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Addictions are not only dangerous during the abuse of the drug or alcohol, but afterwards as well. Suffering the after math of it is certainly no easy feat, but I suppose this is the price you pay for it. There is no use now wishing that it never happened. It is over now, and all that is left is suffering the damage it left and moving forward. I never smoked a cigarette or did hard street drugs. I smoked weed for awhile, and when I was denied any other type of street drugs since all the dealers were actually looking out for me, I turned to pharmaceutical drugs. I would say I was a pill-popper, but that was not all I took. I popped pills during the day and could easily down multiple bottles. At night I took different cold medicines that made me drowsy so I could fall asleep at night. Even if that meant taking a bottle a night. It went on for three years, on and off. This was during my senior year of high school and my first couple years of college. It was one of the many ways I self-harmed and dealt with emotions that I could not handle. However, I managed to stop. I lost all my friends who refused to talk to me. I had the police called on me on multiple occasions, and even my mom found out. I stopped cold turkey when my lonliness out-weighed my desperation for these drugs. That was over two years ago. Today, I suffer with liver damage. It was discovered during an ER visit while I was still coping with my addiction. It showed up on my blood work, and I instantly knew why, but the doctor dismissed it since I was there for other reasons and thankfully it was overlooked. My main problem that presists today, is that I can no longer take any sort of medication without vomiting. All it takes to make me sick is smelling it. My brain instantly associates the smell of medicine to the sickness I would feel every time I took it. This is literally every single type of medication out there. Pills, liquid form, and chewables. If I'm lucky enough to swallow it after ten minutes I am vomiting. Thankfully, I have not needed an antibiotic for any reason since this problem began, but I know the day is coming when I will need to take something and I cannot. For this reason I no longer take any medication for mental illness when I am strongly advised to do so. I have been fighting this unmedicated which makes it hard for me to maintain going to therapy. Thus, I get no where. All of this coming back to that addiction. The aftermath is challenging, and at times I feel like I want to relapse or resort to other measures (I had a cross addiction with pills and cutting). Yet, despite all of this I am in a much better spot now that I have stopped for two years, and my friends are back by my side every step of the way. Have any of you had similar experiences? How did you deal with them?