the bigger 'I', to which we all belong. And I (little I) find that comforting. But that's not to say that I believe I should abandon my little vessel that navigates the big I just because it isn't the ALL of ALL. Isn't it important to be a whole and also a part simultaneously? Y'know, "to love someone else, you first have to learn to love yourself." That's an acknowledgement of the importance of 'self' within the bigger 'Self.'

During those brief periods of sobriety (or not being intoxicated, depending on the definition) I do feel like I am a part of something much larger, and taken care of in that respect. My flaws are part of a larger benevolence, and my obsession over "fixing" everything loosens up a bit. Then, when I'm using, I lose that connection, try to take the "feel-good" reigns into my own hands, surge chemicals into my brain in disregard of all for which I should be grateful that is provided in the greater Self, based on an obsession with making my self more comfortable.

Does any of that make sense? I really do appreciate the ability to be grateful when I'm sober. And it's almost impossible while I'm f'd up.