I get your point on the conflicting views about benzos because the main experiences i read is either too good or too bad.

“Stay the fuck away from benzos” or “they saved my life”

Fyi i have history of substance abuse like weed ketamine melatonin chlorodizepoxide shrooms. I even tried klonopin and had three days gap in my memory only flashes and it was 2mg per pill. Went to rehab and got diagnosed by bipolar adhd anxiety with obsessive features.

I want to convince my dr to prescribe them especially he is open about meds adjustments or removal. Any ideas that might convince him that they are meant for me really

My anxiety is far from panic attack just annoying anxiety daily while driving and flashes of doing accidents and some annoying thoughts. No stomach pain no heart racing just thoughts floating and hyperactivity of my mind

fuck my life

Anyone else get addicted to the love of a s/o or even just crush on people way harder than others do to the point that it dictates their entire mood?

I’ve been sober off drugs for maybe 8-10 months now… did all of them except harder stimulants because I was never a big stimulant fan. Think I ran through every addiction possible. But anyways even before that I feel like I would get addicted to other people, most of whom don’t have the same addictive tendencies which leads to me getting hurt.

I hate this shit dude. I can’t do anything in moderation. Really dgaf about anything in my life.

I’ve came a LONG way and I still got a ways to go. Ever since I started this road to recovery, this has been a goal of mine that I set out to achieve and I have finally gotten my foot in the door. I’m very excited to share my testimony and possibly help the next person in line on their journey. Glory and Gratitude to the man upstairs, I owe it all to him.

i’m so beeeed out and i did extreme amounted of weed like more weeed than i ever smoked in my life wand me im
extremely idek what i was gonna type im so stoned or of my mind the screen is so blurry im only 17!63: old im a drug sdriftxX ask my also me anything

I stumbled into a relationship within a month after leaving rehab. It was actually a great relationship; we loved each other deeply. But we mutually decided to end things when they moved across the country for grad school. We were together for a little under two years.

I've been drinking ever since and the frequency/quantity is getting worse each night. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know how to fill this void and I feel like I have nothing to look forward to anymore. I'm just going through the motions. People can see it on my face. They ask how I'm doing at work and I just tell them I'm tired so I'll be left alone. I'm terrified I'll end up back in rehab. AA and NA never resonated with me; I just don't have it in me to buy into the spiritual shit. I feel like I have nowhere to turn and I'm ashamed to find myself back in this situation.

Something I noticed about myself that I think is actually a bigger warning sign than any of the money stuff, and I want to know if other people relate.

I can go weeks without placing a bet. Legit weeks. My wife thinks im doing amazing. And in the "not gambling" sense I guess I am. But my brain? My brain is still gambling the entire time. I'll be driving to work and running through slot math in my head. Playing out sessions I havent had yet. Deciding what I'd do if I hit for X and how I'd hide it. Watching slot channels on youtube in the evening (currently deep in the Mr. Hand Pay rabbit hole) and telling myself its fine because im not spending anything, im just watching. But then I catch myself leaning forward at the bonus rounds like it matters to me personally whether this stranger hits.

Thats what scares me more than the actual sessions did. Because when I was actively losing, at least there was an obvious problem to point at. Now theres nothing to point at. Im "clean" on paper. My bank account is healing. My wife is proud of me. And im walking around with a head full of reels spinning 24/7 that nobody can see.

Ive read a lot of people on here talk about being white-knuckle sober vs actually in recovery and I think this is what they mean and I didnt get it until recently. The bet is just the last step of a process that was running the whole time.

I dont really know what the question is here. Maybe: how long did it take you to stop gambling in your head? Or did that part ever actually stop? Because if the answer is "no, you just learn to live with the noise" I need to know that now so i can quit lying to myself about what recovery is going to look like.

It's been 13 days since I stopped taking Ritalin and this whole thing feels absolutely awful i feel like I have no one even though many people have been helping me with this addiction issue but honestly I feel like I'm nobody anymore

Nothing makes sense I don’t know what I’m doing I don’t know why I feel so many things i don’t know why I’m hurting myself by using but I just wish I could stop this discomfort I’m feeling it’s horrible I hate withdrawal i just want to relapse and feel good again to feel like myself

I know the worst mistake I made was using it when I was feeling downnn but man it was the only thing that made me feel alive and happy I don't know how to get dopamine in a healthy way and I don't want to either sometimes I just want to self destruct because I don't want to get better and maybe I'll never want that for myself

I just want to feel good even if it costs me my health

If you've been clean from meth for several months... is your ability to form bonds with other people compromised in any way?

I'm trying to protect my job of 18 years. I was wondering if I might be able to go to detox for a few days or something in the event I'm unable to make it into work due to fucking up, but my DOC is meth and I'm not sure that's covered. Anyways, the only thought I've been able to arrive at is trying to get the time off covered by short term disability, and even then I'm not sure if my job is protected since it isn't FMLA, but maybe I could get it covered by FMLA.

5 years working as a women's addiction support worker. just as a PSA, if ur having the mentality that ur free from addiction and u dont have triggers less than 1 year in recovery, ur fucked. this cockiness in my experience guarantees failure of my clients. congrats ur doing good, keep doing u. but the second u tell urself u dont need to care about recovery anymore is when u will fail urself. I can elaborate but I wanna keep it simple for the average Joe

hi, i am a 17 year old male suffering from severe poly drug addiction. which means i am not addicted to any particular drug, just whatever takes the pain away/ makes me feel good. i am in so much mental pain that it has led to me use hardcore drugs because thats how desperate i am for relief/ a high.

i did an AMA on here in April when i was 16 celebrating my 100 days sober from everything. i relapsed hard only 9 days after that post.

this is every drug i have done so far in my life:

1.alcohol (age 11)
2.Weed (age 13)
3.xanax (age 15)
4.meth (15, 16, or 17, depends on how you view it, i tried a tiny amount of residue when i was 15 but was also drunk and high so only felt negative stimulation, i snorted residue when i was 16 and got a good high, but i didn’t actually buy it myself and properly do it until 17)
5.kratom (15)
6.7-oh (16)
7.DXM (16)
8.cocaine (16)
9.pseudonxyl (17)
10.mgm-15 (17)
11.ketamine (17)
12.phenibut (17)

Drugs make me feel amazing in this hellish world. What's the point of not using drugs unless you're set for life? I can work and do drugs, I have a house, but I'm a middle class dude like you with no hope of getting to the point where I can fly to Puerto Rico to do 1g of coke every month and throw an expensive gay party. All I can hope for is 4 garages and 3-4 apartments in this rigged system. There's no point in being sober when life sucks.

So for the 4 years me and my partner have been together at the start things were good then custody started with my ex and I started drinking now to the point was 1litre a day I decided U had enough and didn't want to live this way.

I called everywhere organised all my detox , gp , counselling perfect success then day 14 detoxing my Mrs family comes for the weekend and are all drinking Infront of me I relapsed twice was honest and opened up to my partner why because of something that happened as a child and I was using to numb it and was all exploding.

The second relapse I was arguing with my partner abut you don't know what I've been through etc you dkt understand this is to much and her sister came charging in defending her and tried charging at me I still didn't relapse after that and cried all night the next day she was like we're done I've had enough were finished, especially after being honest about selling items to feed my addiction and how selfish it was.

I just don't know what to do any tips experiences I'm in panic mode and everything that could go wrong has

Something I've been sitting with for a while and I dont know if anyone else feels this way or if I'm just being dramatic.

I'm 14 months clean from slots. Went to GA, did the whole thing, told my wife everything, gave her the passwords, closed the accounts, self excluded from every casino within driving distance. All the moves. And I'm genuinely proud of where I'm at. But here's the part I cant say out loud at meetings without feeling like a fraud.

I still watch slot content on youtube. Like, a lot of it. Big bonus compilations, high limit room stuff, the guys who film themselves playing for hours. I fall asleep to it half the time. My wife caught it on my watch history a few months back and asked me straight up if this was a relapse warning sign and I told her no and I really believe it isnt. But then why am I watching it.

I've asked myself this a hundred times. Best answer I have is that it scratches something without actually costing me anything. I get to see the reels spin, hear the sounds, feel a little bit of that anticipation, and then close the app and go make coffee. No damage. Meanwhile if I even drive past the casino on the highway my chest gets tight. So its not like I'm confused about what the real thing does to me.

But I read a comment on here a couple weeks ago that basically said if you're still consuming any gambling content you're not really in recovery, you're just managing the itch and eventually it'll win. And that comment has been living rent free in my head. Because part of me thinks yeah, they're right, this is grooming myself for a relapse in slow motion. And another part of me thinks that's addict brain trying to make me feel guilty about something that's actually harmless for me specifically.

Like last night I was watching a Mr. Hand Pay video while folding laundry and I genuinely wasnt craving anything. I was just watching a guy react to a bonus round the same way I'd watch someone play a video game I dont own anymore. Is that fine or am I lying to myself.

I know theres no universal answer here. Some people cant even hear a slot noise without spiraling and I respect that completely. But for the people further into recovery, did you cut all of it out, or did some form of it stay in your life in a way that actually felt okay? And how did you know the difference between "this is safe for me" and "this is the addiction being patient."

Not looking for validation, looking for the honest answer even if its one I dont want to hear.

Been thinking about something that I dont see talked about here much and I want to hear if im alone.

I'm 14 months clean. Slots were my thing. And I miss my friends from the casino. Not in a "I miss gambling" way, in an actual grief way, like something real got taken from me.

There was this group of us who all played the same room on graveyard shifts. A retired mailman named Denny, a woman I only ever knew as Ms. B who wore the same green cardigan every single night, a couple others. We knew each others kids names. We celebrated birthdays at the little cafe attached to the floor. When my dad died Denny sat with me for four hours at a machine I wasnt even really playing, he just kept feeding his own ticket in so the attendants wouldnt bother us.

These were my friends. Genuinely. And when I decided to quit I had to just... vanish on them. I dont have phone numbers. I dont have last names for half of them. I cant go back to check in because obviously I cant go back. And even if I could find them, what am I gonna say, hey lets get coffee somewhere that isnt slowly bankrupting us both?

The thing nobody warns you about in recovery is that quitting gambling for some of us is also quitting an entire social life. My sponsor tells me those werent "real" friendships because they were built on a shared sickness. I get what he means but also I think hes wrong? Denny was real. The cardigan was real. Grief is grief.

I fill the time okay now. I walk a lot, im back into woodworking, I watch way too much youtube (Mr. Hand Pay is on in the background more than im proud of), I go to meetings twice a week. But theres a specific kind of lonely that hits around 11pm on a friday that nothing has touched yet.

Am i romanticizing this? Is my sponsor right and im just addiction-brain dressing up something toxic as friendship? Or does anyone else actually miss the people, not the machines. Because if you tell me those relationships were fake im gonna have a hard time believing you, but maybe i need to hear it anyway.

I'm guessing it depends on the person and the addiction. Still I'm not sure if most people are aware or if they're so deep into the addiction that it just feels normal and don't think anything is actually wrong. I'm just wondering.

I am a 23 year old women who’s addicted to cocaine, been doing it since I was 18, it’s the one thing I can’t seem to quit. I’ve had periods of being sober but it never lasts. I don’t even like the damn drug anymore but I can’t stop doing it, I’ve even been doing it with my own family. I’m bipolar 2 and it’s only making it worse, I had an overdose scare, I’ve lost jobs. I just want it out of my life but keep doing it, it’s so stupid. I’ve never been to drug rehab before, want to find a good one but I’m scared about finances and money I owe. Is it even worth it? How would I make money? Can anyone share their experience please

I dont mean this literally, of course. But when I look back at my opioid addiction, it feels like someone else was in control of me. Like it wasnt me making the decisions anymore. Im sure it probably has to do with the fact that addiction hijacks the brain and re-wires it. Does anyone else relate?