IT GETS BETTER.

Congrats on your decision to get clean.  I am very new to recovery myself....AND I also have a career in law.....legal assistant/paralegal for years but am unemployed now.  I cold turkey'd Oxys years ago only to relapse years later.  I went into a detox and rehab a few months ago for opiates and heroin and am working on staying clean and sober. YOU CAN DO IT.  It takes patience.....something I didn't "get" until recently.  I always wanted to work things MY WAY and I wanted instant gratification.  I liked "feeling good" too BUT feeling good clean and sober feels better than the old "feeling good." 

Sounds like you are kicking alone.  It's got to be impossible to focus and concentrate at work!  You might want to talk to your doctor so that you are under medical supervision as you go through this....take a day or two off but make sure you go to as many NA meetings as you can while you are off....I cannot stress this enough.  I don't have very much clean time but have found through experience that the more meetings I am going to the better I feel.  For a while there, I had to kick myself in the ass to get to a meeting.  It is CRUCIAL to my recovery.

I had the shakes and the chills too.  I would be soooooo cold at night with like 4 blankets on me and I would be sweating all night but my body was cold....it sucked.  I don't want to go back there again. Get to meetings and pray.  I know the kind of work you do requires is very stressful and requires focus and concentration.  The job will still be there but right now, getting clean is more important......but MOST OF ALL do not let your addiction fool you into thinking you can take the reins and get yourself clean without help.....NA! NA! NA!  I thought I could do it on my own terms.  I've always been independent and self-reliant.  I finally surrendered and humbled myself.  Addiction is so powerful - there is no way I can win without NA and the tools of the program. 

I'm praying for you.  YOU CAN DO THIS. 

Hugs

Welcome Joy,

Yes it gets better! Kicking is hell and you're just starting so will likely get worse before it gets better but it will get better. Hang in there. Narcotics Anonymous is fellowship of recovering addicts who have lived your pain and come out the other side. For me I had to put my recovery first, above everything including job. Make that meeting tonight. Make 90 NA meetings in 90 days. It's important to form new good habits, a habit of recovery from the disease of addiction. Surround yourself in the love and care of the therapeutic value of one addict helping another. NA has but one promise, that you never have to use again if you don't want to. That is a powerful thing, I never had a choice not to use before finding NA. One day at a time, one minute at a time is does get better.

Go to meetings, lots of meetings, 2 or 3 meetings a day if that's what it takes to stay Clean. Get phone numbers. If you feel like using use the phone instead and call someone. Pain shared is pain lessened.  

Before coming to the Fellowship of NA we did not know how to live life as other people do, we thought we had found the answer in drugs. Eventually they turned on us, we used to live and lived to use placing their use above anything and everyone. We became powerless over our addiction.

NA is more than just not using drugs, in NA we learn a set of principles so simple we can follow them in our daily lives. The most important thing about them is that they work. We learn how to live life on life's terms without the use of drugs. We didn't become addicted in a day so remember Easy Does It.

Keep Coming Back! NA works if you want it and work it.

Hi Joy,
No doubt about it, withdrawls suck.
But you never have to feel this way again.