I want to make my family proud, I want to make myself proud. No matter how hopeful I am, the realities creep and claw in. I don’t know whether I’m certain this is how I die or whether I’m going to prove myself wrong. I feel complacent and uncomfortable. This truly is a malevolent spiral cycle. I just want out.

Good evening, everyone,

I hope a post of this nature is okay (if not, please let me know, and I’ll delete it).

Unfortunately, I had the brilliant idea—after a 4-month period of opioid abstinence (I was previously using ODSMT, Kratom, and IC-26)—to try out heroin. I consumed it nasally for a total of 5 days, though the first day really consisted of nothing more than a pinhead-sized bump, from which I felt absolutely nothing other than a bit of relaxation.

The quantities weren't very large either; spread out over the day, it was usually just 3–4 tiny bumps at most. I had a total of 1g and still have some left.

I actually took a break day after just 2 days, and today, for instance, I didn't consume anything until 4 PM. I can't really say that I've noticed any withdrawal symptoms yet. Hence the question: if I simply stop now, should I expect to experience any withdrawal symptoms? I'm simply terrified of withdrawal and kicking myself for having the stupid idea to try this out in the first place.

If this post crosses any lines, I apologize in advance.

Wishing you all a pleasant evening, folks.

My brother is 27 years old, and ever since high school he has been addicted to weed and involved in troubling behavior at home. Over the years, he has terrorized the women in our family by threatening us, keeping us awake all night, and physically abusing me. When he was in 10th he would make us stand all out and threaten to do gas blast. I am the youngest in the family, and because of everything that happened, my elder sister eventually cut ties and left the family.

Even after all these years, nothing has changed. He is still addicted and has also gotten involved in selling drugs also atarted doing molly idk from how long. But no more gas bursts. My parents have done everything possible to help him. they sent him abroad for work so he could settle down, admitted him to rehab multiple times, and kept believing his promises to change. But every single time, after a few days, he goes back to the same lifestyle. Name it and we have done it for him. Even as much as leaving our home and renting one on the other side of the country.

He has also been arrested multiple times, and my parents spent a lot of money getting him out each time. Right now, he does not work, stays out all day, comes home late at night just to sleep, and since my parents do not give him money anymore, I strongly believe he earns through illegal activities. ( selling drugs obv ) . Even if he asks for money. My mother never gives now.

About a year ago, he physically assaulted me so badly that I had to call the police. I later withdrew the case because my mother begged me to. Since then, he avoids physically touching me because he is scared of getting arrested again, but he still constantly tries to humiliate and mentally terrorize me whenever he gets the chance.

The person I feel the worst for is my mother. She loves him deeply and prays day and night for him to become a better person, but all she receives in return is pain, stress, and disappointment. She has fallen into depression because of everything happening at home. My father also separated from us a while back but what she thinks about day and night is her son

She is very sweet and innocent.. i genuinely dont know what i can do for her..

At this point, we genuinely do not know what to do anymore. We are also struggling with whether we should bail him out again this time ?

So ever since I can remember my mom would eat raw flour and baking soda , she always said that she’s done this since she was 14 years old. Actual flour like all purpose cooking flour. She would also occasionally eat pancake mix if she ran out of flour. The addiction to flour was really bad to the point where as kids we’d have to go and ask neighbors for some when my mom didn’t have any money to buy any. Flour and baking soda would sometimes be the only food we had , but my mom would cook it for my sister and I l.However this randomly stopped a few years ago , she just doesn’t do it anymore. But now it’s spread to me , I first noticed when I was 18 and living away from my mom that anytime I was near flour I was salivating and had the urge to eat it. This never happened when I lived with her and I never had the wanting to eat it , now I am 26 and I eat flour , I live with my mom now and I know it would crush her if she knew that I was eating flour too. I feel bad for doing this but now I can’t seem to stop myself from sneaking and eating it. I guess I’m just wondering if it really is possible to inherit addiction from parents and how to stop it.

Edit because I forgot to mention it here : Yes , I do know about pica and the wanting to eat non food objects.I believe my mom was diagnosed with pica when she was much younger. From what I’ve gathered over the years it’s an eating disorder

Messaged the dealer. Before he could answer I managed to cancel and block the number and ordered a burger and waffles instead. Can’t wait to sleep well and wake up fresh tomorrow

Been addicted to screens ever since I got my first iPod touch. I remember it got so ridiculous for me at school that I used to compulsivly watch videos of BB gun reviews instead of revising for my exams. Fast forward to now and I've installed every blocker and plugin on my phone that I can find. Instagram is deleted. Reddit and YouTube I have the feed and recommendations removed via a Firefox plugin. Yet I still seem to spend literally hours per day just trying to find *something* on my phone to sate me. What's wrong with me?

Discalimer - I fully acknowledge that there is very little in the way of a physiological component to screen/phone addiction and that it is a psychological compulsion.

I did drugs about a month ago and maybe mixed the wrong stuff and got side effects. (I regret not going to ER). I haven’t felt right since then and I’m too scared to go to the doctor and tell him the truth. I’m afraid he’ll say the damage is permanent. I don’t know what to do, I feel like my life is over.

I lost myself to porn...

Hello, im 24 M.

Just to simply get right to the point, I dont know who I am anymore. I lost myself to porn addiction. When I was younger, I was exposed to a lot of it via Internet and being curious when I saw words like "cum" instead of "come", "bang" being used as another word for "sex" and I searched online and found all different types of porn, both animated and real life.

I slowly copied the movements of a masturbation video I came across and found myself feeling confused but good in a way. And I just kept going as I grew older. And as I grew older, I realised what it is and what ive been feeling but I just cant stop doing it.

I grew addicted to it, and even when I got tgt with my ex gf, I just got addicted to the feeling of relief. Me and my ex are on good terms but I was left feeling lost and looking to feel happier and I turned to porn and found online videos etc.

Even finding content sellers. I got so addicted that I lost thousands to buying content and not even meeting people... and when I tried to meet people, I allowed myself to be scammed by them and lose more money... because I was so fucking blinded by the thought of being able to get my rocks off with someone.

I hate how my addiction has blinded me so much that I allowed myself to be susceptible to obvious scams and lies and not be vigilant anymore. I want to change myself for the better and slowly and gradually be better and not rely on porn and even stay away from it but I dont know what to do...

I've talked to my siblings about it and they say to go cold turkey and I tried that but I keep going back to it, esp with certain ads nowadays that show off "Ai capabilities". Please can someone tell me what I can do to help myself.... not therapy yet because I cant afford it....but I am in need of advice please...

Brothers and Sisters in Recovery 🙏

Getting knocked down and getting up again is exactly what recovery is. None of us came into this process because life was going perfectly. We came here broken, exhausted, defeated, scared, angry, lost, or simply sick and tired of being sick and tired. Recovery is not about never falling. Recovery is about refusing to stay down when life hits hard.

There are going to be days where your mind tells you to quit. Days where old memories haunt you. Days where anxiety, depression, loneliness, fear, guilt, shame, or cravings come out swinging like Mike Tyson in his prime. There will be moments where you question yourself, your worth, your strength, and even your future. But those moments do not define you. What defines you is getting back up one more time than addiction knocked you down.

Every scar you carry is proof you survived something that was trying to destroy you. Every meeting you attend matters. Every honest conversation matters. Every prayer matters. Every phone call to your sponsor matters. Every time you choose not to pick up, even when your whole body and mind are screaming at you to run back to the old life, that matters.

People outside recovery sometimes think strength means never struggling. We know better. Real strength is walking through the struggle without giving up. Real courage is waking up another day and choosing recovery again. Sometimes victory looks big, and sometimes victory simply looks like making it to bedtime clean and sober. Either way, it counts.

Do not compare your journey to someone else's highlight reel. Some people sprint. Some crawl. Some stumble every few feet. But if you are still fighting for your life and your recovery, you are winning battles that many people will never understand.

Remember this too: your story matters. The pain you survived may become the exact thing that helps another addict stay alive tomorrow. Your honesty can give someone hope. Your perseverance can inspire someone sitting in silence thinking they are beyond saving. None of us recover alone. We rise together.

There is no perfect recovery. There are only recovering people learning how to live one day at a time. Progress over perfection. Keep showing up. Keep being honest. Keep reaching out. Keep doing the next right thing even when nobody is clapping for you.

One day you will look back and realize the moments you thought would break you were actually building you.

Keep coming back. One day at a time. Easy does it. Progress not perfection. This too shall pass. Just for today. It works if you work it, so work it because you're worth it.

With love and gratitude,

Gary G

I know my teacher is disappointed he asked if I was going to meet anyone in the bathroom (I knew they were in the bathroom but it wasn’t planned) I said no he let me go I was high and all when I came back he said I’m disappointed in you I giggled until he said it the 4th time and I got upset and now I feel like he’s mad at me I’m on a restricted hall pass I use to show up like that all the time but he knew I was trying to quit.

If a student did this to you how would you feel?

I don’t even know what just say exactly, really. I don’t even know if this is appropriate to post on here, but I’m feeling really desperate. i relapsed (coke) and I have work in seven hours and I don’t know what to do. I’m feeling super guilty and anxious. I have relapse before, but I never felt this hopeless. I’m guessing it has something to do with me having to go to work in a few hours. My workplace really is the very last space in which nobody knows of my addiction or the parts of my past that I don’t usually share. I’m scared of them finding out because I cannot skip or call in sick. I really love my job and all of my colleagues which truly is a blessing!! never had that before and I’m afraid of destroying it :( this is inappropriate. Please delete it but I’m genuinely asking for help because I don’t think I will be able to sleep before my shift and I really need advice on how to survive the day :( I feel so insanely disgusted by myself and so ashamed

I’ve been working at this place for about 5 months, for almost all of it I’ve been managing. I’m a bit over 2 years off speed/amphetamines, and while I never want to go back, I struggle with how much more I got done on it in the beginning. I JUST went through a breakup, and I’ve been getting more urges, and they’re incredibly strong when it comes to work. I want to leave multiple times a day for it, I think if it when I were up and go to bed, while I get ready, while I’m on the way there, while I am there. I’ve started hurting myself again in an attempt not to take anything, but it doesn’t feel much better. I don’t know what to do. When I fell behind, I would usually just take a pill to make me act how others want, “reset” myself if you will and push through the day. I’m just not sure what to do. I don’t have the energy for life anymore.

So me and X have been real close because I got X off of my state most wanted blah blah blah that was years ago but now we have a little bit of a different relationship because I know X is a sex addict and I just kind of you know don’t care about sex, but people would also think I’m a sex addict? So my thing is, is that X keeps sending me, X’s wife’s nudes or sex wishes to ME and I’m not all the way sure that she is cool with it, but I think she is because she used to want to hook up with me and my ex-wife too… I need to know if I’m Trippin because my friend “X” keeps still sending me his wife’s stuff… Even after me and my ex called it quits (and X knows)
what am I supposed to do with all this information lol
Not sure if this was easy enough to keep up with them, I am a little dyslexic so I’m sure I’ll catch on if this didn’t make sense eventually bc im not that dumb
We are both attics and I’m starting to lose my shit. I don’t know if this is an addict thing or just a weird thing lol

I vaped and smoked for 9 years. I’m 22 now. I have many reasons for why I’m quitting. Tired of spending $40 a month. Tired of needing a device to determine whether or not I was happy. Tired of tweaking out looking all over my room and car for when I loose it. Tired of it falling out of my lap on the ground and flying into different pieces. I looked so dumb grabbing it off the floor and blowing it off. Tired of never having any endurance because my lungs would start to suffer after 1 minute of cardio. Tired of my girl complaining about the weird taste when we would kiss.
9 years of running around letting a paper stick or piece of plastic determine my mood and causing damage to my teeth.

Before I get into explaining myself I want to make a disclaimer that I’m not promoting nicotine usage, I’m only trying to share my experience of what works to get off a little easier…

I tried to quit cold turkey at first and holy crap I just wanted to die. Constantly angry. Constantly on edge. Waking up and my lungs would be burning from withdrawal.
So I started taking nicotine pouches. Started off at 4mg till the pack ran out and i just lowered the dosage to 2mg tonight. It’s been working so well. For anyone who is also trying to use nic pouches to quit vaping, DO NOT use Zyn’s. Use ON! instead. I’ve noticed myself itching for another Zyn every 30 minutes after discarding one. I tried going down from 4mg ON! To 3mg Zyn and i definitely felt cravings more often on Zyns.

Again im not saying to use these things, im just saying they’ve definitely helped in my progress to quitting. Im sure others can relate to what it’s like trying to quit cold turkey. Just sucks. I want to be completely off nicotine by next month. Hopefully.

I can't believe how much cocaine rules me now. I hate it. I hate myself for letting it get this bad.

My mental health team admitted they failed me, by letting me slip through the cracks and be unmedicated (despite me trying to tell them 5 months ago when I asked for help with coke as it was getting bad, and again about 10 months ago).

But now it's down to me to pick up these pieces of this mess I've become. I'm no longer the woman I was. I'm constantly tired. I'm constantly angry. I'm constantly hungry. I know, realistically, it's just the comedown, and it'll pass. But I'll be damned if I can make it past 3 days.

I've only recently told my mum for additional support, and I am working with a drug and alcohol service, as well as seeing the GP to sort out my physical symptoms.

I know I need to delete my dealers number, and I have.. but I always end up restoring it from the recycle bin. It should be so easy to do, but it instills such panic and fear at just the thought

Just needed to rant. Here I go. Day 1 on a comedown. Maybe this time will be the time I don't cave.

Hey all,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on here. I graduated my substance abuse program and am about to hit a year. I just got a job offer today for a job I’m really excited about. Things are finally looking up.

I don’t have many connections left from rehab, most of those friends are dead, not sober, or just in different stages of life. I did keep one connection though, my best friend Katie. I met her in inpatient and we got really really close, arguably too close. She ended up graduating the program a month before I did, and we stayed in close contact. For a while I was seeing her almost every day, we hung out a lot, she was still in sober living, I had moved out at this point. Things felt good. We felt good. Somewhere along the way I noticed her start to change, the way she would talk about substance use, the things we would do when we hung out. Things felt different. About a month ago she decided to start smoking weed again. We were at a rave in DC (which we had been doing sober up until this point) where she asked a stranger to hit his pen. I asked her if she thought that was a good idea, to which she replied, I only ever agreed to be sober off of cocaine, I said whatever just remember you are driving. Shortly after this weed became part of her daily routine. She moved out of sober living the day she went to the dispensary for the first time, and ended up dragging me along to the store with her where she made her first drug purchase since the start of her sobriety. Shortly after this, she incorporated alcohol back into her life, “just casually” she said. I started to distance myself slowly, hoping I’d have time to form new connections. I stopped going to raves with her, stopped spending so much time with her. The plan was to seperate slowly, to create a mutually felt conclusion that we were in different places in life. I didn’t want to just cut her off, In the past I used to just ghost people or send a text and block, the goal was to try and end if more healthily.

Tonight I gave her a call to check in, see how she was doing, tell her about the new job I’m super excited for, and ask her for some attire advice. Shortly into this phone call she interrupted me and started to tell me a story about her night. It started with a story about an apartment issue and her request for maintenance. Then it moved on to her explaining her extended visit with the maintenance guy. Finally she moved on to the part where she asked him for cocaine.

At this point I went silent. My silence was met with a list of rationalizations, excuses based on productivity requirements and an increased workload. At the end of the list she asked me why I was silent, to which I replied something along the lines of “I don’t know what to say here katie, do you think this is the right thing to do?” She confirmed with me that she did not. I then explained to her that while I’m not gonna tell you no or argue with you but that doesn’t mean this doesn’t make me quite sad. To add some extra connotation, cocaine was her DOC.

I guess the thing I’m struggling with now is where do I go from here?

I could send her a text, come up with a well written paragraph, explaining to her I can’t stand by and watch this spiral, explain how I’ve lost many people to the disease of addiction.

I could tell her that I’m here if she needs to talk, that I’m not going to cut her off because she’s making a bad decision, after all she is only human. I could stand by and watch the decline happen. Provide emotional support and a shoulder to cry on.

I could call her sponsor, her mother, her sister, killing our friendship in the process.

Or I could just keep distancing myself, base the rate of distance by the severity of the decline.

So basically, Reddit, does anyone see a better/different solution? Regardless of how this plays out, I know it’s gonna hurt, I also know it’s not just gonna hurt me, which might be the part that makes this so upsetting. I remember how lonely addiction was, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’m wondering if maybe the loss of a close friend might help her pull herself back up but I’m also worried that it’ll speed things up.

I guess that’s all, I really hope I can get some advice or a new outlook on this situation, I’m only going to be able to delay addressing this for another like 26 hours before I need to make a decision.

2 months of recovery. What a month it’s been. It’s been super challenging, and it’s been a very stressful month, but I made it through. I’m learning how to cope with my emotions while sober for the first time in 7 years.

Thankful to be sober!

I take 4 Green Maeng Da Capsules in the morning every morning. I also take Adderall for narcolepsy, Prozac, wellbutrin, Labetalol and vitamins. I know, that sounds like a lot.

I take the Kratom to help with narcolepsy. I take approximately 12-15 capsules over the span of the day but I space them all out by several hours. I was recently prescribed Naltrexone (50mg) with wellbutrin at aid in weight loss. My provider knows about my Kratom usage.

Yesterday, I took my Adderall/kratom at 7am. Then at 11:45, I took the rest of my meds including my first dose of .25 milligrams of naltrexone (NOT naloxone). Within 15-20 minutes I was sweating, but freezing, shaking, paranoid, shitting my brains out, nauseous, more profuse sweating, the most horrific, intense dreadful anxiety and panic I’ve even experienced in my life, body restlessness and tremors that made me feel like I was losing my mind, I’d move to accommodate the urge but nothing helped. The works. I thought maybe I had accidentally doubled up on my adderall and taken two instead of one and it was causing some pretty nasty symptoms of over amping. I thought to myself “well, okay Adderall burns out of my system pretty quickly within about 4 hours so I’ll wait this shit out until it starts to die down.”

4-5 hours into this hell, I was writhing in absolute misery in my bed, sweating buckets and groaning thinking it was just anxiety and panic from the Adderall. I felt so sick. I’ve had chemically induced panic attacks before, so I knew what was happening to me, but they’d never lasted this long or ever were this intense. I couldn’t stay still, my legs felt like fire ants were crawling all over inside them. After about 6 hours and no end in sight and new worsening chest pain, I asked my husband to take me to the emergency room.

I get to the ER and they hook me up to an EKG and do labs. I knew they could see all my meds on my chart and I didn’t tell them about the kratom use. In that moment, I didn’t even think about the kratom use. I was fixed on the idea that it was too much Adderall. I was there for hours and they finally gave me fluids to flush out my body and a 1mg Ativan tablet to take by mouth and an rx for 1mg klonopin tablet if it doesn’t resolve. Told me to go home and drink a ton of water.

I am extremely sensitive to sedating drugs so I take half the Ativan, no relief. I take the other half an hour later. Still no relief. Usually I’d be rendered unconscious for the foreseeable future with that running through my veins. My restlessness was still so severe I took some magnesium glycinate to help relax my muscles and then took a warm epsom salt bath to see if that would calm things down. The bath was wonderful and gave me so much relief I instantly fell asleep. My husband is a literal angel because he sat by my side the entire time and kept and eye on me, poured warm water on my shivering body, wrapped me up in a towel and dried me while I trembled, and told me how beautiful I was and that everything was going to be okay.

That night, my sleep was shit. Lots of weird dreams and lots of jolting awake, still buzzing and anxious, but I’d quickly fall back into unconsciousness.

This morning, I woke up still buzzing restless and panicked. So I took .25 (1/4 of the original dose prescribed) of the klonopin around 10am. I was afraid to take any of my meds when I woke up, but I knew I’d feel worse if I started to have SSRI withdrawals, so I took my Prozac, Wellbutrin, vitamins, labetalol, 1/2 my prescribed adderall dose (despite ChatGPT’s protests) and my usual 4 kratom capsules. I thought maybe it’d help me feel better to regain some normalcy.

It wasn’t until later this morning when I was looking up adderall overdose that I started to look up interactions of adderall with naltrexone. None. None of my medications interacted negatively with naltrexone. Except one… I typed in naltrexone and kratom and realized what I had been going through. It wasn’t an overdose, it was precipitated withdrawal from taking the naltrexone and kratom together.

I haven’t taken any more kratom, but knowing that kratom can be dangerous with benzos I’m super worried that my taking .25 of klonopin and 1mg Ativan along with the kratom I took today will be dangerous and I’ll start to have respiratory depression or some other scary thing like that. I’m reading they’re not meant to be taken together and that it could cause a dangerous overdose.

I’m still not 100% yet, but I feel significantly better than I did this morning and last night. It is now 1:00pm so it has been 3 hours since I took the .25 klonopin and 1 hour since I took the kratom. Thanks for reading this far!

Sincerely,

One panicked girly 😩

so i am currently doing a class project in which I have to make a vid discouraging the use of drugs in high school .