Not really saying 12 step is bad, I just don't see why it is forced down everyone who is trying to quit, at least for the first time's throat, like it's the ONLY way to go. I think it is possible to people to still use drugs, recreationally, just not their PROBLEM drugs, be it opioids, or meth, or coke, or whatever, as long as they stay away from those, and similar ones to those, I think they'd be fine. With me, weed and alcohol have never been a problem ever, that's why I think, and hope, after I abstain from my opies and benzos, I can still do those on occasion, bc I think I will go crazy if I can't do anything at all, ever.
No, no doctor, my sub doc is more like a drug dealer than a doctor really, reason I've been on sub so long partially. But I have read a lot about tapering, have all the right stuff, and technically started a year ago, I was snorting like 8mg sub per day, now I take 1mg sublingually like you're supposed to, but I have to go down, and quick as I'm running low. My goal is to get down to like 0.1mg every other day or 2 days for a few weeks before completely stopping, that is my ideal goal. And I have cannabis, benzos, clonidine, vitamins, loperamide, just about everything one could need. (Planning to get off the bupe before the benzos, cause I tried reverse 3 years ago and it didn't go well, I found opioids were harder to stop, mentally especially. Withdrawals are fucking horrible, but it's the lack of sleep that bothers me the most, I gotta sleep, I go crazy if I don't get 'some' sleep. That's what freaks me out the most about coming off this shit, well that and the depression/fog/anxiety as well, which i already have naturally.
CH, did you get my PM?
Nobody is forcing you to do the 12 steps or work a program, its just one way to recovery. If you can still smoke weed and stay away from the harder stuff then more power to you! I wish I could but even with weed I will smoke it till it interferes with my functioning. I do better without it and every time I would start it, I would eventually go back to harder drugs.
Nobody but yourself determines what recovery looks like.
Best of luck to you, sometimes I wish I could go back to what it was like before I started using drugs, but that was like a decade ago and isn't possible anymore. I am an addict and I just cannot use drugs successfully. A very small percentage of my using was "fun", most of my using career fucking sucked bad. Stopping sucked at first, but now I have so much good going on in my life I don't want to risk giving it away. Things like weed and beer (and I was a huge drinker) just do not fit in it anymore. I can honestly say that this past year has been the best year of my life. I have 1 year and 3 months, the first 3 months were difficult, but past that it kept getting easier and easier. Now staying clean is still something I have to work at, however, its not all encompassing like it used to have to be. Its always my first priority, but its become just a part of my routine.
Do you have a doctor monitoring your taper? I got off Suboxone after a 8 month taper and it still wasn't exactly easy. I do have to say, it was my first real detox without using other substances and it did seem to go by quicker.
