I try to believe "No news is good news"
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The Light at the End of the Tunnel
- Thread starter ghost62
- Start date
This was a great quote. I never had a substance abuse problem. I have revealed in this thread that I had really devastation mental illness. The oath to recovery from both are similar and with substance abuse often leads to treatment for both.
Everyone has a different rock bottom. Some less or more drastic than others, but it can be the solid foundation to cement that latter into the stone and build those first steps to you way back up. For me it was being faced with losing everyone I cared about. You know, when you are ape shit crazy a weird thing happens. You are so in denial that everyone else is crazy except you.
It is a lot like when addicts find every reason to blame everything and everyone but them selves. When we lose track of everything and everyone around us rock bottom is our alarm clock. Yet you can climb back up.
To quote my favorite Shine Down song. "Sometimes good bye is a second chance"
To anyone reading this that is struggling with addiction relapse et..or maybe an addict and in denial. If you reach out people care. One thing I have seen in the vape community that I really love and that makes this community more than just hobbyist getting together is we stick up for and stand by our fellow vapers, not just with vaping, but in every aspect of our lives. We really truly care about each other as people.
Long winded post over. Stay strong everyone, I know I do my best too.
I hate this disease.
I really, really HATE THIS F'ING disease!
I have seen so many families ripped apart, dealt with too many setbacks in people close to me, seen too many people die that didn't have to.
One of my closest friends lost his daughter last night to an overdose.
Please, pray for him and his family.
Thanks
I really, really HATE THIS F'ING disease!
I have seen so many families ripped apart, dealt with too many setbacks in people close to me, seen too many people die that didn't have to.
One of my closest friends lost his daughter last night to an overdose.
Please, pray for him and his family.
Thanks
Heartbreaking, depressing and exhausting.
I hope dearly he keeps his sober support through this.
Frawg
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Sorry I've been MIA again. This will probably be TL;DR, I need to get it out, and I'd rather do it here than on my blog only I read, I don't know if anyone will read it but maybe someone will.
Keeping busy to the point I wonder if I'm coming or going. I'm fighting pain issues lately, and big things I can't directly control but I can help influence and it's winter so I'm fighting the mild SAD I get every year. Thankfully we've not had the miserable repeat of last year's horrendous snow & bitter cold they predicted so I'm less confined to the house this year which helps - sort of.
My having to get off pain meds the hard way - cold turkey with no help from doctors came 2 years after I moved to IN from NY. I had a NP I was seeing for my normal knee pain - my ortho after my major knee reconstruction had said 'you'll most likely need some form of pain relief for the rest of your life, ligaments don't heal as well as other tissues, and while yours have healed a lot, you're always going to have some problems with your knees' as he puts up my xrays - and my grandmothers as we both had the same doctor and two appts at once was easier on both of us at the time - "now pick out your xray & MRI- as he'd taped over the names". I picked hers - my 88 year old grandmother had better knees than I did at 27.
I knew then that I wasn't going to have an enjoyable time of things with the pain if anything ever happened to either knee after that. I do what I can preventively so I don't need stronger pain meds. I take OTC anti-inflammatories to help keep the day-to-day pain to a minimum. The repaired knee hates the cold. It's been a decade post-op in May this year, the last knee brace I was given was 4 months post-op I still hadn't gotten half of the muscle tone I lost back being immobile for 8 months (4 pre and 4 post surgery). I've gained weight, got a lot of muscle tone back that brace no longer fits - so I can't use it to help with the knee pain. I take glucosamine/chondroitin per that ortho's suggestion a decade ago. It helps when I can afford it and remember to take it. Sometimes it doesn't help as much in winter where what I need is insulation not lubrication.
The NP I had when I moved here, had moved away to take a job somewhere else, 4 years ago, she left with little notice and left all of us patients hanging. I was taking Tramadol - at the time it was unaltered from the way it was in 2004 when I was given it by the ortho pre-surgery.
Now it carries a black box warning and I know from personal experience what hell it is to get off of, cold turkey without anything to provide assistance. Because now they know it works like an anti-depressant, rather than an actual pain medication - in that it makes you forget you have pain rather than dealing with the pain itself. I came off fentanyl patches after the surgery - hell of a drug, easier to come off than Tramadol in my opinion. Maybe I'm a pussy for that I don't care. Fentanyl's withdrawal was a brief, hard crash, but was over without much fanfare. Tramadol sucked to come of off cold turkey. It lingers in the brain longer than most natural narcotics, and it's absence is weird. I came off vicodin - my primary issue with relative ease compared to the Tramadol. Weird is the best description I can give for coming clean off Tramadol. It takes a few days without it in your system to know it's missing, and then the misery starts. The first thing you notice is no matter how tired you are, sleep will not come. No form of sleeping pill seems to do a damn thing once in your body you might as well save the $ and have a sugar cube. Eventually you get exhausted, then your withdrawal brain tells your sleepy brain that while you're plum exhausted you really do need to go for a run - even if you hate running. Because your legs really want to go dancing or do crossfit or go for a run - a run would be best. The rest of you wants nothing more than a 48 hour light coma - where no one bothers you and you can sleep and sleep some more. The restless legs thing continues for about a week, the sleep may come in fits & spurts, and you will find sort of like a bipolar patient in a hard manic swing you get a lot of shit done around the house because moving NEEDS to happen. Except your brain still has some of the tramadol on board and it's still doing it's job of masking your pain, and when the restlessness leaves you're exhausted and in so much pain you want to go find the nearest hot tub, masseusse, case of biofreeze, and buy stock in Advil. Because you've got aches in parts you forgot you had. Deep muscle pain from overdoing it, deep joint aches because you really shouldn't squat to clean the bottom of the kitchen cabinets, but you did for six hours straight because your brain told you, you had to. And now you wish you could turn off that part of your brain forever because going through this crap ever again is NOT going to happen. EVER. SO you tell yourself. Eventually at about 35 days you can say officially that you're more or less off the Tramadol without much in the way of misery lingering. At 60 & 90 days you can start to feel more like you again. My day 145 was when I no longer felt a craving for it. I wasn't even taking the full doses the NP had me on - I was down to 1 25mg pill every 4-6 DAYS. The lingering effect of the Tramadol was that long for me. Just enough to take the constant roar of pain to something I didn't notice as much. My last day taking the Tramadol was May 4 2011.
Now I'm faced with issues, the NP I once saw is back, and she's back to taking new/old patients again. I have a very bad case of patellar tendinitis in the 'good' knee. Nothing except rest will help, which I can't do. Between work, the cat rescue, and the 2x a week trips to Indy to the VA for mom I barely get a day off. This week mom's got a cold. I will have 3 days to rest and hope nothing else happens that I need to drop everything and drive every which where, because the clinic I saw is pretty sure the issue is driving 100 miles a day, not getting much in the way of days off where someone else drives, no matter how much I explain I can't. Mom's afraid of driving herself, even if it's to town because of the blood clot that the doctors say has dissolved, but she's paranoid and so I'm stuck dropping everything to take her when the mood strikes her. Her son, my boyfriend who also lives here has his own knee issues and it's just been 'you're the only one who can'. Mom's not to lift a lot, I'm not supposed to lift over 20lbs, but I routinely lift 50lbs of cat food, and 40lbs of litter without help because without me, the cats will starve and the people will whine. Fifteen local friends, not one has said "what can I do to help?"
Just at the point of pure & simple exhaustion, lots of pain, mostly in my knees and back - lift properly - sure if the knees cooperate I'll be happy to. If I disappear for days/weeks at a time it simply means I've run out of time in front of a computer and have too much else to do as no one else can (or will).
Keeping busy to the point I wonder if I'm coming or going. I'm fighting pain issues lately, and big things I can't directly control but I can help influence and it's winter so I'm fighting the mild SAD I get every year. Thankfully we've not had the miserable repeat of last year's horrendous snow & bitter cold they predicted so I'm less confined to the house this year which helps - sort of.
My having to get off pain meds the hard way - cold turkey with no help from doctors came 2 years after I moved to IN from NY. I had a NP I was seeing for my normal knee pain - my ortho after my major knee reconstruction had said 'you'll most likely need some form of pain relief for the rest of your life, ligaments don't heal as well as other tissues, and while yours have healed a lot, you're always going to have some problems with your knees' as he puts up my xrays - and my grandmothers as we both had the same doctor and two appts at once was easier on both of us at the time - "now pick out your xray & MRI- as he'd taped over the names". I picked hers - my 88 year old grandmother had better knees than I did at 27.
I knew then that I wasn't going to have an enjoyable time of things with the pain if anything ever happened to either knee after that. I do what I can preventively so I don't need stronger pain meds. I take OTC anti-inflammatories to help keep the day-to-day pain to a minimum. The repaired knee hates the cold. It's been a decade post-op in May this year, the last knee brace I was given was 4 months post-op I still hadn't gotten half of the muscle tone I lost back being immobile for 8 months (4 pre and 4 post surgery). I've gained weight, got a lot of muscle tone back that brace no longer fits - so I can't use it to help with the knee pain. I take glucosamine/chondroitin per that ortho's suggestion a decade ago. It helps when I can afford it and remember to take it. Sometimes it doesn't help as much in winter where what I need is insulation not lubrication.
The NP I had when I moved here, had moved away to take a job somewhere else, 4 years ago, she left with little notice and left all of us patients hanging. I was taking Tramadol - at the time it was unaltered from the way it was in 2004 when I was given it by the ortho pre-surgery.
Now it carries a black box warning and I know from personal experience what hell it is to get off of, cold turkey without anything to provide assistance. Because now they know it works like an anti-depressant, rather than an actual pain medication - in that it makes you forget you have pain rather than dealing with the pain itself. I came off fentanyl patches after the surgery - hell of a drug, easier to come off than Tramadol in my opinion. Maybe I'm a pussy for that I don't care. Fentanyl's withdrawal was a brief, hard crash, but was over without much fanfare. Tramadol sucked to come of off cold turkey. It lingers in the brain longer than most natural narcotics, and it's absence is weird. I came off vicodin - my primary issue with relative ease compared to the Tramadol. Weird is the best description I can give for coming clean off Tramadol. It takes a few days without it in your system to know it's missing, and then the misery starts. The first thing you notice is no matter how tired you are, sleep will not come. No form of sleeping pill seems to do a damn thing once in your body you might as well save the $ and have a sugar cube. Eventually you get exhausted, then your withdrawal brain tells your sleepy brain that while you're plum exhausted you really do need to go for a run - even if you hate running. Because your legs really want to go dancing or do crossfit or go for a run - a run would be best. The rest of you wants nothing more than a 48 hour light coma - where no one bothers you and you can sleep and sleep some more. The restless legs thing continues for about a week, the sleep may come in fits & spurts, and you will find sort of like a bipolar patient in a hard manic swing you get a lot of shit done around the house because moving NEEDS to happen. Except your brain still has some of the tramadol on board and it's still doing it's job of masking your pain, and when the restlessness leaves you're exhausted and in so much pain you want to go find the nearest hot tub, masseusse, case of biofreeze, and buy stock in Advil. Because you've got aches in parts you forgot you had. Deep muscle pain from overdoing it, deep joint aches because you really shouldn't squat to clean the bottom of the kitchen cabinets, but you did for six hours straight because your brain told you, you had to. And now you wish you could turn off that part of your brain forever because going through this crap ever again is NOT going to happen. EVER. SO you tell yourself. Eventually at about 35 days you can say officially that you're more or less off the Tramadol without much in the way of misery lingering. At 60 & 90 days you can start to feel more like you again. My day 145 was when I no longer felt a craving for it. I wasn't even taking the full doses the NP had me on - I was down to 1 25mg pill every 4-6 DAYS. The lingering effect of the Tramadol was that long for me. Just enough to take the constant roar of pain to something I didn't notice as much. My last day taking the Tramadol was May 4 2011.
Now I'm faced with issues, the NP I once saw is back, and she's back to taking new/old patients again. I have a very bad case of patellar tendinitis in the 'good' knee. Nothing except rest will help, which I can't do. Between work, the cat rescue, and the 2x a week trips to Indy to the VA for mom I barely get a day off. This week mom's got a cold. I will have 3 days to rest and hope nothing else happens that I need to drop everything and drive every which where, because the clinic I saw is pretty sure the issue is driving 100 miles a day, not getting much in the way of days off where someone else drives, no matter how much I explain I can't. Mom's afraid of driving herself, even if it's to town because of the blood clot that the doctors say has dissolved, but she's paranoid and so I'm stuck dropping everything to take her when the mood strikes her. Her son, my boyfriend who also lives here has his own knee issues and it's just been 'you're the only one who can'. Mom's not to lift a lot, I'm not supposed to lift over 20lbs, but I routinely lift 50lbs of cat food, and 40lbs of litter without help because without me, the cats will starve and the people will whine. Fifteen local friends, not one has said "what can I do to help?"
Just at the point of pure & simple exhaustion, lots of pain, mostly in my knees and back - lift properly - sure if the knees cooperate I'll be happy to. If I disappear for days/weeks at a time it simply means I've run out of time in front of a computer and have too much else to do as no one else can (or will).
I'm glad to see you again and you know you're always welcome to vent, rant or just blow off steam- we've all been there.
I'm still struggling with my hip and keep telling myself, 'Maybe someday...'
Hang in there, ok?
He's isolating a bit right now- just family, but he's got strong faith and several years of quality clean time.Heartbreaking, depressing and exhausting.
For now, we're all giving him space as he requested but when he's ready, there are are lot of people that will be there for him
These virtual ears are listening and hearing. Hang in there. Spring is coming to heal your soul.
As ive said in the past Id be off paper soon. Well todays the day!!!! First offical day of paper. It doesnt change my soberity it does change the fact i can leave the state!! Hahaha i dont have def plans uet but probably soon!!! Just figured id share!!!
lg g3 tapatalk
lg g3 tapatalk
Amen to that!
