Why Did You Stop Doing Loads Of Drugs?

[Johnboy]

I had a couple of psychotic episodes so I knocked the acid, mushrooms and hash on the head, that was over 20 years ago

It's come back to haunt me though, I've had episodes in the last five years and apparently I have schizoaffective disorder but it's under control now with the right medication

It's a taboo subject though, if I was taking pills to lower my blood pressure nobody would bat an eyelid but ailing mental health is shrouded in shame and ignorance

I'm keeping well anyway

[phes]

Too many friends mental and/or dead. Now we just eat crisps and slowly drink ourselves to death. N joi the weekend.

[Golden E. Pump]

Last Thursday. Because I ran out of drugs.

[Beagle 2]

Past the age of 30 it stopped being fun. Dreadful comedowns from pills and wasted weeks. I was never arsed about cocaine anyway. The last time I had half a line just to join in and my nostril started pissing blood which lasted a week. My sinuses are  fucked. Maybe I should stick it up my arse but I think I'll stick to lager.

[seepage]

Maybe I should stick it up my arse but I think I'll stick to lager.

lager up the arse is probably preferable to drinking the stuff.

[a duncandisorderly]

eleven years ago, when I was smoking a lot of weed (& managing to function as an engineering manager for a big broadcaster with a green hangover every day), four-six pints a night, some class-A stuff....

I met the mrs. she told me that me & my pals had a bit of a reputation, even by the standards of our employer & the culture there. I was issued an ultimatum, & honoured it.

she said me being out of it was taking away her 'north', which was a nice way of putting it, & so I decided to be reliable. cold turkey. I'll have the odd pint now, glass of wine.... no cigs in over ten years, no coke, & just the odd bit of weed, which I don't even like.

being married with two kids is better than all of that. if it hadn't been for her ultimatum, I'm not sure I'd even be here now.
sorry. bit heavy, that.

[Mobius]

I've been smoking weed every single day for 15 years. Don't even want to think how many thousands of money I've spaffed. Barely does anything now, just a habit, don't know life without it.

Do mushrooms every other week. My partner's dad owns a big farm and they just grow there naturally so doesn't cost me money at least.

Actually only done coke once in the past few months, sorta grown out of that just cus I like early nights now.

Last 3 partners were druggies and so are most of my mates. You get to a point where you almost can't socialise with people who don't do it.

I always do daft stuff like just take 8 sleeping tablets cus 2 or 3 isn't gonna work is it? Need a paracetamol? have 10!

The idea of just not having something inside me (ohh) is an alien concept. Never been much of a drinker until I run out of all else, then I'm binging just for something to do.

I have no self control or discipline whatsoever and as I can't even give up McDonalds and cigarettes, I've never even attempted giving up the rest.

[marquis_de_sad]

McDonalds and cigs are probably worse for you in the long run.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

McDonalds and cigs are probably worse for you in the long run.

Noel Gallagher considers rewrite.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

eleven years ago, when I was smoking a lot of weed (& managing to function as an engineering manager for a big broadcaster with a green hangover every day), four-six pints a night, some class-A stuff....

I met the mrs. she told me that me & my pals had a bit of a reputation, even by the standards of our employer & the culture there. I was issued an ultimatum, & honoured it.

she said me being out of it was taking away her 'north', which was a nice way of putting it, & so I decided to be reliable. cold turkey. I'll have the odd pint now, glass of wine.... no cigs in over ten years, no coke, & just the odd bit of weed, which I don't even like.

being married with two kids is better than all of that. if it hadn't been for her ultimatum, I'm not sure I'd even be here now.
sorry. bit heavy, that.

Not heavy. It's a nice story from one of Cat's top posters. :)

[idunnosomename]

I dont have any friends so i dont know how to get any

[SpiderChrist]

Money, or more specifically the lack of same. Still smoke weed every day (THC dominant and CBD dominant) but I don't consider that to be "taking drugs", same with shrooms.

MidnightShambler - just want to echo the comments of others. Seek help.

[Brundle-Fly]

Cocaine is God's way of telling you that you're making too much money,  you're hearing God's voice in your head now which should indicate that taking all this cocaine is not good for you.

[MiddleRabbit]

Having been in bands for years, I've at least been around people on everything.

Being chicken, my MO was always to hang fire and see if other people on whatever it was looked like they were having a good time.  If they did, I'd have a go.

The result of that was that I've had everything except cocaine and ketamine.  I know a lot of coke heads and none of them look like they're enjoying it.  Hence I've never bothered with it.  My excuse - and sometimes I've felt like I needed one, being the only person in the room not on it - is, I already think I'm great.  The last thing anybody needs is me on that.

I refer to it, sanctimoniously, as Twat Powder because everybody on coke turns into a twat.  In my experience at least.

I hammered doobs for years and years, pretty much every day and still partake, but far less often.  I don't know why really.  It never stopped me getting anything done.  Unlike heroin which, I discovered, leaves you capable of comprehending virtually nothing but daytime television.  Not a lot of fun after the first three days, to be honest.  Coming off that wasn't too groovy.  It wasn't like Trainspotting though.  I itched, like having biscuit crumbs under my skin and couldn't sleep but the worst part, oddly, was the yawning.  You know when you yawn and you sort of reach the brow of the hill and come down the other side?  Coming off smack, you're constantly going up the hill of the yawn and almost never getting over the top and getting down.  Doesn't sound that bad, but it drove me crackers.

The other thing was that I discovered what addiction meant.  My degree's Psychology and we were taught that coming off heroin's not that bad but as the only people who take heroin are neurotic, they make a big deal about it.  And I thought, that sounds reasonable.  When it was me, either I'm more neurotic than I suspected, or the research might be a bit reductive.  The problem is, and it sounds obvious, is that withdrawal symptoms are shit and you can stop those any time you want by just having more of whatever it is you're addicted to.  I daresay everybody knows that, but I didn't understand it until it happened to me.  It's not so much the chasing that first high thing so much as putting off the withdrawal symptoms.  That's what addiction is, if you ask me.

When ecstasy was big, I could never afford it, so had acid instead.  I like acid, but I can see it's not for everybody.  It was a shame when, all of a sudden, the consensus on ecstasy was that it was phoney, all those people being nice to each other.  Of course it was phoney, but it was better than everybody being wound up and talking about themselves when Coke took over.  I still don't really know what that was about.  I dig it, but that's all drugs, isn't it?

[Endicott]

I refer to it, sanctimoniously, as Twat Powder because everybody on coke turns into a twat.  In my experience at least.

This is basically true.

The other thing was that I discovered what addiction meant.  My degree's Psychology and we were taught that coming off heroin's not that bad but as the only people who take heroin are neurotic, they make a big deal about it.  And I thought, that sounds reasonable.  When it was me, either I'm more neurotic than I suspected, or the research might be a bit reductive.  The problem is, and it sounds obvious, is that withdrawal symptoms are shit and you can stop those any time you want by just having more of whatever it is you're addicted to.  I daresay everybody knows that, but I didn't understand it until it happened to me.  It's not so much the chasing that first high thing so much as putting off the withdrawal symptoms.  That's what addiction is, if you ask me.

This is not an unreasonable analysis, but you'd change it if you'd got hooked on coke. Coke has very little obvious withdrawal, at least at the start. Mainly the addiction is psychological. It's true that if you start caining it to the degree that MidnightShambler is, you will get horrendous depression lasting about 3 or 4 days after your last hit. Which of course you can remove with another bender. But if you're an every other weekend binger like I was, then you've recovered and said to yourself, never again. The problem is the little voice that says, you deserve to enjoy yourself and to hell with the consequences. That's what you have to beat, and that took me about three years and a lot of luck. Part of my problem is it became part my identity. It was what I did. It's difficult to reinvent yourself, but since I didn't start until I was in my mid thirties, at least I had memories of my coke free twenties to fall back on.

MidnightShambler, I'm clean for over three years and I'm not going back, because it's like an Achilles heel for me. You can do it too, but don't expect it to be easy. One other thing, I have plenty of mates who still get on it and I don't have any problem being around them either. This surprised me but there you are.

[a duncandisorderly]

Not heavy. It's a nice story from one of Cat's top posters. :)

cheers!

[thecuriousorange]

Someone from my work said he's trying to acquire weed for the first time in years and has found some sellers through Snapchat and other apps, after getting details from Instagram. However, the person he's communicating with will only deliver quite large amounts, more than he needs really. Should I tell my friend it's normal for 2019 digital dealers to only sell quite-large (£100) quantities? He said he just wants a cheeky toke, not a load of the stuff lying in his flat for months, getting him in the bad books of his other half. My colleague is in his 30s, so past the age where he knows lots of uni people who smoke and is glad this new way of buying seems to now exist. What should I advise him?

[SpiderChrist]

Buy £100 worth, keep a gram and give the rest to me.

[a duncandisorderly]

Buy £100 worth, keep a gram and give the rest to me.

a gram? that would've done about three doobs back in my bad days.

[Avril Lavigne]

I went bonkers.

[chveik]

I went bonkers.

oh yeah, why's that then?

[Avril Lavigne]

oh yeah, why's that then?

After a bunch of terrible K-holes and just going off the rails in general I had a couple of total breakdowns that weren't even spurred on by anything heavier than just interacting with the outside world in a fairly normal way.  For example one of them was just me waiting to get picked up from a train station, and in the time it took for my ride to arrive I completely lost my mind and came very close to curling up on the floor with no other idea of how to carry on interacting with reality. That contributed heavily to my cessation of drug abuse.

[chveik]

After a bunch of terrible K-holes and just going off the rails in general I had a couple of total breakdowns that weren't even spurred on by anything heavier than just interacting with the outside world in a fairly normal way.  For example one of them was just me waiting to get picked up from a train station, and in the time it took for my ride to arrive I completely lost my mind and came very close to curling up on the floor with no other idea of how to carry on interacting with reality. That contributed heavily to my cessation of drug abuse.

oh bonkers indeed, that must have been awful. I sometimes wish I had done more drugs during my socializing times, but this kind of story shows me that I was right to stay clear of it. 

[SpiderChrist]

a gram? that would've done about three doobs back in my bad days.

I am trying to save him from himself.

[wooders1978]

Started when I was 15 - bit of hash turned into acid (acid was crazy cheap, me and my mate got a few sheets of strawberries for about 50p per trip each, which we consumed during the summer holiday between secondary school and 6th form)
Moved onto pills and speed during my 18s, way more social than acid and it was the mid 90s rave scene hayday
Stopped pills and started on coke when I was 24 - this got a bit out of hand and I managed to sling the habit when I was 27 - whole years of my life missing out coz I was staying in slinging slozz up my snozz- annoying, I've had this core group of friends and they didn't join me in the coke era but stopped taking drugs and formed a load of great shared memories which I am absent from because I was a stay at home coke deviant
Anyway - slung it and never looked back apart from a few years back meeting up with another set of old mates, I turned up with a nice bottle of wine, they turned up with a load of yay, so did some for old times sake and I didn't get over it for about a week!

[MidnightShambler]

Just thought i'd chime in with some updates, I've got a new dealer who gets better coke than the mafia and things have escalated. However, this isn't a hard luck story, I just wanna say that things can be very enjoyable even if on the face of it they sound bad. I reckon I've got a good constitution.....anybody who worries about me really shouldn't, you should take care of yourselves first. Go out, live.

[Twit 2]

Careful mate. Drugs there. Careful.

[Gerald Fjord]

I've been more or less a cocaine addict since I was about 21. I'm 37 on Sunday and I'm absolutely fucking sick of it now. This is the first time I've ever admitted to being one.

It started off as just a few lines in the pub with the older (late 20s) crowd and before I knew it was doing it every other day. Never sober (a rule I've always stuck to, I just don't like the scatty effect, the feeling in the throat and the need to smoke every five minutes with a dry mouth) but over the years it went down from having a line with my 7th or 8th pint (to sober up) to phoning my dealer on my third. Now I'm ringing him before I go out to make sure there's no delay the minute I want a stripe.

My last relationship was a disaster because we were both addicts, I suppose. We'd have a glass of wine with dinner which would turn into 8 bottles and £200 worth of Coke, with me going to work still off my tits in the morning and her sleeping all day, then arguing like fuck because we were both coming down. The next day would be fine, we'd say we've got to start being sensible and we'd plan a holiday with all the money we'd save. The following day would be Friday and we'd be up until Monday, every cokehead in the town would turn up at some point because they'd got nowhere else to go after the pubs closed and they knew we'd be up. And we always were. We broke up, it couldn't work under those conditions. It was our second attempt, it had fallen down three years before because of the same reasons. She was the love of my life and it fucking hurts. She tried to kill herself a few weeks later and I was in too much of a cocaine stupour to read her message properly and I wasn't there for her. Luckily somebody else was. I'll never forgive myself for that.

Every Friday for the last 15 years, the messages have started coming from all the dealers around dinner time, when they get up. 'When am I seeing you?' 'It's £220 lad, you'd best have it' etc, then the lying starts 'haven't been paid yet, see you monday' etc because I haven't got enough to pay them all. Sometimes you have to turn your phone off and not leave the house, just in case it's one of the more punchy ones I owe this week. Or if you do, walk strange routes, through alleys and parks so you don't get seen. It's no life.

I always blamed alcohol as a trigger but now I'm not sure. I think I drink so I can take cocaine, not the other way round. Of course the real reason is that I'm unhappy but it's got lost in the midst of an addiction. I don't even know what the root of the unhappiness is, everything has become jumbled up and all the bad things don't matter when you've done a line or two. It's so hard to get away from where I live, there's an epidemic and it's in your face all the time. I know that's not an excuse, you have to be stronger than that, I just never have been.

Moving away isn't an option at the moment because I have a 12yr old son who needs me, I can't even bring myself to type how many times I've neglected him to feed my habit (not physically but emotionally, which is probably worse). I've made so many selfish decisions.

I travel a lot and cocaine isn't an issue, apart from the fleeting 'I wish I had a line now' when you're sat in a bar in Chiangmai or wherever. But you can't get any, it's not an option so you just forget it. I think I might have to stop drinking. And more importantly, stop blaming other things for my decisions. I've got to be more honest with myself and try to take control of my life.

Sorry for the self-indulgence but it felt the right time to get that off my chest.

[imitationleather]

After I discovered that I was God and could control everyone else with my thoughts I decided that I didn't need to take drugs anymore as I had achieved maximum enlightenment.