Venting Rehab is bullshit

[psychetool]

This is a repost from my blog in 2017, and it's even more true today. Fuck rehab. I was a better person when I was on drugs.

"those fuckers convinced me to throw away all my phone numbers, now i've completed the program and i'm in a worse fucking situation then I was when I went in there... sick as fuck an noway to feel normal... living in pdx you'd think things would be a breeze but I'm a seemingly 'upstanding' member of society in that I live in a tiny fucking studio - nobody will even talk to me. So I sit around going crazy like a motherfucker 24/7 and eat xanax when my doc is kind enough to give it to me - thanks buddy, 30 four hour periods where I can feel like half a normal person... shit lot of that does me. Sure I can find some white, but that shit ain't for me anymore - not to mention I can't fuckin afford it... and of course they won't let you into a methadone program if you're not currently using - what a crock of shit. I basically have to go out and get strung out again just to get help ? the system is jacked up... if anyone is in pdx and wants to chat shoot me a message - could really use some support just to talk.... "

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

^is that a quote from you?

I think it's different for everyone.
Detox is 100% not bullshit, but I can understand where you're coming from about rehab. My issue is - mostly because I am entirely atheist, to the point where I am actually anti-theist (I'm completely against the idea of organized religion as a whole) - the 12 steps. I think the 12 steps is a crock of shit and most rehabs bullshit you that it is "the only way" and "100% of people fail without the 12 steps". I'm over 3 years sober from alcohol and I did not go to rehab (I actually also detoxed at home. Cold turkey alcohol dependency is fatal, so I gave my dad control of my alcohol and we gradually reduced it) or do the 12 steps.
If you're along this kind of thinking you will probably enjoy Nic Sheff's We All Fall Down. It's his experience of rehabs and relapses and how he hates the 12 steps too. Oh, you'd wanna read his first book - Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamine - first.
The two books, plus his fathers book about his experience of having an addicted son, we made into the movie Beautiful Boy. I can't say anything about the movie as I'm currently reading We All Fall Down and want to finish that first,

 

[psychetool]

I quoted a blog I wrote back in 2017 that apparently didn't get posted as it was set to 'private'. I've read so many books on addiction, been to far too many useless classes where I see the same broken people who may be sober but have switched just switched from one addiction to another ('sobriety addiction?'). They're not happy. They're just sober. Detoxing is easy. It's the psychological pain the comes afterwards that fucks you. Knowing that you're just a shell of what you could be.

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

I quoted a blog I wrote back in 2017 that apparently didn't get posted as it was set to 'private'. I've read so many books on addiction, been to far too many useless classes where I see the same broken people who may be sober but have switched just switched from one addiction to another ('sobriety addiction?'). They're not happy. They're just sober. Detoxing is easy. It's the psychological pain the comes afterwards that fucks you. Knowing that you're just a shell of what you could be.

I am a better person when I'm NOT sober; I just am. I'm more confident, funnier, more outgoing even physically fitter (on uppers I get way too thin as I'm underweight anyway, but definitely have more muscle tone...also on my opioids because I'm in too much pain to movie otherwise so atrophy).
The alcohol was a very serious issue, though, and had to be sorted. I was told I'd never make it to thirsty, I almost died of acute pancreatitis, I have brain damage from the withdrawal seizures and I lost all my family and friends and became homeless. Drugs, I'm happy with any never intend to stop.

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

This is a repost from my blog in 2017, and it's even more true today. Fuck rehab. I was a better person when I was on drugs.

"those fuckers convinced me to throw away all my phone numbers, now i've completed the program and i'm in a worse fucking situation then I was when I went in there... sick as fuck an noway to feel normal... living in pdx you'd think things would be a breeze but I'm a seemingly 'upstanding' member of society in that I live in a tiny fucking studio - nobody will even talk to me. So I sit around going crazy like a motherfucker 24/7 and eat xanax when my doc is kind enough to give it to me - thanks buddy, 30 four hour periods where I can feel like half a normal person... shit lot of that does me. Sure I can find some white, but that shit ain't for me anymore - not to mention I can't fuckin afford it... and of course they won't let you into a methadone program if you're not currently using - what a crock of shit. I basically have to go out and get strung out again just to get help ? the system is jacked up... if anyone is in pdx and wants to chat shoot me a message - could really use some support just to talk.... "

Btw, if you take just a little heroin (or any opioid) the day before you go to get on methadone, you will test positive and you can just lie about how much you take and how often. It worked for me. I'd just take an OC the day before I went each week.

 

[psychetool]

I know, but I'm too much of a shortsighted idiot and ran through the last of my Oxy from a surgery that I was going to use to get on a maintinence program. Now I have nothing and I'm fucked.

 

[nuttynutskin]

Lol... It's bullshit if you don't want to get better I guess. No reason to go to rehab if you don't actually want to change.

I used to think I'd never be able to have fun without drinking and I'd be useless without being on benzos, but once I finally got through the withdrawal symptoms and got some clean time I found out that was not the case. No one ever said it'd be easy tho.

 

[psychetool]

I was sober well over a year from everything before, and honestly it was terrible. It just sucks to know you're not living life to your full potential because the government has deemed plant x to be illegal... Some people are happy to just take prozak and walk around like zombies but I'd rather feel my life.

 

[Painful One]

I know, but I'm too much of a shortsighted idiot and ran through the last of my Oxy from a surgery that I was going to use to get on a maintinence program. Now I have nothing and I'm fucked.

Check out the Loperamide mega-thread. That is a way to at least give you a break and to get some sleep.
Be very careful about using too much or for too long though as it has a bad and long withdrawal of its own.
Some have used it to successfully taper down off. It does really help or even stop the withdrawal symptoms.

Sending you a hug and some encouragement.

 

[JessFR]

Btw, if you take just a little heroin (or any opioid) the day before you go to get on methadone, you will test positive and you can just lie about how much you take and how often. It worked for me. I'd just take an OC the day before I went each week.

Weirdly, for some reason when I got back on methadone, they never ended up testing me at all. And even allowed me to start on a large dose and go up quickly. I mean it's possible they could have gotten my records from when I'd previously been on methadone, in which they'd see I tested positive for heroin pretty much every time without fail for over a year. But they still never checked that I was still using specifically when I rejoined the program.

I'm not complaining, I was just surprised.

When I was going to a clinic for methadone they drug tested us about once a month. After I went private though they never tested me again. I haven't been drug tested in 2 years.

Seems like experiences vary a lot.

 

[Benzorider]

I was sober well over a year from everything before, and honestly it was terrible. It just sucks to know you're not living life to your full potential because the government has deemed plant x to be illegal... Some people are happy to just take prozak and walk around like zombies but I'd rather feel my life.

So you are gonna "feel your life" on the two most cognitive depressing drugs on the planet, benzo and opiods?

 

[psychetool]

Well some kind of methadone maintenance would be ideal. I'm kind of a weird user ? I don't use so much that I nod out or anything, opiates energize me ? It kills the anxiety and lets me be a normal person. I only ever tried dope because pills are not available anymore.

 

[Twilight222]

Hey psychetool -
I don’t think the energizing component to opiates is atypical, usually just a dose dependent response. The user problem is that we can’t selectively numb so while you don’t have anxiety, you also don’t feel love and meaning in your heart, over time anyway. Methadone has such a crazy long half life, and thus is evil to get off of, be careful what you ask for. I worked in a MM clinic for quite awhile and I didn’t meet any patients with a warm or caring smile and heart. Pretty much a misery factory, keep that in mind. Sobriety can be a misery factory too, unless you are doing shit in your life that brings you connection and meaning and hope. Rehab and 12 steps are a miracle for some (just ask ‘em - they’ll be more than happy to tell you for 6 hours) but for me, and lots of other atheists or agnostics, it’s an enormous load of shit. Focus on connection. Do shit that makes you feel good. Best of luck

 

[neversickanymore]

@psychetool Have you been on maintenance before?

 

[JessFR]

Hey psychetool -
I don’t think the energizing component to opiates is atypical, usually just a dose dependent response. The user problem is that we can’t selectively numb so while you don’t have anxiety, you also don’t feel love and meaning in your heart, over time anyway. Methadone has such a crazy long half life, and thus is evil to get off of, be careful what you ask for. I worked in a MM clinic for quite awhile and I didn’t meet any patients with a warm or caring smile and heart. Pretty much a misery factory, keep that in mind. Sobriety can be a misery factory too, unless you are doing shit in your life that brings you connection and meaning and hope. Rehab and 12 steps are a miracle for some (just ask ‘em - they’ll be more than happy to tell you for 6 hours) but for me, and lots of other atheists or agnostics, it’s an enormous load of shit. Focus on connection. Do shit that makes you feel good. Best of luck

I generally agree with your post, I just wanted to make the observation that not all clinics are made equal. I've been to two different methadone clinics one publicly operated one private, plus the private non clinic system here where I live.

Honestly, all three in my experience were radically different. With both the private ones being between good and excellent. And the public one being generally terrible.

I don't know where you worked. But misery was an excellent description of the public clinic I've been too. While far less noticeably so with the private ones I've been on.

 

[Mafioso]

I think the energy comes from the mild sedation and increase in dopamine levels. Opioids are a CNS depressant, so in high enough doses, everyone will slow down. If one is anxious/depressed, the mild sedation might actually be relieving, while an increase in dopamine will spark interest in life again.

I was just listening to a joe rogan podcast and one of his guest is talking about how fentanyl has been used to dope race horses- Rogan asks if it was used to slow the horses down, and his guest replies that it was found in winning horses not losing, explaining that it caused the horses to push harder.

As others have pointed out, this short term gain isn't without long term cost. Inevitably, you will build tolerance and need higher doses to receive the same amount of stimulation, eventually bordering on the limit of how much CNS depressant your body can handle. Not to mention the long list of side effects that go along with it, or the burden of being physically dependent.

 

[OrbitalCombustion]

Well some kind of methadone maintenance would be ideal. I'm kind of a weird user ? I don't use so much that I nod out or anything, opiates energize me ? It kills the anxiety and lets me be a normal person. I only ever tried dope because pills are not available anymore.

Exact same response here, I have RARELY nodded, in fact only fentanyl and a few choice moments on IV heroin have I nodded. I usually get a miraculous, solid energy from opiates. Sometimes staying up for days.

 

[Mistressofitness]

Well some kind of methadone maintenance would be ideal. I'm kind of a weird user ? I don't use so much that I nod out or anything, opiates energize me ? It kills the anxiety and lets me be a normal person. I only ever tried dope because pills are not available anymore.

I am same as you- got hooked on opiates because they helped me feel 'normal' have energy, and function thru the haze of depression. I am on Suboxone now. .am lucky to be in Canada .we have reasonably decent addiction and mental health system...but Suboxone no good if you think u Will use because you get real sick mixing...methadone def maybe better ....what city you in? being sober or clean is tough for sure, but for me the depression anxiety and withdrawals were wayyyy worse . .u have to have support systems or y cant make it ..staying off is the hard part because most of us have pretty serious depression or some demons....I was able somehow to tolerate AA for a while..but left as per the usual reasons mentioned by others...I am atheist and that became clearer ..but I actually met decent people there who helped me a lot but..I live in progressive city so more open minded maybe... ... am trying some other stuff cuz am really really sick of all this ....I feel you. I hope u find something that helps you....

 

[Mistressofitness]

Hey psychetool -
I don’t think the energizing component to opiates is atypical, usually just a dose dependent response. The user problem is that we can’t selectively numb so while you don’t have anxiety, you also don’t feel love and meaning in your heart, over time anyway. Methadone has such a crazy long half life, and thus is evil to get off of, be careful what you ask for. I worked in a MM clinic for quite awhile and I didn’t meet any patients with a warm or caring smile and heart. Pretty much a misery factory, keep that in mind. Sobriety can be a misery factory too, unless you are doing shit in your life that brings you connection and meaning and hope. Rehab and 12 steps are a miracle for some (just ask ‘em - they’ll be more than happy to tell you for 6 hours) but for me, and lots of other atheists or agnostics, it’s an enormous load of shit. Focus on connection. Do shit that makes you feel good. Best of luck

any suggestions on good programs/ groups that are non 12 Step from your travels? I do better with help and like you say connection...you hit nail on head about not feeling love and meaning in heart when using...that is precisely how I feel & is brutal because there were times when my heart was wide open ..but I snapped it closed the moment I took oxy.... am looking into SMART recovery in Canada...thoughts?

 

[Quere]

Exact same response here, I have RARELY nodded, in fact only fentanyl and a few choice moments on IV heroin have I nodded. I usually get a miraculous, solid energy from opiates. Sometimes staying up for days.

Well some kind of methadone maintenance would be ideal. I'm kind of a weird user ? I don't use so much that I nod out or anything, opiates energize me ? It kills the anxiety and lets me be a normal person. I only ever tried dope because pills are not available anymore.

I'm the same as well, i was never that into getting smashed on opioids and/or nodding, they have always just given me the energy and I guess 'lust for life' to feel like an actual human. I can actually socialize and feel relatively happy.

And before someone tells me that those effects won't last and soon I'll be regretting using opioids etc I have been on opioids fr a decade and on maintenance for half of that and I still get all these positive effects, sure they do reduce a bit as you get tolerant but IME the anxiolytic and energy enhancing effects never develop complete tolerance.

Getting on MMT definitely worked for me, and has allowed me to make huge progress in the rest of my life