9 Years Of Success

[Totorina]

I started using in the mid 80's andI supported my habit by selling it to my other crack friends. The story of the downfall is the same, you get the habit, you lose your job, lose contact with your family, lose contact with your non using friends. Maybe try to do suicide a few times, lose a few boyfriends on the way, collection letters everywhere, electricity and gas turned off. . . blah blah blah.

Only when things got really bad, (lost 15 jobs in a span of 2 years, my car was repo'ed, then eviction) when I finally was tired of the routine, tired of the shallow coke friends, tired of life. I educated myself first with books on cocaine addiction, tried NA, and AA.

Literature on recovery helped me. It told me it was an individual's will that will ultimately lift an addict out of the addiction. Also, there is a physical and mental addiction that lasts for years after the last time of drug usage. And then finally, breaking the routine.

I put into force my recovery plan. This took about 3 years. I severed all my ties with my party friends, severed my ties with the coke dealers, discarded my drug addict boyfriend for a non using one who understood my state of being.
I filled in my time with a job and a hobby I enjoyed. The first 2 or 3 years of not using was filled with rocking dreams and my days were full of depression. It was a constant fight at first but then the dreams lessened as time went on and the days of depression lifted.

I do not have the will to not light it up if it was in front of me. Knowing this weakness, I have obstructed obstacles so when I am weak, and the crave is strong, I have no way of fulfilling my want. I avoid ppl who are partying in that way and physically remove myself from the scene.

I can say my boyfriend, as much as a pain in the arse he was to me whenever I lighted up, was my biggest support. After a year of fighting with me, he made it clear he had to leave. It was my turning point, I stopped.

I'm content with my life. I've restarted college to finish the degree I left unfinished. I'm very poor, but I know this will change once I finish my degree. Life has lots of color in it now, people of all ages are interesting to me. I wonder if I could someday, help a fellow human being out of the addiction trap with my experiences, with my words of hope.

For those that are entangled with addicted spouses, boy/girlfriends or friends. As cold as it is, you have to walk away to help them if they relapse over and over and over. Find out if they really want to stop, if they don't, leave, if they do, hang and gIve them support if they are trying but do not tolerate any excuse of a relapse. I have read that monkeys and birds will use cocaine till they're dead foresaking sex and food. Man is no exception to this rule. It is not a crave you can conciously control once you light up that rock or shoot that load. But you can control all the events before lighting up actually much easier than once you start.

Never give up trying to stop, fully recognize your weakness, set up obstacles to obstruct your path to lighting up and use your stubbornness to change yourself. The odds are against you, but you can do it. The will is a powerful force.

If anyone needs to talk about anything, I'll be more than happy to give you spiritual guidance if you are fustrated about something, someone and know not what to do.