If you are using the 24-hour plan, and the 10-minutes-at-a-time plan for bad moments, you will get through somehow.
Sometimes the first few days are full of dreadful moments. You find you cannot work at anything. Your head is all over the place. You cannot sleep. You cannot relax. And yet you are horribly, appallingly exhausted all the time.
Naturally this means that you may not cope too well. You may find that very small set-backs such as missing a bus make you want to cry or rage. There may be difficulties at home or at work. None of these matter in the long run – as long as you do not use drugs or pick up a drink.
Whatever happens, whatever crises occur, whatever you do or don’t do, in the long run you are doing all right if you’re staying clean. Every day is a triumph for an addict who manages to stay away from drugs and for an alcoholic who stays sober.
So don’t put yourself down. Remember that even if the world seems to be falling apart around you, everything will come out right in the end – just as long as you manage to stay away from drugs or drink.
If you are staying clean and sober, you are in there with a good chance, no matter how terrible you feel. If you go back on the bottle or back to using drugs, then that chance has utterly vanished.

*88\116\2*

Withdrawal symptoms are extremely unpleasant. Indeed, this is often why people stay on drugs in the first place – to avoid withdrawal pain. Addicts are particularly bad at living through pain, because they have used their drugs to escape unpleasant reality.
Yet if you want to get well, you will have to learn to cope with the first few days of withdrawal. You have probably done it before. Thousands of recovering addicts have discovered the fundamental principles of coping with withdrawal. If they can do it, you can do it too.
1. A craving for the drug does not mean you have to take the drug. Live through the craving. It is possible to live through persistent, even continuous, craving for days or weeks. In the next chapter we will give you some mental tricks that will carry you through.
2. Live through the feelings of discomfort. Addicts who are using drugs are often very bad indeed at enduring pain, whether it is physical or emotional pain. They are used to blotting it out with drugs. So the trick of coming off drugs is to learn to live through the pain – literally to endure it. This is why it is important to keep busy going to NA or AA meetings in the first few weeks. It helps distract the mind from the pain. Comfort yourself with the thought of how this discomfort will last only a few days.
3. Talk about what you are going through. This is another reason for going to NA and AA meetings. The illness of chemical dependence can partially be talked out of the system in these meetings. Share your pain with others, and you will find that it has diminished in its intensity.
4. Withdrawal symptoms are a sign of recovery. This is the good news. The drug-using addict doesn’t suffer from withdrawal – only the recovering addict has these discomforts. They are the first signs of the body, mind and heart coming out of the illness. Keep remembering this. Remember too that there is a lot of happiness awaiting you.
5. You only have to do it once. You will never have to go through this withdrawal pain again, if you put your heart and soul into recovery. Unlike all the bad times on drugs, this bad time when you are getting clean and sober is a once-and-for-all experience.

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Mr. Daulat Ram was a well behaved boy coming from a poor family. After a very difficult period he got a job. When he got his first salary, he was very happy. In his mind he had made plans for the disbursement of the money to his various creditors.
Fate willed otherwise. In the bus, his pocket was picked. The sudden realisation of his loss with its horrible consequences completely unnerved him. He became tongue-tied. His old widowed mother saw the agoney writ large on her son’s face, but could not make him speak. She could only realise what had happened, when Daulat Ram pointed to his picked pocket. She consoled him and took him to a doctor. The doctor gave him a combination of SWEET CHESTNUT (for mental anguish) and STAR OF BETHELEHM (for shock).
3 doses to be repeated every ten minutes and the next 3 doses at 1 hour interval.
Mr. Daulat Ram could attend his office next day.
*186\308\8*