I know there's countless people in similar situations and I'm just one more drop in the ocean but, Idk, maybe I just needed to vent because it's extremely frustrating.
I apologize in advance for the long-winded post. I've just got a lot on my chest.
12 years I was sober. 12 years!!! I was taking suboxone but whatever. In that time I got a stable job, worked my way up to an engineer paid salary- mind you I'm an 8th grade dropout with no college degree, AND had spent all my time from age 16 up to that point as a hard-core drug addict... crack, heroin, whatever. Anything I could get my hands on. But the crack and opioids really had me in a vice grip.
Then one day I just decided enough was enough. I'd promised never to use needles and for at least a month or two that's exactly what I'd been doing. So I called a rehab and went the next day, and never looked back. Chucked my cellphone with all contacts so I couldn't reach them and they couldn't reach me, and after I completed rehab I went to a halfway house (all of this was in another city). There I got a job and started building a normal life.
And that lasted for 12 good, wonderful years. A few years back I moved back to the old town I was from- dad died and moved in with mom. Last summer an old friend- arguably best friend dating all the way back to when they were in middle school decades ago... they stopped by out of nowhere just to see if they could reach me... which they did. My mom was happy to see them as again, this person was a friend since a young age. He said he was doing good and on suboxone... so all seemed well.
Until he stopped by the following week and as we chatted I learned he was still dabbling (which didn't surprise me- this is the type of person I believe doesn't want to quit, at least not more than they want to use, and therefore never will).
Suddenly I start justifying to myself- ya know, I should get some dope in case I'm in a car wreck or something. It would be good to have in an emergency since no doc will prescribe me painkillers on suboxone, much less one's strong enough for my tolerance.
Of course deep down on a subconscious level I just wanted to get high but it seemed a logical conclusion, so we went to the city to score. Now, when I got clean back in 2011 it was all heroin and oxycodone. But all he could get me was fent or what he called "fetty powder".
I'd done the patches a few times but that's about it. So I get a few grams and as soon as we're on the way back I'm "sampling" it just to see. Of course that turned into doing an actual line and... well, I was off to the races.
That slip up lasted about a month when I bernese method back onto subs. And it worked!!! It was tough. I'd tapered down to a match head a day for 3 straight days while at 2mg suboxone. The next day I jumped to 4mg and did just a bump to kill the precipitated withdrawals and day after was 8mg, no dope. I didn't feel great but I wasn't super sick or anything. Happened to get some OCs also at this time and used to help feel better as I was acclimating to no more fent.
Week goes by and I realize I did it. That wasn't so hard after all! Maybe I can just take a little sniff of fent then. And the day after, and the day after, and... ya know what? Here I am back on fent again.
Only this time I never was able to get back on subs. I did eventually switch to heroin around New Years. I'd bernese method up to 16mg suboxone but when I tried to drop the fent it was too painful. So I said, "I need a more gradual ramp down". Plan was Switch to heroin and THEN do a bernese method onto subs.
So I think, "Hmm, I'm on 16mg suboxone which occupies 80% receptors give or take. So fent is only occupying about 5% I imagine. Fent is 50x more potent than H, but the stuff on the street is likely 20% purity at best. So let's say 10x. But... the H is also not pure. Let's assume 67% for 15x. OK then. I need H to occupy 15x as many receptors as the fent if I am to switch over with an even swap to not feel sick. If I drop my suboxone from 16mg to 1mg my receptors will only be 20% covered which frees up 60%, plus the 5% the fent was attaching to. That's 65% which is 13x more than the 5% fent- not quite 15x but close enough.
And... it worked!!! It worked beautifully just as the math had predicted. Only now I can't seem to stop the H. Furthermore, I failed to mention thus far but I'd also been snorting coke for the past 10 months. I used to smoke crack and I for SURE wasn't going back to that, but as it turns out when you're getting legit 97% pure coke it feels like a different drug- so much so I prefer it to smoking anyways. That's been a blessing because it's kept temptation at bay. Alternatively it's been a curse because my nose is getting absolutely rekt to the point I was waking up with pain so intense I'd get tears just running down from how much it hurt. I started using saline sprays throughout the day and that has helped a LOT. Plus using q-tip and Carmex at night and I got one of those machines that goes in both nostrils and one blows water out and the other sucks in so it's cycling water through your nasal cavity. You insert these saline pods or eucalyptus pods... NAVAGE!!! That's the name. That was gonna bug me. Except I can't seem to figure out how to use it correctly. I got it once where it wasn't feeling like it was sucking my brains out through my nostril and water was collecting in the lower compartment. But every other time Idk... it doesn't collect. I do manage to get water flushed through my nasal cavity but I gotta shake it and just do tiny bursts at a time. It's helping though.
So I bought a very large amount of cocaine and black tar heroin and heroin to last me as I endeavor to taper off and get back on suboxone. I feel like I need to focus on one drug at a time- opioids first, THEN I'll quit the coke.
But to be 100% truthful with you guys I started using fent again about 3 weeks ago and keep saying "I gotta get back on the H" but then every day I just do F. I only have a couple grams left so one way or the other it's GOING to stop. I'm not buying more. But I'd prefer to stop before exhausting the supply. I don't wanna wait. I want off ASAP.
Guess the good news is I don't use needles so there's that. And I don't smoke it. Exclusively a shorter (if you're wondering why I bought BTH it's because I pioneered a way to wash it with... Idk 80% or 85% yield depending on source, into a dry snortable powder. BTH is way cheaper so it was my attempt to afford this continuing habit. And honestly it has worked. But I digress. Just wanted to explain in case anyone was like "if you only snort why on earth would you get tar?"
So here I am. 3 weeks on fent again. Still using coke all day every day. Stockpiled plenty of heroin and oxycodones and dilaudids and morphine for tapering. Already had plenty of suboxone. Got clonodine and gabapentin and soon will have pregabalin also which I've heard helps with WD really well.
I have everything I need to do it... so why can't I just do it??? I don't even get high anymore. Haven't in a long time. Even being on H for the first 3 months this year my tolerance was STILL blown out from the fent and I STILL couldn't feel the heroin. Even using F now I don't feel it. So why am I even doing it???
Yet I can't seem to let go either? Wtf this is so messed up. I should've stayed on the subs when I switched back last summer instead of thinking I'm Superman and can switch back any time I want, then using that excuse to dive back in.
I'm only doing maybe a 0.1 of fent per day max. I have those tubes with a cap that screws off and has a miniscoop like a pencap but it swivels out 180°. I think that scoop holds 20 - 25mg and I'm doing 4, maybe 5 a day tops.
I don't know if I have the energy to do what I did last time- bernese methoding up to 16mg then switching to 1mg sub and replace F with H... maybe I should just switch to H and white knuckle it, then once stable start tapering the H to prepare for a bernese method. But would that even work?
Bernese worked with F because you can use a bit of F to break through PW. Would H be able to do that? Cause if not... that may not be such a great idea.