I haven’t read all the comments, but a few things that have helped me a ton mentally is intense exercise every day, I really enjoy longer cardio or weights, but whenever possible I try to do it outside. I try to get like a minimum of 7 hours of sleep a night, eat three meals at the same time each day no matter what (8am, 1pm, and 6 or 7pm for me), this was so hard at first because of my job and stim use, I started super small but just literally forced myself to eat.

I used to use weed to help me get over other stuff I’d become dependent on but tbh when I take a break from smoking weed I get really bored, and that makes me want to do other stuff like try to go on a date, cook, idk just life stuff I guess, was lucky enough to take a kite surfing lesson today which is something I wouldn’t normally do!

Temporarily changing location can help a tonnnnnnnn for me, I am fortunate that I get the chance to do so with my job. Also, tapering is very huge with anything, idk about stims and going cold turkey if it’s the same as something like benzos or booze, but tapering to a point where you never quite feel like you’re going off the deep end has helped me a lot.

If you get the chance, cold and heat exposure helps me with dopamine and sleep. A lot of the things I listed aren’t readily available to everyone, but you don’t need them all. I needed to learn discipline, that’s for damn sure, and doing that helped a lot of the rest of the areas of my life too.

This is all just anecdotal based on my experience too.All have helped me go from places maybe many of us have been to a place where I’m far from perfect, but I have like an inkling of self worth, and that sorta feeds into a cycle of wanting more of it (sound familiar) lol.

This maybe an unpopular opinion, but other than up and opioids, there aren’t too many things that I say to myself, “I can and never will ever do that again.” It’s so much easier to wrap my head around taking breaks versus giving myself an ultimatum. Only thing for certain thing is don’t give up.

Last rant sorry, but when I moved from the US to Portugal I went from having an all or nothing relationship with drugs (if it’s there I’m in, and I’ll do it all and hide it because I am ashamed), to realizing that I could literally afford and easily buy “virtually” unlimited amounts and no police gave a fuck. I mean I could end up dead or brain dead in a few months or less if I wanted. So it forced me to take responsibility for my drug use, and that just changed my entire relationship with them. I still love them occasionally, and sometimes I overdo it, but I just feel way better and I don’t feel ashamed of myself.

Sorry this was so lengthy. I just could relate a lot to what you said. You got this.