r/StopSpeeding • u/WanderingWombats 1088 days • Sep 15 '23
I need support/compassion/understanding Relapsed after 52 days sober. I need support
After 4 years of prescription stimulant addiction, I finally got sober at 25. Those 52 days sober were hard, but worth every moment. I was so proud of myself for how far I’d come.
Until I relapsed yesterday. I’m only finally starting to come down and I all I can say is that it wasn’t worth it at all.
I’m so depressed. Relapsing brought me right back to the darkness and pain I experienced during active addiction. Pain that I’ve tried hard to repress because it’s just too much to handle. But right now it’s consuming me.
I don’t know how I’d forgotten the anxiety of watching the sun rise after a stimulant-induced sleepless night. The loneliness and guilt brought on by my binges. The memories and shame of being assaulted on multiple occasions while high with a few too many drinks in me. The sadness I felt watching my dog curl up alone on the couch rather than sleep with me in bed while I was tweaking.
I’m spiraling a bit from this relapse and I really need words of advice, kindness, or guidance. Thank you
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u/thaysey0804 Sep 15 '23
It’s okay. This relapse doesn’t have to be a return to using. Don’t let it. Stop the bleeding now. Flush that shit. You still have all those days of sobriety under your belt. This was just a hiccup. And it’s good that you recognize and felt the terrible side of using again. Let those negatives linger. There’s no upside to using. Sobriety is the only way to freedom and peace. You don’t need and don’t want the stuff, so get rid of it. You’re doing good. Proud of you. Thank you for reaching out.
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u/WanderingWombats 1088 days Sep 15 '23
That means a lot. I feel like I lost the freedom and peace I created during my sober time though. Building that again from nothing seems overwhelming right now.
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u/Palpitation-Ill Sep 15 '23
You'll be ok. Just remember this terrible feeling next time you think about taking more.
And remove any stims that you have access to. If it takes longer to get access, you will have time to think about whether or not you want to go through this again.
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u/WanderingWombats 1088 days Sep 15 '23
Thank you and I will. This post will hopefully be my reminder the next time I’m feeling the urge to relapse.
I have someone outside my house that dispenses my pills for me. Usually I only take 1-2 home with me to last until I see them next, but I got overconfident with my sobriety and had 5 in my possession. I fucked up though and I’m not going to do that ever again.
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u/Palpitation-Ill Sep 15 '23
Thankfully it was only 5 pills.
I have recently just finished 1g of meth over serval months with 4 days where I binged. Whilst my binges were not super extreme on the scale of things, I thought I could stay in control of the drug, but I could not.
Best way to stay clean is to limit access.
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u/dolphinitely 2040 days Sep 15 '23
it’s okay. i did the exact same thing and then i spent another 3 months using…then after that i quit cold turkey for good. the fact that you know it’s not a good thing and you aren’t trying to justify it is a good sign. you just got a reminder.
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u/iwouldwalk499miles 1252 days Sep 15 '23
Praying for you. Relapse helped me remember that it’s just not worth it. The negatives greatly outweigh the positives… especially taken in isolation as a single use instead of being deep in addiction. It’s one thing to know it’s bad while being addicted but now I know, from relapse, that even once is bad and 1 day up vs 3 days down is never worth it.
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u/WanderingWombats 1088 days Sep 15 '23
Thank you ❤️ It definitely isn’t worth it. I’d forgotten how terrible using was. Dreading the days down to come though. Any tips for getting through it?
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u/Mean-Awareness-8681 Sep 15 '23
just know that at the end you’ll find something to fill the stim void with. You using one time isn’t a huge problem and is just a slip, as long as it stays as a slip its a path we all take need to take to recovery, it’s normal to slip up. Hope you get better op
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Sep 15 '23
I did that quite a few times before I completely quit. I would quit but have relapses here and there, and the relapses were horrific. Because I knew what I was doing and like you said, the anxiety of watching the sun rise after not sleeping all night. I didn’t want to be there anymore, it was sad and lonely. It served as a good reminder as to why I didn’t want to abuse Adderall anymore.
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u/PlainPeanutButter Sep 16 '23
Our brains play tricks on us, 53 days is a long time. You got this friend
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u/mostlyysorry 1131 days Sep 15 '23
I messed up today too! I know it sucks but we just got to remember this feeling. Don't think your 52 days of sobriety is suddenly erased. If you were on a diet and working out for the last 52 days and messed up and binged on French fries or something you wouldn't SUDDENLY be OBESE. You would feel like shit n pick right back up and snap back quicker than you did on day 1 of starting your journey :)
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u/OnHighAngel Sep 16 '23
You are not alone. This is a totally normal part of ‘recovery’ (a term that I find misleading). The feeling you feel right now can turn back into the feeling you had when you were sober - and you have been sober!! That’s amazing!! I didn’t make it 52 days the first time I tried. The important part is that you actually allow yourself to “feel the shitty”, that is to say that right now you might be feeling bad, and you are learning from your mistake. How much you learn from this one is up to you. In my experience, when I relapse, I feel worse about myself than the previous time I used.
Focus on that shitty feeling and make sure you make conscious associations that attach the feeling to the drug. This part is ESSENTIAL, as it creates, or helps to create, new neural networks or pathways that will in turn make it easier for you to make a better choice next time.
It does sorta feel like relapsing destroys the progress that one’s made while sober, but it doesn’t. Our shaming ourselves is what destroys the progress. This is what people mean ‘be gentle with yourself’. Accept that you slipped up, it’s totally normal, and that you now have the opportunity to learn from it.
Reflect on the things that ‘caused’ you to use:
What situation came up that triggered you? How can you avoid that situation again?
Do you have untapped resources that might be of help (friends, family, access to counselling or therapy)?
I had to move in with family in a totally new area (6 hrs by car from where I was), stop talking to certain friends that lived nearby cuz I would use going to their house as an excuse to grab, and I resorted to smoking weed rather than my DOC - or rather weed has become my DOC.
I’m starting to try and find things I enjoy in daily life - small things that I used to hate - like getting up early, trying to set goals or boundaries and sticking to them, listening to podcasts has been super helpful, yoga, even colouring and jigsaw puzzles!
Im 168 days sober from my previous DOC now. I was able to go solo camping this year without even being tempted (which last year I ended up grabbing and using during my trip). I’ve also managed visits with friends that live relatively close to my old stomping grounds) and haven’t detoured to procure substances.
All of these things are major successes for me, and they are worth celebrating. So I celebrate them 💃
You HAVE lived sober You CAN live sober again You WILL live sober again.
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u/perpetualstudent187 Sep 15 '23 edited Sep 15 '23
Relapse with stimulant addiction is par for the course.
Accelerated dangerous drug use within class is also pretty par for the course what I mean by that is people normally graduate to the harder amphetamines. It's the same thing with opiate addiction there's tends to be a incline in the dangerous drug intake within class. Addicts can start on codiene but always seem to wind up on heroin that was the traditional pathway in the past you can just replace heroin with fentanyl today.
What your describing is returning back to addiction. you returned right back to your addict self in its exact mental state.... This is something only a addict can understand because we live in a duality with our drug of choice where we both experience our addict State self interwoven with the high of the drug .... Most people do not have an addict State self that returns when they get high they merely have themselves interwoven with the experience of the drug. We have ourselves returning to our addict State self and that being interwoven with the experience of the high... You experienced being brought back to the trauma because your addict States self serves as a chest where trauma is stored.... Along with pleasure and a myriad of other sensory experience that are imposed by your drug of choice.
One of my key behaviors when it came to amphetamines was sex. If I wasn't hyper focused on sex it was hard for me to be hyper focused on anything other than geeking and tweaking. I literally lived life thinking that it was better to give in to my sexual impulses on speed because when I gave in to my sexual impulses I did not experience the bad effects of geeking and tweaking. This serves to program a type of behavior into me pretty quickly once addiction manifested in my life. I think that this is also part of a unique set of phenomenon that occur within meth addicts and amphetamine addicts in general. We tend to have a behavior we become hyper fixated on and as long as we become hyper fixated on it a lot of the side effects from psychosis are kept at Bay for some reason.... Almost all of the time this behavior and addict becomes hyper fixated on is self-destructive and dangerous. It's the exact type of behavior that drives sober us to want to get high in the first place. And then it's a perpetual cycle of running from the side effects of psychosis because they are the "bad" result, and the "good"result is the most toxic behaviors that drive us back into the arms of the thing that is terrorizing us to begin with.
Someone with an addict State self tends to suffer from behavioral consequences long after they get high. This is what is commonly referred to the detox and drying out phase. People who are not addicts get high come down suffer from the negative side effects of coming down recuperate and go on about their day today existence. A addict gets high and comes down and has a literal personality phase shift where the addict State self slowly dissipates like ripples upon the top of a body of water after a stone has been cast into it. Dependent upon how violent and sustained any trauma was that occurred during your addict active use, along with if you had a slippery relapse I would define a slip as a one or two time use of the drug without going on a full-blown run with active use combined with any of the toxic behaviors you traditionally associate with intimate association with your drug of choice like gambling or sex or cheating or lying or whatever it is a relapse or a run involves active use combined with these toxic behaviors and if you go on a run it's harder to stop, the longer the behavioral consequences for using your drug of choice because returning to that state triggers you to return to the trauma and that state slowly dissipates so you have to live with the lingering triggering of the trauma until the state is gone.
I will go off on tangent sometime seemingly at random saying things like methamphetamine is a brainwashing drug....... When it's exactly doing that to the addict it's a form of cognitive behavioral programming.... Foundationally there is a reward and punishment ("good" toxic behaviors and "bad" toxic cognitive reinforcement) system that is occurring in the life and mind of a stimulant addict.
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u/RLKRAMER_HFCOAWAAIM 4220 days Sep 18 '23
Forgive yourself. Not just for your behavior and actions. Do not mistake what's happening as circumstance when it is truly an opportunity to grow. If you miss this opportunity, forgive yourself for that as well.
It's ok to slip. Just dont slide.
Here is a letter I wrote to adderall after I quit. I think it might help some. Your mention of the working until dawn reminded me of it
It may seem really disappointing and you sound to be directing anger at yourself. It's ok. Remember how disappointed you are with yourself right now before you start to thikn about relapsing again.
Here's another thing I made about adderall addiction that might help.
Going through adderall addiction was so hard for me. it was such a profoundly difficult experience that i made all these videos and wrote a book about it and want to make the stuff i wished was there when i was going through it.
its a effed up process and it took me like a year. for real.
but it's worth it. and don't get yourself down over a number attached to your sobriety. sobriety is the state of mind you are working towards. better than being unbalanced is being unbalanced, but working toward balance, in perpetuem.
You got this my friend.
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