A never ending nightmare is over

I've long wanted to write my story down but I always hesitated as I did not know where I should put it. I see this platform as an opportunity to warn people not to go down the same road I have gone down. Most of the people who read this will not understand or do not care, but I know that my time was worth it if I only prevent a single person doing the same that I have done.

I am talking about drug abuse, but, and much more important, I am also talking about the stuff that happens in your mind.

I am not sure where to start so I just start at the obvious, the beginning.
You may expect that this beginning is related to drugs, but it is not. Everything began when I was a small kid, but it took me a long time to finally figure this out.
When I was young I was quite different to most of the other kids in school. I was shy, a little bit fearful, and, according to my teachers, very intelligent and had a deep interest in the natural sciences. In addition, my understanding of the world lacked the concept of evil. I could not understand why some kids did stuff that hurt other kids, despite that these kids must have known that they hurt others.
I think it is easy to see that with this mindset I quickly became a target myself, and since I did not fight back this became a permanent situation and continued on from elementary school. I started to pretend that I would not know the answer to some questions the teacher asked so I would look dumber than I was.. but that did not help much.
Moreover, I come from a small village where I did not have any other friends. One interesting thing that happens in such a case is, that when the only feedback you get from others is negative and you have no other source of input, you start to believe it after some time. In hindsight, I now understand that some class members only projected their own problems onto me. I remember for example one girl who must have had an eating disorder. She called me fat but being under constant attack I started to believe that I was, among all others things I have been called, fat.
Being under constant "isolation" something changed in me and I became more and more depressed, even thinking of suicide. Fortunately, I did not quit this life, but instead continued to endure this situation for several years..

Then I finally got to a higher school and everything suddenly changed. The people there seemed to like me and a very cute girl started hitting on me (which, at first, confused me like hell). Things looked good now, at least on the surface. But all these years had left their marks deep down in my mind and as the depression continued I grew more and more lethargic. I finally broke up with my girlfriend and things took a turn for the worse.

It was at this time when I first came into contact with opioids. And by this I don't mean that I was wandering through empty streets at night, looking for some crazy junkie who would sell me heroine. No, my first contact with opioids had been prescription medications. These had an incredible effect on me, in that the euphoria induced by them eased away the ever-present mental pain I was feeling. For the first time since what seemed ages ago, I felt like myself again. No clouds in the mind, nothing that kept me down. I enjoyed all the things again that make life great.. I talked to people I have not talked to for a long time and I could do things instead of keep pushing them in front of me. After the effects had worn off, my depression came back, but there was not much of a hangover of any kind.

So there I was, suddenly seeing a possible way to get rid of this horrible mental state I was locked in for years, at seemingly no cost at all. I knew that these substances were dangerous, but didn't my experience show me that I was alright? At this point I started researching into opioids and finally acquired some.
I kept doing them in infrequent time intervals and I was quite fine for around a year. At the beginning I only used them at single days, then several days in a row after which I stopped again, only to do it again. I thought, why not, I am still feeling quite good afterwards. despite that the window where I did not use them grew smaller and smaller. It was at this time that I started to feel a little bit uneasy when I stopped. It felt a little bit like the beginning of a cold, but it passed quite fast. Not much, nothing to worry about compared to the good that this stuffs does to me, I thought. This moved on for some time. The cold got worse and worse. Moreover, my depression hit me every time I stopped using and it was hundred times worse than before, even if I did not know how that could even be possible..

Here I was, at the event horizon of the black hole my life should become, but I did not turn around. Taking the drugs became a necessity as I was afraid of withdrawal and I soon carried small packages of them to every place I was going. Moreover, taking them didn't feel as good as in the beginning anymore. I had to lay down more often, feeling not well. I started to sweat even when it was cold outside.
I tried to combat the emerging symptoms by taking benzodiazepines, and got hooked on them, too. That lasted four-five additional years. The benzodiazepines broke my memory. I could hardly feel any emotions anymore. I would only leave my bed for some hours, after which I got a strong headache and had to lay back down again. Some times I did a little bit too much and that always scared the shit out of me. The peacefulness became too much. I could feel its pressure on my mind. I had to lay down. I focused on my breath, scared of falling asleep, afraid of dying. I had to discontinue the sport I was doing. Even going up a small staircase left me sweating like I was dying.

I knew I could not go on like this. The only thing that saved me that time is, I think, that I am really stubborn if I decide that I really want to do something. I started tampering down the benzodiazepines. If I went down too fast, my thoughts would start racing and I felt like I was turning insane. It took me around 1-2 months and I was down to zero. Then I wanted to tamper down the opioids but even a little reduction was horrible.
At this moment I thankfully got really angry, and, being stubborn like I am I quit cold turkey. I could not leave my bed for 14 days. During this time even the smallest blanket felt like I was in a desert and I sweated like insane. I removed it, and I felt like I was going to freeze. Combine that with the inability to sleep longer than a few minutes without screaming in pure agony because all my dreams had some strange sadistic nature of pure evilness, then you know what I was up to. I will not talk about my mental state that time because I think you can imagine it.
After this I could not leave the house for one month, then I started walking around like a newborn child, only a few meters a day, being depressed like hell..
This is now three years from today and I am, to my own surprise, not only free from my addiction (I still hate that stuff) but I also did a lot of meditation, which was a tremendous help in finding the real causes for my problems.

The only thing that really still hurts me are the six to seven years of my life I lost to this shit, many without memory. Friendships broke apart and I missed some beautiful girls who appear in front of my eyes when I think about this time, but I guess that is the price I have to pay. At the moment I am close to finish university and then I want to work for around a year, so I can afford to travel a little. I came to an understanding that time is precious, and I now want to visit the world of which I missed so much.

So I am telling you this: Addiction does not always encompass withdrawing from something. It begins in a sneaky way. The first stage presents itself in that you know you shouldn't do something but you want to do it.. and you do it, again and again. And it is not limited to drug use. Maybe you play some computer games a little more than you want, if you listen deep inside you. Or maybe you gamble too much. Or maybe you keep on eating sweets because, well, you could stop if you want, but you don't want to. All these things trigger our internal reward system and may fool your conscious mind into addiction. I don't want to preach or tell you what to do and some people may think I don't have the right to say anything, because I may be regarded as weak, but, as I said in the beginning, I know that writing this text was worth the time if I can prevent a single person from doing the same I have done.

I thank you very much for reading this, I wish you all the best in the world.
I am happy now.