My Name is Alec and I am an Addict

I apologize for posting this in two different areas. I just need to get this off my chest and feel like I am taking control of a bad situation. I'd appreciate any advice.

While I am a fitness addict and way over-consume caffeine, I'd never used drugs, or narcotics, at quite this level before. My current level is not ultra-high. Recently I had scaled hand over hand down a Percocet mountain; I'd taken nearly ten pills a day. At the crest I felt overwhelming euphoria, joy, a sense of purpose.

When I was in high school and early in college, I smoked marijuana. I drank until I blacked out; I was conservative-looking and hid my problems fairly majestically.

This abuse occurred after my sister passed away. I was highly self-medicating. She was there, and then she was gone, and nothing ever seemed quite right with the world again. I maintain an email account in her name and write her to this day.

But I have a new ongoing problem with Percocet and Clonazepam; I have experienced OCD-like symptoms for years in the past. I've suffered obsessional thoughts. I turned over events from my life that I didn't like and walked around the house in pure Howard Hughes mode, decontaminating rooms.

Then, when I began taking Clonazepam, or Klonapin, on a lark -- I tried my wife's -- I felt improved, heightened even, comfortable with all my sensitivity and pain, but now I feel so uncomfortable without it.

And I have a double-problem. This will sound like the world's biggest excuse. Nonetheless --

I am a writer. I have written a few novels and screenplays. I have always been creative; I am not significantly published, but I have won scholarships and fellowships. Sadly I found that with Percocet flowing through my veins I write entirely more, sometimes beautiful passages. It's almost as though the drug helps me get out of my own way. I sometimes joke that 'the other guy' wrote that. The gifted one. Bizarrely, the works even maintain narrative cohesion.

I have always been a natural entertainer with a good, loving heart. I'm sensitive, and I want desperately for the world to be a kinder place. I have two beautiful children, but, my friends, I am having some significant trouble.

At my worst, I sometimes behave erratically. I rage one moment. I want to cry at another.

I have improved now that I am at lower Percocet doses (for Percocet two a day; this took massive discipline; nonetheless, I still long for that euphoria ... the sense that all is right with the world.)

The world feels so broken at times. I miss working out and feeling like Rocky Balboa.

The bad (or good?) part is Klonapin helps me stay off the Percocet mountain. But now my Klonapin use is out of control -- two or more a day; at its worse, P is a monster. The come-down is awful.

Sometimes I feel so sad. Like I am forever chasing a complete quit. I want to quit and still write well.

Help.

If you're in pain out there, I understand. I have love in my heart for you.

God bless you. Hold on. I am trying so hard.