mostly-human
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 1,055
Hi everyone,
I'm not very active on the Internet in this kind of context, however - I recently decided to come off my suboxone dose and early into the experience, while experiencing the worst of the withdrawals, I decided to do a really dumb thing; I went on the Internet and google'd "Suboxone withdrawals" - I suppose hoping to find some magical way of cheating the piper.
The Internet is NOT a place people come to share their positive experiences, generally speaking - and what's more - drug addicts in general whine quite a lot. The end result is - if you google 'coming off suboxone' you're probably just going to come across a hundred stories of people telling you about how bad it is - everyone trying to one-up each other on how much worse their withdrawals are, ultimately - it really really doesn't help your ability to come clean, it just convinces you that you're fucked and that you're going to be in hell for the next few weeks or - if you believe the worst of it - months or even years.
I quickly turned AWAY from the Internet for support through my withdrawals and it was probably the best move I made, in regards to where I was mentally.
A little bit of background: I had been on a high(ish) dose of sub, 16mg for a month or so and over time reduced to 2mg, which is the dose I came off - in Australia, we have the suboxone 'film' and the lowest dose available is 2mg and the doctors happily tell you that it's easy to come off this, well - it's not like withdrawing from a large dose of a strong agonist, however 2mg is still a considerable amount of buprenorphine to go cold-turkey from and you need to be prepared, that said - it's definitely doable.
The one really good piece of consistent advice I did come across on the Internet was this: Exercise, keep moving - you will want to just lie down and do nothing other than feeling sorry for yourself; bad idea buddy - your legs will drive you mental, not too mention the diarrhoea and sweats. It's a much better idea to move about as much as you can - you'll be feeling restless, so it's pretty pointless trying to be restful- this is just agony, on the other hand - moving about, you'll feel weak, your muscles will ache, but ultimately it's alright - take your time going places, relax and just walk around - go to the supermarket, the park, whatever - just try and spend as much of your day as possible moving and you'll sleep much better for it.. I actually went on daily 10km bike rides, not a huge distance, about a 25-30min ride, but enough to make my legs feel sooo much better for a while and let me get a couple hours sleep.
On to the story: I came had my last dose (2mg) on a Monday, I work full-time (software developer) and I continued to work on Tuesday & Wednesday - as most people on it know, buprenorphine has a 36hr half-life so days 1 & 2 aren't bad at all- on the Wednesday I was sweating a bit and my legs were a bit restless, but honestly- it wasn't that bad and I was certainly able to keep working (kept the deodorant handy
). I'd arranged a couple weeks earlier to have the Thurs & Friday off work - leaving me with days 3-6 (thur + fri and the weekend) with no obligations; professional or social. Thursday and friday were certainly the worst days - during the night I had no sleep, I sweated in bed so much that I woke up with my skin on clammy, like I'd been in a bathtub for too long, literally pools of sweat - I had to change my bedsheets every day and even then within an hour of going to bed I would be literally soaking wet and freezing cold. I was only staying in bed for 2-3hours a night - just getting enough sleep to get by.
Thursday and Friday day times really weren't that bad though - I was sweating a LOT and had a huge amount of diarrhoea, which isn't the best - but other than that I felt okay mentally- despite all the symptoms I was starting to feel a LOT more mentally alert, without the constant dulling medication, even by day 4-5 my wife was telling me I seemed to have a lot more energy and seemed a lot sharper. The urge was to spend the days laying on the couch watching TV - this is simply the worst thing you can do and after a couple hours of pure agony - sweating and feeling like my legs would rather have me die than let me lie still for even a minute. So instead, I just stayed moving - about the house, down the shops multiple times a day, nothing too strenuous at first - just enough that I wasn't lying on a couch trying to rest; not gonna happen.
Then after going online and being a bit shocked by how bad everyone said it was and how long they all said it would last - I said to my wife "man, heroin addicts are a bunch of fucking pussies". And it's true; we really are - if we weren't a bunch of weak pussies, we wouldn't be addicted - call it what you like; a disease, an addiction, mental illness - it doesn't really matter - take the responsibility or defer it, it makes no difference - the end-game is this - if you want to be clean, then you gotta be tough - there's no easy solution, but on the other hand, it's not particularly difficult - you just have to really want it and then focus your will power and do it. That's the truth. And that's what I've done.
After this resolve - I started pushing the exercise a LOT more and it did wonders - went for jogs, bike rides, etc - stayed really active - and worn out even, nothing better than total physical exhaustion when trying to get some sleep during withdrawals.
Any - by about Sunday the day times were pretty much fine and I went back to work - for that whole week I only got about 3hours sleep each night - every night I had really intense sweats that left me completely unable to stay in bed, so I just got up really early every morning, showered and went to work - but during the day I was fine, just a bit tired. By the next week the sweats had basically stopped, or at least reduced to almost nothing. The only thing from then until now (week 6) has been the restless legs; they continue, although I find the best thing with the legs is to not let it get to your head, you'll want to thrash about, bitch and moan, but this just makes it worse, just ignore them, keep them still and toughen the fuck up, acting like a baby won't help.
At any rate - I'm at week 6 now and feeling great - and to be honest - I've felt great and positive since day 1 - the ONLY fucking time I felt down at all, was for about 6hours on day 4 or something when I went onto the Internet to read other peoples experiences. Apart from that - there's been no depression and for the record - I've stayed completely clean - no sleeping aides, no benzos, absolutely no opiates, just nothing - only meds I've had since I've been back at work; I've been taking imodium to control the diarrhoea, which has been a life-saver!
Anyway - I really just wanted to say- it doesn't have to be bad - my experience so far has been fine; I've felt alert, I've had energy (despite a couple weeks with only a little bit of sleep), I feel mentally a LOT sharper than I did on suboxone, I'm getting more done, I'm on top of all my housework, I'm exercising more, I'm sleeping better (going to bed early and getting up with the sun rise), my relationship with my wife is better, my sex life is better. Everything is better and I knowing all this the whole time, allowing myself to feel good (instead of feeling sorry for myself) has made the whole thing (getting clean) a fairly easy experience.
I will say - days 4-6 will be the roughest and you may want to consider not working for this period if you can. Other than that - my advise is to work while you're withdrawing - in my opinion, having no job and nothing to do will only draw the whole thing out and lead to depression (which happens anyway when you have nothing to do).
Keep yourself active, keep your mind active and keep your eyes on the prize; sobriety.
FWIW: I the same day I cold-turkey'd suboxone, I also went cold off tobacco, alcohol and caffeine (no other bad habits at the time - so was completely clean) I think this probably helped, I'm sure it made it easier for my liver to push through the withdrawals. After about two weeks I've broken that a bit and now have the occasional smoke, coffee or drink - but for those first two weeks I stayed completely clean and focused - just working my mind, body and soul
One last thing, a kind of TLDR: Ultimately what you hear is true - the physical withdrawal symptoms DO last a really long time, however - they're never debilitating like full-agonist withdrawals, they're only really bad for a few days and despite all the symptoms - with the right attitude you will honestly still feel better than you did on suboxone; you'll be sharper, have more energy and also have something to be proud of. Just never let yourself spiral into feeling sorry for yourself, there be dragons.
I'm not very active on the Internet in this kind of context, however - I recently decided to come off my suboxone dose and early into the experience, while experiencing the worst of the withdrawals, I decided to do a really dumb thing; I went on the Internet and google'd "Suboxone withdrawals" - I suppose hoping to find some magical way of cheating the piper.
The Internet is NOT a place people come to share their positive experiences, generally speaking - and what's more - drug addicts in general whine quite a lot. The end result is - if you google 'coming off suboxone' you're probably just going to come across a hundred stories of people telling you about how bad it is - everyone trying to one-up each other on how much worse their withdrawals are, ultimately - it really really doesn't help your ability to come clean, it just convinces you that you're fucked and that you're going to be in hell for the next few weeks or - if you believe the worst of it - months or even years.
I quickly turned AWAY from the Internet for support through my withdrawals and it was probably the best move I made, in regards to where I was mentally.
A little bit of background: I had been on a high(ish) dose of sub, 16mg for a month or so and over time reduced to 2mg, which is the dose I came off - in Australia, we have the suboxone 'film' and the lowest dose available is 2mg and the doctors happily tell you that it's easy to come off this, well - it's not like withdrawing from a large dose of a strong agonist, however 2mg is still a considerable amount of buprenorphine to go cold-turkey from and you need to be prepared, that said - it's definitely doable.
The one really good piece of consistent advice I did come across on the Internet was this: Exercise, keep moving - you will want to just lie down and do nothing other than feeling sorry for yourself; bad idea buddy - your legs will drive you mental, not too mention the diarrhoea and sweats. It's a much better idea to move about as much as you can - you'll be feeling restless, so it's pretty pointless trying to be restful- this is just agony, on the other hand - moving about, you'll feel weak, your muscles will ache, but ultimately it's alright - take your time going places, relax and just walk around - go to the supermarket, the park, whatever - just try and spend as much of your day as possible moving and you'll sleep much better for it.. I actually went on daily 10km bike rides, not a huge distance, about a 25-30min ride, but enough to make my legs feel sooo much better for a while and let me get a couple hours sleep.
On to the story: I came had my last dose (2mg) on a Monday, I work full-time (software developer) and I continued to work on Tuesday & Wednesday - as most people on it know, buprenorphine has a 36hr half-life so days 1 & 2 aren't bad at all- on the Wednesday I was sweating a bit and my legs were a bit restless, but honestly- it wasn't that bad and I was certainly able to keep working (kept the deodorant handy
). I'd arranged a couple weeks earlier to have the Thurs & Friday off work - leaving me with days 3-6 (thur + fri and the weekend) with no obligations; professional or social. Thursday and friday were certainly the worst days - during the night I had no sleep, I sweated in bed so much that I woke up with my skin on clammy, like I'd been in a bathtub for too long, literally pools of sweat - I had to change my bedsheets every day and even then within an hour of going to bed I would be literally soaking wet and freezing cold. I was only staying in bed for 2-3hours a night - just getting enough sleep to get by.Thursday and Friday day times really weren't that bad though - I was sweating a LOT and had a huge amount of diarrhoea, which isn't the best - but other than that I felt okay mentally- despite all the symptoms I was starting to feel a LOT more mentally alert, without the constant dulling medication, even by day 4-5 my wife was telling me I seemed to have a lot more energy and seemed a lot sharper. The urge was to spend the days laying on the couch watching TV - this is simply the worst thing you can do and after a couple hours of pure agony - sweating and feeling like my legs would rather have me die than let me lie still for even a minute. So instead, I just stayed moving - about the house, down the shops multiple times a day, nothing too strenuous at first - just enough that I wasn't lying on a couch trying to rest; not gonna happen.
Then after going online and being a bit shocked by how bad everyone said it was and how long they all said it would last - I said to my wife "man, heroin addicts are a bunch of fucking pussies". And it's true; we really are - if we weren't a bunch of weak pussies, we wouldn't be addicted - call it what you like; a disease, an addiction, mental illness - it doesn't really matter - take the responsibility or defer it, it makes no difference - the end-game is this - if you want to be clean, then you gotta be tough - there's no easy solution, but on the other hand, it's not particularly difficult - you just have to really want it and then focus your will power and do it. That's the truth. And that's what I've done.
After this resolve - I started pushing the exercise a LOT more and it did wonders - went for jogs, bike rides, etc - stayed really active - and worn out even, nothing better than total physical exhaustion when trying to get some sleep during withdrawals.
Any - by about Sunday the day times were pretty much fine and I went back to work - for that whole week I only got about 3hours sleep each night - every night I had really intense sweats that left me completely unable to stay in bed, so I just got up really early every morning, showered and went to work - but during the day I was fine, just a bit tired. By the next week the sweats had basically stopped, or at least reduced to almost nothing. The only thing from then until now (week 6) has been the restless legs; they continue, although I find the best thing with the legs is to not let it get to your head, you'll want to thrash about, bitch and moan, but this just makes it worse, just ignore them, keep them still and toughen the fuck up, acting like a baby won't help.
At any rate - I'm at week 6 now and feeling great - and to be honest - I've felt great and positive since day 1 - the ONLY fucking time I felt down at all, was for about 6hours on day 4 or something when I went onto the Internet to read other peoples experiences. Apart from that - there's been no depression and for the record - I've stayed completely clean - no sleeping aides, no benzos, absolutely no opiates, just nothing - only meds I've had since I've been back at work; I've been taking imodium to control the diarrhoea, which has been a life-saver!
Anyway - I really just wanted to say- it doesn't have to be bad - my experience so far has been fine; I've felt alert, I've had energy (despite a couple weeks with only a little bit of sleep), I feel mentally a LOT sharper than I did on suboxone, I'm getting more done, I'm on top of all my housework, I'm exercising more, I'm sleeping better (going to bed early and getting up with the sun rise), my relationship with my wife is better, my sex life is better. Everything is better and I knowing all this the whole time, allowing myself to feel good (instead of feeling sorry for myself) has made the whole thing (getting clean) a fairly easy experience.
I will say - days 4-6 will be the roughest and you may want to consider not working for this period if you can. Other than that - my advise is to work while you're withdrawing - in my opinion, having no job and nothing to do will only draw the whole thing out and lead to depression (which happens anyway when you have nothing to do).
Keep yourself active, keep your mind active and keep your eyes on the prize; sobriety.
FWIW: I the same day I cold-turkey'd suboxone, I also went cold off tobacco, alcohol and caffeine (no other bad habits at the time - so was completely clean) I think this probably helped, I'm sure it made it easier for my liver to push through the withdrawals. After about two weeks I've broken that a bit and now have the occasional smoke, coffee or drink - but for those first two weeks I stayed completely clean and focused - just working my mind, body and soul
One last thing, a kind of TLDR: Ultimately what you hear is true - the physical withdrawal symptoms DO last a really long time, however - they're never debilitating like full-agonist withdrawals, they're only really bad for a few days and despite all the symptoms - with the right attitude you will honestly still feel better than you did on suboxone; you'll be sharper, have more energy and also have something to be proud of. Just never let yourself spiral into feeling sorry for yourself, there be dragons.
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