Package Contents
Application_Uninstall.exe
Today, October 13, 2026, I hit two years clean from kratom. I stopped on October 12, 2024, after three years of use. I call it gas station heroin, and no amount of it is safe or beneficial. I got out the same way I got out of everything else, by finally seeing it clearly.
Over the weekend I walked into the gas station near my apartment in the Lettered Streets to buy a Diet Dr Pepper. There was a display of Feel Free shots on the counter, and my brain, two years clean of that addictive poisonous shit, said, “one won’t hurt you.” I know better. It will definitely hurt me.
Bellingham’s ban on kratom and related products takes effect today and I couldn’t be happier. Ironic as hell for me on the timing. Fuck every single store and person selling this product or making profit off the addictions and ruin it has caused people’s lives.
I’m also carrying guilt today. Every substance I ever got hooked on was handed to me by someone who was using. Then I did the same thing to my friends and partners. I didn’t want to use alone, so I pushed it on them. Most of them are still using. I’m clean.
That is the application uninstaller. The rest is the source code.
Source_Code.txt
The open-source code below is free, for you to analyze, modify, and build your own application with.
> one won't hurt you, said my brain: trigger_at_register.sh
In Kratom Uninstall I wrote that I broke up with my drug dealer 300 days earlier. It wasn’t a guy in an alley. It was a plant in a shiny package.
Today it’s been two years. Same plant. Same shiny package. Still sitting on gas station counters.
I went in for a Diet Dr Pepper. That’s all. Then I saw the display.
My body remembered. Summer drives to go camping, a Feel Free down the hatch, and then 12 to 16 hours with zero anxiety, zero worry, zero pain. Warm. Fuzzy. Tingly. Pure euphoria. Honestly a lot like the early feel-good stage of hypomania.
Then my brain caught up. Fuck that shit. It doesn’t last. The crashes are brutal. Every time I tried quitting and had “one hit,” I was back in the deep end and buying more that same afternoon.
We aren’t going back there, goddamnit.
I stood there angry at the store owner for selling it, wishing the ban had been in place twenty years ago.
> the only one that still calls: hooks_still_attached.dll
I know better. It will hurt me. No amount of kratom is safe or beneficial. It’s extremely addictive, and it leaves hooks in your brain and body.
Here’s what pisses me off. Alcohol, cannabis, and every other drug I’ve gotten clean from don’t do this. Kratom does. It’s the only chemical I’m sober from that still calls my name every time I see the word or a bottle of Feel Free on a gas station counter.
My brain’s opioid receptors were chained to it. That’s why I call it gas station heroin.
The industry says kratom is safe because it’s “not technically an opioid.” Cool. It’s a plant. Doesn’t matter.
“Kratom produces opioid- and stimulant-like effects.”
National Institute on Drug Abuse, Kratom
NIDA is careful to say the effects only partially compare to heroin or oxycodone. Fair enough. My detox didn’t feel partial. The City of Bellingham’s own ban notice says kratom’s alkaloids can bind to opioid receptors and mimic stronger opioids, and our local paper Cascadia Daily News ran a headline calling these “addictive, opioid-like gas station products.” That’s not me being dramatic. That’s the news.
> I saw it and I couldn't unsee it: ran_out_of_capsules.log
I didn’t quit because someone made me. I quit because I finally saw it.
The week before October 12, 2024, I looked at it straight. How much money I was spending. How many times I’d sworn I was done and was right back at it the same day. Once I saw that, I couldn’t keep choosing it. I ran out of capsules and I didn’t buy more. October 12, 2024. Enough was enough.
“And once I saw it, really saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. I knew too much. I had to change.”
You_Werent_Ever_The_Problem_v1.zip
That’s how I’ve gotten rid of every one of the 20+ patterns I’ve eliminated. I become aware, and continuing to cause myself more suffering becomes impossible for me to choose. So I eliminate the cause immediately. Nothing and nobody keeps causing me suffering once I see it.
“And a person who loves their parts, who truly sees themselves, cannot keep inflicting what they now know is pain. It becomes impossible.”
You_Werent_Ever_The_Problem_v1.zip
> cold turkey with a full time job: detox_hell.err
The detox was hell. I did it cold turkey and I never missed a day of work. Full time in IT.
The first 4 to 5 days were the worst. No sleep. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps. Racing heart. Sweating and chills. Headache. Shaking and tremors. Restless, pacing. Very strong cravings.
The nights were awful. You’re exhausted from being awake all day, you can’t sleep, and your body is running every one of those symptoms at once. The inner restlessness had me wanting to crawl out of my body.
Then came the weeks after. My body pain came back ten times stronger at first. My thinking went foggy. Severe anxiety, deep depression, irritable and on edge for weeks.
Local clinicians have told Cascadia Daily that people who try to get off kratom end up in acute opiate withdrawal. I could’ve saved them the interview.
That’s not a supplement. That’s withdrawal.
> sold as natural and safe, now banned: feel_free_marketing.csv
Natural. Safe. Healing. I bought every word of it.
Feel Free. Cute name. Nothing about it is free.
Bloomberg has estimated kratom brings in about $1 billion a year, and a lot of that money comes from people like me. People in pain. People who are anxious. People who just want something to take the edge off. Facebook and Instagram were still showing me kratom ads after I quit.
Meanwhile, a Bellingham clinician told Cascadia Daily that patients who tried kratom or 7-OH to quit other addictive opioids simply swapped addictions. That’s the “healing” part, right there.
It’s not “just a plant.” It’s dependency dressed up as self-care.
Now the city has adopted an ordinance banning the preparation, distribution, and sale of kratom products within city limits. It takes effect today, October 13.
“The ban aims to reduce accidental overdoses, misuse, and long-term harm.”
City of Bellingham, Inside Bellingham: October 1, 2026
Cascadia Daily reported that the council voted unanimously on the first vote. A lobbyist for the American Kratom Association gave public comment in person. The industry showed up. Of course it did.
I will be so glad to not see it every day when I drive or walk around Bellingham.
The city attorney said that if people see kratom on store shelves after the ban takes effect, they should call the Bellingham Police Department.
A ban won’t fix addiction, and people can still order it online. But it shouldn’t be sitting on the counter next to my Diet Dr Pepper anymore.
> I got handed it, then I handed it on: peer_pressure_loop.log
Something I realized today. Not one of them was my idea.
My first cigarette, another airman handed it to me. My first time drunk, a girl I was dating convinced me to drink and party with her. My first inhalant, another airman. My first and only time trying ketamine, handed to me. Kratom, same. And my first time getting high in 2011, the pipe was handed to me at a party.
In elementary school, DARE came to our classroom and talked about peer pressure. Just say no. Cool. Peer pressure worked on me every time.
Why? Because I was afraid of being alone. Rejected. Abandoned. Losing love and connection.
The guilt I’m carrying today isn’t really about me using. I’ve got plenty of that too, for what it did to my mental and physical health and the relationships it damaged. This is something else.
I did to other people exactly what was done to me.
I didn’t want to use alone. So I made sure nobody around me had to. I talked countless people into smoking weed and told them how helpful it was. Same with abusive amounts of psychedelics. Same with alcohol. I pushed drinks on people because I wanted them to party with me. I gave cigarettes to my teenage sister when I started smoking at 19.
Now look at the circle I had before I got sober and before I burned my former life to the ground last November. Most of them, if not all, are still using. I’m clean. I created, enabled, or pushed their use, and they’re still hooked. Some of them probably still believe the lies I used to believe, the same ones I used to get them to join me.
That part of sobriety is hard to sit with. I’m sitting with it anyway.
The one I can’t shake is the one with kratom.
> there was no love in that bottle: concert_night_2024.log
2024. We were going to a concert that night. I bought two Feel Frees and handed her one. I drank the other.
Fifteen minutes later she felt like shit. Next thing I knew I was holding her hair in an alley while she threw up everything she had.
She wasn’t happy. She didn’t get mad at me directly, but she made it very clear. Feel Free was never going in her body again.
She felt better after, so I calmed down. But nausea can be a sign of overdose with kratom, and for a minute I was scared.
Here’s the part I hate. Even after all that, I told her it definitely wasn’t the Feel Free. They never made me sick. It was probably something we ate earlier. I wanted her to give them another try.
Why? They made me feel good, and I was the only person in our social circle using kratom. If she joined me, I’d feel more connected. More loved.
That was fear. Fear of being alone, rejected, abandoned, losing love. It was written all over that peer pressure. My insecurities, and my avoidance of my own addiction, had me pushing something addictive and dangerous on a woman I loved.
Love is not asking someone to join your addiction.
There was no love in that moment. I handed her a bottle of Feel Free.
> what I'd say at the counter: unsolicited_advice.txt
I don’t interfere with what people put in their bodies. I don’t pressure anyone to do it, and I don’t get in the way of anyone doing it. It’s their body. Their choice. Their autonomy. If someone asks me for advice, wisdom, feedback, or support, then yes, they get it.
But if I were handing out unsolicited opinions to random strangers, here’s what I’d say.
Hey man, don’t touch that stuff. It’s poison.
There’s a billion dollar industry pushing it at you. This gas station makes thousands of dollars off it every year. I was addicted to it for three years. It gave me immense mental health problems and damaged my relationships.
You’ll feel free for a few hours. Then you’ll need more and more to feel free again. Eventually you won’t feel free at all. You’ll be chained to that bottle at $10 a pop, two or three times a day.
Yeah, buddy. That’s roughly $7,000 to $11,000 a year. That’s why gas stations push this shit. Every person who walks in and buys it is worth that much in sales to them.
Don’t believe the propaganda. It’s dangerous. It’s addictive. It’s fucking gas station heroin disguised as a safe herbal tonic.
> still clean, still not safe: exit_code_0.txt
Two years clean from kratom.
It is not safe. Not one dose, not one shot, not one “just this once.” It’s gas station heroin in a wellness costume. It leaves hooks, and two years later they’re still there.
If you’re using it, I’m not judging you. I was you. If you’re handing it to a friend because you don’t want to use alone, stop. I know exactly why you’re doing it. I did it too.
Do you need help with addiction or other unwanted behaviors in your life? I’m here for you! Please reach out.
I am 2KVYOT3. I am sober. I am unrecognizable. I am love.
