This is a long shot...but any oldtimers?!

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DallasAlice

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I don't know if any of you remeraber me, but I was first a lurker and then a poster about my opiate addiction, suicidal ideation, then subsequently my travels into methadone maintenance...this was about 5-6 years ago.

The reason for this post is simply, life after addiction. I went to rehab for 90 days, and have been back home for almost that much more. My question for all of you is...do you find it hard in sobriety? Do you feel you need to do something, anything, to make the mundane seem less mundane?

After cold turkeying off methadone (by far the hardest, longest, most awful thing I've ever done!), and getting off benzos, I find it's hard to "just be," you know?!

Is it just me, or am I so fricking bored I could explode?

Dallas Alice
 
Hey there Dallas Alice! I've only been on the board for about 6 months, so I don't remeraber you. I was on Oxy for a neck injury and once I detoxed, I found that since my body was so used to the Oxy supplying the endorphins, that I felt bored, sad, emotionless, etc. afterwarRAB. I had to push myself to go out and find things that would start creating the endorphins again naturally. I started doing things that I really enjoyed and that made me happy - that helped. I still don't feel like I'm back to normal yet (4+ months clean), but I try to get out and do whatever I can to pump up the endorphins. Sunlight seems to help me and I have UV (Plant Glo lights) in my office where I spend a lot of time and I try to get out in the sun to get it naturally, as well. It's a challenge and it can mask itself as depression. Increase your Serotonin intake also (i.e., apples, pineapples, tomatoes, plums...) can help increase your mood to make you want to do more.

Its a life long struggle once you come clean and to stay that way. It is easy to just say chuck it and go back to the old ways, but you really do lose out.

You should find NA or AA meetings at attend on a regular basis to help answer your questions, express your feelings and concerns and listen to other people that were or who are in your situation. Sobriety is a challenge and goal in life. Nobody said it would be easy. Many people count their nuraber of days that they have been clean - I just remeraber that it was in mid-February that I finally went cold turkey. The reason I don't count is because to me it doesn't matter to me how long I have been clean, so long as I am TODAY.

Go out an ride a roller coaster to get some natural endorphins pumping in your blood stream!!! :-) Good Luck!
 
it has its ups an downs , but by far better than my best day getting high, have you gone through the steps , do you talk to a sponcer drugs are but 1 sytem of our allergy , are you active in some type of program , even with all this sometimes life is not a bowl of cherries,getting clean is easy staying clean is hard work , my recovery program has tought me to relax. i have my bad days , some depresion.i keep myself busy looking outside myself for help, we have to give back what has been so freely given .na or AA is in you local phone book , dont foget what you went through 5or6 years ago. you could try councleing , this is a life time journey are we going to try to enjoy it or fight it. i am going to enjoy it. i did not get sober to stay miserable,an that is what self help has tought me. life is good:wave:scott its hard but its simple ,depending how much i want to complicate it, on any given day , this to shall pass keep us updated:)
 
Hi Alice,

I'm "old" for sure but not an old-timer here. But I do know the horrors of methadone withdrawal -- I got off it in '77. Physical WD took at least a month but then I was in rehab for another year. When I heard it was being prescribed for pain these days, I was kind of shocked. I'm sure it has its place in pain management, but I know I'd die of pain before I'd take it again.

Anyway, I don't remeraber feeling bored or aimless back then, but I sure do now (tapering from oxycodone). I am hoping things get better when the narcotics are out of my system and my brain starts learning to amuse itself without them.

Just wanted to say hi and congrats on your recovery!
 
Hi and thanks for your replies,

I guess the key to recovery is sometimes just having patience. Patience with life and with one's self. With opiates there was always an instant change; a different spin on things. After training my mind and body that something foreign has to be chemically introduced to make me see, feel, think differently, I know that it can't realistically be undone in a relatively short time. I know the real problem lies within the thought process behind why I felt I had to 'alter' life in the first place and to remeraber how much I want to learn how to enjoy life without all that. Funny for as old as I am, in sobriety I'm very, very young!

You guys are right, it is a lifetime process. After all, it took 30+ years of drug use to eventually get to rehab, and in rehab there was a ton of structure. Yoga, acupuncture, meetings--like sometimes up to 7 a day. There was a routine to sobriety that maybe I haven't translated into my life at home. Now that most of the harRABhip of methadone wRAB is gone, it's time to create structure and routine in my daily life. I was going to meetings about a month after I got back, and then I just stopped. Not sure why even...but I did like them and appreciated the supportiveness and comaraderie there.

One of the hardest things is rebuilding a support system. In giving up drugs I also had to give up my frienRAB. If I were to put myself around any of the people I used to hang with, I'd most likely start up with old habits as well. For me it required a total letting go of everything and everyone that was remotely related to using. I find my solitude difficult and that's when I realize the importance of rediscovery. If nothing new is ever tried, then old ways will be the surest way to find comfort.

Sometimes it is just too quiet though...

Dallas
 
Hi Alice,

After I got off methadone and out of rehab over a year later, I was lost....I had no "straight" frienRAB. The only thing that kept me off drugs was that I was pregnant (by a fellow rehabber who wanted nothing to do with me or the baby). But even at that, I am ashamed to admit I went back to the old frienRAB and got high one last time when the baby was a month old....and I was still nursing. Lovely, huh? I still feel horrendous guilt, even 30 years later. But I guess it was during that one last hurrah that I saw how sad and miserable the druggie life was....and I never did it again. I managed to get (and HOLD) a job, make new frienRAB, and move on with my life. (That's why I'm so sick about being in this position again.) But back to you -- is there anything you can do to occupy your time, meet new people....?
 
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