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get high on vivitrol?

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^^^

I really don't know about the whole disease theory. I think its a personality trait developed by obsessive behavior, mixed with the addictive properties of the drug/behavior of choice.

I decided one day to stop using opiates. I am no longer dependent on them, and am able to use them without abusing them. Do I have the disease? I heavily abused them for over a year and I enjoyed every moment of how they made me feel. One day I realized how it is effecting my life, and decided to stop. I started out with suboxone, but soon thought to myself "This is kicking the can down the road..." and stopped at 4mg. I was mentally strong enough to not have really any mental withdrawals.

I believe, as with all behaviors, that one must find a way to cope in order to overcome that behavior or personality trait. If addiction is a disease, then 100% of the world population are addicts (both recessive and active addicts).
 
^^^

I really don't know about the whole disease theory. I think its a personality trait developed by obsessive behavior, mixed with the addictive properties of the drug/behavior of choice.

I decided one day to stop using opiates. I am no longer dependent on them, and am able to use them without abusing them. Do I have the disease? I heavily abused them for over a year and I enjoyed every moment of how they made me feel. One day I realized how it is effecting my life, and decided to stop. I started out with suboxone, but soon thought to myself "This is kicking the can down the road..." and stopped at 4mg. I was mentally strong enough to not have really any mental withdrawals.

I believe, as with all behaviors, that one must find a way to cope in order to overcome that behavior or personality trait. If addiction is a disease, then 100% of the world population are addicts (both recessive and active addicts).

Terminal / chronic addiction goes beyond the disease model as well- under the disease model, a metabolic stabilizer (Methadone, LAAM, Buprenorphine) should have the same effect on all mu agonist addicts. But they don't- the huge numbers of people who are polydrug users while in MMT/BMT, and especially those who continue to use Heroin/Oxycodone/ etc while in these programs buck this model of addiction at its core.

'Just Stop' as a treatment modality has been tried for almost a century- usually in a 'stick and carrot' model (mostly stick). Life prison terms for possession, abusive 'treatment'/pseudo-science, cross-society intimidation (at school, work, church, hospital, everywhere- junkie. Bad junkie). Even the carrot; the sober living communities, feel good group therapy, CBT, etc- doesn't work.

The op is showing signs of chronic addiction, even though they are most likely very young (if not a minor). It seems like 'regular' or 'vanilla' addicts are commonly recommended to go to MMT/BMT on here, but people showing signs of "terminal" "chronic" "hardcore" addiction are shunned with typical 'show some backbone' moral model propaganda that didn't work in the '20s and isn't going to work now.
 
I find it absolutely ridiculous that Suboxone isn't administered daily to addicts by pharmacists as is done in Australia. If someone has an addiction to alcohol you certainly wouldn't expect them to be able to ration a bottle of vodka, so why should it be any different with opiate addicts?
Go on Suboxone and ask for your parents to administer your doses daily and to ensure it dissolves so you cannot abuse them. Or better yet, pick up daily doses from a pharmacy

RE: ADDICTION AS A DISEASE
It is and it isn't.

Reasons why addiction is a disease:
  • Neurological changes; drug use causes changes in the brain which induce cravings. If you compared Parkinson's and addiction by this criteria, then addiction is a disease (both are diseases of the dopamine system)
  • Addiction is a progressive disorder; it gets worse with time, like cancer
  • People cannot just quit, so like cancer, it won't go away if you believe it will go away (ie you can't do the 12 steps to get rid of cancer :\)
Why it isn't / may not be:
  • The whole chicken and the egg thing; does addiction cause these changes, or is addiction treating a defecit?
  • Behavioural component

IMO it is a disease, and I have addiction issues myself, though I have learned to channel my addictive behaviour into positive things like work. The rpoblem is that it is a disease of the brain. We're still so far away from understanding exactly how addiction works, but it is clear it is a neurological isssue. We are so far from understanding the brain, it is kind of like running virus check software from 1995 to look for current viruses
 
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I find it absolutely ridiculous that Suboxone isn't administered daily to addicts by pharmacists as is done in Australia. If someone has an addiction to alcohol you certainly wouldn't expect them to be able to ration a bottle of vodka, so why should it be any different with opiate addicts?
Go on Suboxone and ask for your parents to administer your doses daily and to ensure it dissolves so you cannot abuse them. Or better yet, pick up daily doses from a pharmacy
You think it's ridiculous to not have a pharmacist dispense every N8?

Do you know how busy pharmacists would be if that were true in America?

I would NOT be willing to go in EVERY DAY for a N8. I can go score dope and be good for over 2 days (and that covers over 2 people) - so why should I have to go see a pharmacist every day, just to make sure I'm taking my "medicine properly"?

That's kind of ass-backwards to me. Especially when people are sticking it under their tongues, waiting for the (busy) pharmacist to go away, then they run out, spit out the tablet, and save for diversion.

That's only creating more harm - because whoever ends up IVing that - they are putting themseves at a greater risk than those who IV suboxone out of the bottle - and know their stash is still clean and sanitary.

Do you think the pharmacists I see here in America would have the time (let alone desire) to give every addict their N8 every day by hand-feeding it to them? I mean, surely Australia is A LITTLE different from this horrible country I live in. Over here, if pharmacists had to dispense N8 by N8 to people - the system would suck. It would suck a lot harder than it does now.

Whether you think of people who take buprenorphine without a prescription as "good" or "bad" people, it's important to realize that everyone takes buprenorphine for the same reason - mostly because opiate addiction isn't all that great, and withdrawals are horrid.

If someone wanted to stop being addicted, and wanted to use suboxone to help them do that? What does it matter if they have a prescription or not?

If a pharmacist in the US handed out N8 by N8 to people, there would be many who would return to heroin; primarily because they do not have health insurance or the qualifications to qualify for free Suboxone. Do you think, just because a pharmacist isn't there to put the pill under the tongue for the person (...like they can't do it themselves...) that they shouldn't be able to get help for themselves?

A reason why BMT is an attractive option for opiate addicts is that it gives them privacy, it gives the feeling they're not being judged, and it gives them a certainty of freedom - a freedom to sleep in in the morning and not have to "miss" your bupe dose because a pharmacist is only there between said hours to dispense buprenorphine for you. If BMT was like MMT, it wouldn't be desired as much.

And due do this, many people would return to heroin.

Is this what you want? A society where people are addicted, and the only ones who aren't are those who can afford private health care, and have the self discipline to show up at the pharmacy at an every day basis?

Do you know how few people would get clean?
 
Actually, you're right. The health system in the USA is so fucked up that it wouldn't work this way. In Australia you pay between $5 and $30 a week for whatever dose of Suboxone you are on, so private health insurance never comes into the picture. The USA health system is more focused on selling the drugs. The attitude seems to be; dose the addicts with suboxone, and as long as their month is paid for, "who cares what they do with it?" :\

I think my argument still stands; how can you expect an addict to ration the drug they are addicted to? I never said monitoring patient dosing was a perfect scenario (many ppl do divert their bupe before it dissolves as we don;t have the time to make ppl wait for 15 minutes), but IMO it is a much better idea than sending a patient away with a month of opiates and expecting it to last a month. IMO it should start out with patient monitoring, then progress to take home doses.

In terms of harm reduction, it probably is worst for people IVing their bupe due to oral bacteria from diverted bupe, but it can also be argued that a lot of the studies from the Case Studies thread may have been prevented had the patient been guided away from IVing their bupe in the first place.

A reason why BMT is an attractive option for opiate addicts is that it gives them privacy, it gives the feeling they're not being judged, and it gives them a certainty of freedom - a freedom to sleep in in the morning and not have to "miss" your bupe dose because a pharmacist is only there between said hours to dispense buprenorphine for you. If BMT was like MMT, it wouldn't be desired as much.

See this is where my knowledge doesn't extend. I've never been on a bupe maintenance program, so all I can bring to the table on this is my professional experience. But I definitely do understand what you are saying, and to an extent, I agree. I can definitely see it's a pain in the ass to dose every second day, but in keeping with my belief that addiction is a disease, I strongly believe that because this is the case, supervised dosing is entirely necessary for the very reason bupe is RXd; because the patient cannot control their opiate use. It's undoubtedly annoying, but IMO it's a small inconvenience if it will help you stay on a BPM program and can clearly guide patients in the right direction, much more so than sending a new bupe patient out with 30 days of subs and telling them not to abuse it.
 
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Actually, you're right. The health system in the USA is so fucked up that it wouldn't work this way. In Australia you pay between $5 and $30 a week for whatever dose of Suboxone you are on, so private health insurance never comes into the picture. The USA health system is more focused on selling the drugs. The attitude seems to be; dose the addicts with suboxone, and as long as their month is paid for, "who cares what they do with it?" :\

I think my argument still stands; how can you expect an addict to ration the drug they are addicted to? I never said monitoring patient dosing was a perfect scenario (many ppl do divert their bupe before it dissolves as we don;t have the time to make ppl wait for 15 minutes), but IMO it is a much better idea than sending a patient away with a month of opiates and expecting it to last a month. IMO it should start out with patient monitoring, then progress to take home doses.

In terms of harm reduction, it probably is worst for people IVing their bupe due to oral bacteria from diverted bupe, but it can also be argued that a lot of the studies from the Case Studies thread may have been prevented had the patient been guided away from IVing their bupe in the first place.

Anyway, my professional experience suggests that supervised dosing works well at the start, and can clearly guide patients in the right direction, much more so than sending a new bupe patient out with 30 days of subs and telling them not to abuse it.

The main thing is that they are addicted to Heroin/Oxycodone/etc, almost never Buprenorphine.

Your argument against take home prescriptions of opioids would be more accurate for the Heroin / Diconal / Morphine / Demerol maintenance scripts in the UK for addicts. This is why these programs are under review- and why narcotic clinics where addicts inject Heroin/other drugs several times a day have been established in Switzerland and Holland among other places.

The only benefit of Buprenorphine over Methadone in the US is one can be prescribed outpatient and one has to be administered to addicts through a licensed narcotic clinic.
 
See this is where my knowledge doesn't extend. I've never been on a bupe maintenance program, so all I can bring to the table on this is my professional experience. But I definitely do understand what you are saying, and to an extent, I agree. I can definitely see it's a pain in the ass to dose every second day, but in keeping with my belief that addiction is a disease, I strongly believe that because this is the case, supervised dosing is entirely necessary for the very reason bupe is RXd; because the patient cannot control their opiate use. It's undoubtedly annoying, but IMO it's a small inconvenience if it will help you stay on a BPM program and can clearly guide patients in the right direction, much more so than sending a new bupe patient out with 30 days of subs and telling them not to abuse it.

I agree with you on this, definitely. My own experience has been similar to the Op in this thread. My MMT record at the clinic is basically flawless- however I've been abusing takehomes for years straight, despite attempts to stop- which is unknown to clinic staff. I read a study that was done on random MMT patients with take homes, who were considered to be stable, excellent candidates for an office-based Methadone outpatient prescription pilot program. All (or almost all? can't remember) of the patients were found to have tampered with their takehomes when recalled to bring their Methadone takehomes back in to be tested for tampering.

Though with Methadone clinics (in the US especially) there is a huge trend for underdosing. Even the 80mg-120mg average may be way too low. When patients in Switzxerland are allowed to choose their own Morphine or Heroin doses, they run on average around 500mg per IV injection. Considering relative potencies.. maybe all MMT patients are still chronically underdosed.
 
I dont know if I would say the health care system here is fucked. I have health insurance, and im fine paying a 5$ copay for my medications. For the ones who aren't this lucky: We dont have a socialist government like canada and the AU. We run with the "In the US, you can do whatever you want to do..."

Maybe I will never understand addiction. All I know is when I truly felt that enough was enough, I took control of it. I stopped taking opiates, and replaced it with school. I wouldn't say that I have any cravings.
 
I actually put myself on daily pick-ups from the pharmacy (Subutex).

They were happy to oblige!

I kept on fucking up and taking too much and leaving myself short. I'm much happier now I don't have to think about it. Its a pain in the arse having to walk up there every morning, but still better than the contant mind-games/craving to use more bupe.
 
At this point, I would simply take the opportunity to quit drugs. Being addicted to drugs sucks, and once you've been off opioids for a few months, you won't be craving it too much...
 
The main thing is that they are addicted to Heroin/Oxycodone/etc, almost never Buprenorphine.

Your argument against take home prescriptions of opioids would be more accurate for the Heroin / Diconal / Morphine / Demerol maintenance scripts in the UK for addicts. This is why these programs are under review- and why narcotic clinics where addicts inject Heroin/other drugs several times a day have been established in Switzerland and Holland among other places.
Germany is now one of them, which is cool.

I agree that buprenorphine isn't something most people are often addicted to, which is why it's easy to not go through your monthly supply before a month is up.

I often find I have extra Suboxone at the end of the month, if anything.

The only benefit of Buprenorphine over Methadone in the US is one can be prescribed outpatient and one has to be administered to addicts through a licensed narcotic clinic.

Another benefit is that it doesn't depress your breathing as much as Methadone, and it has a more tolerated withdrawal profile.

You also forgot that when people are on doses of methadone that are below 80mg (I'm pretty sure this is the blockade dose) they can use other mu-agonists, whereas any dose of buprenorphine will out-compete the receptor for the mu-agonist. You can take mu-agonists in conjunct with methadone, whereas you cannot do this with buprenorphine.

and once you've been off opioids for a few months, you won't be craving it too much...

True, cravings subside with time and with new associations.
 
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i appreciate the feedback everyone.. i don't feel as sickly today and i'm off to rehab.. again.. so looks like i'm just gonna have to deal with it. hopefully i get it right this time
 
Maybe I will never understand addiction. All I know is when I truly felt that enough was enough, I took control of it. I stopped taking opiates, and replaced it with school. I wouldn't say that I have any cravings.

See you're like me. I've got an addictive personality but decided to channel it into making money instead of spending money. We're probably both workaholics now :)
 
i appreciate the feedback everyone.. i don't feel as sickly today and i'm off to rehab.. again.. so looks like i'm just gonna have to deal with it. hopefully i get it right this time

Good to see you're making the best out of a bad situation. Naltrexone helped me quit opiates, so realise it can work, but mainly in people with a short-term addiction and a strong family base. Perhaps you fit the bill for this, from what you told us. So the odds aren't necessarily stacked against you here. Good luck and let us know the outcome.
 
You also forgot that when people are on doses of methadone that are below 80mg (I'm pretty sure this is the blockade dose) they can use other mu-agonists, whereas any dose of buprenorphine will out-compete the receptor for the mu-agonist. You can take mu-agonists in conjunct with methadone, whereas you cannot do this with buprenorphine.

.

Thats not true.

Its suppossed to be around 12mg bupe that TOTALLY blocks heroin.

If your on lower doses then you will start to feel H more and more.

Your on the same dose as me right? (around 1.5mg) - if you were to shoot a bag of brown it would blow your fucking head off.

Doses at 2mg or less seem to have absolutely no blocking effect at all.
 
This thread went off track for a while but seems to be getting back on the subject.

To the op: It all depends on how bad your addiction is. I know people who cut up themselves with razorblade just to get naltrexone implants out because they couldn't cope anymore.

Depending on your addiction you probably have 3 options if you decide to stick with it:

a) Have insanely rough time without any sort of mu agonist and totally flip out. Lose months of your life to torture. Most likely start using again at some point after it's all over.. probably starting with "just this time so you can feel normal and like yourself once again". Even after years of abstinence.

b) "Ride it out" for about 20-30 more days. It does get better, but depending on your level of addiction it may never get better. You will pass trough phase 1 during first 30-ish days. But then the PAWS kicks in. You may feel fine for days, allthough never completely your old self and then suddenly BAM you are craving so much and actually having wd symptomes out of nowhere. Pure hell.

I got clean few times in my almost 20 years of opiate abuse and once I've been clean for almost 2, and maintaned on ultram + benzos + weed for 2 years before that. So almost 4 years of no using H and I dreamt of it at least once a week, eventually, I ended up getting re-addicted. Now I am on bupe maintenance.

c) Ride it out, have 20-30 rough days then gradually start feeling better over months and eventually begin to feel like your old self. This works for some people and they got off of opiates with this method. It's extremely long torture if you ask me, but if the end result is abstinence combined with your well being and actually feeling fine - it is definitely worth it.
On the other hand, abstinence with you constantly feeling like shit is not life worth living in my opinion.

I do not want to talk you into taking anything if you've decided to "ride it out" but if you can get hold of some buprenorphine you can get some releif. Few mgs of bupe (snorted is best from my experience, I advise filtering it in very small amount of sterile water (0.2ml for example) so you get rid of insoluble fillers, shaking, filtering, then squirting it up your nose while laying upside down (this method is better then snorting the powder because you don't snort shitload of binders, still most people subling. it. sadly it doesn't work for me) OR taking it sublingually with some alcohol (you can search BL for methods once you acquire them, IF you acquire them and IF you decide to do so, meaning you can't stand the torture anymore.

To djsim:

Bupe abuse in opioid dependant people isn't really an issue if people are on maintenance. About month or two into the maintenance you stop getting recreational values from taking more.

Small dose is enough to make you feel normal and if you still find you are craving you can take a puff or two of weed (very small ammount, like 1/10 of what you would normally smoke) and some benzo, for example VERY small ammount of k-pin (say 0.5 mg or even 0.25 for benzo naive people) and maybe few mgs of valium (again for benzo naives, say 2-4 mg) and Actually catch a small nod and feel very nice. ALl this ofcourse if you get into situation that you are on BMT and you are craving a high.

I think most problems from bupe abuse comes from people who are either switching between bupe and their opioid of choice frequently OR people who are not regularly on opiates and sometimes abuse bupe.
Take Captain.Heroin for example. He is on bupe maintenance and he shoots very low doses daily for months. He is obviously very careful with it and he is fine, I am willing to bet that he will never get in situation that resembles anything comparable to what we read in case studies.

I am not saying that it's good practice and unless you have iv bupe formulation I DON"T RECOMMEND SHOOTING BUPE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. What I am trying to say is that horror stories about fingers falling of from bupe most likely come from reckless users who were really at the rock bottom and people who would probably scrape some wall paint if it had heroin written on it and inject it, dissolved in toilet water.

Also on maintenance doses shooting bupe is worthless, it does not have any benefit to sublingual/intranasal consumption.

People who are on maintenace tend to stabilize very fast and actual abuse of bupe is in my opinion minimal, however people do tend to add some drugs in the mix to achieve feeling they crave - IF and WHEN they crave it. This can lead to potentially dangerous situations as combinging benzos with bupe in benzo naive individuals can be fatal.

I am strongly against idea that bupe should be dispensed like methadone, but I do reccomend to select someone you trust to dispense your daily dose to you. Roomie, close friend who is not on opiates, straight girlfriend, parent. Just about anyone you can trust. But condemning people to having to go to medical facility to get their dose would really put back bupe maintenance. I live 300 miles from closest "bupe dispenser", even if I could move closer it would suck to have to go there every morning.

Also some people are fast metabolizers and require dosing 2x a day. With bupe being pretty much abuse proof once you are on maintenance and also because of its dual agonist-antagonist nature which prevents you from getting high on other opiates this would only be a drawback.

I am actually enjoying bupe/weed/benzo combo right now and combined with some tiredness I am right where I want to be, wandering around the edge of nod land. I don't do it every day, normally it's just bupe and prescribed dose of benzo which I don't feel at all. But every now and then I'll get that desire to feel a little high and I end up doing this. It's surely more benign then shooting black tar and injecting bupe, other then utilizing higest amount there is no benefit to inject bupe when you are on maintenance doses.

It will be interesting to read what I have posted because right now I have no idea what I've written 2 paragraphs ago and I am too phased out to read it again. Time to hit a sack.

Stay safe BL'ers and best of luck to op, whatever she(or he? I am not sure anymore) decides.
 
I find this pathetically cruel. They're lowering your "base" of well being by fucking with your endogenous opioid system.

I guess it isn't as bad as in China where they're surgically removing the pleasure centers. :(
 
^ it certainly shouldn't be a first line treatment in front of bupe and methadone, but I maintain that naltrexone does have a place in treating opioid dependent people. This is mainly b/c I quit my habit with oral naltrexone dosing, but it is also b/c a few ppl here on BL have gotten clean using it, so obviously it is effective in certain situations.

It definitely does fuck with your base endorphin levels though, and on top of the terrible feeling from quitting opiates, I concede the practice could be callled cruel. But that being said, any doctor RXing naltrexone should always keep in mind that the benefit needs to outweigh the side effects. This cannot be ascertained over the internet. Hell, even I'm not a doctor yet, so my opinion is just that, my opinion.

kasad said:
Bupe abuse in opioid dependant people isn't really an issue if people are on maintenance. About month or two into the maintenance you stop getting recreational values from taking more.

This is exactly what I'm arguing though, it's these people - the ones who bounce from bupe to heroin and back - who need to be supervised the most. It's these patients who can't control their opiate use who need supervised dosing, because in those 1 or 2 months where a high can be obtained from bupe, you can bet your ass it will be obtained at the expense of daily dosing. I'm not for a second saying bupe maintenance shouldn't ever be takeaway, but I do think certain people trying to get clean from an opiate habit need at least a month or 2 of supervised dosing, be it from a pharmacist or a guardian. And b/c it's so hard to separate those who can successfully dose at home from those who can't, I think the Australian system is done very well.
 
By antagonizing the endogenous opioid system, you are also substantially dismantling the natural opioid 'highs' achieved by learning, communication, exercise, etc. There are enough alternatives to systematically avoid this method with most cases of opioid addiction.

But my ad hominem-like defense for the OP is probably biased to hell considering I've had opioid withdrawals.
 
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