who am i - Page 4

lnhguy · 01-12-2008, 05:29 PM

i am just pushing through. i am going to bet thi it is hard but it can be done. my wife and i have sort of avoided each other for a day and a half. you see if it wasn't for my wife i really would not be here right now and i thank her for that. she new i had problems with addiction and she saw that i wasn't doin anything about it. she talked to my doc and they took me off all my meds. at he time i was pi**ed and for weeks after that. I went to a new doc at the end of the taper lokking for my drugs and was denied. she would keep me on the lowest dose possible of LA but that was it and I think the shock of being denied was what led me to messin up this last week. as i said i knew right at the begining that the first extra one i had taken that i had no control even after throughout my taper I had done fine and kept saying to myself that i i was doin great and"see i can control my medicine". that showed me otherwise. thank goodness that my wife stepped in b/c i really wouldn't have done anything. these drugs are far more powerful than the human mind. it is scary to think that i just may have let everything go. so anyways iwas crying a little thinking about stuff and needed to talk so i asked for a hug an when i hugged her i just broke down. it felt great to have a shoulder to cry on. her soft voice her smell. it just made me feel good. I just did not think that she new how hard this is and i was feeling alone. she made me feel so good. so for almost 2 days now i have been wallowing in my funk and i really don't know what to do. i REALLY don't feel like doin anything but... any suggestions on stuff to do i have seemed to lost all that i knew.

lnhguy · 01-12-2008, 09:44 PM

yeah wd stink but you know what i deserve every bit of it. if it were too easy on me then i would have nothing to remind me of what i went through.besides they would prob give me some valiumn or something and i would just eat them all. i am staying away from any sort of help that involves meds. I WILL MAKE IT OUT OF THIS

reachout · 01-12-2008, 11:07 PM

Hi Inhguy

I was chuckling to myself as I read of your determination to not use drugs to get off drugs. I chuckled because I really gave the psychiatrist agita over this issue. Four sessions in a row, he wanted me to use different meds and four sessions in a row, I refused. I had handed him a writen letter the first time I saw him as I knew I was too emotional to speak much and stay on track. The letter stated my problem and included a brief history as well as a firm statement that I would not in any way switch meds around. I was on what I was on and I would come off what I was on. Plain and simple. By the fourth session, he told me he thought the clinical social worker might be of more help to me. Man, he was so very correct about it! Through her, I learned so much.... drug-free ways of coping with the withdrawal, and, more importantly, concrete knowledge that helped me understand why I was where I was and how to change it. One of the biggest lessons taught by her was hypnosis that led smoothly into self hypnosis. I practice it continually today in all areas of my life.

I don't condemn or argue with anyone who choses a different path than I did. I was already on a blood pressure med (Toprol XL) and believe that helped me. However, every med the psychiatrist offered came from the classes of drugs I wanted to get off of.... opiates and benzos. Every opiate and benzo has withdrawal that stinks... I just decided I would only work from where I was. As long as I kept making progress, I did not not see a need to alter my plan. if I started failing, I would have revisited the issue.

If your plan is working for you thus far, stay strong and stick to it. I have a suggestion for you to fill the time in this period of funk. It is a skill I learned in coping with depression, but helped me in withdrawal. A long ago, practical psyhiatrist suggested that I wash the back deck in slow, circular motions. It was a task that was rote in nature, but it gave me something meaningless to focus on and allowed my mind to relax a bit involved in the activity. I got lost in the motion and did relax. Nothing I could make a mistake in. Just washing the back deck. Like sweeping the garage or kitchen. Just rote activities that do not stress us at all. Calm motion.

Wishing you well during this time.
reach

lnhguy · 01-13-2008, 01:39 AM

well woke up at 12 got a big 2 hours sleep. woke up with some pretty bad wd symptoms. after some time making sure i didn't let it go any further its not so bad. its just a matter of staying awake long enough to be able to fall back to sleep for a little while. then the night will be over. night seems to be the worst for me i don't know why.

reachout · 01-13-2008, 03:24 AM

Hi Buddy

I am up tonight, too. Sleeping a bit off.

Inhguy, I remember well those many nights of 2 hours sleeep, 6 hours awake, 1 hour sleep, 3 hours awake. Then finally, a bit of a crash would come and maybe 4 straight hours. Sometimes I was awake for 36 straight hours and going zany begging for sleep to come.

We get weary of the withdrawal symptoms. So weary. It is, like Yoss wrote, a testy time. "A time to try men's souls."

It won't last forever, Friend. I know it sure seems like it, but truly, it won't last forever. Try some baths and showers to relax a bit. I even wore earplugs sometimes because I became so sensitive to noise of any kind. I am actually a bit of hard-of-hearing, but in withdrawal, I swear I could hear the morning birds two time zones away. I would notice the sound of the fridge running, the central air... sounds I was long accustomed to suddenly were deafening and so annoying to me. Nerves get raw during this time and we need to find ways to soothe ourselves, to take the edge off the angst. I listened to Pachebel's Canon in D a lot (still do). It is relaxing in its tones and rhythms. Do you have a piece of music that soothes you? Lulls you? I tried to tay away from TV because images and words stimulate the brain into thinking and we need some 'blank' time to be able to set the mind at ease enough to rest. If the body is not forcing you into movement, try to lay still and at least rest. It will help.

I know you are weary. I remember strongly the utter weariness of it all. Take heart when I promise you it will pass. Sleep will linger a bit longer with each passing day. Are you yawning? Yawning is something that returns. It is absent in long opiate use. Depressed respiration. I was so happy when full yawns finally returned to me. Haha... I just yawned writing about it. Maybe sleep will come to me soon. I am going to lay down again soon and try to get my sleep mojo kicking. Hope you can do the same.

Zzzzzzzzzzz's to us both
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