Opioids Advice...sub maintenance, to one day heroin use, back onto suboxone

[vajeeh]

So I thought I would come back to this thread I started and post about the experience I had today, since it's the first time I've taken a 'heroin vacation' since two weeks ago. After I jumped on sub again after taking that day a couple weeks ago to buy enough dope for a few shots, I decided to do the same thing yesterday, so I bought enough for 3 hefty shots, (which I felt completely break through the 4mg maintenance I've gotten myself down to...just to let you know...anything above 4mg, like if it were maintenance on 6mg or 8mg, definitely dulls the effect of heroin when done the day after taking the sub. 4mg holds me through the day, and it allows me to take these breaks without wasting money by not feeling the heroin)

ANYWAY, 40 minutes ago I dosed 4mg 17 hours after my last shot, and I feel it starting to kick in. No precip withdrawal. I'm becoming more confident in the idea being the suboxone is simply joining the remaining suboxone I built up in my system, since technically I did take suboxone 48 hours ago, and heroin the day afterwards, and since the half life of bupe is so long, adding more bupe onto it will not throw me into precip withdrawal in the sense of heroin being displaced...it's simply joining receptors already slightly saturated.

Now even though my receptors still had residual bupe, I was still able to blast off with the heroin 24 hours after the last 4mg of bupe I administered.

It's a happy balance.

I hope someone finds this helpful.
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P.S. Friends of mine have told me that I'm playing with fire by doing this routine....of taking a break from sub for a day to do a few shots of heroin...which I do every other weekend...twice a month. I can see why they would be cautious, but here's my philosophy on it: I've been doing this successfully for the past 11 months. By giving myself this allowance twice a month to do heroin, I have something to look forward to, and it allows me to successfully maintain on suboxone until my next little break. It doesn't encourage me to do it more often, or do it premature to the date I planned...it simply gives me something to look forward to and get excited about, rather than taking suboxone day in and day out, mundanely.

Not everyone could do this, and I don't necessarily recommend you do this if you have been fine on sub maintenance without needing an outlet.

 

[burn out]

I am on sub and I take breaks to use heroin sometimes, after a day break I usually wait 10-12 hours before I dose sub and I've never had any precip WDs.

Instead of taking 4 mgs of sub daily, I prefer to IV very low doses of sub like .1 mg, twice a day. I find when I dose sub this way, not only do I never have any problems with it blocking heroin (I couldn't take 4 mg of sub daily and still use heroin without having to wait too long for the heroin to work) but I actually feel these lower doses of sub more. Then if I want to get high one day, I can increase my dose of sub temporarily.

 

[burn out]

P.S. Friends of mine have told me that I'm playing with fire by doing this routine....of taking a break from sub for a day to do a few shots of heroin...which I do every other weekend...twice a month. I can see why they would be cautious, but here's my philosophy on it: I've been doing this successfully for the past 11 months. By giving myself this allowance twice a month to do heroin, I have something to look forward to, and it allows me to successfully maintain on suboxone until my next little break. It doesn't encourage me to do it more often, or do it premature to the date I planned...it simply gives me something to look forward to and get excited about, rather than taking suboxone day in and day out, mundanely.

Playing with fire how? In that they think you will get re-hooked on heroin? Well, that might happen if you have the money to do heroin but in my case I know I am not gonna get re-addicted to heroin because I don't make enough money to use heroin every day. So my heroin vacations are limited by available funds and when they run out of course I go back on the sub. I also enjoy sub quite a lot, it is one of my favorite opioids. Sometimes I actually enjoy sub more than heroin, in other situations I prefer heroin. It depends on the circumstances. What I like about sub is the clear headed, energetic, long lasting buzz that it can give you. Heroin tends to make me feel overly sedated and the buzz wears off too quick. I love how when I get a good high going from suboxone, I know it's there to stay a while and I don't feel like I have to rush to make the best of it before it dissapears on me.

 

[vajeeh]

I do have enough money to go back into a full-fledged addiction. About a year ago I launched my own business. Selling custom, hand-crafted electronic-cigarette liquid (e-liquid), which contains flavoring and nicotine (also can be ordered without nicotine.) I have nearly 300 different flavors now.

Some of my friends feel, from their own experiences, that I would have a difficult time going back onto sub right after using, instead opting to go get more dope for one more day...then one more day...and so on. Until before I know it I'd be back into a full-blown heroin habit.

However I feel at this point in my life, and given the amount of success I've had for nearly a year with this routine, I don't think I would go back to fulltime dope.

I feel the same way you do about the effect from sub, and the effect of the heroin, in certain situations. I really feel that people underestimate buprenorphine or discount it's effects because it's a partial agonist. I also feel this has a lot to do with the fact that at least, at very LEAST 7 out of 10 people are using a rather poor technique when taking it sublingually. If I were to start writing about that whole issue, you would be reading this post for a long time.

I've been able to use every other week ever since January, buying anywhere between 3 and 4 shots worth, for the day. Hefty shots, of very clean Baltimore raw heroin.
But now I am so wrapped up in the regular routine of life...I don't imagine that scenario of getting re-hooked now. It's been about 20 bi-weekly heroin vacations for me, one every two weeks since the beginning of the year, and I've never used more than two consecutive days in a row. At the very most, there was three days, and that was because I had issues with my insurance's prior-authorization for my sub script and I was left with the decision to either continue heroin for a third day, or abstain that day while having no sub to fall back onto, leaving me sick. I felt confident enough that using that third day wasn't going to put me into a slippery slope, as I planned on getting my sub the next day and going about the regular routine of being on sub for 13 days, and back to heroin on the 14th. And I was right.

I see it no differently than a person who wants to unwind with a martini after a long hard week of work. I however choose to unwind with a delicious intravenous injection of potent powder heroin. It's simply about stigma. If one were to describe alcohol without mentioning it by name, and then describe heroin without naming it, the obviously worse drug for the individual and society would definitely be alcohol.

 

[vajeeh]

I am on sub and I take breaks to use heroin sometimes, after a day break I usually wait 10-12 hours before I dose sub and I've never had any precip WDs.

Instead of taking 4 mgs of sub daily, I prefer to IV very low doses of sub like .1 mg, twice a day. I find when I dose sub this way, not only do I never have any problems with it blocking heroin (I couldn't take 4 mg of sub daily and still use heroin without having to wait too long for the heroin to work) but I actually feel these lower doses of sub more. Then if I want to get high one day, I can increase my dose of sub temporarily.

And consider yourself fortunate to have never experienced Hell on Earth, a.k.a precipitated withdrawal. I've experienced it a total of three times.
I actually nearly killed myself the first time it happened. My girlfriend saved my life. I wasn't very experienced with what suboxone was. It was only two months after I was able to cop heroin on my own and inject it on my own. For two months prior to that, I had to rely on a friend to cop for me and for him to inject it for me. He seemed to like my reliance on him because it meant free dope for him in return.

I digress...anyway, it was about 8 years ago, and I had done a shot of dope at like 8am. I was starting to feel sick by like 6 or 7pm, and I remember a friend of mine had given me a quarter pill of suboxone. He didn't tell me much about it, only that it was used as a substitute for addicts. That's all I knew about it. He said to use it on a rainy day when I can't get dope.

So I figured I would use a couple old cottons, and mash them in the spoon in order to get a bit of a cotton shot, and then I thought it would be a good idea to throw the sub onto the spoon and include it into the cotton shot. Worst. Mistake. Ever. Gat Dayum.

As soon as I shot it, I felt as if Ice started circulating in my body. I felt my stomach violently clench, I felt the sweat beads forming on my face, I felt my limbs feel as if they were being twisted and contorted down to the bone, I felt every bone in my body feel as if it were hollow (it's hard to describe that feeling, you might know what I am talking about), I panicked. I had absolutely no idea why I was getting a rush of misery rather than a rush of comfort. Not knowing what was going on, only increased my anxiety. I thought I was dying or something. I knew that I felt the most extreme dopesickness imaginable, but didn't understand why.

I had no idea that the buprenorphine raped and robbed my opiate receptors...ripping off whatever heroin was on them, then bitchslapping and beating the receptors as if they owed it money. Pretty much leaving my receptors stripped, raped, and naked in the middle of an intersection, before finally showing mercy and allowing the receptor to enter it's car and cruising, listening to Michael Bolton.

On top of this horrifying nightmare, rocking in fetal position and sharting myself while gagging and unable to throw up, I begin to feel even more cold. I start shivering. Then I start shaking violently with the shivers...I couldn't stop myself from repeatedly biting my tongue. I saw a friend go through cotton fever, and I knew that I must have not cooked the cottons long enough, meaning I literally shot myself up with a plethora of bacteria that were festering in the cotton that weren't killed by the heat.

Going through cotton fever, and severe intravenously-induced precipitated withdrawal, I went over to the window, and was trying to push the screen out so I could jump (from the 4th floor), to end this misery. At that point my girlfriend got out of the bathroom, saw what I was trying to do, and she spear-tackled me to the side. Right before she kicked me in the face. That's the last thing I remember. After that I remember waking up in our bed, with four of our mutual friends over there, making sure I was okay and to remind me of how stupid I was. After that incident, I was clean for nearly a year.

She told me she kicked me because she wanted to knock me out. She wouldn't have been able to physically stop me from harming myself, so I understand why she did that. I told her that she should have just put me in a chokehold or something, because kicking me in the face could have seriously broken my nose, eye sockets, jaw, cheek, knocked teeth out, anything. Thankfully none of that happened, she kicked me in the area right between my right temple and my cheekbone. She told me that it was spur of the moment, and how she wouldn't have been able to choke me out. Which is understandable. She is 5'2", 115 pounds. I am 5'10", 170 pounds.

The other two times I had PW, they only lasted about ten minutes both times, and it was because I took it sooner than I should have, after being on heroin for weeks and weeks, years ago.

 

[burn out]

I have had very mild precipitated wd. Basically my experience is that if I don't wait long enough and I shoot sub, it feel slike you said, ice going through the veins then i start sneezing and yawning and get chills and sweat and it lasts about 10 minutes, after which the usboxone kick in and I actually feel a high. That has happened when coming off short term heroin binges with sub. Whenevre I have a big, long term heroin habit though, I am careful never to shoot sub unless I am sure I am in the clear because I cant even imagine how awful it must feel.

 

[vajeeh]

I have had very mild precipitated wd. Basically my experience is that if I don't wait long enough and I shoot sub, it feel slike you said, ice going through the veins then i start sneezing and yawning and get chills and sweat and it lasts about 10 minutes, after which the usboxone kick in and I actually feel a high. That has happened when coming off short term heroin binges with sub. Whenevre I have a big, long term heroin habit though, I am careful never to shoot sub unless I am sure I am in the clear because I cant even imagine how awful it must feel.

Yeah man, you had a little taste of it, but experiencing it at full power is literally mind-blowing. If someone gave me the option of going through it again and being rewarded by having my lifespan increase by three years, I still would turn it down.

 

[paulforaname]

I know this is an old post but my experience is that if you just have 2 days off bupe and only use for day you can take your bupe the next day no issues. If you have a 3-4 day binge and dont take your bupe for 5 or so days then you need to wait a out 18hours plus otherwise PW will happen. Just my experience and when I did last time used for 4 days about 1/2 gram of pure Australian china straight from Asia and took my suboxone about 12 hours after last shot and projected from both ends, then felt like dying for 3 hours lying in my work truck, came good about lunchtime. Other than that if I ha e a planned vacation I dont take by bupe for 30-40 hours so atleast I feel it.
In Australia well Melbourne ppl go on methadone if they want to use ontop , staying aroung 20-35mg or bupe if they dont want to use. I went on done for year as thought maybe better but when I found out u could use ontop, well I fell off into using $500 per week plus my done. Got back on the gear for 6 days after 2 days off my done they did a bupe taper over next 5 days to nothing. Its been hard not to use but I have here and there but only once and then stayed clean for month or more and then used again..if only once and I can move on and stay clean foe the next week I dont dwell on it and beat myself up.

 

[Coolwhip]

I know this is an old thread, but for anyone who reads it and doesn't know this.

Taking vacations from your bupe will get harder and harder everytime, eventually even after waiting nearly 24 hours you will still feel PWD every time you switch back, and even then it will be 36-48 hours before the bupe fully stops your WDs no matter how much you take. I advise against ever taking up this habit, as what will happen is as it becomes too hard to switch back to bupe you will stay on heroin longer and longer dreading re-induction, and whats even worse is the bupe will basically stop working and after inducting you will still won't feel quite right on bupe for days.

 

[Keif' Richards]

Guys, I apologize for being the bearer of bad news, but this is a thread that I would consider to not really fall under our banner. I have absolutely not judgment for you or what you do OP. I've been involved in maintenance programs in the past and still have desired to use and have used. The thing that I take issue with, and again, it's nothing personal, is that OP is essentially just looking for proper advice regarding how he can get high while still maintaining on Buprenorphine.

I know things can get twisted and confusing when discussing what is and is not appropriate on the forums, but it's my belief that, because this is a situation you are knowingly, willingly and repeatedly engaging in, it's hard for us to have a lot of sympathy for your situation and for that matter, it does detract from the ability for other BL'ers to have their voices heard. Being that we deal with matter of life, death and health, we like to preserve the space in our HR forums for people who are truly suffering or in need of immediate assistance.

There is limited room on the front page and most people, myself included on lazy days, do not go past it. For this reason, people who are just trying to determine the best way to get high while on maintenance really need to do it themselves. I am not saying you have done anything wrong or with malicious intent OP, but this is really something that you need to determine how to do yourself. Even if we did take the necessary time to determine the litany of variables at play here and give you good advice, said advice would still be very vague. Drugs effect people in different ways and Buprenorphine is a drug with a particularly confusing pharmacokinetic profile.

Fellow moderators, Bluelighters, we have recently added new staff to Other Drugs and in the name of Democracy, I'd like to know how everyone feels about what I have said here.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Well, its true what you say, however harm reduction isn’t about telling people what to do in terms of treatment. They have to make decisions for themselves, and we try to provide enough info that empowers them enough to avoid killing themselves so they can eventually get to a point where they are motivated to get healthier.

And we try to be there along each step of the way, from experimentation, to use, to (if it ever goes there, seems to be for like 10-20% of users) problematic patterns of drug use to addiction and even to/theough recovery. That’s why BL has forums like BDD/OD and TDS/SL all on the same harm reduction site.

So, while I wouldn’t encourage anyone on buprenorphine management to chip, I’ve definitely been there and done that myself. Sometimes I feel like most have. Just because we help people avoid harm doesn’t mean we need to encourage what they’re doing. And from the other angle, not providing people with info about questionable drug use practices doesnt benefit anyone, because it’s likelu they’ll go ahead anyways.

It’s like how we allow people who are underage to use the site and ask about injection stuff. It isn’t at all something we condone, but in the name of harm reduction we are obligated to provide as free access to information as possible. Otherwise they’d be even worse off.

In terms of this thread, I’d also point out that when using buprenorphine, if one only chips for one day and there is still some buprenorphine in the system, it’s easier than transition back to buprenorphine and avoid PWD than it would normally be were there zero buprenorphine in their system.

Of course the downside is that the more chipping one does, the less effective buprenorphine will become (and the more dope they’ll have to use to get high). Eventually buprenorphine become kinda pointless if one is really interested in abstinence from other opioids, and a stronger agonist like methadone is necessary control cravings.

So, limit chipping to an absolute minimum to retain effectiveness of the buprenorphine. That is all

What you could do is merge similar threads - so like merge this with any other thread about chipping on buprenorphine that’s already here. But unless it deteriorates I’m not keen on seeing this closed. Again, this is the kind of discussion that makes BL special, totally inclusive and non-judgemental in the support we provide.

But do feel free to merge this with another similar thread if you want to consolidate things a bit.

 

[burntserkits]

I'm not a moderator but I have been here A LONG time and I agree with toothpastedog that providing information and tales of experience is of paramount importance to maintaining proper harm reduction principles. The particular practice of this thread discussion doesn't have to be advocated nor condoned to convey the importance. Unless it boils down to misinformation, the more knowledge the better IMHO