I haven't posted for awhile because I kept relapsing At present am almost at 30 days
What was the change?
I kept reading and trying to gain insight from what Tim, Sammy, CG, MJ, bumpsnomore, Kiwi, JustJane, Jeff, etc all had written (cant remember everyone who has helped... i am sorry)
I knew something must change b/c my way was not working.
I will have a month soon by the grace of my HP (God), the NA/AA meetings, and from the people on this board who kept posting to people in early recovery. or ones who were new on the boards.
Guys, I appreciate you posts so much! And I truly like when you don't mince words and tell it like it is. I am one who needs to hear this.
The difference now is that I MUST listen to others and stop trying to do it my way. My way and my thinking gets me and keeps me in trouble.
I had to ask myself, how much do i want it? Was i willing to do whatever i needed to? At this point the answer was YES. I surrendered.
Many of the poster's on the board say:
-go to meetings
-get a sponsor
-be accountable
--stop doing it your way
-PRAY that God or whomever your Higher Power is will help you overcome
ALL is what is keeping the momentum going for me.
As addicts I wanted to isolate and do it my way......... being alone is what causes relapses for me.
i have kept tabs on how i felt during withdrawl so others could see what happens.
Week 1 - I call the daze. Couldnt think, couldnt function, physical symptoms were diarrhea, vomiting, insomnia, nausea, breathlessness, increased anxiety, blurred vision, twitching, restlessness in my muscles at night, very negative feelings. One thing that I did feel was, "I am never going to do this again" I had 3 valiums that i used for the first 3 days.........after that NOTHING. NO sleep meds, etc. Just high potassium foods and a good diet, vitamins, -exercise (walking is important), etc......... I probably could have used the Lomotil, but wanted the toxins and chemicals out.
From day 1 decided to go to meetings every night and it was hard as i was going through withdrawals. But, I learned the people in the rooms understood and that they were my lifeline at this time.
Week 2 - I call the week of just going through the motions of life. What is life? I felt if this was life i didnt want it. Every day was boring and i couldnt find any satisfaction or happiness in anything. I wanted to isolate.......... Again, MEETINGS were very important (and let me tell you, this was not easy). Physical symptoms -- still dealing with diarrhea, insomnia, increased restlessnes, very tired and walking was painful.
Mentally the dysphoria was a b#tch. Meaning not being able to see fun or happiness in ANYTHING. I realized now i was in a battle for my life and this is the time i really got down on my hands and knees and prayed.
Week 3 - all withdrawal symptoms lessened a bit.. The insomnia was there, but i was beginning to be able to sleep more than 1 hour. Meetings were vital because now the cunning part of the disease kicks in. "gosh i cant remember the pain of what i went through as much" Cravings started. I was able to share this in meetings and with people which took away much of this. My emotions were horrible. Ups and downs, Ups and downs.
Now though, small (and i say small) windows of a peace and positive thinking started to appear. More times of depression still reared it's ugly head though. Again, I will say the dysphoria is a B*tch. Keeps playing w/ your mind. If I didnt have the support from reading these boards and going to meetings i know i would have relapsed around this point.
What are meetings doing for me?
-giving me support when i am craving and ready to throw in the towel
-making me accountable and not being able to have secrets
-having a sponsor who has told me to write down what withdrawal was like and remember to read it everyday
-a group that calls me on my sh@t (no more poor me)
-keeps me from isolating.
-letting me know, "hey there are people out there that are just like me"
-learning to build sober relationships with the same sex
Week 4 (which i am in the tail end of) My emotions go up and down, stomach a bit better (still have some problems), sleep is returning ---- I can sleep for more than 3 hours, the dysphoria has lessened and i am able to stay on task more and find a bit more enjoyment out of everyday things. Still, i will not BS you, it is hard. Better, but hard. The mental aspect is difficult.but the saving grace is that I realized i couldnt do this on my own and I surrendered.
There are no drugs or quick fixes. I am not saying antidepressants can not be used, but I first want to have a clear mind without meds for at least a couple months to see who I am..also, realizing that the depression is a mere withdrawal symptom and will probably go away in time.
Am I committed to working a program? Yes, I finally gave up control and surrendered.
-Gentlepeace
Your "truth" is so inspiring. I know that meetings are the way but for some reason I am not willing to go that route yet. I am only on day 13 but I get on here every day even if I don't comment. I wrote down the worst of my w/ds and try to read them when I am feeling good. I have told others that I am not going to take lortabs anymore so many sources are now unavailable I had never done that before. My family still does not know the extent of my problem and I donot wish to tell them. Your way does seem a better way and I thank you for sharing with us I just pray everynight that God helps me to stay on track and thanking Him for getting me thru just one more moment. Thankyou for your no nosense post, you may have saved a life today.
Roxy
Roxy
Congratulations, GP.
Great post GP. Your story is very similar to mine. Thank you for the reminder.
~Rachel
~Rachel
GentlePeace,what an awesome post.Congratulations.Youve come a long way,you must be so proud of yourself.Your post is quite inspiring.You give so many hope with posts like yours.Thanks for giving us your insight.~KIM
namaste' my friend, gp ~
what an incredible gift you are giving yourself...the gift of recovery! look at you grow, glow, go in your recovery! wowsa gp - you are a miracle!
similar to what you posted, my sponsor suggested to me early in recovery that whatever i do, i don't use and to surround myself, every aspect of my life, with recovery. go to as many meetings as i could - continue working the steps, get involved with others who were seeking the same spiritual growth that i was. she promised me that if i did this, soon i would see that the highs and lows would become a little less frequent and they wouldn't last as long as they had been. she promised me that i would begin to experience some level of balance in time with the action i needed to take.
you may have seen me write this before, but indulge me, as i would like to share it again. i like to think of my life in terms of a pie chart. the ultimate goal is to have equal slices of pie that make up the whole. each slice represents an area of my life - family - work - recovery - relationships - finances - play or leisure time - religion - spirituality - etc. for quite some time the major portion of that pie was my addiction and the behavior that surrounded it.
if you can picture a pie chart, probably 7/8's of that pie was taken up with drugs and the behavior that surrounded my drug abuse. the other areas of my life - the family, HP, work, finances, relationships etc. were crammed into one teeney tiny sliver of that pie. when i made the decision to stop all drugs i was left with this tremendous void - a huge hole that needed to be replaced or i was going to go right back to using as a means to cope with this painful vacumn.
i replaced that hole with recovery. did what my sponsor suggested and did a little more, like seek the help of a counselor and an addiction support group. pretty soon i found that those other areas of my life began to slowly widen and some balance was being restored. to me, this is the promises coming true that we read about in the big book.
there is much to be said about surrender. sometimes we have to surrender the fight to win the battle. how uplifting and empowering it is to read this message from you. you ARE doing this thing called recovery and please know it's the journey that counts, not the destination.
time is something you spend everyday, but it cannot be bought at any price. you spend time on everything: yourself, loved ones, family, friends. the time in your life is priceless. what determines what you spend your time on?
guided by Spirit, we use time wisely.
my prayer for you and all tonight simply is this:
Higher Power,
there are many things vying for our time and attention; our families, jobs, self-care, prayer and meditation each take time and effort.
we seek balance and the best use of the time we have. we accept Your direction for each moment of our lives.
thank You for speaking to us in ways we understand. may Your will be our will and Your thoughts our thoughts.
so it is.
amen
p.s. i would love to hear from gp via email. my system crashed a few weeks ago and i lost all files and email addresses. when you get a chance, please drop me a line.
love ~
sammy
what an incredible gift you are giving yourself...the gift of recovery! look at you grow, glow, go in your recovery! wowsa gp - you are a miracle!
similar to what you posted, my sponsor suggested to me early in recovery that whatever i do, i don't use and to surround myself, every aspect of my life, with recovery. go to as many meetings as i could - continue working the steps, get involved with others who were seeking the same spiritual growth that i was. she promised me that if i did this, soon i would see that the highs and lows would become a little less frequent and they wouldn't last as long as they had been. she promised me that i would begin to experience some level of balance in time with the action i needed to take.
you may have seen me write this before, but indulge me, as i would like to share it again. i like to think of my life in terms of a pie chart. the ultimate goal is to have equal slices of pie that make up the whole. each slice represents an area of my life - family - work - recovery - relationships - finances - play or leisure time - religion - spirituality - etc. for quite some time the major portion of that pie was my addiction and the behavior that surrounded it.
if you can picture a pie chart, probably 7/8's of that pie was taken up with drugs and the behavior that surrounded my drug abuse. the other areas of my life - the family, HP, work, finances, relationships etc. were crammed into one teeney tiny sliver of that pie. when i made the decision to stop all drugs i was left with this tremendous void - a huge hole that needed to be replaced or i was going to go right back to using as a means to cope with this painful vacumn.
i replaced that hole with recovery. did what my sponsor suggested and did a little more, like seek the help of a counselor and an addiction support group. pretty soon i found that those other areas of my life began to slowly widen and some balance was being restored. to me, this is the promises coming true that we read about in the big book.
there is much to be said about surrender. sometimes we have to surrender the fight to win the battle. how uplifting and empowering it is to read this message from you. you ARE doing this thing called recovery and please know it's the journey that counts, not the destination.
time is something you spend everyday, but it cannot be bought at any price. you spend time on everything: yourself, loved ones, family, friends. the time in your life is priceless. what determines what you spend your time on?
guided by Spirit, we use time wisely.
my prayer for you and all tonight simply is this:
Higher Power,
there are many things vying for our time and attention; our families, jobs, self-care, prayer and meditation each take time and effort.
we seek balance and the best use of the time we have. we accept Your direction for each moment of our lives.
thank You for speaking to us in ways we understand. may Your will be our will and Your thoughts our thoughts.
so it is.
amen
p.s. i would love to hear from gp via email. my system crashed a few weeks ago and i lost all files and email addresses. when you get a chance, please drop me a line.
love ~
sammy
gentle peace
wow! there are really some great people on this board! THANK YOU so much for the wonderful post describing what withdrawing and solving the problem is like.
you've got it girlie! you understand what has to be done! what a blessing for you and the others here, espescially the newcomer.
i have not taken a pain pill for 7 mos now! it has worked for so far for me with the help of suboxone, detoxing many times before without sub for me was EXACTLY how you described the mental thoughts that occurred at weeks one , two, etc. and at that time i was so miserable i wasnt willing to do meetings,a sponsor etc so i surely set my self up for the relapses that followed because of the hopelessness, despair, and boredom i felt.
i thought i can NEVER get clean, if this is what clean feels like, forget it! i will use til i die cuz i cant live feeling like this.....
it it hadnt been for the people on the forum here, i still would be using today, they gave me new hope with the knowledge of a self help tool called suboxone, i never heard of it, so i researched it and decided to give it a try.
now mind you the people here and at rehab tell me i talk about sub too much, and it is true i do, but i am so thrilled that sub, NA meetings, sponsorship etc have taken away the nightmare of using and detoxing that i could stand on top of my roof and shout it to the world! i have not used any mood altering drugs since july 10,06!! opiates brought me down to my knees and i usually would go back to pot which was my doc for 30 years until opiates came my way, my sponsor talked me out of using this holiday season, when i was triggered to smoke pot and have my usual glass of champagne on new years eve, this was my first holiday season clean and sober, i always thought i had to have a pill or smoke pot to accomplish my holiday preparations, but i took the advice of my counselor as well who told me i had to lower my expectations of the holidays and detach and set boundaries with family members who cause
me so much stress from abuse i suffered at their hands and mouths,
sammy your post also was the best, how you explained the pie chart and the slices, wow! i could visualize in my mind the same thing you described. and the prayer to your hp was fantastic! i prayed that prayer to my hp (who is God) that you posted.
i like what your sponsor said to you gentlepeace about wrting down what detoxing felt like, it was sooo BAD for me, i hope that it keeps me clean forever so i never go back to using again and i need to remind myself and never forget what it felt like. good suggestion that i plan to follow up on.
unfortunately my sponsor and i could not see eye to eye, she has a very tough love approach and is very much against the use of sub and my sharing of it at meetings. she caused me a great deal of anxiety and fear to call her on a daily basis as she requested i do. she was not sympathetic to my anxiety issues of talking on the phone and made me feel as if i was disturbing her when i would call and kept silent during our phone conversations which caused me even MORE anxiety, she has been clean 9 years and does not know what sub is like and feels i would trigger a newcomer by sharing about it, on the other hand i disagree with her and feel by my sharing it i could be saving a newcomers life as it has saved mine so far, so she insisted i leave out the part about sub and said the Na traditions say you are not supposed to share about a subject such as sub, well you know what? that text needs to be updated as new developments towards the approach of sobriety have changed, so i decided after i posted here how i felt about my sponsor that i tell her the truth which i did and find another sponsor for which i am still searching for.. thanks again fir the inspiring posts gp and sammy julie/jewels
wow! there are really some great people on this board! THANK YOU so much for the wonderful post describing what withdrawing and solving the problem is like.
you've got it girlie! you understand what has to be done! what a blessing for you and the others here, espescially the newcomer.
i have not taken a pain pill for 7 mos now! it has worked for so far for me with the help of suboxone, detoxing many times before without sub for me was EXACTLY how you described the mental thoughts that occurred at weeks one , two, etc. and at that time i was so miserable i wasnt willing to do meetings,a sponsor etc so i surely set my self up for the relapses that followed because of the hopelessness, despair, and boredom i felt.
i thought i can NEVER get clean, if this is what clean feels like, forget it! i will use til i die cuz i cant live feeling like this.....
it it hadnt been for the people on the forum here, i still would be using today, they gave me new hope with the knowledge of a self help tool called suboxone, i never heard of it, so i researched it and decided to give it a try.
now mind you the people here and at rehab tell me i talk about sub too much, and it is true i do, but i am so thrilled that sub, NA meetings, sponsorship etc have taken away the nightmare of using and detoxing that i could stand on top of my roof and shout it to the world! i have not used any mood altering drugs since july 10,06!! opiates brought me down to my knees and i usually would go back to pot which was my doc for 30 years until opiates came my way, my sponsor talked me out of using this holiday season, when i was triggered to smoke pot and have my usual glass of champagne on new years eve, this was my first holiday season clean and sober, i always thought i had to have a pill or smoke pot to accomplish my holiday preparations, but i took the advice of my counselor as well who told me i had to lower my expectations of the holidays and detach and set boundaries with family members who cause
me so much stress from abuse i suffered at their hands and mouths,
sammy your post also was the best, how you explained the pie chart and the slices, wow! i could visualize in my mind the same thing you described. and the prayer to your hp was fantastic! i prayed that prayer to my hp (who is God) that you posted.
i like what your sponsor said to you gentlepeace about wrting down what detoxing felt like, it was sooo BAD for me, i hope that it keeps me clean forever so i never go back to using again and i need to remind myself and never forget what it felt like. good suggestion that i plan to follow up on.
unfortunately my sponsor and i could not see eye to eye, she has a very tough love approach and is very much against the use of sub and my sharing of it at meetings. she caused me a great deal of anxiety and fear to call her on a daily basis as she requested i do. she was not sympathetic to my anxiety issues of talking on the phone and made me feel as if i was disturbing her when i would call and kept silent during our phone conversations which caused me even MORE anxiety, she has been clean 9 years and does not know what sub is like and feels i would trigger a newcomer by sharing about it, on the other hand i disagree with her and feel by my sharing it i could be saving a newcomers life as it has saved mine so far, so she insisted i leave out the part about sub and said the Na traditions say you are not supposed to share about a subject such as sub, well you know what? that text needs to be updated as new developments towards the approach of sobriety have changed, so i decided after i posted here how i felt about my sponsor that i tell her the truth which i did and find another sponsor for which i am still searching for.. thanks again fir the inspiring posts gp and sammy julie/jewels
GP-Thanks for that great message of hope.
For me addiction was riddled with years of relapse,denial and my own stubbornness to accept that I couldn't think my way out of it.
It sounds like you are doing things differently and that's all you can do.I hope you continue to come back here and share the message.
Good Luck
For me addiction was riddled with years of relapse,denial and my own stubbornness to accept that I couldn't think my way out of it.
It sounds like you are doing things differently and that's all you can do.I hope you continue to come back here and share the message.
Good Luck
Gentle...
Thank you for sharing...so many similarities to my story...
For me, when I finally surrendered, the acceptance came shortly after and with acceptance I now have a conscious contact with my HP, whom I call God and peace and serenity in my life....
I loved your post and I love the honesty, the openness and the willingness...
Congratulations on your 30days!
Take care,
Stacey
Thank you for sharing...so many similarities to my story...
For me, when I finally surrendered, the acceptance came shortly after and with acceptance I now have a conscious contact with my HP, whom I call God and peace and serenity in my life....
I loved your post and I love the honesty, the openness and the willingness...
Congratulations on your 30days!
Take care,
Stacey
Gentlepeace....you are one week ahead of me and I appreciate your post so much. I wish you could post every day so I could look ahead. Your week by week description helped me so much. You really give me hope. Please post again. L
