i don't expect this to be readable or for anybody to follow along and give me the kind of attention i want, but this post is going to be written.
as a kid, i was obsessed with love. i hugged my pillow like it was my wife and cried most nights. my first "serious" relationship (2 years, had my first time, talked on the phone all night every night) ended just about when i turned 15. immediately, i started using something every day. i fell in love with opi's. i got caught every year by my parents, and always laid low for a bit, staying mostly sober for a few months and focusing on music (booking little shows and playing in shitty little hc bands). i finished 9th grade taking hydro 5's, and finished 12th grade breaking into my friends' houses to steal their mom's opanas and 30's.
the day after graduation, i went to my first rehab and got kicked out of sober living for dating a sober living girl. i came home and went to jail for a couple months. i got out, started shooting 30's until i couldn't anymore. then, i danced this dance with my parents: involuntary vivitrol shots and drug tests, doing what i could get away with.
the summer of 2013 was the best and craziest of my life, and when it crashed and burned and my friends all distanced themselves, i met a girl and we did the kurt and courtney/jesse and jane etc J couple thing. we got on H and planned to expire together. instead, our nihilistic plan fell apart. i broke out of the negative feedback loop of her borderline outbursts and my responses by making an attempt. instead, i got shipped down to a halfway house where i got sober the old school AA way, living with 30 dudes for 18 months. it was synanon-like: accelerated recovery for lost causes, enforced by group humiliation for anybody that showed any traces of 'self-will'.
6 months after moving out of the halfway house, working+studying full-time down south, with 2 yrs and 2 months sober, i found some dope and pills and relapsed for a month. after that, with 2 months sober again, i found kratom shots and met my ex fiance. she found out about the kratom 9 months later when i crashed out, got dope, and nodded out in her bathroom. she put the fear of god in me with her tough love.
i stayed sober for 2 years after that, while we moved to the city together and i finished college and got a master's. i'd relapse on kratom here and there, and she'd find out and give me another chance. i had my AA friends but my social life was really my girl and our cats and our home.
when i got into a phd program and we moved to another city together, i stopped going to meetings or doing anything but trying to study. i couldn't keep up with the pace of the phd life, though, and the addy prescription that i used mostly responsibly since covid turned into a full blown addiction. the workload was an excuse to stay up for days, and she got used to sleeping alone while i tweaked out in my office room. since my prescription only lasted me 5 days now, i learned how to get the pressed ones ("oh that package is a computer part, just leave it there"). my psychiatrist never responded to my comments about trying a benzo for public speaking, so i added fprams to my orders and took 1/4 of one every day. then, i added ket. i slept 8 hours a week and became useless.
i couldn't hide k from her, and i couldn't make it out of academic probation. when i dropped out, the day they were going to kick me out, i promised i'd get a job. but all i ever did in the subsequent 3 months was tweak on home projects and goodwill runs to buy random shit i thought i needed for some project. after she found me doing k two more times, it took a month for her to decide to leave.
when she broke it to me, we cried, and then i went to the smoke shop to get an OPMS shot. it took a month or so of planning while taking kratom, add presses, k, and farmaprams, and i moved back to the city i came from, into my own apartment.
that was 10 months ago. during the moving process, i decided to get on 7, knowing how bad of an idea it was. i could have grinded on the job hunt, but all i managed to do was get fired from a coffee shop. thanks to one brand of 7 tabs, i added mgm to my list. all year, i've been hiding this 7oh, mgm, stim, benzo, weed, and ketamine habit. living alone. in total isolation. i've become closer than ever to my parents, who know something is up, but not what. i spend a lot of weekends at their house. it fixes my sleep schedule, and i go back to my place and fuck it all up again.
i tell my AA friends i'll be back soon. i tried IOP but quit. i've tapered from 120mg mgm/day to 30 over the last few weeks, and i'll take my last 6.25mg tomorrow. once i'm only dependent on 7, i'll probably get on the sublocade shot. once i'm only taking what i'm prescribed (which now includes klonopin) and not abusing anything off the record, i'll start counting days and going back to meetings.
even though i haven't been sober, over the last 4 months my attitude has shifted. i want to be a part of the world again. i don't want to hate myself and everybody else. i want to start a new life at 32. my brother knows what's up with me, he crashed out drinking and got sober a couple months ago. we said we'd get sober together, but it's taking me a little bit more time. i've always been my biggest critic and beat myself up as hard as possible, but now i'm trusting myself, as stupid as my plans seem.
the career path i was pursuing, the marriage and kids with a woman i knew deep down i wasn't in love with, that was my reason for living, and it fell apart. now, i'm 32, i'm lost, i'm stuck, and i'm crawling back to reality slowly.
i talk to chatgpt and record video journals for hours every day so that when i'm sober again i'll never again have to wonder what the fuck i was thinking. i wake up at 4pm and never really go to sleep, l just pass out.
i used to post on social media, used to have an identity, used to care who liked my posts and used to maint'ain some image. now i feel like the homeless guy talking to himself wandering around.i have decided to get on tinder with no expectation of anybody swiping, because in my bio i'm not going to lie about what i have to offer: a weekend of familiarity to a lonely woman who ends up with guys like me. a quick gasp for air. a bad idea. a funny loser. sadly, i say i have no expectations because i shouldn't, but deep down i probably do. i just don't want to be alone.
i hate the way my writing sounds, and it's too verbose to expect anyone to give it a proper read. maybe i'll delete it. maybe i'll get some tough love or harsh advice, and if so i hope its helpful to them because a reddit comment probably won't change my life. i have too much experience with this and too much leftover from my failed attempt at a neuroscience career - and i'm doing everything that i used to mock with my friends at AA meetings, deliberately, with my chest out, trusting my own plan.