Latest / Recovering Out Loud / How I Relapsed on Steroids and ADHD Meds After 7 Years Sober | Anthony's Addiction Recovery Story

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How I Relapsed on Steroids and ADHD Meds After 7 Years Sober | Anthony's Addiction Recovery Story · Recovering Out Loud

0:00
Welcome back. Let's go recovering out loud
0:03
podcast. If you're new here, welcome.
0:07
If you are returning, thank you. We are got a lot of new
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listeners lately, recently and it was as a result of a reel
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that I posted on Instagram going decently viral and getting a few
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views or so. I'm going to try and stay humble
0:26
here. Also, it doesn't matter.
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It's fucking social media. I have to keep reminding myself
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that I views and likes and it's easy for me to say that they
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don't mean anything to me 'cause I do care.
0:41
Let's be honest, you know, I'm an addict, I'm a people pleaser.
0:44
I care about what other people think of me.
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I want you to like me. I want you to think that I'm
0:49
right. You know, I sometimes need you
0:52
to think that I'm right about addiction, about things.
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And I'm no expert in this field, but I have my experience and I
0:59
like to be right. I think that I'm right about a
1:00
lot of things. You know, so my biggest problem
1:03
today is I'm right. I always say that, but I posted
1:07
a reel about doing Friday cocaine versus Saturday, Sunday
1:11
cocaine, sorry. And it got quite a bit of
1:13
attention. A lot of people were commenting
1:15
on the birds being a horrific, traumatic experience for them.
1:18
And they were thanking me for bringing them back their PTSD.
1:22
And I got a lot of comments of people saying, hey, man, this
1:26
isn't coke. You got bad coke.
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I'm a fucking pro drug user over here and you got bad coke.
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That's not true. If you do enough stimulants,
1:35
meth or cocaine, if you do enough cocaine, you will see the
1:39
shadow people. Eventually you will hear things.
1:43
You will be paranoid and think that there are police officers
1:45
outside your house when you know that there are not.
1:49
You will think people are coming inside your hotel room to kill
1:51
you thus causing you to peek out the windows and blinds and or in
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my case when I was in hotel rooms peek out the peepholes on
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the hotel door rooms. I was a pro in peeking out that
2:07
people. I would remember vividly seeing
2:10
people outside trying to get in. And the, the most recent one I
2:14
can remember is being in a hotel room peeking out and hearing
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like party like like a bunch of people outside trying to get in
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my room. Because earlier that night I had
2:24
my drug dealer, you know, my only friend at the time, my drug
2:28
dealer. I thought he was my friend.
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He was just using me for, well, he was, I don't even have to
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finish that sentence. He, he wasn't my friend.
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You, you know what I'm talking about.
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And he would bring random people over to my hotel rooms and just
2:41
party. And I loved it because I had
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people to party with and people to use drugs with.
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And as an addict alcoholic, I just wanted to feel like I
2:50
wasn't a piece of shit, like there was other people in the
2:52
world abusing drugs. I wasn't the only one.
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I knew I needed to come back to recovery and I wanted to feel
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less alone and use with people that I thought were quote UN
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quote worse than I was in terms of their drug use, in terms of
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their. This episode is going to be a
3:07
little bit about my story introducing you to me.
3:10
I think that's important. You know, I don't have a crazy
3:13
story like the ones you hear on the Internet or on the rest of
3:16
the podcast of some of these people, but I do have a story
3:19
and everybody has a story. So if you are in recovery and
3:21
you think I'm not like any of these people, I once thought
3:24
like that I'm not as bad as him, I'm worse than him.
3:27
Stop comparing yourself. Focus on the similarities, not
3:30
the differences. That'll keep you around longer,
3:32
that'll keep you sober longer. Trust me, we are all the same.
3:35
Our external circumstances might not be the same, but I felt the
3:39
same way you did. That level of fear, shame,
3:42
embarrassment, disgust that I just described with you picking
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out the hotel rooms. I'm sure you felt that some way
3:48
or another in your addiction. The hiding, manipulating, you
3:51
know, getting kicked out, people not trusting you.
3:55
The waking up every morning and promising yourself you're going
3:59
to quit. You're not going to do this
4:00
again to yourself, to your family.
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And then doing it anyways and then wondering how the fuck you
4:04
got that here, how you did it again when you knew deep in your
4:09
heart that you weren't going to use drugs and drink again.
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And yet here we are. So a little bit about me at
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right now I am a addictions counsellor at a rehab.
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I work on the admission side in Toronto.
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I love it, you know, it's, I truly believe it's my calling,
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my passion. I, I love working with people.
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I love being the first phone call that a lot of people make
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to come into to rehab. And yeah, it's a lot of fun.
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It's, it's a great experience that you won't want to miss.
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And you can have that experience if you get into recovery and you
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don't have to work at a rehab to get that experience.
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You can, whatever group you go to, whatever group you belong
4:45
to, 12 step SMART Recovery and you can be of service to the new
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person gets me out of my head, gets me into their shit and I'm
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thinking less about me. And that's what recovery is
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about is how can I think less of me?
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Less about me, not less of me. Don't make that mistake.
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That's a that's a mistake. How can I think less about me
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and more about others, right? I love myself today.
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I don't think less of myself. I we're all equal, like I said,
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so welcome to all the new people.
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I'm so glad that you're here again, I don't claim to be a
5:15
recovery expert. What I do claim, though, is to
5:18
be an expert in my own disease, my own addiction.
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I had a counselor to rehab once. Tell me you need to become an
5:25
expert APHDA scholar in your own disease.
5:29
Learn about yourself. Learn about your disease.
5:31
Learn about your tendencies. Why do I do things?
5:34
Why do I use drugs? Why do I use alcohol?
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Why do I keep coping with these crutches in my life?
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Why do I gamble? Whatever your thing is, Why do I
5:42
turn to porn? Whatever your thing is know
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yourself and then once you know yourself, you can love that true
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self, accept that true self and move on and help others.
5:52
My journey let's go back to 20/12/2012.
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I was about 20 years old I was using marijuana and drinking
5:59
every single why did I say that marijuana I was smoking weed and
6:02
what a counselor a loser. I was smoking dope, yo, I was
6:08
smoking weed and using drinking pretty much every day at this
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point. If anybody remembers poppers,
6:15
these things in in Canada, in the area that I'm from in
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Toronto, we called them poppers. It's where you put a little bit
6:21
of tobacco mixed with, you know, out of a cigarette, which is
6:24
disgusting in a bong pipe with weed dabbed on top and then you
6:28
clear the whole thing in one shot.
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So bad for you. So bad.
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I still, there's still some guys that I know.
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I don't actually, I don't hang out with them, but they're still
6:37
doing it to this day. We used to do like 5 to 15.
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Some people would do 20 in one session.
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It was so bad for your lungs. Oh my God, we cough.
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Don't miss that poppers. We're smoking those everyday.
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I remember I went to university because I thought that was the
6:50
right thing to do. I got into a program I hated and
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I never went to class by 2012, yeah, I would say by the like up
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until this .9 when I was 19/20/21, I was doing the daily
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weed, the daily, not daily drinking.
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Sorry. It was more weed and it was
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everyday. I found cocaine when I was about
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20 years old and I was at a party.
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I remember this guy had it out and everyone was doing it and I
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was intrigued. I don't remember exactly what it
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felt like that first time, but I do remember really liking it.
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I remember it. Here's what cocaine did for me,
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and meth and all stimulants. It allowed me to feel connected
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to the room that I was in. It allowed me to feel a part of
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it a lot. Like I felt like my jokes were
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funnier. I felt like girls liked me more.
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I felt like I was the center of attention, the center of the
7:40
party. I felt like I was in control of
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my actions, my behaviors, myself.
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I could do whatever I wanted. It turned down the volume in my
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head on the anxieties of oh, you're a piece of shit and you
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don't have enough and you know, you, you're not making enough
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money and you're failing at school.
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All these negative thought loops in my head, cocaine and and meth
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just quieted it down and now my camera is going to fucking die.
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I don't understand. All right, we're back.
8:06
If you're wondering why I'm wearing a different sweater,
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it's because my camera died. The batteries on these things
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suck anyways. You don't care about that.
8:15
You want to hear how I fucked up my life and then came back from
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it? So as I was saying, I was using
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cocaine every day. I was living with my parents at
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the time and living with my parents at the time, and they
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kicked me out. They gave me an ultimatum and
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said you can go to rehab or you can live in your car.
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You're not living in here. So I lived in my car for two
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weeks like a good addict alcoholic.
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Don't recommend that, not ideal. It was winter 2015.
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After two weeks finally agreed to go to rehab, against my
8:48
better judgement I guess at the time ended up being the best
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decision in my life, but it was scary, definitely a scary one.
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We went to Minnesota, which was cold in the winter and shitty
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and I didn't know anyone. I was the only Canadian there,
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23 years old in a rehab that was for kids and and teenagers and I
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was the oldest guy there. So it was at this rehab where I
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found out about recovery. I found out about recovery
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programs. I found out about I learned
9:16
about emotions and higher powers and spirituality.
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I learned about sobriety recovery, really managed to get
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877 and a half years clean and sober by listening, following
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direction of the people at this facility and the groups that I
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joined. And essentially this is what we
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tell everybody how to get sober. Like you asked me how to get
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sober. It's you find somebody that has
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more sobriety time than you, you ask them what they did and then
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you do it, especially when you don't want to do it.
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It's very simple. Recovery is so simple, following
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direction, doing things you don't want to do, showing up
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instead of drinking, calling somebody every time you want to
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pick up a drink or a drug, you call somebody in recovery
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instead. It's not easy.
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It really is that simple. So I followed that direction.
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I bought my first home. I had a lot of good things
10:07
happen to me in recovery that I couldn't have planned, I
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couldn't have materialized. I couldn't have imagined.
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Before I got sober. I bought my first home in
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recovery. I met my wife, the love of my
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life, my best friend. Today in recovery.
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I got promoted at work many times.
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I had the job of a lifetime and I was 23 years old managing a
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team of guys in a corporate setting.
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A lot of imposter syndrome happening at that time in my
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life, but amazing things can happen if you get sober and
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practice recovery program truly amazing things.
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You know, you always hear people say I would have sold myself
10:42
short if I lined up the things that would have happened to me.
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And material things aren't are great, but there's a lot more
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intrinsic things, internal things that get repaired.
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Relationships are one of them. Feeling good about yourself,
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loving yourself, being able to be self aware and aware of your
11:01
emotions and your natures, your tendencies, your your actions in
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the world and how they affect others.
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Having a recovery practice is truly a beautiful gift.
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I hope you get to experience it. So question that everybody
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always asks, how did you relapse after seven years?
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Well, I'll try and simplify it for you.
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I had secrets in my head, so I started taking I started taking
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steroids. I heard from a buddy that the
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certain type of steroid was beneficial for him and something
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in my brain went off. Obviously there was an unchecked
11:33
unmet need of body dysmorphia involved there with that and I
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had a backdoor. My addiction had a backdoor.
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So it started with steroids. I started, I got a prescription
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just to so I could justify it with the doctor started doing
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that. And then I'm buying all sorts of
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other steroids online. At this point.
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I'm, I continue to see these ads for Adderall and Vyvanse and
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mainly Adderall. But an idea pops in my mind.
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And again, this is what I urge everybody.
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When these ideas come up in your mind, make sure you tell
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somebody about it, make sure you voice it.
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Idea comes up in my mind, Hey, maybe you had ADHD all this time
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and you could be doing better at work.
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There was no problems at work, by the way, everything was
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great. My life was amazing.
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Maybe you could be doing better, right?
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There's always more the disease of not enough for addiction.
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What, what's more next? Next, what, what can I do next?
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How can I fix me feel better if one is great, 1000 must be
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amazing. So I went to a doctor.
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I managed to get a ADHD script, started taking Vyvanse, loved
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it. Obviously it was like, I would
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say this people. It was like cocaine in a pill
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for me. You know, if you struggle with
12:39
substance abuse and you don't have ADHD or if I just just stay
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away from it. Honestly, I don't have ADHD.
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I convinced myself that I did just so I can get high.
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Essentially, just avoid the pressure, the pain, avoid it
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all. If you do have ADHD and you take
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it, I know some people in recovery that do take ADHD
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medication and they benefit from it, they feel great, they don't
13:00
relapse, they don't abuse it. I wasn't one of those people.
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So if you're on the fence about that, just talk to people about
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it. Get honest.
13:07
If you start keeping secrets, that's what's going to take you
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down. Nothing can make me relapse
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externally. It's secrets I keep in here,
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great ideas, plans that I'm not telling anybody.
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That's how I relapse every single time.
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So I started taking the steroids in 2022.
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By March of 23, the end of 23, I, I was engaged in March of 23.
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By the end of 2023, I was on the ADADHD meds, started taking them
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apart for partying and staying up for multiple days at a time.
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I'm keeping secrets. I'm buying Adderall online now.
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Now I've managed to wiggle my way onto the dark web, which is
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a whole other podcast, a whole other story.
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That website is crazy. That website, that place is
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crazy. It's a whole.
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ANYWAYS, I'm shipping drugs from Montreal, mainly all over
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Canada, but Montreal specifically into Toronto.
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And now I'm getting too high. I'm getting a lot of anxiety
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constantly. I can't sleep at night because
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I'm taking, I don't know, 15 to 16 of those 30 milligram
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Adderall pills a day, probably more 2030 of them some days.
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And I'm completely dependent on it.
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I'm completely reliant on them so I need something to come down
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and I start reading on these forms at this point too.
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I'm also surfing lots of forms and Reddit forms and you know,
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sketchy chat groups about how to do drugs safely and effectively
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is a mess. Awful place to be.
14:29
I'm doing ketamine at this point, buying it online.
14:32
I'm doing fake Xanax that I'm buying online.
14:35
I'm buying Xanax from India and I start getting benzo blackouts.
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And if anyone's familiar with benzo blackouts, one of the
14:42
worst, most dangerous state of minds to be in.
14:46
I'm driving in blackouts. It's one of those drugs that
14:48
makes you feel like you're not high while you're high, which is
14:51
extremely dangerous. There's this false perception
14:53
of, of sobriety really that's one of the side effects of
14:56
taking Xanax and benzodiazepines.
15:00
So by May of 2024, I end up in my second rehab in Utah and
15:05
don't go again, don't really go willingly get an ultimatum from
15:09
my wife. End up going.
15:10
I come out of there. I just 30 days in there because
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I'm I'm supposed to get married that year, end up showing up to
15:16
the wedding, getting married, don't drink on my wedding day,
15:19
which is a miracle and a gift on in of itself.
15:21
But I'm not taking my recovery, my recovery seriously at this
15:24
point. I'm living in a sober house, but
15:27
I'm not going to the meetings with the guys.
15:29
I'm not hanging out with the guys.
15:30
I'm focused on my marriage and my relationship, which to a lot
15:36
of people might sound like the right thing to do at that point,
15:38
right? But to us addicts, that is
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detrimental, deadly. If you put, if I put anything
15:44
before my recovery, I'm going to lose that thing.
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Full stop, period, end of sentence.
15:50
Challenge me on that. I guarantee you you will lose if
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you are true addict, alcoholic, if you put anything and you put
15:56
anything before your recovery, you will lose that thing, kids,
15:59
wife, anything. Recovery has to come first.
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If you don't put your recovery first, you have nothing.
16:05
You are nothing. You can't be of service, You
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can't be yourself. Anyways, I'm done with that
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rant. So by September of 2024, I'm
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kicked out of my house and I spend four months on a meth,
16:17
Xanax, ketamine relapse, surfing, hotels, surfing
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Airbnb's, just absolutely awful, awful.
16:26
Nobody's hanging out with me now.
16:27
I'm going to bars by myself. I'm talking to random people,
16:30
I'm taking a massive amount of stimulants, I'm drinking every
16:34
day, and I'm at this point I'm have psychosis again.
16:38
I'm going into psychosis again and I'm taking videos of myself
16:42
with a weapon in the shower, scared people are going to come
16:45
into the room. Airbnb attack me.
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I remember I was in one Airbnb and I stayed up for probably 24
16:51
hours straight hiding in the bathroom just convinced that
16:54
people were coming inside to kill me or steal my drugs or
16:58
take my money or all of the above.
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Awful, awful place to be. This style leads me to the
17:04
beautiful rock bottom. So I'm in my last hotel in
17:07
downtown Toronto and I have a load of drugs on me, but I start
17:11
to run out of money. I'm trying to funnel funds
17:14
around, move funds around, and at this point I can't afford
17:18
even the the deposit on the hotel which is like $150.00.
17:22
I can't even afford that at this point because obviously I don't
17:26
need to tell you why I'm spending money on hotels and
17:29
overextending myself on credit cards and can't even afford the
17:32
deposit in hotels. So I'm at this point, it's like
17:35
January, so around. It's actually probably around
17:38
this time last year, actually. Yeah, the first second week of
17:41
January. I'm, you know, I just celebrated
17:44
New Year's by myself in 2024. I'm miserable.
17:49
My wife won't Take Me Home. She's not talking to me, but
17:52
she's supporting me and ready when I'm ready to get help.
17:56
She's there when I'm ready to get help.
17:57
So just thinking about it brings back so many feelings and
18:01
memories. At last phone call, I remember I
18:04
made to my wife and I told her I was actually done.
18:07
I was finally done and ready to go to rehab again.
18:09
Dragging my clothes on the street at downtown Toronto and
18:12
I'm I come home, I give her all my drugs, we throw them all out
18:17
and I spend that next four days that weekend detoxing and
18:21
getting ready to go to rehab. I go to rehab on Monday and I
18:25
remember I'll never forget this. I walk in there and there's a
18:27
guy there with 20 years sober and he says, son Dave, never
18:31
forget him, son, welcome back to recovery.
18:33
And I started crying, broke down.
18:36
What a great experience coming back in.
18:39
Not the relapse and beforehand, that was awful.
18:42
But coming back into recovery has been a blessing, a gift.
18:46
I mean, I, I need to be here because there's really no middle
18:49
ground for me. I'm either in the streets using
18:52
by myself, drinking by myself, or I am with you guys recovering
18:57
and sharing my message of experience, strength and hope
19:00
and hopefully helping one person.
19:02
It was in this last rehab in January of last year that I got
19:07
the idea to do this podcast and to do the social media and it's
19:12
been amazing, honestly. I've gotten so many messages
19:14
from you guys. I appreciate it.
19:16
So many people around the world in recovery sharing their
19:20
stories with me. It's beautiful.
19:21
It's it truly is beautiful. And I started this initiative.
19:25
I got the idea from a counselor in my rehab.
19:28
He had a podcast and I got the idea from him, started it with a
19:32
buddy of mine. Buddy of mine has since dropped
19:35
off and gone on to do other things.
19:37
And so I've carried, carried the message, carried the torch of
19:40
doing this thing. I enjoy it.
19:41
Like I said, I love hearing from you guys and the feedback and
19:45
hearing the stories. You know, I've heard some of the
19:47
most fucked up triumphant struggles of people making it
19:51
back. A guy messaged me last week and
19:54
said, Hey, I'm going to jail next week because of my Duis.
19:57
I have so many Duis and drinking driving, but I I'm celebrating
20:01
four months sober. Like what insane.
20:04
How does one it's just it blows my mind and I know how, because
20:07
it's better to stay sober than it is to drink through that.
20:10
A lot of people in that situation would say, fuck it,
20:12
I'm going to jail anyways. What's the point?
20:14
When you get to the point of drinking and using like we do,
20:18
there is no, there is no enjoyment in it.
20:20
It's not fun anymore, right? So I fully understand when
20:23
people go through hard things in life and stay sober.
20:26
It's not there's nothing worth drinking over.
20:29
If I have a problem and I pick up a drink to solve that
20:32
problem, now I have two problems.
20:34
Then I go on a Bender, get back into drugs and I have many more
20:37
problems and I don't know what's going to happen.
20:39
I'll be honest, I have a good idea, but I don't know exactly
20:41
what's going to happen if I pick up a drink or a drug today.
20:44
So that's a little snip tick Dick big bit.
20:48
I don't even know what the fuck I'm saying.
20:49
I can't talk. I'm tired today.
20:52
I didn't really want to continue to do this after the camera
20:55
died, but here we are. That's a little bit for me and
20:58
my story. A lot more to come.
21:01
I'm doing a lot more of the skits with my friend Chloe.
21:04
She's amazing. A lot more podcasts to come.
21:07
Going to do some more with some more of my friends.
21:09
I really enjoy those ones. But yeah, if you're new to
21:13
recovery, stick around. And if you've been around a
21:15
while, thank you for carrying the message and being here.
21:20
I hope that I can help you because the most sober person is
21:25
the one that got up earliest this morning.
21:27
I'm sure you've heard that before.
21:28
Some of you've heard that before.
21:30
It doesn't matter how much time you have, it's the quality.
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Quality of sobriety is what matters today, not quantity.
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I've wavered in my life between having strong recovery and
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falling off the spiritual beam and having subpar recovery.
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The beautiful thing about the this recovery journey is the
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minute you fall out of those good habits, those good
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routines, talking to God, spirituality, whatever your
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routine looks like, it's so easy to jump right back on the horse.
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It in my experience, it takes a bit longer to get off the
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spiritual beam completely than it does to jump back on and get
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back into it and recovery start fresh.
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Every new, every day is a new day, right?
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Just for today, I'm going to practice my recovery recovery
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program just for today. I'm not going to drink just for
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today. I'm not going to do drugs just
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for today. And if that's too stressful, do
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it for the next 15 minutes. I'm not going to drink for the
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next 15 minutes. I'm not going to do drugs for
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the next 15 minutes. Hopefully that was helpful.
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Like I said, my brain isn't really working right now.
22:33
I kind of shut it off after I had these camera failures.
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But hopefully, you know, a little bit, know a little bit
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more about me now and a little bit about my story.
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I'm so grateful that you've tuned in today.
22:45
I'm grateful that you followed and that you follow me on social
22:48
media and Instagram at Recovering Out Loud Pod.
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Reach out to me there, send me a message.
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I answer every single one. And I can honestly say that I
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even with the amount of followers now that I have and
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the amount of messages I get now, I I still do go through it
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and answer them because I enjoy doing it.
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And I remember what it was like to be new and newly sober and to
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to relapse after long term recovery.
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And I also remember what it was like to be on top of the
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recovery mountain. So recovery is simple, not easy.
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Thanks for listening love you all.
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If nobody has told you this today, I love you.