my rockstar daze are over. suboxone or not? need advice.

Hi gang. Ive been an opiate addict for 14 years. Vicodin was fine until i ran with the wrong crowd and now i have a lovely addiction to heroin. I also have a long history of depression and never found a drug that worked. I mean, i have been in and ouy of institutions for 5 years with dep/anxiety. I had 2 years clean and i was still dep, etc. So these pysch meds do not work. Plus i have a broken back that is only getting worse as im older. (47)

Addiction, depression and true pain.

My insurance will cover subs if i can convince them it is needed. Yet, i hear horror stories concerning bupe. Swim, who is just like me, bought some subs and realized they are great for abstinence, depression and pain, yet does not want to yet create another problem.

I am very willing to do therapy and meetings. Im done being keith richards. But these drugs are everywhere and im not superwoman. Looking for advice as it appears i can kill 3 birds w one stone, but is that stone a bad idea?

My best to all.

In situations where there has already been over a decade, near 2 decades of abuse I am always much more inclined to suggest suboxone. It's always a tricky thing for me though, I am still on buperenorphine(subutex/generic) myself but have mixed feelings about it.

Have you heard of or considered the buperenorphine pain patches? It's a patch with minuscule timed release doses of bupe. When it comes to pain management, less is more with bupe because one of it's metabolites is a full agonist opioid, that is mostly blocked by the bupe itself in a weird way from what I recall - so with lower doses your receptors are able to absorb the metabolite and the pain relief is much greater than with higher doses and the abuse potential is still significantly lower/near non existent compared with traditional pain meds.


Good luck with everything! I can't imagine dealing with heroin addiction AND having legitimate chronic pain issues.

Thank you! I have not heard of a patch! The thing is having to jump through hoops with insurance. I cannot imagine bube being worse than the hustle of heroin. Just staying straight at my age is hard. Ya know, scoring money etc. I dont even like h anymore, two year habit. Its def a pain in my ass more than anything. But my pain is legit. Gotta a mri etc. Thanks for your Help.

Should i be honest? Tell the doctors the whole story?

If you want a bupe patch then being honest may actually help your case. It's formulated specifically for chronic pain, not maintenance like suboxone is, but I used to know a few fellow junkies with legit pain issues who had prescriptions for them.


Just for the record it may work for pain and possibly cravings but because of the micro doses involved it won't be blocking your receptors, just telling you this so that you don't go into it with the idea of it preventing relapse - that will still be up to you.

ive been clean for almost 2 weeks now im fighting threw it but. i feel a lot better this is how totally used subs perfectly.. got 3 tabs i think 8mg took half a day felt real good. did that for 6 days.. fucked up and used 6 bags one day then next day did 6 more.. next day felt bad but i could get out of bed.. got a gram of some funk. just been smoking a little.. taking gabapentin that im prescribed.. it was crazy not like the typical 3 days of hell.. they were manageable accept 2nd day i had really bad anxiety but i talked to ppl and got threw it. don't know if u smoke but try it.. to the sub.. i feel if u use it for a few days and kick it is a lot better.. using it like people are doing for every day after day like some chick i use to chill with does it and if she don't have it she said she gets sick as fuck... i feel if ur really going to try it, do it like i did..u can change it up a bit but try that structure.. try not to do the bags lol.

odgirl, first of all best of luck to you on your plans. I can say that suboxone saved my life. My oxy habit was massive and getting worse. I was literally a month or two from losing all my money, my kids, my job, etc.

Going on suboxone allowed me to focus on getting my life in order. For the 18 months I've been on it I've worked very hand on learning about the roots of my addiction. Its a tough process and one that i couldn't undertake unless i had a doctor i fully trusted. I also have good insurance which covers my suboxone.

I feel totally normal on suboxone. No side effects. I feel like i did twenty years ago before i smoked weed for the first time. I'm not worried about getting off it. The work i'm doing now will help me get off it when the time is right. I started at 16mgs and I'm down to about 2mgs a day presently.

If your goal is to get off drugs to give yourself the opportunity to learn about yourself and the true roots of your addiction then i couldn't recommend suboxone more. It saved my life.

^Great post and I am really happy that it is working so well for you,Lucas.

Thanks Herb.

Every day is a blessing. Another chance to hugs my kids.