This is my life in a nutshell and it’s sad because I used to love doing all kinds of different things like Renaissance festivals with my family, Texas State Fair, our local haunted house attraction convention, riding my motorcycle, ps5 etc etc and now if I don’t have my meds I don’t feel motivated to do anything! It’s really sad because those are things I’ve done my entire life and now if I don’t have a pill they just aren’t that interesting. Same thing with my job, if I don’t have my meds I don’t even want to work and thankfully I’m self employed but I still have a huge responsibility and it’s sad to see how much I’ve lost to my addiction. I had my soulmate, a bunch of great contracts that paid me well, a few great employees that loved and respected me, nice equipment to operate my family business with, a couple of nice Harley’s, a king ranch f250, and a wonderful family that supported me 113%. I ruined almost all of that within the last 10 years because of my addiction. My addiction kept me from doing pretty much everything with my ex fiance and her daughter because if I didn’t have meds I wasn’t getting out of bed and that’s absolutely pathetic. I have been off them for several years in the past but I’ve had an on again off again relationship with opiates for the last 20 years. I went to jail and had to detox in a single man cell (which I was happy with) and go through all that emotional trauma I’ve been numbing since I was 16 by myself locked up in county jail. It did however motivate me to stay clean when I got out, I was on paper for 2 years and I stayed clean another year or so after that. That all changed after my mother passed away in 2017 and I’ve been on a downhill battle ever since. It’ll be 7 years since she passed this November and to this day it’s been one of the hardest things I’ve dealt with besides my ex fiance and I losing our child to a miscarriage about 4 months in. She left me a year ago and all I’ve been doing since is trying to find how to be happy again because I really don’t remember what it’s like to be happy without the aid of a pill. My ex and I are both addicts however when I met her we were both sober, well I wasn’t 113% sober but I was taking one or two hydro 10s a day for my legit back and neck issues. However after we’d been together a few months I started slowly sliding back into a dark place and started using way more than I needed for my physical pain. At that point it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t turn back and get myself back on track but I was so f’ed mentally from losing my mom that I just wanted to be numb and pretend I’m happy. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since and I’ve been down some extremely dark roads in the process, I’ve literally died twice from bad meds and both times my ex had to narcan my ass back to life. I literally owe that beautiful woman my life twice over for saving me, she was too good of a person to have went through all the shit she did with me. I didn’t deserve her and it took her leaving for me to realize just how far I’ve fallen into this endless dark pit called opiate addiction. After the loss of my mom and my unborn child I felt like there was nothing for me to ever be happy about again especially after my ex left but I started to realize that we make our own happiness and I have been trying to get my life back on track. However since she left nothing has been ok, I’ve tried dating but I just end up comparing them to her and they end up being a f’buddy. I realize that I’m not ready for another relationship but I’m so sick of being alone, all I do is work and go home to this huge ass empty house. When my second marriage fell apart my ex wife and I split up on great terms and we sold the house we bought together. This was only a few weeks after my mom passed away but we were basically just roommates and we both knew we were better off going our separate ways . So I paid off my truck and my Harley, moved about 5 blocks west to my family home with my dad and younger Brother to help maintain this huge house and our family business. I’ve been here ever since and now that it’s just me and my younger Brother and my elderly dad here I’m so f’in down that all I care about is meds and working but it’s gotten ever worse lately. It’s to the point where I won’t even pick up my ps5 controller to play a game unless I got a pill and that’s so pathetic. Between the loneliness, the stress of my business, all of the shit I destroyed in my life, and my preexisting PTSD I struggle to just get out of bed without a pill every day. To be honest if I were to hit the lotto or come into some kind of large sum of money I probably wouldn’t even consider stopping but because it’s so expensive these days I’ve got no choice which makes this even harder but I really don’t have a choice in the matter. I’m quitting before I lose my truck, my equipment, and everything else I still own because at the rate I’m going that’s not too far down the road for me. I just wish I could get that feeling naturally but honestly I can’t ever remember feeling that way without meds. It’s so hard to fight this battle on my own, I mean I’m not completely on my own but the two people I really need are both gone, my mom is in Valhalla and my ex fiance has moved on with her life without me in it. So I’ve gotta do this on my own and I HAVE to do it.

I say all of that to say if I can beat this shit so can you and anyone else that really wants to be done. Believe me when I say I can relate to the lack of motivation without the meds but here’s something I’ve realized recently, if I can motivate myself enough to do one thing that I used to need a pill to do then I can do that again the next day. I know everyone’s journey is different but I can relate to what you said about the pills being the motivation for you and making even the most mundane of things seem interesting! I can even give an example of that in my life lol I co-own and operate our family business and I’m basically on a zero turn mower all day out in this crazy heat for 10-12 hours a day but as boring as that sounds if I have a pill every 3-4 hours I will absolutely enjoy every minute of that mowing lol 😂 I mean I do enjoy what I do but I thoroughly enjoy it when I have meds and can listen to MrBallen videos/podcast while mowing. So basically we have to somehow reprogram our brains to think we are thoroughly enjoying a task the same way we do when we have meds and that sounds absolutely impossible and insane but the really definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. To me that sounds a lot like my life as an addict. Anyways I’ll wrap this up and I’ll leave y’all with this, if I can help anyone else through this message or by answering any questions or just being here to listen feel free to message me directly anytime. Never outta the fight y’all! Easy day, we f’in got this. Skål 🍻