Not Sure If I Want To Stop Or Not...

Hi all..I need some advice/guidance. I am currently on Vicodin ( take 4 pills per day for the past 2 years). Half of me wants to stop-its not healthy, it's made me fat, it makes me unmotivated and lazy, depressed and I could go on and on but you get the picture. The other half is afraid to live my daily life and feel the feelings that I have been avoiding pretty much my entire life. I have been addicted to coke, drinking, overworking, eating, shopping and now pills. Always one thing at a time which is weird..I just trade one addiction for another but I am always addicted and have been since age 17 or so.I am over 40 now.

The thought of cold turkey scares me and I am trying to find the right time ( kids out of the house) to do it. Also, my bigger fear is that I will go through all that and then 2 weeks later, pick up again. I am so bloated from the pills that I cant even fit into any ofmy clothes. I know this is wreaking havoc on my kidneys and I need to stop..but there is a part of me that needs the escape the pills provide.

Any words of wisdom to get me on the right track are most welcome! Mochablue
Hey Mocha. Your story isn't unique, we've all been where you are now. I was 18 when I started this dance and didn't quit until I was 44. For me, the point of no return was when I realized I was going to die if I didn't quit. I went to treatment, relapsed and then got clean again 4 years ago. It takes hard work, doing what you're told to do and getting to the bottom of the emotional crap that keeps you stuck. I go to NA and AA, meet with my sponsor and see an addiction specialist once a month. Sometimes it feels like it's too much, other days, not enough.

My suggestion is for you to get some support. You don't have to go through this alone. Tell your secrets, take the power away from them. Have you tried NA or AA? Look for a women's meeting, it's a good place to get started. You don't have to talk until you're ready, it's better to listen at first anyway. You'll see that you aren't alone.

Tell your dr. Be honest. You'll be amazed at how empowering it is. Let him help you. Then tell your family. You have a disease. You are not a bad person trying to get good, you are a sick person trying to get well.
Thank you Cowgirl..thank you. I appreciate your honest words and solid advice.I will check my local area for some meetings..step one is always a good one I presume.

One other question..I know once we are an addict we are always one..but do we really need to go to meetings forever? It just seems like such a huge thing ahead of me to think I will need support to stay clean for the rest of my life. Like I will never be free. It makes me wonder what people that have never been addicted feel on a daily basis...I mean, without the daily internal fight...
Like I will never be free. It makes me wonder what people that have never been addicted feel on a daily basis...I mean, without the daily internal fight...


Mocha, Cowgirl gave you excellent advice, listen to her.
What I wanted to respond to is your statement above..........

LOL I have often wondered the same thing........what's it like for normies?

We do not have to live the rest of our lives with our addicion hanging over us, but we do have to be on guard. While in the beginning, it sounds daunting to know that you will be an addict for life, but in reality, it isn't that big of a deal. Once you get clean, it becomes just another fact that you file away and do not dwell on daily.
Mind you, you do not EVER forget it, you just do not have to live each day with it in the fore front. There is no cure for addiction, you will always be an addict, but you do not have to make it the center of your existence forever if you get clean.

I would recommend meetings for a very long time. How long you choose to go is up to you. But you have to remember, you didn't get this way overnight, and it will not go away that soon, either. By you own admission, you have had addition issues for a very long time, so instead of wondering how quickly you can stop working on yourself, just get on with it and cross that bridge once you have a few 24 hours clean under your belt.

Good luck!
I dont know if I will go to meetings forever - that is such a long time. But I stay clean every day, just for that day. This has included meetings for nearly three years now. I do what I need to stay clean on a day for day basis...
Mocha, you are getting some good suggestions here. I am also a serial addict. It was the Drug de Jure back in the day: Beer, then Pot, the Speed, then in the 80s I tried to clean it up a little and went for Scotch, and then some Coke, back to beer, and then strangely, back to Pot. Work was probably an over arching addiction through all of it. And sex, well, don't get me started. Food is an ongoing struggle. I got involved with this Board because I took pain killers while being treated for lymphoma and needed a way to remind myself every day that I was laying down with the lions.

When I snapped to the fact that I am a stone cold addict, I realized that If I did not stop my bad behavior, it would kill me one day. One thing to consider is that addiction is a progressive disease. It tends to get worse unless we get it into remission. As addicts, even if we abstain from using, when we relapse, we often quickly get to a point where we are using more than we did before we tried to get clean. I could discuss this in terms of Pavlovian responses, but suffice it to say that we addicts tend to either stay clean or die unpleasantly. Check out my thread about my Sponsor picking up a white chip to get a sense of this.

I went to an NA meeting but soon switched to AA. It is all the same, it is mostly about just find a meeting that feels safe. The support is crucial in the early days. Without it, most of us can rationalize using just one more time, or somehow deciding that this one time does not quite count. The support helps keep our sense of denial in check and it also helps us get reconnected to the world around us. For me that was the scariest and most difficult part. I struggle with it to this day.

I had no reason to believe that I would stay clean for more than a week or so. And I asked the same question about meetings for the rest of my life. They did suggest 90 meetings in 90 days, but mostly, they suggested that I keep the focus on not using just for today. That seemed too much at times and I scaled it back to not using just for the next hour. Eternity is just too long a time period for me to commit to.

My last suggestion is to go ahead and get started. No one wakes up in the morning and decides that today is the perfect day to quit. I can promise you that anything you put ahead of recovering from your addition: spouse, kids, work, anything..you will lose. Put your recovery first and these other things will take care of themselves.

I have been doing this one day at a time for awhile now. If I do not use today, I think that will be about 6,692 in a row. Wish me luck.

Good luck to you, and let us know how you are doing .

August



Hey Mocha,

Glad you came to this board and started to ask questions. That really is the first step. You have to question your behavior, your present life, your future and how all this has affected you and your family. Once I did that the answers I received told a rather bleak story. However, I am three years sober and continue to work my own steps every day. This is definitely going to be a lifestyle change whether you do a 12 step program or other methods to stay sober. One thing I have found is that there are many ways to get and stay sober and you have to choose what is right for you. Failure is not an option, though....you may relapse or stumble as we all do, but the journey through addiction has been fascinating and very hard. It will break you down and hopefully in the end mold you into the person you were meant to be. however, the choice is yours whether you WANT to be clean. For me the choice was easy....sobriety is a trip all itself and for me the journey has just begun.