Daily addiction check in #1

Took a Concerta a Wellbutrin, coffee and drinking some beer to withdraw from the crystal dependency.

30 days clean!!

Congratulations puzzclar!

Huge accomplishment!!! Get that monkey off your back! It gets easier with time...& you're accumulating it!

Way to go puzzlecar. A month is awesome.
splitimage

Nice, puzzclar!

Hanging in myself. Tough weekend; dentist screwed up a crown so my bite is off and I have a constant "icepick through the skull" headache.

80 days now.

Sorry about the icepick, UpDownAround.

Congrats on the 80 days, CoC!!!

I got it taken care of just now. "Textbook high occlusion" is what the dentist said. When my bite settled in with the new crown it was shifted slightly and it caused one spot to hit first by a tiny margin but that is enough. He took a little off (it was a cap) and now my bite feels sold again.

Then I had to be proactive, which good but it sucks. He offered me a muscle relaxer prescription since it had led to clinching. I had to tell him to make a note in my chart while I am a reasonable person - I have a substance use disorder so no pain meds, no muscle relaxers or anything else that might be fun to have around.

I keep on keepin' on...

Well done childofchoas and UpDownAround! ☺

I've got a decision to make in this regard. I have to have shoulder surgery, which I've heard hurts like a "%#*@" for weeks. I know you're not in AA, but folks around the tables say following a professional's advice is O.K.. I've never had a problem with medications (I'm on klonopin), but I'd hope that opioids wouldn't get me going. I hate pain...That's why I stopped drinking!

I know you are, bro!

I had shoulder surgery; same shoulder twice. When they tell you to move it further in PT even though it hurts, move it further. Otherwise it gets bound back up with scar tissue and they have to go in again. The doc told me that as soon as I was zonked out (technically not anesthesia, but same difference) for that second surgery, he moved my arm through full range of motion, snapping scar tissue as he went. Then he went in and cleaned it up. You really don't want that.
They have a local that is in a little ball they put in your bandage that will be slowly administered for the worst of it.
If I go through something like that again, I will be up front about concerns and get a low number of doses of the "mid grade" stuff. The gave me a few doses of high grade, a fair number of mid grade and a bunch of lower grade pain killers so that I would have what I needed depending on the pain level. That little candy store was completely used up a lot sooner than it should have been. Even the lower grade pills provided a buzz going a little over the specified max with a malt liquor kicker.
The shoulder surgeries and the knee surgery that preceded them are what really wet my whistle for opioids. Tread cautiously.

I've had shoulder surgery plus 2 major abdominal surgeries as a sober person. To try and go without the prescribed pain medication would be setting yourself up for a possible relapse. It would be like "I'll do anything to be out of this pain" and you would simply as a matter of survival!

Just remember, anyone who tries to tell you not to take the prescribed pain medication isn't the physician and sure as hell isn't the one having the surgery!

Follow the medical plan and use the help of others. Good luck, it's a tough surgery to come back from but you will.

Thanks for the feedback, UpDownAround & notz. Yep...Everyone I've spoken with who's had shoulder surgery says it hurts like a (deleted ) for quite some time. I'm pretty sure I'll break down & take the meds. Again, I don't abuse my klonopin, but also know opioids are a different species. I smoked a little reefer back in the day, but alcohol was always my drug of choice...I never popped pills. Thanks for the heads up about the possibility of going back out because of the pain, notz, & thanks for the advice about scarring & it's role in physical therapy after surgery, UpDownAround.

A thought I came up with in discussion at a SMART Recovery meeting tonight:

The greatest risk to my sobriety is the ease with which I can maintain it.

My pattern has been that I decide to stop drinking and stick to it. Then as little as 4 and as many as 18 moths later, I decide I can drink again because I am having so little trouble keeping it under control. But abstinence isn't a line in the sand that can move; it's where the sand ends. Once I move that line back into the sand, it gets too easy to move the line when I step over it. Not drinking and controlling drinking are two completely different things.

Since you attend SMART Recovery (which doesn't exist where I live), it's interesting to hear a different perspective. In A.A. (which many people HATE!), we hold that Step 1 is the only step you have to do on a daily basis: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanagable." Personally, there are no lines in the sand for me; admitting I'm powerless is enough. I know damned well that I can't have "just one" & maintain my sobriety, or keep my life from becoming a mess again.

It's too bad there are so many "Step Nazis" out there & sponsors who think they're gods. I avoid both & have been able to maintain sobriety for many 24 hours. I go by the motto: "Take what you need & leave the rest." Boy! I'm starting to sound like an "A.A. Nazi"! I wish we had SMART Recovery around here. I'm an atheist & have trouble with many of A.A.'s steps. All I'm sayin' is that I have to accept I can never drink safely again...to burn that into my brain. There are no lines in the sand for me...& to quote another trite A.A. phrase: "My best thinking got me here."

Keep on fighting the good fight, bro!!!

Steps 1-3 are probably where AA and SMART are furthest apart. SMART is Self-Management And Recovery Training. It is about learning techniques and gaining perspective so that you can manage your own recovery. To put it in contrary to AA terms, it is learning to exercise your own power over your addiction without having to rely on others or a higher power.
I also do not believe we have any evidence of the existence of any higher power and therefore assume none exists.
Getting help from others is encouraged and if faith is meaningful to you it is suggested you incorporate it into your recovery; SMART does not take a stand against these things. But you can recover without them.

Thanks for giving me more of an understanding of SMART Recovery, UpDownAround! All that matters is we're brothers in recovery. I've been too lazy to Google SMART. I'll make it a point to do that.

Another one that seems to be a lot of places is Recovery International:
https://www.recoveryinternational.org/

They have "pass-the-hat" voluntary funded local meetings that are geared toward mental health in general but do have some references to substance use in particular. I might check out a local meeting. Going to one group instead of two would be helpful and as much as I liked DBSA to begin with, it is starting to be repetitive; same people with same issues. It made me feel like I was not so strange and helped me get past some of the stigma, but it doesn't really help with what to do going forward.

There's also rational recovery. I have the book that lays that one out but haven't gotten into reading it yet.

My main issue with AS, NA, and 12 step in general, is the insistence of a higher power. While the program says it can be anything you choose, finding a sponsor that understands atheist/agnostic beliefs and will work with that is another story.

I have had several sponsors that I have told I don't believe in the traditional concept of God and prayer, yet they still insist of praying together and anytime I would call with cravings, their first question would always be "have you prayed?"

That is part of the reason I don't have a sponsor currently, but the other part is the mental illness. It's is equally difficult to find a sponsor with even a basic knowledge of how mental illness and addiction compound each other.

childofchaos,

You might look up Double Recovery. It's an offshoot of AA but they've modified the steps to incorporate mental illness. It's specifically for people with mental illness and addiction. They're not everywhere but you might get lucky and have a meeting in your city. The meetings here don't push the higher power aspect as much as AA does, the meetings are more about managing your mental illness and addiction. I go to a couple of their meetings a week and really like them.

splitimage

Some meetings...

"I have a dual diagnosis."
"Yeah, I know. Alcohol and drugs."
"No, substance use disorder and bipolar disorder."
(backing away) "You don't have a concealed carry, do you?"

There was a dual recovery anonymous meeting here but it ended up shutting down. There is a dual diagnosis recovery achievers meeting (or somethijng like that) but the guy that runs it is not good for my PTSD, to say it nicely, and it is on the groundsz of the state mental hospital, which is uncomfortable as well.

There is an NA meeting that is open to mental illness discussion and even medication discussion. It is part of that meetings purpose. The NA meeting and AA meeting that I prefer are both open to talking about mentfal illness, but not everyone understrands. At the end of both, when asking about a burning desire they phrase it as "something you may drink, use, hurt yourself or someone else over if you don't share." The welcoming nature of those two meetings in particular are why I choose them.

(As a side note, they are both LGBTQ+ and allies meetings, and the building is dedicated to being an LGBTQ+ safe space in recovery. It's a lot more welcoming and comfortable for me than other places I have been.)

The place I go, the foundation in charge of the building (not any of the 20+ groups that are there) chose to put up notices to prohibit concealed and open carry of handguns.

Idk how to taper off of crystal. I'll probably just have to run out and then suffer a little bit. It's not as bad as benzo withdrawal or something but still sucks.

After I hope to be free from drugs completely.

I'll try to taper which is all I can do because I don't want to flush it or I risk bad withdrawal.