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I want my life back.

Old 08-07-2014, 06:24 PM
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I want my life back.

Hello Sober Recovery group,

I am a newcomer to this forum. I am a 23 year old female opiate addict. My addiction with pills started with a physical disability in my lower extremities which required multiple surgeries. I still suffer from chronic pain on a daily basis because of this situation.

Since the beginning of 2012, I have taken Vicodin, then Norco, then Oxycodone. I always found myself needing something stronger to reduce my pain and get through the day. The most recent thing I picked up (not prescribed by a doctor, shamefully) was Morphine and Dilaudid. I have injected the Dilaudid on a few occasions and have also tried smoking Heroin once.

I am absolutely in love with the high from opiates, as well as the pain relief and emotional well-being. I used to justify my drug use because of my physical pain, but in all honestly, I believe that it would be manageable with non-narcotic approaches. Everyone says that the first step is admitting your guilt, and I can no longer deny it for a second: I am definitely an addict.

By the way, I also have major depressive disorder. I have been on the drug Cymbalta for almost a year. I take 60mg a day. At first I found it to work really well, but lately, unless I am doing some other type of drug, I still feel severely depressed. I’m not sure if this is simply because my body has adjusted to the drug and I need a higher dose; or because the emotionally painful symptoms of opiate withdrawal are more powerful than the effects of the anti-depressant. But no matter what has happened, I have not been off opiates for more than 3 days for the past year.

Being addicted to drugs that make you not care about anything has definitely drained very much of the life inside of me. However, the part of me that still exists really wants to overcome this terrible addiction and reliance on poisoning my body daily just to be able to get out of bed. I used to have a ton of hobbies and things that I was extremely passionate about, which now I couldn’t care less for. I used to have dozens of friends and love to go out and be social, but now my ideal night of fun is lying in bed high. I still hold big hopes and dreams for my future, but I find myself not doing anything to accomplish them. I feel like a completely different person, and I desperately want to be the person I once was.

But there is something really important I have realized: I can’t do this without some type of help. I have tried to stop about 4 or 5 times now, with little to no success each time. The first couple times I tried to quit, I relapsed because of emotional distress. But the most recent couple times, I actually got terrible physical symptoms when I went as little as a day without the drugs. My biggest hardship would be awful dizziness/lightheaded feelings. It gets to the point where I honestly think I will faint so I have to lay down for hours on end. The other difficulties I experience are headaches, body aches, and other general flu-like symptoms…and of course horrible emotional symptoms like depression, anxiety, and irritability.

Yesterday, the 6th of August, I attempted my most recent day of sobriety. I found myself unable to cope with how I was feeling, so I took sleeping pills to try to sleep most of the day and night. This morning around 6am, I woke up shaking and having violent tremors in my bed, as if I was having a seizure or was possessed or something. It was literally like waking up in a nightmare. After taking some Xanax, I fell back asleep and woke up to the inevitable dizziness. I could barely stand. So without feeling like I had any other choice, I popped two 30mg Morphine tablets and felt like a failure once again.

I just don’t know what to do at this point. I’ve heard of drugs to help an opiate addict stop, like Methadone or Suboxone…but then I’ve also heard those can turn into addictions of their own that are equally as bad. I would absolutely check myself into a rehab facility in a heartbeat if that was an option, but living with chronic pain and being unemployed makes that impossible. My partner of 2 years who I just moved in with is anti-drugs, but he understands that my addiction came from a legit reason and doesn’t judge me or make me feel bad. Even though he doesn’t enable me in continuing my addiction, he is still extremely supportive emotionally and would love nothing more than to see me get better. However, he works and goes to school most of the time, so I am left home alone a good deal of the day and have to battle this on my own.

I wish overcoming an addiction was as easy as it looked on TV. I watch a ton of Intervention and all they show you is the before and after clips of the addicts featured on the show. They don’t show you the living hell that people must go through before they are all smiles and joy at the end.

Anyway, sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to give some background on myself. This is merely one of my desperate cries for help and attempts to get any type of advice and/or support from people who have been down this path.

Thanks for listening.
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Old 08-07-2014, 06:39 PM
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We can't do medical advice here, and that's what you need: medical advice and supervision. We can give you support. Keep coming, keep reading, keep posting. As long as you're willing and trying things have ways of working out.
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Old 08-07-2014, 06:45 PM
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Can you speak to the doctor(s) who prescribed these drugs? Tell them you want to stop taking them but go thru terrible withdrawals.

You might also want to check out NA. The support group for substance abusers. We have a forum for substance abuse here too.

I hope our support can help you get clean and sober for good.
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Old 08-07-2014, 06:49 PM
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Welcome,

You really need medical advice and to talk to the dr who prescribes the medication and take his advice as how to stop using them.

It won't be easy, but it will be great to have your life back.
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Old 08-08-2014, 04:45 AM
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Welcome to the Forum!!
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