Ex-crack-cocaine addict???

[beena]

SWIM has been using crack for 8 years, prescription painkillers like tramadol and MST for about 2 years and heroin for about 1 year. Her boyfriend has been using crack-cocaine for at least 15 years and although he only does crack he is a very heavy user (SWIM has seen him go through over a grand in a night and seen him put a £10 rock on a pipe b4 and smoke it in one go). SWIM and boyfriend have come off crack several times in the past (the longest was for about 6 months) but can't seem to stay off it. Every time they've stopped it has been by going away out of the area where they live for a while (for example SWIM's bf has been away to rehab b4 and also SWIM has gone to stay with her parents to get clean). The problem is always when they come back to London.
SWIM is on methadone at the moment to help her get off heroin and opiates....SWIM thinks she can probably do it cos it is a more recent addiction and cos the methadone obviously helps with the withdrawals but the reason she still uses at the moment is cos she is still using crack (and then gets h to comedown).
SWIM and her bf have been told repeatedly to split up cos it's so hard to get clean by oneself, let alone when theres 2 of you but they really do love each-other and want to be together and they both really want to quit drugs.
The reason SWIM is writing this thread is that she wonders if there is anyone on this forum whose main addiction has been to crack-cocaine (rather than heroin or the 2 combined) and who was smoking as much as SWIM and bf have been (ie smoking almost every day and usually at least a sixteenth of crack at a time) and has managed to successfully quit using altogether for a reasonable period of time.
The reason SWIM asks is that she can't see how it is possible to quit and stay clean off crack: she doesn't know anyone who has. The only people she knows of who have had drug problems and got clean are people who've been using maybe half a sixteenth (top) and heroin each day, i.e. a little crack and a little heroin, or whose main addiction is heroin.
SWIM would really like to talk to someone who was a heavy crack-user and that was their main drug of choice and who has managed to get clean. Is there really anyone like that out there????
SWIM is starting to think that it will never happen and maybe it's not even possible when you're using at the levels her and her bf have been. SWIM will never leave her bf, even if that means a life of addiction.
Can anyone tell me that they've successfully beaten crack addiction?
How did SWIY do it?

[thebige]

Hi Beena,thebige here,Swim lives with Shanghi Gal and she has done it.I guess swim won't recount a list of horror stories here ,swims sure you have lived them all......swim belives everyone knows right from wrong.....sorry swim won't start on it .......What swim is trying to say is YES it is possible ...and live many years after...This is Shanhi Gal area of exepertice.....she will be returning to the opium den in a day or so..and can give you details if interested...Swim has lived his life without that substance....So yes it can be done and is ..Shanghi has did it and still is....If anything here helped.....I will smile!....

[ai]

sWIM's DOC is crack.

It's possible. Trust me.

[Fight Club]

Beena - NIK was an IV cocaine user shooting 3/8 - 5/8 ounce per week. He has been completely clean for 13 months through the fellowships of AA and NA. It can be done and SWIY can do it, but probably not together and not in London.

The choice to follow advice and make changes is yours. You have to want it more than anything else, and not pick up NO MATTER WHAT.

FC

[bupaddict]

Hi Beena,

SWIMS never taken the amount SWIY has taken but SWIM was a Crack addict and Heroin addict (3 rocks a day,and a bag of heroin)

He would smoke the heroin afterwards to come down off the Crack crash effects. He was mainly a crack addict I'd say, he never really liked Heroin, other then to use to bring himself down from the Crack after effects.

SWIM could never handle the comedown effect off crack without heroin, he knows how brutal the comedown can be, there's been times where he's only had enough money for Crack and stayed awake all night with extreme paranoia, agitated.
It always amazes SWIM how people manage with Crack alone :0

This was like 6 years ago, and then went onto drug treatment programme -Subutex, but he did relapse many times, he just couldn't stop thinking about crack. there were times where he would want it so much that he would start shaking and almost vomit, it was hard for him.

On SWIMS case he found by not touching Crack for 2 years it got so much easier to control the cravings. its now about 5 years since his last Rock.

Its always there on the back of your mind,The best to do is to stay focused, do things, exercise etc.

Reputation Comments on this post:

thanks for sharing ... it's good to know that it can be done.

[Dickon]

^ ^ ^ ^ Lies all lies and only lies except by accident a bit of truth, follows...

bupadict, I second your thought: being a crack-addict without either opiates or benzos seems like sheer hell on earth. I have only spent a few months when I used crack every day, and it scared the hell out of me. Although I never exceeded about £120-200 a day, and usually £30-60, the rocks brought be to by knees in a way that heroin or methadone and benzos and alcohol never did. I've quit now, (well I've used it twice in the last 2-3 years, each time with such a horrible comedown that heroin wouldn't touch), and it appeals to be about as much as smoking pig-shit. But I was briefly a crack-addict and have stopped using it. But sadly my crack use was self limiting, when I started the comedowns weren't great but bearable with some heroin, but my body simply rejected the stuff at some point. I'm sorry if this is utterly useless advice, but I just thought it might be helpful to know of at least one FORMER crack-addict on here.

The other advice that you've probably rejected for whatever reason is to go to NA meetings. There you will find hundreds of ex-crack-addicts, who have used as you have or worse, and they can tell you how they did it. Do not slate NA on the God thing (you can be an NA atheist, although that not widely known), it's not a cult, and although I am no longer a member, the 3 1/2 years I was taught be absolutely life-saving information about quitting drugs.

It is possible, I've met loads of ex-crack-addicts. Do not give up giving up. Love and best wishes from a junk-sick ex-methadone addict.

Reputation Comments on this post:

thanks for your input and for sharing about yourself: its good to know there are individuals on this forum who've got th...

[beena]

Thanks to everyone who's shared so far on this thread ... it's good to know that there are people out there who are surviving and that a 'life after crack' is possible. I think it requires a helluva lot of strong-will though and the person has got to really want it. I watched a programme of telly last night about a 21-year-old heroin addict and her relationship with her mother. The mum said that her daughter was just 'bumping along the bottom' and until something really bad happened she didn't think her daughter would get off drugs. I think that is SWIMs problem too, i.e. her and her boyfriend are just 'bumping along the bottom' - I don't know what will happen for us to really make that change - SWIMs boyfriend always looks out for SWIM, so he kinda goes out and gets the money to support both their habits and puts his liberty on the line: he has been to prison about four or five times in the last nine years that they've been together, whereas SWIM doesn't even have a criminal record. Also if SWIM blows all her benefit money on drugs she knows she won't have to go without food cos he'll always make sure they get enough to eat. Really he is preventing SWIM from hitting rock bottom so life on drugs is never that terrible. But SWIM does want to change: she has ambition and wants to be a writer. At the moment the urge to write and the urge to numb the mind with drugs are both about as strong as each other - so SWIM has good days at college where she'll take part in classes and do a lot of writing and then a couple of bad days where she'll just sit indoors in her flat and do nothing apart from use.
Thanks for SWIY's suggestions Dickon: SWIM certainly hasn't ruled out NA, but thinks she needs a couple of really good days straight to get her head sorted and then maybe get the guts up to go to a meeting. SWIM is willing to try anything. At the moment she's not on methadone and is only using a couple of times a week, but it then takes a few days to recover after each time. SWIM will usually spend a fair whack on drugs and binge when she does do them so it really takes it out of her.