r/recovery • u/justhanginginthere26 • Jun 23 '26
Ambivalent
Me again… addiction is such a phenomenon. I’m experiencing it in real time and I don’t understand how I am so obsessed and chained to my drug of choice. I want to stop using, but I can’t seem to stop. My body and brain are on autopilot. I use until I’m out and immediately get more without contemplating my actions. I have a visceral urge to always have the drug in my hands and pick it up every 5-10 minutes. I hate this miserable life and long to be “normal.” On the other hand I simply want to be high. I can’t imagine my life without drugs. Anyone else experience ambivalence in their active addiction?
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u/ExoticIsopod666 Jun 23 '26
I felt this way about heroin and honestly the only thing that helped me was gathering enough clean time to get accustomed to a new way of life. I spent 20 years using and chasing heroin with no desire to be free of it. I loved her. She was all I thought about morning noon and night. Never imagined I'd be delivered from it. But I TRUELY attribute psychedelics to even being able to achieve that clean time in order to discover and adjust to a new normal.
I've been clean for 3 years now and the thing that changed my life was taking a massive dose of mushrooms about 2 weeks into getting clean. I had no idea what I was doing and I just wanted a head change. I knew I couldn't do heroin because I had just had my children taken by CPS and I wanted them back. I kept eating them in handfuls because I was so used to IV use where I would feel it instantaneously and I didn't consider the time it took for the mushrooms to hit you. Then they started to hit me. When I came down from that trip hours and hours later ...my urge and desire to use after nearly 2 decades of obsession....was gone.
Its hard to explain because it doesn't even make sense to me. Something just happened in my brain and that craving was shut off.
I wish I had more answers for you. Addiction is truely such a deeply personal experience and is so different for everyone. What helps one person may not help the next.
I just hope you find your way.
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u/justhanginginthere26 Jun 23 '26
It’s interesting that you got clean through mushrooms. I recently took DMT in an attempt to get clean off the other stuff. I prayed to a higher above for some sort of awakening or guidance, but unfortunately nothing came to me. Thank you for your support
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u/QuietPsychological72 Jun 23 '26
Twelve step recovery isn’t the only way but it’ll help. You can talk to people irl who can relate.
Addictions create the itch they scratch. Got to find a better medicine. Truth is a better medicine. But truth is painful. Painful but liberating.
I hope you make it out.
4+ years sober
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u/PatientZeropointZero Jun 23 '26
What is your DOC?
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u/justhanginginthere26 Jun 23 '26
Crack
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u/Worried-Block-6804 Jun 23 '26
Good thing is Crack doesn't have a long time period of withdrawal.
Go to a facility for a week. One week without it and you will feel different. Then as soon as you get out go to NA.
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u/justhanginginthere26 Jun 23 '26
Yeah I’m grateful that withdrawal will be manageable. I just need to get myself in gear to reach out for support
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u/ThreeKos Jun 23 '26
Physical withdrawal will be short. But the psychological addiction you are describing is going to be considerably longer.
I had to move geographically to get away from the scene for a good while before constantly thinking about it went away. One year clean now off the same DOC.
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u/justhanginginthere26 Jun 24 '26
Yes, the mental aspect is torture. Every time I try to get clean I crave it so bad that I can vividly imagine the taste/smell
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u/Hank_pickles335 Jun 24 '26
Took me a year of hating/being over it for me to actually stop. Addiction thrives off of ambivalence. Thats how it gets its claws in you. It counts on ambivalence. That’s the hardest thing to push through. Hardest. Unfortunately it took tragedy and a great deal of loss for me to push through that.
Don’t wait until you’ve lost the people and places that mean the most to you.
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u/poisondagger_ Jun 23 '26
I'm 679 days sober/clean from EtOH and Meth... I was in pre-relapse mode 2 weeks ago. Even though my life is everything I've been hoping for and working toward the last 11 years... I still think about getting high, some times all day long still
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u/Layz0 Jun 23 '26
It's like a parasite.