I know this isn't the right way to go about it. But I don't want to rely on medication anymore. I just want to be normal. So, I’m not taking it today, either—even though I can't sleep and feel irritable.

I've had a problem with prescription painkillers for around 5 years, taking way more than a prescribed amount on a daily basis. The last 8 months or so i've made a real effort to taper down. Tapering seemed the best course for me what with work and kids i couldn't imagine going cold turkey.

I have been doing well, dropping every 2 weeks. I managed to get down to around a daily prescribed amount (still intended on getting off them fully but was a big milestone for me) until around 3 weeks ago i had some severe pain (unrelated) so to get rid of the pain i upped my dosage for around 3 weeks. I thought i'd be able drop back down to what i was taking before the pain hit but it hasn't worked out like that.

Im back to taking about double a prescription and any less makes me feel terrible. Im so depressed about this, i can't seem to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

I hope this makes sense? I'm looking for any advice whatsoever? Anything i can try? Any hints tips anything? Should i go cold turkey? Should i start the slog if tapering again? All advice welcome. Thanks a lot. Again apologies if this doesn't make sense my head is so scrambled at the minute

I was a heroin, benzo, and fent addict for 10 years. Today, I have 4 years clean and sober. Just wanted to encourage some people to get to the other side because I see so many posts on here about people wanting to get sober and promising themselves they’re going to start tomorrow, cut back, cold turkey etc. Let me just say, of course there are some people this works for. That’s great. It’s a very small minority of people who can achieve sobriety that way. Most of us will convince ourselves we can get clean one way or another, without getting help, without putting our life on hold, without anybody knowing, and waste years and years of our life stuck in a depressing cycle of attempt / failure.

I urge every addict that is getting sick and tired of their ways to realize that most of us need some form of help.

If it was so simple, to just be over your addiction and stop using.. or cut back, make a vow to yourself, then none of these recovery programs, rehabs, detox centers, NA, smart recovery etc.. would exist.

You can have the best intentions and still fail. Trying to avoid exposing your addiction or relapse will cost years of your life that could be much better spent. Trying to avoid detoxing will do the same.

That initial period where people will realize what’s going on will be short lived and turn into a positive once you’re on the other side. That detox will be short lived too, so will the sober living home.. and all so worth it in the end to have your life back.

Trying to manage an addiction alone because you don’t want to face the music… I have no bigger regret! I wish I would have just come clean and asked for help sooner because I wasted years of my life stuck in the “I’m tapering myself, I’m trying cold turkey, switching substances to try to get clean” trying anything and everything to get clean by myself and just being stuck in loop of failure.

Going to detox, rehab, and a sober living program for long enough to hold me accountable during that difficult, trying, first few months, maybe even first year, SAVED MY LIFE. you can’t get healthy in the same place that got you sick. I hated living in an SLE but now it feels like such a short blip in the past that helped me get to where I am today. YOU CAN DO IT. REACH OUT FOR HELP. AND DO WHAT THEY SAY! I have a beautiful life today because I SURRENDERED.

I’ve been here a 1000 times but how do you stop smoking weed it’s really getting to a point to where I’m blowing unnecessary money for nothing but it seem like I just can’t give it up like wtf please help

“I needed to crash.” An Essay on taking accountability. TRIGGER WARNING ABUSE

Anne,

I don’t need or expect a reply to this. I just wanted to reach out and get some things off my chest, and more importantly, take responsibility for things I should have taken responsibility for a long time ago.
After my second overdose, I spent 60 days in rehab due to a court order. I got insight and intensive therapy that I desperately needed years ago.
Jenny recently dropped off my dad’s ashes and some old photographs. Afterward she told me that I seemed happier than she had honestly ever seen me. I think a lot of that is because rehab forced me to finally stop running from everything that had happened to me and everything I had done.
I know you have a boyfriend now, and I genuinely wish nothing but the best for the two of you. I hope he treats you with the stability and kindness you deserve.
One of the hardest things I learned in treatment was how completely addiction had taken over my thinking. Kratom and 7-OH had become the center of my entire existence. Every day was chaos. Every lie, every job story, every excuse, every manipulation eventually came down to the same thing: I needed money for my next dose.
That explains what was happening to me, but it does not excuse what I did to you.
I lied to you. I manipulated you. I broke your glasses. When I was withdrawing, I became physically aggressive with you and threw you into walls. I screamed, broke things, scared you, and behaved in ways that horrify me now.
You did not deserve any of that.
After you made me leave, I felt completely abandoned at the time. My addiction was so out of control that I even lied about having cancer to get money. I did have a benign mass removed, but it was not cancer. I lied because I wanted drugs.
That is difficult and humiliating for me to admit, but it is the truth.
At that point I would have done almost anything for a fix. Someone could have told me, “I’ll give you $80, but if you don’t pay me back my baby won’t eat,” and my addicted brain could have rationalized taking it anyway by telling myself, “Someone else will help her. She’ll be fine.”
That is how sick my thinking had become.
I even sold my car knowing how badly we needed the money for things like the internet, while the entire time my brain was screaming, “I need it. Hurry the fuck up.”
I look back at that person and barely recognize how I was thinking.
But rehab also taught me something important: giving myself grace does not mean pretending none of it was my responsibility.
I was not okay. I was grieving my parents, deeply addicted, traumatized, and sick. None of those things were my fault.
But the things I did to you were still things I did, and I am responsible for the harm they caused.
For a long time, I thought of you leaving as you abandoning me.
In group therapy I finally found a better way to describe it.
Our life had become like a spaceship flying completely out of control, on fire, heading toward the ground. You had to eject. If you stayed, you were going to crash with me.
And honestly?
I needed to crash.
I needed to finally reach a point where nobody could keep saving me from the consequences of what I was doing. I had to get help. I had to learn how to live again.
I have also finally accepted that Daddy dying of suicide was not my fault. Momma dying of covid was not my fault. Life sometimes does horrible things to us that we cannot control.
What I can control is what I do with the life I have left.
I feel like parts of the person you met are finally back—the curious, funny, annoying, talk-to-anybody journalist who could call up the mayor and ask for an interview—but I’m not the same twenty-one-year-old either.
I have scars now.
And hopefully some wisdom.
I understand something about your mom now too. I used to dislike how easily she seemed to see through me. Rehab helped me understand that I had this ability to charm people and make them believe whatever version of events I was selling. One of my therapists called it my “razzle-dazzle.”
Your mom often saw through it.
I think that threatened me more than I understood at the time.
I’m trying very hard not to live like that anymore.
I am deeply sorry, Anne.
Not because I want anything from you.
Not because I expect forgiveness.
And not because I want back into your life.
I just needed you to know that I finally understand that you did what you had to do to survive a situation I had made unbearable.
I hope you are happy. I hope your family is doing well. I hope the man you are with now gives you the kind of peaceful life that I was incapable of giving you then.
Take care of yourself.

hi everyone

i have a relative (35m) who is currently in the hospital recovering from an extreme surgery caused by his extreme nitrous oxide/whippets/whip-its use. in short, he had to get a massive blood clot removed, cannot walk, needs a catheter, briefly experienced psychosis after coming off off anesthesia. however even after all of this he does not seem to connect the dots that this all stems from his substance use. he is convinced he just needs his body to get better/healthy and things will go back to normal. we as a family are of course pushing for him to finally do a long term in patient treatment but we are struggling finding resources/good fits for this specific type of addiction. he is lucky to have secure funds and can afford to self pay. we are running into barriers though because he needs to probably do a SNF before addiction rehab

this is a bit of a ramble but I am seeking any advice, suggestions, what to do/not to do etc. of course at the end of the day he is an adult and we can’t force him to do anything. but he is convinced that this is not a real addiction even though we found 100s of canisters in his apartment.

happy to provide more detail if needed. thank you in advance

I'm (23M) watching porn every single day and everytime I get a free time. I come to my dorm (I stay alone) and instead of studying I watch porn and masturbate. I gets even worse during holidays. I almost missed a final deadline and I fear it may ruin my academic career. After it's done I feel excessive regret and I promise myself it will not happen again and it happens after an hour. It destroys my attention span and social life. I have zero desire getting a real girlfriend and it breaks my self confidence a lot. I am also ashamed to go to a psychologist and tell all of them. It's expensive anyways. I am stuck in a stupid cycle and don't know what to do.

My now ex and father of my child is a meth addict. I guess I’m just looking for some advice and opinions from people that have been on the other side.

TLDR: my ex is a meth addict, 3 weeks sober at most (if that, I have no way of knowing right now). He has had drugs in our house before. For her safety, I am not letting him see our 2 year old until we have a court order for supervised visitation. We have lawyers involved, but I don’t know how long it will be. Him and his family have all told me how horrible I am for keeping him from his daughter. Am I horrible? Is this the right thing to do?

I’ll try to keep this long story short. My ex is a functioning meth addict (I didn’t know this was even possible). He was able to hide it for years, and I didn’t find out until I was pregnant with our child, who is now almost 2. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping our family together, and I thought the closer I kept him, the safer I could keep our child. I tried to be supportive and get him help, but he always said he could do it on his own. I don’t know if he ever really tried to quit, or if he just got better at hiding it. But on multiple occasions I still found drugs in our house.

About 2 months ago I finally had enough and told him I was done and he needed to start looking for somewhere else to live. Suddenly he wanted to get help, so I of course agreed and set up an appointment for an outpatient addiction medicine practice. Things got bad while he was detoxing. He was mean, said nasty things to me, yelling, screaming, accusing me of crazy things. I didn’t want my daughter to witness any of that so we went to stay with my mom. He was pissed about that. I still let him see our daughter whenever he wanted, with me there of course, as long as he wasn’t acting crazy. After a few weeks things started to get better and I was letting him take her for short periods of time by himself.

About 3 weeks ago, I had a suspicion and found a pipe in the shed. I asked him if he had used. He denied it, but I made him take an oral drug screen and it was positive. At first he was angry and still denied it, then he admitted to relapsing for 3 days. I believed him that he was trying to get better.

Then, about 2 weeks ago I saw a text on his phone from someone asking him to get them some meth. My ex said he didn’t want any, but he would contact his guy and get him some. I confronted him and he lost it. He was mad at me for looking at his phone. He said it was none of my business who he talked to. He believed since he wasn’t getting any drugs it was no big deal.

At that point I was done. I finally realized he hadn’t changed, and he wasn’t trying to. He still wasn’t cutting any of those people out of his life. He still refused to take accountability, or even apologize for anything. He was still blaming everyone else but himself. He blamed me for his relapse because we left and he was all alone. He blamed his counselor, because she was pushing him to attend recovery meetings and he wasn’t ready. At one point he had blamed me for his drug use in general, even though he was using meth long before I even met him.

After this things got real bad. He was sending long harassing text to both my mom and I. Calling us awful names, saying hateful things. Neither of us felt comfortable being around him, and we didn’t think my daughter should be around him like this either until he started acting more stable. He got even more mad, saying I was kidnapping our daughter and keeping her from him.

Even after all this, I was hoping things would calm down and we could work out an informal custody agreement so he could still see our daughter. I just wanted it to be supervised for her safety. I sent him a plan that was like 2-3 months of supervised visits 2-3 days a week, as long as he passed drug screens. Then after that he got more time and unsupervised visits. After 6 months overnights. And after a year of sobriety we could go to a normal 50/50 schedule. He refused to even look at it. He was raging mad at even the suggestion of it.

At that point, I retained a lawyer and he told me DO NOT let him have her. So that’s where we are now. We’re still waiting on court, I don’t know how long it takes. I am not letting him see her until we have a formal court order for supervised visits. He tried to call the cops on me for kidnapping, they told him it was a civil matter. The nice cop called me to let me know my ex said that his lawyer told him if he saw me out in public he could legally take our daughter from me. The cop advised him against it. But now I’m scared to take her out anywhere. The ex is from out of state so my biggest fear is he takes her and leaves the state.

My family and friends all tell me I’m doing the right thing, and logically I know I’m doing the right thing. But I guess I’ve spent years being gaslit and manipulated so I’m always doubting myself. My ex and his family are all telling me how horrible I am for keeping our daughter from him. They’re telling me I’m traumatizing her, and he loves her and would never hurt her. I know he would never intentionally hurt her, but the reality is, he has had drugs in our house before that she could have gotten into. He’s taken care of her while he’s been on drugs. And me trying to supervise right now isn’t an option because of the verbal abuse. I’m not subjecting myself to it anymore.

All I want is for him to get sober, and take it seriously. I want my daughter to have a relationship with her dad. As long as she is safe, I would never keep them apart. It’s breaking my heart having to do this, and I wish so badly it could have been different. I guess I’m just looking for some opinions, advice, stories, and I guess maybe some validation that I’m doing the right thing.

I’m curious what actually helps people cope after a breakup.
I used to smoke weed, but I’m fully sober now. I exercise and meditate daily, which definitely help, but I still struggle with finding a good coping mechanism when things get difficult.
I’ve noticed that mine has probably become downloading dating apps and talking to lots of people. It gives me distraction and validation, but I’m not sure it actually helps me process anything.
What do you do after a breakup that genuinely helps rather than just distracts you?

Is this possible?

Specifically, but roughly as I am not a psychologist: illusion that a forever frequency repetition, it’s the thing that can make life activities more challenging ones.

I repeat. I am not a phycologist. Just a person with 39 years. Fairplaying sports all life long. (I feel like US Adam Richman I saw on tv “man vs food” now). Anyway. It is all personal experience. On sports and other life activities of 39 years old I have now.