by Weeno » Tue Feb 03, 2009 12:42 am
I feel your pain, I've been an addict/alcoholic my entire life. It started with just taking regular Tylenol to kill emotional pain from mental, physical and sexual abuse when I was 14yrs old... Tylenol doesn't kill emotional pain but I was confused by the abuse, my parents blamed me and I didn't know where to turn. Then one day I found my mom's Xanax and let's say.... that was the beginning to the doorway to hell. I'm 39 now, 12 years in recovery and it started with one drug... then another one stronger, then another stronger and then came the weed and then later the alcohol. I told myself the same thing... it's just weed. I said I needed it to sleep, to keep my calm, to take away my depression... then, thanks to a great counselor in an outpatient program, I learned weed CAUSES depression. I grew tired of feeling like I was trapped... after a long time I finally listened and when I stopped the weed, the depression went away. Not magically of course... it took a month or so after ALL drugs were out of my system to start feeling normal but stopping the drug is just the beginning. As everyone as said in these posts, addiction is a disease. If you don't seek the cause, the reasons why you pick up, if you don't let your feelings out, eventually the addiction wins. I lost everything... drugs/alcohol became more important than the air I breathed. I was homeless and it took a weird turn of events to finally seek help. But through 12 years of recovery I have learned you need to work on yourself and be honest with yourself. If something hurts, talk about it.... if your pissed off, talk about it.... but don't want to do something and end up not doing anything because your life is so very important. I'm grateful for mine... like I said, I grew up a with great deal of emotional crap from my family and I never realized how much it affected me until I got into recovery. I thank God because had I not done something to help myself I would not be here today to give you a piece of the hope I found. AA/NA meetings are a part of my life and I have met amazing, amazing people through AA/NA. Good luck and please for the sake of yourself... you can do this... once the drugs are completely out of your system you will feel normal again... take care.