r/addiction

And I’m absolutely sick of hearing ignorant mfs say it isn’t

No, it’s not as simple as “just stop.”

No, stopping will not just be “a little uncomfortable” for a few days.

My boyfriend stopped cold turkey and had 2 heart attacks. He’s lucky to be alive.

Drug addiction changes the chemistry in your brain. And being physically addicted turns into a cycle where you become a prisoner to your drug. Even if you want to stop, you can’t. The fear of being sick is always looming over you, and nowadays the withdrawal from street fentanyl has a VERY REALISTIC chance of killing you, because of all the other bullshit they put in it.

Stop telling drug addicts that they did this to themselves. Sure, the first time was a choice, but by the time it becomes a necessity it’s too late.

I would NEVER have chosen this for myself if I could have seen the future. I am so much better than this, but when I look in the mirror all I can hear in my head is, “Junkie.”

I don’t know if I believe in God, but please God fucking help me. Help my boyfriend. Help my friends.

Get me the fuck out of this mindset.

Hello 21/F I’ve been sober for 6 months now off crack cocaine (which was my doc) & some meth (which I did once every few months as crack was my main doc). Throughout my year of addiction which I started in December 2024 there have been 2 times where I’ve accidentally hit a fent pipe as the people I was around at the time did dope and roc/meth. I am very lucky to still be here I’ve been hospitalized once. For some reason being sober off all drugs mainly uppers besides my two accidental situations I don’t feel like I’m real anymore everything feels like a dream state, or I get very paranoid about drugs being laced in my food/drinks or someone is going to break in into my house and kill me ( I don’t leave my room at night and have three dogs so I try to feel comfortable), and or I feel like I passed away during my addiction and I’m in alternate timeline. Everything feels foggy and in a dream like state. I don’t feel present in my body (feels like I’m looking through myself from another pov) when I become too ware that I don’t feel present in my own body) it causes me panic attacks where my vision gets bad, breathing gets heavy, I feel dizzy, and feel like I’m going to faint. I’m not sure if this is due to the drug use in my past or because of my accidently od on fent. I’ve brought this up to doctors they do absolutely nothing I’m struggling and I want to be present for my now husband and focus on the future but I mentally don’t feel present. The health care system in Canada does absolutely nothing.

I have a problem with this thing, where I hate myself whenever I indulge in it. I waste so much on it, especially time wise- it makes me spiral for no less than three hours. And it's cost me so much, because now I feel like I can't do anything, I can't even be anyone real. Like life doesn't even feel real without it. I struggle so much to not do it, sometimes I'd be in the middle of it and I'd think how terrible it is, how many things I should be doing instead of this, the way it's costing me so much already. I'm 25 but I still feel like a child, I never got to have any proper experience with anything monumental because I was busy doing this thing for the last ten years. I swear I try to stop, I really do. But the moment I feel a little bit stressed or overwhelmed I end up being stuck in a loop of repeating this thing over and over again, while hating myself in the process. I've lost weeks on end. I don't know what to do, I don't even know if it's valid. I'm just stuck. I want a life outside of this. I want to be able to process emotions in a healthy way. I want to finally do everything I've wanted or at the least meet the basic expectations of a 25yr old. I can't get a job, and when I had one I was so poor at it. It's a stupid stupid thing to have me on a chokehold like this.

I realised I didn't even mention what I'm talking about. Anyways it's maladaptive daydreaming

i was taking around 950 mg of 7oh a day. Used quickMD and got 14 8mg sub / 2mg nalaxone that same day. I waited almost 24 hours after my last dose of 7oh to take my first sub. The doctor told me you might need to take all 3 in order to stabilize since I was taking such a high dose of 7oh and he was right.

I took my last dose monday night at 8pm and Tuesday night I was in wds and took my first strip at 8pm and it took about an hour or two but it took away a good chunk of my WDs. Ended up falling asleep after the first strip kicked in all the way and woke back up at around 12 in strong Wds so I took another strip but this time I couldnt go back to sleep. Those two strips took away 75% of my wds and when I took the third one I felt decent after an hour or two and was even able to sleep a bit that night.

Woke up Wednesday morning and didn't feel bad, but I didn't feel good either. I had to get used to not feeling artificially good which is a whole different story in and of itself.

Even after those 3 8mg strips that I took within 6 hours of each other I still wasn't stabilized. I took another strip at around 1pm on that Wednesday and that seemed to help tremendously.

Wednesday night I ended up taking another strip along with some comfort meds to help me sleep and I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep which I considered a win.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I took a whole strip in the morning and a whole strip around 7 pm.

It was Sunday that I noticed a change. I took my 8mg suboxone strip that morning and by 11 I felt different, sort of wired or fried. I determined that I was on too high of a sub dose since I had worked through the main part of the WDs before and felt fine but now that the worst of the 7oh WDs were gone I didn't need as much. That night I cut the strip in half and it worked just fine. I started taking half of my normal dose of 8mg for the next 2 days and then for two days I took half of that, so on and so forth. When I got to the point of taking one 0.5 mg strip in the morning and another at night I stayed at that dose for a few days and then stopped the subs altogether and I felt fine.

That last sentence is what I want to focus on here. The whole time after I stabilized I felt just "fine". Not good, not bad, just fine, just okay. Getting used to not being high and just feeling "fine" was a difficult mental battle.

It's been a few weeks and the only fallout from taking the suboxone is me not sleeping great for a couple days after my last dose but I still counted myself lucky to have gotten any sleep at all even if it was just 4 to 5 may be 6 hours a night.

I had to fight to get myself to eat anything and I drank a lot of those meal replacement drinks during this process. Used a lot of pedialyte.

I still get cravings but I made my mind up a while ago to stop so those aren't a big deal.

Hey, guys and gals.

I haven’t written any stories or updates lately. Well, I’m finally sober. A few months now. After a painful 25 year battle with crack and heroin, I’ve now got my life back.

However, what now?

I’m not dwelling in self pity. Actually, I’m rather happy sometimes, well, a lot of the time. I’m just extremely isolated and have no friends. I speak to my parents each day, but, they live in Spain and I’m in the U.K.

I’ve been doing a lot of exercise. Running and working out at home. Also, I’ve began writing my book and planning to start a YouTube channel documenting my journey from the depths of addiction and into recovery. I’m also doing a 10k run in aid of the charity Cancer U.K., it’s called Race for Life, of which I’m really looking forward to.

The main thing I need help and advice with, is loneliness. I really want to make some friends to spend time with, but I don’t know how. I was recently diagnosed with moderate to severe ADHD and mild autism, so that’s been a mixture of feelings and emotions.

If anyone has any ideas it can relate, I’d love to hear from you.

Anywho, if anyone reads this, thank you, and I hope you’re having a happy and fulfilling day 😁

My partner (currently ex) cheated on me several times during his addiction. He’s in recovery treatment and going to AA meetings almost everyday, and I’m happy for him.

I’ve seen how he kinda becomes another person when he starts drinking. The drinking led to drugs and occasionally to him cheating. His substance ego does NOT care about anything at all, and I somehow understand how this demon ego has completely forgotten about me.

But I still struggle so much with understanding how he’s been able to pretend everything was fine in between benders, and how he’s been living with not telling me about the harm he’s caused.

I know he’s been stuck in a horrible shame spiral, and have been extremely afraid to lose me, but I still don’t get it, since I’m usually too honest.

Currently I’m very happy to see how much progress he’s going, and I kinda see him coming back to himself which is very scary. I want all the best for his recovery, and I hope to forgive him someday for the pain he caused me, which is also why I try to understand all this.

I guess I’m trying to understand the lies that occur during active addiction, if anyone has some insight, or if someone has done something similar to the ones they love, or can explain ways the addiction occupies the brain!

Please share your story!

And I wish you all a good recovery <3

I really want community. And would love to meet fellow neurospicy people to talk about experiences. unmasking. etc or just to meet some likeminded friends

Would anyone be interested in online meetings or a group chat? Or does anything like this exist!

It’s a lonely life without connection to those who understand so why not make it more fun :D

32F

I’m a 22M college senior in my last semester, and I’ve been stuck in a cycle that I’m trying to break out of.

I keep going out and falling into habits I know aren’t good for me. In the moment it doesn’t feel like a big deal, but afterward I get a lot of anxiety and regret. The weird part is that even while it’s happening, it almost feels like I’m detached from myself—like I’m just observing it instead of fully in control of it.

I genuinely love my life outside of this and I’m doing fine in school, but when I’m in that environment it doesn’t feel like “me” anymore. Even when I use substances, instead of feeling normal or relaxed, I just feel off and not like myself.

Afterwards I try to reset everything—working out, eating better, avoiding those situations—but I still end up going back into the same pattern. I know where it leads every time, and I don’t like the version of myself I become in it, but I still struggle to stop once I’m in that setting.

I don’t really know if it’s boredom or just the stage of life I’m in, but I feel stuck in a loop that I can clearly see and still have trouble breaking.

If anyone has dealt with something similar and found a way out, I’d really appreciate hearing what helped.

As probably most of us all know, relapse doesn't start with using...it starts way earlier.

For me, it was a lot of stress, I felt off but couldn't put my finger on what it was, and I also felt unable to sit with myself.

I used to keep my past detox experience in the forefront of my mind so I wouldn't ever forget how bad it was, but over time (when I stopped doing the work), I started to tell myself I could do it again. It wasn't that bad. I survived once, I'll survive again.

I stopped doing the things that were helping, I isolated more, and I found myself getting in my head way more too.

Eventually, it stopped feeling like it was a bad idea and started sounding more and more appealing.

That's honestly the scary part. It doesn't FEEL like you're messing up, it starts to feel like a good idea.

Curious what it was like for others and what did it feel like right before you relapsed? (If you have)

I was almost two years. I don’t count by the days any more but it feels like such a waste. All gone. And the worst part is. I don’t see any negatives right now. I don’t care. I hate myself for it. I wish I wasn’t like this sometimes, and I do t know why I am. I’m still sober from everything else, but why with here? Why not this. Guess I’ll just have to rebuild it all again. It’s ironic cuz the meetings and group that got me sober in the first place are coming back in two weeks, after a pretty long hiatus.. I was doing well, I was okay. Then it crumbled. I don’t even know why.

i never really thought i had a problem abusing drugs or even that i had a sex addiction. Though, in the past months of me living with my fiancé & our daughter i have noticed how bad it has gotten. i have a really good job opportunity, one that could change our lives and finally get us out of the slump that we’ve been in for the past year or so. Only problem is i can’t stop smoking weed. The worst part about it is it’s so easy for me to access since we’ve been living in oklahoma. As for the sex addiction i’m used to having sex with multiple women at least 5 out of the 7 days of the week and when i wasn’t having sex i think about sexual things. Recently i’ve gotten into the cuckold and hot-wife side of reddit and it’s honestly been the worst thing that could’ve happened. Its all i think about and all i look at on my phone and i’ve expressed this to my wife & she did try her best to fulfill my fantasies but she just wasn’t comfortable with it all. Which i had no issue with at all i just felt bad for maybe weirding her out but we start working on the sexual aspect of our relationship. We dabbled a little in roleplay and her dressing up or even mutual masturbation but i still seem to always want more and more. It honestly feels like i’m losing my mind and i feel terrible for my fiancé & my daughter because i feel like i’m failing them everyday. Especially my fiancé i’ve put her through so much i just want to love her how she deserves to be loved. please any advice is more than appreciated.

(sorry about the grammar and punctuation i’m all over the place right now lmao)

I'm in the UK, if that's helpful.

My sister-in-law is in an absolute vice-grip with Ketamine addiction. It's probably been a problem for a couple of years, she's struggling to be honest about the timeline, which is understandable. She came forward in October, told her family, and moved in with her parents, who me and my wife also live with for care reasons.

She might have been clean for a few months, but definitely relapsed in a big way about a month ago, and things have declined rapidly since. I offered to go with her to an NA meeting, and she chose one that's about a 60-90 minute drive away, so there's less chance of her seeing someone that she may know/run into at work.

The meeting she's said she'll try is tomorrow morning. I can't drive, so she'd be driving. Unfortunately, she's been high every single night since Sunday afternoon, and I'm pretty sure she'll be high again tonight. I don't feel comfortable getting in a car with her tomorrow, even if she's technically no longer "under the effects". I'm familiar with the drug, and how long it lasts, and what the comedown is like, and it just doesn't feel right to me.

I have no idea what to do, as this is the only meeting she's said she'll go to, and is either too afraid or not afraid enough (if you see what I mean) to get help elsewhere. I feel like if I turn round and say I can't go with her, or even if I suggest we take public transport, it will come across as me shaming her, and just make things worse.

Just to be clear, I'm not here to judge her decisions around what help she's getting and where, or to get advice on what other help is available, these are things I'm well aware of, as is she. I just don't know how to raise this issue in any way that doesn't make her feel like a piece of shit that isn't worth getting better.

So it all started when I was 15 in 2025 I tried xtc for the first time from a guy at my school I liked it but didn’t continue, fast forward it’s march 2025 my best friends gotten addicted to xtc and I had one xtc pill laying around my room. We FaceTimed and we were just high and talking about life and how grateful we are to have each other and then the high was gone so we took another half and talked more, she found some more pills and we started taking them we also gave a really good friend of mine some and I feel really bad about that but at least she’s not addicted lol and in the past month I’ve taken about 20 pills and I feel really agitated without them and like I want to kill my self and I have done some things and said some things that I really regret. So I’m asking Reddit what can I do now cause fuck it’s the only thing in my mind

SR AND SUBOXONE ISSUE. WHAT SHOULD I DO TO GET THROUGH THIS WITH OUT BEING LECTURED ABOUT TAKING THINGS FROM THE INTERNET

SR and suboxones issue.

I was taking 200mg of SR before the issue arised and and one night with just SR everything got weird were I felt weak restlessness went to a 10 unable to focus read my phone. And the last week has been hell. this is my first day I was able to go back to work. And been pretty weak and restless but have been able to focus and stuff. But last week I was weak. Trying to take subs again. Now I felt good this morning and took subs and went pretty much back to wear I was all week. But was able to focus and stuff like normal. From what I read I was suffering PAWS. I want this all done. I think I should give SR ANOTHER SHOT but I need more recommendations from the community before I do so. I read the document and everything. But didn't find anything about what I suffered. Let me know please. Thanks again.

also, I went to the hospital to only be lectured about taking stuff from the internet. Even though I know y'all have my best interest in mind. And they're just there to push but it they were tought. And may not know the ability SR has to help so many. I just want to know if anyone has had this issue and what they did to overcome it. I do not want my one bad experience to be the one that someone may not try SR themselves. thanks again hopefully I can get through those with my job and intact