Tag: kratom sobriety


  • What the f*ck is IFS (Internal Family Systems) and why should you care?

    I didn’t fix myself—I learned how to drive my bus again. Internal Family Systems gave me a language for what was already happening inside: a system of parts, each trying to protect me the only way it knew how. Addiction, anger, fear, and chaos weren’t personal failures; they were passengers fighting for control because they…

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  • 28 days into a psychiatric medication change.

    On paper, I’m “stable.” My mood is steady. No swings. No spirals. But underneath that stability is a brutal reality: crushed energy, flat dopamine, and relentless akathisia. For years, one side effect quietly dictated my life and drove me to self-medicate with alcohol and kratom just to function. I finally named it for what it…

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  • The Next Mental Health Mountain Climb

    Five days ago, I began a different kind of climb — not up a mountain, but through a medication change that could finally free me from akathisia. Years of medication-induced restlessness pushed my nervous system to the edge and drove me toward substances just to survive daily life. Now, with careful medical support, I’m starting…

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  • Living With a Dopamine-Deficient Brain: Why Addiction Made Too Much Sense to Me

    Most people don’t wake up thinking about dopamine. I do. For me, it isn’t a trendy neuroscience term — it’s the invisible force behind my focus, my addictions, and my long road to recovery. Living with a chronically low dopamine baseline feels like existing in grayscale while everyone else lives in color. Substances once felt…

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  • 300 days ago, I broke up with my drug dealer.

    Three hundred days ago, I walked away from my drug dealer—and it came in a shiny, “natural” package. Kratom didn’t look dangerous. It promised relief, energy, healing. What it delivered was dependence. My opioid receptors didn’t care that it came from a plant. The withdrawals were brutal, the marketing still predatory, and the lie of…

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