Addiction transferal, what's your latest "drug" of choice?

[Birdee]

This is a poll of sorts...

If you're working on being free from addiction… any type of addiction….alcohol, drugs, smokes, food, internet, shopping, etc… Did you make a clean break from addiction? What, if any, addiction(s) have you replaced your former addiction with? Have you replaced "bad" addictions with "good" ones? Or are you like me and simply substituted an addiction with a lesser evil?

My drug of choice THEN = beer & cigarettes, telephone addiction (usually all at the same time)

My drug of choice NOW = iced coffee, cigarettes & internet addiction (usually all at the same time)

And this lends itself to the question… Can you ever be 100% addiction free?

[catastrophe]

I was an opium addict for years. Went to rehab, got really excited and spun up in the sobriety talk at first, but quickly became skeptical and extremely annoyed with the 'rules' of The Program. So I quit going. But before that, I started abusing the prescription drugs from my pdoc, and using kratom here and there. Mainly because of how I felt like day-old sh*t for months, even a year after getting off opium. Kratom on occasion, or a handful of Lyrica would give me a day free of pain and feeling miserable. But most days just sucked. I seriously considered trying to get back on suboxone just to feel human again (suboxone is as bad as the fun opiods).

I've mostly chilled out on that stuff now that I am approaching a state of physical recovery, although a few Lyrica can make for a fun evening. I don't have any moral objection to drug use, and think that smart people can do drugs and not suffer bad effects on their lives, if they are smart about it.

I actually gave up caffeine about 6 months after getting out of rehab. The insomnia was killing me, so I cut out my beloved 3-4 litres of diet coke a day. After a few months without it, I started having a 20oz. soda a couple of times a week, but it has so far stayed around there.

I smoked like it was the roaring 20's while on dope, and I still do. I love smoking, and it has a whole social culture around it (smoke breaks at work, etc.). I don't see giving it up anytime soon, although I would like to cut down so that I can get in shape.

The other thing I do is try to get my doctors to prescribe me benzo's and stuff with potential for abuse - so I can 'feel good' the chemical way here and there - for me it's just become about escaping the daily monotony and feeling physically unwell. Oh, and most def. the internet addiction thing.

So, to make a long answer longer, I just switched to lesser evils after a brief spat of abstinence.

I'm sure it's possible to be completely addiction free, but as addiction to so many things (caffeine, work, shopping, etc.) are so accepted and promoted by our society, it takes Shaolin Monk type dedication and self discovery. AA would say that while you can be in remission for the rest of your life, you will always be an addict. But AA is full of BS t('.'t)

[imitationofself]

2005-2009: Anorexia and bulimia.

2006-late 2010: Alcohol. Have to sleep, you know? Now two beers give me a headache.

Summer of '09 and spring of 2010: Coke. I fucking love coke.

2009: Adderall. I was buying and taking the wrong dosage and putting it in my nose. College!

Fall of 2010-present: Danks. I fucking love danks.

Every time I get into something I fall off because it becomes boring.

[WinterRosie]

Age 12 - 14: weed

14: add cigarettes and alcohol and chemicals and overexercise and food restriction (this was a rough year)

15: add heroin, lose alcohol

17: lose heroin, chemicals

18: lose cigarettes, add alcohol

19: add cigarettes

21: lose weed

24: add purging

27: lose cigarettes

So, yeah, from 12 onwards it's always been something and still is.

[Cattitude]

I've learned from experience that it's nearly impossible not to be addicted to something if you're alive. When I was a kid, I was addicted to picking sores in my scalp. From teenage years until now, I've been addicted to cutting myself. In my twenties I became addicted to food. I gained nearly 200 lb. and had to have gastric bypass surgery because my weight was literally killing me. I was addicted to the internet for a while, first text chatting and then online games. I also tried crack and was addicted to that, I cut it out after a few months. I smoked cigarettes and gave those up after a few years. I smoked weed and did coke but those things were never addictive to me - I could take or leave them.

I've always indulged in unhealthy alcohol use since I started drinking as a teenager. I went from weekly binges to daily. I have given that up for now (I can't promise I won't fall off the wagon sometime during the rest of my life). I don't do the other stuff in the paragraph above anymore, so what's left? Thanks to about two or three drugs in my cocktail, I've developed an extreme craving for sweets, so I've gained a bit of weight again. I'm now sort of addicted to apples. They are sweet and seem to "scratch an itch" in my brain, and they're a lot healthier than the chocolate, cake and ice cream that I crave. Who knows what I'll pick up next if I can give up the sweets? But I'm sure it will be something.

[catastrophe]

When I was a kid, I was addicted to picking sores in my scalp.

I do that. I used to pick at zits so bad they would become huge face sores.

[Celeste]

Food is my replacement unfortunately. I've gained 10lbs! 10! + the 10 from the meds that's 20 all together, ugh! idk if u can ever be free from ANY addiction, it seems like there's always something so unbelievably great....but that's just me

[abitcrazy]

Yup, I jump from one drug to another. "Addictive personality" (I don't mean in a good way) is what call it. First it was cigarettes for 8 years, then heavy drinking for another 2-3, and then mixed in Klonopin, overlapping with part of the drinking years (almost killed myself, in retrospect - passed out a lot). Next was prescription drugs like Percocet. Now I've kicked all of those, but have a nasty low-level opium addiction. It never seems to end. If I could only transfer to a drug like coffee/caffeine, I might really be getting somewhere!

abitcrazy

[HalieAmelia]

Oh my...well...I can attempt this, though I may have my orders wrong.

Add Ciggarettes, add alcohol, throw in cutting, with a little bit of weed.

Combine cigs, liquor, SI, and grass...add in some Xanax (oh my happy pills)...Then add codeine....then add Loratabs...and then add Percocets..Add adderall, and just about any other pill I could get ahold of, which was alot, and then one night I decided to try Cocaine, and may I say, "I fucking love Coke". Though thankfully I never got hooked on it..Then I started taking phenteramine so I could stay awake through school. That wasn't chemically addicting, it was just a habit because my sleep pattern was so horrible. So then came a suicide attempt, then they got my drug tests back amoung other things, and I went to rehab. I don't condone this, but the day I got out of rehab, I was taking Darvocet , drinking, smoking ciggs, and smoking weed. I managed to just plain quit after that..I have a very addictive personality

Then since I've held onto and gained these addictions-Really most are nothing more than bad habits

Kept my cigarettes

Still cut occasionally...

Coffee!!!!!!(:

Eating at night...like 3am.

Biting my nails

Drink, but only socially, and very rarely. I still have the urges to get high and smoke weed, and pop/snort pills but I don't. I've caved once or twice, but not often.

[Thomas]

cigs, add beer, add wine, add dope, add mescaline, add Darvon, add Qualudes, drop everything but beer, wine, coffee, and cigs. add whisky. drop beer, wine, and whisky. Now all I have left are coffee and smokes; I try frequently to quit smoking, but I'm not about to give up my coffee and tea.

[Becks]

Hmmm, let's see!

Age 13 cigs

Age 14 add beer

Age 15 - 29 drop beer, add in hard liquors and weed

Age 29 - present drop liquor and weed, add coffee and iced tea, internet addiction

I haven't drank or smoked weed since I was 29 years old except for a few weekends of binge drinking about 3 years ago. I haven't even craved it honestly, till lately. I have a full bottle of peach schnaups in my cabinet.....many of days lately I have to fight the urge to go get some orange juice.

[Blart752]

never addicted to alcohol, but that gave me clearance to try other things, as i really did sometimes feel like superhuman while under. But after that, i tried weed, disliked that and cigarettes also disliked. Never liked smoking anything, it always bothered me.

Recently ive been addicted to the internet, food, and caffeine. But caffeine I could live without, I just choose not to. As of late, the only real recent drug of abuse was percocet. But when i was on it, i didnt use over the recommended amount, but i would use them copendently with some benzos.

[petsrlife]

from age 13 to about 24 - anything i could get high on. total addictive personality.

i could care less about coke & weed (too paranoid). i don't miss speed or alcohol. i DO miss my downs (barbs, hypnotics, ludes! by the handfull). and keep your grubby hands off my smokes, coffee, chocolate & middle-of-the-night junk food.

i read somewhere that peanut butter & pasta increase dopamine. my therapist agreed & said i was self-medicating with foo. good thing, since that's what i live on!

other current addictions - animals, collecting junk in my house & yard, internet, reading (to the exclusion of anything else). i'll taste just about anything, and if i like it, i want it ALL. never tried heroin - good thing.

i always thought when my old partying friends & i got old, we could all collect social security, live together in one house, and party till we died. the problem is, many of us won't live that long! my closest friends are still the losers i partied with while cutting high school. go figure.

[firelight]

12-17: weed, coke, hypomania.. And a lot of all of it.

18: cigarettes (I was in treatment and actually clean, sober, and well medicated during this time)

19-22: mania, weed, booze, coke, sex, anything.

23-26(present): CIGARETTES and coffee.

[Chiaroscuro]

Food, I love my food, but am having to cut back as my ultra slow metabolism is having a negative impact regarding my meds that I'm on *sigh*

So, that leaves sex, the occasional drink, painting (like on canvasses etc), writing, drawing, reading, internet & sleep!

[madmatt1000]

Addicition transferral, an excellent topic for those of us with chemical abnormalities that continiute to put us on the path of addition.

Mine started at age 17. I was a junior in high school and had all of the athletic talent in the world. My basketball prowess had most of the major universities after me (i.e., Ohio State, Cincinnati, Indiana, UCLA and many more). During one game my junior year, I blew out my anterior cruciate ligament and my career was finished. I did this several times during the season and the coaches would take me to the emergency room to have my knee drained of the fluid. I'd be playing the next day, with the help of Darvon.They got away with that in the 70's. Well, the surgeries mounted up and the scholarship offers faded quickly. I can't tell you the amount of Demerol I had while in the hospital.

By this time, I was mad at the world and my real addictions set it. Pot, LSD, Vicodin, Oxycontin, and most of the nartcotics you can imagine.

However, by far, benzos are my favorites. Give me an X or K-pin and I'm a happy guy. But not really happy. I've been through inpatient treatment and outpatient treatment seveal times. It would work for a few years and then back to the insanity.

I'm in my early 50's now and have just had my knee and hip replaced. OK, back on the oxy and Dilaudid.

I pray some day I can find a way to escape this addictiion.

Matt

[RobKay]

Ativan .5mg twice daily. then three times. then 1mg twice, then three times.. Eventually I hit 8mg of ativan at once (OD). I couldn't stand and collapsed, went to ER. No more ativan

[midnightman]

I'll include things that I did on a daily basis, even if I didn't feel like they were things I was "addicted" to. The numbers will relate to age:

14- Weed, Started smoking cigarettes, started taking zoloft

15- Same as 14, but increased cigarette consumption; started to drink much more often & in excess

16- Stopped eating, smoking weed, and cut my cigarette consumption significantly. Stopped drinking. Psychiatric drugs became more needed and I became addicted to klonopin but tapered off after about 6 months.

17- Started eating healthy again, started smoking weed again but not as frequently as before, upped my cig consumption, and started drinking in excess almost daily.

18- Same eating, weed, and cig consumption as 17. Stopped drinking after many horrific incidents that it caused.

[Teacup]

Bouncing back and forth between alcohol and self harm. Historically, when I stop one the other escalates. For a short while I tried stopping both cutting and drinking by going to pills, abusing Klonopin and ending up making things even worse with an addiction resulting in HORRIBLE withdrawal that I shouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.

I've been done with benzo's since March, but still bouncing between alcohol and self harm.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Teacup

[Mirazh]

I'm pretty sure that I was able to quit cigarettes cold turkey (six years ago Nov. 1st!) in part due to the weed I kept smoking at the time. I also couldn't smoke in the house I was living in, and none of my room mates at the time smoked either. But I was often around friends who smoked cigarettes, quite frankly I'm glad I did it that way 'cause now I can still be around cigarettes and not smoke 'em.

As for anything else, I've indulged waaaay too much in many things, psychologically hooked on some, but, eh. I did go back to SHing when I really quit weed, which seemed odd to me, but between the clonazepam and divalproex that went away. I used to take in a goddessawful amount of Pepsi for caffeine (we're talking maybe 2L/day or so,) but my methylphenidate stopped that right in its tracks.

I'm very glad that I am capable of having clonazepam and methylphenidate, and only using them as prescribed, and having a pdoc who prescribes them despite my extensive substance abuse history.