With all the bad feelings flying around toward the mods, the markets, and each other, it's easy to forget that we live in an amazing time and that used properly the markets can still be a positive force if we choose to use them that way.
Long story short, one year ago I decided to start looking for some meds to ease opiate withdrawals. I had a heavy habit and had been using all day every day for about 14 years, starting during puberty.
My addiction had kept me from ever really traveling, but an opportunity came up that I knew my wife and I couldn't pass up and I decided to turn to the darknet for something to get me through the vacation without being too sick.
I ended up getting some suboxone and gabapentin on evolution along with some other goodies from the clearnet. I'd always dreamed of being able to ease myself off these drugs but due to work and life circumstances, real treatment was never an option. NA/AA was not my scene at all.
On the trip, I didn't get sick. I wasn't high, but I couldn't believe that I wasn't sick at all. I stretched out what I had and made up my mind that this was the break I'd always been waiting for and resolved not to go back to the opiates once I'd run a short course of suboxone.
No one else had to know about it but me, meaning there was none of the pressure that had caused failure in the past and for the first time I really felt like I had just a smidge of control in the battle of addiction.
Today marks a year since the last time I bought opiates. It's literally the first time I can say that in my adult life. Hell, 51 weeks ago was the first time I could say I'd gone a week without buying them.
The freedom I've felt and the improvement in my life has been astonishing. I'm happy for the first time since I was a child and I'm truly thankful to be alive every single day, even the awful shitty ones.
I've since used the markets to finally avail myself of psychedelics now that I finally felt in a good place mentally. The result from that has been similarly positive. LSD is something that would otherwise never have been available to me and without the markets and this community I never would have been in the right place anyhow.
Just like all good things, the markets bring us plenty of stress and even heartache at times, but don't forget that they also bring real choice. Even as some of the individual actors behind the scenes show themselves to be rotten apples, the seed of freedom has been sown and will continue to propagate even through the dry seasons.
Keep it up dude!