• H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist | cdin | Lil'LinaptkSix

One day at a time...

DonStatus

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 21, 2012
Messages
256
My story,

Hospital,Get clean, relapse, hospital, get clean,relapse..

The latest saga was pretty bad, it started out innocent enough with doing some speed on weekends with old "friends", I ended up physically addicted to speed (meth) which I didn't even know was possible.. while on my suboxone replacement therapy, then decided to start gulping down kpins to relieve the stress from constant meth use. I managed to live a semi-normal life until a chick I was fooling with introduced me to heroin. That is really what took my life out of control.. that h will really suck the last life out of you..

Woke up in a hospital..was resuscitated with narcan and spent 4 days there, during my stay a nurse came up to see me and explained they took a toxicology test and I was positive for 10/15 substances... that was my worst point ever..

Did a two month in-patient rehab, been out since november.. switched on methadone by doctor at said clinic.. feel normal?

been clean 8 months and 5 days.

I know my next step is medication reduction,taper and eventual complete cessation.

Living a semi-charmed kind of life since.. I get the violent cravings, temptations and nostalgia but I really sincerely want to stay clean.

Thanks for reading guys!
 
Welcome to SL fellow OD survivor! Awesome avatar :)

Sounds like you're doing really well with your treatment right now. I would suggest not making it a super priority messing with it if it's been working well for you.

What dose are you on right now? There is certainly nothing wrong with a slow taper though. If you're on any significant amount of methadone, it will take some time to get yourself in a position where you can most effectively get off it (in other words, a long slow taper). I was on methadone for 2.5 years, and I think I was technically tapering for more than 1.5 years of that time. After about the same amount of time on it as you, I actually found I felt better as I slowly reduced my dose than when I was at the higher initial doses I tried.

What I'd suggest putting your time and energy into right now is areas of your life outside of formal substance use treatment. Areas like your relationship with family and friends, your professional life, your involvement in therapeutic/supportive communities (some like NA and whatnot, but a community doesn't need to be explicitly focused on recovery or even substance use to be therapeutic), etc.

When I started on methadone I didn't have much going on for myself in my life - certainly not much that was particularly healthy. The work I did outside of substance use treatment on myself and my life during this time was what I believe made my experience of coming off methadone so unproblematic. Methadone and abstinence form the drugs that were killing me made this kind of personal transformation possible, but the transformation was about infinitely more than substance use or addiction (though of course that was a theme). It was also about my struggles with mental illness, stigma, trauma, isolation/alienation, etc.


What else do you have going on for you outside of treatment right now? If you painted a picture of your life, what would it look like? Would you like it? What would you want to change?

Basically I'm suggesting your reflect on your particular priorities. In doing so, explore how engaging and working on accomplishing your various goals outside of treatment might enhance (or not) your experience of treatment. And by sharing here you'll end up helping others too :)
 
Cool bro! I second taking it easy. People told me so many times not to jump off from 1mg of methadone. People warned me a lot lol. You don't think its doing anything, but it is! After I got off methadone, I relapsed. I was cool at 1mg for quite a while. Shoulda just stayed at 1mg. Something about the routine. I mean its physical too. Cuz even after going down to 1mg I was still a zombie for a full month after I got off! GL brotha
 
You're doing awesome, OP. I second, TPD's suggestion about focusing on your own priorities and goals right now. The long project of cleaning up from addiction is a lot less daunting if you can figure out a bit of a roadmap to help guide you.
<3
Sim
 
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