mnj1024

Sorry valor I must have missed you coming in the other day. Welcome to the gang, my name is mike and I'm an addict. congrats on the 3 days, thats awesome! you can get those 2 years back and then some by just doing it today man. I hope you find what you need here. oh yeah, I did operate heavy machinery for a living (scarey huh?)

Hacker 2255

Valor...sounds like to me you've taken the first step towards gaining sobriety....a desire to quit using , if only just for today. Far be it for me to try and give expert advice ( I've only been sober for the past 22 days after being high for the previous 30+ years) but right now you should concentrate on regaining your health in order to give yourself a better chance at remaining sober. You mentioned that you're taking Zoloft so you also have the chronic disease of depression. We as men don't like that word depression, even though we suffer all the classic symptoms of it, i.e., changes in our sleep patterns be it lack of it or just not being able to get out of that bed, changes in our appetite, irratability, mood swings that may cause us to lash out at the ones that care the most about us and in extreme cases, thoughts of suicide or homicide. But we as men choose to think of it as stress. The "D" word is a womans thing. I'm a man and I can suck it up, John Wayne, here I come. If we have diabetes, we don't try to pawn it off as a gender thing. We take our meds, try to eat right, exercise, and anything else we need to do to preserve our HEALTH. Well, depression is no different. The experts are beginning to tell us that depression and addiction go hand in hand. Throw in the generic trait that a alcoholic parent or grandparent has passed down to you and it's like being triple teamed at the line of scrimmage in a football game. So we have to find tools to help us fight this depression like family support, meds, therapy, AA/NA (if you so choose), exercise, proper diet and sleep. I never thought of my addiction in these terms until I got into a detox ward and then followed that with individual and group therapy. Finally, the doctor tried various meds, Zoloft, BusPar, Prozac and Welbutran until we found the one that did the most for me. As of today, I'm feeling so much better!! My self esteem is back, self-confidence, the sense of humor that was on hiatus and in general, a overall sense of well being has replaced that compulsive need to use for today. Tomorrow is another thing, but I'll face it when tomorrow gets here and not worry about it today. I'm still not sleeping very well but, after 23 continuous years of opiates abuse I can't expect it return to some semblence of normality over night. I've finally come to the realization that [B][I]I am powerless over this disease and if I choose to go back to my old people, places and playthings, my life will return to the former state of unmanageability it was in before I went into treatment which in turn can only lead to JAIL, INSTITUTIONS OR DEATH.

I apologize for rambling on so long and resorting to the "I" disease for much of this post but I just want to share that spirtuality and sense of hope that I have been given through group interaction, making those meetings and having a sponser who has really made me put in the work on taking a hard, long, deep look at myself. I'll put in a special request to my HP to give you whatever you need to remain sober today. God bless you.....

Peace,

Hack