I remember the moment I knew I had hit rock bottom. At the height of my cocaine addiction. 3 years ago. I hid the fact I did drugs from the guy I was seeing. Honestly to this day I’m amazed he didn’t figure it out. Even after he caught me. He still never realized how bad I was. That I was doing to every single time we went out, every time we hung out. Sneaking off into the bathroom doing key bumps in secret.
One night we were hanging out with some of his friends and I didn’t know them well but they partied too. Next thing i know we haven’t slept in 3 days and he starts to notice we’re all acting funny.
I remember the moment of what happened next so vividly, it makes me feel sick. I remember grabbing the 20$ bill we were using to do lines with and doing a line Literally behind his back and he turned around and I put the 20$ bill in my back pocket. I was so stressed at the fact he nearly saw me and then his friend went for a line and freaked out that the money was missing. I could see it all through their eyes as my world came crashing down. He looked at me disgusted, his friends all thought I was a thief. I could see myself and how it looked, and it was bad.
Needless to say the relationship was doomed after that moment, we were together another year it didn’t work out I lack self love because I’ve honestly looked at myself with that disgust ever since…maybe because I kept that lie in for so long almost as though I was in denial that it was a problem because I stopped it. it’s been 3 years since I’ve done drugs but it’s also been 3 years that I have holed myself up pushed people away and isolated myself long before people were forced to isolate themselves. I saw myself as that bad person and don’t feel like I deserve to be happy because I have been such a bad person for so many years.
3 years later and I’ve made the conscience decision to give up alcohol as well… you can say I’ve abused alcohol since I’ve given up drugs. Used it as a crutch. I’m so alone the majority of the time I can’t stand my own company so I drink; but I’m not 2 weeks sober and getting more active. I feel a bit better everyday, but I still struggle with the question of how do you move forward and learn to love yourself and forgive yourself for your mistakes. I can’t seem to let go of that feeling that I am not deserving of love or joy.
It all takes time sweety. Show yourself some grace. I had to grow my faith by trusting my higher power, the more I relied on him… the more faith I had… as a byproduct, I was able to move forward
I know these feelings well @Sasha and I’m very sorry that you’re having them too.
I had a rough childhood that taught me that I am not worth shit and I’ve carried that all my life. I used to lie almost compulsively just to try and isolate myself as hard as possible from people. I just never used to understand how other people could seem so complete when I always had the gnawing feeling that I was outside and didn’t belong.
It has taken me a long time to get towards a place where I can look at myself and feel that there is someone there worthy of love. You’ve already quit the cocaine. This is an excellent step! I was a heavy cocaine user for a while and it just hollowed me out and made me feel even more like a half person than I already did. It amplified the self hatred no end.
Alcohol does it too. For a long time I used alcohol to almost punish myself. If I didn’t deserve love, then I could hurt myself by getting drunk and hungover and that would be like some kind of judgement I could place on myself as a weird way of making me feel better about how terrible I thought I was. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a pretty fucked up line of thinking but I’ve done it for years and years.
But you, like all of us, are worthy of love. I suggest you try doing something, anything, today to help someone else that has no direct benefit to yourself. Something that you can objectively look back on at the end of the day and say “that was a good thing for a person to do”.
That’s what I did early on (and still do) and it helped quiet the nasty voice in my head that told me I was a worthless piece of shit. I can’t be that worthless if I did that nice thing today, no matter how small a thing it is.
And you’ve already done something good today! Your post reminded me of these feelings and reminded me of how deveststing they are. This in turn has given me strength not to drink today. So you helped an alcoholic stay away from alcohol! That sounds like something a good person worthy of love would do.
Congratulations on the years that you’ve been putting work into your sobriety
Promise you will get there @Sashahug My story is almost parallel to yours & @Kipper. I still have my ups & downs with myself but time heals all wounds.
I see a therapist and he gave me this affirmation thing to read to myself while looking in the mirror…lord that was the hardest thing to date. I wish I still had the info but I lost it.
The peeps of ST have been helpful!!The following has & is helping me now.
Thank you @Purdey68!
Everyday gets a bit better, learning to love myself but by bit.
3 years ago I was a completely different person than I am today and I am proud for how far I’ve come. Where I’m from, cocaine is soooo socially acceptable…it’s everywhere you look, so it took quite a bit of strength for me to finally say no, this is not who I want to be… now I find myself in a similar situation with alcohol. Not that it was destroying my life, I’m a fairly functional drinker it’s just the weight of my emotions after that crush me.
For the first time since I started drinking when I was 17 I can say with confidence that I don’t want to drink anymore and I fully believe that I can do it.
I like the idea of spa days! I got a pedicure on Sunday for the first time in years and it was heavenly… maybe I will start to treat myself more often considering the amount of money I’m saving!
I remember my first week clean, I remember asking on here how do you live with yourself sober when you hate who you are!!
One thing I have took so far from my journey is I’m not the same person I was in addictive addiction, that person was so deep in addiction that I couldnt possibly be a good person!
I suppose for me I will never get over those rock bottom points but I have grown and taught myself to just be kind to myself, so often we beat ourselves up regret, hatred and utter disgust of our past. Non of this gives you the self love nor the self worth you deserve.
So how did I move up and out of the chaos and destruction I had caused.
I accepted I am an addict and everyday I remind myself I want and I deserve recovery.
I show myself kindness and I share where I can my kindness
I can not forget my past but start to forgive yourself
Let yourself know that you can deal with these emotions that come and give yourself the love and approval that you want!
First of all congrats on being clean from cocaine for so long. I can relate to ur post a lot actually. I really struggled with self love and forgiveness of self from the crap I did for all those years. I too struggled with cocaine… that and crack cocaine among other drugs. I did some awful things to other people in order to get high (lied, stolen, was violent and abusive to others) but most of all I hurt myself. I worked the sex trade to support my habit and put myself in awful situations where really bad things happened to me or where I had been abused or could have gone missing. Yes I may have put myself in alot of those bad situations but instead of beating myself up over my mistakes, I began to realize that I was a sick person too. I was unwell and was only just trying to survive the best way I knew how at the time. We are human, we make mistakes. That doesn’t mean that we dont deserve to be happy. U DO deserve happiness and for good things to happen to you. Loving myself again has taken time (and I still struggle with it). Things take time and I honestly found that by doing the next right action everyday and not going back to old behaviours, I begin to feel better about myself and begin to move forward and forgive myself for my past mistakes. It’s when I fall back and begin to lie or steal or manipulate, that makes me feel shitty about myself again. So I choose to live a diff way of life today. Just be gentle and patient with yourself things will come
I’ve been feeling really good to be honest.
I’ve started a routine of some morning yoga and meditation to start my days with a fresh mind amidst my busy stressful workdays and it feels really good!
I feel focused and it’s so refreshing waking up without a hangover. I’m starting to feel stronger, I’m prioritizing myself, and every time I feel like I want a drink I think about how slippery that slope is and how easy it is for me to fall back into that depressive cycle, and it reaffirms my decision.
I made it past my 1 month milestone and I feel for the first time in a long time that I’m going to be ok.
things will come