thr303808

You're right, using twice in three days is enough, but it doesn't move you back to start.

The withdrawals are much lighter compared to what they will be in weeks, or months. Often the withdrawals can be over the next day! So if you have found yourself relapsing, and think that any control over your own actions has vanished overnight? You're wrong! But that's what many actually seem to believe.

Edit: I'd do almost anything to avoid going into full on withdrawal, so I guess I don't mean literal control, but feeling powerless. This reply does not consider benzo, I consider that en even much more dangerous drug for those seriously addicted to it.

Do you have a source for these statistics? I know hundreds of people who have taken meth/speed during the weekend for years and are working, functioning people.

I'm not offended. I know nothing about your situation specifically, but I understand that you just want to help her. Common advice given to my parents were to give up, there's nothing you can do, but they never did give up and I'm very thankful for that. I never went to prison, but I've met many who did.

Maybe with a good facility it could be helpful, but most prisons are horrible environments with easy access to drugs. Addicts also die in prison, but maybe more common after being released for the difference in tolerance. Many are rejoining society with a massive prison drug debt, continuing the cycle.

Jail/prison is the absolute worst place you can send a drug addict to. If anything it usually makes things much, much worse.

Sadly I don't have any solutions to your problems, only the advice to keep fighting for her and to treat her with compassion. If she's addicted to opioids you could consider buprenorphine.

It may be that the mechanisms of addiction for meth/amphetamines, gambling, smoking etc is different from opioids, as I could to loads of the first, without ever having trouble stopping (just slept for a few days), while some of my friends had addictive behavior. It puzzled me, so maybe it truly is more difficult when relapsing on those.

After going through opiate withdrawals, I found quitting smoking rather pleasant in comparison. It's really not a ride you wish to take again.

Good friends of mine died from walking into a relapse, I don't take it lightly at all. Relapses are so common it's dangerous to tell people all is lost if they use just one more time.

Personally I've been clean for years, but what saved me was getting back into work so that I had something to occupy my time. It's easier to drop the tin foil when you have work and responsibilities in the morning.

He could also take drugs tomorrow and stop the next day. Us addicts seemingly think of relapsing as something that happens to you, like if you're walking down the street and fall into a manhole. But you're not powerless, it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy. It'll take at least weeks of continued use to get addicted again (that's for opioids, amphetamines are not addictive in that way.) Then again, it's never enough to just do it once as you want to be on the drug forever. This is why it's easy to continue using again, but it's also possible to stop.

EDIT To clarify: I'm not condoning relapsing, I only want people to know that all hope is not lost if you made the decision to use again. I'm also not saying that it will be easy to stop again, just that it's going to be easier than you think.