I can only offer personal experience here, so I hope you find it helpful in some way.
I started smoking pot when I had just turned 16 and I started drinking when I was 17. My life in high school consisted of smoking pot during the week and smoking pot and drinking on the weekends. One day my friends offered me something that sounded cool - they called it ecstasy. I looked it up, being a smart user, to see its effects and side effects, and decided that it was not harmful enough for me to turn down. A little later my friends introduced me to these cool things called magic mushrooms... The next drug was dxm, then acid, then vicodin, then oxycontin, then I tried candy flipping, all the while still drinking consistently and smoking pot less consistently but sorta frequently.
One day in high school on a weekend night I drank 3/4 of a "handle" of rum and got alcohol poisoning and had to be rushed to the hospital. Stuff hit the fan then - my older sister had bought me the alcohol, so she was crushed and she blamed and hated herself for thinking she had almost killed me (I disagree, I take responsibility.). My parents had had no idea that the $20 I was using whenever I went out with friends wasn't for movies or food or whatever else but for drugs, and I had used hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars of their money to get and abuse drugs.
In the winter of 2008, the winter of 2009, and starting in May of 2010 until now, I developed/showed signs of clinical depression. I hadn't known or noticed the pattern that EVERY time I did drugs, I spent the next couple days in and out of depression, had fits of anger and rage, severe feelings of inadequacy (I'm not good enough in some way), and my mind went wild with imaginary tales that tortured and belittled myself. After candy flipping at EDC in LA in the summer of 2010, every time I smoked pot I had depressive bouts and flashbacks - not a lovely combination. Let it be known that even having quit drugs I still have depression, but its not nearly as bad or frequent as when I was using drugs.
I've broken my parent's and sister's hearts, have lost all trust from them, have almost lost my current romantic relationship because of drug abuse, and have overdosed and almost died 4 or 5 times from using drugs. I haven't exactly been "addicted" in the sense that you're using the term - I can quit whenever I want (and have)... I use drugs to cover up emotional pain that I unconsciously don't want to deal with.
Between September 2010 and December 2010 I quit drugs and only used vicodin once, I used ecstasy at a rave this past new year's eve, and I mixed alcohol and vicodin once in the past couple weeks. Having had pointed out to me by my parents, sisters, girlfriend, and my girlfriend's mom and sister that I was (loosely using the term) addicted to drugs, I've decided to quit once and for all.
Now, for the actual quitting, I'm a very strong believer and user of positive affirmations. Through the internet I'm not sure I can give a high enough recommendation for the book Heal Your Body by Louise Hay (See "Addictions" on page 2). From personal experience, I find it very accurate in its identifications of causes of diseases and maladies and the cool part is that it gives affirmations for healing those conditions. This link has also proved very useful for me - it's more affirmations for addiction from Louise.
I don't know if you're familiar or not with affirmations, but if you aren't, I swear they work. Of course I'm just a random user of a board that you also happen to use on the internet, but for what it's worth, if you start doing affirmations I believe that you will start to work through your addictions and very possibly heal them. They take time and effort and have to be done thousands of times... Obviously you won't believe every afffirmation you say to be true, so start affirming that you're willing for the affirmation to be true. From there, you can affirm that you want it to be true, then when you can, start using the affirmation (or better yet, use it while also saying the willing/want stuff). I've used many of the affirmations found in Heal Your Body and even some personal made up ones thousands of times each and my life has improved gradually and, over time, dramatically. I posted a thread a week or two ago in this same sub-forum: On consciously used affirmations.
Best of luck and all my love.
:idea:
I started smoking pot when I had just turned 16 and I started drinking when I was 17. My life in high school consisted of smoking pot during the week and smoking pot and drinking on the weekends. One day my friends offered me something that sounded cool - they called it ecstasy. I looked it up, being a smart user, to see its effects and side effects, and decided that it was not harmful enough for me to turn down. A little later my friends introduced me to these cool things called magic mushrooms... The next drug was dxm, then acid, then vicodin, then oxycontin, then I tried candy flipping, all the while still drinking consistently and smoking pot less consistently but sorta frequently.
One day in high school on a weekend night I drank 3/4 of a "handle" of rum and got alcohol poisoning and had to be rushed to the hospital. Stuff hit the fan then - my older sister had bought me the alcohol, so she was crushed and she blamed and hated herself for thinking she had almost killed me (I disagree, I take responsibility.). My parents had had no idea that the $20 I was using whenever I went out with friends wasn't for movies or food or whatever else but for drugs, and I had used hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars of their money to get and abuse drugs.
In the winter of 2008, the winter of 2009, and starting in May of 2010 until now, I developed/showed signs of clinical depression. I hadn't known or noticed the pattern that EVERY time I did drugs, I spent the next couple days in and out of depression, had fits of anger and rage, severe feelings of inadequacy (I'm not good enough in some way), and my mind went wild with imaginary tales that tortured and belittled myself. After candy flipping at EDC in LA in the summer of 2010, every time I smoked pot I had depressive bouts and flashbacks - not a lovely combination. Let it be known that even having quit drugs I still have depression, but its not nearly as bad or frequent as when I was using drugs.
I've broken my parent's and sister's hearts, have lost all trust from them, have almost lost my current romantic relationship because of drug abuse, and have overdosed and almost died 4 or 5 times from using drugs. I haven't exactly been "addicted" in the sense that you're using the term - I can quit whenever I want (and have)... I use drugs to cover up emotional pain that I unconsciously don't want to deal with.
Between September 2010 and December 2010 I quit drugs and only used vicodin once, I used ecstasy at a rave this past new year's eve, and I mixed alcohol and vicodin once in the past couple weeks. Having had pointed out to me by my parents, sisters, girlfriend, and my girlfriend's mom and sister that I was (loosely using the term) addicted to drugs, I've decided to quit once and for all.
Now, for the actual quitting, I'm a very strong believer and user of positive affirmations. Through the internet I'm not sure I can give a high enough recommendation for the book Heal Your Body by Louise Hay (See "Addictions" on page 2). From personal experience, I find it very accurate in its identifications of causes of diseases and maladies and the cool part is that it gives affirmations for healing those conditions. This link has also proved very useful for me - it's more affirmations for addiction from Louise.
I don't know if you're familiar or not with affirmations, but if you aren't, I swear they work. Of course I'm just a random user of a board that you also happen to use on the internet, but for what it's worth, if you start doing affirmations I believe that you will start to work through your addictions and very possibly heal them. They take time and effort and have to be done thousands of times... Obviously you won't believe every afffirmation you say to be true, so start affirming that you're willing for the affirmation to be true. From there, you can affirm that you want it to be true, then when you can, start using the affirmation (or better yet, use it while also saying the willing/want stuff). I've used many of the affirmations found in Heal Your Body and even some personal made up ones thousands of times each and my life has improved gradually and, over time, dramatically. I posted a thread a week or two ago in this same sub-forum: On consciously used affirmations.
Best of luck and all my love.
:idea:
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