"Drug addiction & struggles with mental health"

In October 2023, I took codeine for the first time for something rather than physical pain, it made things a lot easier to handle at first with the stresses, traumas & other external events of my environment. But  that fastly developed into dependency then addiction because those aforementioned triggers were becoming more occurrent more frequently and I was going to codeine more and more. Things involving physical and mental health of me and my family, family conflict, unaccommodation of neurodevelopmental issues and a need to move out and get social care of my own all toppled on me in a matter of  9-10 months. Just wave upon wave of very bad things and I suspect more is to come.

I was initially prescribed codeine for pain. I am now down on what I take as per a reduction plan I’m on under my GP & No Wrong Door. I have been reducing by one tablet per day per month. I was taking more than I should because it was the only thing that silenced my inner demons, its the only thing that effectively allows me to sleep. I’ve had many, many sleepless nights in the past year. I’ve also mixed codeine with other medication. There has been 3 occasions where I’ve tried taking my own life with an OD of codeine but unfortunately to no avail. I still very much have that desire to no longer be here because I believe things will only get worse and the drugs will escalate too because that’s been the only constant of these past months. It seems like “good days” are non-existent now and the bad days are my norm. This whole year has been somewhat of a blur and in all honesty, I’m glad. I fully believe if I were to have continued tee-total, I would’ve offed myself much sooner.

Amber of No Wrong Door has done a lot for me and I really can’t thank her enough, she’s helped make some of those bad days more bearable and it's made sticking to a reduction plan easier, and I’d say 80% of the time I am sticking to the expected amount. I’ve gotten to the route of some of my triggers, I feel like there could be possibly more but I can’t decipher those myself for someone else to also breakdown. I’ve not been the best recoverer either because I’ve always questioned things or made excuses but I’ve been a lot more open to things than I was before i.e. trying out an autism serendipity group, joining an online autism community forum and trying to better understand my emotions.

I think I’ve definitely improved under No Wrong Door and the times like now where I feel I’m regressing or worse, that’s been wholeheartedly on me because I have always seeked the easy way out every time, just unfortunately, this time it involved substances. Amber has also done an outrageous amount even after our weekly sessions such as finding out about the autism serendipity group, the online forum and contacting the appropriate teams for my social & mental health problems. I genuinely do feel lucky in that there is someone who cares for me.