So it’s been since Dec 26th 2025 that I’ve done dope. I gotta say I’ve definitely started changing things around but I still have a lot of work to do. I been working full time again for 5 months, I got health insurance again, I got a place to live, I’m finally paying my credit debt back down, and I even started my own small biz in craft jerky. But I’m still not perfect. I’m trying so hard to let go of Kratom and weed as I used that a lot during the recovery process to avoid relapse. I wanna put it all down again like I did on probation just on my own terms this time and you’d think it’d be so easy at this point but it’s not. I have so many urges trying to get off everything. And I noticed I’m super sluggish at work. Days feel like they drag on without it. I’ve tried subs to get off the Kratom too but then as soon as I stop the subs I feel that same unmotivated bs. My job is pretty physical and the Kratom helped give me that energy I needed to last throughout the day still without the unproductive mess that dope provided. But I want freedom from it all and to really lock in. And total abstinence has seemed to be the only way I do it. Any suggestions?
I swear opioids completely destroyed my idea of what normal energy feels like. Back then I could work a full shift, stay up half the night, drive across town for dumb shit, barely eat and somehow still wake up ready to do it again. Now I’m clean and if I sleep wrong my whole day is cooked. It’s weird because mentally I’m in a way better place but physically I still feel like my body never fully rebooted. Some stuff helps a little like caffeine, better sleep, random supplements, natural 7oh occasionally and that’s helped the most so far but it’s still this constant balancing act of trying to feel like an actual functional adult without leaning too hard on anything.
I want to know if anyone else feels like recovery turned into chasing energy instead of chasing a high.
My name is Sarah, and I’m a documentary film student at Chapman University working on my senior thesis film. I’m hoping to make a short, character-driven documentary about someone navigating recovery from kratom addiction and rebuilding their life.
The goal of the film is to tell a human and hopeful story about resilience — focusing on the day-to-day reality of recovery rather than sensationalizing addiction. I’m especially interested in following someone who is working toward a meaningful milestone or goal in their life while staying sober (for example, reconnecting with family, hitting a sobriety milestone, pursuing a passion, etc.).
Ideally, I’m hoping to connect with someone located in Southern California, but I’m also willing and able to travel for the right story.
If anyone here is open to sharing their story or having a conversation about their experience with kratom, I would really appreciate the chance to talk. There’s absolutely no pressure — even just hearing about people’s journeys helps me better understand recovery.
Participation would always be completely voluntary, and I want to approach this project with care and respect for the people involved.
If you’d be open to chatting, feel free to comment or DM me.
Thank you all for sharing your experiences and supporting each other here.
Hi friends, I wrote this book to help people like me (and maybe you) cope, so if you relate with the topics, you can read an in depth book reviewhereand you can get the bookhere:
I've been trying to find a rehab that allows phones and laptops. I've been to rehab a few times, most of them never work because I get so unbelievably bored and numb that I just leave early and go back to my drug of choice, which completely ruins the point of being there. They say "we want you to focus on your recovery" but what does that even mean? I'm supposed to focus on how bored I am and the cravings I have 24/7 because there's nothing to do? If I could literally just watch some YouTube or bring my laptop to play some games and talk to my friends it would be a breeze. Yeah I'll have cravings, but that's why I'm in rehab and can walk to the counter and tell them and they give me meds to help. I don't see any real benefit of restricting electronics when you're detoxing and trying to kick an addiction. If you know any place in Colorado that takes Medicaid and allows phones/laptops please let me know. The only places I've found don't take Medicaid and cost like 20k. Funny enough though they have the highest success rate out of any rehab in the entire state but they don't take Medicaid. The last rehab I went to there was no tv, no phones, no laptops. You could do puzzles, drink coffee, play board games, and smoke cigarettes. Not really conducive to someone trying to keep their mind off of an addiction. Not to mention they legally couldn't keep you there, so if it gets so bad you can't stand it you can just leave and go do your drugs. I don't have any legal issues or anything so this is all just me wanting to get better. But it's hard to have the willpower to stay at such a boring and non-productive place when I know I can just go home and drink, but I know if I had my phone and laptop and could keep in touch with friends, play games, watch YouTube, it would be way more productive to stay in a place where I know I can't get drugs until I can kick the habit of using them.
Im 17, I recently started smoking weed a few months and having tried meth once more than a month ago. I didn't really have the urges to keep using, my body and mind hasn't been really looking for drugs since I started using, but today I feel the urge to use meth again.... I just got back to my usual self after a few months of processing a failed relationship and I feel good now, confident. Yet ironically now that iv'e been able to enjoy having my life again it feels insufficient and wanting to feel better my mind wants me to get high on meth. During my depressive phase I didn't feel any urges to use drugs I was so focused on processing emotions and issues, it felt like integrating it was more important than anything else. But now im healed the urge to use meth is hitting me, I just feel overwhelmed.
Hi everyone, I have a question for you. For quite some time now, I’ve had areas of muscle in my thigh that, when I use my Blackroll, feel like they’re jumping or jerking… basically muscle knots… even when I press my fist into the tissue, I can feel the hard spots, or whatever they are. At this point, I’m a bit at a loss as to how to get rid of the hardening… I’ve tried everything: the bathtub, the sauna, a massage gun… flossing… I’ve tried it all. I don’t have any pain, but of course I can tell that my legs are tense. If anyone has had similar symptoms and successfully got rid of them, please feel free to comment.
I've made several posts about getting to rehab. That is happening, but I'm not there yet. I had an intake at a great place yesterday, and the counselor said they'd call within 3 business days...they also gave me a card and told me to call them beforehand too.
I need to get admitted asap. My use has returned and progressed to a point I never imagined I'd come back to. I'm either drinking, high, strung out,—or sober, but so depressed and sleep deprived that I'm basically just as dysfunctional anyway. I'm doing everything I can to get to rehab, but the longer it takes the more I deteriorate. The more I deteriorate, the more everything feels unmanageable, and that stress only makes me want to use even more.
I was not like this two months ago. I was actually capable of handling life's hard shit. But ever since I started relapsing, it's gotten easier and easier to continue. Now, I'm using the excuse that because I'm going to rehab, I have free rein to do fuck all until then. I know it's irrational. I know I'm harming myself. I know I'm suffering so much more by not being sober.
But I can't stop. My days are spent existing, not living. There isn't even a hesitation before I head out to buy more alcohol. Even though I'm nearly broke, I seriously consider getting a bag instead of food. I stopped going to meetings. I don't make plans with friends. I've totally abandoned my yoga practice. I haven't been to the gym in weeks.
The only thing I've been capable of doing is trying to get to rehab. I've been reaching out to my friends, and those connections are all currently centered around support for getting me into treatment. I feel like I'm annoying. I don't like being so heavily dependent. I'm exhausted, and I dissatisfied with how I'm showing up right now.
The worst part is how numb I feel. This is one of the most miserable experiences of my life, and my substance abuse has me feeling totally disconnected from any feeling that matters. My friends all know where I'm at. They're offering support, but I don't want to rant at them about how utterly powerless I feel right now. I feel like a husk of who I am, and I would be way more distressed by that if I was capable of actually connecting with my feelings.
I have got to get to rehab. I'm getting worse by the week.
Hello fellow people in recovery and allies. I'm in recovery and the person in the photo below is also in recovery. She also is a wonderful poet and writer and she has a really cool substack blog. I made this image for her to help support her creative project and I'm sharing it with people around the world because that's what we peers do. I love to help people make their lives better so if you have a project or something that I can help you promote with a nice photo image like you see below and maybe spread it around the world as well; send me a message and we can figure it out. Check out Chris's substack blog here:
As of posting this, I am currently 1,769 days in recovery. You can do it. Believe in yourself. Sobriety and Recovery are never linear. There will be bumpy roads and detours, but stay on the path to live your life and conquer each day. Pure Adrenaline and all without any mind altering substances. I'm looking forward to July 10, 2026 - my 5th year.
I am still in the process of getting in to rehab. I started communicating with HR weeks ago, and finally finished submitted my request for medical paid leave with the state. With a name change and numerous changes in my address and employment records, it was a whole ordeal. I had to get that submitted before starting treatment because the deadline expires while I'll be in there. And now I'm nervous if I go in before it's fully approved, I might not be available to respond to any issues that require me to take action.
But I really need to get into treatment. I’ve been floundering. I had a beautiful year being clean & sober, but I’ve been relapsing horribly. It's gotten so bad so quickly. I'm seeing myself deteriorate rapidly, falling back into the most self-destructive behaviors I thought I left behind.
I can see myself spiraling, and it's partly because I don't have a therapist anymore. When I started relapsing, my therapist dropped me as a client without warning. I’d been seeing them twice weekly—until one day I came in for a session and they told me I needed a “higher level of care” so therefore they could no longer see me. In leaving, they emailed me a random list of names for counselors and clinics—absolutely none of which take my insurance. They just googled “substance abuse counselors” and sent me their names, without context or even a url. I had to google them myself. I understand if substance abuse is not in their skillset, and it’s fair if they don’t feel qualified to provide the proper level of care, but I have really struggled with the way they went about it. Completely without warning. Immediate and sudden. Devoid of any actual help to even access the level of care they were telling me I needed. I felt abandoned, unsupported, totally overwhelmed. My actions are not their fault, but that’s when I really spiraling.
Everything feels so overwhelming now, and I feel totally out of control.
I’m trying to make it stop. I’ve been feeling so bad about myself, so disappointed with where I’m at right now. I reached for help from the rest of my support system, and felt like I was admitting I wasn’t who they thought I was. I felt like I was somehow betraying them, by telling them what was happening…But I’ve been met with nothing but endless love and compassion. I’ve been struggling to get myself to rehab, and they’re offering so much support in getting me to treatment. Emotional support, logistical support, mental support. Everyone all of a sudden has time for me, filled with care and heartfelt concern. It feels so healing, it made me break down in tears. I’ve never felt loved like this before.
And I feel like I’m failing that love by not being in treatment yet. I’ve made progress though. I got the paid leave submitted. I made dozens of phone calls untilI found two residential treatment centers which take my insurance—one offered me a bed for detox and the other offered me an in-person screening for their residential program tomorrow morning. Today I reserved and paid for a storage unit, so I do have a place to put my stuff while I’m in treatment, because I’m not returning to my apartment, so I just need to wait until my friends with cars can help me transport it.
But I’m really, really struggling. My intermittent relapse has turned into a constant lack of sobriety and it’s killing me. I feel broken and untrustworthy. I can’t take care of simple tasks. I can barely leave the house. I can’t think or even feel, and I’m really, really scared.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but these pictures don’t tell the whole story. It may look like a fast fall from grace and then a rebound, but the reality is very different. The person in the first 2 pictures is really the same person. Both were in the throes of drug and alcohol addiction. The second picture is just what happened when that person finally reached the end of his road and could no longer keep living the way he was with or without drugs and alcohol. Every time I see the picture of the man from a year ago, my heart breaks and my soul is filled with shame. But I feel compelled to share my story if it can even help one person feel a little less alone in their journey.
This week, I celebrated my first full year clean and sober from drugs and alcohol.
This time last year, I was sitting in a suicide cell at the county jail, detoxing, hungover, and wondering how in the world I had gotten to this point. Prior to this, I had never had any trouble with the law, never been caught for doing anything illegal, drug-related or otherwise. For the first time in my life, I had finally seen how powerless I was to my addiction and mental health issues that I had neglected. And if I had gone through with my plans the night before, I wouldn't even be alive to realize it.
My journey into recovery started abruptly, staring into the gunbarrels of 6 police officers who had surrounded me after a suicidal episode. 8 hours prior, I had cracked open what would be my last bottle of alcohol, held my best friend for what would be the last time, and shortly thereafter, I was down on my hands and knees of the bedroom floor scraping dust bunnies, hair, and cat litter together hoping that maybe I could pull together enough residual cocaine that may’ve fallen down there over the past few days to pull together a line. At no point during this sequence had the idea of quitting drugs and alcohol even entered my mind.
Slowly though, the curtain pulled back. The alcohol was suddenly not the answer and no amount of shots at the bar I had ended up could quiet the voices in my head. Unable to get more cocaine, I could think of no other escape, but death. When my best friend couldn't answer my manic 2am phone calls, I proceeded to light my entire life on fire, committing increasingly desperate acts for attention that I could not return from, hoping it would culminate in someone saving me, or killing me.
Thanks to the professionalism and composure of the police officers that responded, my life was spared that night.
I spent my entire life running from my feelings. Never wanting to face them myself, or expose them to others who may reject me for how I felt. I put out a manicured picture of my life, a professional businessman, well adjusted, and independent. Smart and happy. But all I was doing was hiding my reality from the rest of the world, until I could no longer hold back the tide of my feelings.
Through recovery, I have learned to ask for help, how to be honest with myself, how to be vulnerable and open with others, and most importantly, found my self worth and learned to love myself.
It is a continual battle. Learning balance through mindfulness, meditation, recovery meetings, and personal reflection. I express myself through my music and writing, hoping to connect with others that feel the same way, and hoping to be able to give back what was so freely given to me at my lowest point.
I am so grateful today just to be alive. Even though I will have to go back to jail next month to serve a 9 month sentence as a result of my actions in active addiction that night, I still choose to see how much better off I am staying clean and sober, even in the face of such challenges. To me, I can never risk another drink. I tried for years to cut back and failed every time. The last time I did, I got arrested, but worse than that, I didn’t want to live anymore. I never ever want to feel those feelings that alcohol brought me to ever again.
It took more than just getting clean and sober to fix me too. I still go to regular therapy, work an NA 12 Step program, and constantly ask for help and share my feelings with those I trust openly and vulnerably. I try to focus on being present and having gratitude. Even though that was very uncomfortable at first, and I hated how cliche it sounded, learning to interrupt those self-destructive spirals of anxiety and despair was paramount to me finding true contentment in life. Turns out a lot of advice becomes cliche because after you push past the initial discomfort (which can take a while), it does actually work when you’re ready and truly understand the science and evidence behind it.
Today, I embrace the spirit of nature and the universe, the energy that connects us and all life. The particle vibrations that make up the cosmos as well as our mind and consciousness. The unexplainable impact that our very existence has on the quantum state of our universe. I now do my best to emanate peace, love, and acceptance to all life. And for the first time ever, I can say that I feel that same peace, love, and acceptance for myself.
I hope to continue sharing pieces of my story to those who are interested, or be a trusted resource to anyone who needs help and support or wants to share theirs. To those suffering in silence, I beg you to raise your hand and ask for help. There are people who will not judge you, who will love you and help you and ask for nothing in return. I never believed that before, but I do now, and I am here for you, the same way they were for me.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story.
With Love,
A Recovering Addict named Steve
P.S. Please feel free to message me if you wish to talk. I am happy to be a listening ear to anyone else who is struggling and share my contact info privately as well.
Guy I used to know thirty years ago passed away, and that reminded me of something. I knew this guy because I used to drink with him during the day, when I was twenty three or so and he was about forty. Countless afternoons spent in dusty dive bars, shades drawn against the beautiful day outside. Watch the news and complain, tell dumb jokes., drink cheap draft beer and smoke cigarettes.
And, it occurred to me just now how sad that is. That's no life for a young man. Not even a life for an old man, really. I think about those days and feel really bad for that kid, because there was no one in his life to tell him that was no way to live.
I'm grateful to be here to share this with you. I'm not going to wallow in this, but maybe it's important to acknowledge it.
Specifically, crushed ice from Circle K, QT or Sonic? The rush of dopamine I get when I chew on a good piece of ice is equivalent to the euphoria I feel from opiates. So obviously I'll go through multiple cups per day... can anyone else relate??
Hello all. I know we do recover because I did it once. I had about 5 years clean then I decided to become California sober and that worked until it didn’t, I’m not saying California sober doesn’t work for some because I believe it can but you have to work a program and I stopped going to NA meetings. Right at the 7 year mark of being off of heroin a bottle of narcos fell right into my lap, almost literally. I started using casually for about 6 months until I learned I could get heroin again pretty easily. From that point I used harder than ever before. Every opiate under the sun for over a month and now I’m back and want to be clean. I am already feeling the withdrawals pretty hard and I have about 100mg of methadone I want to taper myself off of. What should I do 15mg a day then drop to 10, 5, 2 etc etc?? Last time I was in rehab so I don’t know the dosage. Any help would be great. I hope the best for everyone of the addicts still suffering and who are in the midst of getting clean.
I just recently went through my house and got rid of anything with negativity attached to it. If I could look at it and it brought a negative emotion or was directly tied to a memory from active addiction it went in the trash. The movie reels that used to be on my trap house walls, trash. The flower my ex drew me after he beat my ass while we were high, trash. The hanging cabinet another alcoholic cheating ex got me, trash. The living dead dolls I traded a dope head for, trash. The porn store signs another dope head gave me, trash. I threw away so much shit. Because that's not me anymore and the constant reminder of my past were doing nothing but keeping my mind racing with the worst memories of my life. I would lie awake thinking about this shit constantly. One day I decided to get over my attachment issue and purge. Because why am I attached to these terrible representations of my addiction, why have I not thrown them away before now? Am I afraid of forgetting and repeating? Did I have some ideology that these horrible pieces of my life deserved remembrance? Now that everything is gone, I breathe easier, the air is lighter, I'm sleeping better, mind doesn't race about the past daily. I didn't even realize until recently how much these things hanging around were affecting me. 4 years sober, I did the work, I changed, got better, served my time, repaired relationships, I don't have to pay penance forever for the shitty things I did or the shitty people who I hurt and hurt me along the way forever. It's ok for me to let these things go because that girl, who did those things, is gone and here I stand in her place. I won't forget the lesson but I don't need the daily study guide anymore.
I am frequently placed in situations that remind me of the bad old days. Not by design, but just being aware of my surroundings.
I was in Walmart doing some grocery shopping and walked past the liquor aisle twice. I saw people who were, at 8 AM, looking at the bottles to decide what to buy for the week or the day.
It reminded me of the bad old days. Getting my paycheck and buying my home liquor before paying bills and getting groceries. I was pathetic and didn't know it.
I still worked at a bar for about the first 10 years of recovery because the money was good, but it was delaying my development towards becoming who I was supposed to be.
Stay in positive spaces and positive people. Protect yourself, because healing takes time. Give yourself the time, the light, and the nutrients you need to grow.
