I don't really know where to begin, but I'll give it a shot.. I've been using drugs to some extent for over seven years (I'm 22 now). I've had three overdoses and countless attempts to get clean. I was doing really good for a couple of years but last January, I hurt my back at work and they made me go to the doc and everything. Doctor gave me tramadol. I thought I'd be OK since it had been so long and I never really believed that I had a problem. I guess that I was wrong. I was hooked within a month and it turned that damn switch on again. Pretty soon I was doing everything that I could get my hands on. Mostly cocaine and amphetamines.

Everything got messed up from there. I got evicted from my apartment and had to move in with a friend from work. I'm having serious problems with my boyfriend of seven years. He doesn't believe a word I say ( no one does). I don't know how many times I've told him, "I quit, I'm getting clean" only for him to find out months later that I'm still using. I'm surprised he's stood by me this long. Only now am I realising that I do have it bad. All I can think about is using and I'm doing things I told myself I never would do.

A few months ago I starting shooting up and just last night ( one day after yet another "I'm getting clean"), I drove with two guys I barely know to the shadiest part of this town and bought some crack. Smoked that and now all I want to do is get more. I really do want to get sober but that thought terrifies me. I fought with addictions for so long including a long battle with eating disorders. I don't know what to do without it.

I guess my question is, what is a good first step for me to take? I can't go to rehab. No one in my family knows what I've been doing ( I don't think so anyway) and I can't take off work. I just don't know what to do and I'm very close to just not trying anymore. I have no one to talk to about this, they just tell me to "stop". Like it's that easy.

Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Start going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Go every single day, and several times a day if you can. Live there! There is also Cocaine anonymous and good old AA. If you have to work, so be it. Just make sure that all of your free time is used in sober scenarios. Do not hang out with any friends that use drugs. Weed and alcohol are gateways to turning on that switch. Stay away from them. It's way better to be bored for a while than to spend your life with no one trusting you. It will get better! You have to really, really want it.

If you try to clean up, and fail? Oh well. Get right back up on that horse. You have been lied to by drugs for a long time now. It's going to take some time to clear it out of your body. Their influence will go away eventually. Then you simply have to keep it that way. That's when you realize that life is way better.

I don't think I really want to get clean. I do, but I don't. It's mainly for my boyfriend. It's killing him to see me doing this to myself. He's given me an ultimatum: "Get clean or we're not together anymore. I'll still be there to support you, but not as your boyfriend". He's all I have and I wish that could be enough to set me right but apparently it's not. Nothing is really getting through to me.

I had a friend that lived the same life your living one day he got really sick, almost killed him, he found out he had hepititas from sharing a dirty needle probably, now he has hepatitis for the rest of his life and he says its very hard to live with. I also had a friend whose wife got messed up with shooting up she left him for another guy they found her in a apartment dead with a needle in her arm, I could tell you more stories but I won't, please don't throw your life away, I have 21 years inA.A. the program. There is help out there.

You have to want to get straight, you have someone who cares for you, and will stick it out with you, even if it means, just as a friend, take it! These drugs are going to eat you up and then you'll end up on the streets, with nothing but disease, possible jail time and who know what else, but in the end, nothing good. There are all sorts of help all over the country, call in help lines, al anon, or the drug version, churches who'llb help, just check out the webs sites in your area, and start a program. If you can volunteer into a cleanup program I suggest you doi it immediately, it is going to be hard, hard core, but your future is dim to dismal otherwise. Stop hanging around with people who get high, who'll help you get high, and start working on your furture, we are all here for you, just let us know what you need!