Recovering Kratom Extract Addict

Last night, I took kratom extract again. It was after 1 in the morning when I had gotten home from work.

The recovery process has been extremely challenging for me emotionally. I have still been miserable, the way I described it in my previous messages, despite AA, Recovery Skills Group, therapy, and lots of coping skills. No matter how long I go without kratom extract, it still has its claws sunken into me and last night I couldn’t get the idea of taking it out of my head.

The only thing that was even really stopping me is that I was told by doctors and other people that if I were to take it while on my suboxone, I would either get very nauseous or it would just not work. But recently, I looked it up and found out it wasn’t true.

I had taken 2.5 mg of suboxone yesterday (1 in the morning, 0.5 shortly after, and 1 in the early evening). This medication is supposed to help with the cravings, however I noticed when I take more than this I get too sleepy to work properly.

This morning, I threw away all of the kratom extract that I still had in my drawers to prevent myself from taking any more. But what I really want to know is what can I do to make this easier for me emotionally, and to help me not crave it so much? I try so hard and put so much effort in, constantly making plans to distract myself and convince myself that I’m happy, but it feels like this has just taken over.

I just think it sucks that no matter how long I go without it I still can’t get it out of my head (how much I want to take it) and it shuts down all logical thinking. And it’s painful to make myself not take it anyway. It’s a really hard thing to have to chose between painfully not taking it or taking it and ending up like I did before.

And I want to be someone who can control themselves with dosing because I really don’t wanna deal with what always happens when I take it. I just don’t really know how to not take it like that. Because when I tried to take tolerance breaks before I just felt really bad. But what the heck, I feel really bad now as it is!! I’ve BEEN feeling really bad. Miserable.

I overcame my cravings today!

How did I do it?

1. Text Jen

2. Take my meds early

3. Coffee

4. Prayer

5. Positive affirmation (if you stay sober, you will be a rockstar in the new lab, impress your boss, everyone will think you’re so smart)

Hello,

I’ve been really struggling with my sobriety.

The last time I got clean from kratom extract for a month from December-January, I was a miserable, emotional, sad, angry, stressed person. It became unbearable to have all my real true feelings back and nothing to soothe them. Even phenibut and Tianeptine weren’t working. When I finally said, “I can’t take it anymore” and started using kratom extract again, that’s when I finally felt relief.

And now I see that after reaching a week of clean time from kratom extract, I am becoming that miserable person again.

This is happening despite the fact that I decided not to take the lower dose of suboxone and to keep taking 1 mg in the morning and 1 mg at night. I got cravings right away when I tried taking the lower dose. And I even tried taking more than 2 mg in a day today and yesterday because of how emotional I have been feeling, just to try to feel better.

I don’t talk to anyone about the things that are really bothering me, can’t even name one person that I can really open up to. It’s really hard to deal with real feelings without being able to talk about them. Like for example- let’s pretend someone were to bully me, I would get upset obviously. But if there’s nothing I can do about it, there’s no point in being upset, it’s just a human reaction that feels awful, so I just take something to feel better because it’s not like I can make the person not wanna bully me anymore. That’s what the kratom extract helps with the most.

I feel like even though now I’m in a bad place, if I were to start taking kratom again I’d be in an even worse place, so either way is bad and it’s hard to not feel hopeless.

Last night, I also noticed myself feeling stretchy, weak, physically weird and bad, mentally blah, craving taking something… not sure if Suboxone causes the physical side effects. But honestly I don’t think I should stop taking it because even though things are bad right now, I have a feeling without it things would be worse.

I have been without kratom extract and on suboxone since Thursday, March 2nd.

In my last journal entry, I talked about how much I struggled when I was in active kratom extract addiction. I wrote that now, I actually feel better than I did when I was on kratom extract. This is because I’m not taking something 5 times a day that only makes me feel good for an hour and a half each time and the rest of the day I’m miserable. I wrote about how before MAT, even when I tried to take tolerance breaks I mostly only lasted a few hours and craved kratom extract so intensely that it’s painful, and how now I don’t get those types of cravings (what a miracle).

I also wrote about how I still get sad sometimes despite all this, and still have to feel my real feelings at times, which can be very painful. I made a plan to practice my coping strategies and update my therapist with my progress, as well as writing down my roses and buds for each day, going to my recovery skills group every week and trying AA meetings.

Since my last post, I have been practicing coping strategies every day to try to deal with my real feelings when they come, whether it’s taking a bath, stretching and doing jumping jacks, video chatting a friend, or planning for my vacation coming up. My therapist says I’m doing great with my commitment to practice.

On Thursday, I attended my first Recovery Skills zoom group. So far, it went well and the people were nice. We talked about how hard addiction is to treat, and how even suboxone isn’t a magic bullet; it takes work. I told them that I was thinking about trying AA Meetings, and they thought it was a great idea.

That night, after the group, I went to a music show at a restaurant with my friends. I dressed up as Barbie to celebrate Barbie Day. I was unfortunately in a bad mood for a big chunk of the celebration. But then, when I took my dose of suboxone, I felt a lot better. I might need to work on timing my doses better to prevent that from happening, but I know that eventually I will need to find other ways to help my mood.

I still find it very hard to deal with my current situation and history of trauma, being discredited, and being treated badly. Something that’s been bringing that up a lot for me lately is work, because they treat me badly there and say mean things. But this is the highest paying job I could find. Other companies pay around minimum wage and I’m making much more, so the bad treatment is just the price I have to pay for the money. The suboxone has been helping soothe the pain of my boss’s and work mentor’s words though.

Yesterday I went to my first AA Meeting. At first I was hesitant to go. The teacher of Thursday’s group did warm me about how many people feel about suboxone. I even read many people’s comments on the internet saying that taking suboxone to treat a kratom addiction is like taking meth to treat a coffee addiction. I didn’t know how people would react to my drug of choice being kratom extract; I thought people would think I’m “child’s play.” But two friends I have who are also in recovery encouraged me to go and said that they don’t think anyone will think I’m “child’s play.”

I went and it went really well. There were speakers talking about how much AA helped them and how they have been sober for decades. In between speakers, people noticed I was new and started introducing themselves to me. One lady even gave me her number.

My plan for this week is to time my suboxone doses better so that I don’t find myself in a bad mood when I’m supposed to be having fun, as well as going to next weekend’s therapy session, Recovery Skills Group, and the same AA Speaker meeting. I might even try a discussion AA meeting tonight. As far as coping skills go, I will keep doing the ones I’ve been doing and this time, really observe how I feel before and after. I will also try to listen to uplifting songs when I’m down and see if those help.

How do I feel now without kratom extract?

I have been without kratom extract since Wednesday night. Before I got put on suboxone, almost every time I tried to even just take a tolerance break, I would only last a few hours without kratom extract. This is because I would feel dreadful about a kratomless day, be in an awful mood, and crave it intensely.

When I was taking kratom extract, I didn’t have a set number of times I would take it each day, but it averaged around 5 times a day. Each time I would take it, I would feel the “good effects” for about an hour and a half, then the bad effects set in.

The bad effects made me worn out, exhausted, and feel very sick. They would usually last approximately 2 and a half hours. It was very hard to do even basic things when I had the bad effects.

When I was having the good effects, however, I felt like I was finally the person I never realized I always wanted to be. And then when they were gone, I felt like I couldn’t find happiness in anything.

I tried to not dose more often than every 4 hours. Sometimes I could last longer than 4 hours. But sometimes, I took a dose 2 or 3 hours after my last one. In between doses, I was unhappy and craving my next dose.

Then when my next dose kicked in, I felt like I was finally the person I wanted to be again, but I still had moments of deep sadness just acknowledging that the effects don’t last forever and there will be many moments where I will feel my feelings sober.

Here is a message I sent someone when I was using kratom extract:

“I never told anyone this but earlier I got sad when I was high on kratom extract and I think it’s because I knew that it wears off and doesn’t last forever. Even though I knew I could literally re-dose every 4 hours or more, just the idea of moments without the feeling made me sad.

But the concerning things is, that lately I’ve been having more and more moments of this deep horrible sadness.”

Flash forward to now-

I have been without kratom extract since Wednesday night and on Suboxone since Thursday. I still experience sadness, but overall I noticed that I feel better than I did when I was in active kratom addiction.

I don’t have to take suboxone 5 times a day. I don’t get the “bad effects” of fatigue and being sick when it’s wearing off. I don’t even crave kratom extract so intensely that it’s painful, which is an achievement that I never thought was possible in the past. My mood is also pretty much the same throughout the day, which is a big relief coming from someone who experienced the intense highs and lows I did during kratom addiction.

But there are still challenges and painful things about this process, regardless of finally realizing how bad of a place I was in during kratom extract addiction.

I am no longer in “a moment of silence” feel my true emotions coming back. Being myself and feeling my true feelings is something that I was raised to believe is wrong and that I need to change from autistic to neurotypical. It’s become very hard to cope with the fact that I will never be neurotypical, and that the hate I experienced and continue to experience from others for that won’t ever go away.

And even though my highs and my lows aren’t the extremes they were with kratom extract, I still get sad. The moments of sadness are hard to deal with without wanting to be high.

It’s been almost 3 hours. I don’t feel sick or anything. But I don’t feel like myself. Because usually I’m always on my phone or listening to music and trying to occupy myself, but now I’m just spacing out and staring at the wall having really weird thoughts that I’m perseverating on. I don’t know why.

Last night I actually had this crazy dream where I was in the car with my parents. I had my earbuds in, but at one point, the music shut off. When it shut off, all I could hear was that my parents were having a conversation, talking about jaw droppingly absolutely disgusting things. Like absolutely graphic sexual stuff. And they didn’t know I could hear the conversation, and I was embarrassed and horrified and yelled “STOP!!”

Some of my friends talk to themselves out loud because they have a disability. And when I thought about that, I think everyone talks to themselves but they just don’t say it out loud. Like today when my mind was bugging me about dosing, I said, “I’m not gonna do it.” And all I got back was “Yes you are.” So I guess we all talk to ourselves at times but we just don’t admit it.

Before I dosed I was absolutely pissed about everything, I felt like a bag of rabbit droppings. I talked to a friend on tumblr and he actually had something nice to say to me, and it helped a lot. But I my mind kept giving me a signal that it’s time for a dose.

Honestly, I haven’t taken kratom extract in over 2 weeks after that gigantic disaster happened, so I think the reason why I keep reaching for the phen even though it does nothing for me could just be because I miss kratom extract.

But before I started taking phen, I felt like my body felt gross when I was constantly taking extract and that now I feel so much better.

I have nothing against kratom extract, most people who take it are fine. I’m not always sure why I reacted to it the way I did, there are people out there taking WAYY more than me and this type of stuff doesn’t happen to them!

And that feeling of wanting to take that stuff has come back. I still feel like it would be a bad idea though, because God forbid I get sick from it at work and am unable to do my job and just cause big problems.

It’s a drug I’m new to as well, it’s not like kratom extract which I’m super experienced with (and still managed to get too fucked up to function almost every day). I mean yeah I could take a very low dose before I go, then just leave the rest at home to prevent myself from re-dosing. That could help.

But maybe there’s another way to deal with this, such as just thinking about the drug like an autistic person with any special interest, rather then ACTUALLY using it. But even though I did that yesterday it just made my boss and Ashley keep questioning why I’m smiling and laughing, they thought it was inappropriate (I never told them why).