BRAIN DAMAGED FROM DRUGS, PERMANENTLY?

[kara sanchez]

i am 23 years old.  I started using methamthetamines intra-venously when I was 12 almost 13 years old.  I have been CLEAN AND SOBER FOR ALMOST3 YEARS.  I JUST WANTED TO KNOW IF ITS POSSIBLE THAT I COULD HAVE DAMAGED MY BRAIN, BECAUSE I AM VERY FORGETFUL ABOUT THINGS, I MISPLACE MONEY, KEYS, PAPERS, AND SO ON ALL OF THE TIME!!  I CANT EVEN REMEMBER WHAT I DID YESTURDAY!!  WILL THIS EVER GET BETTTER OR AM I BRAIN DAMAGED FOR LIFE?

will some one please respond asap??

youcould even e-mail me at ***@****

HELP,

KARA

[Freindlybalance]

I'm partying hard to hear it. But then again whenever I'm all numbed up people say I act like a **** sometimes. This is where balance comes in I went to the doctor asking medications in the same family in which my doctor obviously refused knowing my past history. I was really looking to turn off my negative hidding voice the whole time. A quick pill isn't the solution. Takes work there too anytime you feel that anxiety, swallow it down stop thinking about whatever ****** thing it is your thinking about and don't close down just because You spilled your pop on your friend's rug and your worried he's mad with you. Try out being a little more observant of anxious moments. Remeber you're going to fail a lot of times. Doesn't everybody once in a while though?  A good balance between that humbling anxiety and looking cool infront of your friends will make you relatable and down to earth. Funny story actually, there was a guy on my floor in uni residence first year who didn't seem to have any character flaws. He was a real leader for about two months. If you got into a debate with him he would always win, he's a really smart guy and he's hilarious. Thing is after about 2 months people started to hate his perfection. You can't really open up to someone like that. You can't relate so you can't tell them any faults of yours and you jokes won't hail in comparison to his. How exhausting to have to put up a perfect front for this guy. Don't strive for perfection and don't shoot yourself in the foot everytime you fail or you won't have any feet left lol. I don't know if my story relates to how you feel. All I know is you have a story. Don't try to solve the puzzle by peaking at the answer sheet. Work through the problem withought popping a pill

[Freindlybalance]

Thankyou Frank T for your comment you have no idea how much your story has helped. I feel like my story has never related so much more to someone else. I would like to point out though that despite my anxiety I have been able to almost fully get over it withought the use of prescribed drugs. I have a helpful that might also help you in your situation and since you have been so helpful to me I feel only that I should give back. I immediately made a user specifically to write back an informed comment on this page so you may notice my advise relates a lot to my user name lol. Anyhow this is it, when I went to rehab for a week (because I was kicked out for using in the facility) we were told to try not to use Advil if we had a headache or pains. They said it was a way of learning not to quickly ease pain by popping back a pill. I didn't really get it, I mean it's just Advil and I certainly can't get addicted to that ,besides it wasn't using drugs to ease pain anyway, or at least that's what I thought. Anytime I'm sobber I feel anxiety around others. And I guess I had never really thought about it before but anxiety is pain. Don't get me wrong I'm nothing short of an alcoholic, drug addict I've struggled long and hard with both. But what I' ve been doing if self medicating, it started with a little teasing in grade 9 which might have been a foot in the door for addiction. I don't know what it is about me but for some reason when people said don't listen to that negative voice in your head it didn't stick. Maybe it was because I was picturing a loud clear voice you could obviously hear or maybe I thought having that kind of insecurity would make you weak. That voice telling me "your look stupid standing like that. They don't want to hear what ur saying cause your boring them" truth is it's been there for a while and my whole life I've never told it once to shut up. Only until recently have a identified it and learnt to silence it more often then not. I've been a victim of my own thoughts the reason everybody finds me so fun when I'm drunk or high or both is because

[Crazzzy]

Hang in there it gets better

[Kara]

FRANK,
THANKS FOR YOUR REPLY!! IREALLY APPRECIATED IT!!  TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND GOOD LUCK!!

[frank t.]

hi kara,hows it going?im a 43 year old mail that did a whole lot of everything from the time i was 14 till the time i was 25. back then we robbed drugstores and shot just about everything-desoxyn,preluden,nembutal,desbutal,dilaudid,demerol,---i mean i did a whole lot of everything and also didnt eat properly,usually got down to bout 120,i weigh 160 normally.i caught a case (burglary of phamacy) and due to a good lawyer and god i guess i got probation and was stipulted to cenikor,a 3 yr ,very difficult behavior modification program. i thought my brain was completely shot. gradually it changed, i got used to it, and quit worry so much about it.without a doubt there was some changes with regard to my anxiety level,memory, vision(slight patterns when looking at certain types of objects,and spatial relationships.it worried me,drove me crazy, etc. however be somewhat of a realist i knew i could shoot no more dope and i attacked it with ,exersize,meditation,diet,etc.i read a lot. i quit smoking and the anxiety level diminished some.a person who is very anxious definetly can give off the apperance of brain disfunction.(perhaps it is brain damage of sorts,but it can be treated).when i was busy at work i did better than when i was off,due to lesss time to think about it.i quit worry about it and noticed some slight changes---we're talking about years here.but what is the alternative?at seven years clean i had to get a job that required me to deal with people and not freak them out with my gaze aversion,distorted facial expressions,and what they call phsychomotor dysfunction. i went to a neurologist and he tried me on periacton(a strong antihisamine)which didnt help me at all.this was in 1988 and they werent using the SSRI for anxiety. i think they may help some .not me very much though.he then prescribed me 1 mg xanax twice a day. that drug definetly completely eliminated the anxiety and actually changed the way my thoughts were processed and vision,etc.remmember,i had been clean(drugs and alcohol)for seven years at this time.doctors are very hesitant to prescribe that type of drug on a mainanence plan.it is very risky and dangerous,nut i was desperate.i was as close to normal as i had been in years.i added prozac later and for seven years was extremely productive in my job-wasnt afraid of people-and people no longer seemed uncomfortable in dealing with me.in 1995 i had nasal surgery and recieved 30 7.5 mg hycodanes for pain.i had done so well managing the bezodiazapines for all those years i thought i could do the same with vicodan.within 4 months i was on methadone and shooting 60 dollars worth of heroin.i fixed for about three years went to treatment a number of times and as of today have some clean time and am optimistic about my chances.i am on methadone and am about to switch over to orlamm monday. my thinking is radically different than the first time i had soberd up.it depresses me alot at times. when im thinking right i remmember ive seen this movie before and that getting into recovery and time will make life tolerable again. the main one of the two is time. really all you have to do is dont drink or use,follow a wholistic plan of living that you can find in any recommended book and wait.its going to take a long time before it gets radically better,it did for me anyway--might be faster for you...i for sure dont recommend the benzodiazapines till you have been clean for a long,long time.thanks for listening to me but i should have a phd in the stinkin thinking regarding brain damage.....e-mail me sometime-------frank t./dallas/43 y/o


my email is crit_mass_98***@****