Hi everyone! Just wanted to give my love to everyone who isn't clean and wants to be, and everyone who is clean to stay on the right track. Here is a little bit of my story-- I am 19 years old. when I was about 16, I would sleepover at my friend's house every weekend. I would drink there every time drinking a small flask size bottle of Vodka. I would drink the whole bottle. Sometimes my friends would drink with me and sometimes they wouldn't(which I never noticed because I was too drunk. I wasn't addicted though, it was just fun. until at the end of the night i would cry and say how much I loved everyone.(I am an emotional drunk)So i was sent to a chemical counselor by my psychologist. The counselor said I am not an "alcoholic" but if I kept up what I was doing, that was definitly where I was heading. Our sleepovers slowly ended and I wasn't drinking too much any more. Then weed came into my life. I love it. It is an every once in a while thing, but I love to smoke it when I can. Now recently my best friend and I moved into our first apartment together. I have been drinking a lot lately because there is nobody there to stop me. i got weed a while ago, and I have been smoking it every night. I know I have a problem because I get sad and want to die when I use, but I don't know if it's bad enough for AA. I am willing to do almost anything to get high or drunk and get really anxious if I know I don't have a supply for the weekend. I also have a tendency to get. I am also a borderline, so I already have an addictive personality. if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know/

Hi there -

First of all, I think you are very brave and very wise beyond your years to realize that things are not "right".

The counselor who told you you "weren't an alchoholic but were headed that way" was a fool - have you ever heard of someone who is a "little alchoholic"? That should have been a red flag for the situation then.. i was definitely an alchoholic/addict at your age. Non one realized it - heck, I was young! What happens is that is progresses until your life is affected - or becomes unmanageable.

There are plenty of kids your age in AA - I see them every day. I have a friend who became sober at 19 - she is now 30.

You recognize that alchoholc and pot are not taking you good places. You use home alone, when there is "no one to stop you" - do yourself a big favor and get some help now - save yourself years of heartache and get on the right track today - talk to another counselor or doctor - they can help you find an AA/na group. (most people in AA I know have also abused a drug or too) Go to a bunch of meetings until you find where you like it best. Talk to people your age and see what they do for support.

Good luck to you - you will be OK - I know it.

I guess I'm just scared because I don't want to give up what I am doing. to go to a support group you have to be totally sober right?? I am willing to cut down, but the thought of never smoking weed or drinking again scares the crap out of me

beedril,
You said:
Originally posted by beedril17:
I guess I'm just scared because I don't want to give up what I am doing. to go to a support group you have to be totally sober right?? I am willing to cut down, but the thought of never smoking weed or drinking again scares the crap out of me

There are some real problems here. First of all, in order to be clean, you have to want to be clean. I realize that you're young and it all seems alright right now because of the great feelings that you're getting from the drugs.
I am 22 years old now, but I went to rehab when I was 19 years old. I started earlier than you. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 11 years old to right now( now I can't stop. It is the hardest drug to quit). I started smoking pot in the 8th grade. Around the same time, I also started drinking. I mean, it was natural to me. I remember being six years old and my Grandpa giving me some of his beer every time I saw him. My best friend would come over and we'd go down to my Dad's bar and mix in as many things as we could fit in a 12 ounce glass to see what it would taste likeBy the time I was a sophomore I was smoking pot everyday. It was harmless, right. Wrong. By the time I was 16, my partying was getting me into trouble, but I didn't see it. My grades were falling, I was skipping school all the time. My parents didn't know what to do, I was out of control. They didn't know about the drinking and drugs, but they knew I stayed out way too late, had all the wrong kinds of friends, and I lied to them constantly. I planned and plotted to do what I wanted to do, stay out late, party, drink, smoke some ganja, have some f'g fun! I even started helping to campaign the movement to legalize marijuana. I couldn't imagine living without it. It made me mellow when I wanted it to. If I was sick and nauseated it made me feel better. If I was down, it made me forget what was going on or at least make it seem not so important. At 17, I started getting really depressed and felt like I was going crazy. I know now that I have Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety, and a dash of OCD. I may also have borderline personality disorder. I smoked pot everyday just about all day long. My boyfriend and I toked up in the morning and afternoon while we figured out what we were going to do for 4:20, then smoked until the next one and the next one. You get the picture. All the parents and older crowd said marijuana was bad, but I didn't think it was. I had tried it and it was good. Had they? No. So what did they know? Besides I knew a lot of people I was close with who would give me marijuana for free. I liked the high it gave me and it was 'natural', but I started wondering about other drugs, how they would make me feel. Then, they offered me other things for free. I tried out LSD. I liked that alright, did it quite a few times, but it still wasn't quite the greatest high. So I took pills, didn't like them, they made me sleepy or groggy. Speed wasn't my style, didn't like feeling jittery. Then I found my drug of choice: ECSTACY. It made me feel so good. I loved everyone and everything was beautiful. I could forget about feeling bad inside. I wasn't depressed. Except for the next couple weeks. I would always be... off... I felt so depressed. Until I would take it again. It progressed this way on & on. I was self-medicating. But the problem with that is it really only makes things worse. They made me feel really good for a while, but afterwards I was even worse off than I was before I took whatever I had that time. I didn't have control over my emotions or my life anymore. It was a landslide. When I was 19, I realized that I wanted to actually live, not just try to fly high all the time only to crash. I wanted to be happy. I wanted it to be real when I was happy, not some chemical emotion. I went to see a psychiatrist and psychologist. They reccomended I join their recovery program when I gave them the mammoth list of all the drugs I had ever taken. I went. I wanted to get better. I wanted to feel okay inside. I did. I started feeling so much better. Just being sober was crazy to me. I had been high so long, being sober was a whole new world to me. I quit doing drugs, but not all. Smoking pot once in a while seemed harmless. What's a little weed? I drank too once in awhile. What's wrong with that? I know what's wrong with that now. At 21 I had a breakdown, went to the hospital, stayed for 2 weeks inpatient, 2 weeks outpatient. I learned I was having LSD flashbacks. The once in a while drinks were adding to my depression. The weed causes paranoia and depression. It eats up all the seratonin that let you feel happy and not depressed. I stopped it all. I went to an AA meeting, but it wasn't my style. I didn't get anything out of it. I did go to meetings at EA (Emotions Anonymous) though. That helped a lot. "My name is Natema and I have no control over my emotions." haha. I have so many regrets about who I used to be, drinking and drugging. Don't let it happen to you. I never graduated high school. In school, I tested in the 99th percentile, I should've gone to college. Now, my brain is a little swiss-cheesed from the drugs, especially the X. What's ironic is that I am not an addict. I am what's called an abuser. When you say "I am willing to cut down, but the thought of never smoking weed or drinking again scares the crap out of me" it sounds to me like you are going down addiction road.

I'm going to try to finish high school through correspondence school. Hell, I'm trying to rebuild my whole life, but that doesn't change who I am. I'm not born-again. Not all of my friends are clean, but lately they seem to be learning, too. My boyfriend is clean from heroin for 9 months now.

I've got tattoos, piercings. I am who I am, I just don't drug up anymore. I know you are afraid, but what should scare the crap out of you is what will happen if you don't quit? Do you wanna go down the road I did? You've already leaped from alcohol to weed, don't let it progress further.

Please don't take offense to this, but it sounds like you've got some low self-esteem, some issues behind your drinking and smoking up, and probably some mental issues I hope you're getting help for.

Does addiction run in your family? Are you doing this because of problems you have?

I hope I've been able to help a little even though I've been babbling. If you want to talk more, just let me know.

See you around,
Natema


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Participating in real life is not so hard. Ceasing to
pretend that there is something better we could be doing is a
little harder.
-Tao of Enlightenment

Hi,
At least you recognize that you have a problem. And, I would think if you're human, we all have addictive personalities of some sort. You're young tackle it before it gets worse. We all should know the difference between right and wrong. And, if you can't do it yourself, there are other resources for help. Most success stories are based from the man above...prayer is very powerful.
God Bless and have faith.

I will tell you this that addiction is very cunning, baffling and powerful. The thoughts you feel about you still want to do it is exactly what keeps us in our addiction. That is what kept me there for 17 years. We are sick as if we had cancer the difference is we also suffer from the disease of denial that keeps us in our addiction. You must want to stop the use of all drugs to make recovery a success. I am now clean and I absoutely love it. The majority of people in the N.A. meetings that I attend are very young and they are having a wonderful time. They are making friends and are living life to the fullest. I thought for many years that I could just do alitttle bit ir just on the weekends. It doesn't work for us as addicts one is too many and a thousand never enough. You are very wise and brave to recognize the problem so young. I wish you all the best and Good luck.

hi. you sound exactly like me about 4 months ago. i know that weed is not supposed to be addictive, but i couldn't get enough of it. i got so bad that i was basically high for an entire 3 months. i would wake up in the morning and smoke first thing. sometimes at work, and always every night. after a while like this i realized that i was smoking so much because it relieved the depression and horrible anxiety i had been suffering from before i started smoking. in effect, i was self-medicating just to feel normal. i ended up quitting smoking because it started to cause me to have panic attacks. even though i haven't smoked in a couple months i still suffer from panic attacks, and my depression is back threefold. i will be starting to take paxil soon, which i should probaly have done a year ago instead of turning to pot. but i didn't realize i even had a problem.

my advice to you would be to really think about why you somke. if you are self-medicating for an underlying issue such as depression or anxiety - the pot can only make things worse in the long run, i promise you. take it from someone who has been there. i know that most people do not react badly to pot, but you sound so much like myself that i am worried for you. when i stopped smoking my brain seemed to crash into a rut that i have not been able to get out of since. i thought that this would never happen to me, i thought that i was just having a good time, but now i can barely leave the house without having a panic episode - and if you have never had one just imagine the worst feeling you have ever had and multiply it by a million. i am not trying to scare you, but i believe that pot is a horrible substance for anyone who has a serious emotional problem to use.

if you only feel "happy" when you smoke, then go talk to a counselor. it is not the pot, but there may be something wrong with your brain the other 90 % of the time.

Christine is right. When does somebody become an addict? I don't believe it is the quantity of a substance or even the frequency with which it is consumed, but rather the NEED to have it, be it alcohol, drugs, etc. that forms the basis of addiction
I would get away from some of those friends...addicts will find a way of surrounding themselves with people who are similar or even worse, so that the denial can be maintained.
Natema managed to change her life...turn it around. But not everyone is so lucky...don't take the risk.
Ask yourself..."Why do I need to smoke pot/drink"
Are you happy with your life...with yourself?
What is it that makes you head for the bottle?
I wish you the very best...not of luck, but of motivation. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

Lunaeris: Congratulations on doing something about your addiction. You might find it useful to check out the Stress/anxiety, Depression and Mental Health Boards for information and support. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by carrad (edited 04-04-2002).]