Oxy withdrawal and the shitty insomnia

[Blekkulfen]

I’ve finally reached week 3 on my trip through hell with oxy withdrawal, I’m almost 100% back to normal . However my sleep is not yet good at all, I can only sleep for max 3-5 hours at night max (sleeping / taking a nap during the day is impossible)..... what is your experience with insomnia during recovery?

 

[Jabberwocky]

everyone coming off opioids gets horrendous insomnia. i was lucky that in my rehab they let me have zopiclone in the night if i needed it. honestly if you can get any benzos, but ideally just a very small amount to mitigate the risk of cross addiction, i'd use them. max once or twice a week. or weed if that floats your boat, i had little success using it to get to sleep wehen i had insomnia due to withdrawal, but i know many other who have.

you have done really well to get this far. i understand how disheartening it is to get through so much pain and still have debilitating insomnia weeks later. keep going. are you getting any psychological help to try and understand whats behind your use to reduce the chance of relapse?

 

[Blekkulfen]

I did get zopiclone from my doctor (just told him I’m having a bad insomnia not mentioning the previous opiate abuse) but it only helped me pass out for 1-2 hours until the effect is gone and I can’t eat them through the night for weeks either.

I know what causes the addiction, a lot of stress and first time I used I got so much energy to do every daily tasks and everything was just pure pleasure (I guess that’s why I just continued the abuse), but now I have moved back to my home country where the availability of easy-to-get prescriptions is hard-to-get. And it helps a lot

 

[Blekkulfen]

And reading this forum also boosts the morale... another reason is I love to drive and here they do check drugs (salvia tests) at every checkpoint

 

[Jabberwocky]

yeah the short half life of zopiclone and zolpidem can mean you wake up and can't get back to sleep. do you have access to longer acting benzos?

stress in and of itself doesn't cause addiction, otherwise everyone would be an addict. there is something in your response to stress that is dysfunctional, and you need to fin out how to remedy that so it doesn't happen again.

 

[Branggen]

Im at 3 months and sleep is pretty decent now, im working on getting off the weed now and that is now causing some insomnia. Youll probably start to get some full nights here and there within the next week or 2

 

[xxfreak187xx]

Yeah I had it pretty bad as well, lasting up to around 2 months I believe. At the height of it I was going around the house and taking the batteries out of all the clocks and shit because all I could hear was tick tick tick but it will go away for sure. I know easier said than done but if you can get your mind to avoid dwelling on it and dreading it b4 bed it will help. Melatonin did nothing for me but know a few people who have said it helped when they were going thru this but also met someone who claimed that it was melatonin that caused him to relapse? I think he was an idiot but thats beside the point...

 

[Rio Fantastic]

Just know that it won't last forever! If the zopiclone isn't working then I wouldn't bother popping them just to snatch a couple hours of sleep, since in the long run you have to let your brain reach homeostasis before absolutely all of the symptoms like insomnia can settle down. Are you keeping busy in the day? I find exercising til I'm exhausted always helps me sleep like a baby when the time comes round so that might help you. Are you having any form of caffeine in the day? If you are then I'd suggest cutting it out immediately. I become way more sensitive to caffeine when I've stopped using opiates, to the point where I found that I couldn't have any at all after 4PM initially else I wouldn't be able to sleep, even at 1-2AM.

Other than that the only thing to do is persevere. It's horrendously frustrating and makes you feel like tearing your hair out, but it doesn't last forever. Your body will adjust. Your natural circadian rhythm will return. You can be confident that a point will come when you're falling asleep with zero problems, and you can look back at this period and just be glad that you stuck it out until your body came back to normality. You're doing the right thing! Keep going!