[Solved] How does alcoholism(but sober) put up barriers

Hey man. Firstly well done on the successes you've had with the staying off booze. Addiction is a tricky thing.

I have overcome addictions too, namely amphetamines.

I used to be such a [censored] hardcore user of ecstasy, speed, cocaine, & any other uppers that we're going around, all the legal highs that have been popular in recent years too (my mate owned one of these shops before I gave up, so my final year was nuts as you can imagine).

I started everything ridiculously young. Smoking when I was 7/8, sniffing glue at 9/10, drinking & smoking weed by 10, snorting speed by 13. When I took my first E as I turned 15 I was hooked immediately. I don't know I was hooked immediately until I looked back years later & reflected on my behaviour at the time, but yes absolutely hooked from offset because all I wanted to do was take E tabs & that's all I thought about & my life revolved around them.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the relentless amphetamine fuelled life I used to lead. About a decade ago now I was at the height of it all, literally shovelling handfuls of E's down my gob & hoovering dozens of grams of speed & coke up my nose. For at least 4 days & nights a week I would drink, take drugs & party. Even though I was addicted to E's immediately & it wasn't long before I looked like death warmed up (which was what one of my mates said to me after I had became healthy looking again) I obviously enjoyed them & wanted to take them all the time. But a few years later when I got my first full time job just after I turned 18 I got into a nice routine of working all week & then playing really hard from Thursday to Monday. It was now what I can only describe as controlled recklessness. I was a functioning addict who lead an unpredictable, crazy life.

I genuinely lived on the f*cking edge.

Recently I've been reminiscing a lot about the person I was 10 years ago. I'm jealous of the 19 year old me, he had a lot of fun, experienced some crazy f*cking [censored], took tons of the best drugs & had epic unforgettable nights in the 2 biggest clubs this country ever had (Ireland) which are both closed down long ago due to the dodgyness of each, with people dying & being murdered etc. They were crazy places, these places played a big part in my life then, every weekend it would be one or the other, & every person in the places were off their heads. I've messed around with random girls in the clubs while their boyfriends were running around looking for them. I've been fighting with the bouncers the head bouncer of which I firmly still believe to this day was a cop who did the doors as a side job. I've been in the middle of the biggest free for all fights in the car park where there were hundreds of people going at each other. Mayhem.

Recently I heard 10 seconds of a particular tune on a girls snapchat video & everything came flooding back hitting me like a ton of bricks, in a good way obviously. I was reminded of the happy memories I have of the life I lead back then. I was thinking deeply about it all for weeks & it's a mixed bag of emotions. It makes me sad that those times are gone, over, finished, & I can't ever get them back. I miss the mayhem & not giving a f*ck attitude, not actually purposely trying to kill myself but technically taking suicidal amounts of drugs. I would shock people in parties by for example swallowing 5, 6, 7 E's in one go on top of the 20 or so I had already taken, & doing it like they were smarties. I shocked people, but then once they got over the initial shock I'd be the hero, the king of the party.

Times I would throw 5 or 6 pills into me on a Sunday evening to "ease the comedown" of the 30 or so pills from the weekend. But it basically just a nice excuse to finish off the pills I had & get off my head again. Times it would be a Tuesday night & an associate would offer me 4 or 5 pills as a dare to see if I would take them there & then, of course I did. More times than I can remember my mate used to spike me, a LOT. Of course I didn't give a sh*t, it was actually very kind of him because 3 or 4 pills hit you way harder when you didn't know you had taken them.

I used to really love the power of 4, 5, 6, 7 pills all hitting you in one go & that is the extremes I had taken myself to, doing that several times over the night/weekend.

I'm not thinking about it in the way that I actually want to take drugs again, because I don't. I couldn't because I know there's a high possibility that I would just become a paranoid mental patient rather than get the exhilarating loved up buzz ecstasy is meant to be renowned for.

I was a greedy f*cker with speed & coke too, particularly the cheap & cheerful speed, & I could write a book on the after effects of taking loads of speed. But I think you get the picture.

I was just feeling a little sad about it all. I'm glad I experienced it & that I lived life to the absolute max, but I miss the unbalanced, unpredictable madness of the first half of the 2000s. I miss the life. I miss who I was. It was excessive & over the top but I did it MY WAY & I f*cking loved it. I didn't think it was ever going to end & I certainly never imagined me ever being against drugs. I never thought I'd say this but if I could go back & do it all again I would.

As for me giving up the drugs, I did so on the 1st of August 2010. That date may sound quite specific but it wasn't a set date or anything, it just happened to be the day I quit & so it is easy to remember, plus I like the date it sounds really significant (which obviously it is).

The way I see my quitting drugs was a 3 step process over 5 years. First in September 2005 I gave up speed because I was hopelessly addicted to it & took too much leaving me with severe psychosis, which is terrible paranoia, you become skitzophrenic. It had to go. So I made a finite statement that I was off it, & I never looked at it again.

(I never knew at the time, but this was the beginning of me quitting drugs. And it was the first point of me showing I had the strength & the willpower to overcome an addiction)

Second step was on New Year's Eve 2008. My friend gave me a big lump of cannabis & told me to make a big massive millennium joint to see in the new year. I had been cutting down on my cannabis for 2 years before this & decided that there couldn't be a more perfect moment to finally give it up than right now at midnight just after this super massive joint. It was my farewell smoke :') I gave it up & never smoked again. It's the only New Years resolution I've ever stuck with.

The after one hectic final year of legal highs & ecstasy courtesy of my friend who owned a legal high shop, I decided the lifelong party was over for me. The fun days were gone & drugs did more harm to me than good. I accepted that I had to quit when I ran out f the a friends party & went home after getting paranoid on E's. I got home & was hearing voices & stuff again (the skitzophrenic symptoms). At the time Eminems album "Recovery" was top of the charts & my favourite album, so I blasted it on full rip to blank out the voices. As I lay there contemplating life I decided that this was the last time I would ever go through this mental patient paranoia sh*t. I quit, & never looked back. Eminems album is the most meaningful album to me, it is poignantly named, & it is about Eminems own recovery. So it resonated with my own life.

When the short relationship with my child's mother ended in early 2011 I hit the bottle hard to cope & was drunk for 3 months so I know exactly how you felt when your girl dumped you & I reacted in exactly the same way. During that time I almost relapsed on drugs twice. I never went through with it though & I put a positive spin on it in that I never saw them as almost relapses I saw them as 2 tests that I passed. And this was before she came back a few months later to tell me she was pregnant!

I drink regularly like 1 or 2 times a week but I've never felt I had a problem with it. I do tend to drink quite hard though for example a few weeks ago I drank 15 bottles of strong Spanish rose by myself over a weekend (124.5 units of alcohol) but I'm Irish we have to keep up appearances right? Lolol

Having said that I'm going of it in the new year only to drink on special occasions. It gives me more time to study hard so I can achieve the best possible degree classification in psychology. To get back into boxing training. To up my breakdancing practice to 6 hours per week. To get my driving license so I can drive up & see my son more often. Etc etc. Basically I want a clear head to do all the cool things in my life without throwing away 2/3/4 days at a time drinking.

My drug days were before my child came along but it has been used against me in regards to contact, so I can relate to you in that way. My ex used to keep my child from me because I was "an alcoholic ex druggie"... That has changed over time but 2 years ago I was in a bad place mentally & hated her for using that against me as well as lots of other stuff.

I don't have personal experience of any 12 step programme but do I have my own personal philosophy on addiction & "recovery"...

When I gave up drugs, I see that as the end. No recovery, no slippery slope, no at risk of or any of that nonsense. I simply gave up drugs & moved on with my life end of story. I had many arguments with people who work in substance abuse for example one guy asked me how long I had been in recovery. I told him that I don't see myself as in recovery, but recovered. He shook his head patronisingly & said "no, you'll always be in recovery" I could have head butted him. I don't see how another person can try & tell you what to think. I believe that by engraining into someone's head that they are "in recovery" that person will always be in the victim mentality. They will go about life knowing that they are "at risk" & all that nonsense. I appreciate that a lot of people are ok to be in recovery & are satisfied with the process, but personally I believe that it's much more positive to a person to tell them "yeah man I am proud of you, you overcame it & are completely out the other end" rather than "you are doing so well man keep up the good work & try not to use drugs again" can you see the difference in how it's phrased? Even if someone did relapse after believing they had come out the other end, it means nothing, they just start again.

APOLOGIES for the super long lost but you asked if anyone had been through addiction, so I wanted to share haha..

You haven't said if you are into anything but are you doing anything productive with your time to better yourself? If you want a big change in your life & for the ex to see you're doing something about your future you might look into the open university. Most degrees are funded so no need to worry too much about cost.

Is that something you would be interested in?

Well done for quitting the drink, I had a 20 year cannabis addiction when I smoked an 8th every day for all them 20 years and gave it up 11 months ago, so I know how hard it can be to pack it in .

Well done for quitting the drink, I had a 20 year cannabis addiction when I smoked an 8th every day for all them 20 years and gave it up 11 months ago, so I know how hard it can be to pack it in .

Why exactly did you pack it in?

For me it was the anxiety it caused for no apparent reason.

For example you would not have a care in the world & then 20 minutes after a smoke you are sitting there stressed out to the max for no [censored] reason at all, that's why I quit it.

I knew it would get brought up in court so I went cold turkey and jacked it so my ex had nothing on me which was a good job as I had to do 3 drug tests which all came back negative, that shut the [censored] up trust me 🙂

It wasn't easy mind it was probs the hardest thing I have done it was was harder than giving up the coke pills and speed, for 3 months I was a complete wreck it was horrendous :/

Yeah good enough reason & well done.

I looked forward to doing drug tests cos I would obviously prove her wrong so I know how satisfying it must have been haha! But I withdrew the court [censored].

I smoked morning noon & night too for 10/15 years. I think with any drug if done enough there comes a point where the body says "ok you c*nt I've had enough, leave me alone now, stop this [censored]"

I do however know people who can't function without a smoke. Personally it got to a point I couldn't function WITH a smoke.

I must admit my body was getting sick of it it didnt seem to get me stoned anymore and I was always having crazy mood swings, having no sleep and sweating was the worst whilst having crazy dreams if and when I did get sleep send me crazy