This is embarrasing but I had a relapse and now starting back over.

[cloudhaginglow]

It feels like sh!t now that I've relapsed. It hurts more and to top it off my sleep is going back down to 3-5 hours before i wake up. I am going to go buy everything all over again for the Thomas Recipe. I hate being so damn dependent on something like this. I don't even feel like a Man I feel like a coward. I want to be free and I have hurt so many people. I can't go out in public i feel as if i am being judged and i start feeling the anxiety. Last night has been the worst nights rest and I took everything over the counter that i had still only few hours of sleep. I had a script for valium and used it to get off the first time and now i don't have another Dr. Appt until next month. I am going to talk to my dr. and let them know what i feel like. Has anyone felt like this? Drained and anxious yet I'm not depressed. I feel happy but have no energy and can't help but being so stressed and tense. I feel like the world around me is just coming down and i can't stop it.

[dominosarah]

The important thing here is that you are starting over.  Try and not be so hard on yourself.  I know the feeling of the world coming down around you but here's the kicker......You can stop it.  Turn the negative energy you are feeling and turn it into positive energy.  You control your destiny here.  What made you relapse and what are you going to do differently this time??  You have it in you and you dont have to be a prisoner to these pills anymore.  Take some deep breaths......You can do this!!         sara

[Htownnofrown]

Try and find some NA meetings in your area to get to, they will help you tremendously!

[LeaAnn807]

Pick up and move on with a positive attitude!  That will help you a lot.  Go to an NA meeting too, and meet some people who are going thru the same thing!  You CAN do this!

[pillfree21]

I have been before...I tried my best and could not kick my pill habit, so trust me when I say that I completely understand your questioning your manhood right now....but it goes so deeper than being a man....to me, the true man gets back up, dusts himself off, and gets back on the horse until it is tamed.

My daughter was looking for something last night and she asked me where I thought that she would find it....my response was "in the last place you look!".  Although, we laughed a bit, afterwards, it made me think about my recovery (I am relating everything to recovery these days).  Our salvation/clean life/joy will be found in the very last place we look, which means we must keep looking until we find it, like many of the others have found it.  Obviously, you did not find it the first time during your clean trip, so my suggestion is to come on back and start looking again....and good luck with your treasure hunt.

Keep ya head up man.

[gizzy32]

Relapses are so painful and it messes with the head, I have been there too many times to count.How long did you stay clean for? Do you know what triggered it? Please keep posting and talking, things will get better. Try to think positive, it makes all the difference in the world. Good luck man

[praiselord]

Did you feel the same withdrawals all over again?
I just went through the same thing after 72days clean.

It's been about 15 days now and I feel like I'm in a fog.

Thanks

[Danny111]

Hey man, don't get down on yourself.  Many if not most of us relapsed several times before getting clean.  The tough thing about getting clean is that quitting is fairly easy, staying quit is the truly hard thing.  Are you doing anything differently this time?  Going to some kind of meeting seems to greatly increase the chances of success.  NA or even AA meetings are free and widely available although they may not be for everyone.

I can't count the number of times I relapsed although the first ten or fifteen tries were probably kinda halfhearted.  I think there comes a time for many of us where we're more committed or serious or disgusted or something about really not going back.  The key is to keep pushing and I think also to really examine what you need to do to stay clean.  If you need meetings then thats what you have to do.

[singha]

Just know that it can only get better when drugs are in the past and not in the present. Be strong. and by the way relapses happen to almost all of us.

[praiselord]

Thanks for the input. If I knew that it would have physically made me feel any of the withdrawal symptoms again, I would not have touched the stuff. The odd thing is that I didn't even have the appetite for them again but I did know it would make the pain go away.
The funny thing is that it hardly even worked for the pain.

So, will the fog I'm in last just as long as it did the first time?

[cloudhaginglow]

Yeah it actually feels worst these days than it did the first time and it's just driving me crazy. I can't Focus and sleeping is harder this time around. I wake up at least 4 times a night and toss and turn the RLS is harder to deal with. I am on day 4 of CT and it's driving me crazy. I guess this is my pain for messing up.

[Danny111]

The physical withdrawals will be gone in a few more days. As you probably know day three or four is almost always the worst and then things get noticeable better each day.  By days 9-10-11 you probably wont be feeling much at all.  Getting a good nights sleep seems to be the last thing to return to normal.

The key question is what are you going to do differently this time after the physical withdrawals are over.  While we're feeling horrible it's easy to resolve never to use again.  Once they're gone our brains often trick us into addict type thinking.  Examples would be, "I'm no longer addicted so it would be ok to take just a few", "I've obviously got this under control since I was able to stop so it would be ok to take some", "this time I'm just gonna take them for a week at a time with a few weeks clean time in between so I won't get hooked again", "now that I'm no longer addicted I'm just going to take them on vacations to make the vacations so much more fun".  etc etc

[praiselord]

After reading your response it makes me realize that I can lie to myself but someone who has been through it already knows the mindset. You hit it on the nose with all your points. I need to figure away to put this in the past for good.

That's exactly what I was thinking when i had came so far after 70+ days. I though the habbit was kicked.

It only takes a few to have my body this messed up?