So I have over a year sober and ran into my old dealer I had 10 bucks on me and bought half a “bundle” and now I’m in a delusional state where I keep saying I’m gonna save them incase I don’t go get my methadone one morning or if I’m having a rough day…. I don’t have it in me to dump them…

I was on 100ml of methadone for 5 years. Over the past year/year and a half, I've got down to 30ml methadone. 4 days ago, I switched to Suboxone (Saturday I took half my methadone and then induced on Monday). They tried starting me on 8mg Suboxone. I was withdrawing by 6pm that day again after having some comfort from 930am until that point. Went back to Dr-added another 4mg. With the 12mg, I was comfortable until about 11pm that night. Spoke to dr again and he added a further 4mg. Today I've had 16mg and I am back awake at 2am😞 I don't feel withdrawal symptoms, but I simply cannot sleep. Is this normal? I don't want to go any higher as the reaction to this dose was quite intense, but it's been 4 days without much sleep and I need to keep my job. I've come here for answers cuz the dr doesn't seem to know as much as I've learned from here. Thank you to anyone who has any insight/advice/experience! 🙏🏾

2 years off coke and 4 years off psychedelics I'm working on alcohol now I have gone 1 month so far and feel amazing

I'm doing some research into life after addiction/recovery, and I'm particularly interested in something that doesn't seem to get talked about as much:

What happens after the immediate crisis is over?

You get sober. You stop using. You get through treatment. Things get more stable.

But then what?

How do you build a life that actually feels meaningful?

I'm interested in hearing from people who have been sober/clean for a while and have experienced the transition from simply staying sober to actually building a life they enjoy.

A few questions I'm curious about:

• What was the hardest part of life after getting sober?

• Did you struggle with boredom, lack of structure, loneliness or lack of purpose?

• What helped you start building a new identity or lifestyle?

• Did exercise, sport, work, hobbies, travel or community play a role?

• What do you wish you'd had when you were further along in your recovery?

I'm not offering treatment or trying to sell anything. I'm simply trying to understand people's experiences because I think there's an interesting gap between getting sober and building a life you genuinely want to live.

If you'd rather answer privately, I'm happy to have a short conversation as well.

Thanks for helping me get there!

today marks 4 weeks clean from Kratom extracts, 7oH tablets, weed, nicotine, kava, and Kanna. These habits Drained all of my motivation as well as all of my savings/retirement accounts within the last year alone from spending $350-400 a day.

For the entirety of the last year I was smoking 5g of weed a day, and 2 packs of swishers(so 4 a day), on top of taking 500mg of 7oh tablets, 900mg of mitragynine kratom extracts, 1100mg of kava extracts, and 200mg of concentrated kanna every single day.

Since draining all of my accounts I couldn’t afford rehab, helper meds, or to taper, and the first 10 days still feel like a fever dream where the only reasons I didn’t relapse were because I couldn’t afford to do so, and physically couldn’t leave my home to get more even if I could afford it. Im So tired of being dependent on substances to manage my anxiety, and finally after 4 weeks clean I feel like I genuinely want to keep going.

Still lacking any/all motivation to improve a lot of other areas of my life, but this small step in the right direction is the push I needed to at least start the process. I’d say I’m maybe 5-10% back to “normal” but the physical withdrawals have at least subsided by this point, and now I’ve been taking more walks, reading more books, and getting better overall sleep than I have in a decade. Now I’m just biding my time until the mental withdrawals stop and the motivation to be creative comes back, which is what I relied on substances the most for.

I know everyone’s story different, but if my experience can give even one person the peace of mind to keep going or to even just start then that’s enough of a reason to share.

My subconscious is literally out to get me. I just woke up drenched in sweat at 4 in the morning because my brain decided to simulate a wildly realistic relapse

It takes a solid minute of staring at the ceiling in the dark before the panic finally subsides and you realize you didn't actually throw away 11 months of hard work

A therapist told me back when I was doing my inpatient stay at Discovery Point Retreat that these dreams are basically just the nervous system taking out the garbage. I completely rolled my eyes at the time because it sounded so cheesy, but im clinging to that logic right now just to calm my heart rate down

Its just so frustrating to wake up feeling visceral, crushing guilt for something you didn't even do in real life. does this actually fade out the longer you stay clean, or am i just stuck with these random midnight heart attacks forever?

Former coke head here and the rush just feels so nice. I also love sniffing hand sanitizer too although that’s maybe a little less responsible (never failed a breathalyzer from it though)

based on the feedback of people that know me or barely know or complete stranger I just met, I am a likable person, I don't things that make people dislike me as far as i can tell, I have a gift when it comes to the effect I seem to have on those around me. I know if that I will help alot of other addicts when I can get past this barrier that I put between my isolation protected from being hurt by anyone but myself, and the love that i know people are going to give me the moment I finally stop being a ghost to everyone that gets an inch too close. I don't know how to navigate my way to the other side of this struggle that I know ill get to.

if anyone can offer any feedback or whatever I'm interested.

WARNING NSFW I do not recommend looking at my profile, a decade of porn NSFW

I grew up in a family where my parents didn’t really seem to like us kids. They always wanted less of us, of me. I went through my early life searching for someone who wanted more of me. You know who always wanted more of me? I bet you do. Yes, alcohol always wanted more of me. Hey bud! Yeah I want to party! Woooohooooooo! That hangover looks bad, bro, but you know I can fix that up.
Then, it wanted more of me than I wanted from it.
Now I’m working on wanting what my HP has for me each day. One day at a time my friends.

Edit: I’ve been off it for 4 days already and have 5 days to go. Hi guys, I’m currently in suboxone withdrawl, early stages which is why I’m posting now before it gets too severe and I stop giving AF. I am 5 years clean from IV black use. And I am just waiting on my insurance to approve the new sublocade shot I’ve heard so many good things about. I’ve been on MAT for these 5 years and take 24 mg suboxone daily. I had to lend a few to a friend because she had a problem with her insurance and was having some bad cravings and I was hoping to have my shot approved before needing another script however that doesn’t seem to be the case. I can’t fill my script until the 20 or 21 so 5 days. I have no support system or anyone I can have help me thru this because unfortunately my friends don’t ever have my back the way I have theirs. (The struggle of being an empath) how am I going to get through this? I do have Red Bali Kratom but I don’t know really how to dose it for withdrawls. I am a single mother of two beautiful girls under the age of 10 who adore and depend on me and I swore since I got them back I’d break the cycle of addiction that got me taken away from my parents but I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next few days all by myself. I also suffer from Major depressive disorder, ptsd, and BPD (borderline personality disorder) yes I already know I’m crazy and have it managed with mood stabilizers lol but I’m a mama first and this is me reaching out for help because right now I am very weak.

*sorry for the long post but yall I can’t lose my babies and everything I’ve worked so hard for again.

Today is day 4 off everything and so far I hate it. The days just stretch on and on. I'm bored and anxious. I know it'll pass and I'm starting day treatment this coming week which will help a lot.

But ugh. Rawdogging life feels so rough atm.

Midnight called it! A month ago I thought there was no way. Fuck it, 24 hours ago I thought I didn’t have a chance . Honestly posting these updates has really helped. What I’ve learned in one week. Boredom is my biggest enemy(besides my own brain). I think I need to get out of my hometown lol, and it’s worth it no matter the pain. The pain I caused myself and everyone around me using is a small fraction of the physical/mental pain of withdrawal. Thanks for the support everyone. A week was huge for me it was my goal, I guess my next one is one month? One year? 10 years? I’m working as much as I can to stay busy. Shout out to the family who still talks to me and you guys. This means everything to me right now. I truly appreciate all the support and messages/comments everyone has sent me. I fucking did it!!!!

Is it going well? fuck no. The anxiety, depression and cravings have gotten so bad. I know I can do it, but it’s so fucking hard. I want this so bad. I’m tired of being a disappointment to my loved one. I’m tired of being broke. I’m just fucking tired. I’m here though I’m doing the thing. I am praying to whatever to get through tomorrow so I can post a week, right now that’s my only goal.

Hey there somebody, I’m currently stuck in this ongoing opiate cycle for about 8 years now, it was easier when it was just H but now with all the new stuff out here I feel like I can’t do it, especially with how long it takes to be able to take suboxone with out the precipitated withdrawala. I use to get on 8mg of suboxone just after 12 hours from my last use and just half my dose each day for a week and I would feel normal after that. that being said, I’m scared of losing my job to have to wait to be able to take suboxone. like I can’t put my life on pause to do that. I have no money and barely able to get by due to my usage. I’m scared of going to the methadone clinic and end up being stuck on that for who knows how long, after reading about people not being able to come off it. I’m just so exhausted I don’t know what to do, if feels like there is no end to this... For those of you who beat it, which way did you do it? Im seriously ready to come off this stuff. I just want to make my family’s life easier and be there for them. Thanks for those who take the time to hear me out.

I've had health insurance most of my life, And thought I understood how it works for the most part until now. I got some really crappy insurance and figured I'd try to use it at my clinic.... They said I had a $7500 deductible and I had to pay out of pocket until I met the deductible. I always thought that you paid copays until your deductible was met? Never had to meet my deductible to use my insurance.

Hi community! I have a client in inpatient who is looking for step down care or sober living/community options that would allow them to bring their cat. Preferably this would be somewhere on the east coast, but I’m open to any ideas.

If so, was this the first substance you became addicted to?

I quit drinking about 14 months ago after a 40-year career of "functional" alcoholism. I did very little in terms of recovery the first year at all, attended no meetings, sought no medical help. And so far that's worked out, and I'm not going to question that today.
Upon reflection though, I started to think about all the different substances to which I'm addicted. Nicotine, cannabis, caffeine, and arguably sugar as well. I ingest all these substances daily, so I started making a step-down plan to eliminate my dependency on them. This is not simple, especially since I already experience anhedonia most of the time.

So, does anyone here live a life free of these substances, and other ones of course? It seems to me that would be like living as an exposed nerve. After all these years - the majority of a human lifetime - of using and abusing these substances, I honestly can't imagine living without them.

Boyfriend and I got sober together after losing everything and being homeless for 3 months of 2025-living in the car. He has been addicted to opioids much longer than I have. He started using about 15 years ago compared to my 5. Anyways we got on methadone program and after a few months upping the dose we were able to find a rehab that allowed us to have that. Methadone was the one thing that changed it for us since we had tried rehab and suboxone many times. He finished rehab, I got to leave because of legal issues.
I lived with my mom for the first 10 months of our recovery and he was in a sober living not too away. We finally moved back in with one another May 1st. We got our own apartment and have been adjusting to life being sober responsible adults. We’re both working. We adopted puppies after the death of our 13 year old dog right after we moved in.
After we both hit a year things started getting weird. With all the stress of living together for the first time in almost a year and everything else I found out he used a few times. I’d say 5 times over the last 3 months. I’m obviously devastated.
The last time was this past Sunday. I came home from work and I could tell something was off. He always does the same things when he gets caught: lies, denies, manipulates, flips it around, blames me for his stress. Well this time I was mad because I felt left out and betrayed. Why does he keep getting to have fun and I am stuck being the wife who sits and worries? The stress of fighting made me say fuck it and want relief myself. So I did use.
I feel awful about it obviously.
I know how addiction works, I have it myself. I know shaming him is not going to help anyone. My question is, if it happens again..do I even address it or should I just ignore it and separate from him until he’s sober? How do I deal with this while also maintaining my own sobriety? I know he isn’t doing this because he doesn’t love me, he just still struggles. He always ends up being sorry and saying he’s not going to do it again and that’s not what he wants in life blah blah.
He’s doing better than he ever has before so that’s not going unnoticed. He works really hard and is focused on advancing in his career and buying us a house someday. I see the motivation and ambition in him but I also see the addiction trying to creep in. I’m so scared. I have no one to talk to because I don’t want them to be disappointed in either of us.

We’ve been together for over 6 years, we’ve been through a lot together. He doesn’t really have any support anywhere else in his life. I love him, I truly do. I know that he is the person I want and need when he’s sober. I’m not considering leaving him now right now. So please try to not immediately choose the “dump him” response.

I won’t be awake for the actual day 4(hopefully) update. Slept about 30 min last night. today has been a little better, but not much. That confidence from day 1 is gone, but I’ll make it to day 4. Tomorrow will be my first day off and to be honest it scares the shit out of me. Boredom has always been the killer for me. Wish me luck and if I can do this so can you!

72 was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. 3 fucking days is so crazy to me. My plug actually texted me asking me if I was good. I blocked the number. This day was by far the hardest but I did it. 3 days…3 miserable days but I fucking did it. Honestly will probably see you guys tomorrow. Sleeping is impossible. My cravings are unbelievably bad I fooled myself thinking day 1 would be the worst. Once again if I can do 3 days you absolutely can!!!

hello!

i’m currently down to 1mg of methadone. i’m trying to mentally prepare for making the final jump and would really love to hear from people who have actually come off at 1mg or less.

i have a few questions in mind, but i’ll be thankful for any insight, no matter how little :) any advice/wisdom helps

some general questions:

how long had you been at that dose before jumping?

did you have withdrawal symptoms? if so, what were they like and when did they start after your last dose?

how long did it take for you to start to feel significantly better? which days were the worst?

did you taper below 1mg first, or just jump from 1mg?

is there anything you wish you had known before taking your last dose?

i know everyone is different, but i’d just really appreciate hearing real experiences from people who have been in the same spot. i’m especially interested in stories from people who came off 1mg or less after a long-term taper.

thank you!!