just started methadone clinic... possibly the worst mistake of my life?! help!! :(I f

[mxrider47]

Hey folks, new here. been lurking for years but now Im in dire straights and it motivated me enough to register for the advice im seeking.


a little background - 27 year old male, opiate addict. story is like many - started with an injury Rx pills turned to heroin. always been able to control my addiction and back it down before i ended up too deep, until this last time that is. found a new source of very high quality stuff, and my use & tolerance sky rocketed thus leading to a $100 a day habit and where I currently am now.

Ill try to keep it simple so yall arent reading my entire life story. I have many factors to consider so I do want to make sure I include all the pieces to my story.

as the title says - I have just started MMT. I tried and tried to kick H and absolutely couldnt. I even had subutex at my disposal for free, a limitless amount of it. this is what i had always done in the past but recently 2 episodes of precipitated withdrawl have absolutely horrified me and keeps me from taking that route anymore... so I thought the answer was methadone. I have been going for a total of 9 days now, and have started at 30mg and am now on 50mg - fairly stable still waking up early every morning not feeling well. I wanted off the methadone asap and dropped my dose 5mg yesterday and had a very difficult day afterwards, pretty serious withdrawls.

now Im terrified of all the horror stories ive read about methadone and everyday I keep thinking if Im gonna quit this stuff I need to do it NOW! cause everyday its only gonna be harder. I have a very good job that Im pretty sure id lose and I am random drug tested very frequently. spending an hour and a half every morning and $90 a week on methadone seems crazy to me - however when i take a step back i was spending an hour a day everyday getting heroin except it was a 600-700 dollar a week habit instead of 90. Thats why I dont know what to do. I know i can stay away from heroin on methadone however it comes at a high price and withdrawl from methadone will come one day, whether it be tomorrow or in 2 years. My plan was to jump from my current dose of 50mg and wait 3 days and start subutex. I have researched it and know robert reccomends 30mg but Im going to suffer either way. I feel like im rambling, i want to see what some of your opinions are. if you need anymore background let me know. thanks

 

[slortaone]

where are you located that it takes an hour and a half and $90 a week for methadone? that seems a little extreme

edit- the simple answer is get off methadone asap, i can tell you know it in your post and have heard it many times. but dont go back to heroin and the $700 a week habit. choice is hard im sure.

 

[Bella_templeton]

I have been on methadone for many years . When i first started i had all the same fears of withdrawing off methadone as you do now. The prob is you are worrying about withdrawing off from it way to soon. When methadone clinics first began they were treating people for 3-6 months. Clearly they found that the percentage of people that left after that small time frame did 1 of 2 things, 1. They Came back after a month or 2 cause they started using again, 2. Starting using again and stayed using. The percentage of people it was successful on was so small (1 in a hundred, and that is only researching them with in the first year of leaving methadone clinic, so my guess is 50% of those people eventually used again as well. My point is, recovery takes time. You can't put a date on it, and you can't assume you will be healed after a few weeks or months, it is not going to Happen. You need time to relearn who you are, and give your body and mind time to heal.
You need to think about getting clean and to do that it is going to take more then a few weeks. They say for every year you used , it will take about the same for you to get clean. I used for 3 years and i will be honest had i left the clinic after a month I would had used again very quickly. Your body and brain need time to heal, and you need to learn steps to help you not use, that comes with time and devotion, but you need to put the work into it. Maybe you could give the clinic 3 months. You can set it up with your counselor, the doctor and the nursing staff you want to be in and out in 3 months. Which means you start and go for a month , stay on a small enough dose that you can get by each day, and then spend the last two months blind detoxing (they don't let you know what you go down each week, or day, however they set it up ) and by the time you get to the 3 month mark you are completely off methadone. Are you going to feel amazing? No prob not but it will give you 3 months of not having to worry about using, getting other drugs to stop using, and give you time to put time into being clean.
If after you complete your time at the clinic and you leave and stay using again, it may be time to rethink your approach on getting clean. It takes time, and u may not be able to put a time frame on it. But don't ever give trying, getting clean and sober is not easy but it can be done.
Good luck

 

[herbavore]

I have been on methadone for many years . When i first started i had all the same fears of withdrawing off methadone as you do now. The prob is you are worrying about withdrawing off from it way to soon. When methadone clinics first began they were treating people for 3-6 months. Clearly they found that the percentage of people that left after that small time frame did 1 of 2 things, 1. They Came back after a month or 2 cause they started using again, 2. Starting using again and stayed using. The percentage of people it was successful on was so small (1 in a hundred, and that is only researching them with in the first year of leaving methadone clinic, so my guess is 50% of those people eventually used again as well. My point is, recovery takes time. You can't put a date on it, and you can't assume you will be healed after a few weeks or months, it is not going to Happen. You need time to relearn who you are, and give your body and mind time to heal.
You need to think about getting clean and to do that it is going to take more then a few weeks. They say for every year you used , it will take about the same for you to get clean. I used for 3 years and i will be honest had i left the clinic after a month I would had used again very quickly. Your body and brain need time to heal, and you need to learn steps to help you not use, that comes with time and devotion, but you need to put the work into it. Maybe you could give the clinic 3 months. You can set it up with your counselor, the doctor and the nursing staff you want to be in and out in 3 months. Which means you start and go for a month , stay on a small enough dose that you can get by each day, and then spend the last two months blind detoxing (they don't let you know what you go down each week, or day, however they set it up ) and by the time you get to the 3 month mark you are completely off methadone. Are you going to feel amazing? No prob not but it will give you 3 months of not having to worry about using, getting other drugs to stop using, and give you time to put time into being clean.
If after you complete your time at the clinic and you leave and stay using again, it may be time to rethink your approach on getting clean. It takes time, and u may not be able to put a time frame on it. But don't ever give trying, getting clean and sober is not easy but it can be done.
Good luck

This is such a great post. Mxrider47, read this a few times calmly and let it settle in. Recovery is such a deep process. On the surface you have all the urgency of the painful relationship between your brain and the addictive substance. But underneath that chaos of physical symptoms and habituated neural pathways there is a place that needs healing. Developing strategies for making it past the worst of WDs and then the onset of PAWS is crucial but healing your own true self is a lifelong process that is what recovery can truly be about. Don't lose hope now. Give it some time and keep stepping back to look at the bigger picture.Be as accepting of yourself and your honorable struggle as you possible can.

 

[mxrider47]

Thank you all so much for your replies.

I want to report back with some very positive news : it seems my christmas wish has been granted. I finally successfully inducted on subutex!!!!! I know this may seem trivial to some of you but as you can tell i have been in fight or flight mode for a couple months when i started to realize i wont be able to afford this habit and support my family, wont be keeping my job or a roof over my head, all my friends have wrote me off and my gf kicked me out of our new apartment (i still pay all expenses) - i dont blame her! I have a 6 year old daughter that she adopted and is trying to give a better life after her mother succumbed to heroin addiction also.


Anyway, i thought i had read every single scrap of information online about switching to suboxone but i found a guy named homer on another page ssid that he was given horrible precip wd's everytime he tried to start until the last time - in which he kept using h regularly and mixed in small doses of subs to get his body acclimated to it. Well... it worked! I am so, so thankful. I slept a full night last night which is something i havent done without heroin in months. I dont feel the jello legs or the heart racing anxiety of wondering where my next gram will come from.

Suboxone has saved me before. But like i said the last couple times i tried it - it put me into the worst fit ive ever felt in my life. Felt like i was standing outside in zero degree weather - naked and soaking wet. Racing, manic morbid thoughts of suicide between gasps of breath that felt like they werent ever enough as my heart raced away in ayrithmia. Thats enough about that... ive re lived it too many times already

Anyway - im just exctatic. Subs make it possible, certainly not easy. I have to learn to live sober now

 

[mxrider47]

For the job i have now they took a hair fokicle drug test - i found this out one month before i went to it. I was even still using at the time also! The second i found out it was a hair test i flushed my dope and shaved everything but my eyebrows and head.

Whats odd is i dont remember ANY withdrawl or paws then. Pretty crazy. Like i said ive been on and off h for almost 3 years now and it had never escalated to the point that i couldnt hsndle myself until this last go round. Before - i knew if i had to quit or if i was broke, then no more dope. Recently i have been the typical fiend you hear about. Lying and stealing to get my fix, pawning my possesions... sold 2 of my motorcycles snd my mint condition z28... the money gone in weeks. If i was broke and couldnt score id be so distraught id cry and beg... god it was ugly. Its amazing i didnt end up homeless and unemployed... nodding off at work while everyone watched... so humiliating now that im thinkin with a clear mind.

Ill say this - and i ever considered making a thread on this : if you are considering usin gnome heroin, your abusing opiates or knoe someone who is - take them up to the methadone clinic and let them see where it ends. I dont mean to be judgmental, im an addict myself but it looks like the walking dead inside there. These people... most had black decaying/multipe missing teeth, there was a fight or drams cussing and screaming every time i went in. Always people begging for money because they cant afford their dose, the place had s terrible smell to it not to mention the 45 minute wait in line every morning and 45 minute drive there. Going in that place instantly gave me the creeps. The first day when i did intake i was in a room with 10 other people waiting to start done also. They told us to be at least 24 hours from our last dose and withdrawling.... everyone in the room except me was nodding. Hell idk maybe they were sick but myself - forget about a wink of sleep if you havent used all day.

 

[SKL]

Precipitated withdrawal is not the bogeyman that it is made out to be, only people (doctors) go about getting on suboxone (induction) the wrong way.
This I have found works better than "official" practice, and, if you keep your titrations small, is very safe
All you have to pick a starting dose of bupe, this will be between 4-8mg in most cases
Once precipitated withdrawal kicks in, just keep increasing your dose by 0.5-1mg, sometimes as much as 2, every 30-45 minutes
You may hit 16+mg, feel no longer sick but tired, overall shitty, sleep badly first few nights
Then, quickly, go down by 1-2+mg every day, sometimes as much as 4+mg, as much as possible really
until you hit a dose you're comfortable with, which can be very low, some people are fine with 1mg or less, others need, or are more comfortable and confident at higher doses; but doses above 8mg are generally excessive (except in the titration scenario I described above and then only for a week or less)
this is not exactly the standard medical induction protocol (and thus will not match what you are prescribed in many situations unless you have a doctor who is open to this approach) but I find it very effective
it is very common to wind up needing only 1-4mg with no ill effects
the only reason I personally take 8mg is because it has some antidepressant, anxiolytic, and analgesic (I do have some fairly minor*at least compared to a lot of people here chronic back pain issues and the bupe actually helps, with mood too altthough I'm already on meds for that and the Suboxone may not be adding much) effects
however getting off of it is a real bitch. a REAL bitch. as the great Peter McDermott said, although he was talking about something else, and I'm paraphrasing, "if getting off dope is cold turkey, this is cold raven."
TBH and this will go against some grains, some people would be better served to get back on heroin/oxy/morphine/fentanyl/something short acting, from the bupe (which will initially, but not for long, require huge doses so again careful dose titration is VERY important; unlike the bupe protocol described above this part can kill you easily if you're not careful) and then cold-turkey that vs trying to cold-turkey to bupe or 'done

None of the foregoing is medical advice, substitution for in-person and individualized assessment and treatment planning and implementation with a qualified and duly licensed professional; nor does it constitute the establishment of a professional relationship in any way, shape or form.

 

[mxrider47]

Ive used subs before a handful of times and becsuse i dint catch a buzz off of it i never really abused it like i did h. With h every cell in my body is screaming out for it 24/7 and when im stable on subs hell sometimes i forget to take it. Ive been using 1g a day intranasally and 2mg is holding me fine today. No withdrawl sensations or cravings. The main thing is just adjusti ng back to regular life where im not high or on the chase every waking moment. I wont get cocky and say im not going to withdrawl from subs but ill keep my dose and usage as low as possible. I used to be absolutely wreckless with any and all drugs and a gram a day withdrawl will put the fear of god into anyone to get their shit in check...

 

[SKL]

if you keep your dose low your withdrawal won't be as bad from subs but don't think it won't suck, and almost everyone says it's worse than dope, I definitely agree; kicking dope is like a bad flu, kicking bupe or done is that exponentiated and over a longer time, with a greater emphasis on the post-acute depression and emotional shit. that's why proper tapering, sometimes to the point of dissolving the smallest pills in alcohol and using an eyedropper, is essential. you are 100% right, though, that the psychosocial shit of getting back to real life is the hardest part of all. good luck. I'm still trying.

 

[JoeJunky]

Tapering down to the 2mg green strips of suboxone, and then tapering from that made it really easy for me to jump off, had to be patient though. Dropping from 12mg to 2mg was easy, going from 2mg to .5mg was tough.

It's $15 a day at our methadone clinic, but I said the same thing, it's cheaper than my dope habit. But, I couldn't jump off that liquid stuff and go to work, especially at 50mg, no way.

Right now, jumping off .25 sub a day with tramadol and gabapentin I could probably go to work, my energy would be low but I could push through it. When I jumped off at 2mg sub per day it was rough and I don't think I could have been at work from what I remember. Good luck.

 

[mxrider47]

Its been about one week on subs now, i dont know whats up but they dont seem to be the miracle cure that they used to.

Still, this hasnt been terrible by any means. Getting off a gram a day habit will be uncomfortable no matter what i feel. My main issues are when i take it i feel like i have just took about 5 tylenol pm. I feel supet drowsy but at the same time pretty anxious and cant sleep.

I was still searching for that high that i miss so much and knew i wasnt gonna feel anything on subs so i got some coke and then had a horrific panic attack lasting maybe 10 mins.

Overall id say i feel about 75% normal, i find once i get busy or occupied with something i forget about drugs or life as an addict. Its when im idle my mind is stuck in a rut. Anothet thing, i am trying hard to have a positive outlook on things rather than waking up every morning sober and saying to myself "god this is miserable". Ive found my mentallity had such a massive impact on my decisions, my attitude, the way i feel.... im not saying its easy or its a joy but telling myself that everyday sober im that much closer to living a normal life is a huge help. Thanks everyone

 

[BambooHut]

May God bless you and keep you as you face this challenge. Your daughter deserves the best dad she can have - only you can give her that. Just remember, if you do it right, you only have to do this once. Once you get through it you'll be able to look at it as part of your past and not as part of your future.

 

[CfZrx]

Its been about one week on subs now, i dont know whats up but they dont seem to be the miracle cure that they used to.

Hey, at least it aint 700 bucks a week I like low dose methadone, but if i had to pay I would take bupe for sure! Good work Mx!