Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselling Thread

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Yes i suppose thats true but I my self am not very a spiritual person. The only like minded individuals I know are my friends whom of course are all fellow pot heads.

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever been given is to be sure to only hang around people who have what you want!

Redd,

I am a habitual cannabis user and I have had periods in my life where smoke all day, etc. I managed to cut down enormously because I wanted to work with computers instead of being unemployed. If you have a special interest then maybe you could try to get a job where you can work on something related to your interest, which could give you the motivation to go every day to a place where smoking dope is not an option.

I also get bad anxiety (which leads to insomnia and panic attacks) as part of my general mental health issues. Fifteen years of experience with cannabis has taught me the following thing which I now believe with complete certainty: If I smoke every few days or one a week or a fortnight, then it is very good for relieving my anxiety. It makes my mind feel calm and rational. It makes me feel like I am sitting on a firm foundation and that I have room in my mind to contain all my problems comfortably. It is a positive thing. And I would like to feel like that all the time, not just once a week - who wouldn't? But smoking all the time is not the answer. If I smoke all the time, it has the opposite effect. My anxiety gets WORSE. My sleep is MORE toubled. My brain feels tight and I can't fit anything in it and all my problems overwhelm me. The fact is that prolonged use has the OPPOSITE EFFECT to that of occasional use.

This sucks - I'd be the first to admit that I wish it wasn't true. But it is. You can only get the goodies if you don't run after them all the time. Sorry mate.

I think it is common for people to smoke in order to relieve anxiety and not realise that when they smoke too much it goes full circle and starts making the anxiety worse. So they smoke more and more, thinking they need it. Thinking they are addicted. But think aboiut it ... what if the very anxiety that you are desperately smoking cannabis to relieve is actually being made worse by it?

Without thinking specifically about Redd or anyone else here, you have just described the alcoholic's dilemma perfectly:

"[They/we] drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery." ("The Doctor's Opinion" in "A.A.", the book, emphasis added)

For some of us still in our natural states, sobriety truly sucks.

I can relate. I lived in SF for 20 years and hated the weather. August is the worst - the hotter it gets in the Central Valley, the more the fog gets sucked in through the Golden Gate. Miserable, cold, dark and wet in the middle of the summer. I also don't do well with having to wake up for work when it's dark, in the winter.

I moved to Hawaii about 7 years ago, in part to escape, in part because of SAD, but also because I found that I am hypersensitive to temperature fluctuations. I have found that I no longer have SAD (what with there being no seasons here, and also being closer to the equator means that there is a smaller difference in the number of hours of daylight between winter and summer solstice).

BUT, and this is a big but, I am no less anxious. I have no less need to try to fix my mood with substances.

It is so easy to fall into the trap. I am sure that if I parsed the many pages posted before me that I would encounter very similar stories to my own tribulations, but for me, personally, I thought I knew better all the way. I knew how addicting the substances could be - I had witnessed that first hand. I thought I could control the urgings with constant constraint - after all those two same spelled words could be used to define my self-same existence. I thought a minimal dose would remove the shackles of self-fear and doubt and lead to a real control of who I am...

But just one instance of overindulgence and I was transported to a world where my physical, emotional, and "spiritual" limits where shattered and trespassed without a second thought. Where I was just like everyone else- and by that I mean all those "perfect" beings that's able to simultaneously direct their own life and enjoy the fruits of their own well made choices and willing actions. Before long, all I wanted was to get back to that world and be like all all those people - and the true nature of addiction - without volition and without sympathy- became all the more clear only after the self-deception was no longer main tenable amidst of all the self-deprecation involved. Then I realized I tried to kill off one cruel master by eliciting the help of another, and as is the classic case of malevolence - I was duped - and simultaneously duped myself - into the yolk of two cruel masters.

...And in case all that faux-poetic, self-aggrandizement doesn't reach you - I can only hope that you realize your own mistakes (you drunks, junkies, and self-deluded personages out there) before you end up with only words to try to make up for all of the lost time and energies you've given up.

Yes ... or just do like I did and give life your best shot for just as long as you can stand doing so ... then ask for help.

I'm CockneyRebel, and I have a serious problem. I'm addicted to energy drinks, and I want to stop drinking them, cold turkey. My mum once told me, that they're like Crack in a can. If they're that bad, than I want to kick the habit. I average 1 a day.

Do you know whether there is anything in them that is actually *physically* addictive? I know nothing about them.

Do they actually do anything for you, or are you just hoping they will?

Everything we ever do is done for the purpose of trying to get one or more instincts met or some personal desire satisfied, and the solution for any kind of harmful (ar at least undesired) dependence is connected to healthy satisfactions of instincts and desires.

They're loaded with caffeine, they have four times the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, or nine time the caffeine as a cup of tea. Energy drinks also provide 4000 percent of the recommended vitamin B-12. The 400 milligrams of caffeine in a 410 ml energy drink also makes my soiling problem even worse, than it already is. 205 ml is the proper serving to drink, but I'm not even going to drink that much or little, any more.

How about just don't buy them? CockneyRebel I have a hard time taking that one seriously. One energy drink a day is not an addiction. In fact it isn't any different than drinking a few cups of coffee a day. The extra B vitamins that your body doesn't need just gets passed from your body when you go to the bathroom. Putting that much vitamin in anything is a waste because the body only uses so much. Caffeine is slightly addictive, but even so, this will not kill you or seriously harm your health. You drink tea, so if you stop cold turkey on the energy drinks you will still have a little caffeine each day and will not get any "withdrawals". Maybe the sugar in the drink is what is really making you crave it (unless you get sugar-free ones).

I've stopped buying them a week ago, and I've been doing fine, ever since.

Good to hear it!

Well I relapsed again, the desire was too strong.

Now I feel sick like I'm going to die or something >_<

MissConstrue--I hope that you feel better.

Sobriety can be tough to maintain.

Apart from spiritual transformation, sobriety, at least for some of us, is completely unbearable ...

"[Alcoholic men] and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol ...
"They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
"On the other hand - and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand - once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules ...
"I earnestly advise every alcoholic to read this book through, and though perhaps he came to scoff, he may remain to pray.
"William D. Silkworth, M.D." ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, and please note: Today's AA is a sham)