Painter ....
Firstly I wanted to say WELL DONE on the 10 months! That is AWESOME! Although I've never used or been addicted to inhalants, I have been (am still) an alcoholic, so I know what its like to battle an addiction ... and then to be faced with some overwhelming drug/alcohol cravings, especially in times of great stress - it can be very difficult to handle .. but you CAN deal with this!
And speaking of stress, it seems like you are right in the middle of a whole lot of stress right now! After having just lost a close friend and grieving over that loss ... not to having all of this unresolved grief from all the other friends who've come and gone from your life, its no wonder you are having very strong urges to return to those old destructive coping mechanisms that you used to use.
People respond very differently when it comes to using certain coping strategies to deal with urges to use/drink, but maybe it will be helpful if I tell you what works for me when I get urges to drink when I'm going through a really stressful time in my life.
Sometimes distraction works well for me, esepcially if the cravings for alcohol are a result of something specific and immediate, like being at a party where alcohol is being served ... or waking up from a dream where I've gotten drunk and I've woken up with an intoxicated feeling that I want to sustain. When the urge to drink is sudden and imediate, the best way for me to deal with it is to do something else that takes my mind of the cravings. Sometimes it might be finding something else to drink which helps, like a tall glass of Diet Coke ... or finding something to eat also helps, because when I used to drink alcohol, I'd always do it on an empty stomach, so eating something often takes away those urges to drink for me. Or other distractions like coming here to RYL, watching a movie, going out shopping, reading a good book etc, can help be battle those cravings. But whatever the distraction is, it needs to be something very mentally involving, because boredom was also a real trigger for me to drink.
But if the cravings to drink for me are more long term, and have been hanging around for more than a few hours and are usually the result of stressful life circumstances (which it sounds like it is in your case right now), sometimes I need to meet the urges head on, and counteract them directly. And for me, this means sitting down and having a big think (or writing down) exactly what it is about my life that is making me want to drink. Are there any stressors that I can do something about? Should I talk to someone about these things? Can I solve any of these problems, or find a way to put them up on a mental shelf for later on? And if I am not able to immediately do something about the stress in my life, then I will sit and think whether drinking alcohol and getting drunk is really the best way to cope with it. I do a mental review of how my life was when I was drinking, and I make a list of things that I hated about that time - like losing all my friends, upsetting my family, not being able to work, not having any money, getting incredibly sick and ending up in hospital etc. I think back to all those horrible times that were due to my alcohol abuse, and I realise that no matter how many cravings I get, I dont want to go back there ... EVER!
If you were to think back to how your life was when you were still using inhalants, did it really help you to cope with any stress you had? Maybe for the immediate moment you may have felt a little better, but didnt it end up causing you MORE problems in the long run? Perhaps if you sat down and thought about (or write about) all the pros and cons of using inhalants again to cope with this stress and grief that you are experiencing ... maybe that would help you to see whether this is a path that you wont to go down again.
You've done so well with your 10 months hun ..... and believe it or not, the cravings WILL get easier with the more time you get under your belt. They may not stop forever, but you will become alot more skilled in dealing with them as time goes on.
I know this is a hard time for you, and maybe you never really were able to grieve for any of your friends while you were still using .... that's one thing that drugs/alcohol do for a person, is that they kinda numb you to feeling some emotions ... and it sounds like your grief for ALL the friends you've lost while you were still using, didnt go away because you havent FELT it yet ... but now that you've stopped using, you can really feel those emotions now, and it is incredibly difficult for you.
Posting about how you are feeling on the Grief and Trauma forum might be a good idea too. These feelings wont be ignored, and it may really be helpful for you to open up about how you are feeling and get some of this stuff off your chest and talk to people who understand somewhat about what you are going through right now.
Hang in there Painter ..... this will get easier.
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