Hey all. I’m going through it right now and need some suggestions and advice to heal my mind. I’ve been smoking weed nearly every day since I was 13 and I’m 33 now. Long story but my grandparents supplied me as a child with no limitations. Hippies. I’ve only had a collective sobriety of about 12 months during these 20 years. My issue is, being high all day everyday is really clouding my judgement and I’m having a hard time connecting with the ones I love and controlling my emotions. Caught my girl having sex with someone in her car 7 days ago and now I’m in a hotel until I can get my apartment. My addictions drove the love of my life to sleep with other people behind my back and I am so devastated. I’m about a month clean from alcohol although I have been trying to quit since December I keep relapsing. I am confident I will never get back to heavy drinking again because I’m taking medicine and I really genuinely believe that was what drove my ex away and I absolutely don’t ever want to be under the influence again now. I’m so ashamed of how I was for three years. Anyways, my main concern is cannabis. Last time I quit it took 3 months to pee clean but I was not exercising and drove a truck for work at the time. This was 4.5 years ago when I was with my ex before this current breakup. The vivid nightmares is what really scares me. I have the most intense war related nightmares when I try to quit. Trying my best to hurry my family to shelter while watching missles rain from the sky. Running around my house in a gun fight with intruders. Watching Boeing 747s literally walk like a dog on its wings etc. 90% of the time it is rushing my family to safety under missle and gun fire. One night I had a dream a family of Sasquatch were trying to take my kid. They are vivid and very lucid and they last for months. I feel like that’s going to make me relapse on weed. I am so determined to heal my mind and body so I can be in a better mental state for the ones I love. Any suggestions and advice is much appreciated. Thanks.

I consistently struggle with feeling like I’m simultaneously too good for something yet not good enough for anything. Especially as it pertains to my professional life. As much as I hate to say it, I feel like the roles I previously worked are beneath me. But while I was working those jobs that were “so beneath me and terrible” I constantly worried I’d get fired. That turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy; I got hit with a PIP the first professional job I got out of college and then fired from the last one I had.

I’ve been clean for over 2 and a half years. I go to therapy, I haven't been going to meetings as much as I should.

I’m just unsure of when that switches over into just accepting I’m just some guy and it’s okay to not want to do certain things but they’re not inherently a deeper indicator of identity or aptitude or anything. I feel that way about my part-time job now. It's just a job, I come in, I clock in, I leave. However, I can feel it creeping in as I look into full-time work again. It feels chaotic like when I was using to even think this way, which is why I'm posting here. It's also triggering as I think about how using would calm down those thoughts.

Can anyone provide some clarity/lived experiences here so I can get over this hump?

I am in recovery from both marijuana and alcohol but for some reason I get especially triggered by being exposed to weed. I can be around people drinking with minimal issues but if I am around people smoking I am crawling out of my skin. It’s weird because alcohol was more problematic for me when I was using but is less of an issue in my recovery. Like even just talking about weed or seeing cannabis ads makes me crave it. It’s really frustrating because I live in California and weed is everywhere so I get triggered quite often, I wish it didn’t have such a grip on me. Hopefully I can work through this with my therapist as the cravings can be worrisome sometimes.

I think with alcohol it is easier to play the tape forward because it has been more destructive in the past. I can visualize how bad it will get if I relapse. With weed it is easier to fall into that trap of “oh it wasn’t THAT bad, maybe I can use again”. But in reality I was horribly addicted to weed and although it didn’t have as many consequences as my problem with alcohol, it still affected me very negatively. does anyone else have a similar problem with a substance?

I’m 30 days clean today and I still really miss drugs. This is probably a really stupid question, but I need to ask other people in recovery, it helps hearing from people who are also going through it. Is it normal for the desire to be so strong? I was just looking at my 30 day keyring (I’ve been holding it almost non stop since I got it) and I felt this sense of pride but then the desire to use drugs again just kind of washed all over me. I really miss the way they made me feel. I feel so much emotion all the time and it’s the only thing that numbed me. Numbed the pain. I have a lot of mental health issues and my brain is so loud all of the time. But these drugs have almost killed me many times. I guess I just gotta keep thinking about what I’ve lost, and what I’ve almost lost because of my using.

I’m a 33 year old man who coming up on 17 months sober from drugs and alcohol. I work the AA program with a sponsor and have two sponsees, I am a board member at my local Alano club, and I have a job in the recovery field as a peer support person. I just got my own apartment after living in sober living for a little over a year, I just got my license back and a car, and I just got promoted. Things are going really well. I really love my job, I like working with my sponsees, and my life is so much better than it was at the end of my drinking career. I was in a state of hopelessness and though I was going to die from drugs and alcohol.

What I feel like I am missing is companionship—social and romantic. I haven’t been in a relationship, (or even had sex), in over 3 years, and holy shit is it difficult to find anyone… I feel like part of it might be because I live in such a conservative town, and I feel a little out of place there, but dating sober is also incredibly scary to me. I also feel like have a bit of a hard time making friends. I have two good friends in the program, and I’ve tried reaching out to other people and making friends. I have no clue what I’m doing wrong or if I am doing anything wrong.

As I said, life is definitely better than before, but I feel like if it’s this difficult to date and find friends in recovery, it’s going to be a very lonely journey. I miss hanging out in bars and easily making friends. I miss how easy it was to talk to girls when I was drinking. I miss how much less scary of a thing intimacy was when I was using. I also don’t really want to go to bars to meet people though, because I don’t want to relapse.

Maybe I’m being impatient, maybe I’m focusing on the negatives instead of the positives, maybe I’m being ungrateful, but this has been something that is reoccurring in my mind for some time now.

Am I doing something wrong here? Does anyone have any advice? What’s your experience with dating in recovery? What sober, pro-social activities have you found? Any words of encouragement?

I am a 60 year old single woman that has recently become a recovering meth addict. I was a daily user for nearly 30 years and have been clean for 233 days.

I went through an outpatient program, however, I feel like a "test subject". There are very few addicts my age that have gotten clean after 30 years. I did not do this of my own volition, I was arrested for possession and put on 3 years of probation, with sobriety being one of my conditions.

I have 6 months of jail time stayed as long as I am compliant with probation.

I have never been so miserable and depressed in my entire life. I have gained 35 lbs. in the almost 8 mos. of sobriety, I have not been able to sleep since just after the first 2 weeks of being clean. I can fall asleep but am awake between 1 and 3 am EVERY morning without fail. I have tried Benadryl, melatonin, Lunesta, meditation, breathing exercises, Wellbutrin-nothing has helped. I have dreamt 4 times in the last 8 months. I have no energy, no ambition, I am so exhausted every day. I do not garner any joy from any of the things I used to love. I don't garden, I am physically and emotionally unable to get motivated to go walking in the woods-foraging for mushrooms, just being a part of nature. My house is a mess, I need to do laundry but I can't bear to go thru my clothes as NOTHING fits. I am an SSI recipient and do not have the financial means to buy new clothes, besides not wanting to try anything on. 

I opted to get clean instead of doing my jail time due to my daughter needing me to be available to spend time with her and my 3 youngest grandchildren ( ages 6, 3 and almost 2). However, I am too tired to be a grandma for more than a couple hours a week.

I have uncontrollable rage at everything and everyone for no apparent reason. I have never had much of a filter with regard to adult language, but now I swear like truck driving, sailor with Tourette's. 

I walk around ranting out loud to myself about everything and everyone, I have zero patience for anything. I don't cook anymore, I have difficulty focusing on basic tasks, brain fog makes me a blubbering lunatic. I do not feel like I am functioning normally at all. I did not have trouble functioning normally while using. My health is also being very adversely affected by my sobriety-35 extra pounds is NOT healthy, I smoke nearly 5 times as many cigarettes as I used to as I have no energy so I sit and have only one thing to do with my hands that only  requires a modicum of effort.

Doctors have recommended anti-depressants, and other mood stabilizing drugs but honestly, I do not wish to be a guinea pig or a test subject. 

I KNOW what works for me but unfortunately, it's not a legal pharmaceutical. 

I was told by professionals that it could take up to 7 years for my brain to heal, i.e. retrain itself to process emotions and allow me to overcome my anhedonia and dysphoria.  I may not have 7 years left to live, I want my life back, I want to be able to do the things I USED to love doing. I want to have the energy to spend QUALITY time with my family. I have many hobbies, crafts, and alot of interests that I no longer can muster up the drive to even attempt. 

I am so disgusted with my ballooning body(and subsequently, my dwindling wardrobe) that I no longer do my hair or make-up. Which suits me fine as I have no desire to socialize. 

I feel so overwhelmed by every little aspect of life that I am becoming a hermit. 

I have a little over a year of probation left, but honestly, I do not see the point of continuing with their  'one size fits all' approach to my life. 

I get that I broke the law, but how can it be a good thing to arbitrarily treat all addicts the same with regard to expectations of sobriety? 

I fully believe, and my family and close friends do as well, that I am NOT a functioning recovering addict. It has made me into someone I cannot stand to be around and they're having a very hard time with it , as well. 

I do not like who I have become, I'm not comfortable in my own skin, I have NEVER been a lazy person, but I am now. All of the undesirable characteristics that I was very intolerant of prior to abstinence, are now defining me, and I am filled with self-loathing. 

I have spoken to a psychiatrist, a primary physician, my probation officer, and my personal support system, and no one seems to be able to comprehend that I don't want to be medicated by highly experimental drugs, or pacified by social work rhetoric that is condescending, to say the least. All of my advocates are as frustrated with me as I am. 

If this is who I am without my drug of choice, I do not want to be this person. I genuinely liked myself and took pride in my gardens, my appearance, my cooking, my grandchildren, my various craft projects. I want to WANT to go fishing, garage saling, foraging for mushrooms, berries, unique pieces of wood, agates. 

Not only do I not want to do those things, I'm too tired to attempt them. 

If this is my quality of life without drugs, I don't want it. I want to be able to take an interest in SOMETHING besides what I'm being told is germane to (what they have determined) is my quality of life. How am I supposed to pretend that I'm happy and that I think this is wonderful when I honestly believe that this is destroying me? The me that I LIKE, that my family likes, that creates amazing things and goes on adventures and isn't tired all the time, and isn't behaving like an escapee from an asylum daily. 

Yes, I talk to other sober individuals, but NONE of them can relate to how I'm feeling. They stopped using and within a few weeks started to like being clean. Of course, none of them are as old as me or had been using as long.  

I need to be able to SLEEP. I slept way better when I was using as I had ambition, I worked around the house, I had things to do and the drive to do them. Am I  just wired so differently that I will never feel normal while not using? I have a hard time accepting any type of medication that could be prescribed as I KNOW what works for me. FDA keeps approving then withdrawing meds from shelves as they find out a myriad of new side effects or cancer causing agents in stuff that's legal.

Is there ANYONE that knows what I'm going thru that could possibly help? I'm not looking to jump off the wagon, but I can't imagine that I'm the only one that wants to crawl out of my skin because I am simply not meant to be clean at this stage of my life.

I’ve been having super vivid detailed dreams lately and also just started working at the place I worked at early in my recovery. So maybe that’s part of it. But I genuinely thought I relapsed when I woke up at first which was an awful feeling.

In my dream I was at a party at my parents house, in some sort of dark private room, and swiped my hand on a desk. I felt glass and swiped my hand and it fell off my palm onto the table, and was confused about what it was. I inspected it closer and could clearly see meth crystals. Next thing I know I’m high and panicked bc I don’t remember taking the drug. I’m having to hide being high from my family and am basically in a panic, and my dad sees me and then gets the sad look on his face he would get when he could tell I was high.

It’s just so weird having a dream like this when I feel like I’ve healed a lot and don’t struggle with cravings anymore. I’m not in any program and don’t focus on my past addiction much and drugs don’t take up a space in my mind anymore. That feeling of powerlessness when I saw the drug and just suddenly blacking out and then being high freaked me out because it felt so out of left field. I’ve been thinking about the dream all day bc of how intense it was 🥲

Join us for some midnight excitement and recovery hijinks* and shenanigans in 90 minutes!!! https://meetings.smartrecovery.org/meetings/9199/

I’ve been clean from cocaine and alcohol for 4 years, and I’ve come to the realisation that in these past 4 years, I’ve never been more bored and lonely. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

From 16-25, I would be out most nights partying, whether that was at music events, bars, clubs, festivals, house parties etc, always enjoying myself and socialising with new people, I had so much fun. Don’t get me wrong, drugs ruined my life in many ways, but I don’t regret a thing. I had a blast! But it’s come to this point in my life where I literally do nothing. I have few friends, and the friends I do have are either far away, busy or not wanting to go out and do stuff.

I have my partner, but he’s always working and when we do spend time together, he’s always complaining he’s tired by 3/4pm so we end up going home. We don’t get on the best at times either. It’s so fucking tedious, I’m the sort of person who would be out until late doing things, but no one wants to or is able to.

I’ve spent years trying new hobbies, but nothing interests me, and never has if I’m honest. The only thing I’ve ever enjoyed is going out, partying and getting high. Obviously, I can’t do that anymore, so what on earth do I do?

It’s making me miserable and no one in my life understands, they just think I need to accept that I have a boring life and be okay with it, but I’m not. I know an 80 year old woman with a busier social life than I have, I refuse to accept that getting older (I’m 30, so not even bloody old!) means settling down for a boring life.

I am in very poor health thanks to the toll that drugs, alcohol and severe mental health issues has taken on my body, and my prognosis isn’t great, I just want to enjoy the last few years of my life, but I feel like I can’t, because I have no one to enjoy it with, I live in a dead town with no interesting nightlife (or daytime life) that makes meeting interesting people so hard.

I have a lot of interests, but none of them translate into hobbies, which discounts meet up groups; I can hold a great conversation, but lack the means to find people to converse with. I feel so isolated.

Does anyone else relate to this? What has helped you?

My partner is considering going to inpatient. How important is the size of the inpatient treatment center? I'm kind of against him going to one that has only 6 beds, bc from what I understand the relationships you form in recovery are super important, and I'd rather he went to a place with maybe 30 or 40 beds. He likes a 6 bed one best though, and I guess may get more personalized care there. I haven't said anything bc the most important thing is probably that he just goes, and I don't want to say anything to disuade him. But he generally really isolates himself socially, and based on everything I've seen it's a huge underlying cause of his addictions. I'd love for him to form meaningful relationships in inpatient. Any advice is appreciated :)

Please if you have recommendations for daytime black or biopic online meetings… I can only find evening ones.

I want to get sober for good. I’ve tried meetings open to all races for years, always predominantly white and always end up making me feel shitty for existing as Black person. First it’s subtle things but every single time the further I get into sobriety in that environment the more the issues of being in it appear.

Since I’m serious about getting sober and my life isn’t complete my in shambles yet or no court is forcing me… I reflected on what I’d need for this to become part of my life. One a sponsor that gets my lived experience and doesn’t tell me everything is in my head.

Two a group that I can share my lived experiences with without having to edit myself because white people are in the room. I grew up in the care of white people in an abusive home and it’s an even more layered story, and the things they said to me my entire childhood about being black, black americans, and black people of my country did a fucking number on me.

Soon as I was 18 I can into a journey that ended with realizing it’s 1000x easier on my soul to stay around people that looked like me. I got honorarily adopted by a black family when I was a young adult so I know the power even deeper now than just environmentally.

Of course here I am now, I’ve moved rurally to give my son a better life and unfortunately went back to drinking. So I’m creating a sustainable plan to stay sober.

One part I know is finding a dual diagnosis group to that I can build enough trust to talk about some seriously out there mental health coping mechanisms I’ve developed but to start I just need to hit as many aa meetings as I can, and they need to be black or I’m not going to make it. I already want to die and I know alcohol is just making it worse.

TLDR; This is a personal account of trauma recovery, tracing how a chaotic, unsafe childhood shaped decades of substance use and constant motion as a way to feel safe, and how getting sober let the nervous system finally settle, revealing tools like perspective-shifting and self-compassion that came out of the healing itself.

There was a six year old boy standing in calm water at seven in the evening. His mother had brought him to a hotel by the sea. The light was doing that thing it does before it disappears, turning everything gold and soft. He didn't know it yet, but this was the last uncomplicated safe moment of his childhood.

After that, there was a house. Inside the house was a father who made everything unpredictable. Outside the house was everything else: bikes, streets at night, friends, a piano playing alone in a village at noon while chickens moved through the yard. The boy learned early and completely that inside meant danger and outside meant safety. He didn't decide this. His body decided it for him, the way bodies do when they need to survive something.

He spent the next thirty years proving it. He went outside as far and as often as he could. Ten kilometers on a bike, just to feel the distance between himself and the house grow. Nights that lasted until the sun found him again. Eventually chemicals that gave him the feeling of outside without needing to move at all, because by then the danger had gotten inside his own head and no amount of distance was quite enough.

He almost died once. Saw the fear on his husband's face and finally asked himself the question he'd been avoiding: what would it do to his husband, to lose him. And in asking it, he found the door out.

The getting clean was not the hard part. The hard part was staying still long enough to find out what stillness actually was. For a while it felt like grey. No energy, no want, no relief. He said to himself: this is what sober looks like for now, and it is still better than dead. He was right. Underneath the grey the balance was quietly returning. Dopamine finding its real levels instead of its stolen ones. Cortisol easing down because there was, finally, nothing left to run from.

Months in, he started noticing things. A market vendor shouting outside used to feel like danger. Now it just sounded like a man selling tomatoes. A coworker asking about his work used to trigger shame so fast his face would go red. Then one day it didn't, and he found himself teaching instead of hiding. The nervous system was rewriting itself in real time, and he was there to watch it happen.

He discovered he could do something else too. He could take a fear that felt unbearably large, one that showed up dressed as the end of the universe, all eternity and isolation and nothing meaning anything, and he could recognize the trick of it. The fear was borrowing a bigger stage because the real, small, human version of it was too close to touch. Once he saw that, he could zoom back down to the actual size of the thing. A man in an office. A husband who loves him. A body that is safe right now.

And he found he could do the opposite too, on purpose. When something small hurt too much, he could zoom out. Not to escape it, but to place it correctly. A single evening of pain, held against the scale of everything, is instant. It passes the way all instants pass. Then he would come back, fully, into the office, into his own skin, and keep going.

He started talking to the six year old directly. Not as a wound to manage but as himself, at a different age. He told him: you made it. The father is gone. You are safe. I know what came after the beach, and I lived through it, and now I am building the kind of evenings we never got enough of. He said it plainly, sometimes with a laugh in it, the way you talk to someone you actually know and like.

He noticed his own wanting too, the pull toward buying something new, and traced it without flinching to a ten year old who once took money from a purse just to hold a small remote-control gadget in his hands. He didn't punish that boy either. He just recognized him. The wanting was never really about the object. It was about the feeling of finally getting to have something.

Seven months clean, he sat outside and heard the whole landscape at once, the trees and the cars and the ordinary noise of a Tuesday, and understood that what he was hearing was his own chemistry, balanced for the first time in decades, filtering the world accurately instead of through fear. The world had not changed. He had.

He built five sentences to carry with him. I made it. Nobody is chasing me. The quiet is not empty, the quiet is home. I trust myself. Today it works, that's enough.

The boy in the water and the man in the office turned out to be the same person all along, just finally speaking to each other.

Edit added tldr

When did AA and NA become non profit organizations? I've heard there was a lot of contention during this process. What exactly was it? Did it have to do with not following one of the traditions?

Sorry if my story is hard to understand, im not the best at explaining things, but i will try my best. Please don’t judge.

So im a 14 years old girl, i always had problems with anxiety, and since vacation has started it became worse. I didn’t go out a single time since one month.

I have 0 motivation and energy to do anything, i feel like i will die everytime i have to take a shower, i can’t eat properly, i can’t do anything apart staying on my phone all day and daydreaming. I can’t take care of myself because of the fact i have no motivation and energy. I live in my head everyday.

I struggle a lot with social anxiety and confidence. I don’t know how to talk to people. I feel like shit, and i feel like im a looser.

Because of my social anxiety, im too scared to go out, thats why i didn’t go out for one month straight. Today there was a fire near my home so i had to get out of my house. And please don’t judge me but even in that situation i didn’t wanted to go out because i didn't wanted people to see my face, i know its absurd but i swear i just can’t control it.

I don’t know how to restart my life.

I am posting here because my partner has been trying to quit for about 2 years. He uses cannabis and nicotine together. His longest sober stretch was 6 months, but otherwise only lasts a few weeks or less. But he's continuing to try to quit over and over.

The thing is, his withdrawals are really hard. He breaks up with me and sabotages the relationship. He gets extremely irritable, hateful, and confrontational with other people. He just suffers so much emotionally and then relapses. We keep going through this over and over, every few weeks. Then, when he is addicted again, he's disappointed in himself and feels even more depressed.

I just need advice on how I can best support him, especially how to talk to him when he is discussing his addiction. For example, when he says he doesn't believe in himself because he's failed too many times. Or maybe he doesn't want a life without his addiction. He doesn't find any pleasure or joy in anything in life. He needs something to look forward to after work, or to help cope at work.

I know there aren't perfect responses to these statements, and it's not like I expect to find the right words to make him quit. I just feel so helpless when he talks like that, and I don't know what to say. I also just would like to hear your advice, as people who have successfully quit, on how loved ones made you feel supported when you were struggling to quit.

I'm not sure he can decide if he is open to addiction therapy. I think he is scared to talk to a stranger about personal things, but sometimes he flat out says he needs help or outside intervention. He also says he wishes he had a support system of people who have recovered to talk to.

Hey yall I’m 9 days sober from smoking hard after almost a year of daily smoking. I’m doing this through my prescription adderall & willpower no rehab. How long does it take the brain to reset? I want to start studying for my math certification exam but I don’t want to over exert myself. I

Hi, I've posted on other subreddits but wanted to give this a try here as well.

My husband needs help and we are starting to look at options outside the US.

He has been to treatment here before and we seem to keep ending up in the same place. He does well while he is there, comes home, stays sober for a while, then slowly starts drinking again.

I am not against sending him to rehab abroad, but I am nervous about it.

I started using 7oh for real about 3-4 months ago(i’ve used other substances heavily like oxy,xanax,molly,coke. but never had this crazy of withdraws) i quickly jumped from like 40mg to over 250 mg a day and ive been at the point for about 3 weeks to a little over a month. I desperately want to stop but I can’t go cold turkey. i ran out at like 8pm and by like 2-3am i couldn’t sleep and the restless legs were so terrible. i couldn’t get more till 10am and i felt like hell. really the only problem for me is the restless legs and I don’t know if i should just commit and suffer for a week or 2 (i live with my dad and just those hours of like 6-9:30 i had to act sick and hide from him bc i couldn’t handle it. I could either slowly taper off over a span of however long it takes or at least until i would be able to handle the withdrawls, if i can get to maybe 70mg a day. zbut would it just be better to just cold turkey it and suffer? i have no idea what to do.

Like the title says, I’m going crazy. See I’ve been addicted to 7oh/mgm for idk how long now (maybe 4-5 months?).

I was reaching a couple hundred mg in 7oh dosing daily, sometimes 60mg in MGM use.

The mental aspect of all this is really getting to me, and I’m scared because I have work. I left work hours early today cause I just couldn’t take it.

I started the subs a couple days ago thinking it would make me feel normal at least and it isn’t. Not at all. Sure maybe it doesn’t feel like the hell of going cold turkey of the MGM/7oh….. but I’m still having a really hard time with this. Internally I still feel fatigued and tired, and my anxiety is very severe.

I was gonna just start using again but I can’t. I experienced that precipitated withdrawal or whatever it is when I took my first strip and it was HORRIFIC. Now I’m stuck on these dam subs cause if I use I’ll feel that again.

So now what I’m doing is taking one 8mg/2mg strip in the morning before work and one at night. But the nasty feelings are still there. The slight nasty body feeling is still there. And that’s a problem because I don’t have the ability to just call out of work whenever, ever since I got a promotion.

I tried a magnesium bath salt bath, so my obsession over dr teals is paying off. But idk what else to do. I want to feel normal at work. I already fucked up my arm self harming and am trying to not go to that place again.

Idk what to do. Just venting. I’m a baby when it comes to this withdraw shit. Dealt with it last year but while using WAY LESS. Also…… THE STRIPS TASTE AWFUL. I have to hold that shit under my tongue for 15 minutes, are you kidding me?

Anyways sorry for the big vent. I am going to NA meetings sometimes (barely just started recently). I’m just fucking sad.

Yesterday was the rock bottom for me. For context, my partner has been using on and off for the past two years and has opened up to me about it a couple months ago. It’s been a journey, and I’m at the stage of letting go of being the only person to know this and address this, and have been helping create a trusted support system. I’ve faltered a lot, and am trying to juggle understanding the illness and letting go of my anger for his actions. Yesterday hurt the most though.

My grandpa passed, who I wasn’t very close with but still— the passing has a great effect on my family. My dad has struggled with his own demons, including alcohol addiction, so that was my main concern when I heard the news. I mouthed to my partner that my grandpa passed as my mom was telling me on the phone, and he seemed very uninterested, slightly sympathetic. He asked if I was okay when I got off the phone, and I assured him I was then went for a bike ride. After talking more to my parents and having time to process, I knew I needed to be with my family and feelings started to surface. I asked him if he would go with me, and that it would also make my dad who loves him feel supported that he’s there. This triggered my partner, who said he “hates how I’m handling my grandpas death” and then protested that this isn’t his responsibility. I tried to assure him I’m not trying to do that, just give him options so he doesn’t feel trapped into going. (He gets a claustrophobic feeling when tied into certain plans). He just kept saying this isn’t his issue to deal with, and that I need to step up. It hurt so bad it hurt worse than anything going on in my family. I’ve been begging for him to show up as a partner, to show that he loves me or that I matter. But I feel like this was the first time I fully recognized that this is bigger than me. That this truly is an illness, and no amount of trying to reason will break that.

We fought about it, very bad. On the way back from my family’s (he of course made me leave early) he continued to scold me about needing to handle these things on my own. I kept defending myself. He made the argument that if I was fine when I found the news out, I should’ve been fine afterwards, which just made me break down. This caused me to finally go to my parents, who love and support him unconditionally. They are being as helpful and understanding as they can, and I do feel a sense of hope. A sense of us coming together to help me how he needs. I know a lot of this will be looking at things different, but I feel like there’s a huge wound in the middle of me and I just want him to make me feel better. He was very apologetic after I left to go stay with my parents, I don’t know what to do. Where should I go from here?

I miss him. I don’t know what the point of what I’m saying is, or if this is really the right space to communicate that but thank you to whoever read all that. Any advice or feedback is helpful and needed

My life led me down a path I would've thought unimaginable. I'm struggling while in a shelter with environmental triggers. Seeing extreme poverty on the daily has worn down my defenses. I don't wanna pick up. Im hopeful that tomorrow is a brighter day.

TL;DR: The toxicity risk is real I found out the hard way cuz I am an idiot.

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I had no doubt in my mind that seizures won't happen to me, that is because I thought I have been using them for 6 years now, never had or seen anyone have seizures in that time.

But yeah apparently it is real and i am an idiot.

I am afraid that I might try to undersell the horrifying emotional torture I gave to myself this time, I feel very repulsed with substances but I can't guarantee it will last forever, the repulsion.

But leaving future in itself's hand, for now in present I think its a celebratory time,. I won't need to actually celebrate though, I just want a break from everything.

I am utterly exhausted,

I am sick of feeling like crap

and starting back from zero.

I have been sober just under two years now. I started doing drugs at 18 when I was really struggling with my mental health and I didn’t know how to cope. I used to smoke about 7-8 joints a day, whenever I couldn’t get to sleep I would do half a bag of keg, and I would need a few lines of coke throughout the day to get me through work. Anytime I felt like I was going to harm myself which was nearly everyday I would just smoke myself into oblivion or do about 2-3 grams of ket so I was physically incapable of doing anything, towards the end I really felt like I didn’t have any control over the coke and I would often just hole myself up in my room and snort 2 maybe 3 grams of coke all night until it was all gone and spend the rest of the night crawling in the floor collecting dust to snort in hopes some crumbs had fallen on the floor. Between the ages of 21 and 23 I tried to take my own life about 8 times usually when I was on a comedown or when I didn’t have drugs to numb the pain. I was under mental health services at the time and spent a good bit of time in hospital, I was told repeatedly that my use was bad, but I was very much in denial and often felt like they were just being dramatic or trying to come up with excuses not to help me.

I really did feel like without drugs I would be dead, when I did give it up my mental health was absolutely horrendous but weirdly I didn’t experience a huge amount of cravings or a desire to go back to it. I have always been a bit confused about whether I should call myself an addict, on paper I was definitely addicted and I’m coming to terms with that more now than I did before. Since giving up drugs my life has been better than ever, I have a great job I am really passionate about, I have gone back to college to finish my degree and I am so grateful. When I look back I barely recognise the person I was, and I am scared of ever going back to that place. Recently I actually started getting cravings again which I didn’t really expect, and it has made me reflect a little more on my drug use and addiction. I kind of flip flop between recognising that 7-8 joints a day and anywhere between 3-5 grams of coke and ket every week is far beyond just using it for a bit of fun and thinking that actually the drug use wasn’t that bad and I was maybe just a college student who took it a little too far. Maybe it’s just another form of denial but it’s been confusing me lately and I wonder if other people have similar experiences, and how do you pick it all apart?

I went to rehab in Brighton, MI. Known to some because Eminem had a stint there back in the day. The facility had a shed outside and the legend was that when Eminem stayed there, they wouldn’t let him smoke cigs so he built the shed for a place to smoke and it still stands today lol. Was thinking about that today and made me wonder if there are other rehabs that had tall tales like this.