Starting Taper Tomorrow for Real

[DelaneyJuliette]

I don't know if I should taper, but every time I try cold turkey I cave.  I did a long taper last time I quit for a month and it really worked.  So, I am going to try it.  This just has to end.  It has to.  I know I will feel ambivalent as soon as I start to feel icky, but I am going to ONLY bring with me to work what I can take for the day and put the rest at home in a lock box.  I can do this.  I have to do this.  Actually, I don't have to, but I choose to because I choose life.  This hell hole spiral is not living. 

[LuLamb]

How’s Day 1 treating you? I keep thinking about AMBIVALENCE and the reply someone made about breaking thru it with a decision. The other day when I was in my relapse and all I wanted was to not be in ambivalence.  I still had some Addys And I was afraid to toss them But I was Simultaneously hating the feeling of them in my system. I had to ask myself what I wanted and what the fear was. I was afraid to toss them but I was afraid to take them. But what I wanted was to be free of them. I tossed them. I want to live a real life. Which is scary. But the alternative is a false proposition and I’ve wasted so much time trying to prove it to be otherwise.  

[DelaneyJuliette]

Ugh.  So, my husband also has a script, so to cut off my supply for real I'd have to both tell the doc and lock his up in a lock box that I don't know the password to.  I was going to do that before and I never "got to it" and look what happened.  I want freedom.  I have to recognize that I cannot take temazepam, b/c when I take that it is a sure fire trigger to taking more adderall than I need.  It is exactly like back in the day when I used to drink and take adderall.  I got myself to a place where they are linked and that is no bueno.  So I think I will try the serious taper again on Thursday.  And not beat myself up in the meantime.  Even just for the hours today I was doing it the way I wanted to be, I felt freedom and hope as long as I stayed in the moment.  I can do this, it's just not linear.  I am still here and I will find my way through.  I still have made progress even if it's not the progress I wish it was. 

[LuLamb]

Whatever steps you take, whatever attempts you make will help give you more clarity about what needs to happen. Each time I’ve quit and relapsed I’ve learned what I needed to do to up the ante the next time around. This time I learned that there will always be a new “supplier” I have to cut off  and I learned the importance to my recovery of being more honest with myself and my boyfriend about what I’m doing and if I’m nearing a relapse. 
I never stopped seeing clients each time I’ve quit and that’s been scary, but ultimately really helpful. I know I’m doing better therapy for my clients when I’m sober, even when I feel going into a session like I’m going to be a total wet blanket. The sessions don’t actually feel really long like I feared. When I think back to how I was when I did sessions when I was really sorta strung out on Addys, I was definitely not doing my clients a service. You’ll figure this out. It doesn’t need to be pretty or elegant.