I guess they're so complex they can't be dealt with.
Like when I made the, in retrospect, bad decision of going on ORT maintenance, I couldn't know the methadone would cause me such side effects and that switching to suboxone and the sublingual tablets destroy my teeth (had 3 small cavities in my life, I noticed I had a hole under a canine, went to the dentist to have it repaired, he found 23 other cavities, all in the inside of the mouth or in between the teeth, but only 2 in the outside after now close to 2 years 1/2 of suboxone with its lime and lemon extracts. Tastes like Mr.Clean. If at least the tablets had been the same as American ones, Orange tasting, I imagine they only had a much lower citric acid concentration.
Back then I could have made it, I was shooting up Dilaudid/HM Contins, and although my daily doses varied on how much money I had/how much guy was willing to sell, he tried to keep something for all his customers, which is understandable..anyway...So what happened is I was shooting up 8 to 56mg of hydromorphone a day, averaging 16, I guess the conversion I saw (one that is actually able to determine chronic oral methadone use compared to other opioids taken in various ways, it's not online, unless you find and download the whole medical program, I won't mention the name, but I was fine with 55mg of methadone which equalled appx. 14mg of IV dilaudid a day). When I knew that I could only start a 6 day start-up as an inpatient only a month after I went and showed them the place I was shooting up (my hand, thankfully it wasn't infected, I was always really clean regarding IV'ing, did re-use needles but not more than 3 times, but yeah, I abusing the same spot on my hand because it was the easiest place to draw and it was and the skin around that vein was swollen, but not red, but I would develop scabs when I would fail to register giving myself a bunch of cuts...ugh.
So I buckled up, I exaggerated a cold and got some Hycodan 5mg pills, 30 of them, with antibiotics (that I didn't use for no reason) and some atarax for secretions I actually had at the back of my throat. I was surprised at how the hydrocodone at 30-35mg with some hydroxyzine was still working very well and I enjoyed it more than the Dilaudid high (except the Rush, of course). I bet I reduced my tolerance with that stuff, only problem is that 30x5mg hydrocodone wasn't enough to tough 30 days, but I had reduced my intake of IV dilaudid to a point where I think I could have managed it, but as I took less opiates, I started eating more of my 2 benzo scripts of 20mg valium and 1mg a day clonazepam. Out of clonazepam and facing days without it, I knew I would be given all my scripts while in detox because I talked to my psychiatrist and said "I got problems getting rid of a medication after I got that deviated septum surgery which didn't turn out 100% well (all truth, except the part that I wasn't taking still the stuff i was prescribed for that sawing off a part of my nosebone by an ENT, it had been a while. He told them not to take me off my benzos. So I was reassured that I wouldn't be taken off benzos.
I couldn't face being alone in my then apartment, nothing to do with myself, collecting student loans/grants cheques every month but not showing up at the uni...and the prospect of not having enough benzos to endure the tapering away of the IV dilaudid habit (I was down to where having 12mg a day, 3 shots in the evening well separated by 4 hours was enough). I felt all kinds of mental panic that I couldn't talk to about to anyone else (needles are extremely taboo here, smoking crack is alright but IV'ing anything and you will lose 99% of your friends). I couldn't get more benzos since I knew nobody who was on benzos then, only got to know some...while in detox of course! At least it helps the rare times I fuck up with my valium script.
But yeah, the fact I was expecting to feel both benzo and opiate withdrawal at the same time distressed me intensely, because I knew each of them separately...both at the same time and I probably would have done something really bad. There's just no chasing away physical distress, especially one that can kill while already wd/ing from IV opiate use.
