Too young to die - but old enough to OD

**Disclaimer: I do not recommend following my example. You can get clean safely, this was just my story **

26th April 2019: I'm defeated. Years of self inflicted torture had brought me to this point. I had nothing left to give, no soul left to sell, no dopamine left to get high on - I was just a human shaped sack of nothingness. The drugs hadn't worked for years, in fact I don't think they ever worked. But now, now they really didn't work. I couldn't numb myself to the horrors I put myself through to fund my habit anymore. I couldn't pretend I had even a tiny ounce of control left of my life. Crack cocaine ran the show. I had officially, 110%, had enough. I'd been up all night as usual, the sun was starting to beam through the curtains. I'm sat on the edge of the bed next to the end table - a position i've spent years in, no matter where I was, that was my spot. I'm already starting to randomly twitch uncontrollably and I know this means I'm on the verge of an overdose if I don't slow down. I loaded that pipe up with a hit I knew my body just couldn't handle. And I prayed. I prayed I'd make it through. I don't know who or what to but I cried out to the heavens. I just wanted it to be over and the only time before this the cravings had ever gone away was for a few days after I'd overdosed. I thought if I could just buy myself a few days I could break the cycle and do everything I can to then stay clean. I couldn't see another way. I realise this decision was extremely risky, I'd already unintentionally overdosed on crack 3 times before this, but I honestly just didn't know what else to do.

I came round, completely unaware I'd just had a seizure, and I asked where my next hit was. My friend started freaking out and told me what had happened. Thats when that feeling hit, the feeling I got after every overdose. Suddenly the thought of using made me sick to my stomach. It's a deep, pit of your stomach, sort of fear and sadness. My head was riddled with confusion, probably due to it smashing off the headboard so many times during the seizure. I couldn't remember how to get out of my apartment building, I couldn't remember what month we were in, I was just so lost, scared and confused. The ambulance came and wanted to take me to hospital but seeing as the tests they did on my heart and such were okay I decided I just needed a long sleep. My friend stayed with me and wouldn't let me leave his sight. I think the whole situation sort of traumatised him, which I feel quite guilty for. But if this whole situation didn't happen, I wouldn't be where I am today.

When I woke up, I felt relief. The obsession, the need and the want to use had been lifted. From past experience this only lasts a few days, so I knew I had to do something different this time. I had been in and out of Narcotics Anonymous for 7 years, very rarely going to meetings. I had a sort of stubbornness around it, I think because they throw the word 'god' and 'higher power' around a lot. But at this point, I had fully surrendered. I'd do anything to stay clean. I finally went to a meeting with an open mind. In fact, I went to 5 meetings that first week and I've been going to meetings every week since. I still find the meetings boring but there's no denying there's something to them because I'm clean. And after 11 years of hell and 7 years of trying to get out of hell - this is a fucking miracle.

Unfortunately the freedom, relief and pure happiness I felt following this incident didn't last long. I started gambling a couple weeks in and slipped down that slippery slope straight back into the abyss that is addiction. I never understood gambling addicts before I became one, but it is exactly like using drugs. It puts on the same shackles and it drags you to the same bottomless pit. All I wanted for years, all I dreamed of, was to get clean. And I promised if I did, I'd never take life for granted again - because my worst day clean is always better than my best day using. And thats true. But I've now come to know, that gambling is just another form of using. Today, I eliminated every possible way for me to gamble online (luckily casinos don't tempt me). I feel relief. And I feel freedom. Tomorrow will be my official first day sober, clean and free from every addiction I have so far battled. I pray no more addictions will come my way but if I can do it once and I can do it twice, I can do it again. I've overcome the physical addiction of heroin, the mental addiction of crack cocaine and the obsessive compulsion to gamble. I now feel I can do anything. I know my clean/sober/gambling free time is not long, but there was a point in my life where I couldn't get through a minute without using, getting money to use, or suffering because I wasn't using. So being sat here feeling no need and no want to use or gamble is pure evidence to myself that I can do this. One day/one minute/one second at a time.

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