I have been struggling so much with my recovery in dealing with something I enjoyed soooo damn much… it’s been a hard process for me and something that I don’t want to face, that I will never touch a pill again. To me the pills (norcos) kept me in a good spot blocked out all my emotions and kept the ugly thoughts away. Any help would be great…
seek counseling . you need to start dealing with your problems. this is going to be the hardest most scariest thing you will do. one day at a time. ps start loving yourself again
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I cope by celebrating my freedom.
Think of how much your addiction limited where you could go in life, what you could and couldn’t do. Think of all the wasted time used to plan around your alcohol/drug use.
Those things are no longer problems, if you stick to the path. Celebrate the freedom that you have given yourself.
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Everyone is different. It is difficult especially when you have had no mirror of how to regulate your emotions. I am always one way or another but that space to have before reacting to make a choice - there is none. Window of tolerance is so minimal. I grieve differently due to my high ACE score 9/10. Realizing that I was subjected to abuse which made emotions scary, dangerous and all around unable to trust them. It will be Day 8 for me at 5:30pm tonight. I feel more connected to my body, to my brain and feeling is grieving. Grieving I was never truly taught resiliency. I can learn. Knowing it going to feel like I am bottoming out - I have to ask myself ‘Have I suffered enough with the pain?’ Remember once the DOC wears off - it is there to greet you. Asking you to feel and heal.
Coming to a place of the calm surrender and acceptance. Don’t think it’s going to be warm fuzzies. Nah its like detoxification from all the collection of defense (atleast for me).
Finding me.
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i’ve had similar thoughts about alcohol but instead of saying ‘never again forever’ i just take it a day at a time. whenever i romanticize it, i kind of treat it like an ex-boyfriend. was lovely when it was lovely, was real f’king foul when it was foul and just better for my mental and physical health to walk away.
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I think that’s so beautiful. I like to try and rush healing. Good for you to be able to be mindful.
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I never saw it as a loss once I really decided I’d had enough.
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I just felt like I depended on it so much and wanted it and still do to some degree but I know it’s not worth the pain I cause myself or my family.
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I think with s little more time you will miss it less. I can’t physically use any form of opiate or opioid right now because the naltrexone will block it and I believe also make me very ill though every now and then I do think about it and can’t look at pictures of heroin.I doubt you will miss getting dopesick 
Yea I’m on suboxen and can’t take none either or else I’ll be hella sick too plus I can’t get the high I want off the norcos because of the medication inside the suboxen. But I do think that I’ll think about it less and less and will not be effected so much… i also have another road bump to my husband is a user and has been sober for 2 weeks but he has a hard time with not using sayin his addiction is not as bad as mine… like I told him an addiction is a damn addiction no mattter how hard one is over the other… we both like pills and I have been on this sober boat for 62 days and I don’t want to look back… I’m hoping it’s a journey we can both stay on
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Does it make you sick,I thought it was Naloxone along with the bupenorphrine, the bupe will no doubt block any rewarding effects from the pills anyway, especially at 14mg daily. Here in the UK we get just bupenorphrine via subutex or espranor, it doesn’t contain the Naloxone. I don’t know if it works the same in the US but I really didn’t want to have to take it at the chemists supervised so I took a series of drug tests (all clean) and they changed it so that I could pick a weeks worth up every Monday.
I only mention this as I know that they have your in a higher dose than you want to be on and being in charge of it yourself sound enable you to lower your daily dose are your own speed. I hope your husband sticks to it with you aswell.
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If your can convince him to attend an NA meeting with you then there he will learn that it doesn’t matter if he is as bad, worse or whatever than you. I understand that is easier said than done though. Maybe two him that your want to try a meeting and so him to come to your first one to support you.
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I’m sorry @Pam925,
my response to your post turned into a short story.
I guess, thank you, for inspiring it 
I hope it lands.
Imagine if you made a Halloween mask, all by yourself. Creating it was fun and when you finished it, you genuinely felt pride. What if it was the most beautiful mask you’d ever seen?
Moreover, what if it was so beautiful that everyone agreed you could wear it everyday?
Let’s say that you do; you wear it everyday and eventually everyone comes to know you by your mask. All of your FB and IG photos have you wearing it, your drivers license, family photos, hell, you even sleep with it on. Now, even YOU think the mask is you. It kind of IS you. It’s who you are NOW and you forget who you were and who you could have been, without the mask.
Then, one day, 8 police officers with rifles come to your door and tell you if you don’t take your mask off, they’ll take you to jail. Next, a doctor makes her way through the crowd and says you can never put the mask on again, or it will kill you. Lastly, your friends and family come to you and tell you they’re sorry, but you’re going to have to see your mask everywhere you go for the rest of your life and constantly see others wearing theirs.
Immediately, you feel like your center, your core, your very soul is being ripped from your chest. You get mad, trash your place and, after a terribly painful temper tantrum, eventually wear yourself out.
There is an unprecedented silence that envelopes you and emptiness in everything you see. They are gone and you are alone now, in that empty silent stillness. Days feel long but weeks feel short as time slips away aimlessly.
Lonely, bored and a little bit afraid; you sift through the wreckage, looking for some comfort in those old photos of your, not-too-distant, masked life. Perhaps reminiscing about the good times will lift your spirits a bit and remind you of how fun you were.
But something funny happens; not at all what you expected - you’re not IN any of the photos now. Everyone else is there, all the people and places are the same as you remember, but you don’t see yourself now. You only see the mask, floating there, next to your friends and family. There’s no sign of YOU at all. Nothing at all behind the mask.
And just like that, you realize it wasn’t you. Those memories don’t bring you any comfort now because they didn’t happen to you. They happened to the masked you. They happened around you and away from you. You COULD have been there, if it weren’t for the mask but damn, it just felt so good. That shield, you wore on your face, hid the real you from the world and kept the real world hid from you. It was a lie that was told to you AND by you, simultaneously.
“Maaaaaan, fuck that mask, it’s all a lie! I wanna live my life.” you say to yourself. Now you’ve got some wind in your sails and begin plotting a new course for your life. You step outside, look around for the first time in a long time, and the horror comes into focus. The lie is everywhere. You see people in masks on every corner, in every store and all around you. All of those lives are being buried under masks and now you’re one of the few people who can see through the lies.
So what do you do?
You’re not alone; there are others that see the lie also. Seek them out. They will be better allies than you’ve ever known.
Be on-guard, every day. There will always be a part of you that misses the mask.
Help others let go of their masks. They can’t see the problem, but that’s not their fault. Help them see, help them quit, help them get what you have; their life back. Ultimately, it really doesn’t matter how long we’ve worn the mask or why we made one in the first place. What matters is what we do with the little bit of time we have, in this life, with these people, on this earth. This is yours now.
You get what everyone gets; a chance at a lifetime.
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TRICK QUESTION: They’re ALL ugly! 
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So true!! I have gained so much in my sobriety.
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I went to a dual diagnosis treatment center for 33 days and went to IOP for 3 hours a day for 7 more weeks…it really helped me come to terms with myself and get a handle on what caused me to seek out such destruction…
I just got word today that the 10th person in the last 14 months I was at rehab with died this morning at 26 years old…so whatever you do please dont give in…
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Wow. Dude. Just… well done.
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Hey, thanks!
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When I came in here, all I knew was that drinking wasn’t helping and I was on the brink of giving up on everything. As I read around, I decided, What the heck. If I don’t care and don’t know what to do anymore, why not try what these people are doing?
I surrendered. I did all (…okay, most …okay a lot!) of the things the cool, sober people did. I turned from what had been holding me back and toward the voices that had made it through.
In that process I heard talk about grieving. It didn’t click. There wasn’t much, if anything, I missed about those times. They were torture and fading behind me.
My grieving struck about a year later, still working at sobriety with others. I realized I was sad. But wtf, life is better! That’s when I had @MrCade’s mask experience, seeing it for what it was.
I realized I felt like a different person. A new appreciation for everything around me and a peace just being in the moment, even when life was uncertain. When it struck it was unsettling. Life looked so unlike the past many years of my life it was unfamiliar, but in the uncertainty was now something sure and comforting.
So I say grieve. Grieve every day you’ve got to, because it is strange and it is scary. But that’s because what’s on the other side can be so dang beautiful.
(Tl;dr – Working a program helps. 
)
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