Former opiate user, new to the sub, but not exactly new to attempting to quit kratom. Could really use some advice.
So my story starts, as I'm sure others here have, as a user of harder drugs. I was anything I could get my hands on and didn't discriminate. This started when I was 18 years old when I started regularly using cocaine and spent around $8k on it alone in the summer before I went to college. I ended up dropping out, not specifically from drug use, because I cut down significantly, but general lack of any motivation to succeed. When I came back to my hometown, I went straight back to my old ways and even started selling to fund my habit. But my regular drugs were no longer enough and got into heroin. Long story short, it took an overdose, a DUI, and all the support my family could give me to decide to change my path in life. I went back to community college, for a year and eventually got accepted to a very good university in my state. The thing is, one of my friends who was also trying to kick opiates had told me about kratom and throughout my whole recovery I was using it to curb any cravings and keep myself on track. And honestly it worked wonderfully. I could function, my parents knew I was taking it and were completely ok with it after doing some research, and my mom even takes it occasionally. However, the mind of an addict never really changes after being rewired and because I had just replaced one thing with another, I find myself just as dependent. I'm a year into University now and I'm done with this plant.
Where it used to help curb my cravings, now it just reminds me what being high feels like in a more mild form and makes me want a more intense version, so you can see where this is a problem. If I don't have it, I'll find myself walking around bad parts of the city hoping to see someone who looks like they might sell and it makes me feel awful. The problem in a big city is that getting kratom is as easy as driving 10 minutes away to go to the headshop. I know that I feel so much better after I haven't taken it for a week but it's like I don't want myself to be happy. It affects my school work because I'd rather be home sitting in bed enjoying the feeling and spending hours every day is messing up all different aspects of my life. I would really appreciate any wisdom someone here with more experience with this could impart on me. I was able to quit heroin without rehab but this is weirdly harder because I can't just delete my kratom dealers number and have no way to get it... it's so available.
Tl;dr - former opiate addict, now university student used kratom to curb drug cravings and now it does the opposite, and I could use advice.
Posted Mar 25, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC
This is a tough one. I hit a wall with it early on and have been somewhat successful associating it with its negative side. Whenever I catch myself thinking about it I instantly switch my thoughts to the withdrawal/comedown. Seems to work for me. I really do feel so much better physically and mentally without it.
My only real WD symptoms at this point, other than maybe increased anxiety and obviously not wanting to be sober, is restless leg syndrome that makes it really difficult to get a good nights sleep for a few days.
When you think about heading to the store can you stop for a minute and focus on that feeling? I usually find that if I just hit pause on my copulsive thought train it will derail. Once you establish a pattern of beating down the compulsive it starts to dissolve.
The thing is, when I'm at home, I can be sitting in my room at just thinking about it for like an hour, trying to talk myself out of it, and as time progresses my willpower gets lower and lower. I'll start to convince myself that I can just buy 1 dose and not do it the next day (which is what I've been doing every day for the past week and it's not exactly cost efficient). I'm also a bad procrastinator when it comes to school work and so I get myself to think I'll just do work right after I get it which may or may not even happen...
Oh yes, I'm well aquatinted with that cycle.
How often does buying a dose actually feel as good as your fantasies were when you were in your room? When it hits how often to you think "well, this isn't worth it, I don't need this shit"? For me it was nearly every time (sometimes it felt great in the early stages but even then not usually).
Addiction is a compulsive drive. You make up a fantasy in your head which leads to an end behavior. The reward for this thought train diminishes over time but the pattern is so conditioned at that point it's very hard to break. You can break it though by bringing yourself into the present moment and back to reality. You're not a drooling dog, you're a person with a highly developed mind. You just have to train it.
I'm not saying any of this will allow you to use a substance responsibly that you've already abused. It won't do that. You will have to avoid things like cocaine and opiates at the minimum. When you see a pattern developing with a new substance you have to walk away.
For me cognitive behavior training works. It still can be a battle, but in the long run it keeps me out of trouble. I quit heroin using it 25 years ago and was able to be in the same room as people using it a few months later without a problem (I did a lot of work trying to help addicts, I wasn't hanging out). I also started going to a Zen meditation group which really helped me learn to distinguish between what is real, and what is fantasy. You live right here, not some future better place.
Good luck! Even being here reading this means you'll probably beat it eventually. The only question is-how much pain do you want to endure on the way?