Resurfaced Opiate Addiction: What would you do in my situation?

[batmanplaybaseball]

Hi everyone, and to begin I would thank anyone who would take the time to read through all of this and give me some suggestions. I have spent a lot of time on this particular forum giving other people advice with their problems and now I am in need of some for myself. I don't know how long it will be, but if you make it through I thank you.

I have sadly fallen back into a bit of an opiate habit. I returned home for a small period about four weeks ago and I was immediately immersed in the constant availability of hydrocodone. For those who do not know I am a former heroin addict, slash methadone addict, slash suboxone addict. I got into it all pretty deep for over a year, when I was finally able to quit everything completely last June (one year ago, cycles and cycles, haha). Anyway, I had been good and done completely since then, and I was going really well. I had even been two months sober (sober from drinking) at the time that I went home. Drinking had been a huge problem for me since I quit the opiates. SO, here I come home for a couple of weeks for a couple of reasons and it actually began because I found some old discarded hydros in the back cupboards of my home. There were about forty of them, about six months old. It was obvious that my parents had some sort of pain and then just stopped taking them before they ran out, and that that was long in the past. I held onto them for a couple of days and debated whether or not I should take them.

Eventually I decided to do it. I'm sure many of you know that feeling, that sick and nervous yet exciting feeling of going back into something you have long given up. I will try to keep this all short to go easy on the attention spans, but basically it worked out decently for me. The hydros alleviated a lot of pain I had been having from doing hard work, and they helped me to write more because I suffer from severe writer's cramps in my hand. Soon I ran out and was able to find some old connections that could get it all whenever it was needed, and I have been taking them daily ever since.

That is the bad news.

The good news I suppose is this. I was smart with my using. It started with just taking a half 7.5mg hydro every evening, or maybe another half as I was doing some sort of heavy construction labor. The most I have taken in a single day is maybe three pills, and that is the maximum. Normally I can keep it to a half pill, or at most a whole pill, always in the evening. So I have the ability to abuse them heavily like I have done in the past, but I am not doing it and I do not want to. The one time that I took enough to get really quite high, it was very uncomfortable. I could feel the anxiety within the high, that learned opiate user knowledge of what an illusion those feelings really are, and I didn't like it. That is why I have been keeping myself to such low doses ever since, it's the only way I like to do it.

The other good news is this. I have access to everything that I always have had, oxy, heroin, all the good and heavy, and I have no interest in any of it. I just don't want it. I know exactly where it leads and I refuse to go there again. I have just been liking the little spike that I get from a nightly hydrocodone.

Here is where the problem lies. It cannot continue like this. I am moving far away from here in a couple of weeks, for preordained and unrelated reasons. I am going to be meeting up with my girlfriend there and she loathes my opiate using. It would probably crush her to know that I have been dabbling back in with Vicodins. I don't lie to her about it, but I certainly do not bring it up.

Anyway, I am leaving here and I cannot continue to use. I know from how I feel that I have built up a bit of an addiction. I am nervous like crazy to go through withdrawal again, even though I have been through and beaten methadone withdrawal, or maybe even because of that.

SO, the bottom line is this. Right now I have about fifty 10mg hydros, a good supply of Klonopins, and about three more weeks to get over this. Right now my plan is to somehow get myself down off of the hydros and then leave town with a small supply of Klonopin to give myself something simple to wean from while I am done from my opiates.

I want to know what you would do in my situation. If you have been through something similar that would be great, if not your opinion would still be valuable to me. Maybe you have an idea for a good taper, or just some general advice. I am open for all of it. Withdrawals scare the devil out of me.

Thanks,


Mr. Baseball

 

[unsettled]

That wasn't too long or difficult to read at all, especially compared to some posts on this forum.

It sounds like you already know what you need to do for you, not that it's easy. Sounds like you've kicked heavier habits in the past with heavier opiates.

If you have been able to control your dosages like you say you have a taper shouldn't be too hard to get through especially considering your past experience. Although I know that is easier said than done, it was an Oxycodone/Vicodin script that got me back on a daily opiate pattern after being off for a while.

I will say this, if your girlfriend is really important to you and won't put up with opiates and you yourself are truly fed up with opiates (it sounds more like you want to be fed up with them) you should just taper off or quit cold turkey. It sucks to lose someone you love because of drugs.

If you don't really care about this girl and aren't really serious about quitting opiates then.....well, like you said you know where that usually leads... nowhere good, unless you can moderate, and few can.

Would your girlfriend be totally against you being on a legitimate suboxone script? If she isn't that's what I would recommend. Otherwise taper.

Sounds like you already know what you should do, it's just conflicting with what you want to do, story of my life...

Good luck and Good night!

 

[totach]

hey man
i know exactly what ur talkin bout ive only bin clean for almost 2 months this time around and i really feel u when u said it wasnt even fun when u got really high. I did use 1 time in these 2 months n i got really high but i did not enjoy it at all do 2 all the guilt i was feeling for using. I honestly dont think u need 2 b so worried about w/d's again if u r just popping 1 vike a night. Uve bin thru methadone w/d so u know if u can wait 24 hours between taking a vike n ur not dying for it in those 24 hours u r not in a bad position at all. If u continue using tho eventually it will lead u 2 having w/d again. Why dont u just get rid of the pills u hav now so u can b sure u will be ok when u c ur g/f in a few weeks. You dont seem 2 me like u are sick allready so y dont u quit while ur ahead? why do u want to taper? i really do not c a need for tapering. When i was using id get sick within hours so like i said b4 if u can go 24 hours wit nuthing n then just take 1 vike u cant b that bad.
goodluck man

 

[Draigan]

tis a good read man. I would just quit the vic a week orw/ebefore i had to go sothat i didnt WD at all when travelling.

 

[phactor]

Kick it over the weekend if you work during the week. Maybe start a quick taper now.

I've noticed that even when I relapse with low doses of Hyrdo for a day or two that I am pretty down in the dumps for a day or two when I stop.

 

[megawoof]

the problem with opiates isnt just the physical withdrawl im sue with what you have left you could easily taper its the psycholoical issues the mind is a powerful thing its hard to get clean but its dreadful staying clean whats great is you have support and a girlfriend who seems to care for you try to absorb your self in work fun things to take your mind off drugs and know its hard i find when im not actively using its filling my time as when i have time on my mind it horrible because i find myself thinking of drugs and all the good thins they did for me except i forget all the bad things there done in my life to i really wish you well

 

[lasthurrah19]

Hey -

I basically agree with everyone here. It won't be bad physically - you probably won't have any true physical symptoms. You may have some psychosomatic 'physical' symptoms - but it's really all psychological. I don't know what to say - you need to make a decision - and not making a decision is still making a decision to continue using. I know it's hard as hell, believe me this month has been relapse central for me and a LOT of people I know. But you know the deal - keep using, not even feeling good from being high, and then eventually run out of your hydro and go to something else (and REALLY have to withdrawal) - or stop now or sometime very soon. If the tapering thing will make you feel better, okay, but make sure you're not just drawing it out for the sake of it. Know what I mean? Those things are going to be gone eventually, whether you flush them down the toilet or eat them all in the next few weeks.

 

[batmanplaybaseball]

Thanks for the responses.

What really scares me is the thought of post-opiate depression, which always seems to linger for SOO long. Sadly this is basically what everyone here confirmed will be the problem.


As for my girlfriend, I care about her a lot and I don't think she would be cool with me being on Suboxone again. I stress the 'again' part. She was incredibly supportive when I went on Subs to get off of Methadone, but she saw what I eventually went through to get off of Subs and it nearly destroyed our relationship.

The only thing I'm bugged out about is travelling out to see her for the first time in a couple of months and I'm just stuck in some post-opiate depression/lethargy.


How bad do you think that my lowdown phase would last for, given that I have been using about four weeks now. I suppose I underestimated my using a bit too, there have been a couple of nights that I went over 3-4 pills. And of course as the tolerance builds it gets worse. Right now I take about 1.5-2 each evening to get myself mellow. I also have the klonopins to help with the withdrawals and aftermath.

And to those who asked why I don't just flush them down the toilet. Well, two reasons that I can think of immediately. One is that I have had worse experiences with cold turkey withdrawal than with tapering. And the second reason is that I am enjoying myself, guilty for sure, a little worried yes, but still I am enjoying myself.

As it was said, what I know I should do and what I want to do don't seem to get along with each other.

The better news is that there is also what I have to do and what I can do, and they are better friends.

 

[dutchie3k]

You seem to be able to be more or less actually honest with yourself about the whole beast, which I have found to be the absolute be-all end-all of facing opiates (or any drug habit for that matter.)

You have probably come to find in your own experiences that the psychological attachment to opiates can far outreach the physical one. If you want my honest opinion, and just look at yourself and think, you aren't over your mental "fondness" for opiates. For those of us who became addicts in one way, shape, form or another, "responsible" or utilitarian use of opiates is no longer an option as either they are ineffective or simply can't be used as such.

You know what opiates can do to you. Your body, your mind, your soul, your life. You've seen what destruction they can bring you. You don't want to go anywhere near heroin/abusing any opiate heavily again, you saw what that does. But you're still attached to opiates. You're trying to live in a middle ground that most of our kind can never sustain ever again, for better or worse.

For me, no matter how cliche it may sound to you, I decided to make the choice to go clean for good both for my own good and for the people I care about. Theres being clean, and being clean and WANTING to be clean, not hating being clean. You cannot be forced or persuaded in any way to do so and expect to really conquer it. It must be done for yourself, by yourself. It comes down to what really matters to you and what you really want for yourself.

Opiates no longer have the seduction that they once held. I know that we cannot coexist. There is no allure when I think of them. You just need to decide whether they're really worth it (theyre not...), make your decision, and follow it through.