I am wondering if someone has become addicted to vicodin could it perhaps change the way a person feels or thinks. How does the addiction make you think about your family and loved ones? Could it possibly help to make you feel differently about your spouse? I would like to know what a vicodin addict feels inside. Not just the aspects of the drug feel itself but how the drug could actually take over feelings and decisions. I hope that this is understandable to anyone who reads. Thanks a lot Stayinalive

I am wondering if someone has become addicted to vicodin could it perhaps change the way a person feels or thinks. How does the addiction make you think about your family and loved ones? Could it possibly help to make you feel differently about your spouse? I would like to know what a vicodin addict feels inside. Not just the aspects of the drug feel itself but how the drug could actually take over feelings and decisions. I hope that this is understandable to anyone who reads. Thanks a lot Stayinalive

Well i suppose everyone might be different so i can just give you my experience. In the beginning of addiction you are so happy and content. All is "right with the world" and you are even capable of feeling compassion for your worst enemy. As time goes on, you become miserable. Everything and everybody just irritates you. I cant really say that at any time i hated my spouse, just very irritated ALOT!!!!! Hope this helps some.

Self-gratifiying,self-absorbed, self-centered and self-indulgent pretty much covers some of the changes I see in myself thanks to my addiction. Not a pretty picture huh? And on the down days when I'm not using, and God forbid really don't want to is when I put myself thru such guilt because of everyone I've stepped on, family thingees I screw up, questionable financial choices I make, friends I turn my back on and there are any number of things if I sat here and thought long enough, but it's really too painful.......makes me want to pop a couple and push all those thoughts from my head.
I'm very lucky where my husband is concerned...I don't know if meeting him when I was in full-fledged user mode......scary to think that is why he might have fell in love with me or that I do have a pain issue that clouds it all up. It ain't champagne and roses all the time but could be worse.

Read some of the other posts...you'll see lot of "self-****s" in them.....it's a selfish disease.
Sorry didn't mean to ramble on I'll stop before I fall off into one of my pity parties
Marilyn

Opiate addiction is horrible . . . does it change the way you think? Yes. it does. Does it effect decisions that you make? Absolutely. For me, and I think that many addicts would agree, the addiction takes over and it comes before everything else . . .we may not admit that while we are using, but everything you do revolves around it. It consumes you and you go to bed thinking about it . . .wake up thinking about it. You spend your time thinking about where you are going to get more pills . . .and when you have pills, you think about how long the pills you have are going to last you before you run out and what you are going to do when they do run out to get more. It is tiring. I felt guilty because of my kids . . .and I felt guilty because of my parents because I knew how much my using had hurt them and let them down because there were many times that they found out about my addiction and I would swear to them that I had quit and it was for good this time. I can still remember driving down the road to cop more pills and thinking to myself I cannot keep doing this and in the next two seconds thinking to myself that maybe I could do this for the rest of my life because it hurt so much to not take them. My husband was an addict too so a lot of times we got high together - I don't really know if my addiction made me feel differently about him. I know that we hurt each other and we did a lot of things that we probably wouldn't have done had we not been using. I can remember sitting in my bedroom thinking that I wanted to die sometimes because I didn't know what to do or how to stop what was happening to me and what I had become. I don't think that we are as much selfish as we are sick...not that it is justifiable...but, I really do believe that it is an illness. So, back to your question ... yes, addiction to vicodins (and in my case, heroin) does change the way you think about pretty much everything....when I finally did get into a methadone clinic I would have done just about anything to stop using because I just couldn't do it anymore and I remember the first couple days after I was on the methadone how happy I felt...I took my kids to the park and I got on the swings and I played with them like I was a little kid again...I don't know...it was just the best feeling...like I had my life back after six years of hell. When I look back at my addiction it is hard to remember a lot of what I felt now...I know that I was miserable, but a lot of it is a fog. When I think of how many places I went high and how many things I did high I sometimes don't know how I did it, but than, after a while you don't get high - you just get normal. Drugs have pretty much ruined my marriage - my husband is in prison where he's been for the past four years and he doesn't come up for parole until 2009. I really don't know what will happen between us when he gets out...I am used to being without him now. I guess Ill cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm just taking things a day at a time.
Sue

Thank you both so much for sharing with me. I do not know how vicodin makes you feel. I have personally never taken it. I am very curious to know about vicodin addiction. I was also wondering if you can cut the addiction yourself without the help of a clinic. If anyone else has anything to add it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Stayinalive

Hello My vicodin addiction has change many aspects of my life. My personal relationships have suffered also. It made me feel I can make it without someone but I know it was the drug. Having been clean on and off makes me realize I do need my loveones very much. And being on drugs will only numb me and pull me away from people. Vicodin tries to convince me my life and problems are mamageble but I realized vicodin creates more stress in my life.

If i can just say on thing. I you are seriously addicted, like i am, there is no way you can quit. The flu syptoms you get make you do anything for a pill. Once you are addicted to percs and hydro's, you will find yourself moving on to oxy's, Oxy's are the same thing as percocet. The only difference is that percocet has an anti-inflamitory in it. Hydro's are just a little weaker that percocet. Any way, i have been trying to kick my habbit forabout a year. It has not ruind my life yet. I am doing well. I has ruined my relationship with my sweetheart though. She just not feelin it with me anymore and even though she thinks i have quit, i am positive the pills are to blame. I have used Suboxin, which works very well. The problem becomes stayin off. For some reason i become bored and just want to get high so i can thrive. When on these things i am a good worker and have a craving to do productive things. IT is the complete opposit when i am off. The Suboxone is the first stepbecause it works. I do firmly think that if you are going to get off then you are definetally going to want to go into rehab or some serious outpatient sessions. It cannot be done with out help. Good Luck

If i can just say on thing. I you are seriously addicted, like i am, there is no way you can quit. The flu syptoms you get make you do anything for a pill. Once you are addicted to percs and hydro's, you will find yourself moving on to oxy's, Oxy's are the same thing as percocet. The only difference is that percocet has an anti-inflamitory in it. Hydro's are just a little weaker that percocet. Any way, i have been trying to kick my habbit forabout a year. It has not ruind my life yet. I am doing well. I has ruined my relationship with my sweetheart though. She just not feelin it with me anymore and even though she thinks i have quit, i am positive the pills are to blame. I have used Suboxin, which works very well. The problem becomes stayin off. For some reason i become bored and just want to get high so i can thrive. When on these things i am a good worker and have a craving to do productive things. IT is the complete opposit when i am off. The Suboxone is the first stepbecause it works. I do firmly think that if you are going to get off then you are definetally going to want to go into rehab or some serious outpatient sessions. It cannot be done with out help. Good Luck

Thank you all again for replying. I do appreciate anyone who is willing to give me some understanding of what this addiction does to a person. If anyone else would like to share thier story with me that would be great. Thanks again from a curious girl. Stayinalive

hello my name is scott. iam new to this site but not new to addiction. i have been sober for about 6-7 months now. i was taking between 25-30 vicodin a day for about a year and some days between 100-200mcg of fentanly every three days. The drug took away all of my fears and depression and i was able to do and say things that i would not normally. it never changed the way i felt about my wife i have always loved her and everything about her. i am taking a detox drug called subutex. this drug is better than anything out there today. one 8mg pill disolved under the tounge 2 times a day is all i take. this drug completly and i mean completly takes away any and all of your withdrawl symptoms and lets a person live a normal life. it takes two weeks to finish the detox comfortably. i stayed on the medication because i use to be extreamly depressed and this drug has cured me of depression when all of the other antidepressants failed. i have been sober for awhile now but the addiction is still there and i am fighting with myself lately because i have been wanting to start using again. this message is for everyone i hope that it helped just one person and i hope that someone can help me so that i dont start using again.thank you.......

Scott, Congradulations on getting clean. I have heard a lot of good things about subutex and it sounds like you're doing quite well with it. I've been in a methadone maintenance program for four years now for my addiction to vicodin/oxycontin/heroin. The clinic that I go to has recently started offering subutex to patients who want to get off the methadone. I tried many, many times unsuccessfully to quit using before deciding to go to the methadone clinic and I was apprehensive about going the methadone route because I knew that I was going to become dependent on the methadone. However, there is a difference between being dependent on a medication and being addicted..but that's a different post. lol. I think you really have to remember, Scott, that sometimes it's not the getting clean that is the hardest part of addiction, but rather staying that way. I know that it is something that I will have to work on everyday because I will always be an opiate addict, just not practicing. My best advice to you in staying clean is to just take things one day at a time. Often times we find ourselves feeling guilty about the past and things we did when we were actively using. On the other hand, when we aren't beating ourselves with guilt, we look into the future and we worry - "what am I going to do to stay straight? How am I going to do this? I don't know if I can do it."
As a newly recovering person you must focus on the present and not worry so far ahead. Worry about how you are going to stay clean today. . . worry about how you are going to stay clean tomorrow, tomorrow, see? You'll feel more at peace. Really enjoy the fact that you are clean today...and that you are in control of your own life now rather than the pills having control over you.

One of my favorite quotes: "Let go of yesterday and let tomorrow wait, today is completely yours - use it and enjoy it."

The best of luck to you,
Sue