How do you stop using drugs and alcohol? Let’s break this question down into two really obvious camps right away:
1) People who can stop using drugs on their own
2) People who have tried to stop on their own, and cannot
This is an important distinction, and it represents our starting point. There are a number of people out there who get caught up with partying, drug use, heavy weekend drinking, or whatever–and many of those people do not actually have a problem. They might spend a weekend in jail over a DUI and figure out that they need to calm down and get their house back in order pretty quickly, and they can do so without any problem. There are people out there that fit this description, people who can stop using (or control their using) on their own. They might have gotten tripped up with drugs or alcohol, but they basically do not have a problem.
The other group of people do have a problem. A real problem. (This is the group I belong to, by the way). I could not stop on my own, and for a long time, I didn’t even want to try to. Then I went through a fairly long phase where I tried to control my using. I could manage to fool myself for a few days or even a few weeks that I had things under control, but eventually, I would always go back to being a full blown addict. Eventually I came to a point where I could no longer see myself continuing in my life–regardless of whether I continued using drugs and alcohol or not. I just felt like I could not continue on like I had been–drinking heavily and chasing all sorts of drugs, day in and day out….I just felt like it couldn’t go on anymore. This was my point of surrender.
At the same time, I felt like I could not possibly get clean and sober either. I had been to treatment centers before and I had been exposed to AA in the past but I felt like those things wouldn’t work for me. And even if they did help me get clean, I felt that I would just be miserable without being able to get drunk and high.
So I really felt trapped. But I did something that led me to where I am now. I asked for help. I asked for help and someone was there and they stayed with me until I could get into a treatment center. And once I was in the treatment center, I asked for more help, and the people at the treatment center set me up in a long term treatment center. Things fell into place and my life slowly got better and better and I’m still not sure of the exact process that occurred. I do know that in the beginning, I asked for help. Then I started following directions.
Now I’m leaving out a few details here, but I am now approaching 7 years of continuous sobriety, and I work at that treatment center where I first got clean. It’s difficult to describe the transformation that has become my life. This here is a detailed account of what worked for me and what didn’t, and this gives quite a bit of my story as well. This entire website explores my success in recovery, as I try to document and explain the process by which I transformed my life.
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Hello.
I am one of those people that has tried several attempts at staying clean but was not successful. I am 40 years old now and my life seems in shambles. I have had success in employment and education, but now I am un-employed, have had several run-ins with the law and because of that, is having a difficult time getting employed. It would seem that I would want to stay clean and sober, but the fact is that everytime I began to gain some clean time, I began to get cocky and start using again. I am truly tired, depressed and really want help. I want to ask for help, but I am embarrassed that the people in my life will say I am a failure again. I do have an AA sponsor, but I have not been able to admit to him that I have relapsed again. Please somebody, anybody give me some advice, I truly have a desire to get help and stay clean and sober for the rest of my life. Please help me.
@ Dabs115 – admit to your relapse and ask for help.
I would recommend coming to the forums:
http://www.spiritualriver.com/forum/
And telling your story there. You will get support from real people there.
Good luck.
HOW DO I HELP MY BROTHER GET CLEAN?
Iv got ringsting so hace u got eny treatment
Hi i av been on drug sincr i was 2 years old and u have too but u like porn morr babe si suk mi dick
im not really sure i have a problem but maybe that is the problem?? i at most drink once a month but when i do i really do, i take drugs on the same day and havent got a clue why. its at the point where i wont drink without it. i dont even like drink!!!. ive got everything a man could want, so why do i put that on the line??????
I am 18 and I have been drinking and using other various drugs sinc I was 13 I use to be a straight A student, then I let partying and having fun get the best of me. I have been arrested for drinking numerous times and I tell myslef everytime Im going to quit. My depression always gets the best of me though and I end up going out using again. WHAT DO I DO?? I really need a change but im so scared to ask for help!!
unknown
Dear Friends,
Put your trust in god and help agencies as well. Some powerful and well trained help mightdo the trick. Make friends who are clean and follow their lifestyles. And seek good advice from sober and clean people.
asim
I’m a young woman and I’ve done basically every drug there is. A have a few favourites that I keep going back to. I smoke weed daily. I’m in a constant cycle of doing drugs then being clean for weeks to months then back to the drugs. Part of me wants to get help, but most of me just wants to keep doing drugs. I feel like a dont have a problem because i can go for periods of time without using and not care. But yet I always still use again, crystal, heroin, coke, mdma, oxys. I sometimes combine up to 4 drugs at a time, with caring of what happens if I do, which scares me. I’m not too much of a drinker so i stick with my drugs, which doesn’t help. I’m not sure what to do, because I don’t want to quit.. and I can’t see myself ever quitting any drug I like permanently.
Hi, I have been doing drugs at a daily basic for 3 years now, it started as just having fun, but consequences were following, and after i while i did it to “run away/relax” from the daily life.
I really wan’t to stop, but I just can’t because at the same time I don’t want to quit. I have lost girlfriends, friends, the relationship to my mother and father, they have both called me a junkie… my grades at school have become really disappointing lately.
I have quitted several times, but I always fall back to the same routine, time after time, it’s like every time i manage to get stand on my own feet, i fall again..and doing stronger and stronger drugs each time and more often. I even got thrown out of the ‘hash/pot community’ which was horrible, they were the only one I had left.. so I started to hangout with
needle-junkies, they were the only one who accepted me for who I was. Once I stopped for 5 months, I told some friends and some school mates that I stopped taking them, because my life were falling appart and such.. I was so proud of that! but nobody believed me they just laughed and said “once a junkie, always a junkie”, so I started to use them again(big mistake).nobody believed me and then I realized that it was no point of quitting because I would always be the “school’s junkie” It’s really hard to quit when everybody are saying things like “you will fall back again like everybody else, why do you think that you can do it, when they didn’t” I am also delivering a urine example once a month, I don’t know why, but I am doing a lot more drugs when I’m doing that. (when I was 100% clean in 5 month I cutted the urine tests out)
I managed to quit before, but now I just can’t..
It’s almost like I have two persons inside me, one great guy that want’s to get good grades, a high education and most important to become clean. the other person want’s to get high, fuck one or another girl, sell and manipulate people so they get hocked on drugs. I really don’t recognize my selves anymore, it’s a really dirty way of gaining money. I am not sure if I have a mental decease or if I just can’t figure out what kind of person I want to be
So I am really trying to find things that makes me feel good about my selves without taking any drugs. I am helping out my parents at home, I have convinced my mother that I have quitted, that felt great.. my dad won’t believe me tho.
I have also figured out that helping young people stop taking drugs is my “meaning of life.” I have helped out people that wouldn’t even considerate to quit, I won’t let them make the same “wrong turn” as I did.
I have figured out what makes me happy, when I am sober, but I am still doing them.
I were clean for a month last week.. but now I fell again, back to the same routine. I am high on 6 different drugs right now. I’m tired of this endless struggle.. it feels like I have tried everything nothing helps.. I have contacted profesjonal help, but they don’t seem too understand a shit what I am talking about, they have never been there. I am also getting higher a lot often when I am speaking to them, or the child welfare.
I don’t get so often high, when I am avoiding talking to the police, child welfare and psychologists.. what should i do?
stop giving urine examples so that i can get clean without getting reminders about my earlier drug problems and get a fine + record
OR take the risk to keep in touch with them and deliver urine examples, If I deliver negative test’s i won’t get a fine or a record.
option two would be the best if i could manage that, but right now I just want to get clean.. I think i get high more often if i do that because I know I can’t get high when I am delivering urine-examples. (almost like when you are trying to quit smoking, you really need one if you know you don’t got any one left in your pocket)
(sorry for the spelling errors)
If anyone are having or had the same struggle as I am going through right now, I would appreciate to have someone to talk to, someone who know how it is/was. I feeling pretty alone in this hopeless mess.
Skype name = kerlsk
I am only 16 years old..
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