The Band-Aid of Addiction



I used heroin for ~10 years. I had always been aware that drug use was a bit of a 'band-aid' approach to managing problems, but it felt so damn good that I didn't care. I also never realized that I was actually hiding from anything. I didn't realize that it only felt good because it gave pause to my problems. I thought I just liked getting high.
Image result for heroin tinfoilFast forward to being largely sober for a year, and I realized that if I didn't have anything to hide from, I wouldn't have started using in the first place. The thought of gambling my life by using drugs wouldn't have even occurred because I would have felt good enough with myself, my relationships, and my life to consider that ridiculous.
So I started doing some inner work. This is the most important point. Figure out why exactly you started using. A lot of time drug users have some sort of issue with their self-image or self-confidence and some form of personal anxiety. These problems are certainly why I started using.
After figuring out what the problem is, figure out what caused it. For me, I recently learned that my anxieties and many other issues stemmed from never developing an intimate connection with myself or my family as a child. I was never taught to love myself and thus did not know how to love others. This led to a very lonely life up until a few months ago when I recognized these issues.
Once you identify the issue, you have to own it. This is very hard, and generally extremely uncomortable. For me, I ended up bawling my eyes out for the first time in ten years, on the shoulder of my girlfriend who'd just dumped me for being emotionally unavailable (just like I'd been taught to be.)
Those tears were the sweetest release I've ever felt, and with them came the realization that I had problems that I'd been covering up with drugs. And with that realization came the understanding that there was a solution and that I could work towards feeling comfortable sober.
It's been fucking rough and super bumpy since then, and I've been generally uncomfortable for a good chunk of every single day since. But things are improving. I cry a lot, I get angry a lot, but on the flip side I also laugh a lot and smile a lot more. I've been riding this repressed emotional rollercoaster that I've been hiding from for 10 years and learning a lot about myself. I live with amazing people who I can be open with, which makes it imperative to mention the importance of having a great support network. :)
TL:DR; Look deep within yourself and identify the psychological issues that led you to believe that using drugs was a safer or easier alternative than dealing with these problems. This is the hardest part because most people who begin using drugs have either internalized or normalized these problems as simply being a part of 'who they are,' and thus don't recognize them as problems. A previous post of mine details why it's so frickin' hard to let go of these things, even if they're toxic. The next step is to work hard on uprooting these issues and pulling out any psychological debris that they've left behind.
Unless you're incredibly introverted and prone to vehemently studying self-help books while being a recluse, therapy can be incredibly useful for this, as does having a support group of friends or family members that you can comfortably talk to about the nitty-gritty parts of this. I make a point of employing all these above tactics and the work is still pretty hard.
Hope my experience offers a bit of insight. Anyway, good luck!

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