Alcohol and Other Drugs

If you are like us, you came to Crystal Meth Anonymous because you had a problem with speed. You couldn't stop using or wanting to use it (you were powerless), and it was wrecking your health, finances and relationships (your life had become unmanageable). Most of us didn't come to CMA because we were drunks. The hard truth most of us learn somewhere in our early months, as our heads slow down and we cast a clear eye on our past, is that our problem is addiction, not just crystal meth. Yes, crystal meth brought us down, usually hard and fast. But with more reflection, we begin to see that the disease of addiction, not crystal or any other particular substance is our problem.

Relapse Prevention
First things first. Our main goal when we first are getting sober is to keep from using, no matter what, one day at a time. And whatever your personal history with alcohol and other mind-altering substances, believe us when we tell you that our relapses have almost always begun with a whiff of poppers, a puff of a joint or a stop in a neighborhood bar. For some it takes a few weeks, but for most it happens pretty quickly. That innocent escape sends us to our dealers in search of the real thing.

Abstaining from alcohol may prove especially tricky. Unlike crystal and other illegal drugs, alcohol is everywhere, particularly at family and social functions. And the popular culture has reinforced the notion that an alcoholic and a drug addict are two different things. They are not. Alcohol is a drug. Period. It will take us out of ourselves as surely as crystal or any other chemical concoction. Even though many of us never felt that alcohol was part of our problem, we recognize that it lowers our inhibitions and impairs our judgment. Just ask someone whose relapse began with wine at dinner. Besides, if we substitute a new drug for our drug of choice, pretty soon we will have a new drug problem.

Some of us found that hitting a bottom with crystal meth was so horrific; we were able to keep away from it using sheer willpower and healthy fear. Yet, because we didn't address the underlying disease of addiction that led us to speed in the first place, we slipped into dependency on a substitution that seemed less scary at first, such as alcohol or cocaine. Did you decide to kick crystal so you could become a pothead? We didn't think so.

Our experience is clear: Using another drug or drinking invariably leads us back to our drug of choice or into new addictions. If we want to really get our lives back we must stay sober, recommitting each day to a life of recovery.

The First Step
Very few of us found crystal first. When we work the first step in CMA, our sponsors ask us to examine our entire history of drug and alcohol use and abuse. Like many of us, you may find that your using began with beer or pot in high school, and that for many years you used "whatever everyone else was using." Many of us mixed crystal with coke, ketamine or GHB; heightened our sexual performance on crystal with Viagra and poppers; and used pot, alcohol and tranquilizers like Valium and Clonipin to come down after our binges. Our lives were a chemical mess, with speed at the center.

Some of us compare crystal meth, our drug of choice, to the love of our life. How many married people do you know who didn't date before meeting that special someone? Think about it, to have a drug of choice we must have the underlying disease of addiction to begin with. The compulsion to use was always lurking. What did you do when you didn't have crystal? Did you often turn down cocaine or cocktails? Most of us did not.

Medically Necessary Drugs
It is wise to inform each of your care providers, from your dentist to your psychiatrist, that you are a recovering addict. They should keep this in mind before prescribing anything that could threaten your recovery. Our minds just don't know the difference between drugs used to give relief and drugs used to give pleasure.

Painkillers. Sometimes, the use of painkillers is necessary if you are suffering physically. But we are addicts. We love drugs. So we try not being alone with our worst enemy. The drugs may convince us that we need them more frequently than our doctors think. Make sure you have another recovering addict to talk to and an informed prescribing physician. Most important, take only those medicines prescribed, as prescribed.

Prescription tranquilizers and anti-depressants. When we're first getting sober and are swamped with new feelings, many of them long buried, many of us had to rely on our doctor's advice-making sure they understand that we are in recovery - when it came to taking antidepressants or tranquilizers. Abruptly stopping some medications can be dangerous and even deadly if not done with an informed physician's supervision. Many recovering addicts have dual diagnoses, other mental health problems besides our addiction for which we may need to take drugs. A diabetic doesn't go without insulin, nor should a manic depressive go without lithium or depakote.

Over-the-counter drugs. Some of us have found that we are particularly sensitive to some over the counter medicines, such as cough syrups that contain alcohol and/or codeine, antihistamines that cause drowsiness, and decongestants that have pseudoephedrine HCL (Sudafed). This is no accident. Over-the-counter drugs provide meth labs with the components to produce speed. Diet pills, energy drinks and supplements containing ephedrine/ephedra (Ma Huang) are especially dangerous for recovering meth addicts, because they act just like speed in the body, and can also be addictive. Become a label reader. Many products on the market contain mind-altering chemicals that can be dangerous to an addict - we have the potential to abuse just about anything.

We suggest talking to your doctor or pharmacist if you have any unanswered questions before taking any medication in sobriety. Uninformed addicts are a danger to themselves. With both prescription and non-prescription drugs, it is important to be honest with your sponsor about what drugs you are taking. Don't be embarrassed, anything that threatens our peace of mind threatens our sobriety.

Clean and Clear
The moment we first realize that the feelings we are having are our own, and not chemically induced, is triumphant indeed. Once, we would do anything to get out of ourselves and away from our feelings. In the early days of living sober, our focus was decidedly on staying clean. With time, as we relearned who we were without the assistance of drugs and alcohol, we began to relish being clear. Today, we can't imagine any feelings good or bad from which we would want to escape.