Hey all

my first posting on this site, which i am new to as well. I've tried everything, so it seems sometimes, to quit and yet I still fall. 3 days, 7 days, 1 day, 10 days, 1day, and it goes on. It's an improvement over the daily addiction and yet it still is death. death of my spirit. death of my heart. death of the wonder that lives within each of us.

So many tools. Tools are not the answer in and of themselves. Tools such as meetings, working all the steps, sponsors, getting rid of ATM card, having someone else holding my credit card, putting my bank account jointly so i can't get money alone, finding valuable activities that enrich my soul. Non of this has brought sobriety to me.

I used to have 8 years sober, but that was B.C. (before crack). Crack cured my alcohol problem and my pot problem (though I could easily pick them up again). But Cracks character defects continue to infiltrate my life. that mother ****.

and for me, the defects of crack? well to start, i don't even enjoy it. It is worse than that though. It makes me paranoid nuts animal useless. I become a vegetable. And yet somehow it moves in and convinces me that it is the answer.

It's been the answer to dealing with lonlrness, boredom, and anger. I've noticed something else lately....
After a number of days clean eventually the first desire comes again. In this as well as any desire I experience an anxiety, an uneasiness in my stomach and gut and my very breath. This builds until It owns me and i feel like i'm going to blow up. Then I can sense that the only thing that will get rid of this feeling is the taste of the ******* Crack. It gets rid of that feeling. But then a whole new problem developes.

It is occuring to me now, that this anxious state is a huge problem. I need to find something that will relieve the feeling. Food kind've works, but it comes back. meditation is very hard at that point. Prayer is also hard. Once i'm at that point it seems that i can't get out of the feeling that i'm going to explode. Going to a meeting helps sometimes, yet sometimes i've gone to the meeting, had a wonderful calming spiritual meeting, and left to immediately go get high.

There is so much involved in quitting this ****. it seems like the devil himself, or whatever. It keeps coming back and back. I be honored to receive any suggestions on how to deal with this EXPLODING feeling in the gut, or any other ideas that come to your spirit.

thank you so much.....

Ummm ... not so much a suggestion as a question. Why do you feel that the steps don't work for you? Is it that they don't work for you or that there are one or more that you can't/won't accept and do?

For example, either I come to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity, or I don't. If I don't, then the problem isn't with the steps; it's with me.

Just curious as to which ones are giving you trouble. Perhaps we can help.

I'm wondering if maybe the focus on trying to "Relieve" the feeling in your stomach/spirit is the problem.

For me, the steps help me to not stop the feeling, but to focus on working "Through" the feelings in my stomach, feel it and get beyond it to finally put it in my past in a healthy way, or at least to make it easier to deal with each time it returns.

Maybe a shift in focus toward how the steps can help might be helpful.