I am a recovering addict. from the age of 16 i have been addicted to pain killers which progressed till i was using Heroin from the age of 19 to 23. Since... i have not used, but I did use a clinic drug for three years to get back to normal. Since being back to a sober life... kinda, Life has thrown a lot more at me. In fact i would have to say I am less successful now than i was during the time I was using. But due to my determination to be done with opiates, the effort has consumed my life, to where staying clean prevents me from doing a lot of the things that made me successful (I worked in the music biz). I just wanted to put that out there, so that people may understand better my dark, and somewhat dis-respective humor, and way of looking at things.
I can't I relate completely, since that wouldn't be true, but I can sympathize with this.
What I did is nowhere near the same level, but I've revealed on this site before that I went through a kinda hard time when I was 15. I tried marijuana for the first time about 2 1/2 years ago, and... well, I suppose it wasn't really an "addiction" perse, like I've told people, since marijuana by itself isn't addictive, but more a strong desire to have more. I try to tell myself that it was an addiction to hide the fact that I just wanted more. From the very first time I tried it, I didn't exactly like it, but it was definitely something I wanted to keep doing, and I still have a hard time figuring out exactly why.
I know it's just marijuana and that in itself isn't an overly harmful drug, but it certainly changes a person. Within days, I was practically unrecognizable. I threw away my old friends and joined the crowds I really shouldn't have been around. I became the stereotypical high school stoner, and lived like that for six months. My family turned against me, my old friends hated me, my grades constantly fell, and yet I somehow wanted to keep going with that life.
After the school year ended, I wish I could say the problem terminated, but it didn't. On the contrary, it actually got worse. The crowd I hung out with began resorting to violence, vandalism, one-night stands, etc. Many of the details I feel uncomfortable discussing here even now because they make me feel like ****. All I'll say is that marijuana was probably the most mellow of the things I did that summer.
Once the school year started again, I began realizing just how much the problem was tearing my life apart. But for some reason, I still didn't want to stop. The only solution I saw at that point was to just cancel everything, make it all stop at once. This is a detail I have never spoken about here on this site. I wanted everything to end, so I stood on the guard rail of a bridge. I genuinely thought that was the only solution. I was ready to let myself go, make everything end. But then a song started playing in my headphones, just as I was about to jump. And it told me something:
If you're lost and alone
Or you're sinking like a stone.
Carry on.
May your past be the sound
Of your feet upon the ground.
Carry on.
It made me realize that my rubbish life had value and I could take something from it. It didn't cancel the problem, but it did save my life. And for that, to the band
Fun, I am eternally grateful.
From that day on, I tried harder and harder to stop the problem, but I never could. On my 16th birthday though, I talked to my entire family on the phone. Hearing them in tears, talking to me about how my life was going, ended up getting me in tears. It was the jump I needed to stop what could have become a far more serious problem.
Life since then has been great. It was a bit shaky for the first couple months after, but I pulled through. And then I look at myself now, and realize that those 6 months were in fact one of the best things that ever happened to me because they changed me as a person, they changed me for the better. So believe me when I say that I can sympathize with you completely.
Wow, that was long...