Question: I have had 2 major depressive episodes in my life. I am currently very addicted to alcohol and to cocaine. I was not very depressed but I always have anxiety and some other issues that I think I self medicated with drugs and alcohol. I think that now the drugs and drinking are just making me feel worse which is why I want to stop. I want to stop but honestly what keeps me going is the fear that coke withdrawals are going to push me back into another major depression. What’s the best way to stop using cocaine for a person with my psychiatric history to minimize the chances of a depression relapse?

William Anderson Says...:

Go to a treatment facility that treats both addiction and mental illnesses. Talk with a counselor there about your problem. You can decide to get into an inpatient program or an outpatient program. They have psychiatric care as well as addiction treatment, and they will help with your addictions as well as your depression and treat you medically as you detox. 

Don't be afraid of the coke withdrawal. You know things have been getting worse the way you are, and they will continue to get worse unless you get clean and sober. Be afraid of getting worse if you don't get clean and sober. 

Get going on this now. The sooner you sit down with a counselor at one of these places, the sooner your life will get better.

Question: I just caught my brother in law smoking crack in our garage. My sister has already thrown him out of the house once before  for his drugs and because he was bringing it into the house and around their two young kids who are only 14 months and 4 years old.  He begged me not to tell his wife. He told me he was trying to quit and he was just having a hard time, but I am not sure if I should believe him. He is a really great guy that I like a lot and that was very good to my sister before the drugs got bad about a year ago. He swore to me if I didn't say anything he would start going to NA meetings and find a treatment program this week. I don't know if I am being foolish to believe him or if I finally have some leverage to help him? What I want to know, is , is this a stupid idea? If i force him into a treatment program with this threat of my telling his wife hanging over his head is it going to do him any good, or am I just putting my nephews at risk for no reason? 

William Anderson Says...:

How is he going to enter a treatment program without his wife finding out he was using? She is going to find out. If she finds out you knew he was using and said nothing, especially if his continued using gets someone hurt, she will have a hard time forgiving you. 

His best chance is to tell her now and get into treatment. If he tells her now and enters a detox, he has a chance of saving his marriage and connection to his kids. If he waits for her to find out another way or from someone else, it will be worse for him. Give him 10 minutes to tell his wife and leave for the detox. If he doesn't do it, let your sister know what you discovered.

His addiction will cause him to say just about anything to avoid giving it up, and both of you would be foolish to fall for these "I'll quit tomorrow" stories as anything but stall tactics. You may want to believe them, and he may sincerely believe them too, but all addicts say these things and then, the next day, they can't help going out and using again and trying to get away with it.

Help your brother-in-law get into treatment today. Sit down with him to make the phone calls and tell your sister. You don't have the luxury of waiting. If you wait, the next time he goes out to score, which will be tonight or tomorrow, it may be the last act in the desperate life of a crackhead in cracktown. Pray the kids aren't in the backseat. 

Question: My husband had a wild youth and I knew that he used to do a lot of drugs and drink and smoke cigarettes. Since I have met him he has done none of those things, other than have the occasional beer. About a month ago I found some hydromorphine pills in buried in his home office drawer in a place I don’t normally ever look. He told me his friend had come over to watch hockey and they had taken one and that his friend had left them and he hadn’t had one since. I was surprised but I accepted this as not a big deal. This morning I went into his jeans pocket while he was in the shower to get the keys for his truck and I found some more pills. When I asked him about it he told me it was no big deal and that he just takes one now and again after a hard day. Now I don’t know what to believe. He seems normal, not like high all the time or anything but the fact that he has been hiding this from me makes me scared. How worried should I be about this? If he was addicted to these pills would it be obvious or would he be able to hide it?

William Anderson Says...:

You don't know what to believe? He's been using serious narcotics "recreationally" and lying to you about it, right? You don't need to wonder about what to believe. The truth is clear. Don't let your wish that it is not true lead you into your own crisis with denial.

Your husband is abusing highly addictive drugs, is probably addicted, and your marriage is in trouble. Trust is the foundation of a healthy relationship, and that is gone.

Get into counseling, with him if he will go, and without him if he won't. Find out about Alanon meetings, the support and self-help meetings for people who have loved ones with drug or alcohol problems. Find out where some meetings are and go. If you can get a friend to go with you, that may be the best way to start.

You have some big problems and wishing you didn't will only make it worse. They are solvable, but you need to be honest with yourself about what is happening and get to work on facing them in a way where you have the best chance of a happy outcome.

Take the actions I am suggesting and write back when you've done that, if you need more guidance.

Best wishes.

Question: I am about 2 and a half years into a norco and vicodin habit (about 20+ per day). I am so ready to get out of this fog and get back to just living. It’s hard to believe that I used to always want to get high but now I’d give everything just to be able to feel normal without having to use. I was determined quit by Christmas and I tapered down for a couple of weeks and then just white knuckled it through like a week of detox – and then after going through all that I relapsed just as I stopped feeling so sick all the time. The problem was that I just felt so mentally down. It felt like I should feel great for having accomplished this awesome thing and making it 7 days and I just didn’t any joy or satisfaction at all. I now realize that this is all a part of the withdrawal process and that the recovery of my endorphin system will take some time. I am ready to quit again, but I want to know how long before I can expect to feel a little better mentally after I stop using the pills. I am 26 years old and I am in pretty good health…other than being a total drug addict…

William Anderson Says...:

Initial detox on these kinds of drugs is usually two weeks. That means it's normal to feel lousy for at least two weeks. Feeling really better takes time. Don't worry about how long. Getting out of this fog and getting back to living will be wonderful. Just look forward to that. In a few weeks, you'll be over the worst and start feeling better and before you know it, even great.

I strongly recommend that you hook up with an addictions counselor. You need the support and good information. It is a mistake to go it alone. If you need to know how to find one, write back.

Also, stop the negative talk like "I'm a total drug addict". That talk has power, almost like self-hypnosis. You are 26, in pretty good health, and can become any number of great things. You've made some mistakes and got addicted. Many great people have done the same and gone on to do great things. They started out by thinking, "I was not made a drug addict or made to be one. I refuse to stay that way. I am not a total drug addict."

I'm serious. You need to start thinking in a new way. A counselor can help with that.

Question: I am 20 and I have been using a lot of cocaine for the last year. I have not lived at home for the last 2 years but I was home for the holidays and it really opened my eyes to the life I am living how and how it’s not a good life. I was so ashamed to be snorting coke in my room before Christmas dinner but I just couldn’t stop myself. I was never a problem when I was living at home and I have a good relationship with my parents. I have borrowed a fair amount of money from my dad this fall. I told him it was for design school and equipment but I really just partied through it all. I am so ashamed and I know I need to get some help but I can’t imagine telling my parents and having them know how I have been lying and basically stealing from them all this time. I would love to get clean on my own but unfortunately I have no money for rehab and I can’t seem to stop using on my own. I want to get clean and then get a job and then pay them back and then maybe I will tell them or probably I never will. But I need to start by getting clean. How can I get help when I don’t have any money?

William Anderson Says...:

It will all come out, and probably soon. The best you can do is manage it to best preserve yourself and your relationship with your parents.

Go to a city large enough to have a drug treatment center that is geared to regular people instead of movie stars. In Sarasota, which only has about 50,000 people, we have a treatment center called "First Step" that is very reasonable and even has sources of funding, like churches, that they can appeal to for broke people.

Just go there, tell them you are in a crisis with coke, and ask to talk to a drug counselor. They will probably be able to help you break the news to your parents in a way that will not alienate them. Just get up and do it now. Don't call. Just go.

As an alternative, if your family belongs to a church or synagogue, you can probably go to the minister, priest or rabbi and ask for help. Clergy are usually quite experienced with situations just like yours, and they've helped families get through it many times before.

I have no idea about your parents, their financial situation, or their familiarity with addiction, so it is impossible for me to know what their reaction might be. Sometimes, if they have experience with addiction, you can just come clean with them without the assistance, and they won't totally freak out. They might be very understanding and be ready to help. If you're not sure, go to the treatment center or the clergy.

I have been the counselor in these situations many times, and I have always brought the crisis to a stable conclusion that very night, so that everyone is OK and things are already starting to get repaired. Don't waste any time. Get going on this now.

Question: I have been injecting heroin for the last 8 months or so after a year or so on pills before that. My friends tell me that I’ve been going long and hard enough now that I am at this point basically a lifer and that I’ll be doing Heroin or vacating on methadone until the end. Sometimes that doesn’t sound so bad and sometimes it makes me feel really sad, like I am almost mourning my own death while I am still here. Do injecting heroin users ever really get clean for the long term without resorting to using methadone?

William Anderson Says...:

Absolutely yes, you can get absolutely clean. Many people have done it. Your "friends" are not helping with this negative BS. They may have given up and want someone to agree with them so they can feel OK about it. Don't give in to this "hopeless junkie" nonsense. 

Get away from these people and find some real recovery people. Go to a detox and start talking to people that help addicts. Find an NA meeting. Go to a church that serves those most in need.

Your dark days today can be temporary and become part of your story about recovery and success. But you need to get going on that road now. You are at a crossroad. It sounds like your friends are heading the way to a "lifer's" end. Say a prayer for them and take a different road. Maybe they will follow you.

Question: I’ve been a recreational cocaine user for the last year or so. Doing it only on weekends and I honestly never have much trouble keeping it away from the work week. I understand that it is a very addictive drug but I think I have it under control and as long as I ensure that it never creeps into the working week I think I’ll be OK. I don’t think that I have a drug problem and I have never really had an addictive personality but I have noticed over the last month or so that things just aren’t as fun without coke. Maybe that sounds like an obvious statement, but what I mean is that I have always been able to party on the weekends and then still have a good time during the week with my touch football team and going out to movies with my GF etc. Lately though, these activities all seem kind of gray and boring and I feel like I am just going through the motions during the week just to get to the weekend. Is the way I am feeling likely because of my cocaine habit or is unrelated? I don’t really want to give up my weekend fun but if it’s starting to affect my everyday life then maybe I’ll have to consider making some changes.

William Anderson Says...:

You need to stop now, if you can, before you slide downhill so far that you lose everything important to you. Every cocaine addict I have ever worked with in hospitals, rehabs or jail talked just like you at one point in their addiction and decided they could keep it under control, with catastrophic consequences.

You are talking about using a drug every weekend that can easily land you in jail or the morgue on any given weekend as if it was mother's milk. You are saying that life without it is gray and you only go through the motions during the week to get to the weekend and cocaine. This is what cocaine addicts say. You are a cocaine addict.

But there is hope. You can get back to a healthy life. The slide towards losing your job, your friends, your love and your life is not inevitable. You do not have to self-destruct. However, you will have to give up the idea that you can use cocaine "recreationally". That is a lie. To save yourself, you will need to decide that life without cocaine is better than losing everything else. And you will need to give up the idea that you can control this all by yourself.

You can either go to an addiction counselor, addiction program or 12-Step group now, or you can wait until life forces you to encounter them in jail or the hospital after you crash and have lost something important. I hope you choose to do it now, while it sounds like most of your life is still intact.

My heart goes out to you and I wish you the very healthiest and happiest future possible. Unlike a lot of those I have worked with, it is not too late to save yourself.

Question: I am hopelessly addicted to Tramadol. I was prescribed then for back pain by a doctor who told me they weren’t addictive. I never found that they worked all that great for pain but I found that I really loved the speedy high they gave me and I began taking them for energy and good mood all the time. I was supposed to be taking 2 50mgs pills per day and I quickly rocketed up to like 20 or so per day. They’re easy to get on the internet and all was well until I ran out for a couple of days before my next package arrived and it was hell. I figured that even though my doctor told me they weren’t addictive that I’d have to go through a little something after taking so many but I was shocked at how horrific I felt. I was so irritable and I had these very unpleasant restless legs and I felt really anxious and down. As I write this it doesn’t so sound like it was so bad but honestly, it was the worst 2 days of my life and I have never been so relieved to get that package come in the mail. That was over a year ago and since that time I’ve been too scared to try quitting on my own again. I no longer have any medical reason to take these pills at all and they now totally dominate my life. I used to be a pretty even keeled person but now I am either in a good energized place when the pills are working or in an anxious and irritable and uncomfortable place in the dips between. I just want to feel normal again. They are also totally affecting my memory and my ability to think. I just want to have a clear head again and I am also starting to have trouble affording my habit. How do I get off these pills??? I don’t think I need rehab or anything like that because at this point I am totally not using these pills to get high anymore, just to keep those terrible feelings away. I have tried tapering down but I am useless at it and always bounce back up.

William Anderson Says...:

You can get back to normal, but you'll have to give up the idea that it should be easy to get off Tramadol. You'll need help.

You are addicted to a very addictive drug. If it's not done right, withdrawal can be very dangerous as well as miserable. There is a right way. It takes professional help and guidance to get off of it. Stop putting it off and go see a counselor that specializes in addiction. Make an appointment now. You can see someone in private practice or you can go to a private or community drug treatment facility and talk to the counselors there about what to do. Communities and often churches have counseling centers you can go to and talk to someone about it. Then you can figure out what the best course of action is, whether it is going to a rehab or some sort of outpatient approach. 

Stop wasting time trying to convince yourself that you shouldn't be having this problem. Your life will be much better very soon if you quit stalling and get help now.

Question: A friend of mine experienced a Native American sweat lodge ceremony when he went away to drug rehab. He said it was a life changing experience and that it helped him to let go of a lot of stuff from his past. I have a drinking problem and I am dealing with a lot of shit from growing up in a house with a sexually abusive and physically abusive dad and a mentally abusive mom. I do not want to go to rehab but I am interested in maybe participating in the sweat lodge ceremony. Is there a way I can do this? Do you think that doing the sweat lodge might help me to come to terms with my past so that I can get a better handle on the problems I am dealing with today?

William Anderson Says...:

You have two primary problems you refer to:

1. A drinking problem, and
2. Dealing with shit from the past.

You say you want to get a better handle on the problems you have, but you don't want to go to rehab. Does this mean you want to keep drinking?

I understand that the prospect of having some life-changing experience at a sweat lodge is alluring, but lots of people have life-changing experiences in rehab, during hikes, at group sessions, in religious ceremonies, white water rafting, fixing dinner..... The chances of having a life-changing experience that helps you deal with your problems is greatly enhanced when you're sober and working with therapists.

You need to solve your drinking problem first. The unresolved drinking problem will prevent you from being able to solve any of your other problems. As long as you have a drinking problem, you will not be able to effectively deal with the shit from the past, and dealing with your past, while drinking, will not end your drinking problem.

Get sober first, like your friend did, then try for a life-changing experience that will help you deal with the trauma from the past and other problems. Also, make sure you are seeking a life-changing experience that does not change it to being dead. Some people that offer "sweat lodge therapy" are not qualified to offer health care, and have killed people with kookie dangerous "help". Make sure you are working with people who are state licensed and trained so they don't hurt you.

You know that drinking is interfering with your ability to problem-solve and manage your life. Otherwise, you would not be talking about having a drinking problem. And while the trauma from the past is intertwined, it is not the problems in the past that make you drink, which in turn causes more problems. Lots of people have had these same kinds of experiences in the past and don't have a drinking problem. Trying to fix everything else while clinging to the alcohol won't work. Get sober now.

Question: I am supposed to go for addiction treatment next week at a facility that doesn’t allow smoking at all on the grounds. I think I am more afraid of the idea of living without smokes than living without drinking. I have at least given up drinking for short periods in the past but I have never been able to give up smoking. They say that there is evidence that quitting smoking at the same time as you quit drinking improves your chances of not relapsing. Is there any truth to this? I have never heard this anywhere else.

William Anderson Says...:

Do you want to stop drinking? You say you have given up drinking for short periods in the past, so it sounds like it's something you'd like to succeed with if you could. Why would you have tried to give it up if you didn't want to stop, even if it was only a part of you? You must have had some sincere motivation. People who don't want to quit drinking usually just keep drinking.

How about smoking? Do you want to quit? It sounds like you've tried to quit smoking too. So, it seems you'd like to quit smoking too, even if the idea scares you. Otherwise, why would you have tried to give it up in the past?

If you want to quit both, this place is for you. Many professionals are reporting that your solid abstinence is stronger if you quit both at the same time. More and more studies and opinions are pointing to this position, even though it was ridiculed years ago.

The theory with cross addictions is that one reinforces the other. If you have an alcohol and cocaine problem, you stop both. You don't try to quit one and keep the other. It doesn't work. Using leads to drinking and drinking leads to using. And while we all know many recovering alcoholics who smoke and smoke-filled AA meetings, the theory of quitting both to strengthen the abstinence with both makes sense to me.

However, if it is your intention to quit smoking for a while, while you go to this smoke free rehab, and start again when you're out, I would think this place is not for you. It seems to me that you'd be setting yourself up for relapse if you did that, like having a ready excuse to drink again. We don't need to hand our addictions any more power than they already have.

You need to think about what's important in your life. You are in the grips of lethal addictions that would have you think that you have the option to continue drinking and smoking without too much trouble. It's a lie. They will ruin your quality of life and kill you if you let them continue. You say "I'm supposed to go for addiction treatment next week", which sounds like you aren't sure about who is in charge. Even if you have cravings and feel the need for these things, you need to want to be free of them. You will only succeed in recovery and abstinence from these killers if you decide you want it. If you are undecided, it will be harder. You need to decide you want life and abstinence, even if the idea scares you.

My opinion is that if you want to quit both, you stand a better chance at successful recovery if you quit both now, in line with the cross additions theory. But if you want to keep smoking, look for a rehab where you can smoke, and get abstinent of the alcohol. I don't believe that quitting smoking down the road would cause relapse to alcohol. In my experience, the stress of trying to quit smoking causes people to relapse to smoking, not drinking. (Unless they were looking for an excuse to drink again. In that case, as excuses go, it will work as good as any.)