Ok im new here and woundering what life is like after cocaine addiction. Iv been suffering from cocaine addiction for the last 2 years, well longer but for the last 2 years it has been everyday and really ruining my life to the point iv neally died a few times. Iv just relapsed after 50 days but got no plan on giving up as each quit gets better and better and the day you give up trying is the day you sighn youreself up to the death sentance
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When I was in high school I became really good friends with someone whos older brother was a drug dealer and became really good friends with him too. I was 17 years old.
That was my introduction to cocaine. We were drinking beer when he broke out a big pile. I was pretty drunk. I did some and I instantly became addicted. Being a drinker I loved how cocaine helped me drink more.
I started husting blow for him and through him. I could have made a lot of money, instead I did a lot of blow. It started out fun but it also took me deeper into the realm of scum bags that are associated with cocaine.
My cocaine hustle ended up having me raided by the S.W.A.T. team. I was in trouble. That night, the narcotics squad ended up hanging out at my house and arrested everyone who knocked on my door. They searched and interrogated them. By the end of the night there was around 20 people arrested. They took us all to jail in a big van. I had a feeling whoever gave them info to get them the search warrant to raid the house was in there with us. I suspected most of them. I never figured out exactly who it was.
It was my first drug offense. I was 20 years old. I was looking at five years in prison. I was scared shitless.
Due to some pages missing in the police report, I got off pretty easy. I plea bargained to possession of marijuana and got 100 dollar fine. No felony conviction.
I was on probation. If I got in any trouble at all the felony charges would come back and I would do five years.
The pages were missing because who I thought was my best friend snitched (There are no true friends when cocaine is involved.)
After that my life changed dramatically. Everywhere I went strangers approached me trying to score. The people above me thought I snitched. I was in danger. I got jumped and beaten up by four guys in masks. I thought they were going to kill me.
I was trying really hard to stay clean, but I knew too many people and I slipped a few times. Fearing prison, I moved 1200 miles away where I knew nobody and started my life over.
I slipped a few times but didnāt take it very far. Prison scares me. I donāt want to be the prom queen at the prison dance!
That was a long time ago. Iām 53 now and I donāt allow anyone who does cocaine in my universe.
Life is a lot easier and more peaceful that way.
Cocaine is a drug where any pleasure you take from it will return a hundred times more pain!
Lose all your contacts. Move if you have to. The only happy ending with cocaine is quitting!
Dont give up trying! I Love that username!
Glad your here!
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Iām dealing with this today. Long time friend and dealer. Ive been dodging him for 3 months but someone died and he called me up and needs me to come downtown and be with him. The shits always free and itās always flowing. Iām realizing (thru another thread i posted) that my only move Iāve got right now is to not go, to avoid him. Saying āi canāt make itā doesnāt work very long, i canāt avoid him forever. but maybe itās not the right time to have that convo yet. And i donāt want to get locked up or get caught up in his shit either. Maybe thereās something i donāt know about how or why the person diedā¦ And i donāt want to catch myself on that side of it either. Itās fun, until itās not.
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I was just reading your thread.
I had to ditch a lot of really good friends I wouldnāt go. I know its hard to leave people behind. Its necessary. As long as he is using and or dealing its not safe for you to be around him.
Being a drug addict is selfish in a negative way.
Being in recovery is selfish in a positive way.
You should look out for number one! (you)
You can become an example for recovery to him. He may or may not make it out.
You can!
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Thank you so much man for replying and also that is some story 
im glad you managed to get free. So what was it that brought you here to this group and im for sure deleting all contacts and facebook, its always the final dominoe to fall for me 
i do have a amazing sponsor now and working my steps harder than ever as iv really got some shit to fix to the people iv harmed. 1 day at a time for now
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Id say stay away ! As hard as it is and hes youre friend recovery should come first on this one. well for me i know id 100% use the temptation would be too much as im early in recovery 
i am deciding to stay away from all friends and places failed too many times thinking id manage it. GOOD LUCJ WITH YOURE DECISION
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Also nice to meet you too
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I was so young when I got strung out on coke. I turned 21 while I was in trouble. I became of legal age to use the legal drug alcohol. I had zero intentions of quitting drinking.
After my court struggles were over I kept drinking while quitting cocaine. Its a bad idea. Iād be at the bars or a party and someone would break some out and off I went. Risking everything. One night I wasnt doing cocaine, but I was really drunk. I left my car and walked home. The next morning I woke up and I was beat up. my wrists hurt and I had bruises on my ribs. I vaguely remembered a run in with the police. I grabbed my pack of smokes and there was a ticket. Public intoxication , and resisting arrest were the charges. It was the same court and the same judge that my cocaine charges happened.
When I went to court the judge was ready to throw the book at me and put me in a cage. He asked me if I had anything to say for myself. I told him I was of legal age to drink. I was being responsible not driving and I donāt remember why the cops gave me the ticket.
He sentenced me to alcohol classesā¦Whew!
After that I knew I had to leave. Iād end up in prison if I stayed.
So i did. I worked construction. A couple of times me and friends from work tried to get some blow. I got ripped off both times. One time it was so stepped on it wasnāt even worth doing. Another time I was lured into the worst part of town and dude went and got me some, delivered it and disappeared. It was chunks of soap in a baggie. I paid 300 bucks for. I decided it was a good thing and quit trying.
Losing my connections was good.
Good coke crossed my path again in 2001. and I got strung out again, but my connection got in trouble and that didnāt last long. I started using meth and that got crazy really fast. I was spun for 6 months and I called a friend who was in AA for help.
My sobriety date was Jan 10th 2002. I decided to try and drink like a gentleman in 2011 and I eventually slipped up and did some drugs again. That was my golden rule. No drugs! When I drink I sometimes end up using drugs. Coke for sure, if it crossed my path but it never did. Meth, adderall and oxys did.
I had a really hard time allowing myself to come back to the program. I found this place after a terrifying meth psychosis episode. I got seven months recovery back under my belt and had a drink. That did not go well at all.
This place helped me put the bottle down. The support here is awesome!
That was 657 days ago! Iām grateful to be back in recovery!
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In 2002 I got clean in SLC Utah. I want to cocaine anonymous there. It was a fun fellowship! they had the funnest events! their motto was recovery is fun!
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I donāt know how it was for you, but once it became an all day every day thing, for me, it quickly lost any positive effects, all it did was make me want more and more and I was a slave to it, chasing a high that never came, desperate to stop but just could not resist it, Iād wake up crawling in my skin waiting for the dealers to start delivering, Iād be awake from 5am trying to distract myself from the crushing anxiety, staring at my phone waiting for my message to deliver, pacing around my flat, feeling so low and so desperate, I was dependant on the drug not for a high, but just to feel ānormalā. I tried every single day of my final year of using to stop, I went 6 days the first time and had a glimpse of how free and amazing I could feel without it, that was only because I was on the other side of the country and had no contacts and didnāt take any with me on purpose, I was on a training course for a new job. As soon as I returned, within an hour I was using again, three times as much as before, all day every day, safe to say that new job didnāt last very long. I did manage 88 days early last year, but I was still drinking at the time and one drunken afternoon I made the wrong decision to try to reconnect with a friend and I didnāt even meet up with him but it was too late, Iād opened that door and in slipped the devil, and I was using within a few hours, all day every day, and it didnāt even make me feel normal any more, just severe anxiety and panic attacks with every line, and when I ran out Iād feel so panicked and suicidal that I had to take benzos to calm me down and help me sleep, but I still kept going! I managed 48-72 hours quite a few times after that, and my hope wasnāt lost, I kept trying, and lost everything and everyone. I begged and prayed to whoever my higher power is, Iād spent every last penny I had worked so hard to save my whole life, around Ā£50K over 2 years. I remember the last bag I bought I paid in change, including 2p and 1p coins, then I stopped, that was 347 days ago. At first I just slept a lot, was in a lot of pain, and very tired and hungry. Once that passed, I was anxious that I suddenly had all this time every day, I didnāt know what to do with myself, I spent most of it on here, reading posts, looking at the memes, checking in daily. I soon found more ways to fill the time, I started exercising again, watching TV shows, meditating, doing housework and taking care of my hygiene. Iām still a work in progress, but I rarely get cravings anymore, they usually come if I get a random text from a dealer, (youād think theyād leave me alone after all this time, but Ā£2K a month is a lot to lose I suppose), when I do I feel so terrified, it can feel like day 1 all over again, but I have managed to get through them all so far, I never want to go back there. Sobriety is freedom. Iām still struggling with my mental and physical health but Iām much more stable than I was back then. Iām grateful to be sober, I was convinced I would die before I made it out.
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Life after cocaine addictionā¦
For me I had tried and tried to stop usingā¦ Cocaine was my first āstreet drugā. I had to get out of my hometown before I could try and stop usingā¦
When I did that all I that happened was I transfered my drug for anotherā¦
After I went to rehab and openly admitted I was an addicted that I abused anytime of drugsā¦ Something happened my mind set changedā¦
Recovery has been the best thing that has happened to meā¦
I am not skint 99% of the time
Im not itching to be on any substanceā¦ I handle and deal with situation so much betterā¦ Instead of letting the substance be in charge I amā¦
I have gone from homeless to having my own little flat, good loyal friends from around the worldā¦ My health has improvedā¦
Cocaine is one of those drugs that give you a false confidenceā¦
A pud the places you would normally go to, you need to make changes if you want this drug out of your lifeā¦ And donāt just jump on to the next substance work through your problems
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Well done and so proud of you and hoping to be saying the same thing in a years time
This is exactly what it has been like for me, before i found my amazing sponsor in was 5 days then off again at best but when i wasnt quiting every day. Like you said i would just want more and more and i didnt evan like it, i was taking to not feel ruffā¦ everything you said here i relate and gives me hope that i can change also. Thank you
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Hiya just read your post Iām going through the same thing just about getting up to a month longest Iāve gone in years without it I am finding it hard when I see it on TV or online but just remember if you stopped before u have the willpower donāt let it control you here if you ever need a chat
Welcome to the forum! Im glad u havent given up on trying. For many years my DOC was crack cocaine and honestly for the longest while i was a chronic relapser. The 3rd day clean was always the hardest for me. I had to block and delete numbers and make it verrrry difficult for me to use bcuz paydays were the worst. But then coming on TS and having the support of others on here, it eventually clicked. I just kept trying recovery and made sure to learn from my relapses. Id do things differently every time and found new ways to cope with my trauma and emotions. I started to discover who i was as a clean and sober woman. I went from a drug addicted sex trade worker to now having 569 days clean 
I had to remember that using drugs serve absolutely no purpose. My mind will lie to me and tell me that it does, but when u look at the damage and destruction it creates, its not worth it. We end up in 1 of 3 places if we continue to useā¦ jails, institutions, or death. It is not worth a temporary high. Keep coming back and post before u want to use. The opposite of addiction is connection. So stay connected
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My cocaine addiction was crack and the paranoia after so long started to seep into the rest of my life. When I first started, the ātweekersā scared the f*** out of me, it was years before I truly understood what that was like. There would be late nights or early mornings when I wasnāt using, on my way to or from work, Iād be so creeped out walking to and getting in my car. I was terrified to be home alone and always kept lights on. My fears were honestly so irrational and I HATED feeling this because it almost always triggered me 
Moving to a new place I have never used in helped, but that took a whole yearās clean time to figure out. I definitely cut off anyone in my life that was using, including a significant other. That was obviously the hardest. I still remember one of my dealers numbers, but hopefully eventually that will fade just as my paranoia has. Sometimes our minds are our own worst enemies.
Itās really rough at first. Almost 2.5 yrs clean tho and I can finally say Im starting to heal and repair a lot of the damage I did to myself. Life is beautiful. I like to think itās even more beautiful BECAUSE I am an adddict in recovery.
I will say I struggled a lot in the beginning with feeling āselfishā because I had to eliminate people from my circle. I felt like a feral cat backed into a corner and I would do anything to get out and save myself. The only thing that helps with the guilt I feel for leaving people behind is coming here and talking about it. Maybe something I say can help another in their recovery journey and just that little belief helps me feel like my addiction and everything that came with it wasnt for nothing.
Just here to say that ANYTHING is possible and you are the hero in your story!!
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