Yeah.... It doesn't get easier. I started doing oxycontin and heroin in 1998 and I've barely had one full year clean in that time so you can imagine the things I've been through during those 25yrs and to be honest I was already addicted to morphine before oxycontin started showing up. Hell the first drug I ever took was Vicodin in 1993. I was basically ground zero for what was referred to as the opioid crisis, especially living in Florida because it's where most of the recreational Oxycontin in the country came from at the time.
Oh you definitely get it. BTW ignore the following multitude of typos. I'm on mobile and can't be asked to correct all the dumb little letters my fat ass thumbs accidentally pressed with the right ones.
I'm florida born and bred. You've been in the game as long as I've been alive, so I camt imagine what it's like trying to stay clean.
I started with vicodon too, funny enough, played sports and fought a lot. Broke a few knuckles and you know florida physicians loved that mf Vicodin lol. I was 13 when I got my first script and that was pretty much a death sentence. Got my tonsils ams wisdom teeth yanked, broke my own forearm with a hammer, had my buddy hit me with his car, all before I'd graduated fuckin high school. Eventually I was blackballed as a drug seeker.
Like you were ground zero for the opioid crisis, me amd my homes were pretty much ground zero for the fentanyl crisis in particular. I was part of this weird age group who started with pharmacy, progressed to genuine H, then the genuine H was quickly replaced with pretty much exclusively fentanyl analogues and water soluble powders. This new-new shit I've noticed is extremely bitter and slighly numbs the mouth, and the only thing I can compare the taste to is rat poison. Instead of sniffing and knowing you're about 5 minutes away from bliss, you sniff amd you might be 5 minutes away from nodding hard af or you might be 5 seconds away from not breathing. With the rise in mortality rates related to opiates among people under 55 continuing to grow I think we need to have a much larger conversation about why so many young people are turning to drugs and how we can make relapse less common.
Imagine you could go to the hospital and be put in a coma for 3 days and wake up with your brains receptors completely reset, and all positive memories of opioid use completely erased? They gotta come up with something. It's deeper than just getting off the drugs. Staying off them is the problem it seems. I can detox without subs if I have comfort meds and valium and Xanax. I actually have refused sub tapers my last 3 stints in treatment cause I CAME IN TO DETOX OFF METHADONE/SUBS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I hate this life, not just addiction, but probably generally speaking; maybe its more of a self loathing or a combination of both considering all the shit ive been through the last decade.
I too really seem to struggle around the 1 year mark whether I'm on MAT or not. I wake up every day and all I can think is "FUCK THIS AND FUCK YOU." It's hard because the only thing that even remotely brings me relief from the constant guilt only makes me feel more guilty when its worn off and I come off my binge. I will say, now I don't use nearly like I used to, and life is more normal than when I was running and gunning, but it depends. I might get 11 months, I might get 11 days. But at least I try, as I imagine you do as well.
I just want an answer.. like is it methadone? Not the neutered American methadone but the OG German formulation.... is it fuckin meditation and living in a monastery? Like seriously ill do whatever at this point, I just wanna live a normal life that many of my friends and family have had cut short because of this shit and nobody seems to be able to provide an answer to the addiction crisis that's been happening for 20somn years but goddammit they sure have made strides in disarming Americans with frivolous laws using emotional pleas as they stand on the Graves of children as a moral high ground.
Like fucks sake... WAY more children under 18 (number continues to rise yearly) die of opioid related overdose per year than have been killed in mass casualty events in the last 15 years combined, but hey, better dump half the taxpayer dollars into the ATF banning ARs and developing "socially equitable reparative measures" while we die in droves and nobody seems to bat an eye until they're fuckin shoveling the dirt onto our coffins.
Idk. I'm just ranting at this point. It's my cousins birthday this week, and I'm in a bad headspace as it is. I just want this to stop, not just for me, but for all of us. It's exhausting. I don't wanna be this way no more...
