Akasha

high functioning drug addict at this point.

LuluBread

You've got this Akasha....you are here now. So glad to see your post. Keep coming back and writing. Let us know what's going on! This is the beginning to the end of the spiral.

Akasha

Have no idea what I'm doing or how to get out of this. Just need someone to talk sense into my head

LuluBread

You are fine here. Go back to the "chat rooms "on the lower right hand corner.....your thread will still stay open.

Akasha

I was told some background detail might be necessary so here goes. Crystal Meth was my drug of choice. A mere shadow of myself staring back at me when I looked in the mirror. In and out of rehabs until rock bottom came with a rocket launcher right out of hell. God came and saved my life. Over 6 years clean when all of a sudden an undeniable urge came. I gave in and what a party it was. Now I am just using to sustain myself. No one knows I am using again. A close friend recommended I talk to someone.... anyone... so here I am. So afraid and so alone.

FreeOwl

If you're like I was.... "High Functioning" is a giant delusion.

I look back at all the financial ruin, the time wasted being wasted, the dropped responsibilities, the DUIs, the divorces, the losses and the misery of my "High Functioning" days and wonder how in the hell I ever managed to consider it even 'functional'.

I hope you're able to embrace a recovery program and get clean and sober NOW.

Darth Paul

Don't give up you are doing the right thing !!Talking it out really helps.

DontRemember

This is when I knew I had 'lost myself'. When I could no longer look at myself in the mirror.. Hang in there and get back on a program.. Here's a song about a guy looking in the mirror and his reflection talking back to him.. It really helped me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ4Z_gRR9Lw

Akasha

Reply to all willing to listen....

I know I am destroying myself again. I know that I put up a front when I smile like everything is okay. I am here so obviously I am not okay.

I can admit I have a problem and I can admit that It is getting worse. I don't think I can stop because stopping means being strong... stopping means dealing with the withdrawal and the pain that accompanies it. I feel so sick when I am not high. Where will I find the courage to successfully fight off all the urges, all the cravings, all the excuses motivating me to quite. I feel so screwed.

DontRemember

Anyway you can go back to rehab? If not..I see you said God saved your life before..Might do you some good to have a long talk with him and get into a solid church as part of your recovery plan. I'm not religious,but am spiritual. I also attend church as part of my sobriety plan,when I need to..That and AA(court ordered,but I still attend own my own.) when I need it.

Meraviglioso

Hi and welcome to you. I am so sorry you are going through this.
One thing that stands out from your post is that you say that God came and saved your life 6 years ago and you got clean. To me this sounds as if it was a very positive event in your life. I know that getting sober was a very positive event for me, so I relate to that. Now you describe yourself as being afraid and alone and sound very miserable. Again I relate because when I use my drug of choice (alcohol) I am MISERABLE. But then you say you are afraid to quit because of the withdrawals and then dealing with having to fight off all the cravings and urges. I suspect you are afraid to be without the meth in that you use it to just drown out life. But can withdrawal and fighting urges be any worse than you have it now? You know what it is like on the other end of that. You DO get through withdrawal, even if it is the most awful thing you ever have to go through. You CAN fight off those cravings when they come. Life is much better sober- and here's the kicker- even when it sucks. All my problems didn't magically vanish when I got sober. In fact I'm having to face a lot of them head on and work on cleaning up messes I avoided for years by drinking. But even having to deal with all that it is still better sober.
I feel for you so much, I wish I could be there in person and give you a hug and shake you by the shoulders and tell you to wake up and do something about this. Because God knows you are strong, you say you don't feel that way but anyone who can kick meth and stay sober for 6 years is incredibly strong, stronger than the majority of the rest of the population.
You can do this but you know how it goes, you have got to make that decision and just go for it. Yeah, it is going to suck a## for a while, but you know that passes, you know it does. You can then get to work on moving forward. Can you get in with a doctor or psychologist to start putting a plan into place to help you address your sober life and work on tactics to help fight urges and cravings so that you never, ever have to wind back up here again? Is going to rehab again an option?

We're here with you. Please, recognise your awesome strength.

Akasha

Nope.... if anyone in my life other than my best friend knew I was using again... they will not take kindly to the news. I signed a familial contract that states if I use again, i will be reported to the authorities. This was mostly due to the amount of pain I caused....

Akasha

I do not like admitting this but I am in tears after reading your message. Like that broke me. That message was next levem 'lets get real'. You speak the truth obi1. I feel like you know me.... I feel like you can see right through me..... I'm sorry I'm so emotional.

Meraviglioso

Alright, I hear you there. So maybe trying to quit on your own is the way you want to do it this time. However, if things are really out of control, or start to get that way, don't you think owning up to it and seeking help on your own- before you are forced to- might be the better option? I know I am just pointing out the obvious here, but eventually this is going to catch up to you and everyone is going to find out anyway. I know that for me, I might be able to sneak in a glass of wine without anyone knowing, but before I know it I am slugging wine/vodka/rum/whatever the hell else straight out of the bottle on my front porch at 7 in the morning for all the world to see. My addiction is too strong and before I know it I am out of control and making very obvious and very dangerous choices. Do you really think that you can go on using meth undercover without anyone ever finding out?
I don't say these things to make you paranoid or to attack, quite the opposite. I'd really like you to see how your addiction has got a hold of you right now and is saying that you can't seek help because others will find out- when the reality is others are going to find out eventually anyway.
If you really can do this alone and quit without anyone ever knowing you were using again then absolutely, go for it. But if things get too difficult or out of control don't let the fact that others will know keep you from saving your life. You deserve to get well and deserve help to get well if you need it.

Meraviglioso

You are alright buddy, no shame in a good cry. And no, I don't know you personally but I know you in that I know what the hell of active addiction feels like. I hurt for other people who suffer this way, thus I hurt for you. Can you get rid of the rest of what you've got? You have to start somewhere. This is an international site so there are people online 24 hours a day. There will be someone here to talk you through this all night if need be. But we can't physically keep the drugs away from you, you have to take that first step.

I have to go see someone now about a job I interviewed for last week. She sent me a message today asking me to meet her this evening so I have to go do that now. But I'll check in here as soon as I get back. Please, no more meth tonight ok? And none tomorrow. I can't imagine how difficult that must be, but I know you can do it.

Akasha

So many strings you're pulling man. I hear you. In my mind there is a 3 way scale... on the one end there is desperate fear of ending up where I was but not surviving this time around. One the one end there is a legitimate fear of stopping and dealing. Overshadowing all these fears is the ultimate fear of breaking the hearts of my loved ones again if they find out. Like I cannot! I'd rather die than cause any further turmoil for them. Doing this without them is the only option. So far I have been able to cover it up with clouds of exam stress, work stress, and the flu. If I keep on like this my excuses will no longer be logical explanations and massive amounts of poop will hit the fan. I am terrified. Feeling this terrified, feeling this alone, feeling this disappointed in myself does not help me stop, it motivates me to take more so that I don't have to deal. The honest sober way of living feels like a fantasy because its not my reality.

Akasha

In no shape or form do I underestimate your addiction. In a way I think you are dealing with so much more... alcohol is something that is freely and legally available any and everywhere you go which in my mind makes it so much harder to stop. All I have to do is delete a few numbers off of my phone and this madness stops. Sounds easy enough right? Why can't I do it then???

Meraviglioso

Everything you are saying is understandable. The fear of breaking your loved one's hearts is very real. I know too well what it feels like to have to own up to that.

I can't say anything better than this article though, so I will post it here for you to read. I thought of it immediately as I read your most recent post. Please read this.


https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/...uittings-end/#!

“I CAN’T TELL YOU if I’ll start back up,” President Dwight Eisenhower once said of cigarette smoking, “But I’ll tell you this: I sure as hell ain’t quitting again.”
On Sunday, the body of Philip Seymour Hoffman was discovered in his Manhattan apartment with a needle in his arm. It appears that despite a stint in rehab last spring, Hoffman, like so many other lifelong addicts, relapsed. He wasn’t quitting again. Now he’s dead.
Embarrassment seems to be the major theme. Shame. It’s a shame he had to go this way; it’s a regrettable loss. How could he leave his kids without a father? How could he be so stupid or so selfish?
But if we’re going to talk about embarrassment, we should remember that nobody would be more ashamed than Hoffman to see his own body, cold on a bathroom floor.
This isn’t an obituary. Perhaps it doesn’t go without saying that Hoffman was unparalleled among his peers, or that we have lost who knows how many roles he still had in him, but by now it has certainly been said. I don’t come to bury Hoffman, or to praise him: for that, I suggest Derek Thompson’s beautifully rendered essay in The Atlantic.
Rather, I want to talk about the reaction; about the conversation that’s begun this week and which will no doubt continue in the weeks to come; about this old story that we tell whenever someone dies this way.
How could he? I don’t know. I don’t know why Philip Seymour Hoffman was an addict. I don’t know what demons might be to blame, but as a one-time junkie, I do know that the demons hardly matter. We imagine addiction as a voluntary act, romantic or tragic, depending on our mood. When we try to imagine the scene, we conjure up pictures of the wrong room and the wrong stress; tumultuous men brought low by vulnerability in the face of fear and loneliness.
Maybe that’s what happened here, but I doubt it. Most times, the confluence of circumstances don’t tend toward the dramatic. It’s just something to try. Many of us, especially in youth, experiment with the world’s wide array of narcotics. It’s just that some of us don’t stop.
It isn’t willpower, or shortsightedness. It might be easier if it were. It isn’t existential dread, or reckless abandon, or even some devilish seduction. Usually it’s just mundane. Usually it’s just that heroin is the best you’ll ever feel, and nobody feels that way once and says, “Okay, that was fun. Now I’m never doing it again.” You use. Then it becomes part of who you are.
It’s why a majority of addicts relapse within the first six months of treatment; it’s why first-year Twelve Step dropout rates top 95 percent. Sure, meetings help. So does therapy. But these things cannot shake the memory, not really.
That’s why, despite being off heroin for nearly seven years, I still have a moment that comes every time the season turns when some part of me wants nothing more than to get high. Call it stupidity or selfishness or demons — really, it just is, in a way our language is ill equipped to explicate. There aren’t words for the stubborn fits of that desire. Compulsion doesn’t quite capture it. Addict does, but only in an obvious, unsatisfying way.
Fairly or not, it bothers me when people try. The last few days, I’ve seen an outpouring of sentiment on social media, and between the expressions of disbelief and endless clips from Boogie Nights and Capote, I’ve seen those who have not known addiction in their own lives attempt to make sense of what happened and offer their take on what we should “learn” from this.
I don’t mean the usual suspects. The knee-jerk sanctimony — from “this isn’t a tragedy, he brought it on himself” to “how could he do this to his children” and “how could someone so successful throw it all away?” — are almost easier to deal with. Those old tropes are too tired and obtuse to take too seriously. Rather, in the last few days, I’ve found myself resentfully fixated on the far more well-intentioned outcry of friends and fans who have not known addiction in their own life, saying things like “Remember, guys, it’s never worth it.”
“Don’t forget: heroin is bad for you! If you take it and die, people will be sad!” As if that was the lesson here. As if the thing that stands between an addict and sobriety is the intellectual revelation of the consequences, as if heroin users are operating under the misapprehension that it’s good for them. As if there weren’t junkies with needles in their arms as they read the news about Hoffman. As if, suddenly confronted by the inexorability of overdose, they all put those needles down in shame.
What do these friends imagine? That somebody was about to do heroin for the first time, but a quick check of their Facebook feed prevented it?
I don’t fault anyone for his or her feelings. But when we treat overcoming addiction like it was just a matter of making the consequences resonate enough — of remembering it isn’t worth it — we contribute to the very culture that kills men like Philip Seymour Hoffman. If getting clean were just a matter of dispassionate pros and cons, then we’d be justified in shaming somebody who just can’t do the math right.
But it isn’t like that. We’re fond of saying “addiction is a disease,” but “addiction is a fundamental trait of personality” might be a more accurate refrain. It’s immutable like that. You can’t fix it with a pill or an epiphany. Think of it as a nasty temper: you can learn to control the rage, but sometimes you can’t help seeing red.
If there is a “teaching moment” here, that’s it. First-time addicts rarely die; relapse is what kills. Hoffman had been to rehab. He knew the habit wasn’t worth it. The inevitable consequences had long resonated, I’m sure. But the culture that says that such remembering, taken one day at a time, is the key to recovery is the culture that drives so many — even those who have sought help in the past — to die in the shadows. It’s just too embarrassing to admit you did it anyway. Again.
There are limits to empathy. Every addict lives in fear of reaching them.
In an old episode of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin — no stranger to addiction — writes a scene in which Leo McGarry, the recovering alcoholic turned White House Chief of Staff, explains why he didn’t tell anyone the second time he took up drinking. “I went to rehab. My friends embraced me when I got out,” he says. “You relapse — it’s not like that. Get away from me, that’s what it’s like.” There are only so many times you can be forgiven for the same thing.
We love redemption stories. We love watching characters brought low by affliction fight their way to glory. We love watching their struggle and their doubts; hey, we’ll even indulge a few second-act screw-ups. But there’s a limit to the repetition we’ll allow. How many do-overs is too many do-overs? When do we get frustrated and bored? Is it five? Ten? Twelve? When does that moment come when even those who know better write off a former friend as a screw-up, consigned to a bed of their own making?
It’s a vicious irony, but the terror of that moment doesn’t stop people from relapsing. Addicts live with that fear, reminders or not. All the head shaking does is make addicts fear admitting that they’re back to square one, from seeking help this time around.
It’s a paralytic mixture of embarrassment and fear. The pressure cripples you. It’s crippled me. I spent the autumn of 2012 snorting painkillers, convinced that somehow this was the only thing preventing a full relapse. I never told anyone till now. You just don’t want to see the way that mouth forms around the word “Again?” And I’m only an ordinary, private addict — how much worse must it be for someone like Hoffman, who knows full well that another stint in rehab would curry a whole world asking why he doesn’t know better by now?
Maybe one day treatment will be easy. Maybe Suboxone, a painkiller with some promise as a withdrawal treatment, will gain widespread acceptance, or some more radical vaccine will hit the US market, and overcoming heroin will be as simple as beating back strep. But until then, it’s little different from cancer, and you wouldn’t tell friends locked in the grip of stage-four death to remember that “it isn’t worth it.” Remission doesn’t work like that.

Meraviglioso

Well thank you for your words, but this ain't a competition, you know? We ALL have it hard, there are different struggles built into each particular addiction but in the end we are all struggling to beat this and do the best we can.
And no, it doesn't sound easy to just delete those numbers because I know what is behind such an act, it would be insanely difficult. But, entirely possible. I recently deleted the number of my ex-psychiatrst from my phone. He fired me back at the beginning of this year. I was absolutely crushed and have since become psychotically obsessed about the whole thing. I am a 38 year old woman and am acting like a little brat over this. But deleting his number was a big step in trying to get past this and it was incredibly freeing. I only begun making progress with the situation after I did that. He wasn't providing me drugs or alcohol, but I was acting in a needy, addictive way and cutting that link was an important step. It's not the same, I am not saying that, but I can take it further and imagine what a massive step cancelling those numbers would be for you. You can do that you know. You can. You really can. Could you do that right now? Are you willing to?

Akasha

You definitely do know what it feels like. I hate messages from people saying stuff like, 'keep strong girl' or any of that la de da stuff. I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I joined this site but I knew I wanted someone to relate with. Someone that truly understands and wants to listen.. Someone that can just get real with me. Thank you for being willing and for making time to help me. I can't promise not to use what I have but I'll try my best not to go buy more. Good luck with your job interview. I wish only the best for you!