Please help me: recently sober from benzos, meth, opiates

Life in Recovery
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Hello all,

I recently relapsed heavily. I use benzos, amphetamines, opioids and more. Im on suboxone (low dose). Every relapse gets significantly worse, the time before last i fractures 5 vertabrae and my shoulder, and had a haemotoma on my brain. This relapse has resulted in me almost losing my job (i am allowed back with conditions soon) and resulted in another hospital visit, this time overdosing on GHB. I need help, I feel so isolated. My family are trying but the strain on them is horrific, and on my partner as well. I dont do NA as i find it very triggering, it makes me want to use, so i am looking for alternatives. I have just moved from melbourne to brisbane. My boyfriend is at his limit, my friends are too, my family is split due to my use, with one of my brothers now not speaking to me and coordinating times to see the rest of my family when im not around. I just dont know what to do. Im looking for any help i can get.

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I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. I feel like i have nothing to look forward to except drugs, I feel awful.

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Hi there and welcome aboard :slight_smile:

Sounds like you’ve been through the wringer with your drug use. How long has it been since you last used?

It’s brilliant that you’ve been able to recognise the problem and well done for getting yourself into suboxone - I haven’t been on it though I believe there are other members who have been given it.

The first few weeks of getting clean, quite honestly, are a bit shit. They can be brutal and your family and friends are going to be sceptical, it’s only natural. I’m sorry to hear your brother has distanced himself from you; I can relate to that one fully. When I got clean, my brother also distanced himself from me; he and his partner had a young daughter and they were adamant that they didn’t want me anywhere near them until I had proven that I was able to stay clean and sober.

You’re probably going to find a lot of that in the first days of your own recovery. My advice would be to own it. If you’re choosing recovery and not just sobriety (there’s a huge difference) then it’s a good time to get very real and try to explore the reasons why your family have retreated from you.

You’re also going to need to learn who you are and the reasons for your use at a real basic but deep level. Depending on where you’re at with your sobriety, it could be a good time to just go easy on yourself. Take the time off work, rest, get some chill time and let the suboxone do it’s work. Addiction is absolute chaos so just let the dust settle for a little while so you can assess the damage with a clear head.

Everyone here is on your side and everyone here is fucking rooting for ya mate. Stick around, do some reading and look for posts and responses, conversations and experiences on here that you can relate to - Trust me, everyone here knows exactly what you’re feeling right now :slight_smile:

NA meetings can definitely be triggering but the whole point of going to meetings in the early days is to be around people who know where you’re at to share those experiences, get them out in the open and to find a solid, healthy foundation of people who you can share your recovery with so try to embrace it. Many people here will tell you that AA, NA, CA etc saved their lives.

Again, welcome aboard and well done :slight_smile:

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Hey mate, thank you for the reply. It’s heartening to hear you had similar family issues and have come out the other side. At the moment I just feel really lost, like you say, I feel completely purposeless. I dont want to be one of those woe is me people, starved for attention. i know a lot of it at this stage is just neurochemistry. Everything readjusting. But I need to find a group that fits, or something to help. I’m seeing counsellors, but i need to find something to keep me in check, a group or just anything that will keep me in check. my relapses usually have to do with sleep, i stop sleeping so i go looking for something to knock me out, or stay awake through work at least. I feel drained, I want to find some resources for people like me.

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I’m clean as of the 7th. I have had to move back in with my parents in Brisbane, hence leaving Melbourne, i think step 1 needs to be finding my own place, as my father has some rather misguided views on addiction. When i relapsed he took me into the city and dropped me at a hostel, which is really not a good place for an addict to be, im fairly resourceful, and when I look, I can find drugs. I don’t blame him, i understand completely, but if i go off the rails again, i know i’ll end up dead, or severely injured again.

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Everything readjusting is good, it’s healthy. Eventually your mindset will readjust aswell and you’ll get to the understanding that you’re not taking drugs because you can’t sleep, you can’t sleep because you need drugs.

You’re basically in a very abusive relationship with drugs that you’re throwing a lot of love at and it’s going to kill you eventually.

Your Dad is protecting himself. Again, it’s natural - Opioid addiction is a hard one for parents to process, my dad still can’t talk about mine and it’s been over 5 years since I took any.

I’m sure you’ve got a shit load of drug taking left in you, you sound pretty resourceful with finding drugs. How many recoveries do you have in you and how resourceful can you be at finding peace with it?

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Welcome to the forum, friend! You’ve talked about these incidents as relapses, what has worked for you in the past to stay clean and sober? What sort of time were you able to accumulate?

I found help at one time in a short inpatient rehab, I think it was 14 days maybe slightly more. I complied with the requirements while I was there and with aftercare for a couple of months. I stayed sober 9 months that time. When I got permanently sober, it was under the care of the Department of Corrections (I do not recommend this for everyone!) following my 6th conviction for driving under the influence.

Physical restraint and enforced accountability did work for me, along with medication, counseling and AA. I found I had to be willing to do whatever I was directed to do, without excuses.

im fairly resourceful, and when I look, I can find drugs

You can use that strength of purpose for sobriety, too. If NA doesn’t work for you, try AA. Like @DresdenLaPagr says, it’s saved a lot of lives, mine Included.

Blessings on your house :pray: as you begin your journey.

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I am resourceful unfortunately. I order lots of things in bulk from overseas. Im not going to go into details on how or what chemicals as i’m not going to give anybody struggling on here those details. I really don’t have many recoveries left in me. I’ve woken up in hospital intubated after being unconcious for 4 days and asparating vomit after snorting an undosed amount of an opioid approx 200 X potency of morphine, i’ve passed out and broken my leg, i’ve broken 5 vertabrae and my shoulder in one incident, and more importantly, i’ve lost more connections then anybody should, and it feels like somewhere along the way i sold my soul. I am so tired all the time. I just want things to get better, but i don’t have any strength. Things go well, i excel in my job, me and my partner grow close, and then I ruin it all, but I really can’t seem to stop. I’m caught between wanting to be sober forever and just wanting 1 last binge and let it be the end. I need to find somewhere i can fit. Somewhere i can talk to people.

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Thank you for the information, i sometimes think incarceration would do me well. I’have a cousin who has been in and out, and it hasnt helped him though. I have been lucky, and because I have a typical junky mentality I can talk myself out of most trouble. I havn’t got any convictions, just left behind lots of damage. I have tried AA. I was in a rehab where meetings were mandatory, unfortunately I can’t seem to find a higher power, and sitting and listening to peoples stories just seems to make drugs sound more attractive to me, no matter how devestating the story. I have racked up sober time before, months, since I was 16 (now 33) i think the longest has been maybe 3-4 months. I don’t know what worked at those times, but i was younger, and i had other coping mechanisms. I really think I judt need accountability. But thank you for your advice. Even just messaging seems to help

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Hi Alchemy, I am so very sorry to hear of your struggles. ((Big Hug)) I am in the United States and I’m not sure how rehab works in Brisbane or Melbourne but hearing you makes me remember myself at this stage. I’ve been clean from heroin and pills for 13 years. One day after nodding off in the ladies room at my very good job, I just looked at my face in the mirror and realized that this was it. My life was absolute chaos, I hated myself and how far down I had fallen and I knew if I didn’t get help I was going to die. I started on Suboxone at first, 12 mgs, down to 8, then down to 4, then down to 1mg a day. Tapering helped give me the time my brain needed to figure out all of my issues and why I began doing this to myself in the first place. And it took 13 years in therapy and being real with myself to do so. I still go to therapy and rarely even talk about drugs, its mostly just about my life now- but the addiction hasn’t gone away and reading your words brings back that chaos for a moment for me, and I feel great to be so far from that now and want nothing more than to express to you how much I want you to make it, to feel that feeling of quiet contentment in your life at last. As someone else said, let the subs help you and let your brain calm down. Time heals, it really does help - for all involved. Keep your lines of communication open with the people in your life who love you, tell them you are struggling and what it feels like, be open and let yourself feel how they’ve been feeling ask them, see it, study it - don’t run from it. Shame sucks the worst but admitting and talking about it makes it so much less. Be honest with yourself first, I mean to the point of looking at and understanding your motivations for your actions at the beginning of all of this. This is what worked for me, every person is different and their paths to recovery reflect that. I was never into NA or AA at all because I don’t practice a religion. I found the strength to do this from my own reserves I didn’t know I had. I wish you love, strength, luck and especially - peace. XO

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Thank you so much for this. It’s horrible but knowing somebody with a similar experience to me has made it through the other side is heartening. I have started trauma councelling as well as the local drug heslth councelling mob, and im hoping it will all help. I am not religious either, which added another level of disinterest in the meetings, however i’ve recently been told of a group that just focuses on recovery using solid data from what has and hasn’t worked in the past. I’m hoping it’s helpful, they also don’t talk about use much, which is great news for me, because as soon as i hear about that stuff i want to dive back in. Do you mind me asking, do the cravings ever truely go away? I really struggle with sleepless nights, and even in the past when i’ve racked some time up sober, if i stop sleeping it’s like my ability to hold back on thr cravings just stops completely.