- Drugs
I am called Kenneth. I am a male and 36 years of age. I live in the country of Denmark, and for 11 to 12 years, I was heavily addicted to smoking hash, skunk and cannabis in that order of preference. I also smoked almost any kind of cigarette, filtered or non-filtered, for even longer (13 to 14 years). I mention this because it is something that is very unhealthy to do and usually very challenging to quit.
I have been a compulsive gambler during large periods of my substance abuse and most of a five-year period after. As with my substance addictions, gambling affected everything in my personal life. It caused me to spend over 150,000 dollars in Danish currency. A lot of this money came from overly expensive loans where I paid much more than I received just to get the money immediately. These loans went on to become long-lasting debt that collected interest and just kept adding to my financial problems.
I began smoking cigarettes at the age of seventeen, and this was followed by hash. I had just left primary school and did not know where to go from there. I was emotionally troubled because of many events and inner and outer circumstances, and I felt unhappy and out of place in my location and my self. Hash offered the escape I “needed,” and since it calmed my worried mind, I was hooked within the first months of using it. Although it calmed my mind at first, it disturbed my mind even more when I got the urge for it again. As a tolerance for its effects built up, I needed more hash, better quality hash and more effective and intense ways of smoking it. My thoughts and actions revolved around this substance and getting it.
The combination of unresolved thoughts and emotions, substance abuse and other addictions causes great suffering, and until the addict willingly stops the addictive behavior, a real, lasting change cannot take place. This goes for everything in life. One must be willing to recognize and admit that a change for the better is needed.
Today I am an ex-addict of all of the above and more. My struggles along the way to recovery are too numerous to mention here. Recovery involved thinking about and attempting to stop daily, various forms of treatment and therapy and physical and mental training. I overcame and still overcome addiction through a belief in the power of love. I believe in helping ourselves by being the best we can and by being a loving example for anyone and everything we come in contact with.
For anyone who might need to hear and feel it: Never give in, reach in and find out!
We have what it takes. Reach in and reach out, or reach out and reach in. What comes first does not matter. Just do what you can, when you can. Practice letting go of everything, and let yourself move on to your recovery of self. Stopping self abuse is the first step, and ensuring that it remains stopped is the second. Both are equally important and can only be guaranteed by our self.
Peace and love to all.