Quit now, and thank yourself later - the love after the quit

While I was in the midst of withdrawals in May, the first thing I would look for on this subreddit were reasons to keep on with the quit. 'Why would my life change when I stop taking it? I'll have the same life, but no emotional safety net.' I'd look for things on this subreddit that would take the crazy thoughts in my brain away! I'd ask 'Why is it better to go through all of the horse balls of quitting when I could just eat powder and mung out for a few hours?'

My deluded pea brain could not have conceived of life after kratom being this free and good, because the darkness that clouds your mind during the quit obscures all of the light that's being let in as you go through your quit.

Here were my thoughts when it got rough and I wanted to stop:

'I will just do it later'

'I have a date tomorrow, so i'd better take it so I don't start withdrawing on the date and get awkward, they will not like me i am a bad person'

'Oh man, I'm probably done for. The people on this subreddit took way less than me and they're doing bad, I imagine my quit will be worse'.

'I was taking 30gpd for 5 years, so maybe if I just taper down enough so the kratom isn't doing damage to me in the long run I can keep it in my life???'

'I don't want my roommate to know I'm quitting, so i'd better wait until he's out for the week'

While you're in it, you just can't see the other side, and you just don't know how much freedom you're going to experience without kratom. So I wanted to write about what it's like on the other side, and how every single part of me now wishes I to go back to the me that was going through WD's and help him through. Give him a pat on the back and say 'good job, you will thank yourself and well up with pride and relief for doing that'.

Here are some bullet points:

- Health, skin, taste, smell, senses, sense perception, vision, connection to nature are all sharper and more authentic, and I have a fullness and emotional breadth of experience in my life that was not there before the quit

- People, oh man people. The asshats are still out there, and the politicians are still politicians, but I can laugh again and everything with people feels so much more honest. Life feels honest and more organic than it ever has. You get the chance to experience yourself as you are, without an opiated haze preventing everyone and everything that comes into your life from being a feelingless blob. I have mended and grown my relationships, and I want to leave my house to see people.

- Feeling - while I was on kratom, I just missed out on feeling. Just skipped that boat. Wanted to skip over the feeling train. What I had forgotten is how amazing feelings are - more than anything, being a human means feeling things. The sadness, the joy (i didn't really know that emotion existed until the quit) the restlessness, the longing, the desire, the beauty. Everything in life touches me more now. Compared to when I was using, I now see limitless instead of limited, music instead of sounds, courage instead of defeat, love instead of loss.

- I am less afraid of everything in my life because quitting kratom showed me that the kind of courage that it takes to quit this is beautiful.

- I don't see clumps of hair in my shower drain anymore

- I can poop! Oh man. I can poop.

- Music is amazing again. That is the world to me, as a musician. my connection to it was nearly gone during kratom. Both playing and listening to it, was dull and slightly empty. Just 'bleh'. Now it is full of passion and movement.

There are a number of cases I've heard of where one event in a person's life can ultimately change the rest of it, for good, for the better. Kind of a 'defining event or change in a persons life', that brings out someone's true character, and serves as something to help them grow. I was reading about this in a book the other day: most people experience one thing in their lives that ultimately leads them to some great revelation about the world around them, themselves, or the nature of life in general. This event can help them find their passions, help them confront their demons, their percieved shortcomings. These major events, which can be accidents, job loss, career changes, breakups, are all giant tests that force us into a box, and it's up to us to come out on the other side as stronger, wiser, better, more loving and accepting people.

I'm almost certain that this event for me, or one of the major ones, was quitting kratom. It is, as far as I can tell, the only thing in my life that made me stop what I was doing and consider where I was, who I was, and how much potential for love there was in my life.

Quitting kratom makes you feel raw, like you're exposed to everything and all of the emotions you've never felt all at once. And that's ok. It's amazing, in retrospect. The amount i've grown because of the amount of things I allowed myself to feel while I was quitting is night and day. While quitting, at times it feels like your own brain is trying to beat you with a baseball bat, and you have to take control of it again, and turn the baseball bat into a pool noodle so that it can't hit you as hard and make you use again.

I promise with every single part of my being that this quit is worth it and you should see it through to the other side.

Here are some tips: just let yourself feel crazy. It is totally crazy in the healthiest way possible. I mentioned in another post I went over 48 hours without sleep: I tried sleeping on the floor of my apartment, on the couch, in my bed, sitting down in my office chair, but when I did start sleeping, it was amazing. Just get through the crazy.

People talk about the 'pink cloud' you'll start to see and feel: don't scare it away. It is a blessing, even if not permanent. I still see pink clouds sober, because you can make your life that way after quitting if you work on it. The pink cloud is a glimpse of a life you didn't allow yourself to live, and it is a feeling f intense freedom from the thing that cost you all of that money and took your life away.

You will be given glimpses of euphoria, of moments you want to dance to your music, of moments you want to text all of the people you'd forgotten about. You may smile like a child at times, but then you will feel like you were never loved, worthless, but then you will be proud of yourself, immesurably proud of yourself, and then you will doubt.

But when the pink cloud comes, if it does, let it in. Let the pink cloud in, and just watch it do it's thing.

Over time, you will find what kratom couldn't give you, ever: balance! The crazy will subside. Your thoughts calm, and you think 'man, i really did it, didn't I'.

We are all here doing this together, and it isn't easy, but it is worthit. Soldier on and kick it :)