Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Recovery: Do it your way!

 The other day we were reading on yet another wonderful woman's blog "Life of a recovering addict" by ChelsieCharmed and her post on "Methadone: Love Hate Relationship" made me think about what we have gone through.
She wrote of the love hate relationship you sometimes feel while on methadone and we just wanted to write about this struggle.

Recovery: Love/Hate
Its ironic how the one thing that freed me is also keeping me trapped, but honestly it could be worse at least now my minds my own and I have a chance at life" Qouted from ChelseaCharmed 's post.

The truth is that yes you do feel this. Alot. You wonder if it was the right decision and with all the stigma you are faced with, it really can play on your mind and you begin to question whether or not you did the right thing. We speak about this in our post "Is Methadone Bad "

Everyone chooses a recovery method and they may not always be right for some people, this is no reason to speak badly about that recovery option because it didn't work out for you.It may of saved other people's lives. Just as methadone has done for us and many people we know. I wish N/A wasn't so judgemental of methadone patients, we are in recovery too! I will save this debatable subject for a future post though.

Some days we question whether or not this is for us, and you know what "Yes it is for us" we have our lives back, we have relapsed less times on methadone than on any other type of treatment. Most relapses happened in the beginning when we were still trying to adjust to the dose that was right for us. You have a chance to start picking up the pieces of your life, you have a chance to work-out the inner trauma which may of caused your addictions all these years, withdrawal is put on hold and you can slowly come down at your own rate when you are ready. Keyword you, your journey, about you, your life, about what's right for you and nobody else.
Yes there are days when you want to throw it to the wayside and there are days where your side effects may feel worse than ever and make you think 'what a stupid thing I did getting on this methadone', but when you step back and realize that you were in a much darker place before and what it felt like while you were there, you quickly change your mind.

Recovery is difficult no matter what method you have chosen for yourself. you will have days of confusion, days of pain and discomfort. We are on a huge journey of discovery of who we are, where we are going and why it is we want to get there. Everybody is different and their why's and how's will be different.

If you want this journey to be successful, you must be willing to face and feel the discomfort that may come with it. As addicts we never want to deal with pain and discomfort, so we run to anything that will take it away for us, even if temporarily, but fact being, we must face it at one point or we will forever more be caught in the webs of a nowhere life and forever unhappy.

Due to the stigma that surrounds methadone, you try to quickly come down when you are not ready and this leads to being in extreme pain and the possibility of relapsing. Only when you feel you have reached a good place emotionally & mentally where you are now stronger than ever before and have worked through all the issues you have held onto for far too long, will you be ready to slowly wean yourself off methadone. Never let anyone rush your recovery efforts and never allow someone to make you feel that you should force yourself away from what is working for you.

"Good things require effort and determination" Qouted from ChelseaCharmed's post.


Have any of you felt this love/hate relationship with your recovery? Has stigma ever made you question if you were doing the right thing? If so please share your story with us! 

We love hearing from you all! No Judgements are ever made here!
Your Friends in the maze,

5 comments:

  1. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS!!! Amazing post, thank you so much for linking me in it. Im honored. Also I totally agree thats its not fair that NA doesnt believe we are clean and sober because we are on methadone. It really makes me angry but what am I to do, some ppl will believe what they want even if its ignorant and small minded. Anyways lol I love your posts cant wait for the next one. Ill be checking everyday lol ;)

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  2. Hey Chix, Stixx, and Chelsie,
    N/A or not you are all wonderful! It seems maybe a little support group of you own is forming here:)
    I commend you all. Although I haven't had the same experience as you I watched my uncle struggle for years. I am not sure if he got clean with methadone or not but he lost his battle to heroin at a time when we all believed he was clean. We assume that his body couldn't handle the amount of heroin he was used to after being clean for a while. We will never know for sure. The only thing I know is that he never had his life more put together than during his last few weeks. Really sad. He was so close.
    I commend you for doing what YOU need to do. Not what anyone else expects for you to do. One of my very best friends used methadone to get off heroin. She has been off both for 10 years now:)
    I love healing with you.
    Pearl<3

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  3. Thanks for commenting Pearl! We all need a little support group for sure! All though you haven't had the same exact experience, doesn't mean you haven't had the same trauma. It sounds like you have had more than enough of that. Watching your uncle must of been devastating. addiction affects all involved and you can relate from a different angle, but none the less you can relate! Thank you for the support! Hope we can all heal together on this journey!

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  4. ABSOLUTELY! Great post! I agree 100%!!! It is ironic how something that freed me, saved my life, took me off the streets, living an insanely crazy dangerous life, has also got me trapped! I do by far live a normal life now, have come so far, have no cravings anymore, or anything of the sort. Of course living the once crazy lifestyle I did live, I lost my drivers license, & in turn over the years have managed to gain over 15 (once traffic citations, now are CRIMINAL offences) "Driving while licence suspended" charges on my record, & it will cost me over $10,000 to get my license back. This is not driving drunk, or betting anyone.....But it actually is discrimination against the poor...really. Point being is, I STILL must drive sometimes! So,I have to live in fear of going to jail to kick 110 mmg of methadone! "Trapped"

    I've also gained about 100 pounds over the last 4 years on methadone, so I'm now going to the gym & working out. This causes the medicine to come out in my sweat. I want to slowly come down off of the methadone, but I'm feeling like I need to go up, now that I'm working out. Love/hate?

    I would definitely say so! Ha! I'm TERRIFIED of going to jail & having to kick this! The system, & this country is SOOOOO uneducated about this, it's unreal! I'm in the United states by the way.....

    I am extremely grateful for methadone though! It absolutely saved my life! This is a fantastic post! I've subscribed, & I'm very much looking forward to more from you guys!

    Much LOVE & PEACE! <3<3<3

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Jessica for commenting! We appreciate it a lot! I am glad that you are living a better life than you once were! They definetely make you pay well after you have cleaned your life up, and it sure is discrimination against the poor and they continue to keep us down as much as they can, it is horrible! They should be helping us up more, especially having cleaned up our lives. Yes there is a fine line between it all! At times you feel much freer than where you once were and at the same time trapped! I hear you on the weight gain, i gained 80 it is in our "weight gain post" and the sweating out of methadone is in "sweating it"! You understand perfectly and yes totally a love/hate relationship going on! Thank you kindly for subscribing to us, we appreciate it! It is not right that you have to live in fear at all, they should be forgiving of certain things and give us addicts a hand up not continually pushing us down! Again thank you Jessica, can't wait to connect more with you! xo

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