20 yrs of opiate addiction and DESPERATE for recovery advice (emotional wreck!) ....

[LearnLoveLive]

A brief background to SWIMs situation:

- The usual 'difficult childhood' (mother and father took off in separate directions and SWIM was left with grandma who did her best but SWIM was utterly miserable and struggled with abandonment issues and insecurities that developed into unspecified psychological and emotional disturbances at an early age). By the age of 11 SWIM found the onslaught of intense emotions (anger, hopelessness, self-hatred etc) and negative thoughts difficult to endure. She was assessed and found to have no treatable psychiatric illnesses (several years of counselling and various courses of Diazepam helped none).
SWIM was desperate to escape the constant discomfort within herself and inevitably found recreational drugs to be that escape - from cannabis to speed, sliding all the way down to injecting heroine and crack daily by 16 yrs old. She hated pretty much every day of it but she was more afraid of having to face herself and the hell of her reality than going through the self-imposed hell of addiction every day.

SWIM's addiction consumed her life until she met her fiance, 12 yrs ago, when she was 24. He loved her and supported her and after an 8 year battle she finally got stable on 100mg methadone with no additional drug use. Life began once the recreational drug use stopped - they bought a house together, she passed her driving test, got a car, and they had a beautiful baby son together.
She still suffered with her mood swings, but everything in her life had improved so much that everyone (including her) presumed her emotions and psychology would stabilize in time. And it did, to a great degree, until her methadone reduction hit below the 30mg mark... then SWIM started to notice negative thoughts and mood problems surfacing again.

SWIM had been reducing so slowly so she didnt notice it (1mg a month!!) from 100mg to 30mg and found this an effective way of avoiding all withdrawal symptoms, but she decided she wanted to detox quicker so that she can be free of the opiates once and for all as she realises the methadone is just a legal form of heroine addiction and she wants to get clean ready for her son's school holidays this summer.
She increased her taper rate from 1mg a month to *1mg a week* for the past 5 weeks, taking her down to 25mg methadone. She is now experiencing violent mood swings and really struggling to control intense emotions and negative thoughts - although she is not experiencing physical withdrawal symptoms.

SWIM realises that the intensely difficult emotions, thoughts, memories etc that she was covering up and avoiding during active drug addiction (particularly the opiates) are rising to the surface and need to be dealt with effectively as she gradually removes the opiate blanket and comes off the methadone.... but.... she doesnt know where to start as she never learnt to handle them as she was growing up. She feels overwhelmed by these strong emotions and thoughts (depression, anxiety, intense anger, hopelessness etc) at times, and she's wondering if:-

a) Are psychological/emotional disturbances 'normal' when coming of opiates after 20 yrs? ...
b). whether she should slow down her methadone taper or on the contrary speed it up and sprint for the finish line so it is not such a slow drawn-out low grade stress on her mind and emotions?... and
c). what can she do to help herself get a handle on her thoughts, moods and emotions during methadone taper and then detox? Has anyone got any tools they found helpful for similar issues?

SWIM takes 100mg Amitriptyline, 10mg Baclofen as needed and 10mg Zolpidem for sleep (for Fibromyalgia which presented itself mid-way through methadone taper) . She also uses the Amitriptyline for her depression, but maybe it isnt strong enough for severe depression?

What tools can SWIM use to

Any advice would be hugely appreciated guys. Thanks for listening. x

 

[johnnyflamingo]

i have no experience regarding opiates but i dont think you should cut down on your own without a medical professionel, because i think it can be dangeros both psychil and mentally so my advice is to make a plan with your doctor at least to make that your not hurting yourself .

Having said that i have the higest of respect for what your doing and very much what you have done and i wish you the best of luck going forward.

 

[LearnLoveLive]

Thanks for your reply JohnnyFlamingo.

I should have clarified, SWIM's under the care of a Methadone Clinic and Recovery Service and has been for the past 12 years. All of her reductions have been under their care.

However, the clinic, doctor and key worker can not and will not decide for SWIM how quickly to taper - they leave that decision totally to me. They are pleasant and supportive, but they have never been through opiate withdrawals personally, neither have they experienced any of it's side effects, nor do they suffer from any psychological or emotional disturbances (which are a common root of many users' addictions in my opinion)... so there is only so much advice they can give in this vein.

SWIM was hoping somebody may have some more down-to-earth personal experience to share to aid her in her recovery journey.

 

[Soso78]

I was on mmt for about 16-17 years and when I quit in 2013 I was a wreck, physically and emotionally.
I remember crying at adverts in the tv lol
In my experience my drug worker was a waste of fuckin time, if I missed an appointment she would be ringing me, when I quit and could have done with help I she didn't want to know. Case was closed as far as she was concerned.

My only advice is don't rush anything and reduce as low as possible. I quit at 10mg as reductions were taking too long and I got impatient, with hindsight I should have reduced to 5mg or less.

 

[the last dose]

I was on mmt for about 16-17 years and when I quit in 2013 I was a wreck, physically and emotionally.
I remember crying at adverts in the tv lol
In my experience my drug worker was a waste of fuckin time, if I missed an appointment she would be ringing me, when I quit and could have done with help I she didn't want to know. Case was closed as far as she was concerned.

My only advice is don't rush anything and reduce as low as possible. I quit at 10mg as reductions were taking too long and I got impatient, with hindsight I should have reduced to 5mg or less.

great advise soso78, definitely ween down as far as you can go it will make wds so much easier. I was on opioids for over 20 years daily im 5 months clean now so anything is possible good luck!

 

[Rubylyn]

Wow, I'm in the same kind of situation... I was tapering down on methadone (down to around 20) until I had a death in the family that kept me out of town longer than expected. The clinic refused to arrange guest dosing and I was forced to go cold turkey. With a long history of bad mental health and substance abuse I'm also struggling. I don't really have a lot of advice to offer but wanted you to know you're definitely not alone.