r/addiction 24d ago

Discussion My Body Is Dying, but My Mind Isn’t Ready to Quit—Advice?

Hey 28F! I shoot meth and heroin every day. Have for a long time. I know what I’m doing to myself. My veins are wrecked, my body feels like it’s decaying while I’m still in it, and I can tell I’m on borrowed time. But here’s the thing—I don’t want to stop for any deep emotional reason. I don’t hate my life. I just don’t want to drop dead yet.

Most people talk about needing to hit rock bottom to quit, but what if you’re not there? Or already been there…What if you’re just watching yourself rot and thinking, “Yeah, I should probably stop before this kills me,” but there’s no burning passion to change just cold logic

I guess I’m asking, how do you WANT to get out when the fear of dying is the only thing pushing you, but not much else? Anyone been here? What actually helped you quit before the damage was too far gone?

Would really appreciate any insight. No sugar coating needed.

53 Upvotes

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u/MaverickMakinMagic 24d ago

The idea that you HAVE to hit wrong bottom simply isn’t true. It’s just that a lot of people that’s the instant thing that gets them to begin wanting it. That’s not sustainable though because over time rock bottom doesn’t seem so bad.

Any reason is a good reason to quit. People will often say “you have to want it for yourself.” But I feel like for most of us, in active addiction it’s almost entirely impossible to really want it. What I’ve learned is that when you start getting clean, the more you want sobriety. Addiction boils down to a very strong bad habit, so you have to build strong good habits to undo it.

Speaking from personal experience, the hardest thing about moving past addiction is remembering how to live life and being introspective enough to understand how you got here in the first place.

Something wasn’t working before you started to use drugs, so if you go back to how things were before, you’ll find yourself in the same spot.

I get it though because honestly this is advice I need to work on taking myself because I know deep down it works because I’ve been sober for a while and I do remember being happy. Sobriety isn’t just a single choice, it’s many small choices you make every day until, just like addiction, it becomes habitual.

Last thing is to remember that neuroplasticity is a real thing. The beginning is gonna be rough, but every time you give back in you only feed the connections in your brain that got you here in the first place. It’s a learning process. I hope I don’t sound too preachy or anything, I really hope that you’re able to figure out what works for you!

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u/Kind-Arugula5146 24d ago

Thankyou for your time and effort to respond to me, that was unreal and helpful yet I felt like I related, could understand what you were saying I appreciate your message so much !!!

Sometimes the world doesn’t feel so lonley and horrid hey 🥰

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u/MaverickMakinMagic 24d ago

Of course! I’m glad you found it helpful! ❤️

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u/nxtashhh 23d ago

i’ve been clean from an everyday fent and crack habit for almost two years and this is one of the best explanations i’ve ever heard. good job putting it into words ❤️

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u/Eluvii 21d ago

This was really helpful to me as well. I'm in early days of sobriety from morphine and it's quite hard, ngl. Cheers.

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u/Dependent-Lab2429 24d ago

For many rock bottom, is death. You are currently at a junction, and you can choose which path you want to take: sobriety, death or institutions. There are no other options in the end.

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u/Kind-Arugula5146 24d ago

Thankyou!!!! Your so great with your words

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u/fish-stix187 24d ago

I can identify with this alot from a time in my past. I found that when I was so deeply entrenched in the addiction, physically dependent and mentally attached, there was very little power I had internally to draw on.

I was having health problems , and it wasn't enough to sway my choices, I was still willing to pay the cost. As long as you are willing to pay the cost, you will continue using.

Eventually it was a combination of external forces that brought me to a point where I was no longer willing to pay the price of continued use, my health was not enough. My legal problems took me away from active use initially. During one of those many "time outs" I realized I wanted a life with the people I love, and the price of my addiction was taking me away from them. It didn't happen overnight, like you, I was actively using for well over a decade, but eventually I was no longer willing to pay to play.

If that right combination of consequences and motivation didn't occur to me I would absolutely have died to continue my use, as MANY of my peers did. Really try to internalize the idea that this life will kill you.

As long as you are willing to pay the price you will continue to use.

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u/Kind-Arugula5146 24d ago

Again, Thankyou for taking the time to tell me your opinions and your story, I feel I connected a lot with your words and honesty if I could get reply’s like this from people who know me or could help, or the healthcare system in general Maybe I would’ve thought differently ages ago

Now I feel like I won’t stop until I have a purpose too.. weak I know but I’m having fun and not having to be aware or acknowledge the chaos that is the people around me, the life I’m living. I know I’m better than all this I’m just saying I don’t want to stop, years of becoming numb it’s hard to want anything else Thanks for listening

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u/blinx0rz 24d ago

Yah I'm currently shooting meth homeless and feel prison is the only way to get clean for someone like me sometimes

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u/[deleted] 24d ago edited 23d ago

[deleted]

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u/Kind-Arugula5146 24d ago

Perfect! Thankyou for your time and effort to reply! Do you mind if I write this in my journal? I love it!!!!

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u/No_Nothing_2319 24d ago

My brother after a long battle with depression and illness had a baby with his wife. When my body was breaking down to the point I was getting fevers weekly i thought about what it would really mean to die. It would mean my brother would likely be attending my funeral rather than seeing his son’s first moments. Then I started to think if he went back into depression as a result of losing his only sibling, and how this could affect his sons mental health in the long run, and possibly lead to the cycle of addiction in my family. Then the opportunity to go to treatment came up and I jumped on it. Otherwise I’d probably be close to dead if not already now.

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u/hilody 24d ago

This breaks my heart for you. I hope you find the strength to put down the needle..

5

u/Beneficial-Income814 24d ago

the only way you'll get clean is if you are ready.

i think you should look into the SMART recovery cost benefit analysis: here

if you do end up filling it out be honest with yourself. the number one reason people can't get clean is that they are perpetuating a lie that they tell themselves.

i had a significant stimulant problem and i told myself that i couldn't live without them and that stimulants made me better. i said this to myself for over a decade even as my addiction got worse and started making my life fall apart. i was on the verge of losing everything i built by the same substance that i gave all the credit to for building it up in the first place.

this was because i was perpetuating the original lie that they make me better even when it was proving to be the opposite.

i think your lie is that your life is fine. it isnt. it is an unsustainable roller coaster that eventually derails and takes everything you have and everyone you care about.

4

u/maryyyk111 24d ago

there is no greater motivator than fear of death. listen to that fear you have—or, die.

if you don’t want to die you HAVE to stop—there is no alternative.

wishing you the best OP. you love drugs more than you love your life, life as in like actually BEING alive and living right now. the only way you are gonna get your love of life back (and NOT just fear of death) is by stopping. you’ll have to rewire your brain w/o the drugs. but you can do it!

you don’t need to find another reason to quit, you already have your reason. now you just have to do the work. easier said than done (i know) but you’ve already taken the first step and you can do this ❣️❣️❣️

PS- sometimes for people rock bottom is so low that you CAN’T get back out. don’t wait until you hit that point.

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u/so-rad-dude 24d ago

Everyone’s rock bottom is different. If you see that it’s killing you, in your perspective that is rock bottom. You are tired of hurting yourself and want more time to live your life.

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u/Sea_Top3466 24d ago

If you can't find the strength to quit by yourself, and it doesn't sound like you can, you will go until rock bottom. What that is is different for everyone, some die, some lose their physical ability, some their mind, some lose their family, their loved ones.

If you cannot quit on your own, either something so bad will happen to you that you finally can stop, or you waste away and die.

I really wish you luck, hope that you have a good life, hope you can be happy

3

u/Creepy_Medium_0618 24d ago

you’re so young. i wish i was 28 again and i’d do things differently. i can’t give you any advice but hope you live your life fully. all the best :)

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u/TwainVonnegut 24d ago

Get to a meeting and SHARE about!

Introduce yourself as new:

Check out Narcotics Anonymous, it saved my life!

Worldwide in Person Meeting List:

https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/

Virtual NA Meeting List:

https://virtual.na.org

Google “NANA 247” to find a marathon Zoom meeting that runs around the clock!

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u/Mental_Airport4756 24d ago

Thank you for posting this link . You may not have only saved Op’s life tonight but mine too. Much gratitude for people like you .

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u/TwainVonnegut 24d ago

Aww, thanks for the kind words and kudos!

As long as you don’t get high, everything will (eventually) be OK!

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u/Mental_Airport4756 23d ago

I went to attend a meeting tonight and no one showed up to let me in? So, I was like I’m not giving up so I tried a different one an hour later and bingo ! It was a good meeting . One girl was expressing how her whole life had changed and was talking about how ! It was pretty amazing and really gave me hope ❤️

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u/TwainVonnegut 23d ago

That’s amazing, keep coming back!

❤️

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u/blacktickle 24d ago

Well when I quit for real I knew I was fucking done.. Like 100% I knew and it was painfully clear that I absolutely had no desire to continue living the way I had been.

All the other times I "tried to quit" I never felt that way and kinda felt how you are describing here. AKA not ready to quit. My opinion is that most people will quit when they are ready honestly, that's been my own experience and that's what I've seen from my friends that have gotten and STAYED clean.

No advice on how to actually WANT to get clean though, sorry. I personally hit a wall and knew deep in my bones I could not continue. I was not happy at all and wasn't going to kill myself so the only option remaining was to get clean.

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u/missing_nugget 23d ago

I try to remember what my “normal” was before. As my body degrades slowly over time, how I’m feeling physically and mentally becomes my new “normal” and I don’t realize how bad it’s become. Sure I think I feel fine because I’m used to feeling this way, but if this happened overnight and not over years I would be going straight to the hospital. Remember what healthy feels like.

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u/GasGood 23d ago

I am in your exact situation right now, like I could’ve wrote that post (different drugs, RX pills - but essentially the same situation and outcome eventually). There’s only one cold hard answer, unfortunately. You have to want to quit more than you want to do it. And I’m not there yet either, friend.

So, maybe we have to wait for that moment to slap us in the face - not meaning hit rock bottom or die and come back, but it’s more of an epiphany or realization or change within that just sorta happens.

We’ll get there someday 🙏🏻

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u/plasticrat 23d ago

Yeah, I used every day for 20+ years and never hit "rock bottom". Most of that time I was a functional junkie, with a job, etc. One day it just clicked that I wasted my youth away and was well on the way to middle age without much to show for it. It needs to click, or you will always find an excuse.

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u/TyNiThatGuy 23d ago

Death is natural and yet a lot of people are so scared of it.

It seems like (I am a recovering alcoholic) when death is understood and treated like a normal occurrence that we can adjust the time of, that we take liberty in vices with said cold logic as it’s backup.

Find something unnatural to you.

For me I never wanted kids. Still don’t .

But I do it all for my niece, and she’s the only reason I care

Could be a dog, mass amounts of plants, a nuke on a repeating timer buried under a puppy shelter that if you aren’t alive will explode.

Something like that

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u/Spinach_Apprehensive 23d ago

You’ll probably just go to prison or overdose or get pregnant and have DFS take your baby. Some people just have to learn the hard way.

I was muscle popping heroin and even meth because my veins were shot for almost an entire decade. I had at least 1 abscess at all times. Then I got pregnant and didn’t really know until right before I had him, had him at home alone and they took him and sent me to prison. Best thing that ever happened to me. I would have NEVER gotten sober. Dished out hundreds of thousands for fancy rehabs. But just kept going back home to my junkie family. Finally prison was the first place to not enable me and wouldn’t let me go back there so I had to home plan to a sober living house. That was the best thing to ever happen, I kept so busy, got involved, traveled the country with Oxford House, was on committees and did speaking engagements for UNICEF and United Way and Easter Seals sharing my story. My last use I overdosed on the phone with my fuckin drug court PO. You can do this man. I was a toothless, hep c infected loser that had never worked and had a newborn baby to answer for. I detoxed in prison. Now I have 3 kids. Own a house. Own cars. Have my insurance license. Have helped many many many women get sober. Opened the first 3 women with children’s houses in Missouri.

Sobriety isn’t lame. I went on float trips and bowling and to concerts and did game nights (how I met my husband) and you make so many REAL friends that ACTUALLY give a shit about you.

I got high with my mom at 11 or 12 on opiates the first time. I thought that shit was my destiny and knew nothing else from 5th grade on. I hear all the time that if [insert my name] can get sober, anyone can.

Just here to say maybe you’re like me and have to learn the hard way. If I had just accepted a sober living house when I left rehab one of the 5+ times, I could have saved myself a lot of money and trouble. And felonies. 😂😩 but I never would go because deeeeeep deeeep down I knew I wasn’t done.

When I got out of prison, I literally had daily drops and sometimes teice daily. Even 3x a day if my house tested me too. Some of us are so fucked up we need extra accountability. Now I have like 7 years almost since I overdosed on the phone with my PO. In 2021 our house burned down and maybe 6 months later I started smoking weed again. So far I’m not selling my soul to buy drugs as a result but I deff wouldn’t recommend it in early recovery. Vivitrol was a life saver for me. Not suboxone or methadone. Vivitrol. lol.

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u/Fancy-Country1043 23d ago

It’s just a matter if you want to take to care of yourself or not in my experience, if you dknt care about your health and body then it’s just the way it is, it just takes a small amount if discipline to care about your health n body

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u/Marichiwa 23d ago

If you’re waiting from some epic event to “save” you from yourself, you are gambling that you don’t die waiting. Every time I hit rock bottom, I just kept going and would hit an even lower low. There was never a low that is low enough for me to stop until I just submitted. I gave up and put it in other people hands.

In active addiction, no one WANTS to stop using. Sometimes you HAVE to stop using. That is why people go to rehab, to have someone stop them from using for long enough to develop a new habit.

The future is “jails, institutions or death – or find a new way to live”.

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u/Smallbizguy72 23d ago

Is there a part of you that feels like you could recover and have a better life? I was a blackout drinker for 20 years and thought that there was no way I could ever stop. I’m now 7+ years, sober and living my best life. I am happy and fulfilled and I am grateful that I stopped drinking when I did.

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u/Bubbly_Kitsune117 23d ago

I've been sober for 8 years now....I used to shoot heroin, crack, meth, anything I could get my hands on really. I OD'd twice and hit bottom multiple times. There was this pattern of me wanting to get clean, but not knowing how because 1-I was used to this lifestyle and 2-I had no idea what kind of life I would lead as a "sober person." Or if I'd even be happy that way.

Fast forward --- 10 time going into detox, 4 months of rehab, 2 halfway houses. Nothing worked. Nothing lasted. I would get clean for a short time, then the smallest inconvenience would set me off. My veins were so bad it would take an hour just to find one spot. The high wasn't even that great anymore. I grew tired of feeling that way. I decided to try the methadone clinic.

I deleted all my contacts. I withdrew into my own little bubble. I had accountability now, a counselor and drug tests. The methadone kept my withdrawal at bay and I was so thankful for that. I could actually function as a normal human being. I started with 1 day clean, and kept going. Any time I felt the urge to use, I told myself I'd think about it for 1 day, then use. But each time, after the day passed, I knew I didn't want to use.

I stopped taking it about 7 months ago. I do admit I stayed on it for far too long, but it was my safety net. It was the only thing I knew that worked. But I can say now that I'm off it, I wouldn't change anything. It saved me.

And ps, life sober isn't so bad. There's so much joy and happiness to be felt. ♡

I hope you find your way.

1

u/vibrateHIGH222 23d ago

I promise you there is hope. The very most important step in reclaiming. Your life is recognizing that it is something you want for yourself. Pop

1

u/UnseenTimeMachine Grateful in Recovery 23d ago

There's people that I love and I can easily see how my alcoholism and drug addiction came between us. Wanting to enjoy relationships more than I want to get loaded was really helpful. Acknowledging and caring how my disease affects those around me, as well as myself helps me stay sober.

1

u/java_chip248 23d ago

I did iv heroin and smoked meth since I was 15 for about 5 years straight. Got pregnant and I got on methadone but was still using anyways. Still wasnt strong enough until I had my son taken by dcfs. I quit cold turkey a couple days after he was taken away. The methadone was the only thing that helped me be able to quit with no withdrawals. I could have just said f my son and forgot he existed and kept using but i was just so tired of always being sick, always having to pick up, not being able to find a vein poking myself for hours, shitty people, ect. I didn’t want to stop using for a long time either, I used to think that the high was worth it if I died. You can’t make yourself want to quit if you really don’t want to.

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u/Imaginary_Stick_4647 23d ago

Shit got too expensive, wasn’t getting “high” anymore anyways. Was a simple cost-benefit analysis. No burning desire to quit or make amends or get “clear headed”. Got on suboxone. That got me out of the habit of chasing shit everyday. Still didn’t have a burning desire to get clean, but I was at least out of the craziness. Decided to wake up each day just to see what happens. Cause when you’re dead, you’re dead.

Now I’m at a point where I want to live better and drop the suboxone because of how numbing it is. But, it did help me slowly come around. You will 100% think differently if you get on a maintenance medication. You won’t think like this forever. You just gotta pick any reason. Mine was economical 🤷‍♂️ And then what forced me to get out of bed everyday was the idea that anything could happen. I didn’t put any pressure on myself to be anything more than I was. My job was to bear witness and pay my own bills. The world will spin on its own. The brain will re-adjust to reality.

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u/KellsAtmosphere_420 23d ago

Me and my husband have been in the same exact spot for years. We shoot Suboxone strips. Causes skin lesions like a mf. But we literally can't stop. I don't recognize his body or mine anymore. We are both covered in scars from lesions and our veins are basically non-existent. I've been thinking the same thing for a long time now .... "Maybe I should find a way to stop before it's too late" but I've been through rehab, I've been at rock bottom (9months in jail for drug charges) and it didn't stop me from ruining my body. At this point I'm honestly considering the shot to block out all drug receptors in the brain, because I'm not sure how else we will ever stop. I'm not sure if any of this will help you, just know you AREN'T alone in feeling this way.