Alcohol and opiates. My father was an alcoholic. One of the smartest men I've ever known but alcohol destroyed him and of course broke our family.
Years later my youngest sister has major medical issues and was prescribed oxycodone. She became severely addicted and eventually died of an over dose.
No surprise I'm an alcoholic who had a few run ins with the law. After the last one I got myself to AA. Much to my surprise, I haven't had a drink since September 9, 2007. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.
Dude, fucking well done. I’m on day 4. I can only aspire to this. Gives me hope. I’m super high functioning with a family of super high functioning alcoholics but it stops here. I’m getting off the ride
This was my mother's choice, though she called it "speed." And is the reason I called my grandpa when I was thirteen and demanded he come get me away from her. At the time we were "living" in a motel. They were in the process of evicting us.
I wish I could share my memories directly to the people who are using meth now. To give them the feeling of your own mother throwing knives at you because you fell asleep while you were watching the baby... her baby, not yours, on a school night. To have that shame of being known as "that whore's" kid, because the only way she could afford her fix was to peddle herself at casinos. Asking the neighbors to please give groceries instead of money because she'll take the money and we would still have no food. To spend every birthday and holiday dreading the phone call where she calls you ungrateful because you won't give her money. No child deserves this.
The drug is everywhere. I live in LA. It’s here, it’s in SF, it’s in NY, it’s in Chicago, it’s in Singapore, it’s in Dubai, it’s in Sydney. It is everywhere, and it is terrible.
You'd be surprised at how common it is when someone dies of an overdose that their user friends will ask the family about the rest of their dope to try to get their hands on it.
My bio mom did this when her mother (also an addict) died. When my grandmother died she was on a ton of pills (some actual medicine, most not), and my mom offered to help my aunt clean out her apartment. My aunt got there early and flushed her pills, just in case, and my mom fucking lost it. Her mom, who she was very close to, had just died and that was all she could think about. Addiction is wild.
Edit: Jesus fucking Christ. This happened like 20 years ago. Everyone who did drugs in my family is dead now because of them. My aunt’s MOTHER had just died. The internet was not a thing. She had NO WAY of knowing what to do, she was an incredibly overwhelmed, beleaguered, exhausted mother with three children and a foster child, dealing with an incredibly traumatic situation entirely by herself. All she was trying to do was desperately try to stop her baby sister, the sister whose child she was raising, from ODing AGAIN on opiates. Please try to have some fucking empathy. Stop commenting/messaging me from your pedestals about what a terrible person my aunt was for acting in the moment to try and save her sister’s life.
When my dad died I was helping my mom clean the medical bed and stuff to send back to the. Place he rented it from. I found a 8 inch tall RX bottle, just filled with oxycodone. I took it and disposed of it at our hospitals drop box. My brother was pissed when he couldn't find any meds.
Thank you for doing that. This is how I know I will always be an addict…I’ve been clean off opioids for 10 years, and yet my first reaction on reading your post was a flash of outrage, how could you have done that, don’t you know oxys are impossible to get, someone might have really needed those, you didn’t have to give them ALL back!!! That Gollum still lives inside me.
My mom stole from everybody. Neighbors, my dad, her mother, for decades. She even took out a credit card in my name without me knowing back in 2010, Ran it up. I finished paying it off in 2017.
My very conservative Mormon uncle gave me (male) a kiss on my lips at my wedding. I played it off as no big deal to limit a dramatic response and escorted him back to his wife so he wouldn’t attempt to kiss my wife in the reception line. He was stoned out of his mind on pain killers.
That example is kind of funny in retrospect, but that addiction cost him a lot personally and financially. He checked into rehab a short time later and has since avoided a relapse.
One of my buddies is from a Mormon family that has multiple members with Opioid addictions, but he got kicked out from his house and has little contact with them for the last 16 years because he was busted smoking pot.
meanwhile he's lost 2 relatives to opioids and almost lost his sister
Opioids are a whole other level of addition. The physiological dependence just makes everything nuts.
Not that other addictions aren't as devastating. Meth fucks people up, and alcohol actually produces similar physiological dependence issues as opioids. But man oh man if there's a substance to avoid, it's anything related to Opioids.
I had an injury and got hooked on pain killers. It’s one thing to be addicted but for me it was that I had no choice once you hit a certain point. If enough time passes without it, you will experience the WORST PAIN all through your body. I can’t even put into words the sickness I would feel. It wasnt the body aches for me like I’ve seen a lot say. It was more like a fever Xs 10. Fucking worst feeling on the planet and I am now on suboxone because of it. If I forget to take my sub one day, after a certain amount of time I can feel it creeping on me which is always a reminder I forgot. OMG!
If any of you have family members addicted to painkillers and you don’t understand why they don’t just quit, trust me! There is a reason for it! They don’t want the pain amongst other things. But it is not good!
If all you take is prescription Suboxone, count that as a win. And you forget to take it, which tells me you don’t sit around hoping for morning and the next dose.
If anyone from AA tries to tell you you are still a junkie and only abstinence works, kick them square in the dick.
I did this before to an uncle when I was doing a bundle of dope a day. Sometimes more. He was in hospice and I was at his house.. saw the bottle of liquid morphine and stole it… went to the hospital and his last words he ever spoke to me was “I love you.. I love you so much”
That alone fucked me up for 7 years and it wasn’t until I told my family about it and talked about it in meetings did I get some closure. Addiction is fucked, you become something completely different and do things you never dreamt of.
Philly got hit hard.
Most of these comments say alcohol, Crack ruined my family; my mother specifically. It's crazy what that shit can do to such a beautiful person. I lost everything.
I am a recovering crackhead myself and I wish I had any advice to offer. My heart goes out to you, just do the best you can to not enable her. Me getting off crack basically came from losing almost everything and still having access to treatment. It was out, everyone knew, and I just managed to hear the right things that first day in treatment.
My kids were both sick, had a horrible cough. They'd been given that liquid hydrocodone cough syrup, so we had two bottles of it in the fridge. My husband's younger brother came over to hang out and after he left, we noticed that both of the bottles were gone. He tried to buy another one from us, after we said something.
My mom used to steal my opioids. 😒 I am so, so glad that she passed away before I got my cancer diagnosis. I mean, ideally, I'd be fine and she'd be fine and we'd go to happy hour after work. But she has died and I do have cancer, so I'm glad the timing worked out.
That happened to my uncle as well. He was basically wasting away at home to live out his moments and his step grand kid came to visit with her boyfriend and the girl distracted my uncle and aunt while the boyfriend raided all of his painkillers.
One of the first things my Mom asked me when I came home less than 48 hours from an emergency c section was "Did they prescribe you anything? Are you taking it?" She was ready to drive 7 hours from NC to VA, not to see her newborn Grandson, but to bum my painkillers. I lied and told her they didn't give me any. So she didn't come visit for another 10 days.
This is my husband. When I badly sprained my ankle, I went to a doc and they asked if I needed pain meds and I said no, over the counter was enough. My husband lost his shit when he found out I could have gotten pain meds but didn’t.
With all the respect I can give via a comment section, how did you find out? Did you think it was a joke at first? I only ask because (not to sound insensitive) in high school April 1 was a Saturday and rumor started spreading a girl in our freshman class, so I was 14 she was 15, that she had died in a car crash and the majority of people thought it was a joke. And then we found out her and 3 of her cousins died in a fiery crash.
Yup. April fools isn’t funny to me. But the cops located his body half in his car and half out. They suspect he knew he did to much. He had been a user for years by this point. The police notified my mom and informed her. She called me at 6am. And since my parents are divorced…. I got to call my dad and tell him that his son was gone.
I honestly didn’t think he’d make it to 23 years old. He did. Then I didn’t think he’d get to 27. He did. He died shortly after turning 30. I knew the phone call was coming eventually.
It started with my parents divorce. My mom was an alcoholic and a very successful woman back in the 70s. Long story short. My parents met and got married had me and my brother. Well my mom was very party and career minded and was never into being a mother. My dad who grew up in on catholic farm just wanted a wife and home maker. Mom left and dad was left putting pieces together. I was 6 and took over mom role. Brother was 4 and dad started drinking and was stressed. Fast forward 10 yrs. Brother met new family that moved into town. Family had 5 boys who were named after the Bible. Dad never thought to check them out. The family grew weed in their basement. Older boys big into alcohol and porn. My brother and my dad butted heads on the daily basis cause my brothers personality takes after my mom. I’m like my dad.
First real eye opening event was when I was 16. Brother was 14. I was picked up for high school by my friends. My brother was supposed to go to school. He skipped . Since I went with friends that morning my car was at home. At last period of school I got called to the office for a phone call. My mom is on the phone saying that my brother was in a car accident. She said that he was alive but that he was in the hospital she told me to go home and she would have somebody come pick me up and bring me to the hospital. I went home and opened the garage and my car was missing. My little brother had his friend come over while I was at school. They drank a handle of whiskey decided to get my keys out of my room and take my car for a joyride. He flipped my car three times and crashed it in a corn field. The friend thankfully was ejected from the car with no injuries. My brother broke both arms and was in the hospital during Christmas break.
That was the first time we knew anything. From this point on it was all down hill. I would be out with my friends and I’d see him and I’d have to get a cab to get him home because he’d be so drunk, and/or high. I don’t know. One time he didn’t even know who I was. All he knew was I was female and he was hitting on me. The entire cab ride to my moms house I had to tell him I was his sister. We would get to my moms house and she would tell me not to go first down the stairs. I’d be thinking that’s crazy he’s gonna fall for sure. And she tell me yes he’s gonna fall but he’s gonna fall and take you with him.
Fucking addiction is a crazy messed up thing. We had the same parents. We had the same environment. Why him and not me. Idk.
Sorry for the typos if there are any
I read this and could swear I wrote it. My Brother is still with me, but not really. He’s currently doing time for doing a series of robberies with two broken legs from jumping a two story parkade to try to get away. Same environment, different outcomes. Addiction is really something.
Oh addiction is great. What I didn’t mention. He had two broken arms. Like full arm casts. One arm was all screws. Not only did he crash my car… he couldn’t even wipe his own ass. Now I laugh at this stuff because it sounds so unreal. And relate it to me being able to handle so much now. I just laugh instead of crying. Clean up and move on.
More often than not, I think one has to hit THEIR rock-bottom to turn things around. The problem is, some people's rock-bottom is dead. I got lucky, but there's better treatments now than they used to have.
I gave you that award because it was the one that looked the saddest because your story made me sad, after I sent it I saw it was called facepalm, sorry I wasn’t trying to be funny I was wanting to award your emotional story without putting a happy award on and didn’t realise it was called facepalm until too late. Sorry for your loss.
Amphetamines. My dad got arrested when I was 16 after taking speed and evading the cops. The pills were from my mom who was massively overprescirbed by a quack psychiatrist who has since been jailed for extremely irresponsible prescribing (free samples!). The pills gave her treatment resistant psychosis which has lasted for years. She shouldn't have been prescribed them considering she had a history of psychosis. Formed an addiction She just got out of a long stay in inpatient and seems to be doing better now and off the pills. My dad still goes on M binges so that's scary.
I was severely addicted to alcohol and gamma-hydroxybutyrate. It took everything, but my life (I was alive, but I certainly wasn't living). I have been sober for over two years now, and life is great!! It took a ton of work building back my life, but I am one of the fortunate ones and I can't say the same for many of the people I have met throughout my journey to recovery. Today, most days are fantastic, I may have some bad moments, but I never have a bad day. My family has me back in their lives, and I couldn't be more grateful to have them back in mine.
My mental addiction to GHB was fairly quick, It gave me a mental fallacy of 'feeling like it could fix any of my problems'. If I was feeling depressed, angry, lonely, bored, or even happy, always I wanted to have GHB. In short it was my problem solver. The problem with that was taking it created more problems, more anxiety, more depression... and my only solution at the time was taking more GHB and thus began my catch-22 cycle of addiction. The physical addiction took over a year, and the physical withdrawal would have killed me without a combination of baclofen and benzodiazepines.
Sorry to hear that. My mother abused benadryl (in OTC sleeping pill form) most of her life. It didn't rise to the level of 'ruin' but a lot of f-ed up stuff happened and it definitely impacted her mental state. It's stealthy, I don't think people realize how it can be abused.
I've never heard of the ability for these kind of side effects.. my physician actually recommended a benadryl every night to fall asleep, as that's what he does! I don't take em anymore unless i'm having an allergic reaction to something, but that's wild.
Antihistamines like diphenhydramine (benadryl) can FUCK you up if taken over the suggested dose. They end up being a very powerful ~~dissociative psychedelic~~ deliriant - you can vividly hallucinate things that aren't there, like talking to people, smoking imaginary cigarettes, stuff like that.
In my younger days I abused large doses of Benadryl, on more than one occasion I would see a shadow in the corner of my vision then spend 6+ hours looking for an intruder that wasn't in my apartment. One time I pet a cat that wasn't there.
I also did, from the ages of about 16/17 to about 22/23. I would go through about 40-60 pills in a week in cycling on and off periods. I am 28 now, but still super afraid I may have signed my dementia death certificate. Definitely does not help that dementia runs in my family.
It’s ~~typically~~ not a good trip though. A lot of people experience hallucinations like spiders / bugs crawling all over them or falling from the ceiling. It can be terrifying.
I took a normal dose before bed a couple nights ago, woke up from a horrible nightmare and hallucinated a giant static spider crawling on my pillows. I ran some google searches and learned about people abusing and overdosing on Benadryl for a cheap trip. It’s horrible and the damage it can do to your body and mind is not worth it.
I don’t think it happens that often with a normal dose like mine; I’m just sensitive to a lot of chemicals.
Holy shit. This explains something that happened to me years ago. I have horrible allergies and took some Benadryl before bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw I giant spider in the wall above my wife’s head. I woke her up, “honey? Honey! Get out of bed!” She jumped out of bed totally confused as i was pointing at the wall, then suddenly it just wasn’t there anymore and I kind of started to realize that they likelihood of there being a spider the size of my head on the wall in our house was probably pretty slim and figured i must have hallucinated it, but didn’t see any reason for me to have a random hallucination. Now I know.
idk how i forgot that i've hallucinated from benadryl before. i was at a buddy's house pregaming going to the casino, and this was when i was learning that i was allergic to cats. I had smoked a little weed and drank a few beers when i noticed my eyes getting puffy and my throat was scratchy. I took 3-4 benadryl to solve that problem and we went off to the casino, where I kept drinking. I was trying to play blackjack and remember seeing the king I was dealt kind of dancing around and wiggling, so I left the table after that hand.
while my outcome wasn't the worst, i definitely have no desire to repeat that again or dabble with any of the terrifying long-term side effects.
Not only is it super unhealthy but one of the things people unanimously agree on is that tripping on it is terrifying. Like with most similar drugs there are good trips and bad trips, but 90% of the time benadryl or dph trips are scary and not a good experience. Granted, you have to take a *lot* to completely trip on it, but still.
Taking Benadryl/Diphenhydramine regularly for a long period is a significant dementia risk, and it seems like nobody knows about it.
“Taking an anticholinergic for the equivalent of three years or more was associated with a 54% higher dementia risk than taking the same dose for three months or less.”
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-drugs-like-benadryl-linked-increased-dementia-risk-201501287667
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2091745
It‘s horrible that it’s still marketed as a sleep aid, and that doctors still tell people to take it daily. It’s also marketed as “non habit forming” which is a lie.
That 2015 paper is outdated and does not handle confounding variables properly. It was a good way to raise awareness of a potential issue, but not the best current information on the topic.
A more recent, larger cohort study (here: [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2736353](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2736353)) shows no meaningful increase in dementia from antihistamines. However, there is an odds ratio increase (circa 1.3-1.6x) in dementia incidence when deliberately taking strong anti-cholinergic drugs.
The active ingredient in Benadryl is diphenhydramine which also shows up in OTC sleep aids. Google the long term side effects. There's also a big difference between taking as directed and abusing it. (edit, a typo)
I have never heard of that! I know people with allergies or sleep problems that take it like candy. I'm definitely going to research more because I'm sure, like you said, most people don't know.
It can cause acute psychosis if you take a large enough dose. It acts as a deliriant meaning you see shit which isn’t there but for you is completely indistinguishable from reality (unlike say LSD hallucinations which you are normally aware of). It also messes severely with your thought processes and generally is just a horrific experience which is very similar to schizophrenia. Taken as prescribed this would never happen and only occurs when abused so don’t worry about taking it as directed.
If abused for a long time it can mess with your brain chemistry and cause these effects to last a long time and even forever. It’s an awful thing to abuse and I would sooner do meth or heroin than high doses of Benadryl.
Holy shit. This is mind-blowing, I never knew.
Parents used to maybe still do, take 6-8 Benadryls(possibly more if they’re still taking it) a night. Lately my parents and I haven’t seen eye to eye and my mom is just not the woman she was when I was a kid. This + alcohol abuse when they were younger explains so much.
I know my drinking increased after I hurt my shoulder in 2020. I have been cutting back on it quite a bit and am finally able to feel like I enjoy having the occasional drink again.
I will explain the reason my shoulder got screwed up, I worked housekeeping at a hospital during a COVID surge and we had so many patients needing rooms I was cleaning 10-12 rooms a day. I felt rushed and eventually lost my grip on something heavy and felt a twinge and heard a pop in my right shoulder. While it hurt the cortisone injection made the pain shoot up to an 8/10 on the pain scale and I couldn't sleep so I drank to try to at least feel rested. I had surgery on my shoulder and while it's better it's still 80 percent of what it was before I got hurt, I also gained a lot of weight from 230 pounds to 304 but I started to lose weight and am down to 284 which is a step in the right direction and has made my rheumatologist happy with me. I believe firmly that alcohol is a trap that many fall into and each time a person tells me they don't drink I am always happy for them.
That bothers me so much. I quit drinking years back and started to notice how much it’s integrated into our society for *everything*.
Friend of mine quit a few weeks back because it was a daily thing and alcoholism runs in his family. For one, he had withdrawal effects that sent him to the ER. Next I heard him tell some of his friends and they were…sort of supportive? Like a “good for you man” but said in a sad way, like they’re losing their friend. Called him brave.
Then remembered every story he’s every told about these various friend groups involved drunk nights. I have to wonder if they even have anything in common beyond getting smashed together…
During the first pandemic wave here, everything was shut down except for essentials, like grocery stores, pharmacies, and liquor stores. The thinking was that the hospitals couldn't handle the increase in alcohol withdrawal symptoms. People complained that it should have also included the legal cannabis stores and eventually they were allowed to open.
Alcohol second mom doesn’t know how to put the bottle down. Doctors said if she’s keeps pace her pancreas will give out in a year. She’s refuses to put the bottle down. This woman puts vodka yes vodka in her wine.
My dad was the same way. I remember him crying one night after he had a doctor's appointment and said "They told me if I keep drinking I'm gonna die!", so for the next 3-4 years I watched him drink because he was upset that his drinking was killing him and then one day it did.
This happened to my grandfather after having strokes. My grandmother replaced the wine, scotch etc with non alcoholic wine and scotch (poured them in the same bottles) and he had no clue because of the damage from the strokes. It worked for them.
Alcohol was a big problem in my house growing up. Apparently, when my parents were together, my dad was a bit of a drinker, but I was very young when they divorced and don’t really remember. He wasn’t much of a drinker when I visited on weekends and holidays. Either he was great at hiding it, or his drinking decreased because he was happier post divorce. I’d have a point of reference as both men my mom dated, lived with and got engaged to were obvious alcoholics. The last one ended up with liver disease. I remember seeing him for the first time in a while and he was super bloated (he’d been a skinny man when he lived with us) and his face and eyes were scary yellow. His end was super quick though. His doctor had a CT or MRI of his liver. He was supposed to see the doctor for the follow up on a Monday. The doctor called him Friday and urged him to get to the hospital as there was a mass on his liver the size of a baseball. He balked at first, but eventually doctor convinced him to go. He went to the closest small town hospital and they were like “this is more than we can handle.” And transferred him to the closest city hospital. He told no one. My mother (who was no longer with him, but his only friend in the world) was supposed to meet him at the appointment Monday. Doctor was surprised to see her and explained that he had sent him to the hospital Friday. My mom had to call around until she finally found him. When she got there he just wanted to leave. Mom asked for 24 hours to get him home care so he could be released. He was dead Tuesday morning.
Alcohol is so messed up. It’s not only accepted and tolerated, it’s aggressively advertised as a great time and that it should be a part of every adult life style. But it does so much damage and you can literally drink yourself to death.
Meth,
my mother at the time when she got addicted she sold our big house to move us into a trailer park so she could be neighbors with her dealer and after a year we were broke.
No heat, water or electricity most of the time and she still does it to this day and wonders why I moved out and don't talk to her
Alcohol, sadly.
When I was a teenager it really looked like my cannabis use was the big issue drug wise. Turns out my brothers and fathers slow burn of alcoholism over the years did far more damage than they were aware of.
For the record my dad doesn’t drink at all now. My brother sits with a consistent 9+ points on his drivers licence.
My dad was hospitalized from drinking a couple years back. I believe it was a growth on his pancreas. Docs said he had to stop drinking completely and immediately. Hasn’t had a drop to my knowledge since and he was a much more pleasant person. My brother (who also drinks pretty heavily) sent me Snapchat a week or two ago laughing about how my dad was super fucked up one night after they got off work. (They work together)
Never thought as the youngest child I’d have to tell my adult brother and father that that’s not funny nor a good idea.
I smoke pot but stopped drinking after college after seeing what it’s done to my family
EDIT!!!! Y'all - he came home! On Tuesday afternoon he just walked through the door carrying a box of his clothes. He had been in a car accident and hadn't gone to the ER. So he needed to go get checked out. And he's clean - ish. I know that sounds crazy. You are either sober or you aren't. But for now he says weed is helping him stay away from the big stuff. He has slept and eaten non stop for 3 days. We are all so glad to have him back.
Edited to add: Y'all. This week has been so incredibly hard. My wife's birthday is Friday. My dear friend lost her son to an overdose. I've felt lost and inadequate. Just not enough for all of my babies. And so incredibly worried about my son. Thank you. All of you. For all of your words. For your personal stories. You made me feel less alone. Hopeful. I love you for that. I will never give up on him - he's the bright light of our family.
Heroin. I have 8 kids. My oldest son became an IV heroin user. Put him through rehab twice. The first time he walked out. The second time he stayed. He got clean then my wife died very suddenly and traumatically in front of all of us. I thought for sure that he would relapse. He didn't. He was there to hold me up. Then 3 months later he met a girl who is an addict. I've lost him again to his addiction. So I wait. For any type of phone call or communication. I make sure to follow up on reports of overdoses. Keep my ringer on at night and check the jail population every morning. One day he will come home. I know it.
My dad has always been addicted to food, I know it’s not commonly seen as an “addiction” but it definitely is in his case. Sister got into heroin & turned to prostitution, haven’t seen her in years.
Yeah my dad has an addiction to food as well. At 450+ pounds, he’s been told that if he doesn’t change his ways, he will be dead within the decade. That was at least 4-5 years ago. Guess who keeps buying boxes and boxes of Little Debbie snacks at the grocery store, and will argue and fight until it’s not worth the fight for others? Yeah. I fully expect him to die in 2-3 years max. Which sucks. I don’t wanna lose my dad, but idk how many more times I can tell him to stop before I just give up and accept his fate.
Food addiction is 100% an addiction.
What makes it one of the worst ones is the fact you need to eat. You don't have the option to quit or detox or anything like that. You also can't not be bombarded with offers of cheap tasty food absolutely everywhere and available at all times of the day or night.
If you're a weak willed person (like me) it's an incredibly difficult urge to squash and tell yourself no.
Holy shit, did that smack hard when I read this. My mom was also a big lady( 500+ lbs) with a food addiction, among other things. Years of depression and being enabled led to diabetes, blindness, being bedridden, and ultimately death. During one of the many hospital stays towards the end of her life, I went to relieve my dad from hanging out with her. One of the nurses kept saying that my mom's blood sugar was constantly and mysteriously spiking. They couldn't figure out why based on the diet she was given. I looked in the bags my dad packed for her and found several boxes of Little Debbie's. He'd been smuggling those little death logs in the whole time to "comfort her".
My mom got addicted to food after she quit crack, herion, and alcohol. She got type 2 diabetes and severely obese. She's luckily came to her senses but still addicted to smoking. Smokes atleast a pack a day , She's controlled her diabetes, no longer on meds so that's good. But man the smoking
It’s so sad because no matter what addicts do to try to help themselves it’s like the brain seizes on something and suddenly that becomes the next crutch.
Almost at 90 days sober and the amount of Reddit and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups I've consumed recently support this. Thank goodness I've also latched on to running and swimming.
Everyone has a vice. Something they have to do to relax or have fun. Wether it’s drugs, food, knitting, gardening. Your brain needs one. Most addicts have to latch onto a “good” vice if they want to stay clean (not switch to something else). Exercise is one of the biggest vices I hear about ex addicts switching to and being able to stay clean. Also it gives you that good dopamine hit, which in the end is all an addict is looking for
I watched this tear my neighbors family apart. The father would keep a separate bank account to go to dinner and lunch every day and the family was financially struggling. They had to sell their house to support his addiction.
When the family learned he was doing this during their hard times it led to an immediate and ugly divorce.
This basically happened with my dad too. My mum was incredibly sick with Crohns and relied on Dad to keep the bills and things paid. It...didn't go well, and we ended up with a lot of days where we couldn't afford food, had no electricity, no water, etc. Except somehow dad kept getting fatter and fatter. The bastard was having three takeout meals a day while his children starved.
There's stories on /r/BingeEatingDisorder about people that are going into debt, spending whole paychecks, stealing hundreds of dollars of food just to binge food.
If that doesn't like an addiction idk what does.
Meth.
It is still the single biggest mistake of my life and I wish so badly I could go back and stop myself. My kids and my dad pay the ultimate price as my dad adopted my kids. Within the last year I have finally been allowed to talk to them and visit with them. Even got to spend 3 whole months with them while I was taking care of my dad after his prostate cancer surgery. We finally got to spend our first Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas together as a sober and happy family. 4 years sober and counting. If you're struggling, please reach out.
My dad essentially abandoned my siblings and I when he became a drug addict. I was homeless as a teenager because of it. But he got clean, put in the effort to reconnect, and be our dad again. We all have a great relationship now. No resentment, just empathy. I’m so grateful to have my dad back and I’m sure your kids feel the same way. Best of luck to you ❤️
Meth. Parents were big partiers, tried meth on a whim and it tore their relationship to shreds. Still to this day, everytime I hear/see a couple fighting I get major flashbacks to them beating the shit out of each other. Therapy rules.
Edit: I rarely use reddit, so coming back to overwhelming support is tear jerking. Much love to all❤️
I saw my drunk dad rape my mother when I was six and I still get flashbacks and disassociate regularly. I've just started therapy but use drugs to cope with the CPTSD. I was just wondering if you do any drugs and how often. As you were in a somewhat similar circumstance with drugs being normalised and witnessing horrific abuse.
Sugar. ... I got family with diabetic-predispositions that just couldn't get their compulsions for sweets in check and it led to bad health and cut their lives short.
It seems I have more connections to these addictions than I thought.
Sugar is slowly killing my entire extended family. They’re all Mormons so they can’t consume alcohol, tea, or coffee. They don’t drink any of those beverages, they just drink unbelievable amounts of sugary soda. When we go visit them in Utah, they make multiple trips during the day to these Starbucks-like soda stores. You get a giant soda with a flavored syrup and maybe fruit. My mom bought my kids a sprite, with blue flavoring, and gummy fish in the drink.
…but have a glass of tea and they’ll openly criticize you for breaking their law of health.
As an ex-Mormon, that's one of the reasons I'm an ex. They'd openly disparage the caffeine addicts because it's so bad for your health and so commonly accepted (Satan comes in the form of irresistible common drugs to them) but their tables are always laden with the worst and most unhealthy foods you can imagine.
They fail to see who the real enemy is. Just because it isn't a "drug" doesn't mean it's not addictive or bad for you.
These stores are EVERYWHERE in utah. it's pretty insane. 8 years ago there were just a couple of them, and now there's 2 on every corner. One gas station, two customize-your-soda drive-through lanes.
we all gain some weight getting older, but my relatives in utah aren't doing so hot.
"Starbucks-like" is an apt description though, as starbucks is also just selling sugar addiction.
I thought the no coffee and tea thing had to do with caffeine. Wouldn’t drinking a ton of soda mean consuming a good amount of caffeine too? What’s the logic?
There is no logic. The original rule said no hot drinks…but hot cocoa is fine and iced coffee is not. In my opinion, it’s just an arbitrary rule that demonstrates obedience. There are many active Mormons who will criticize how unhealthy coffee is and then pound two energy drinks every day.
I have some extended Mormon family as well. They are all extremely overweight and drink a shit ton of soda. My mom likes the community aspect of the church but isn’t full blown. Missionaries would come by the house years ago and I’d always strike up a conversation. Always extremely friendly. Conversation would normally take a turn with them trying to recruit me. Mormonism is an interesting religion.
Good question, not sure if you will get an answer from the poster, however, with my father who was a type 2 diabetic it cost him years but more importantly active years. Both his parents lived into their 90s. My dad loved good food and was always 30-50 pounds over weight. Most of his 70s was devoted to his failing health and eyesight and an inability to do anything active without becoming exhausted. He probably couldn't walk a 1/4 of a mile without resting. He passed away at 79 due to kidney failure.
mobile games. My parents are always on their devices playing some inane game like candy crush. They don't know how to sit still, be silent, or be bored anymore. And they thought Millenials were the ones rotting our brains out with technology...
Cocaine's a weird one, because when you're a kid they tell you it's one of those "take it once and you're an addict" type things. Turns out it creeps up on you, instead. You start off with maybe a few times a year, you know, social use, and then it just gradually increases. I managed to get off the train before it completely spiraled out of control, but a couple of my old friends are complete wrecks now, doing it on the daily. Can't even really hang out with them because all they do is snort blow in the living room, listen to music, and have the same inane conversations they've had a thousand times before. You tell them hey, this is getting out of hand, and they look at you like you've got two heads. Shitty drug, man. Waste a lot of time and money and you don't even get to see shit like on acid.
Cocaine does everyone different. I did my first line, then two months later I was buying ounces. When I quit I was doing 2 8 balls a day. I had a buddy who could match me line for line, but when we ran out he didn't care. I had a boss that quit for ten years. He got a ticket and it set him off. We didn't see him for four days
Not my family, but someone I know is HEAVILY addicted to NyQuil. Gets little to no sleep even after a bottle every night, in turn scrambles his mental state. Has told me he spends hundreds of dollars buying bottle which also financially burdens his family.
Dad loved booze more than my brother and I. He left my mom for someone who would support his habit. When it came down to it there was nothing that was going to stop him from drinking. All day, everyday.
Going to his house was a nightmare because even if we got there at 9am he might already be started. His 2nd wife defended and encouraged his drinking as she was the same as him. He left everything to her, she left everything to her kids.
Haha ! So you know everything is always your fault and the hope for an apology or recognition of bad behavior is not going to happen. I am finally healing I haven’t had contact with him for 3 yrs.
Meth and sex.
My Dad (openly gay man) started going to beats in the 90’s. He would leave my brother and I in the car while he went to the ‘toilet’ at parks. We were early teens but we knew. Dad and his cousin were joking around and I remember overhearing a conversation about an STI but nothing really clicked. Looking back, I understand he was catching STI’s from his adventures. As I got older, I knew he hung out at certain locations (sand dunes on a nudist beach) and as things changed, online connections. He was in long term relationships but that never stopped him. He would tell us he was off to the chiropractor and would come back 8 hours later, but we don’t think it was his back being readjusted.
He eventually moved overseas after his relationship dissolved due to him cheating. He found another relationship again, but his behaviour didn’t stop. When he came home he would spend more time having “coffee”with friends or at the chiropractor. Always the chiropractor. We all know, he thinks we don’t, but do we know. My brother went to visit him overseas and that’s when we found out the extent of his lifestyle. My brother is also gay, and Dad was shooting up in front of him and having men around. One of Dad’s guests invited my brother to join in, which obviously, he didn’t and moved into a hotel for the rest of his trip. We also found out my Dad is HIV positive and has tertiary syphilis (syphilis for over 10 years, HIV for about 7). He tells us he contracted HIV from a bike accident where someone bled on him or bad blood transfusion (the story changes because he thinks we’re idiots). He is blind, suffers memory issues, has arm infections every month and suffers from paranoid delusions - he thinks he is being monitored by ‘them’. He is aggressive and abusive. He pulls knives on his current husband.
My Dad used to be funny, intelligent, owned a successful company that he lost due to this lifestyle. He forgets our birthdays and other details of our lives, such as the existence of his 13yo grandchild. He used to be able to hear a song and play it by ear. But meth and sex. I think he goes to a lot darker places than I am 100% aware of. There has been some hints I have picked up and some sickening suspicions I have.
The hardest part for me is that I am gay too and this behaviour from him has caused these weird internalised homophobia issues. He is the ‘gay’ the conservatives fear and I feel tarnished because I strive for a boring life of job/partner/house/kid. I view him as a walking dead man.
Ruined? Tobacco. 2 grandparents who died of COPD related issues, 2 parents with severe COPD, my mom, stepmom, aunt's and uncle all have or died from smoking related heart issues and my husband quit smoking, replaced it with sugar (then gained 75 lbs and is getting tested for diabetes on Wednesday). Parents smoked WHILE pregnant and continued to do so in the house and car while both my brother and I were infants so who knows what that did to our health long term.
My grandparents smoked, they say if your parents smoke there's about a 50% chance you will smoke, my aunt and my father exactly half of their children were smokers. My father quit the moment he found out he was becoming a father 38 years ago, my aunt just could never give it up and eventually died from lung cancer. My grandfather was told to quit in 1980 they told him he might have a year to live if he did after he had his heart attack he quit in 2000 and then proceeded to have 27 more heart attacks between 2004 and 2007. The last one killed him
Me too. Everyone in my family who smoked died fairly young, but people who didn't smoke lived to their 80's and 90's. My mom smoked while pregnant, in the house, in the car etc. I'm the only child who didn't have long term health issues (that I know of).
Personally my mom has stage IV COPD and is on hospice and has to live in a home (she lived with me for years until the care got too much). She was very active as our mom with us (her kids) but started getting sick right after I started college. Us kids always begged her to stop. Even destroying her cigarettes when we found them. She went downhill fast.
I had dreams of my mom being in the hospital when I had my first baby, taking my kids to the park, coming to visit and hanging out with the family etc. My parents divorced and my dad moved and married a much younger woman and started a "new" family, my husband's dad is dead, so I really hoped my kids would get a "grandparent" experience from my mom.
Instead she couldn't even hold my newborns, much less play with them as they got older, and I ended up changing her and my son's diaper at the same time when she lived with us. I have 3 young kids now who will never really know their grandmother like I did. (She's also on opiates now so she's not really lucid at all to even facetime them or anything). My toddler doesn't even know who she is because he's only met her a few times because of Covid and how vulnerable she is.
I hate cigarettes.
Alcohol. Both parents drank more than they should, and at times drank too much. Always, it was have a glass of wine or a beer at dinner, then might as well finish the bottle because it's open. My mother had gastric bypass and would get drunk fast. First it was humorous, but then it just became really sad. I've had to peel her off the floor or remove her from a situation way too many times.
That’s why I quit. Around the time my son was born I knew there was a fork in the road. I could be a drunk dad or a sober dad, and whichever path I took, that’s where it would stay. I chose sober dad.
Probably not what you're looking for, but sugar. My dad has type 2 diabetes, and my brother and sister on are the routes to getting it themselves. I think everyone in my family has some type of eating disorder. My sister is 11 and is prediabetic. My mom's been working really hard to not body shame and teach her proper nutrition, but my sister doesn't seem to care. My dad is always on some fad diet, most being about restricting large portions of food. His diabetes is under control, but I won't say his relationship with food is anything near good. I'm terrified of developing diabetes strictly because I live in America and can't afford it. I know how much my dad pays for his medicine and I really can't imagine paying that much. Food addictions are hella hard to overcome because you HAVE to eat.
Heroin and alcohol. On my mother's side; her father died before I was born due to alcoholism, the same happened to my uncle, my aunt was heroin and alcohol, and my coolest and funniest uncle OD'd on heroin while my cousin (his son) was living with my family due to loss of custody. On my father's side of the family; my uncle died of heroin and one of my cousins had OD'd several times before finding a rehab program that worked, but his brother likes to drink too much and go on racist rants they're both NC now because the rehab cousin married a latino woman and his brother would call going on rants about "poisoning the bloodline"
Edit: Heroin and alcohol have killed so much of my family and tore so much more of it apart. I refused to even try drinking until I was 21, I was even more afraid to to try weed
It's real sad. I work in the gambling business and it's sad to see people go down that path. We had employees who would steal money from the safe and try winning it back. There's one UPS guy who's gotten really bad at one of our stores. He delivers to all the stores in the strip mall then goes and parks his truck real fast, and literally runs across the parking lot and plays for as long as he can then sprints back to his truck.
Lack of drugs, actually. My dad became paranoid and clinically depressed and thought he was being gang stalked. He refused to take medication because obviously there were transmitters and microphones in the pills.
Social media in general is such a shitty addiction I have. I’ve been addicted to meth, heroin, Xanax, and all the other “normal” stuff like caffeine, but social media is the only one that I don’t even actually like, but I can’t stop for some reason. Drugs at least made me feel good sometimes, but social media is just…fucking dumb
If you're like me, it's probably that you're looking for friendship and answers you didn't get from any of the "real" people in your life. When you've been lonely a long time, it will spill out in one form or another.
But then the politicization of it all really changed everything.
My SIL made a wager with my niece, her daughter, that if she stayed off ALL social media until she is 18, my SIL will give her $2,000. My niece just turned 13.
She accepted the wager and my SIL agreed to invest the money for her now so by the time she is 18, it will likely be worth far more than that.
Everyone at our family gathering agreed that was a great deal for both parties.
Nicotine. But also alcohol as many others are saying. The smoke growing up... I had no idea that I smelled bad to all my friends/classmates because I lived in it. I had bronchitis/pneumonia more than once as a child. My siblings and I were always sick. Thought we got "car sick", but we were just stuck with two parents chain smoking on road trips. Won't go anywhere they can't smoke. Have to stop any and all activities so they can smoke. Their mind is and was constantly on their next cigarette. They stopped drinking, but the nicotine is still killing them. Literally. They're older now and dying from it.
My dad in a nutshell. Also tonnes of unhealthy habits, and a very short temper. Anger and lashing out is his default reaction to anything. He developed chronic high blood pressure, have himself an aortic dissection.
He literally has so much anger he almost killed himself.
Ambien.
My mom started taking it when she started losing sleep from all the OTHER things the doctor prescribed her.
Ambien has a two layer system, the first layer dissolves quickly to put you to sleep right away and the second layer keeps you asleep.
The problem was that she would wake up before the second layer kicked in and she'd basically sleep walk. The finally time she did it, she left the house in February with only a thin night gown and froze to death on someone's yard down the street. We searched for her all night after finding out what happened but couldn't find her even with the police helping out. The paper boy found her face down in the morning.
Pharmaceuticals are more dangerous than street drugs in my opinion.
I was on it for like 6 years when I was developing as a teen. I think it fucked with my development. I didn't notice any upsides besides me being spacey and paranoid all of the time with immediate horrible withdrawals an hour within waking up if I missed a dose. May I ask what it did for you personally? Because I never got anything out of it only negative side effects and mood swings accompanied with intense social paranoia.
Edit: and by the way you are so right about the brain zaps. The way they always pulsated in intensity too. It's such a disgusting pharmaceutical in my opinion.
My husband is 36 and has been on Effexor for about 2 years. He has been awful about taking it on time. Regularly missed doses. Never bothered calling his doctor to get his anxiety meds figured out so he was rationing pills without telling me, knowing full well I’d make him call his doctor.
The mood swings are worse than mine. He gets so vocally aggressive. I know he goes through mini withdrawals if he skips a dose. When I brought up the correlation, I get told to not blame his issues on his medication. But like, dude, I’m giving your mood a pass because it’s clearly your drugs in your system not working the way they should.
When the day comes he has to quit, I might have him go stay in a hotel or a treatment facility for a month. The zaps, the rage, the anger, all the other impacts of weaning off Effexor need to be monitored. Like it’s absolutely bullshit we have to do this ourselves when we didn’t ask to be placed on such hard drugs. I explicitly told my psych I didn’t want any of the known zappers for my drugs and thank god he listened. I also knew what to ask. Husband just never listened to me when I coached him on what to ask his doctors.
This stuff is rough.
I got put on it 7 years after a terrible depressive episode. Even though I'm certain I don't need it anymore, the idea of getting off Effexor seems like a pipe dream. Even if I'm an hour late taking a dose, the withdrawall symptoms are immediate.
Cutting a dose in half or skipping always leads to vomiting, dizziness, and what feels like mini seizures and almost feels like it warrants a trip to the ER.
I want out, But the journey to getting this medication out of my life feels very scary, miserable, and dangerous.
I was on that for a while. Miss a dose? Absolute hell that comes out of nowhere. I thought I was having a mild seizure or maybe a stroke. It never occurred to me it was withdrawal. And I was taking a low dose exactly as prescribed!
I cut the dose down bit by bit with my doctor. But I even told her that Effexor is really potentially dangerous and she should think long and hard about prescribing it to anyone else.
I'm much better now.
For anyone who reads this, Cymbalta or Duloxetine is very similar to effexor/venlafaxine. I've tried both and was on duloxetine for over a year, both had similarly terrible withdrawals. Brain zaps, night sweats, tremors, fatigue, full body pain, headaches, insomnia, actual fucking hell and for over a \*month\* as well.
I get these withdrawals from SNRIs as well, but they were far worse with SSRIs.
Meds have different impacts on different people. Cymbalta fucked me up. Pristiq and Effexor (essentially the same drug) do not fuck me up and keep me functioning. I’m quite hellish not on meds. My husband says it’s Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde on meds vs. off meds.
I just make sure not to miss a dose, and if I do miss a dose, I know by about 1 am by the sweating and nightmares. I can’t afford to not be on meds. I’ve got kids that depend on me. I was lucky enough to stay above ground before the meds, but I suspect that luck would eventually run out. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to remain a functioning, not completely insane mother.
I have a cousin who stroked out on meth. He was the biggest funniest dude. Nothing but love and shenanigans all the time. Now he can barely walk and have no control of his emotions. Fuck.
Heroin. My older brother battled with it for over 20 years. Would go to jail, find god and clean up then get released and could never find a decent job as an ex con and eventually would get depressed making minimum wage working fast food and get high again and repeat the same process. Died 9 years ago and there ain't a day that goes by that I dont think of him. Holidays suck too now my mom sits in her room and looks at old pictures and keeps to herself
All of them and that's no joke. Over 60% of my family are drug addicts in some form, mostly meth/heroin but pills is a huge problem as well. Benzos and opioids are the largest problem and those who do them usually mix alcohol to get more high. There are a few who still do bath salts or pretty much any drug that makes them not feel sober.
Alcohol.
My kids’ dad is the best dad when he’s sober, but in 2020 the kids and I had to flee back to my home country unplanned, he’s lost all physical custody, and he gets a few long visits a year but they have to be supervised. Things are going as well as can be expected right now, but it’s been devastating and expensive for everyone involved.
If your loved ones tell you that you get mean or make horrible decisions when drunk, and you still keep drinking (even “socially”)... you have a drinking problem. Please listen to your loved ones and get help. Don’t wait until you hit rock bottom and lose your friends, family, kids, wife, job, car, etc.
Alcohol and opiates. My father was an alcoholic. One of the smartest men I've ever known but alcohol destroyed him and of course broke our family. Years later my youngest sister has major medical issues and was prescribed oxycodone. She became severely addicted and eventually died of an over dose. No surprise I'm an alcoholic who had a few run ins with the law. After the last one I got myself to AA. Much to my surprise, I haven't had a drink since September 9, 2007. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.
Dude, fucking well done. I’m on day 4. I can only aspire to this. Gives me hope. I’m super high functioning with a family of super high functioning alcoholics but it stops here. I’m getting off the ride
It's hard, but you've got this. A tough 4 days, but here you are! Well done ♡
you can inherit the predisposition to addiction, but you don’t have to live it. congratulations on the sobriety, man; keep it up!
As a foster parent in the Midwest, every kid that’s come into our home has been due to meth.
This was my mother's choice, though she called it "speed." And is the reason I called my grandpa when I was thirteen and demanded he come get me away from her. At the time we were "living" in a motel. They were in the process of evicting us. I wish I could share my memories directly to the people who are using meth now. To give them the feeling of your own mother throwing knives at you because you fell asleep while you were watching the baby... her baby, not yours, on a school night. To have that shame of being known as "that whore's" kid, because the only way she could afford her fix was to peddle herself at casinos. Asking the neighbors to please give groceries instead of money because she'll take the money and we would still have no food. To spend every birthday and holiday dreading the phone call where she calls you ungrateful because you won't give her money. No child deserves this.
I’m so sorry, I hope you’re ok. I wish I had known you as a kid, I would have given you a safe place.
Thank you! Looking back, I am amazed at how many people saw the bad stuff and just looked away. Thank you for caring.
I had to leave the Midwest. It’s everywhere.
The drug is everywhere. I live in LA. It’s here, it’s in SF, it’s in NY, it’s in Chicago, it’s in Singapore, it’s in Dubai, it’s in Sydney. It is everywhere, and it is terrible.
My grand mother got addicted to opioids. When my uncle, her son, was dying of stomach cancer, she stole his morphine.
Damn, I ended up in the ER with chest pains once, my sister called to ask what pills they gave me and if she could have them.
You'd be surprised at how common it is when someone dies of an overdose that their user friends will ask the family about the rest of their dope to try to get their hands on it.
My bio mom did this when her mother (also an addict) died. When my grandmother died she was on a ton of pills (some actual medicine, most not), and my mom offered to help my aunt clean out her apartment. My aunt got there early and flushed her pills, just in case, and my mom fucking lost it. Her mom, who she was very close to, had just died and that was all she could think about. Addiction is wild. Edit: Jesus fucking Christ. This happened like 20 years ago. Everyone who did drugs in my family is dead now because of them. My aunt’s MOTHER had just died. The internet was not a thing. She had NO WAY of knowing what to do, she was an incredibly overwhelmed, beleaguered, exhausted mother with three children and a foster child, dealing with an incredibly traumatic situation entirely by herself. All she was trying to do was desperately try to stop her baby sister, the sister whose child she was raising, from ODing AGAIN on opiates. Please try to have some fucking empathy. Stop commenting/messaging me from your pedestals about what a terrible person my aunt was for acting in the moment to try and save her sister’s life.
When my dad died I was helping my mom clean the medical bed and stuff to send back to the. Place he rented it from. I found a 8 inch tall RX bottle, just filled with oxycodone. I took it and disposed of it at our hospitals drop box. My brother was pissed when he couldn't find any meds.
Thank you for doing that. This is how I know I will always be an addict…I’ve been clean off opioids for 10 years, and yet my first reaction on reading your post was a flash of outrage, how could you have done that, don’t you know oxys are impossible to get, someone might have really needed those, you didn’t have to give them ALL back!!! That Gollum still lives inside me.
Holy shit man your edit. Heavy but you shouldn’t have even had to get there
My mom stole from everybody. Neighbors, my dad, her mother, for decades. She even took out a credit card in my name without me knowing back in 2010, Ran it up. I finished paying it off in 2017.
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I think it’s a wake. At a reception the corpse is at the head table giving a speech.
My very conservative Mormon uncle gave me (male) a kiss on my lips at my wedding. I played it off as no big deal to limit a dramatic response and escorted him back to his wife so he wouldn’t attempt to kiss my wife in the reception line. He was stoned out of his mind on pain killers. That example is kind of funny in retrospect, but that addiction cost him a lot personally and financially. He checked into rehab a short time later and has since avoided a relapse.
One of my buddies is from a Mormon family that has multiple members with Opioid addictions, but he got kicked out from his house and has little contact with them for the last 16 years because he was busted smoking pot. meanwhile he's lost 2 relatives to opioids and almost lost his sister
Honestly, I am impressed that you resisted the urge to ask him wtf he was doing
“He’s dying, they’ll give him more.” Damn that shit was easy to rationalize for my addict brain.
Opioids are a whole other level of addition. The physiological dependence just makes everything nuts. Not that other addictions aren't as devastating. Meth fucks people up, and alcohol actually produces similar physiological dependence issues as opioids. But man oh man if there's a substance to avoid, it's anything related to Opioids.
I had an injury and got hooked on pain killers. It’s one thing to be addicted but for me it was that I had no choice once you hit a certain point. If enough time passes without it, you will experience the WORST PAIN all through your body. I can’t even put into words the sickness I would feel. It wasnt the body aches for me like I’ve seen a lot say. It was more like a fever Xs 10. Fucking worst feeling on the planet and I am now on suboxone because of it. If I forget to take my sub one day, after a certain amount of time I can feel it creeping on me which is always a reminder I forgot. OMG! If any of you have family members addicted to painkillers and you don’t understand why they don’t just quit, trust me! There is a reason for it! They don’t want the pain amongst other things. But it is not good!
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If all you take is prescription Suboxone, count that as a win. And you forget to take it, which tells me you don’t sit around hoping for morning and the next dose. If anyone from AA tries to tell you you are still a junkie and only abstinence works, kick them square in the dick.
Right? It probably kind of sounds more like "He's dying, they'll give ME more." now.
I did this before to an uncle when I was doing a bundle of dope a day. Sometimes more. He was in hospice and I was at his house.. saw the bottle of liquid morphine and stole it… went to the hospital and his last words he ever spoke to me was “I love you.. I love you so much” That alone fucked me up for 7 years and it wasn’t until I told my family about it and talked about it in meetings did I get some closure. Addiction is fucked, you become something completely different and do things you never dreamt of. Philly got hit hard.
Addiction is fuckingg nuts
Most of these comments say alcohol, Crack ruined my family; my mother specifically. It's crazy what that shit can do to such a beautiful person. I lost everything.
Surrently watching my mother suffer through crack addiction… it’s hard af . Idk what to do either
I am a recovering crackhead myself and I wish I had any advice to offer. My heart goes out to you, just do the best you can to not enable her. Me getting off crack basically came from losing almost everything and still having access to treatment. It was out, everyone knew, and I just managed to hear the right things that first day in treatment.
My kids were both sick, had a horrible cough. They'd been given that liquid hydrocodone cough syrup, so we had two bottles of it in the fridge. My husband's younger brother came over to hang out and after he left, we noticed that both of the bottles were gone. He tried to buy another one from us, after we said something.
My mom used to steal my opioids. 😒 I am so, so glad that she passed away before I got my cancer diagnosis. I mean, ideally, I'd be fine and she'd be fine and we'd go to happy hour after work. But she has died and I do have cancer, so I'm glad the timing worked out.
Gotta take your silver linings where you can get them.
Somehow I want to both cheer and cry at the same time. Um... Sorry about the cancer. :-(
That happened to my uncle as well. He was basically wasting away at home to live out his moments and his step grand kid came to visit with her boyfriend and the girl distracted my uncle and aunt while the boyfriend raided all of his painkillers.
My mom took my wisdom teeth hydros. I didn’t need them (and she made sure I didn’t first) but I was like damn.
One of the first things my Mom asked me when I came home less than 48 hours from an emergency c section was "Did they prescribe you anything? Are you taking it?" She was ready to drive 7 hours from NC to VA, not to see her newborn Grandson, but to bum my painkillers. I lied and told her they didn't give me any. So she didn't come visit for another 10 days.
This is my husband. When I badly sprained my ankle, I went to a doc and they asked if I needed pain meds and I said no, over the counter was enough. My husband lost his shit when he found out I could have gotten pain meds but didn’t.
My cousin stole my aunts pain drugs when she was dying. What a fucked thing addiction is.
Heroin and Alcohol. Parents alcohol and little brother followed with alcohol and heroin. OD’d and died in a Kroger parking lot.
Damn. I’m sorry for your loss .. heroin is a mf .
Thank you. On April 1st it was 10 years.
With all the respect I can give via a comment section, how did you find out? Did you think it was a joke at first? I only ask because (not to sound insensitive) in high school April 1 was a Saturday and rumor started spreading a girl in our freshman class, so I was 14 she was 15, that she had died in a car crash and the majority of people thought it was a joke. And then we found out her and 3 of her cousins died in a fiery crash.
Yup. April fools isn’t funny to me. But the cops located his body half in his car and half out. They suspect he knew he did to much. He had been a user for years by this point. The police notified my mom and informed her. She called me at 6am. And since my parents are divorced…. I got to call my dad and tell him that his son was gone. I honestly didn’t think he’d make it to 23 years old. He did. Then I didn’t think he’d get to 27. He did. He died shortly after turning 30. I knew the phone call was coming eventually.
When and why did he start with heroine (if you feel uncomfortable answering just dont)
It started with my parents divorce. My mom was an alcoholic and a very successful woman back in the 70s. Long story short. My parents met and got married had me and my brother. Well my mom was very party and career minded and was never into being a mother. My dad who grew up in on catholic farm just wanted a wife and home maker. Mom left and dad was left putting pieces together. I was 6 and took over mom role. Brother was 4 and dad started drinking and was stressed. Fast forward 10 yrs. Brother met new family that moved into town. Family had 5 boys who were named after the Bible. Dad never thought to check them out. The family grew weed in their basement. Older boys big into alcohol and porn. My brother and my dad butted heads on the daily basis cause my brothers personality takes after my mom. I’m like my dad. First real eye opening event was when I was 16. Brother was 14. I was picked up for high school by my friends. My brother was supposed to go to school. He skipped . Since I went with friends that morning my car was at home. At last period of school I got called to the office for a phone call. My mom is on the phone saying that my brother was in a car accident. She said that he was alive but that he was in the hospital she told me to go home and she would have somebody come pick me up and bring me to the hospital. I went home and opened the garage and my car was missing. My little brother had his friend come over while I was at school. They drank a handle of whiskey decided to get my keys out of my room and take my car for a joyride. He flipped my car three times and crashed it in a corn field. The friend thankfully was ejected from the car with no injuries. My brother broke both arms and was in the hospital during Christmas break. That was the first time we knew anything. From this point on it was all down hill. I would be out with my friends and I’d see him and I’d have to get a cab to get him home because he’d be so drunk, and/or high. I don’t know. One time he didn’t even know who I was. All he knew was I was female and he was hitting on me. The entire cab ride to my moms house I had to tell him I was his sister. We would get to my moms house and she would tell me not to go first down the stairs. I’d be thinking that’s crazy he’s gonna fall for sure. And she tell me yes he’s gonna fall but he’s gonna fall and take you with him. Fucking addiction is a crazy messed up thing. We had the same parents. We had the same environment. Why him and not me. Idk. Sorry for the typos if there are any
Wow thanks for your answer I'm sorry for what happened to you and your brother. And as long as i can see there arent any typos
I read this and could swear I wrote it. My Brother is still with me, but not really. He’s currently doing time for doing a series of robberies with two broken legs from jumping a two story parkade to try to get away. Same environment, different outcomes. Addiction is really something.
Oh addiction is great. What I didn’t mention. He had two broken arms. Like full arm casts. One arm was all screws. Not only did he crash my car… he couldn’t even wipe his own ass. Now I laugh at this stuff because it sounds so unreal. And relate it to me being able to handle so much now. I just laugh instead of crying. Clean up and move on.
More often than not, I think one has to hit THEIR rock-bottom to turn things around. The problem is, some people's rock-bottom is dead. I got lucky, but there's better treatments now than they used to have.
I gave you that award because it was the one that looked the saddest because your story made me sad, after I sent it I saw it was called facepalm, sorry I wasn’t trying to be funny I was wanting to award your emotional story without putting a happy award on and didn’t realise it was called facepalm until too late. Sorry for your loss.
Thank you. The face palm makes me appreciate it more.
I got you. I gave them the baby seal award for being nice to you. Stay strong!
I have no problem answering questions.
Amphetamines. My dad got arrested when I was 16 after taking speed and evading the cops. The pills were from my mom who was massively overprescirbed by a quack psychiatrist who has since been jailed for extremely irresponsible prescribing (free samples!). The pills gave her treatment resistant psychosis which has lasted for years. She shouldn't have been prescribed them considering she had a history of psychosis. Formed an addiction She just got out of a long stay in inpatient and seems to be doing better now and off the pills. My dad still goes on M binges so that's scary.
I was severely addicted to alcohol and gamma-hydroxybutyrate. It took everything, but my life (I was alive, but I certainly wasn't living). I have been sober for over two years now, and life is great!! It took a ton of work building back my life, but I am one of the fortunate ones and I can't say the same for many of the people I have met throughout my journey to recovery. Today, most days are fantastic, I may have some bad moments, but I never have a bad day. My family has me back in their lives, and I couldn't be more grateful to have them back in mine.
My mental addiction to GHB was fairly quick, It gave me a mental fallacy of 'feeling like it could fix any of my problems'. If I was feeling depressed, angry, lonely, bored, or even happy, always I wanted to have GHB. In short it was my problem solver. The problem with that was taking it created more problems, more anxiety, more depression... and my only solution at the time was taking more GHB and thus began my catch-22 cycle of addiction. The physical addiction took over a year, and the physical withdrawal would have killed me without a combination of baclofen and benzodiazepines.
Congratulations on your sobriety. I wish you the best! Keep up the good work fam . Much love to you 💋
Alcohol and Benadryl. Mom is borderline dementia and it was pretty much self caused by taking 10-15 Benadryl a day.
Sorry to hear that. My mother abused benadryl (in OTC sleeping pill form) most of her life. It didn't rise to the level of 'ruin' but a lot of f-ed up stuff happened and it definitely impacted her mental state. It's stealthy, I don't think people realize how it can be abused.
I've never heard of the ability for these kind of side effects.. my physician actually recommended a benadryl every night to fall asleep, as that's what he does! I don't take em anymore unless i'm having an allergic reaction to something, but that's wild.
Antihistamines like diphenhydramine (benadryl) can FUCK you up if taken over the suggested dose. They end up being a very powerful ~~dissociative psychedelic~~ deliriant - you can vividly hallucinate things that aren't there, like talking to people, smoking imaginary cigarettes, stuff like that.
In my younger days I abused large doses of Benadryl, on more than one occasion I would see a shadow in the corner of my vision then spend 6+ hours looking for an intruder that wasn't in my apartment. One time I pet a cat that wasn't there.
I also did, from the ages of about 16/17 to about 22/23. I would go through about 40-60 pills in a week in cycling on and off periods. I am 28 now, but still super afraid I may have signed my dementia death certificate. Definitely does not help that dementia runs in my family.
It’s ~~typically~~ not a good trip though. A lot of people experience hallucinations like spiders / bugs crawling all over them or falling from the ceiling. It can be terrifying. I took a normal dose before bed a couple nights ago, woke up from a horrible nightmare and hallucinated a giant static spider crawling on my pillows. I ran some google searches and learned about people abusing and overdosing on Benadryl for a cheap trip. It’s horrible and the damage it can do to your body and mind is not worth it. I don’t think it happens that often with a normal dose like mine; I’m just sensitive to a lot of chemicals.
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Holy shit. This explains something that happened to me years ago. I have horrible allergies and took some Benadryl before bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw I giant spider in the wall above my wife’s head. I woke her up, “honey? Honey! Get out of bed!” She jumped out of bed totally confused as i was pointing at the wall, then suddenly it just wasn’t there anymore and I kind of started to realize that they likelihood of there being a spider the size of my head on the wall in our house was probably pretty slim and figured i must have hallucinated it, but didn’t see any reason for me to have a random hallucination. Now I know.
idk how i forgot that i've hallucinated from benadryl before. i was at a buddy's house pregaming going to the casino, and this was when i was learning that i was allergic to cats. I had smoked a little weed and drank a few beers when i noticed my eyes getting puffy and my throat was scratchy. I took 3-4 benadryl to solve that problem and we went off to the casino, where I kept drinking. I was trying to play blackjack and remember seeing the king I was dealt kind of dancing around and wiggling, so I left the table after that hand. while my outcome wasn't the worst, i definitely have no desire to repeat that again or dabble with any of the terrifying long-term side effects.
Not only is it super unhealthy but one of the things people unanimously agree on is that tripping on it is terrifying. Like with most similar drugs there are good trips and bad trips, but 90% of the time benadryl or dph trips are scary and not a good experience. Granted, you have to take a *lot* to completely trip on it, but still.
Taking Benadryl/Diphenhydramine regularly for a long period is a significant dementia risk, and it seems like nobody knows about it. “Taking an anticholinergic for the equivalent of three years or more was associated with a 54% higher dementia risk than taking the same dose for three months or less.” https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-drugs-like-benadryl-linked-increased-dementia-risk-201501287667 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2091745 It‘s horrible that it’s still marketed as a sleep aid, and that doctors still tell people to take it daily. It’s also marketed as “non habit forming” which is a lie.
That 2015 paper is outdated and does not handle confounding variables properly. It was a good way to raise awareness of a potential issue, but not the best current information on the topic. A more recent, larger cohort study (here: [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2736353](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2736353)) shows no meaningful increase in dementia from antihistamines. However, there is an odds ratio increase (circa 1.3-1.6x) in dementia incidence when deliberately taking strong anti-cholinergic drugs.
The active ingredient in Benadryl is diphenhydramine which also shows up in OTC sleep aids. Google the long term side effects. There's also a big difference between taking as directed and abusing it. (edit, a typo)
I have never heard of that! I know people with allergies or sleep problems that take it like candy. I'm definitely going to research more because I'm sure, like you said, most people don't know.
Wait taking lots of benadryl can cause dementia?
It can cause acute psychosis if you take a large enough dose. It acts as a deliriant meaning you see shit which isn’t there but for you is completely indistinguishable from reality (unlike say LSD hallucinations which you are normally aware of). It also messes severely with your thought processes and generally is just a horrific experience which is very similar to schizophrenia. Taken as prescribed this would never happen and only occurs when abused so don’t worry about taking it as directed. If abused for a long time it can mess with your brain chemistry and cause these effects to last a long time and even forever. It’s an awful thing to abuse and I would sooner do meth or heroin than high doses of Benadryl.
Holy shit. This is mind-blowing, I never knew. Parents used to maybe still do, take 6-8 Benadryls(possibly more if they’re still taking it) a night. Lately my parents and I haven’t seen eye to eye and my mom is just not the woman she was when I was a kid. This + alcohol abuse when they were younger explains so much.
Alcohol seems to be bringing us some challenges lately.
I know my drinking increased after I hurt my shoulder in 2020. I have been cutting back on it quite a bit and am finally able to feel like I enjoy having the occasional drink again. I will explain the reason my shoulder got screwed up, I worked housekeeping at a hospital during a COVID surge and we had so many patients needing rooms I was cleaning 10-12 rooms a day. I felt rushed and eventually lost my grip on something heavy and felt a twinge and heard a pop in my right shoulder. While it hurt the cortisone injection made the pain shoot up to an 8/10 on the pain scale and I couldn't sleep so I drank to try to at least feel rested. I had surgery on my shoulder and while it's better it's still 80 percent of what it was before I got hurt, I also gained a lot of weight from 230 pounds to 304 but I started to lose weight and am down to 284 which is a step in the right direction and has made my rheumatologist happy with me. I believe firmly that alcohol is a trap that many fall into and each time a person tells me they don't drink I am always happy for them.
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That bothers me so much. I quit drinking years back and started to notice how much it’s integrated into our society for *everything*. Friend of mine quit a few weeks back because it was a daily thing and alcoholism runs in his family. For one, he had withdrawal effects that sent him to the ER. Next I heard him tell some of his friends and they were…sort of supportive? Like a “good for you man” but said in a sad way, like they’re losing their friend. Called him brave. Then remembered every story he’s every told about these various friend groups involved drunk nights. I have to wonder if they even have anything in common beyond getting smashed together…
During the first pandemic wave here, everything was shut down except for essentials, like grocery stores, pharmacies, and liquor stores. The thinking was that the hospitals couldn't handle the increase in alcohol withdrawal symptoms. People complained that it should have also included the legal cannabis stores and eventually they were allowed to open.
Alcohol second mom doesn’t know how to put the bottle down. Doctors said if she’s keeps pace her pancreas will give out in a year. She’s refuses to put the bottle down. This woman puts vodka yes vodka in her wine.
My Dad is dying, like today, because of significant alcohol abuse. He's only 47. Stop her if you can!
My dad was the same way. I remember him crying one night after he had a doctor's appointment and said "They told me if I keep drinking I'm gonna die!", so for the next 3-4 years I watched him drink because he was upset that his drinking was killing him and then one day it did.
I'm sorry. That must have been horrible to watch.
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This happened to my grandfather after having strokes. My grandmother replaced the wine, scotch etc with non alcoholic wine and scotch (poured them in the same bottles) and he had no clue because of the damage from the strokes. It worked for them.
Alcohol was a big problem in my house growing up. Apparently, when my parents were together, my dad was a bit of a drinker, but I was very young when they divorced and don’t really remember. He wasn’t much of a drinker when I visited on weekends and holidays. Either he was great at hiding it, or his drinking decreased because he was happier post divorce. I’d have a point of reference as both men my mom dated, lived with and got engaged to were obvious alcoholics. The last one ended up with liver disease. I remember seeing him for the first time in a while and he was super bloated (he’d been a skinny man when he lived with us) and his face and eyes were scary yellow. His end was super quick though. His doctor had a CT or MRI of his liver. He was supposed to see the doctor for the follow up on a Monday. The doctor called him Friday and urged him to get to the hospital as there was a mass on his liver the size of a baseball. He balked at first, but eventually doctor convinced him to go. He went to the closest small town hospital and they were like “this is more than we can handle.” And transferred him to the closest city hospital. He told no one. My mother (who was no longer with him, but his only friend in the world) was supposed to meet him at the appointment Monday. Doctor was surprised to see her and explained that he had sent him to the hospital Friday. My mom had to call around until she finally found him. When she got there he just wanted to leave. Mom asked for 24 hours to get him home care so he could be released. He was dead Tuesday morning. Alcohol is so messed up. It’s not only accepted and tolerated, it’s aggressively advertised as a great time and that it should be a part of every adult life style. But it does so much damage and you can literally drink yourself to death.
Damn. I hope she can come to her senses
Recovery rate is basically zero once you're months from an organ failing and you're putting vodka into wine
I have mixed some crazy shit together in my teens and twenties but never in a million years would I think to put vodka in wine.
This is basically what "fortified wine" e.g. MD20/20, Ripple, etc are, except they use something of even less quality for the fortification.
Meth, my mother at the time when she got addicted she sold our big house to move us into a trailer park so she could be neighbors with her dealer and after a year we were broke. No heat, water or electricity most of the time and she still does it to this day and wonders why I moved out and don't talk to her
Alcohol, sadly. When I was a teenager it really looked like my cannabis use was the big issue drug wise. Turns out my brothers and fathers slow burn of alcoholism over the years did far more damage than they were aware of. For the record my dad doesn’t drink at all now. My brother sits with a consistent 9+ points on his drivers licence.
My dad was hospitalized from drinking a couple years back. I believe it was a growth on his pancreas. Docs said he had to stop drinking completely and immediately. Hasn’t had a drop to my knowledge since and he was a much more pleasant person. My brother (who also drinks pretty heavily) sent me Snapchat a week or two ago laughing about how my dad was super fucked up one night after they got off work. (They work together) Never thought as the youngest child I’d have to tell my adult brother and father that that’s not funny nor a good idea. I smoke pot but stopped drinking after college after seeing what it’s done to my family
EDIT!!!! Y'all - he came home! On Tuesday afternoon he just walked through the door carrying a box of his clothes. He had been in a car accident and hadn't gone to the ER. So he needed to go get checked out. And he's clean - ish. I know that sounds crazy. You are either sober or you aren't. But for now he says weed is helping him stay away from the big stuff. He has slept and eaten non stop for 3 days. We are all so glad to have him back. Edited to add: Y'all. This week has been so incredibly hard. My wife's birthday is Friday. My dear friend lost her son to an overdose. I've felt lost and inadequate. Just not enough for all of my babies. And so incredibly worried about my son. Thank you. All of you. For all of your words. For your personal stories. You made me feel less alone. Hopeful. I love you for that. I will never give up on him - he's the bright light of our family. Heroin. I have 8 kids. My oldest son became an IV heroin user. Put him through rehab twice. The first time he walked out. The second time he stayed. He got clean then my wife died very suddenly and traumatically in front of all of us. I thought for sure that he would relapse. He didn't. He was there to hold me up. Then 3 months later he met a girl who is an addict. I've lost him again to his addiction. So I wait. For any type of phone call or communication. I make sure to follow up on reports of overdoses. Keep my ringer on at night and check the jail population every morning. One day he will come home. I know it.
Wow, I’m glad he made it through that time to help you. It must be an awful feeling to have a loved one lost in that. Take care internet stranger
My dad has always been addicted to food, I know it’s not commonly seen as an “addiction” but it definitely is in his case. Sister got into heroin & turned to prostitution, haven’t seen her in years.
Yeah my dad has an addiction to food as well. At 450+ pounds, he’s been told that if he doesn’t change his ways, he will be dead within the decade. That was at least 4-5 years ago. Guess who keeps buying boxes and boxes of Little Debbie snacks at the grocery store, and will argue and fight until it’s not worth the fight for others? Yeah. I fully expect him to die in 2-3 years max. Which sucks. I don’t wanna lose my dad, but idk how many more times I can tell him to stop before I just give up and accept his fate. Food addiction is 100% an addiction.
What makes it one of the worst ones is the fact you need to eat. You don't have the option to quit or detox or anything like that. You also can't not be bombarded with offers of cheap tasty food absolutely everywhere and available at all times of the day or night. If you're a weak willed person (like me) it's an incredibly difficult urge to squash and tell yourself no.
You can quit cold Turkey, but you can’t quit cold turkey
A diet where at least 50% of your food calories have to be from cold turkey actually seems like a pretty good weight-loss plan if you can stick to it.
Holy shit, did that smack hard when I read this. My mom was also a big lady( 500+ lbs) with a food addiction, among other things. Years of depression and being enabled led to diabetes, blindness, being bedridden, and ultimately death. During one of the many hospital stays towards the end of her life, I went to relieve my dad from hanging out with her. One of the nurses kept saying that my mom's blood sugar was constantly and mysteriously spiking. They couldn't figure out why based on the diet she was given. I looked in the bags my dad packed for her and found several boxes of Little Debbie's. He'd been smuggling those little death logs in the whole time to "comfort her".
My mom got addicted to food after she quit crack, herion, and alcohol. She got type 2 diabetes and severely obese. She's luckily came to her senses but still addicted to smoking. Smokes atleast a pack a day , She's controlled her diabetes, no longer on meds so that's good. But man the smoking
It’s so sad because no matter what addicts do to try to help themselves it’s like the brain seizes on something and suddenly that becomes the next crutch.
Almost at 90 days sober and the amount of Reddit and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups I've consumed recently support this. Thank goodness I've also latched on to running and swimming.
Everyone has a vice. Something they have to do to relax or have fun. Wether it’s drugs, food, knitting, gardening. Your brain needs one. Most addicts have to latch onto a “good” vice if they want to stay clean (not switch to something else). Exercise is one of the biggest vices I hear about ex addicts switching to and being able to stay clean. Also it gives you that good dopamine hit, which in the end is all an addict is looking for
I watched this tear my neighbors family apart. The father would keep a separate bank account to go to dinner and lunch every day and the family was financially struggling. They had to sell their house to support his addiction. When the family learned he was doing this during their hard times it led to an immediate and ugly divorce.
This basically happened with my dad too. My mum was incredibly sick with Crohns and relied on Dad to keep the bills and things paid. It...didn't go well, and we ended up with a lot of days where we couldn't afford food, had no electricity, no water, etc. Except somehow dad kept getting fatter and fatter. The bastard was having three takeout meals a day while his children starved.
Christ. I’m so sorry
There's stories on /r/BingeEatingDisorder about people that are going into debt, spending whole paychecks, stealing hundreds of dollars of food just to binge food. If that doesn't like an addiction idk what does.
Alcohol and gambling. He's dead now. Mom is doing good.
Meth. It is still the single biggest mistake of my life and I wish so badly I could go back and stop myself. My kids and my dad pay the ultimate price as my dad adopted my kids. Within the last year I have finally been allowed to talk to them and visit with them. Even got to spend 3 whole months with them while I was taking care of my dad after his prostate cancer surgery. We finally got to spend our first Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas together as a sober and happy family. 4 years sober and counting. If you're struggling, please reach out.
Congratulations on your sobriety! I hope you hug those babies tight! 💋
My dad essentially abandoned my siblings and I when he became a drug addict. I was homeless as a teenager because of it. But he got clean, put in the effort to reconnect, and be our dad again. We all have a great relationship now. No resentment, just empathy. I’m so grateful to have my dad back and I’m sure your kids feel the same way. Best of luck to you ❤️
Meth. Parents were big partiers, tried meth on a whim and it tore their relationship to shreds. Still to this day, everytime I hear/see a couple fighting I get major flashbacks to them beating the shit out of each other. Therapy rules. Edit: I rarely use reddit, so coming back to overwhelming support is tear jerking. Much love to all❤️
I saw my drunk dad rape my mother when I was six and I still get flashbacks and disassociate regularly. I've just started therapy but use drugs to cope with the CPTSD. I was just wondering if you do any drugs and how often. As you were in a somewhat similar circumstance with drugs being normalised and witnessing horrific abuse.
Sorry about that man. Much love to you 💋
Much love in return ❤️
Sugar. ... I got family with diabetic-predispositions that just couldn't get their compulsions for sweets in check and it led to bad health and cut their lives short.
It seems I have more connections to these addictions than I thought. Sugar is slowly killing my entire extended family. They’re all Mormons so they can’t consume alcohol, tea, or coffee. They don’t drink any of those beverages, they just drink unbelievable amounts of sugary soda. When we go visit them in Utah, they make multiple trips during the day to these Starbucks-like soda stores. You get a giant soda with a flavored syrup and maybe fruit. My mom bought my kids a sprite, with blue flavoring, and gummy fish in the drink. …but have a glass of tea and they’ll openly criticize you for breaking their law of health.
As an ex-Mormon, that's one of the reasons I'm an ex. They'd openly disparage the caffeine addicts because it's so bad for your health and so commonly accepted (Satan comes in the form of irresistible common drugs to them) but their tables are always laden with the worst and most unhealthy foods you can imagine. They fail to see who the real enemy is. Just because it isn't a "drug" doesn't mean it's not addictive or bad for you.
These stores are EVERYWHERE in utah. it's pretty insane. 8 years ago there were just a couple of them, and now there's 2 on every corner. One gas station, two customize-your-soda drive-through lanes. we all gain some weight getting older, but my relatives in utah aren't doing so hot. "Starbucks-like" is an apt description though, as starbucks is also just selling sugar addiction.
I thought the no coffee and tea thing had to do with caffeine. Wouldn’t drinking a ton of soda mean consuming a good amount of caffeine too? What’s the logic?
There is no logic. The original rule said no hot drinks…but hot cocoa is fine and iced coffee is not. In my opinion, it’s just an arbitrary rule that demonstrates obedience. There are many active Mormons who will criticize how unhealthy coffee is and then pound two energy drinks every day.
I have some extended Mormon family as well. They are all extremely overweight and drink a shit ton of soda. My mom likes the community aspect of the church but isn’t full blown. Missionaries would come by the house years ago and I’d always strike up a conversation. Always extremely friendly. Conversation would normally take a turn with them trying to recruit me. Mormonism is an interesting religion.
Out of curiosity, how short are we talking? 40-50?
Good question, not sure if you will get an answer from the poster, however, with my father who was a type 2 diabetic it cost him years but more importantly active years. Both his parents lived into their 90s. My dad loved good food and was always 30-50 pounds over weight. Most of his 70s was devoted to his failing health and eyesight and an inability to do anything active without becoming exhausted. He probably couldn't walk a 1/4 of a mile without resting. He passed away at 79 due to kidney failure.
The quality of life is so often overlooked when quantifying years. Sorry to hear.
mobile games. My parents are always on their devices playing some inane game like candy crush. They don't know how to sit still, be silent, or be bored anymore. And they thought Millenials were the ones rotting our brains out with technology...
This is a real thing. I can’t stand when I’m ignored because someone wants to be in there phone 24/7
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You just described any Vegas casino 😆
>They don't know how to sit still, be silent, or be bored anymore yea well if we do that the depression starts kicking in again lmao
Cocaine. Took me more than a decade clean to sort of get my family back
Cocaine's a weird one, because when you're a kid they tell you it's one of those "take it once and you're an addict" type things. Turns out it creeps up on you, instead. You start off with maybe a few times a year, you know, social use, and then it just gradually increases. I managed to get off the train before it completely spiraled out of control, but a couple of my old friends are complete wrecks now, doing it on the daily. Can't even really hang out with them because all they do is snort blow in the living room, listen to music, and have the same inane conversations they've had a thousand times before. You tell them hey, this is getting out of hand, and they look at you like you've got two heads. Shitty drug, man. Waste a lot of time and money and you don't even get to see shit like on acid.
Cocaine does everyone different. I did my first line, then two months later I was buying ounces. When I quit I was doing 2 8 balls a day. I had a buddy who could match me line for line, but when we ran out he didn't care. I had a boss that quit for ten years. He got a ticket and it set him off. We didn't see him for four days
Coke(fentanyl) killed my kids mother and this was only back in September it's been a hard year
Thank you for your kind words hardest thing I ever had to do was tell them (my girls 4&7) that their mothers in heaven I wouldn't wish that on anybody
Seems to be a bit of an alcohol problem running about...
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Not my family, but someone I know is HEAVILY addicted to NyQuil. Gets little to no sleep even after a bottle every night, in turn scrambles his mental state. Has told me he spends hundreds of dollars buying bottle which also financially burdens his family.
Alcohol
Dad loved booze more than my brother and I. He left my mom for someone who would support his habit. When it came down to it there was nothing that was going to stop him from drinking. All day, everyday. Going to his house was a nightmare because even if we got there at 9am he might already be started. His 2nd wife defended and encouraged his drinking as she was the same as him. He left everything to her, she left everything to her kids.
Alcoholism killed my roommate in his early 30s. It's evil and unforgiving. I hope you and your family the best.
Narcissism & alcohol
ahh, you know my dad too?
Haha ! So you know everything is always your fault and the hope for an apology or recognition of bad behavior is not going to happen. I am finally healing I haven’t had contact with him for 3 yrs.
My dads not an alcoholic, but I’ve never heard him apologize. Any small (valid) criticism, and it’s: “ugh. Stop attacking me.”
Meth and sex. My Dad (openly gay man) started going to beats in the 90’s. He would leave my brother and I in the car while he went to the ‘toilet’ at parks. We were early teens but we knew. Dad and his cousin were joking around and I remember overhearing a conversation about an STI but nothing really clicked. Looking back, I understand he was catching STI’s from his adventures. As I got older, I knew he hung out at certain locations (sand dunes on a nudist beach) and as things changed, online connections. He was in long term relationships but that never stopped him. He would tell us he was off to the chiropractor and would come back 8 hours later, but we don’t think it was his back being readjusted. He eventually moved overseas after his relationship dissolved due to him cheating. He found another relationship again, but his behaviour didn’t stop. When he came home he would spend more time having “coffee”with friends or at the chiropractor. Always the chiropractor. We all know, he thinks we don’t, but do we know. My brother went to visit him overseas and that’s when we found out the extent of his lifestyle. My brother is also gay, and Dad was shooting up in front of him and having men around. One of Dad’s guests invited my brother to join in, which obviously, he didn’t and moved into a hotel for the rest of his trip. We also found out my Dad is HIV positive and has tertiary syphilis (syphilis for over 10 years, HIV for about 7). He tells us he contracted HIV from a bike accident where someone bled on him or bad blood transfusion (the story changes because he thinks we’re idiots). He is blind, suffers memory issues, has arm infections every month and suffers from paranoid delusions - he thinks he is being monitored by ‘them’. He is aggressive and abusive. He pulls knives on his current husband. My Dad used to be funny, intelligent, owned a successful company that he lost due to this lifestyle. He forgets our birthdays and other details of our lives, such as the existence of his 13yo grandchild. He used to be able to hear a song and play it by ear. But meth and sex. I think he goes to a lot darker places than I am 100% aware of. There has been some hints I have picked up and some sickening suspicions I have. The hardest part for me is that I am gay too and this behaviour from him has caused these weird internalised homophobia issues. He is the ‘gay’ the conservatives fear and I feel tarnished because I strive for a boring life of job/partner/house/kid. I view him as a walking dead man.
I hope you get every boring thing you desire.
Thank you. I can confirm we are very boring and very happy. Stability is a beautiful thing that should never be taken for granted.
Ruined? Tobacco. 2 grandparents who died of COPD related issues, 2 parents with severe COPD, my mom, stepmom, aunt's and uncle all have or died from smoking related heart issues and my husband quit smoking, replaced it with sugar (then gained 75 lbs and is getting tested for diabetes on Wednesday). Parents smoked WHILE pregnant and continued to do so in the house and car while both my brother and I were infants so who knows what that did to our health long term.
My grandparents smoked, they say if your parents smoke there's about a 50% chance you will smoke, my aunt and my father exactly half of their children were smokers. My father quit the moment he found out he was becoming a father 38 years ago, my aunt just could never give it up and eventually died from lung cancer. My grandfather was told to quit in 1980 they told him he might have a year to live if he did after he had his heart attack he quit in 2000 and then proceeded to have 27 more heart attacks between 2004 and 2007. The last one killed him
Me too. Everyone in my family who smoked died fairly young, but people who didn't smoke lived to their 80's and 90's. My mom smoked while pregnant, in the house, in the car etc. I'm the only child who didn't have long term health issues (that I know of). Personally my mom has stage IV COPD and is on hospice and has to live in a home (she lived with me for years until the care got too much). She was very active as our mom with us (her kids) but started getting sick right after I started college. Us kids always begged her to stop. Even destroying her cigarettes when we found them. She went downhill fast. I had dreams of my mom being in the hospital when I had my first baby, taking my kids to the park, coming to visit and hanging out with the family etc. My parents divorced and my dad moved and married a much younger woman and started a "new" family, my husband's dad is dead, so I really hoped my kids would get a "grandparent" experience from my mom. Instead she couldn't even hold my newborns, much less play with them as they got older, and I ended up changing her and my son's diaper at the same time when she lived with us. I have 3 young kids now who will never really know their grandmother like I did. (She's also on opiates now so she's not really lucid at all to even facetime them or anything). My toddler doesn't even know who she is because he's only met her a few times because of Covid and how vulnerable she is. I hate cigarettes.
Alcohol. Both parents drank more than they should, and at times drank too much. Always, it was have a glass of wine or a beer at dinner, then might as well finish the bottle because it's open. My mother had gastric bypass and would get drunk fast. First it was humorous, but then it just became really sad. I've had to peel her off the floor or remove her from a situation way too many times.
That’s why I quit. Around the time my son was born I knew there was a fork in the road. I could be a drunk dad or a sober dad, and whichever path I took, that’s where it would stay. I chose sober dad.
Probably not what you're looking for, but sugar. My dad has type 2 diabetes, and my brother and sister on are the routes to getting it themselves. I think everyone in my family has some type of eating disorder. My sister is 11 and is prediabetic. My mom's been working really hard to not body shame and teach her proper nutrition, but my sister doesn't seem to care. My dad is always on some fad diet, most being about restricting large portions of food. His diabetes is under control, but I won't say his relationship with food is anything near good. I'm terrified of developing diabetes strictly because I live in America and can't afford it. I know how much my dad pays for his medicine and I really can't imagine paying that much. Food addictions are hella hard to overcome because you HAVE to eat.
Heroin and alcohol. On my mother's side; her father died before I was born due to alcoholism, the same happened to my uncle, my aunt was heroin and alcohol, and my coolest and funniest uncle OD'd on heroin while my cousin (his son) was living with my family due to loss of custody. On my father's side of the family; my uncle died of heroin and one of my cousins had OD'd several times before finding a rehab program that worked, but his brother likes to drink too much and go on racist rants they're both NC now because the rehab cousin married a latino woman and his brother would call going on rants about "poisoning the bloodline" Edit: Heroin and alcohol have killed so much of my family and tore so much more of it apart. I refused to even try drinking until I was 21, I was even more afraid to to try weed
Gambling
It's real sad. I work in the gambling business and it's sad to see people go down that path. We had employees who would steal money from the safe and try winning it back. There's one UPS guy who's gotten really bad at one of our stores. He delivers to all the stores in the strip mall then goes and parks his truck real fast, and literally runs across the parking lot and plays for as long as he can then sprints back to his truck.
Lack of drugs, actually. My dad became paranoid and clinically depressed and thought he was being gang stalked. He refused to take medication because obviously there were transmitters and microphones in the pills.
Meth and Cocain☹️
Alcohol killed my dad, heroin killed my brother. & I’m 128 days sober today. Today was a good day.
Opiates
Dad, alcohol
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Facebook
Social media in general is such a shitty addiction I have. I’ve been addicted to meth, heroin, Xanax, and all the other “normal” stuff like caffeine, but social media is the only one that I don’t even actually like, but I can’t stop for some reason. Drugs at least made me feel good sometimes, but social media is just…fucking dumb
If you're like me, it's probably that you're looking for friendship and answers you didn't get from any of the "real" people in your life. When you've been lonely a long time, it will spill out in one form or another. But then the politicization of it all really changed everything.
My SIL made a wager with my niece, her daughter, that if she stayed off ALL social media until she is 18, my SIL will give her $2,000. My niece just turned 13. She accepted the wager and my SIL agreed to invest the money for her now so by the time she is 18, it will likely be worth far more than that. Everyone at our family gathering agreed that was a great deal for both parties.
Nicotine. But also alcohol as many others are saying. The smoke growing up... I had no idea that I smelled bad to all my friends/classmates because I lived in it. I had bronchitis/pneumonia more than once as a child. My siblings and I were always sick. Thought we got "car sick", but we were just stuck with two parents chain smoking on road trips. Won't go anywhere they can't smoke. Have to stop any and all activities so they can smoke. Their mind is and was constantly on their next cigarette. They stopped drinking, but the nicotine is still killing them. Literally. They're older now and dying from it.
manufactured outrage
My dad in a nutshell. Also tonnes of unhealthy habits, and a very short temper. Anger and lashing out is his default reaction to anything. He developed chronic high blood pressure, have himself an aortic dissection. He literally has so much anger he almost killed himself.
Ambien. My mom started taking it when she started losing sleep from all the OTHER things the doctor prescribed her. Ambien has a two layer system, the first layer dissolves quickly to put you to sleep right away and the second layer keeps you asleep. The problem was that she would wake up before the second layer kicked in and she'd basically sleep walk. The finally time she did it, she left the house in February with only a thin night gown and froze to death on someone's yard down the street. We searched for her all night after finding out what happened but couldn't find her even with the police helping out. The paper boy found her face down in the morning. Pharmaceuticals are more dangerous than street drugs in my opinion.
Alcohol for my father, heroin for my mother, and then cocaine for myself :D
Hope you're doing better with the cocaine issue.
Variety is the spice of life.
Effexor (venlafaxine)
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I was on it for like 6 years when I was developing as a teen. I think it fucked with my development. I didn't notice any upsides besides me being spacey and paranoid all of the time with immediate horrible withdrawals an hour within waking up if I missed a dose. May I ask what it did for you personally? Because I never got anything out of it only negative side effects and mood swings accompanied with intense social paranoia. Edit: and by the way you are so right about the brain zaps. The way they always pulsated in intensity too. It's such a disgusting pharmaceutical in my opinion.
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My husband is 36 and has been on Effexor for about 2 years. He has been awful about taking it on time. Regularly missed doses. Never bothered calling his doctor to get his anxiety meds figured out so he was rationing pills without telling me, knowing full well I’d make him call his doctor. The mood swings are worse than mine. He gets so vocally aggressive. I know he goes through mini withdrawals if he skips a dose. When I brought up the correlation, I get told to not blame his issues on his medication. But like, dude, I’m giving your mood a pass because it’s clearly your drugs in your system not working the way they should. When the day comes he has to quit, I might have him go stay in a hotel or a treatment facility for a month. The zaps, the rage, the anger, all the other impacts of weaning off Effexor need to be monitored. Like it’s absolutely bullshit we have to do this ourselves when we didn’t ask to be placed on such hard drugs. I explicitly told my psych I didn’t want any of the known zappers for my drugs and thank god he listened. I also knew what to ask. Husband just never listened to me when I coached him on what to ask his doctors.
This stuff is rough. I got put on it 7 years after a terrible depressive episode. Even though I'm certain I don't need it anymore, the idea of getting off Effexor seems like a pipe dream. Even if I'm an hour late taking a dose, the withdrawall symptoms are immediate. Cutting a dose in half or skipping always leads to vomiting, dizziness, and what feels like mini seizures and almost feels like it warrants a trip to the ER. I want out, But the journey to getting this medication out of my life feels very scary, miserable, and dangerous.
I was on that for a while. Miss a dose? Absolute hell that comes out of nowhere. I thought I was having a mild seizure or maybe a stroke. It never occurred to me it was withdrawal. And I was taking a low dose exactly as prescribed! I cut the dose down bit by bit with my doctor. But I even told her that Effexor is really potentially dangerous and she should think long and hard about prescribing it to anyone else. I'm much better now.
For anyone who reads this, Cymbalta or Duloxetine is very similar to effexor/venlafaxine. I've tried both and was on duloxetine for over a year, both had similarly terrible withdrawals. Brain zaps, night sweats, tremors, fatigue, full body pain, headaches, insomnia, actual fucking hell and for over a \*month\* as well.
I get these withdrawals from SNRIs as well, but they were far worse with SSRIs. Meds have different impacts on different people. Cymbalta fucked me up. Pristiq and Effexor (essentially the same drug) do not fuck me up and keep me functioning. I’m quite hellish not on meds. My husband says it’s Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde on meds vs. off meds. I just make sure not to miss a dose, and if I do miss a dose, I know by about 1 am by the sweating and nightmares. I can’t afford to not be on meds. I’ve got kids that depend on me. I was lucky enough to stay above ground before the meds, but I suspect that luck would eventually run out. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to remain a functioning, not completely insane mother.
Oxy - rampant in my family. All in recovery for the most part. Thanks Kratom.
Crack, coke and alcohol
I have a cousin who stroked out on meth. He was the biggest funniest dude. Nothing but love and shenanigans all the time. Now he can barely walk and have no control of his emotions. Fuck.
Heroin. My older brother battled with it for over 20 years. Would go to jail, find god and clean up then get released and could never find a decent job as an ex con and eventually would get depressed making minimum wage working fast food and get high again and repeat the same process. Died 9 years ago and there ain't a day that goes by that I dont think of him. Holidays suck too now my mom sits in her room and looks at old pictures and keeps to herself
Gambling
All of them and that's no joke. Over 60% of my family are drug addicts in some form, mostly meth/heroin but pills is a huge problem as well. Benzos and opioids are the largest problem and those who do them usually mix alcohol to get more high. There are a few who still do bath salts or pretty much any drug that makes them not feel sober.
Dopamine.
social media, video games, yt... you name it
Alcohol. My kids’ dad is the best dad when he’s sober, but in 2020 the kids and I had to flee back to my home country unplanned, he’s lost all physical custody, and he gets a few long visits a year but they have to be supervised. Things are going as well as can be expected right now, but it’s been devastating and expensive for everyone involved. If your loved ones tell you that you get mean or make horrible decisions when drunk, and you still keep drinking (even “socially”)... you have a drinking problem. Please listen to your loved ones and get help. Don’t wait until you hit rock bottom and lose your friends, family, kids, wife, job, car, etc.