Author: tearj3rker
Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:57 pm
Depression and sadness is quite common among people who have been dependent / addicted to opiates.
In rehab I was told that certain types of people end up addicted to substances. More often than not, we actually had maladaptive coping mechanisms, mood-disorders, or some kind of emotional pain actually before we started using. This helps explain why my mother and father would go on morphine in hospital, enjoy the relief of physical pain while they need it, then recover and carry on with their lives. I was told that it’s those of us who also have some underlying psychological pain that end up with the psychological addiction. This may explain why there is so much mental illness coupled with addiction.
Really, if you want to live without opiates, you gotta learn to deal with the depression, sadness, the rawness, without running back to opiates. It’s hard I know, and I’ve hardly nailed this myself so I’m definitely not lecturing. But in my experience, as long as we keep turning back to drugs to deal with these negative emotions, we keep returning to addiction.
The majority of people in the world get depressed at some point. Most work through it without medical help. Some see a counsellor, psychiatrist etc if it gets bad enough. Some drink / gamble / cheat on their spouse. We turn to opiates.
It sounds like you want a better life, so keep "chipping away" at that addiction. Every day you refuse to use, you chip away a bit more. Eventually, you will find a more healthy, "normal" way to deal with these feelings.
But no matter how much progress you make, I doubt any of us will ever feel "normal", addict or otherwise. Normal’s a cycle on the washing machine.
