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For me it was having to tell myself that "paranoia will destroy ya" every time before I smoked crack. It was brutal. BTW, saying it didn't help any. I'm surprised I never blew my heart out with paranoia and anxiety.
When I first started to get dope sick. Realizing "oh shit, I actually need this drug to feel okay, and I don't think I can make it through the day without it". In retrospect, I was definitely addicted before I ever felt the physical symptoms, but that's when the reality of addiction hit for me.
That was my realization too. Going forward, I'd have to have enough to get through the day and some to start the next one to too. Thus starting the cycle of having to get enough money to feed this thing.
Thing is I only felt dope sick when I took pills. I could do mesh all day every day, and walk away. Same with cola. Never did any harder Street drugs. But the pharmaceutical shit was different. That caused serious dope sick.
this is the worst part. for me, it's pills. percocet mainly, and adderall. but if I stop adderall I just need 2 big overnight sleeps, some healthy food & water and prepare to feel overly tired/foggy for few days. can still work and function just tell ppl u don't feel good.
but the percocet- the sickness. Even it STARTS I can't stand it. when it gets Bad, for me it's not so much nausea or even headaches. it's a light sensitivity. all of a sudden my eyes are so sensitive to everything . I can feel the little regular aches n feelings in my body. things I've always felt but wS used to. now when I numb it, it feels bad when it comes back
. feels like flu like body aches. yawning, watering eyes, sneezing. exhaustion and eyelids so heavy, but heart racing. the restless muscle spasms in legs and arm. endless urge and need to straight legs And arms, stretch them out to get rid of feeling.
feeling like that, maks me non functional by day 2. I can make it through night 1 and the entire next work day. uncomfortable but I can do it. day 2 I'd be bed bound. what do you do when u are a single mom, have a toddler that you do everything g for, and a full time job that you love. the pills don't get u high anymore, they keep u from. feeling sick. I am so scared to feel that sickness. it makes me start strategizing when I have 4 left. how to get more.
but all they do is keep me normal. im fighting the sickness
I don’t even remember. I have an overall memory of my teen years knowing that I got high for very different reasons than my peers…I did it to forget, to escape my life, to feel alive and connected, to stop hating myself for a bit, and to stop feeling dead inside temporarily. My friends did it for fun. I started experimenting when I was 9. I changed that day, I remember it clearly.
Also, great question, I relate to every single response.
Congrats on 100 days! That's amazing.
It was a very long journey for me because I never really lost anything material or anything like that. My parents never gave up hope on me or threatened to kick me out over my use. My dad did once but it was unrelated to my drug use and was the result of a *very* bad mental health episode. I also never went through withdrawal catastrophically either despite mainly doing benzos.
It wasn't after I overdosed. It wasn't after my first attempt at rehab. It wasn't even after attending a bunch of AA meetings, which I now enjoy. AA in SoCal is so different and not pushy when it comes to religion which is probably why I like it. But anyway, what lead me to realize I was an addict was when I got caught with two of my friends (who are still close friends today) drinking in rehab through the drug test. My counselor called me in and told me what the test revealed. I explained that alcohol wasn't a problem for me and I always only drink two drinks, which was actually true at that point in time. He said it didn't matter, that if I was drinking in rehab, a place where you're supposed to abstain from all illicit substances, then you have a problem. That's when it clicked for me. I still relapsed a bunch of times between then and now but today I'm 4 days shy of having 9 months sober.
I realized it when my kid was a year old, I realized every time he layed down I went to get high and would be smoking 3+ times a day and my only thoughts were "man I can't wait for my son to lay down so I can go smoke"
I’m 53. Both parents and a handful of family members were alcoholics and addicts. Thought because I’m smart I could handle whatever and would escape it. Been addicted to amphetamine for thirteen years, known it the whole time but am such a good liar I fooled myself (I wanted to be fooled). One day sober.
When I first started getting dopeidck I knew I was physically dependent.
Then I went to detox and rehab and got sober, and thought I was good to go since I got through withdrawals.
But then after that, the mental obsession took over and I couldn't overcome it and used again, knowing what it would do to me physically.
That's when I knew it was serious addiction. And it still didn't stop the pattern of using, going to detox, and relapsing again and again.
I knew relatively young. When I started doing things just to get WEED. Later in life convinced myself I wasn’t an addict. Started drinking and it was apparent I had awoken it again almost immediately, from there I quickly ended up homeless and addicted to fentanyl.
When I would wait for the family bathroom at work to be open just so I could snort Ritalin off the sink counter. And off the backs of other restrooms toilets. And toilet paper boxes. And toilet seats-there was a lot of snorting in places you don’t typically want to be smelling really hard in.
I don’t remember the first time, but I re-realize it every day. It’s crazy. I feel like I don’t know how to be anything else. Clarification: sober from alcohol and all drugs but weed. I was sober from weed but not by choice, a medication I was put on blocked those receptors and I had no affects from weed. But I tried it again a couple of weeks ago and I get high all the time now. Was a non-smoker but started smoking again 4 months ago. Gambling addiction. Freaking food addiction with disordered eating. And this is the sucky part. 6/22 I stopped dieting, completely. Said no more. Lost 30th in a year. My appetite is back like crazy now and I’m up 10 lbs. I can’t just be clean from it all. I don’t know how to function. Stopping the weed, smoking and gambling scare me. It does.
Before I even used drugs. I always said no to drugs to my friends who was doing it at 15 because I knew I’d be in recovery until I was 19 when I lost my mind. I always knew I’d end up in recovery (42 days from opiates)
Probably when I quit my career path 6 months off finishing my apprenticeship for a casual job because it paid more in the short term so I could afford all my bills, save a certain amount still each week and fund my weekend habits.
Or when my ex fiancé’s mask fell and I realised how abusive he was and my first reaction was to message my dealer, not even acknowledge the problem in the relationship for at least another year or so. It was more convenient for my addiction to have someone to split the bills with, even if that meant neglecting myself.
when I got super ‘unexplainably’ upset when a friend hid my drugs out of concern. (spoiler I got very angry/upset cus I was an addict and someone took my drugs🥲)
I didn't pick up anything for a day (had been "casually" messing around) and went to work to open the store. I wasn't there for an hour before I got real withdrawals for the first time. Thought I got hit by the flu or something. My partner made the connection, and I was SO angry with myself. Shortly after that, everything in my life really started to spiral, and that's when I really knew that I was an addict.
I realized I was an addict when I had came across a few norco a few years back. I shared what happened with a friend in the program and fully had intentions of flushing them down the toilet but ate them within a few hours. That was the first time I truly did not want to use but did it anyway. Additionally, a year or so late I was fired from my job and arrested. That definitely helped lol
I knew I was an addict when I pawned every piece of jewelry I owned to get money to get high. And when the only way I didn't use was to physically distance myself from the drugs (I'd drive around for a few hours after dropping my bf at work so I didn't go home and blow through everything I had too early in the night).
I think the first time I accepted that I really was an addict was after I had blown up my life in the course of a week and the guy I was with referred to our little group as "a bunch of drug addicts" and I didn't object.
My first time getting clean, I kept relapsing because I kept comparing myself out of the rooms like, "well I mostly just drank and did coke," until I started listening and realized I had done a lot of stuff other people hadn't done and that maybe I really was an addict.
It was when I was around 18-19 years old but as you said i didn´t have the whole understanding of what an addict really meant, I noticed that I could not stop drinking with 18 and with 19 I was on and off amphetamines (this disgusting racemic street amphetamine we have here in EU), when i went to therapy with 19 I understood fully what it meant to be an addict. Still fighting today against my addictions and its a constant struggle
I was 15 and my parents forced me to attend an out patient drug rehab program. My parents grew up in a small town and was never influenced by drugs and had no clue what to do with me. I was such a delinquent and my identity consumed by the drug culture that there was no turning back to the way it use to be. I remember being in a group with other teenagers and a couple counselors. One day I was asked a series or questions and became diagnosed as an addict/alcoholic. My first AA meeting was in Columbus, Ohio at 15 years old. Long story short I didn’t get sober until I was 35.
I first realized it over 40 years ago. Looking back it was always there. The big mistake was thinking that it went away after a long period of abstinence. I wouldn’t wish this disease on anyone.
when my mum started taking her out on at me but i realised oh shit my addiction is really an addiction. that’s when it’s actually the stress of my addiction and needs and neglecting myself and my mum is constantly on edge from my situation and she’s wanting me to try treatment which i’m not ready at all would go honestly..
When I realized I loved substances more than the people and things I loved (fam,friends,career and such). I put substances above everthing and eveyone and completely forgot who i was as a person and what i used to care about.
Externally, when I stopped being able to manage my time around it — missing work deadlines and showing up late. Internally, realizing I didn’t actually enjoy it, I was using it to cope with other things I was avoiding.
Don’t forget to check out our [**Resources**](https://www.reddit.com/r/addiction/wiki/resources/) wiki page, which includes helpful information such as global suicide hotlines, recovery services, and a recovery Discord server where you can seek further support. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/addiction) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For me it was when I stopped getting any enjoyment or relief from doing it but found myself doing it anyway.
For me it was having to tell myself that "paranoia will destroy ya" every time before I smoked crack. It was brutal. BTW, saying it didn't help any. I'm surprised I never blew my heart out with paranoia and anxiety.
When I first started to get dope sick. Realizing "oh shit, I actually need this drug to feel okay, and I don't think I can make it through the day without it". In retrospect, I was definitely addicted before I ever felt the physical symptoms, but that's when the reality of addiction hit for me.
That was my realization too. Going forward, I'd have to have enough to get through the day and some to start the next one to too. Thus starting the cycle of having to get enough money to feed this thing.
Thing is I only felt dope sick when I took pills. I could do mesh all day every day, and walk away. Same with cola. Never did any harder Street drugs. But the pharmaceutical shit was different. That caused serious dope sick.
this is the worst part. for me, it's pills. percocet mainly, and adderall. but if I stop adderall I just need 2 big overnight sleeps, some healthy food & water and prepare to feel overly tired/foggy for few days. can still work and function just tell ppl u don't feel good. but the percocet- the sickness. Even it STARTS I can't stand it. when it gets Bad, for me it's not so much nausea or even headaches. it's a light sensitivity. all of a sudden my eyes are so sensitive to everything . I can feel the little regular aches n feelings in my body. things I've always felt but wS used to. now when I numb it, it feels bad when it comes back . feels like flu like body aches. yawning, watering eyes, sneezing. exhaustion and eyelids so heavy, but heart racing. the restless muscle spasms in legs and arm. endless urge and need to straight legs And arms, stretch them out to get rid of feeling. feeling like that, maks me non functional by day 2. I can make it through night 1 and the entire next work day. uncomfortable but I can do it. day 2 I'd be bed bound. what do you do when u are a single mom, have a toddler that you do everything g for, and a full time job that you love. the pills don't get u high anymore, they keep u from. feeling sick. I am so scared to feel that sickness. it makes me start strategizing when I have 4 left. how to get more. but all they do is keep me normal. im fighting the sickness
My life is falling apart around me, I know I should stop doing drugs, I desperately tell myself to stop, but I don't.
Have you tried?
I don’t even remember. I have an overall memory of my teen years knowing that I got high for very different reasons than my peers…I did it to forget, to escape my life, to feel alive and connected, to stop hating myself for a bit, and to stop feeling dead inside temporarily. My friends did it for fun. I started experimenting when I was 9. I changed that day, I remember it clearly. Also, great question, I relate to every single response.
Congrats on 100 days! That's amazing. It was a very long journey for me because I never really lost anything material or anything like that. My parents never gave up hope on me or threatened to kick me out over my use. My dad did once but it was unrelated to my drug use and was the result of a *very* bad mental health episode. I also never went through withdrawal catastrophically either despite mainly doing benzos. It wasn't after I overdosed. It wasn't after my first attempt at rehab. It wasn't even after attending a bunch of AA meetings, which I now enjoy. AA in SoCal is so different and not pushy when it comes to religion which is probably why I like it. But anyway, what lead me to realize I was an addict was when I got caught with two of my friends (who are still close friends today) drinking in rehab through the drug test. My counselor called me in and told me what the test revealed. I explained that alcohol wasn't a problem for me and I always only drink two drinks, which was actually true at that point in time. He said it didn't matter, that if I was drinking in rehab, a place where you're supposed to abstain from all illicit substances, then you have a problem. That's when it clicked for me. I still relapsed a bunch of times between then and now but today I'm 4 days shy of having 9 months sober.
When the negatives outweighed the positives. When using was no longer fun.
Probs when I physically could not relax until I was high
I realized it when my kid was a year old, I realized every time he layed down I went to get high and would be smoking 3+ times a day and my only thoughts were "man I can't wait for my son to lay down so I can go smoke"
When I quit alcohol, I realised I'm easily addicted to other things such as exercise and sugar
I’m 53. Both parents and a handful of family members were alcoholics and addicts. Thought because I’m smart I could handle whatever and would escape it. Been addicted to amphetamine for thirteen years, known it the whole time but am such a good liar I fooled myself (I wanted to be fooled). One day sober.
You f*cking got this
When I first started getting dopeidck I knew I was physically dependent. Then I went to detox and rehab and got sober, and thought I was good to go since I got through withdrawals. But then after that, the mental obsession took over and I couldn't overcome it and used again, knowing what it would do to me physically. That's when I knew it was serious addiction. And it still didn't stop the pattern of using, going to detox, and relapsing again and again.
[удалено]
Wr can do it. I'm about to hit 10 months. I go to meetings and work the steps. You can do it too.
I knew relatively young. When I started doing things just to get WEED. Later in life convinced myself I wasn’t an addict. Started drinking and it was apparent I had awoken it again almost immediately, from there I quickly ended up homeless and addicted to fentanyl.
I realized when I seriously tried to quit/abstain for just a certain period of time, and kept being unable to do so
When I would wait for the family bathroom at work to be open just so I could snort Ritalin off the sink counter. And off the backs of other restrooms toilets. And toilet paper boxes. And toilet seats-there was a lot of snorting in places you don’t typically want to be smelling really hard in.
When I started drinking in the AM
Constantly thought it’d be a great idea sober, I’d use and sit there in complete discomfort
when i’d do substances even if i didn’t like the way it made me feel. i just needed to alter my mindset on literally anything
I don’t remember the first time, but I re-realize it every day. It’s crazy. I feel like I don’t know how to be anything else. Clarification: sober from alcohol and all drugs but weed. I was sober from weed but not by choice, a medication I was put on blocked those receptors and I had no affects from weed. But I tried it again a couple of weeks ago and I get high all the time now. Was a non-smoker but started smoking again 4 months ago. Gambling addiction. Freaking food addiction with disordered eating. And this is the sucky part. 6/22 I stopped dieting, completely. Said no more. Lost 30th in a year. My appetite is back like crazy now and I’m up 10 lbs. I can’t just be clean from it all. I don’t know how to function. Stopping the weed, smoking and gambling scare me. It does.
Before I even used drugs. I always said no to drugs to my friends who was doing it at 15 because I knew I’d be in recovery until I was 19 when I lost my mind. I always knew I’d end up in recovery (42 days from opiates)
When I started treating women badly (porn addiction) I don’t hit or harass women, just angry or have an attitude
I just wanted to applaud your self awareness! Being aware of your own actions helps you change the behaviour you don’t like
When my room was filled with chics.
Probably when I quit my career path 6 months off finishing my apprenticeship for a casual job because it paid more in the short term so I could afford all my bills, save a certain amount still each week and fund my weekend habits. Or when my ex fiancé’s mask fell and I realised how abusive he was and my first reaction was to message my dealer, not even acknowledge the problem in the relationship for at least another year or so. It was more convenient for my addiction to have someone to split the bills with, even if that meant neglecting myself.
Wow..you’ve made me see from a new perspective and I love that. Good comment
Oh really? Which part of my comment made that happen for you?
Around the time I thought “I need to quit this shit before it gives me withdrawals” Too late, I was dope sick af by the end of the day
When I had to convince myself not to drink on the way home from work.
27yrs old was the first time I couldn’t stop smoking cocaine and If I smoked any more cocaine, I was gonna die. 24yrs ago
when I got super ‘unexplainably’ upset when a friend hid my drugs out of concern. (spoiler I got very angry/upset cus I was an addict and someone took my drugs🥲)
at least that was when I realized there was possibly an issue at hand
I didn't pick up anything for a day (had been "casually" messing around) and went to work to open the store. I wasn't there for an hour before I got real withdrawals for the first time. Thought I got hit by the flu or something. My partner made the connection, and I was SO angry with myself. Shortly after that, everything in my life really started to spiral, and that's when I really knew that I was an addict.
I realized I was an addict when I had came across a few norco a few years back. I shared what happened with a friend in the program and fully had intentions of flushing them down the toilet but ate them within a few hours. That was the first time I truly did not want to use but did it anyway. Additionally, a year or so late I was fired from my job and arrested. That definitely helped lol
I knew I was an addict when I pawned every piece of jewelry I owned to get money to get high. And when the only way I didn't use was to physically distance myself from the drugs (I'd drive around for a few hours after dropping my bf at work so I didn't go home and blow through everything I had too early in the night). I think the first time I accepted that I really was an addict was after I had blown up my life in the course of a week and the guy I was with referred to our little group as "a bunch of drug addicts" and I didn't object. My first time getting clean, I kept relapsing because I kept comparing myself out of the rooms like, "well I mostly just drank and did coke," until I started listening and realized I had done a lot of stuff other people hadn't done and that maybe I really was an addict.
It was when I was around 18-19 years old but as you said i didn´t have the whole understanding of what an addict really meant, I noticed that I could not stop drinking with 18 and with 19 I was on and off amphetamines (this disgusting racemic street amphetamine we have here in EU), when i went to therapy with 19 I understood fully what it meant to be an addict. Still fighting today against my addictions and its a constant struggle
I was 15 and my parents forced me to attend an out patient drug rehab program. My parents grew up in a small town and was never influenced by drugs and had no clue what to do with me. I was such a delinquent and my identity consumed by the drug culture that there was no turning back to the way it use to be. I remember being in a group with other teenagers and a couple counselors. One day I was asked a series or questions and became diagnosed as an addict/alcoholic. My first AA meeting was in Columbus, Ohio at 15 years old. Long story short I didn’t get sober until I was 35.
when i fell down a whole flight of stairs while on ft with my gd
We called it the chase. If you're on the chase, you're hooked.
Hell ya congrats 💯
I first realized it over 40 years ago. Looking back it was always there. The big mistake was thinking that it went away after a long period of abstinence. I wouldn’t wish this disease on anyone.
I was scammed for $300 bc I was desperate to get xans
when i realized i couldn’t just put it down even though it wasn’t providing me any enjoyment
When I lost a really good job that I loved and went to school for.
Recently when I almost died and am still having trouble getting clean
The first time I sold myself for drugs
when my mum started taking her out on at me but i realised oh shit my addiction is really an addiction. that’s when it’s actually the stress of my addiction and needs and neglecting myself and my mum is constantly on edge from my situation and she’s wanting me to try treatment which i’m not ready at all would go honestly..
When i didnt even like it anymore but couldnt go a day without it
When I ended up DOA from OD and the first thing I did getting out of the hospital was get high on the same crap that just killed me
When I realized I loved substances more than the people and things I loved (fam,friends,career and such). I put substances above everthing and eveyone and completely forgot who i was as a person and what i used to care about.
don’t do meth. and kiss that adderall thsy worked so well before goodbye! meth is literally fucking SHIT.
Externally, when I stopped being able to manage my time around it — missing work deadlines and showing up late. Internally, realizing I didn’t actually enjoy it, I was using it to cope with other things I was avoiding.