Oh Addiction...

[Guest StacyMaybe]

Hello, very much new to the site. Should be posting an introduction to myself before my problems but I have just been dying to vent. So don't worry ladies ~and gents~ we can kiki in a minute. Now on to the subject:

I know that my problem is the ADDICTION and the behaviors that come with it, not just the heroin. And I say that because I believe that some do not understand what that means. I'm addicted to addiction. It started with cigarettes at 16, then it was the eating disorder (anorexia and bullimia) when I was 18, binge drinking around 19, and now 20-21 is heroin. I keep replacing the previous "addictive action" with the next. But why? Why is this happening and specifically to me? Well now.. welcome to Laura's am I right?

I feel like this whole had intercourse up gender thing in my heart and brain is causing all the addictive behaviors to avoid myself and my problems. As a child, I use to make "wish it lists" where I would make lists of all these wishes. And the first one always was "be a girl". I would pray every night to wake up a girl. And then the voice got quiet. But the behaviors got stronger and worse. Now at 21 I still hear that little girl faintly crying.

Sorry for the long read, I'm just overwhelmed, scared, and tired of this life I made myself. I'm a 21 year old heroin addict who just recently lost his job trying to piece together my life. And everytime I try to do that, I get stuck at the first piece; my gender.

[Charlize]

Stacy,

Welcome to Laura's dear even if you didn't post in the intro forum. Take a moment to check out the terms and conditions found at the bottom of any page.

Now about addiction..... Unfortunately i know it too well. I did the cigarette thing the booze thing and ended up in any drug available followed, after i had a family, by a long and progressive case of alcoholism. I had not lost everything by the time i reached out for help with my addictions but i had tried to kill myself, destroyed my heart (i'll never be able to have SRS because of damage) and pushed every relationship i had to a breaking point. Through all of this i would allow myself to let that little girl out only where she would still remain hidden from the people who loved me despite my addictions.

Some power greater than i got me to go to an AA meeting on Feb.5th 2007. I needed help as i was powerless to quit and i found it in the rooms. A week of DTs, shaking and crying on the couch was something i should have done in the hospital but i wasn't honest about anything. I didn't want to admit to my addiction but somehow with the other addicts i met i was able to open up. It took several years for me to allow her to step out of the shadows. Little by little the fear vanished and then one night i found Laura's. Just as in AA i found others who were like me and who gave me the support i needed to get past the fear, shame and guilt i had always felt. It has been over 2 years of living full time as myself and i haven't found it necessary to use with the help of other addicts and a higher power.

Please join us on Sundays at 9 eastern at chat for a substance abuse meeting. You also might find peace by attending a local meeting. There is no shame in being a newcomer. We all started with the first day.

I got a gender therapist shortly after coming to Laura's and she was certainly happy to know i was a member of AA. I have come to believe AA, or NA can help with addiction. I was able to quit smoking with the tools i had gotten while dealing with alcohol. Thanks for joining us here. I'm sober today. I do remember how it was and know you don't have to feel that way.

Hugs,

Charlize

[VickySGV]

Stacy, I am another on of those Addict types, who did not get quite everything into her system (I am physically allergic to Pot in the sense of anaphylactic shock that shuts down your breathing) trying to keep from facing the fact that I am truly different from all but 0.001% of the rest of human beings. I had one long term of sobriety and actually said to hell with it because I did not want to admit my Gender Dysphoria or the fact it was pointing me toward full time transition. I tried to kill myself by adding booze and prescription meds to my diabetes and high blood pressure that had me virtually standing with a loaded gun to my head at the time I was checked into a detox ward, only slightly by my own choice. (If I had not gone voluntarily I would have had two weeks by court order.) While still high, I had told a therapist about the GD, and I only did because I was high!! The response was "Lets get the crap out of your system, and then we can work on the GD, we know enough about it today that it can be dealt with." About the time I got my 6 month chip I had accepted the GD and the probable need to get Gender Therapy, and by then, whatever else was needed. I surprised the hell out of myself by Coming Out to my addiction therapy group, and a few days later was told by my therapist that he had had my Addiction Medicine chart reviewed by my health plan's Gender Therapist who gave the green light to go all the way if I felt I needed to. I am coming real close to 6 years of sobriety, and I have 5 years on HRT, and am 20 months post op today. I am now older than both of my grandfathers ever made it to as well.

It is hard to get going into sobriety and addiction recovery, our addictions provide medicine for a medical condition whose treatment we fear is as horrible as the disease. It is that horrible at first, and at many steps along the way, but by being honest with ourselves about who and what we are, it becomes a triumph over things that have held us in chains for so long.

I too had a little girl in my life, that was not either of my sisters or daughters, and when I admitted to who and what she was when I was age 60, she grew up quickly and took over my life in such a wonderful way, that addiction is now the terror I should have known all along.

Like Charlize, I am another moderator on our TG-Addiction Chat on Sundays at 9 PM Eastern Time, come and join us.

[Guest StacyMaybe]

Thank you to both of your beautiful replies. I feel like I get high to avoid the thought of my gender disorder to only come to terms with it when I'm high! I always tell myself "tomorrow I'll call someone to try and make an appointment" and then when I wake up I deny it, avoid it, and try to make an excuse as to why I won't just call the health program near by.... and then get high.

It's a nasty cycle. But now my situation is at the point where my mother knows about the disease (finding needles ect.) and wants me to go back to detox. I lost my job so money (or lack of) to support my habit is gone. I don't think detox is the first step considering I'm not truly withdrawing anymore (haven't used for maybe a week+) so maybe a rehab? But now at this point I feel like steering it to the direction of getting a GT at this health program to discuss where I'm at with my gender issues.

I'm just very confused, you know? I've been dealing with that nagging voice of "I don't think this is the gender role I want to portray" and now I'm adding it with the nagging voice of drug abuse. It's like two freaking mountains to climb.

In my heart I want to believe if I solve the problem of the gender identity then sobriety will follow with it but I'm scared. I'm so scared to have someone actually tell me "yes you are transgendered". I know that sounds silly but it's the damn truth. I'm only 21 and I do not want to carry both burdens for my entire life. And I want my young years in life to be what I want them to be. Agh, excuse how all over the place I am. I'm just a mess right now, truly truly a hot mess

[Charlize]

Stacy i do hear you and thanks for sharing. I have felt those same thoughts and lived in that hell much of my life. Oddly i can now say that i'm grateful for being and addict and i'm also grateful for being a trans woman. I never thought i'd be able to say that but my time in a substance recovery program has given me not only sobriety but a way of living that is freeing me from the confusion and regrets you mention. As Vicky mentioned her GT said get rid of the addiction first then we will work on the gender issues. I did that as well. When i use i'm just not capable of being in this world wholly and any honesty is gone.

I'm glad you wrote here and I hope you will go to either NA or AA or otherwise get help. One good things about the rooms is that we only drop a buck or two in the basket and that only if we can afford it. I found a way of living due to my sobriety that is beyond my wildest dreams. If nothing else come visit us on Sunday at the chatrooms.

Hugs,

Charlize

[Guest aballofquestions]

Thank you to both of your beautiful replies. I feel like I get high to avoid the thought of my gender disorder to only come to terms with it when I'm high! I always tell myself "tomorrow I'll call someone to try and make an appointment" and then when I wake up I deny it, avoid it, and try to make an excuse as to why I won't just call the health program near by.... and then get high.

It's a nasty cycle. But now my situation is at the point where my mother knows about the disease (finding needles ect.) and wants me to go back to detox. I lost my job so money (or lack of) to support my habit is gone. I don't think detox is the first step considering I'm not truly withdrawing anymore (haven't used for maybe a week+) so maybe a rehab? But now at this point I feel like steering it to the direction of getting a GT at this health program to discuss where I'm at with my gender issues.

I'm just very confused, you know? I've been dealing with that nagging voice of "I don't think this is the gender role I want to portray" and now I'm adding it with the nagging voice of drug abuse. It's like two freaking mountains to climb.

In my heart I want to believe if I solve the problem of the gender identity then sobriety will follow with it but I'm scared. I'm so scared to have someone actually tell me "yes you are transgendered". I know that sounds silly but it's the damn truth. I'm only 21 and I do not want to carry both burdens for my entire life. And I want my young years in life to be what I want them to be. Agh, excuse how all over the place I am. I'm just a mess right now, truly truly a hot mess

God talking to addicts is scary becuase Im pretty sure you just quoted some words out of my own damn mouth...

I too had to deal with the monster of addiction. I will tell you a few things about my own experience that may be enlightening. I can SO SO SO SO SO relate to getting high to avoid something, only to find myself high and plagued by the thought and then convince myself I was being silly in the morning. I still struggle with that to an extent. It nearly got me killed as I lied on the floor crying, only able to think about the gun across the room and how easy it would just be...

I am trying very hard not to do that anymore. If I think something is important, if it FEELS important at THAT moment, then I write it down and I take it to my therapist. I had to do that talking about GD because I couldnt say it out loud...he had to read it out of my journal. Ive made a promise to myself that I wont convince myself of things any more, if it was important at the time, its important.

I also experienced that most doctors would not go very far with me so long as I was in active addiction. Psychiatrists wouldnt prescribe me anything until I got clean, and I did a lot of self medicating with drugs. I can tell you actually having a doctor to do the presscribing has been a much better option. But I fear you may run into many similar walls trying to deal with GD in active addiction.

At my very first NA meeting an old fellow named Bob told me that dealing with addiction, mental health problems and other issues (for me it was school) all at the same time is a bit like performing open heart surgery, on yourself, while running a marathon. Its never easy. It can often be simple, but it is rarely if ever easy. For me, the only thing that has worked has been the fellowship of NA (and to an extent AA) and following the suggestions of that program. I wont say its the only thing in the world that works, I couldnt possibly know that, but its the only thing that has worked for me. You have good insight to see that the problem is addiction, not the drugs. I have nearly two years completely clean but I still struggle with the addiction and I have learned that the addiction can kill me even if im not using (that moment with the gun was not that long ago...more than a year after getting clean). The problem was never the drugs, the problem was ME, and I happen to be everywhere I go .

Please get help. It sounds like you are struggling, I think you can see that. I was about your age when I got into the program but I didnt truly give myself to it for years later (Ill be 28 in a week and will have 2 years clean in feb.). You dont NEED to suffer. You dont NEED to follow our paths to destruction and you dont NEED to hit the bottoms that some of us hit. It doesnt have to be us, it doesnt have to be AA/NA or any other 12 step program, but please, just get some help somewhere. It may just save your life.

And know that there are a lot of us who love you, even though we've never met you, and we really want you to be ok. We're here for you and we're rooting for you.

-A

[Guest Kayla Grace]

Stacy,

I'm a firm believer in the "everything happens for a reason" and just as Arnold Schwarzenegger said "Your struggles develop your strengths". I was a firm consumer of pot. at first I did it to sleep and relax, but over time I started enjoying the stone, because it made me think clearly, or "normal" as I called it. the "perma fried" kept me sane, and I was able to think clearly. Even I am re-reading this saying "god, I sound like I had a real addiction" ... I never saw it that way, still don't. Hell, I'd probably still do pot if I could do it legally; I only don't because I'm aspiring to become a police officer.

I'll always feel indebted to pot because every single time I got very stoned, I would always fantasize about women. literally half of my pictures on my phone are women that look astonishing, at least IMO. I suppose eventually I just got to the point where I got stoned one time and said "yep, I wanna be a girl."

The anti-depressants I'm taking now are making me feel the same way as I did while under the influence of pot, in the sense of wanting to be a girl.

I think my point is the anti-depressants helped me, and they might be able to help you too. like Vicky and Charlize have said, they run AA and NA meetings weekly I believe. They care, can, and will, help you.

Good Luck, Stay Safe, and God Bless,

Natalya<3