Day 3 opiate free, have question about PAWS

[Fascination]

I haven't been on here to update everyone on how my home detox was going in a few days. The reasons why were because I relapsed and then when I started up again I've felt too bad to go on the Internet. So, this is day 3 of my cold turkey detox and I want to die. I gave my pills to my father so I wouldn't slip up
again. I have 2 questions. Number 1: how much longer will this last? I'm WDing from 60 mg of hydrocodone a day but before that I was on percocet 10 mg 5 to 6 a day.
Question 2: Those of you who have read my previous rambling posts (like Toothpastedog) , and bless you if you have, know my history. That I was on methadone for a long time and was a heavy opiate user before that. The reason I bring it up is I've done a lot of thinking recently and I've realized that I haven't felt normal since I've quit methadone. I actually think I was happy when I developed medical problems which allowed me to be prescribed opiates. Because when I'm on them I feel normal. I don't take enough to get high, it's just to feel like a human being again. Obviously this is PAWS. So how long does this last? I've read that for some people it takes decades! I cant go that long like this. And I really don't want to go back on methadone unless there is no other option. It doesn't look like there's much medical help for PAWS sufferers out there (only trazadone and tegretol which has shown only limited success).
Did anyone on here beat PAWs after long term opiate use? How? How long does this s#*~ last?!!

 

[iconoclast56]

Firstly I'd say your acute symptoms should end very soon. You've gone 3 days so you've toughed out the worst of it. How long were you on the opioids for in total? 60mg of hydrocodone isn't that much at all. What many people don't seem to understand is that there are many factors which determine how fast one recovers. Obviously someone who is regularly malnourished, doesn't exercise and does absolutely nothing to aid their recovery will have PAWs for a very long time. I recommend getting some rhodiola rosea supplements and iboga extract (if it is legal in your country, I wouldn't recommend breaking the law of course ). In fact, I'd get Siberian Ginseng and other adaptogenic herbs too because they help ones neurochemistry return back to normal. People undergo surgery using only hypnotic suggestion as an anasthetic so it shouldn't be too hard to believe that hypnosis can circumvent acute symptoms. If it is, this should make it easier for you:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207146408409252

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of suggestion in the production of certain narcotic drug effects and in the narcotic abstinence syndrome. In addition, we were interested in determining the extent to which actual narcotic drug effects could be reversed through posthypnotic suggestion.

The results of our study indicated that formerly addicted Ss, who had experienced at least one “cold turkey” withdrawal from narcotics, were able to attain a highly realistic suggested narcotic drug and withdrawal experience through hypnosis with appropriate physiological and behavioral changes, which they were unable to achieve in other control conditions. Moreover, when actual narcotic drags were administered, certain Ss were able to return to normal behavior following appropriate posthypnotic suggestions. Hypnosis was deemed to be essential in the production of all these effects.

Belief is everything. If one believes it will take years to overcome PAWs, it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. We all know the placebo effect is real but why do we never stop to consider the impact it has in our everyday experiences with drugs?

 

[Fascination]

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately I'm in the USA and ibogaine is illegal here (along with almost everything else). I have thought about going to one of those ibogaine clinics in Mexico or Canada though.
I'll try the herbs. I know I need more exercise and vitamins. I'll see if that helps. It's just that I have no energy unless I take opiates. So it's very hard for me to get off my lil ass to exercise.

 

[villian]

I wouldn't even be concerned with PAWS when you are only 3 days out. Focus on getting through acute first.

 

[lars90]

I really hate to say it but this is only the beging. The real side effeks are gonna get going in like 2 weeks. I belive until you have totally quited it and your mind doent crave it any more it will take up to anywhere from 3 onths to 1 year. But I am glad you are trying your best to stop the nonesense. I will pray for you and even if you are an athiest you should try to find trust ingod sense it does realise a lot of pain and gives you more hope I use to be athiest until I quit DXM which I am still at but the side effekts are going away now finally after a month. I belive in you you will be able to do you can do it man.

Oh and one more thing. If the thing gets out of hand and you start feling the craving angain then maby it would even be worth thinking about going to rehab. A friend of mine went to rehab to stop smoking cannabis and it really helped him. You are cut of from any dealers and with therapist who really know all about drugs that youcan ask any type of question. Plus there are docters which coud persribe you medicine to make the side effekts milder.

Oh and what really helped me (even though I know both of are drugs are very difrent)
was doing sport regulary meditating and staying on a healthy diet. Plus if you have a sauna close to you you should defantly give it a try because when you swaet and go pee after wards you get rid of a lot of toxic subtances. And you feel very relived plus it sets free hormones which make you feel happy. I find that really made my depresions very mild.

Keep us updated.

 

[iconoclast56]

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately I'm in the USA and ibogaine is illegal here (along with almost everything else). I have thought about going to one of those ibogaine clinics in Mexico or Canada though.
I'll try the herbs. I know I need more exercise and vitamins. I'll see if that helps. It's just that I have no energy unless I take opiates. So it's very hard for me to get off my lil ass to exercise.

I can sympathise, I live in Ireland and you can't even get melotonin here without a prescription. They brought in this draconian law called "the psychoactives bill" last summer which bans all compounds considered psychoactive by default. One can still order lots of things over the internet though. I'm sure Americans could order iboga extract or raw plant material from Canadian sites without much risk of seizure. Also, ibogaine itself is illegal but are you sure iboga is? DMT is illegal but many of the plants that contain it are not. Did you read that abstract I quoted about hypnosis? I recently started experimenting with hypnosis and have observed some very interesting things with it. One day when I was having a mild opiate withdrawal, I decided to listen to a Paul McKenna induction tape and I remember I was pissed off that he was casually telling me to relax which seemed like an impossible task in the aggitated state. After a few minutes I realised I was fully relaxed and my restless leg syndrome and aches had disappeared completely. My whole body felt tingly and electrical. I experienced what is known as the trance state for the first time. It was so blatantly obvious because of the contrast between the state I was in before and this profoundly relaxed trance state.

I really hate to say it but this is only the beging. The real side effeks are gonna get going in like 2 weeks. I belive until you have totally quited it and your mind doent crave it any more it will take up to anywhere from 3 onths to 1 year. But I am glad you are trying your best to stop the nonesense. I will pray for you and even if you are an athiest you should try to find trust ingod sense it does realise a lot of pain and gives you more hope I use to be athiest until I quit DXM which I am still at but the side effekts are going away now finally after a month. I belive in you you will be able to do you can do it man.

Not true at all. Like I said, it is dependant on many factors. I was taking around 300mg of dihydrocodeine for a year and quit cold turkey last month. I made a full recovery in the space of a week. I know you mean well but your negativity is the last thing the OP needs right now. I recommend you google the nocebo effect and research it. Why did I magically get off opioids without any serious withdrawal symptoms?

Oh and what really helped me (even though I know both of are drugs are very difrent)
was doing sport regulary meditating and staying on a healthy diet. Plus if you have a sauna close to you you should defantly give it a try because when you swaet and go pee after wards you get rid of a lot of toxic subtances. And you feel very relived plus it sets free hormones which make you feel happy. I find that really made my depresions very mild.

Sport, meditation and healthy diet are drugs? The idea that sweating gets rid of toxins is a myth. Sorry to inform you about that, sounds like that belief was what allowed the sauna to trigger a beneficial placebo response for you but this should serve as an example of the power of your own brain when it comes to controlling your psychopharmacology and physiology. The placebo effect is a double edged sword. The negative side of it is known as the nocebo effect. From now on, be more careful about what you believe and what you say to other people.

 

[villian]

Telling someone in withdrawal they won't feel good for 3 to 12 months is not helpful in the least, and it also a completely bogus claim. You simply can't predict these things, everyone's brain chemistry is different. Keep toughing through it OP, you can do this.

 

[RedLeader]

I really hate to say it but this is only the beging. The real side effeks are gonna get going in like 2 weeks.

What "real side effects" do you mean? The only ones I still had going at 2+ weeks were the insomnia and the chain-sneezing. This person's quitting hydrocodone right now, not a big methadone habit.

If Fascination is on day 3 c/t, she'll be feeling a LOT better within 48 hours. If you (Fascination) are vomiting, having diarrhea, crawly/slimy skin, tearing up, and so on, that should go away in a day or two.

Sure, the next battle is PAWS, but I really think you should wait until the primary/acute WD is finished before we all have that conversation. One thing to look forward to is that once the bad primary WD symptoms go away, especially when you get your first extended sleep, you will get a (temporary) feeling of momentum that's a nicer alternative.

 

[batmanplaybaseball]

First of all, PAWS lasting for decades is ridiculous. Show me someone claiming to have been suffering PAWS for decades and I will show you a person who is frankly, doing it wrong...meaning they have some other malady either by nature or from an extremely bad lifestyle.

Second, you shouldn't be thinking about PAWS right now anyway. The symptoms you are dealing with now will not be the symptoms you are dealing with in even just two weeks. Acute withdrawal is an animal much greater than its paws...ba dun!...but seriously it sounds as if you are worried about feeling the way you do right now for a really extended period of time, and that is just flat out not going to be the case. Expect a much sunnier outlook within one to two weeks. Actually, try not to expect anything, but generally you should BEGIN to feel better in that time. After you begin to feel better it is the beginning of a slow and gradual march of feeling better all the time.

I always try and stress the gradual aspect. You might not notice yourself feeling better every consecutive day, but if you look at it weekly than you can definitely see the differences. In other words, every day you stay off that stuff is another day of healing, whether you are fully aware of it or not. Before any time at all you will probably find yourself wondering when you got over PAWS completely.

 

[Fascination]

I can sympathise, I live in Ireland and you can't even get melotonin here without a prescription. They brought in this draconian law called "the psychoactives bill" last summer which bans all compounds considered psychoactive by default. One can still order lots of things over the internet though. I'm sure Americans could order iboga extract or raw plant material from Canadian sites without much risk of seizure. Also, ibogaine itself is illegal but are you sure iboga is? DMT is illegal but many of the plants that contain it are not. Did you read that abstract I quoted about hypnosis? I recently started experimenting with hypnosis and have observed some very interesting things with it. One day when I was having a mild opiate withdrawal, I decided to listen to a Paul McKenna induction tape and I remember I was pissed off that he was casually telling me to relax which seemed like an impossible task in the aggitated state. After a few minutes I realised I was fully relaxed and my restless leg syndrome and aches had disappeared completely. My whole body felt tingly and electrical. I experienced what is known as the trance state for the first time. It was so blatantly obvious because of the contrast between the state I was in before and this profoundly relaxed trance state.


Not true at all. Like I said, it is dependant on many factors. I was taking around 300mg of dihydrocodeine for a year and quit cold turkey last month. I made a full recovery in the space of a week. I know you mean well but your negativity is the last thing the OP needs right now. I recommend you google the nocebo effect and research it. Why did I magically get off opioids without any serious withdrawal symptoms?



Sport, meditation and healthy diet are drugs? The idea that sweating gets rid of toxins is a myth. Sorry to inform you about that, sounds like that belief was what allowed the sauna to trigger a beneficial placebo response for you but this should serve as an example of the power of your own brain when it comes to controlling your psychopharmacology and physiology. The placebo effect is a double edged sword. The negative side of it is known as the nocebo effect. From now on, be more careful about what you believe and what you say to other people.

That sucks about Ireland's new drug law. If I were emperor of the world (or empress? Is that what you'd call a female ruler? Hmm), all men in Ireland and England would be able to get any drug they wanted because of having those sexy accents! Alas, I am not ruler of the world....yet. LOL.
So what hypnosis tapes do you recommend?

 

[Fascination]

What "real side effects" do you mean? The only ones I still had going at 2+ weeks were the insomnia and the chain-sneezing. This person's quitting hydrocodone right now, not a big methadone habit.

If Fascination is on day 3 c/t, she'll be feeling a LOT better within 48 hours. If you (Fascination) are vomiting, having diarrhea, crawly/slimy skin, tearing up, and so on, that should go away in a day or two.

Sure, the next battle is PAWS, but I really think you should wait until the primary/acute WD is finished before we all have that conversation. One thing to look forward to is that once the bad primary WD symptoms go away, especially when you get your first extended sleep, you will get a (temporary) feeling of momentum that's a nicer alternative.

About the PAWS, what I meant on my post was that I don't think my PAWS went away after stopping methadone before I started taking opiates again. So my PAWS was from almost a decade of opiate use (including methadone). Before it went away, I had some medical conditions which caused me to start taking opiates again. I noticed that when I was on opiates again I felt normal. I hadn't felt normal since quitting methadone. Do you know what I mean? I hope this post was more clear. Sorry if the first wasn't. I was feeling very bad when I posted it.

 

[Fascination]

Thanks villian! I'm doing my best!

 

[iconoclast56]

That sucks about Ireland's new drug law. If I were emperor of the world (or empress? Is that what you'd call a female ruler? Hmm), all men in Ireland and England would be able to get any drug they wanted because of having those sexy accents! Alas, I am not ruler of the world....yet. LOL.
So what hypnosis tapes do you recommend?

You have my vote. If I was running things, all drugs would be legal, cheap and readily available because depriving humans of their right to explore their own neurochemistry and alleviate their ailments is a crime against humanity. The only hypnosis tapes I have listened to so far are Paul McKennas ones. They seem to have a profound influence on me. After I started listening to them, I suddenly feel like things can only go right for me in life. Kinda like God is on my side or something. Hard to explain. I had listened to them before but I never went into the trance state. The problem was that I was subconsciously resisting it because I didn't trust the hypnotist due to my cynical outlook. It was only when I was in a very negative state (lots of things were going wrong in my life and I was withdrawing from opioids) that it worked for me because I was desperate and had no choice but to trust the hypnotist. This seems to be a fundamental principle of life. Only when we are in the depths of despair do we finally do the things which set us free.

 

[RedLeader]

I got ya.

Here's my take on the whole idea of "normal." As substance abusers, we look around and see all these other people in society appearing happy, confident, calm, alert, and so on. We take this all into consideration and prescribe these ideas as to what a normal functioning member of society is like, and it is against this which we compare ourselves.

However, we're setting ourselves up for failure with such a model. First, a lot of the stuff that you used drugs to run from (the anxiety, the self-doubt, the insomnia, etc), like it or not, is "normal" for you as a person. When you get clean, that stuff tends to come back, and battling that in a better way is a big part of PAWS.

This is why I don't like the whole "new normal" idea thrown around in rehab/recovery communities. "I'm RedLeader and my new normal is a life without drugs, where I can now be a confident man and a positive force in my community, with a good job, good hobies, and no longer a need to use." F--- that, seriously. That's setting yourself up for failure, and if I didn't acknowledge that it was total bull coming out of my mouth at rehab, I don't know what would have happened to me. The truth, like it or not, is that you revert back to your old self once you get clean, and while you will feel better physically and whatnot, you will have a lot of psychological battles ahead of you. You cannot enter recovery cocky or else you'll be ignoring the very things that you need to humbly deal with if you really don't want to end up relapsing.

However, just as "normal" isn't some super-effective human being, it's also not who you were on drugs. Normal is the you that you've known all your life. The person with memories of childhood, your lifelong dreams and aspirations, your stressers, your guilty pleasures, the person who sings in the shower, etc. I understand that some drugs can generate a oh my goodness, I feel content/ok for the first time in my life, and others make you feel like I am really living and loving for the first time, but that's not normal. It's just something you got used to over time, but it's not really normal for a human being to be attempting to control his/her emotions and thoughts with some chemical that another human being made in a lab somewhere.

The idea that hard drugs can make us feel "normal" and alive for an extended period of time, without ending in disaster, is too good to be true. For every person who effectively pulls off a habit for 20 or 30 years, 1000 won't. Those are not good odds, and once you've seen the hells that a drug addiction can send a person to, you'll be begging for your old self back, when all you had to worry about was being too nervous to go to the grocery store alone...

Just keep reminding yourself that the "normal, happy functioning member of society" is not real and is a model we subscribe to when we feel depressed. Look at the photo threads in TDS and see us and our pets. We look just like everybody else in the world (although much sexier....strange...). People often like meetings (AA/NA, SMART, Celebrate, group therapy, etc) because of the "others like me" thing. Get to know people better, get more personal with them. As your sense of "we're all in this together...just not everyone copes with it through addiction, but we all have our vices to keep the s--- at bay" grows, you should find that your desire to use in order to feel like you can fit in will go down.



About the PAWS, I'll try and write something on that in a few days. The reason I suggested waiting isn't because I didn't think you had it in the past, but because in the state you are in right now, thinking/talking about drugs and the consequences of addiction isn't going to make time go any faster. You should be keeping busy in ways that are as far from the drug lifestyle as possible. Thinking too much about this stuff sets people up for I need drugs to cope with the consequences of using drugs, which is one of the most unhealthy thought-loops out there.

 

[Fascination]

Completely agree with you about the drug laws. Oh BTW, my campaign manager will be contacting you for help with my bid for world ruler! Donations are appreciated. LOL
I'll try the tapes you mentioned. Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[Fascination]

Thank you for the reply Redleader. I understand what you mean by what "normal" is to us addicts. I agree that this is probably some of my problem (having to deal with emotions again, etc).
However, I remember how I felt before being an addict and while I was on methadone (not getting high just not being sick) and it wasn't this, you know? I feel like my opiate receptors are screwed up. I have intense periods of anhedonia and I'm very pain sensitive. I don't know..I just want it to get better.

 

[batmanplaybaseball]

Your opiate receptors are screwed up, but they are not permanently screwed up. They are healing. You are three days into withdrawal, intense anhedonia and sensitivity to pain is exactly the normal thing at this point, unfortunately.

 

[Fascination]

Your opiate receptors are screwed up, but they are not permanently screwed up. They are healing. You are three days into withdrawal, intense anhedonia and sensitivity to pain is exactly the normal thing at this point, unfortunately.

The problem is I've felt like this since quitting MMT 2 Years ago. I only feel better when o take an opiate. Im wondering how long until my opiate receptors heal. They seemed to be no better after 1 year off methadone.

 

[batmanplaybaseball]

Honestly I think that being in withdrawal at the moment is skewing your perception of the past, it tends to skew perception of everything, joy, sadness, physical pain, and memory. It sounds like you are trying to over-rationalize using by convincing yourself that you only felt better once you started taking opiates again. I would agree that you only felt like you were on opiates again when you started taking opiates again, but the key is to learn that numb doesn't mean better. Looking back on my own addiction, opiates never made me happy, they just made me...on opiates. They kill both happiness and sadness and leave you with just opiates. That's why your brain is going crazy now, because opiates took your natural self and your body has to renew itself.

 

[Fascination]

Honestly I think that being in withdrawal at the moment is skewing your perception of the past, it tends to skew perception of everything, joy, sadness, physical pain, and memory. It sounds like you are trying to over-rationalize using by convincing yourself that you only felt better once you started taking opiates again. I would agree that you only felt like you were on opiates again when you started taking opiates again, but the key is to learn that numb doesn't mean better. Looking back on my own addiction, opiates never made me happy, they just made me...on opiates. They kill both happiness and sadness and leave you with just opiates. That's why your brain is going crazy now, because opiates took your natural self and your body has to renew itself.

Maybe you're right. I'll try to relax and not over analyze everything for now.