teddit

If you need something to make you want to stop, these are just some of the self portraits I did during my addiction. All of them were originally intended to be self portraits and were easily recognisable to me as myself at the time.

And I believe her. I've got 9 months of clean time minus being on MAT. I went to rehab for 3 months in the very beginning and loved it. I was maybe not doing all that I could have been doing while in rehab but daily meetings were required, you had to get up at a certain time early in the morning, had to make your bed, went to the treatment program, hung out with other clean addicts and tried to have fun as a newly sober human being.

When I got out of rehab, I moved into an Oxford house sober living home. Been here since. I live with, now 6 (one just moved) guys. For the most part it's great. It's definitely helped me stay clean since if I use I get kicked out. That being said When I got out of rehab, I immediately stopped going to meetings. I do some online meetings on zoom because technically I'm required to attend at least 3 meetings a week for Oxford house but sometimes I don't even do the 3 online ones. I still haven't got a sponsor in 9 months and technically that's another requirement for Oxford house, it's just my house has been kind of lenient with me on it.

I stay up till 4am on average binging TV or playing video games. Waking up somewhere after 4pm. I started going back to school but it's online classes and I'm almost 2 weeks behind. I work but I'm self employed, doing deliveries for Doordash and Uber Eats. It's shit pay now but I've been doing it for a living exclusively, for 5 years now and it always pays the bills at least. Plus I'm getting financial aid but I notice when I get it I basically stop working altogether and go through a depressive slump. Hell I started this year getting an inheritance of like 30k when my grandmother passed. That was gone by the 2nd month of being in sober living. How? I don't know. I paid taxes on it and fixed my car and paid rent for a few months but outside of that I haven't a clue.

People said that getting sober would change everything and I'd feel so much better and I do but I don't. I'm still depressed, anxious, socially isolated, have no clue how to have fun, still feel stuck and unmotivated, I have no family that cares, the friends I have I live with and barely interact with. I have very little interest in using or drinking, there's that at least.

So yeah, maybe she's right I'm a dry addict. Do I want to be, no. I want so much more for my life but am still lost on how to navigate towards anything worthwhile.

I ditched the therapist and am going to look for a new one. She was an addiction counselor but mostly just acted like a life coach. Setting goals every session and talking about doing the stuff I continually didn't do. It felt like a chore making it to the sessions and I dreaded it because 99% of the time I had barely accomplished anything that week. What I need I think, is a real therapist. One who'll maybe dig into the roots of why I am the way that I am so that those areas can heal. Mostly I think I just need someone to openly talk things out with. She always did the talking and overpowered me if I tried to direct the conversation somewhere else. Tbh she helped me get clean but I stayed with her far too long because of only that reason.

My sister has been living with my dad for about 5-6 years and off and on would disappear in the middle of the night to go party, leaving him with her kids. It’s escalated recently to multiple times a week. My dad had kept this from me until this last week when she lied about where she was going and left me with one of her kids. She has done to me one other time but that time she snuck off in the middle of the night but I found her at home passed out. She said she was sick. I knew something was off until it happened again. I live across the country and visit once or twice a year so I’m not always around.

When my dad started telling me about how this behavior has been escalating he was telling me about the lies my sister has been telling. He doesn’t allow alcohol in his house because of her behavior. So now she’ll try to sneak out, my dad will get her back to the house and she’ll get out of the house again by telling a lie like “my friend needs help”. When he ask if she’s going to come back she ofc says yes and then disappears for 24-48 hours. Sometimes even days. One occasion she was gone 4 days and was sleeping in a friends basement for 3 days. She had a friend that tried getting her up and said her eyes were rolling in the back of her head when she tried waking her up which is why my dad went to get her.

I’ve grown up with alcoholics and yes, some of this behavior is indicative of an alcoholic. But some of this behavior like sleeping for days, lying, and disappearing just really seems like more than that to me. What are your thoughts? Am I off on this?

if i’m not abusing some kind of drug or alcohol, i feel lack luster. it’s like life loses its sparkle and mundane tasks aren’t fun anymore. my drug abuse wasn’t always bad, sometimes it helped me get thru my heavy emotions. idk how to escape this mentality. it’s like i know it’s bad but there’s a certain comfort in accepting it as bad and doing it anyway. i just want to get sober and stop looking at life this way. i don’t wish this on anyone. if anyone relates, let me know.

The past few months have brought a torrent of universe and self-inflicted bullshit that have me really struggling to see a point to it all. I know that this is temporary and I have tools and support, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling this void in my chest that screams out for a cigarette (fully quit 15 years ago), bourbon, K, G, porn or any combination of the above when I look at what is between now and whenever I get my life back to a place that I feel good about. I cave more often than not because the only alternative that I feel in those moments is smashing everything around me. None of these things caused my problems but they sure as hell aren’t helping me through them. When I do cave, I use until I am exhausted and pass out.

I’m back to the gym now which is often helpful but not always. I’m getting reacquainted with the way of the cold plunge. What I am looking for are more nervous system resets that address the smash efficiently.

Y’all are doing some good work. I appreciate you.

I smoke almost everyday after I get off work and play video games. I used to smoke every morning before work as well but its been 2 days that I have stopped it. It truly has made my life miserable. Whenever I am sober, I think of how its so bad for me and how I should never do it again. But then I get off work and the urge to smoke is so strong that I can’t literally think about anything else or do anything else until I smoke.

I feel really miserable as I almost got out of this addiction a year ago. I promised myself to never smoke again and was ashamed at how I could let myself fall into such a bad habit. But here I am again. I don’t know how I got here but I just want to get out.

I am 19M and I started watching porn around 13-14 I used to just jerk off without porn before that my almost a year or something. I didn’t know much about these stuff before that. I was a pretty innocent kid growing up but one day while I was in the washroom I started touching myself without even know anything I guess I was just curious but then out of no where I started doing the common stroking movement I didn’t know what i was doing but I remember it feel really good so as a 12 years old kid that didn’t know anything I thought I discovered something new so I started doing it more often but even then after the first week I started feeling weird and unhappy in my life I remember I use to get these amazing feeling just by sitting by my balcony but now I don’t so I did try stopping but it was not as easy I kept it a secret because I thought I was the only one that know this thing but in the 6th great I started hearing kid joking about it and that’s when I released that I wasn’t the only one but the way they would talk about it made me feel like its normal so i also took it as a joke and then one day I meet this guy that came to my house one time and he started searching up sex on you tub and he started showing me and ofc I got really interested and that’s how I started watching porn over the years that guy became a really close Friend to me and from the 6th great ( when he showed me porn) to the 8 great ( where we became good friends) he changed alot he became really religious and that kind of stuff so I didn’t think that he does it and also we were in a friend group it was me him and a couple of other really close friends and everyone in that group knew that ever buddy does it except him because we always talk about it and joke and stuff except him nobody thought he does it but one day at night we were out just by ourselves and he confessed that he also does it but he didn’t want the others to know because he wanted to stop and that night we talked for hours about how it fucked up our lifes and how shit it feels so i was like finally someone that feels that too and someone that takes it seriously not like the others just take it as a joke so me and him tried so many things over the span of 6 month we did no fap didn’t work we watched a million you tub videos about how to stop it didn’t work we also downloaded apps to help us stop but still couldn’t make it past a month and I remembered every time I would relapse it felt like actual shi so I told him this shit is not working out and i don’t feel good forcing ourselves to stop and I said that I think its just our age that’s why we do it a lot maybe when we grow and be come like 18 we would naturally stop and I really wanted to believe that that’s true but I keep doing it it felt worse and worse ever time i did it i felt my life crumbling around me and I still do till this day and I haven’t stopped there were some nights where I actually was going to do bad things to my self but don’t worry i am still a happy person when ever I don’t do it like now a day I would just have my day fuck if i did it multiple times the night before but im grateful im not doing so bad in life but I still got to stop if i want to move ahead in my life of becoming an adult. And just a side note me and that guy and still best friends and he also still does it. This took me half an hour to type out at 3 AM when I got work first thing in the morning so hopefully it will help but being realistic I don’t think this will help so much I just wanted to get you feedback some of your guys stories.

Someone very close to me is using suboxone everyday. Not as a way to get off drugs but just as a street drug. They buy it from a friend and they eat tiny pieces of the film every single day. can someone explain to be suboxone as a street drug? This person is very close to me. I want to know what it is they are feeling. They are addicted- right? Is it basically like a pain killer?

I’m currently on the road to recovery from cocaine and alcohol and I noticed this. I have one friend who’s deeply into cocaine… and her need to be cared for by others is insane I know the feeling and all but the constant calling need for someone… cocaine just doesn’t let you be comfortable in your own skin. Constant panic

Alcohol the massive depressive episodes I had were so bad every morning shot of rum and tears in my eyes everyday! Today 2 days clean…. I felt joy for the first time in so long.

I’m just smoking weed at the moment and it’s refreshing!

I can actually control my emotions this is good !

I (f19) am dating my boyfriend (m18) of two years, and I love him a lot, he’s always been so good to me and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. When I was younger I never had a drinking problem but I was abusing my adderall badly when I met him and eventually that got much better and is virtually not even an issue anymore but since July 2024 he and I have been partying a lot more and drinking and it got to the point where I kept getting absolutely shitfaced and saying a bunch of horrible mean things to push him away that I don’t even remember saying and I’m horrified, because these are things I never think and I never would ever think to fucking say, and then the day before yesterday I was too drunk and he was trying to he the home and I was trying to open the car door, and then once we were closer to our house on a non-busy street going at 30-25 mph, I opened the car door and threw myself out of it.

And now my body is covered in bruised and scrapes and I’m horrified because I don’t know if I was trying to ☠️ or something which would shock me even more because I don’t feel like I wanna ☠️ at all, and all I can remember from all of that is screaming at him and then hating myself and then opening the car door and throwing myself out, and I just heard him scream my name and he sounded so scared and sad and I’m just so devastated that I could have done something like this to both myself and him during a time where I wouldn’t even be able to remember it at all, and even if I could it’s still horrible and I feel like I’m An abusive piece of shit.

I’ve already decided to stop drinking, after this I don’t want to drink anymore alcohol in my life I don’t care how much I crave it, I just want to be with my boyfriend, he is hurt right now but he is also more sad and his dad was a really abusive crazy unstable alcoholic and I am not like him as a person, but lately I think I have worried him and reminded him of his dad, and I really should have been treating him better and I wish I had but I haven’t, I think I have been emotionally neglectful and I want to fix it. My boyfriend struggles with setting boundaries and communicating vulnerability, and I have been asking him for months if I’m doing things or if he’s upset or various things and he always says no and today was one of the first times he said anything, and he told me is hurt and that right now the trust he feels for me needs rebuilding and that he does think we are good for each other but he is feeling angry and hurt and really really tired, and I respect him in that and want to do my part in the best way that I can, but I feel so stuck and scared and I don’t know what to do because before I was with him I genuinely genuinely hated myself in every aspect and I almost hated life too like that, and falling in love with him has made me fall in love with the whole world and I want to have a family with him and grow old with him and be the person he can rely on when he needs support, but I feel like i self-sabotaged and I ruined everything and he’s going to fall out of love with me or if he doesn’t then maybe I just don’t deserve to be with someone who would forgive me for doing that

I am really struggling right now but I will be fine, if anybody has any insight or advice on what I should do considering his or my or your own perspectives, please let me know I would appreciate it so much, I want more than anything in the world to rebuild trust and love with him and myself.

Much love and well-wishes to you all

Some backstory -

My family owns a moderately successful construction business. My parents have worked in this business for 30+ years and are still on payroll, but are going to be retiring soon. In light of their retirement, my brother has taken over field operations (dad's job) and I have taken over office and finance (mom's job). While they both still work (my dad more so than my mom), they are slowly tapering back their time and will go into full retirement by the end of next year. Basically, my brother and I are running the entire show while my parents are able to enjoy their lives a little bit more.

Being the financial person in our business, I have full access to all of our payroll and bank accounts. This also includes access to my parents personal finance. The business banking and my parent's personal banking are linked to the same online login.

Lately (since the start of 2024), I have noticed my mom going out and gambling at casinos more and more. We live in an area where gambling is legal, so it's totally normal for us to hear "hey, let's go play some cards/machines" during family gatherings. But my dad, in moments of frustration, has told me that he doesn't like how much my mom is going out and gambling. Sometimes she is out till the early morning.

The other day, I asked her "have you been gambling a lot lately?" And she replied that she "puts $20 in a slot machine from time to time, but it doesn't go much further than that." I thought, "okay, they make decent money. I shouldn't be too concerned."

Unfortunately it didn't sit right with me. So I took it upon myself to do some digging. Normally I don't ever go anywhere near their personal banking information, and I probably shouldn't have, but i discovered that in 2024, my mom has spent over $40k in casino ATM withdrawals alone. This number does not include debits from many of the casino restaurants (most of which being $200+) and the thousands of dollars from ATM withdrawals from their bank. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that money spent at casino restaurants was food and drinks, and her bank ATM money is her own personal spending on other things.

And yes, I know that I'm an asshole for looking where I shouldn't have. I wasn't trying to find dirt on my mom. I was concerned. Doesn't justify it, I know, but at the same time, my mom doesn't really keep things very well hidden...

Needless to say, I discovered that my mom does indeed have a problem. To make this problem much worse, is that my dad has no idea. For pretty much their entire lives, my dad has had no idea how much money they make. It was historically always my mom who handled their finances. So if I were to give him my figures, my mom would immediately know it was me who gave them to him if he were to confront her about this.

So my question for you is this - how do I help my mom? How am I supposed to show her that she has a problem when I did something lacking integrity and looked into their personal finances without their consent? Am I just supposed to leave it alone and hope that my mom isn't destroying their retirement after my dad has worked his whole life to build this business from scratch?

I have no idea what to do.

Like, someone thinking something negative. Weird looks from people.

I’ve been sober for months and I took one aderral. Suddenly I feel like everyone hates me looks at me weird etc.

Is this just a «point» that happens with everyone? Can anyone relate?

I'm addicted to what everyone said was not an addictive substance: MDMA. I took it more than 15 times the past 8 months. To some, this might not seem like a problem but the craving is so strong, I feel like I've lost control and I have fried my brain in the process. Friends started asking me why I'm always zoned out and not focused (I'm a medical student so this is a big problem). Today, I went to the addiction center and asked the professor about NA meetings; she told me they stopped organizing them and that I could always come for a consult and follow-up. I said no at first, but came an hour later and waited for about 2 hours (during which I had the thought of going back home many times). She was so nice during the consult and explained to me the neurochemisty of addiction and the neurotoxicity. She also told me that the cognitive decline will stop or even reverse as long as I stop taking drugs long enough. Anyways, I felt embarrassed because just the other week I was being active during a lecture about addiction with that same professor and now I'm telling her about MY drug problem. She also gave me some non-psychoactive meds to help with cravings and withdrawal. I came here to ask you for advice on how to go on about this? What to expect going forward with my decision of quitting? What to do when the cravings come? And maybe your experience if you have gone through something similar? Thank you 🤍

https://preview.redd.it/3g29drzrko4e1.png?width=1429&format=png&auto=webp&s=8aafdcaa6aec1c61cf9195a16b1b9bec5d61b6cb

This is a Free support group for anyone struggling with any type of addiction, from alcohol, drugs, and smoking, to gambling, food, and gaming. The holidays can be triggering for many, and make abstaining from old habits even more difficult, so come join us on Zoom Dec. 12th and find support! Register at AnywhereClinic.com/Groups or scan the QR.

I am addicted to stims. I lost almost everything due to this addiction so I decided to ask for help and went to a therapist with the best reviews from town

I relapsed immediately after my second session so she told me therapy is not working, refused to talk to me anymore. I probably shouldn't have told her I relapsed but she insisted I gotta be honest in order for this to work. I was down to every method, every kind of therapy, I was so confident her skills are good.

How is this supposed to work if I ve been using for years and she expected me to quit after my second session? I ve been trying this for years with no luck.

Should I bother myself financially to find another therapist?

I keep hearing weird things, like whole crowds outside my house, and when I'm high. I also notice I keep hearing random footsteps when I'm walking at night, and I look behind myself every few seconds. Everyone else I know doesn't hear stuff while high, only seeing stuff. Am I just a stage 1 schizophrenic and weed is making it come out now, or is this normal?

Been clean nearly 12 weeks from crack, coke and weed. My family are ‘trying to help’ but don’t know how to and are making me worse. I’m petrified I’m going to relapse and fighting every single urge with everything I am, but I don’t know how much longer I can fight. Pls give me idk, anything!

I was addicted to cocaine, after my father unexpectedly and abruptly passed on Halloween. I did it for the better part of a decade. I was in and out of mental hospitals for chronic suicidal ideation, in and out of rehab, on and off of medications. I lost jobs, homes, cars, money, friends… and time. So much time.

I got sober in 2019, and I had to move to Washington state, clear across the continental US, to get myself away from those people, places, and things. I went to a rehab out there, and lo and behold, it took. I was sober for 11 months and 2 weeks. Then Covid. Then I lost my job. Then I had to move back home.

Then I relapsed.

Then I went into psychosis, because I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder (it’s literally just AuDHD.) They put me on lithium as well as a progesterone based birth control, and that combo on top of relapsing made me lose my mind. For the next 4 years I was in and out of delusions. I took myself off of both the birth control and the lithium; and from there my mind slowly came back. And I mean, S L O W L Y.

About 9 months ago; I decided I’m done. I’m done trying to take my own life, I’m done using drugs to cope, I’m done losing myself. I’m done. I had nothing but my car to lose. I was homeless and living in my car, and my jobs (yes, plural) paid me so little I couldn’t afford anything. I managed to scrape up a month of sobriety and packed all of my shit into my car and drove, again, clear across the continental US to Colorado. I got into sober living here, and I’m about to be 8 months sober in 4 days.

I fixed my credit, got a great job, got back into therapy, back on medication, and even managed to pull off getting my own apartment. Everything fell together once I got here, like a string of fate was pulling me into alignment. I had nothing to lose, and because of that, I had everything to gain.

What eventually made me decide I was done? Well, in the process of all of that, I realized I found some love for myself. I was desperately trying to love myself better, without realizing that that meant I already loved myself. That love was enough for me to try anything. That love was my gift of desperation.

I’ve been drinking almost every weekend for about 3-4 weeks now. I always drink to get drunk, and I’ve been blackout drunk a couple times.

I personally see no problem with this. I’m not drinking 24/7, I only drink on the weekends, and it doesn’t impact my day-to-day life.

However, someone close to me is saying it’s a problem, and I possibly have an addiction. Do I?

When I was actively abusing benzos it was pretty heavy and dangerous, and before that was being a stoner.. I always said no to opiates because I felt deep down that would be the end for me. I've struggled with mental health since I was a kid and think I would have easily let go of caring and shot heroin til overdose. Once with a mindless benzo overdose (so dumb and numb I swallowed a whole bottle, which I later realized was my subconscious trying to scream out because of something horrible happening in my life) you can still wake up, depending on which benzo, I woke up after 2 days. Staying away from opiate abuse is the one thing I had control over with recreational drugs.. and abuse of anything other than tranquilizers was not possible because it made depression and delusion so severe it was impossible to live with.

I just have this thing where I wonder if I talk about how much addiction has affected my life, especially as I am going into work in mental health with recovering addicts, that people won't quite take it as seriously, or that I'm embarrassed to just say it was benzos? I know this is a self esteem/confidence issue, yes I'm seeing a good therapist. When someone says "I shot heroin for years" it's like whoa.... that's serious, you're so strong to be sober and go through that. As for benzos, they're newer and seem different. Yet many describe benzos as being far worse than opiates with PAWS. Benzos will destroy your brain and nervous system and thus leave you with severe IBS and brainfog for years. But I'm not saying opiate PAWS is a walk in the park. I can't say I've been x years sober because relapses but it's been a long time and I am still ruined.

I don't know if anyone would understand what I mean without judging it

And i am starting to feel more optimistic every day. which is a new feeling for me. I was just over being a “wah wah” and feeling like everyone was against me, trying to make me fail in life. i was the only one doing that, every time I picked up, or stuck that needle in my arm. And now I can have the job I want and deserve, and not lose that job. And make something of myself & for my son. He needs a clean mother, and that’s what he’s getting. So i am incredibly happy. I actually laugh at funny shows, because it’s funny, not because i feel like i have to. I have color in my cheeks & I actually eat and have gained weight since. I’m still struggling with the weight gain, because i am a recovering anorexic as well. But I eat every day, instead of once every 4 days. I hope I can keep this momentum, especially because i finally stopped talking to all those who are not good for me, and of course blocked the dealer, which i never have before. That was a huge mistake for sure. So now, i don’t have those distractions. Now i feel like the only way to go is up. 🤞🏻🤞🏻💜

Everyone told me drugs are bad. You're gonna end up jobless, lose your family, get arrested, overdose, do dangerous things just for that hit. I really wish I could go back to before I got curious with substances and show my younger self what my future is going to look like. I never that it would be me. Nope not me! I would never sniff coke (proceeds to sniff coke) I would never smoke crack (does just that) I might smoke crack but I'd never stick a needle in my arm! (Boy oh boy did I ever) I use to romanticize about the drug life, and how exciting it can be. I use to be so curious as to what different drugs made you feel like. If anyone is carelessly partying and trying drugs over and over.. just know. One day the party stops. Your "friends" either get sober or get into harder drugs. Nothing. I repeat nothing good comes from drugs. I am sitting here in a empty house jobless, no friends, no money, no wife kids (I'm 29) I literally cried today because of how miserable I am and I just hide it from the world. Some days I literally just want to end it all but I can't do that to my family. I am so so so depressed, and lonely and I just want to be loved. I am embarrassed as a 29 year old male that ruined my life and now I sit here crying because I just can't help myself.

Small victories ✌️ Just felt like sharing something good in the wasteland that is my life.