Why Community Was the Missing Piece That Helped Me Quit Kratom

If you’re struggling with an addiction, and you don’t have anyone to talk to about it, chances are strong you feel a mixture of guilt and shame each day from keeping the drug habit alive. And if you don’t know anyone who has familiarity with the specific drug you’re taking, then even if you did talk about it, you wouldn’t receive the understanding you need. This guilt, shame, and apprehension to share is like standing in quicksand. And for many people (myself included), it can be the very thing that keeps you trapped in addiction.

I recently spent an hour on the phone with a guy who has struggled with kratom and 7OH for 8 years. He’s gone through multiple medical detoxes and was instructed to attend both AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meetings for support. Ironically and unfortunately, these meetings actually reinforced his usage. He told me that at AA, the focus was always on staying clean from alcohol. Since he wasn’t drinking, he felt like at every meeting, he actually was already succeeding, and he received his sobriety coins like other successful members. Since he felt successful at AA, he described feeling like he had a sort of free pass to use kratom and 7OH. After all, he wasn’t breaking any AA rules by doing so. In the eyes of AA, he was a model member. But this only made his secret-keeping and guilt of relapse into kratom use more ingrained.

And even at NA, he told me that no one was there for kratom or 7OH abuse. At NA, he’d share his story, but would be looked at differently, as if he had a kind of pseudo addiction that didn’t stack up to the rest of the members’ addictions. At NA, he was listening to people talk about cocaine and heroin and methamphetamine. His story about kratom never fit in, and no one in the meetings could relate to him. And again, since he wasn’t using cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine, he felt like he was abiding by the rules of NA. Which gave him a free pass to relapse to kratom and 7OH.

When I spoke with him, I told him about my own struggles with kratom extracts. I also told him about communities I had joined when I was desperate to quit. It was the first time, in eight years, that he felt like he was talking to someone who understood him. And it gave him a sense of hope he simply had not felt prior. And I 100% understood that feeling. When I was addicted to kratom (and Tramadol years ago), absolutely no one knew what I was taking. Concurrently, no one knew my struggle of being privately trapped in an addiction. Inside my mind, I was utterly alone. I was depressed. I even became suicidal. It was my private hell: all my own, for no one else to ever see.

It was this hell that drove me to create Quit Kit, and it was also what drove me to seek out a support community. One day, I googled “kratom addiction,” and at the top of the search was the subreddit /quittingkratom. I didn’t have a Reddit profile at the time, so I created one, invented a nonsense username to preserve my anonymity, and joined the /quittingkratom community.

I tell you this truly: the first day I joined that community was the last day I used kratom. I had already formulated the Quit Kit and purchased all the ingredients. That was there for me for the physical withdrawals. But I knew I’d need back up. I’d need someone to tell me that they understood what I was going through.

I posted in /quittingkratom about my intention to quit, and within a couple hours, 6 people had replied to my post with words of encouragement(!). It was like warm water for a cold soul. It felt incredible. One person even reached out over direct message and offered to be a sober buddy, giving me her phone number.

Just like that, I felt completely different. I felt like I wasn’t alone. And I felt like I was doing the right thing. I felt empowered to quit. I credit Quit Kit with saving my life, but I credit /quittingkratom with giving me the final green light to put my kratom addiction to rest.

Fast forward a year and a half, and I’m on the phone with the guy who was told to go to AA and NA, and I’m able to tell him about my experience with /quittingkratom on Reddit. Furthermore, I tell him to check out the absolutely phenomenal group at kratomquitters.com, which hosts free daily virtual meetings for people struggling with kratom addiction. And the Kratom Sobriety Podcast. I knew, just by listening to his reaction, that he felt like he could finally find a community of people who understood his story. The hope he felt during that call directly reminded me of the hope I felt when I joined Reddit.

If you feel alone in your kratom or 7OH addiction, trapped in quicksand, walking through your own personal, private hell, I urge you to join Reddit, go to the meetings at kratomquitters.com, and listen to the Kratom Sobriety Podcast. On Reddit in particular, they have subreddits for quitting not just kratom, but 7OH, Feel Free, opioids, and a variety of others that may fit the exact substance you’re struggling with. You can be as anonymous as you want. And, best of all, you can give encouragement and support to others in these communities. It’s downright remarkable how empowering giving support, in addition to receiving it, can be.

I’ll say it again, the first day I joined Reddit was the last day I used kratom. That’s the power of a community. Please, please, please, please consider joining a community if you’re struggling. Get the support and encouragement you can’t give yourself. It really might be one of the best decisions you’ll ever make.

As always, much love, and I’m wishing you all the very best,

Matt von Boecklin

Founder / Quit Kit