That is for you to decide. So many people self medicate nowadays. It"s just that some ways are far more superficially acceptable. I will put a 6 euro bet forward that there will be centres for people to detox from sites like facebook within the next 5 years.

Addicts are seen as weak and/or immoral and are encouraged to get help. Sometimes prematurely. Trying to stop when you are not ready can be counter productive, accentuating problems with feelings of failure and lack of self worth. It can take a few false starts with the being ready situation. Some people never feel ready.



Is that drinks or units of alcohol?



The weak arsed, immoral dregs of humanity have to stick together. Strength through unity.

The Naltrexone treatment put forth by J. Ott looks very interesting and I would like to give it a try. The 1st time I experienced Opiate withdrawal was in the 80s. Currently I am maintaining on 4 mgs. daily of buprenorphine. I have found temporary relief at times by attending 12 step meetings. There is some kind of what I can only describe as magic that CAN happen in between the opening moment of silence (meditation) and the closing prayer when I actively listen. I call it magic because the physical symptoms of withdrawal are relieved. Millions of others have been helped. In a room of 8 guys 4 of us have at one time or another intravenously injected LSD. One of them 20 years after me in Detroit the other 2 a decade or so before me. It's unusual for me to run into folks like that in any other setting. These people are happy and productive and help others.
I find AA to be a better fit than any others because it is the source. Logically speaking if a skid row alcoholic can stop drinking I should be able to stop slamming heroin into my jugular vein because I can't hit anywhere else. That alcoholic sees advertisements for that drug everywhere and it is readily available at the place where they buy milk. It takes a whole lot more effort usually for us to cop opiates. When Bill Wilson experienced LSD he LOVED it. I was asked for a link supporting this. In using a search engine to do so I learned that it was Aldous Huxley who introduced him to Humprey Osmond. http://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?smlid=4189
When I was fortunate enough to experience organic mescaline I felt a loving presence of a higher power. There is a reason that some of our favorite substances are called "entheogens". I am ALL for any and every thing which increases my feeling that presence. Personally my addiction has taken me to a place where I envied my acquaintances and friends who were lucky enough to check out early. I feel much better now. I hope to one day soon (not too soon) to be opiate free. One thing that I see from this thread is repeated accounts of folks who have done it. Hope is priceless.
I like j. Otts’ report. I have much respect for that guy. It is not lost on me however that after a painless detox on his first day opiate free he "experiments" with a dose of codeine. My goal is to be opiate free. It is easy to lower the dose and I have spent months at a dose of 3 mgs of methadone. I have forgotten to take that dose and then catch myself sneezing several times in a row at about 4:00 p.m. At one time I was detoxing at a clinic from 45 mgs. My plan was to go down one mg. daily to 30 hang out at that for 3 weeks and go down some more. 5 days into it I woke up and was so ill I fell down. I told the nurse to stop the detox. Symptoms disappeared and I was better. A week later I go into the dosing room, a nurse looks at me, looks at the computer and was obviously having a challenge adjusting the lever to what the computer was saying I get. That's odd I think to myself because it is 40 mgs should be easy breezey. The nurse informs me that I am at 33 mgs. They never stopped the mg a day detox. That gave me an idea of how much of this is in my mind and how much of this is physical. "Relax, take it easy, don't struggle". Millions of people have gotten better. You can too if you are on this thread because you have this issue. If you are on this thread because you care about others the only thing that I say, and I say this with all the sincerity of which I am capable of is : God Bless You.

Love & Respect

I know this is an old topic but I would love to add my thoughts, first I will qualify myself as saying that I have been addicted to just about all substances at one point in my life including but not limited to Alcohol, Heroin, Cocaine, Crack, etc…
I have tried just about every program type and I have been sober for 1.5 years, 3 years, 12 years, and now 6.
I currently use DMT a couple of times a month and I am actively looking for Psilocybin mushrooms growing in local pastures. I grew mushrooms for years and had an experience microdosing where I looked into my eyes in the mirror and the mushrooms told me that Alcohol the way I was drinking it was killing me. So I stopped microdosing, I was unwilling to give up the lifestyle.
First is the disease theory of addiction is based on Neuro-Plasticity. That the chemicals that you are ingesting are re-wiring your brain and adjusting your brain chemicals so that you crave more, feel terrible when you don’t have it and feel so much better when you do (more so than a non-addicted person) So here is the thing, I won’t even argue the disease aspect because it is not relevant to me because Neuro-Plasticity is NOT a one way street.
It takes work but through mindfulness meditation and learning to exploit the Gap between mental impulses and reaction we can learn to take different action and change habitual patterns in time regardless of what they are. But this takes consistency and effort. The old pathways can become re-worked easily so we must continue to reinforce the new patterns and avoid the old ones.
I personally use Buddhist practices and follow the 4 noble truths, 8 fold path and 5 precepts to check my behavior. If I wander from the path, I recognize it and return. That’s it. I enjoy Refuge Recovery because there is no negative self declaration (I AM an addict/alcoholic). I personally only follow such a powerful statement as I AM with positive statements.