Thought I was doing good...

Well, it's me again... It's been three weeks since I quit buprenorphine. Cold turkey, still goin'... -_-

My emotions have been on quite the rollercoaster throughout this whole endeavor, ranging from uncharacteristically boundless optimism to, now that I seem to be leveling out, abject horror at not having any kind of chemical crutch whatsoever anymore. I knew the latter would come eventually, but I feel I may have been blinded by the former...

I'm just sitting here, bored out of my damn mind and feeling like I'm about to run off screaming into the night...

I have an appointment with my psychiatrist this Monday, the same one that prescribed the bupe every month. He gave me a bottle of 30 1mg Ativan last time, but hell those were gone in two days... (And I still couldn't sleep at all.) I'm kind of afraid I might end up withholding the truth from him and getting more bupe... I probably wouldn't even go if I didn't owe him money for the last appointment.

I cannot stop thinking about my two favorite drugs in the world... Xanax, oxy, xanax, oxy, xanax, oxy, good lord I just want this anxiety to go away! I've never been in withdrawal this long in my life, and even though it's pretty much PAWS at this point I just don't know what to do with myself... Typical opiate detox symptoms, I know, I've been there so many times I don't even care to count anymore, but this is my first attempt that's actually garnered some success, and I'm scared as hell of messing it up... I absolutely cannot afford to go back to that way of life at this point, I can't.

"Once in a while won't kill ya," my brain says. Yeah, sure, I don't believe that for a minute. Damn if I don't want to though...

I feel like it comes down to personal willpower at this stage, so how does anyone else deal with this? I've got plenty of things to do here to keep myself occupied, but everything is boring, I can't bring myself to do any of it. My mind's racing, my blood pressure's through the roof, can't stop tapping my feet, my back is KILLING ME, going crazy, need pills, pills pills pills, let's go for a drive, no not gonna do it just take some clonidine, my GOD shoot me now...

I know it'll get better eventually, I know... How do I stop myself from going insane in the meantime? I have nobody to talk to here, I'm too proud and manipulative to let any doctor get too deep into my head, there's so many things on my mind that have happened to me in the past year, my dad died, my boyfriend left me and moved across the country a week after my dad died, my co-worker relapsed on methamphetamine and tried to strangle me in the middle of my apartment parking lot, my stepmom fired and disowned me for using Xanax at work, I got evicted from my apartment, I'm living with my real mom again, I've lost 60 pounds in 6 months, blah blah blah, I'm just .... Okay, probably too much information...

Hey woodsong, I first will ask you at what dose did you cold turkey off of bupe?

Everything you are feeling is very normal, and coming to bluelight for support was a very smart choice . You adressed that you are having PAWS so it appears you know what this is. It will get easier in a short period of time, but it may be up and down for quite awhile so dont give up! That one time you are talking about is not worth it.

Secondly, you do have people to talk to. You said you dont want to let a doctor into your head, but maybe it could be for the best. If there is a secondary condition your chances of recovery are much higher if you address both issues at once. Also a safe place to talk about whats on your mind could be hugely beneficial, so I suggest to at least think about talking to them. Also, you have us here at BL and many support groups (most likely) in your area.

Im sorry to hear about everything you have gone through recently, and I hope things get better for you. It seems like you are making the first right steps to move in that direction. So I wish you all the luck in the world.

@SkagKush
16mg... And thanks for the kind words.

I've tried to be honest with docs in the past, it's mostly my drug use I don't feel comfortable telling them about. One of my biggest fears while on bupe was getting into some sort of accident and not being able to get any pain relief. I don't like telling em about my past opiate abuse cause I'm afraid I'll be red-flagged or something...

they can put you on a higher dose of opiate, if you do get in crash/accident, soboxone/subutex blocks a lot but can be overriden..THINK OF THE DOPE THEY HAVE IN HOSPITAL AT THIER DISPOSAL ! Anyway stay strong i kicked 16mg in jail didnt find it a bad w/d at all slept for a few days, I could eat...only risdual or paws effects were sweating at night,chills/hotflashes and shitty sleep. so its not like kicking methadone!

dirtyfrenchman83 said:

they can put you on a higher dose of opiate, if you do get in crash/accident, soboxone/subutex blocks a lot but can be overriden..THINK OF THE DOPE THEY HAVE IN HOSPITAL AT THIER DISPOSAL ! Anyway stay strong i kicked 16mg in jail didnt find it a bad w/d at all slept for a few days, I could eat...only risdual or paws effects were sweating at night,chills/ hotflashes and shitty sleep. so its not like kicking methadone!

Click to expand...

^^ nonsense.. not the place to trigger frog.. Plenty of other places, so don't be a fkn pig. Actually kikn beupe i assume is similar to kickn methadone,, it all the same except for the half life.. kicked 150mgpd methadone, 260mgpd ir oxy, exTARcurics, and 6 mgpd Xanax, in august, what you are going through is really normal, it sounds like you are about out of the woods for the physical withdraws, but the emotional may continue for awhile.. I had periods of that frozen sunburn goose bump feeling for months.. the real miracle happens when you are completely clean for 4.5 to five months, or maybe as long as seven and a half months, those extra opiate receptors turn off and your mind clears over night.. think of how far you have made it, just going to have to do it all again, FUCK THAT NOISE, xanax wont do shit, CLONIDINE IF ANYTHING!! FIGHT, YOU ARE ALMOST THERe

@dirtyfrenchman83
If a determined addict armed with stockpiles of the finest opiates Blue Cross can buy can barely break through the blockade without risking respiratory arrest, then I doubt any semi-competent doctor would even be willing to try... They'd probably just put me in a coma til the bupe wore off.

... I don't like being put under. ._.

@neversickanymore
Dunno about methadone, but the few times I tried it I actually preferred it over oxy, and what I've gone through so far doesn't come close to 300mg/day oxy withdrawal... Can't imagine what you must have went through, given the list you describe.

The waiting is killing me though. I'm ready to start putting my life back together, I just wanna be done with this crap...

Woodsong said:

... I don't like being put under. ._.

Click to expand...

Thats a first.. CLONIDINE

@neversickanymore
Lemme rephrase that, lol...

I took one earlier. It helps a little, but ... barely. Makes me more lethargic than anything.

Are you able to get out and do any exercise?

@Space Firebird
Location-wise, I currently live on a little connector street on the outskirts of the ghetto that gangsters and motorcycles love to come flying down... (I don't guess that ever stopped me before though.)

I did used to love running... Lovely little park with a 3-mile track surrounding a lake..... mm.. I'm sure I could find something to do though.

i noticed that i needed to reup on the clonidine every 3.75 hours.. it gets so much better! and im not trying to convince myself.. a little bit longer, thats IT

you've probably taken a million but hot shower

edit just looked up the half life of buep... at your dose and the longest half life as well as the 3.5 days the mirical takes you should be done in no time.. max half life of buep=73 hours
16-8 73
8-4 146
4-2 219
2-1 292
1-.5 365
.5-.25 438

+3.5 X 24

438/24= 18.25 days+3.5= 21.75 days till miracle.. if you are at three weeks you are rite there.. don't take off five minutes before the miracle hapns.. all the sudden you will fall asleep and wake up quite a bit better.. doesn't happen like in the movies but close enough!

Your almost back in the woods

@neversickanymore
Yeah, I guess I'm not nearly as jumpy as I was last night, come to think of it. <_<
Just kinda concerns me with how much it lowers my heart rate and BP, is really why I don't like taking it.

Showers though, good lord. Like drops of molten lava raining down and freezing on contact...

Edit: Oh cool... 73 hours, that's insane... So the stuff should pretty much be out of my system now. Here's hoping for a miracle soon.

^^ you have to be rite there.. like i said your brain will clear as those added opiate receptors shut down.. for me 4.75 months, pain DR said 7.5 months.. way to go and keep going, should start getting whole lot better not worse. let me and others know of your progress if you can.. support other BLrs with that crazy struggle to cut the ball and chain of opiates and it probably help you to stay clean.

Ahhh, that lovely back pain is back... Again...

I know that back pain is one of the brain's little last-ditch attempts at trying to get you to use again, but that's kinda why I started taking opiates in the first place... All the x-rays I've had show that where there should be a curve in my spine, it's almost completely straight, and compresses my spine. My mom has some mild form of scoliosis, my dad had really bad degenerative disc disease, so this crap kinda runs in my family...

Also, I've hurt back so many times over the years, from getting my butt kicked in tae-kwon-do to several car wrecks, but the real kicker was after moving several huge-ass pieces of tempered picture window glass at work...

So I really have no idea whether or not it's actual pain, or just my brain looking for a fix... Hell, maybe it's both, cause my back is really, really fucking hurting right now and no amount of any anti-inflammatory seems to help... >_<

I hope to god it's all just in my head...

Thank god, finally got my Ativan refill... It doesn't quite have the same jolly, rampant destruction of inhibition as Xanax, but it works... "PAWS, what PAWS?"

I've been damn lucky to have never developed a dependence to benzos, considering my sweet-tooth for alprazolam...

Sweet relief... The pharmacy actually had my Subutex script ready. Only took em almost a month. ಠ_ಠ
Only hesitated for two seconds, and was like uhhh, no... nnnnnoooo thank you. That made me kinda proud... =]

^^^ FUCK YEAH BABY!!! I had back aches especial near and around my waist for a while.. a little over a month, but they got better and better as time went on. Please think about getting a physical rehabilitation program going to fight to try and FIX and not just mask the pain from your injury with a substance that ends up creating more pain than it ever prevented.. You should feel proud, that's one hell of a fight and you won and will win everyday you don't go back!!!! Woodsongs back in the light

... Well, so I went to my bupe-dealer/psychiatrist yesterday. Told him all about quitting bupe. He seemed pretty proud of me, but one of his main diagnostic questions seemed to be: "Was it hard?" ... I just kinda laughed at him, for slightly longer than I should have, then proceeded to give him every little gory detail of bodily excretions and unfathomable pain and torture. I'm sure the man's seen much worse though, he's a rock...

Then ... he asks me if the Ativan he gave me last time had helped with the withdrawal (No. No it did not.), annnnnnnd then, the wheels in my head starting turning. "Hey, this might be my chance to finally finagle the one script I've been dying to get out of this guy for months now!" Just for the record, this guy is not your typical quack. I mean, he might little idea when comes to properly describing bupe, but he's not an idiot either. Thing is ... in the past I've actually ADMITTED to this guy, in great detail, of my previous Xanax abuse... Blackouts, month-long periods of my life completely missing, inexplicable deep gashes and scars that never fully healed, either coming into/being extremely lake for work with two mysterious black eyes ... etcetera-- that I have absolutely NO recollection of acquiring...

I let him know that the Ativan wasn't really helping at all as far as sleep/restless/anxiety goes. At first, he tired to recommend clonazepam, at which point I explained to him that I've taken essentially every benzodiazepine known to man, and that the only one that has ever effectively helped me with any of those symptoms was, you guess it, Xanax ... (which honestly is true.) Going against every law in the known universe, I walk out of that door with 30 1mg footballs. (I may have even done a little dance in the elevator on the way down... *Cough*) I took four as soon as I got out of there, cause that's seems to be a typical dose that doesn't USUALLY cause me to go off the deep end and end up in a two-day coma wondering where all my drugs went and why I'm passed out in my truck in the middle of nowhere... (Those of you that had/have the same problem with Xanax as I know what I'm talking about...)

Unfortunately, as could have easily been predicted, I wake up the next day with no more Xanax and and just an ever-so-slightly foul mood at that realization... I'd been so adamant with myself about not abusing these things this time and I may have mentioned to the Doctor that it was okay to perform perform random pill-checks on me if he felt the need to-- but he's kinda seems lazy about that sort of thing so far. I swear to I God I only remember taking those initial four, and I'm inclined to stick to that story because I actually remember yesterday pretty clearly. Fifteen bar's worth would normally have me wondering who and where I was and why I'm fired all of a sudden...

Anyway... I think there's two main reasons I started taking Xanax in the first place. First off, it's kinda hard to work at a job with chronic back pain constantly moving very hard objects by hand... Second of all, it was also kinda hard having to walk around that office with pictures of my now-deceased Dad hanging around everywhere with my stemother bawling her eyes out there almost ever minute-- when she actually comes in. Apparently Lupus is a pretty shitty disease. That's kinda the tip of the iceberg, but I think I've rambled on enough about that...

I kinda feel like I'm substituting opiates for tranquilizers... The two substances are totally in a class of their own, but it's the closes thing I can find.... I like drugs, I really do... I honestly don't think that I can go the rest of my life without dabbling in something at least. I'm well aware of the dangers of benzos; in fact, I'm nearly killed myself more times that I'm comfortable admitting while under the influence of them, to say nothing of the withdrawal, which thank God I've never had to experience, and I hope like hell I never do...

And that's probably on of my biggest fears... I've been dependent of opiates for longer than I care to count, and I'd really rather not add another psychoactive substance to that last. Caffeine and nicotine and plenty enough, trust me... But damn I love Xanax. I'll never let myself go back to oxycodone, but after the way I've been feeling recently, it slightly concerns me...

One month, baby!

... and I just re-read that last post, the semi-coherent rambling should probably tell me something, huh...

... of course now that I stupidly blew through an entire bottle of Xanax, I'm angry and irritable as fuck, my blood pressure's through the fucking roof and I can't go anywhere... Why the fuck did I do that... I was trying my damnedest not the abuse the things, I really was, and now they're all gone and FUCK FUCK FUCK I just wanna scream......