He did mention in his original post that he was taking the
Buprenorphine (Subutex) sublingually. You made a good point though. This stuff is very inefficient when taken orally.
@FilthyTime I'd say your experience is pretty much par for the course. I was a chronic Opioid user myself. Through this addiction I've had a lot of experience with Buprenorphine. Like you, when I was first starting out, Buprenorphine was a recreational drug in its own right. I enjoyed the effects and they were long-lasting.
After being dependent on Opioids for several years, I found that no matter what I did, Buprenorphine was not going to give me that same feeling again. If Buprenorphine was working, it just meant that I was functional.
I would not look to a dosage increase for solving the problem here.
8mg Buprenorphine is a significant dose. I will not overload you on statistics, but an important point is that Buprenorphine is most effective in lower dosages. When the dose increases, more of the undesirable Opioid receptors are activated when all we really want is the Mu Receptor in this situation. I've read that it's most effective when used in dosages below 2mg. The temptation to take more is strong though and this leads a lot of people into a downward spiral. First they're sublingual, then they're snorting it, then they're injecting it, all the while not really getting any of the nice feelings that the person was after,
Case in point, Buprenorphine loses its magic for most people after they've been dependent upon other Opioids.
Interestingly, there is a documentary called "Reindeer Spotting" that is all about a town in northern Finland where there are few options in terms of drugs. You find out that the drug of choice for all of the miscreants in the town is Buprenorphine. They don't have Heroin or anything like that. This is an important kind of case study, as it shows that if no other Opioids are available, Buprenorphine can be a major drug of abuse.