Never thought it’d happen to me. It did. Been Clean a bit over a year. I got a couple crazy stories for sure. AMA
Edit: this is pretty personal, the answers kinda long, and I can’t touch on everything, but I’ll try my best. Thanks for reading.
Has it adjusted your view of people? How did you see the world/society before starting vs after quitting?
Great question.
I think I was sort of selfish and removed. I still am, as humans are want to do but,
I think I have gained more compassion for the plight of man.
We are in an endless battle with our very own nature every step of the way.
I can find redeemable qualities in everyone. If not redeemable, at least an understanding of how a person became what they are.
We are imperfect beings. Our biology is simultaneously a feat of wonder while being super janky, and that is becoming more apparent to me the more I experience the modern world, and our ineptitude at dealing with our current situations as a species.
I find myself far more politically inclined these days. I always knew the justice system was messed up. But first hand experience of it has really driven home just how inhumane it is. It is systematic purge, with windows dressing. It is, at its foundation, human sacrifice, for lack of a better term.
I watched share holders inspect a jail from a cell. Surreal. I’ve watched genuinely mentally ill people stew in their own filth, literally and figuratively, losing any hope at ever being whole again. Lives are lost. Human experience squandered. I’ve watched the strong prey on the weak over and over again, to where I now understand that people have suffered a long time, and will be suffering long after I’m dead.
All I can do is try, in my day to day, and maybe one day in the future, we will break through to the other side, evolutionarily speaking, to a world where we care for one another, and, most importantly, where we feel we, ourselves, are deserving of our OWN love.
I guess I’ve gained new perspective. I’m not a detail oriented person. I do best in broad strokes. And this is the best answer I can come up with for now. Hopefully one day I will know a lot more and answer this better.
What helped convince you to stop?
After about a year I wanted to stop, but couldn’t. I fell into a cycle of needing to work to survive and needing to use to work, a never ending justification of my use.
What got me clean was a chance to get clean. I got locked up for 3 months in county, and court ordered 28 day rehab.
That’s all I needed. I been there done that. You couldn’t pay me to do it again.
Dude, I’m really proud of you and I don’t even know you. Keep looking forward, I think you survived it because life has something special planned for you.
Tell me how it’s started.
Kind of a long story, but in a nutshell…my family fell apart. We went from somewhat normal family in insane amount of debt and struggling to : My mom blew the fam up over money and lack of emotional intelligence on both my parents parts, she started dating my fkn uncle on my dad’s side which was fkn traumatic all around. My dad was living out of a damn jeep wrangler. My sister was pregnant. I had a back injury from work, and it just so happens that my bandmate was an addict and we lived in the city w the biggest open air market and drug culture on the east coast.
Perfect storm. After a certain point it was all me and my empty excuses/justifications.
I kicked Oxycontin a very long time ago, but spent nearly two years in an immensely deep depression that I felt as though I’d never come out of. There was no joy left in my soul. How long did it take you to come back, and are you still struggling?
First off, congrats on being clean! Such a huge accomplishment! I’m going to ask a few questions: -How did you start? -What was your rock bottom moment? -What was the convincing factor that made you get clean?
That means a lot to me fr.
For how I started read the post after yours (:
My rock bottom? Hell there’s no such thing. The bottom just keeps moving. Eviction? No electricity? Starving? Nope I found a way. Multiple arrests and charges? Nope. No money? I sold lots of my precious music gear. Nope. Sold my SOs great aunts wedding rings from the 20s was pretty bad…but:
This is my most “wtf am I doing” moment. And I’d consider it rock bottom. It’s not crazy, but it’s something I’m super ashamed about and would never do if not for drugs. Stealing. I got fired from my job because I was taking tools and pawning them, then returning them when I could get them out. …
Well one day a coworker just happened to be in this run down little pawn shop. He caught me. He didn’t tell on me until a week later, I suffered like raskalinov that entire time about my guilt and getting found out. I was a mess.
My job was awesome too with awesome people. They were gonna put me through rehab! But I just walked out before my boss even got to the job to talk to me and haven’t talked any of them since, all driven by shame and embarrassment.
In the end, it wasn’t enough. I used for another 6 or 7 years. It took me doing jail time. Something light, only 90 days. But that was simultaneously the worst and best thing that ever happened to me. I made the best of jail, laughed a LOT, lived in raw human sewage for a week with no running water, ate shitty food and talked to some shitty and some cool af people. Never looked back. I know that if fuck up even a little bit, I’m going right back. I’m not on parole anymore but I’m in the system. Everytime I get pulled over I get searched, cuffed, and put in the squad car. I have to be air tight. Especially where I live.
