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  • Trip Reports Moderator: Xorkoth

Opiates - Retrospective - Description of the Opiate High

Likewise. If you find yourself in need of support, The Dark Side forum deals with addiction and the problems that arise from it.
 
udogg said:
for whatever it is worth that letter made me come clean to some of family who have no idea i have a problem. That is a start. I am at the 6th paragraph where i started doing the taking time off and struggling with it (ie my first withdrawals after years of using it "as needed" to "for fun" to "now daily" for past few months.) I hope i can do it without a program. Now that i told people
in my family that should help hold me a little more accountable. Hopefully , that is enough. mine got worse when it became easier for me to get. I am sure that is the case for many on here. i suppose i have to stay away from my friends that do them? I assume these have all been disucssed numerous times here, but any advice wuold be appreciated. My biggest question is who has had success without a program and any advice with that, would be helpful. I think that that the 50mg ish (probably more if i am honest about the past few weeks with a pill here and a pill there) a day range that i am at and have been for 4 to 6 months is hopefully doeable.

And Xorkoth thank you for being the one to hopefully start me on the path to an opiate free life. Like everyone here i cant believe I got to this point.

Feel free to reach out and keeping me honest honest or i will hopefully post my progress.
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I was just re-reading my report here and I was wondering if you're still around, udogg? How are things, if you see this?
 
Another terrible part of opioid addiction occurs when you take psychedelics. I feel a sense of guilt, like something is just not right and it effects my past trips. I get shown that I'm lying to myself daily about these pills and the justifications to continue are endless. I only take hydrocodone at 40mg a day but even at this dose I find it virtually impossible to just be off of opioids. Kratom helps but it doesn't cure the hole I was plugging with opioids in the first place.

All that being said the euphoria from opioids has helped me gain confidence to succeed in work and relationships that I didnt/dont have when sober so I guess that's something. They are not an ally though...i can say that much!
 
Wow, Shadowmeister! Thanks for sharing! It was real hard for me to think that even someone as well informed as you, who has great insight into these things would have a story like this! Incredible!
 
I just re-read this... dealing with opiates again, several relapses after 5 years totally off of them with no cravings. Life got really emotionally difficult (grief and anger) and finally I just sort of snapped, dosed once. Haven't been able to get them out of my mind since. I just wanted to reiterate... for the love of god, if you're thinking about trying opiates recreationally... think very hard before you do.
 
Xorkoth said:
I just re-read this... dealing with opiates again, several relapses after 5 years totally off of them with no cravings. Life got really emotionally difficult (grief and anger) and finally I just sort of snapped, dosed once. Haven't been able to get them out of my mind since. I just wanted to reiterate... for the love of god, if you're thinking about trying opiates recreationally... think very hard before you do.
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Me to man! I spent much of the first lockdown coming off kratom followed by some of the most rejuvinating trips of my life. Fast forward a couple months and im abusing alcohol/speed/benzos (got complacent), finally got off all that and had a month or two with nothing but weed, felt like myself again. Now feeling worse than I have in a long time after getting back on kratom (got complacent... again) and chipping at bupe the past week or so. Such insidious drugs that give a false sense of security. The shit part for me is knowing in depth what is good for me but feeling unable to align my intentions with my actions due to MANY of lifes stressors constantly tripping me up, leading straight back to opiates again.

I really want to get off kratom and other opiates to be able to reignite my personal growth practice with plant medicines like mushrooms, cacti and harmalas + DMT containing plants. I know this is the right path to keep me aligned with what is most important in terms of maintaining a healthier lifestyle and staying connected to what makes me thrive and stay happy / productive creatively but its not easy when I cant take the time off work to WD.

You know what you have to do, don't beat yourself up over it and make a plan with clear boundaries and keep in contact with truasted friends/family/Drs who can help you through the shitty days. Chin up man!
 
I relate to you 100%, man. I actually am receiving one 8mg pill of bupe tomorrow, going to do a rapid taper and then use gabapentin to deal with any lingering shittiness. I have gotten on and off opiates again 3 times in the past year and a half. I just had a sober retreat for a month and got off it then and felt amazing, I was working out daily, felt better than I have in years. Then the day I got home, found out my cat was really sick and my girlfriend hadn't noticed, and then she died, so sudden, I was devastated and just went back instinctively to the thing I knew would make me not feel so bad for a short time. Because of kindling, I felt some withdrawals after the first time and I still felt so bad that I just got back into it. It's so crazy how you can know full well exactly how it will end up, and that it isn't worth it, at all, to try it again, and yet your lizard brain can so easily override that.

I did ibogaine in 2014 and had a life-changing experience where I got off opiates after 10 years of heavy addiction, and didn't even have any cravings, for 5 years, until I relapsed. I relapsed while visiting my dad, who died of ALS. His level of suffering was extreme and my m0om was throwing out an almost empty bottle of liquid morphine that he was prescribed, and I just snapped, grabbed it from the garbage can, and dosed. Then a few months later I was back to full-on, constant use. I truly, 100% believed I was done with them forever.

But yeah I'm getting off again, it's not like I don't know I can, but I'm nervous that at some point I will snap again. I'm probably going to start seeing a therapist for a while because I need to get better at dealing with intense negative emotions, it's always been hard for me, especially grief. Since I started using opiates to deal with stuff 17 years ago, it's the coping mechanism for grief that my brain always jumps right to.

Thanks ♥ We got this!
 
Morninggloryseed said:
Awesome post Xor.

Do you think if your life took tragic turns, you would think of going back? I know you went through some relationship issues I won't rehash here but my memory is fuzzy if these were post iboga.

I know I felt the way you did my first year post ibogaine, but when the walls caved in, it made sense for me to treat depression with kratom. Maybe I failed myself, although I bearly think the green kratom I eat these days really hits much mu...anyway...I'll shut up and listen vs justify my failures.

Ps....you are an awesome psychedelic role model and hella fine musician.
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Wow, gave me chills, as that is exactly what happened.

RIP my friend. ♥

(The poster I quoted, besides being one of my trip report author idols growing up, was my ibogaine mentor)
 
Ibogaine is a totally different animal than mushrooms or any other psychedelic, it's more like a dissociative, seems to work on a subconscious/dream level. Nothing has ever been so powerful in changing my behaviors afterwards, it's not like when you trip on mushrooms and you think something through and your perspective changed. I had dreams for 3 days whether awake or asleep, when awake the dreams overlaid reality. I didn't even realize I was dreaming when I was dreaming, or that I had done ibogaine. Just like dreaming, I was just along for the ride and I accepted whatever reality was presented. I don't even really know why, but 7 days after I took it, I had actually relapsed already, but then I had a moment where I just "woke up", it felt the last 10 years had been a bad dream and I was myself again. I realized I could do anything I wanted, I felt powerful, I made a lot of life changes on that energy. The thought of opiates seemed crazy to me, I even had a week or two of lingering light withdrawals, but I threw away my kratom and poppy tea and did not even consider using them.

But yeah it can be dangerous. Also you need someone to watch you for a long time, I was unable to care for myself for 3 full days/nights. And on the 3rd day, I believed I was fine and back to normal, while I was doing all sorts of nonsense around my house.

Anyway, I'm sorry for your grief, too. Losing my dad, or actually, watching him become a fully paralyzed anxiety-ridden shell of his former self and watching my mom start to slowly loathe him while she desperately did not want to, was the worst thing I've experienced. And at the same time, my ex wife flipped on me and tried to take half my net worth in the divorce after abusing me and never lifting a finger to contribute for many years... I got angry as hell and black out drunk and totalled my car against a parked car while blacked out, and got a DUI and lost my car which, it may sound strange, but felt like I had murdered a friend, it was devastating to me, I loved that car so much. And then my girlfriend started developing health problems and becoming increasingly depressed, and I also was having serious house/money problems. I was finally putting it all behind me, my dad passed last year and it was a relief because it is what he wanted at that point more than anything. Got clean and then my 16 year old cat died who I loved so much, and I wasn't there. It just feels like it's been one thing after another for years. But all we can do is keep moving, and try to be grateful for what we have and find all the joy you can. Fortunately I do love my life, I have a great job and I am also a musician, doing what I love... I have a great family and really great friends and I love where I live. When I did ibogaine I hated my life, I was still with my ex then and she had beaten down to the point that I hated myself, plus all the years of opiate addiction... I was fantastizing about jumping in front of a bus on a daily basis. Now, though, I know I will be okay, I'm just a little frustrated with myself, but I am still overall happy with life.
 
BellaJewel said:
@Xorkoth Please tell me how Gabapentin eases your discomfort when you discontinue opiates. Thanks!
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Gabapentin (and pregabalin) are both great for helping withdrawals, it really can't be overstated. Even as little as 300mg will take the edge off, if I take 900-1200mg (in staggered doses), I will actually have a good day and forget I'm withdrawing from opiates. It really works amazingly well.
 
Wow man that sounds like a rough ride alright! As cliché as it sounds, im sure every one of those events provided an opportunity for growth in some way or another, even if it didn't feel like it at the time. Glad to hear you got a handle on things though and hopefully this slip up can be resolved as quickly and smoothly as possible, with all that behind you.

Iboga sounds nuts, I know its really not in the same ballpark as traditional psychedelics and I dont know if it would ever be right for me but maybe one day. I considered microdosing with it a while ago but the price and the sheer power and mystique of it has made me second guess using it in similar way to other powerful entheogens. For now I get all I need and more from Mushrooms, Cacti and Ayahuasca analogues.

In terms of Gabapentin/Pregab for WD's, do you find Phenibut to be useful in a similar way? I used to take it for that purpose but it gives me all sorts of weird symptoms now after years of using it on and off. I get nerve pain and numbness in my fingers even after a single dose now which sucks as I found it really useful for coming off opiates in the past. I found Pregab and Gababpentin didnt gel with me too well when I had access to it, I much preferred Phenibut.
 
For some reason, phenibut is not as good. It does help with the emotional part, which is substantial for sure, but it doesn't help the restlessness and can make your body feel more sore.

I find phenibut to be the best functional gabapentinoid, and the most confidence-producing, but it is not nearly as good for withdrawal as the pure gabapentinoids (as far as I know, only gabapentin and pregabalin).

Microdosing iboga can help with the motivation for staying off opiates, but it doesn't block any of the withdrawal, really. It's absolutely nothing like a flood dose, it's pretty subtle, like other microdosing. I actually microdosed iboga 2 times ago getting back off opiates, it did help but not as much as I hoped.
 
i used about a good gram of DMT that i got about 6 months ago, and i love that more than anything. Quualudes and xanax are up there. But DMT changed who i am as a person completely. I now can see right and wrong in a situation, jus from instinct. Which i had after doing LSD for a week. Then id lose it. The magic of DMT has lasted since my last hit months ago. That was better than 15 years of psychiatry. Same with shrooms. DMT is 100 times stronger than mushrooms by the way, but is only about 15 to 20 minutes long. But its like a rollercoaster that takes your soal.....and you have no control.
 
Xorkoth said:
I was in another thread today and I found this post I made a while ago, and I thought that the post would be better as a trip report. This report is written in 2nd person perspective and my goal with it is to give an accurate description of the total spectrum of the effects of opiates and opiate addiction through my own experience with them.

My best description of the effects of opiates is as follows.

You haven't tried an opiate before or really experienced the high fully, but then you take a sufficient dose of a strong opiate for the first time. You're just really curious, it seems like the general consensus is that people like these a lot. The feeling is like a warm blanket over every aspect of your physical, mental and emotional self. Physically you feel incredibly relaxed, but not necessary sluggish. Your muscles feel like you just got a massage or something, and there is a euphoria pulsing out of your chest/stomach area. You feel light yet heavy at the same time. Pleasant waves are running through your body from inside out through your extremities. Emotionally, you feel a powerful contentment and euphoria. It feels like everything is right in the world. Your negative emotions are dampened and your positive ones are increased. Nothing can get you down, everything is perfect. Mentally you're a little slowed down, but any anxiety is absolutely destroyed. It's easy to socialize and feel confident in yourself. Self esteem is raised. Everything in life feels easy, wonderful.

You like it a lot, so you want to do it again. You wait a while and do it again. Same thing, this is great. It'll be okay if I keep doing this, I'll stick to every few days. Over time it becomes every other day. Hey no problem, not enough for physical dependence, I could stop anytime I want to, I just don't want to. I'm not addicted, that definitely won't happen to me, I'm not an idiot... says you, to yourself.

Before long you start rationalizing doing it most days, often doing it multiple days in a row. It might take a few weeks, or it might take a year or more, but it happens. It's still the honeymoon period though because you haven't experienced the withdrawals yet. Then one day you do experience withdrawals, maybe you can't get more, maybe you go on vacation and don't bring any, whatever it is. And you're shocked and appalled by how you feel, it's the exact opposite of the opiate feeling. You feel sick, and your limbs are ungodly restless, the constant need to stretch and kick your legs that makes it impossible to sleep. There is pain in your bones. You feel crushingly depressed and overwhelmingly anxious... it feels like everything is the world is shit, you feel a dark and desolate hopelessness that feels like forever. You want to cry about everything. You feel pathetic and worthless.

So, you deal with it for a couple of days and pass the withdrawals. Ahh, cool! Well hey, I'm not actually an opiate addict, I just went a little too hard and got some withdrawals, I'll take a good break and then use it responsibly. The "good break" isn't as long as you intended it to be. You'e already breaking your rules, you're already an addict, but you haven't admitted it to yourself yet. You try it again after a bit, and assure yourself you'll only do it every 3 days or something, that will avoid withdrawals, right? Well, maybe it would have, but you quickly get back to where you were before. There are little daily rationalizations... "I deserve this today, I had a hard day", or "well, just this one time I'll take it 2 days in a row but I DEFINITELY won't keep doing that". But you do keep doing it. The high still feels great and at some point you become physically dependent again, sooner than you know that you are.

Eventually there comes a time when you don't have it, and you start withdrawing again only this time the withdrawals feel worse and last longer than the first time, and you want opiates more than anything else in the world, you'd do anything to get some opiates to make it go away. And your conscious mind finally acknowledges that are addicted body and mind to opiates, and a tremendous fear and burden settles into your soul. You begin to comprehend the seriousness of your situation, and the honeymoon period is over. You begin to wish you had never tried opiates in the first place. You feel like you would do anything to go back and change that fateful day when curiosity got the better of you and this thing started. You berate the past version of yourself... fucking idiot, you say.

After a while you get past the withdrawals and feel alright, not perfect but pretty good, and you resolve to yourself that you have learned your lesson, no more opiates. And you hold to that for a while, maybe you even make it 8 months like I did. But in the back of your mind, opiates are always there. You get cravings that become stronger and stronger. The thought enters your mind more and more intrusively that you could get some and get high. You start to think that since you learned your lesson, this next time you definitely won't get addicted, right? After all, you're not addicted now, are you? Well, yes, you are, but you've deluded yourself into thinking that just because you're well past the physical part, you're not addicted anymore, even though if you were able to step outside yourself for a moment and think about the thoughts you're having, they make no sense and are clearly rationalizations to get you to do opiates again. Obviously it's not going to go well. But you manage to convince yourself that it will be different this time.

Eventually you do them again. Maybe it's your birthday and you want to "reward" yourself. But if so, it was the worst birthday gift you've ever received. It starts out feeling innocent. You're gonna do it just this once. The high is great but not as great as it used to be. But still, you love it. Okay, I'm gonna put this down now, that was it. But now you feel that draw again, far, far stronger than it was before. Before long, you've convinced yourself to do it again. Before long, it becomes daily again, maybe you even start getting to multiple times a day. And you know you're addicted, and you feel horrible about yourself. You become terrified, afraid of yourself. Your thoughts become almost another entity, your greatest foe. As soon as you allow yourself the possibility that "maybe" you'll do opiates today, there is a spiral of fighting yourself that inevitably and invariably ends with getting opiates and doing them. You experience cycles of doing opiates frequently or even constantly, and then experiencing some or all of the withdrawals. Every time the withdrawals are worse and worse, and you start to feel flat and apathetic and uncomfortable even after the acute withdrawals are over, it's post-acute withdrawal syndrome, and it happens more and more.

While you're using opiates, you promise yourself every single day, passionately, that this is the last time, it's over after this. And every single time, you break your promise to yourself. Over time this wears down your self-esteem. The promises stop feeling passionate and start feeling hollow. You start to loathe yourself, you weak, pathetic person. What is wrong with you? Why did you even make this promise, you knew you were going to break it, you idiot. These are the ways you think about yourself most of the time. When you're high, that goes away, replaced by... basically emptiness. Contentment, with panic around the edges. Even if you don't realize it at the time, the way you feel at your absolute best when you've just done a fat dose of your opiates, is a thousand times less good than the way you felt normally before opiates. Basically you're continuing to do opiates just to feel the closest semblance of normal that is possible when you're beaten down, confused and lost, and your life is likely starting to go to shambles or is already, and your body's reward system is intensely suppressed. You're trying to avoid withdrawals, which produces a state that is the worst you could possibly feel. Those who have not experienced the withdrawals of a deep opiate addiction really can't understand how bad it is. You almost can't even explain how bad it is. It's the most soul-crushingly horrific way to exist that I can imagine, extreme discomfort in every aspect of your existence. Every moment is torture and you can't sleep, and the nights are the worst. Even death would be preferable to this. If forced to endure them, suicide enters your mind frequently just for it to end. You would do ANYTHING for opiates. You NEED them. That's how it feels.

When you're not currently using them or in acute withdrawals, all you can think about is doing them, and before long you give in. This time you don't think you're going to use them responsibly, you're past that, you're honest with yourself that you're a full-blown opiate addict by now. You give in because life feels unlivable without opiates. Your endogenous pleasure system is all fucked up, your opiate receptors are all heavily downregulated and that takes a long while to reset. Meanwhile though, you're experiencing sort of a low-grade withdrawal and discomfort for a long time, months, a year before it would go away, and your life is in shambles so you have stresses to deal with everywhere. So you give in, again.

[Repeat cycle for years and years.]

You begin to realize that you will never escape this, you know in your heart that you're fucked. You might begin to fantasize about suicide, while not actually intending to do it, but the draw of death starts to feel as powerful as the draw of opiates. Almost. You start to wish you would get hit by a bus or something, so it was out of your hands but you got to die. You hate yourself more than you hate anything else except maybe opiates. But you're locked in. Every moment is hell, but since being high on opiates is a lesser hell, you stick with that. What other choice do you have? Well, there is always a choice, but you no longer believe you are capable of making the choice to stop. That realization leaves you numb.

Eventually, perhaps 10 years down the road, you hit your rock bottom. Maybe it's sooner. Probably not later. And you either overdose, kill yourself (maybe by overdosing), or you find the strength somewhere to finally get off of opiates. If you choose the last path, it will be a very difficult and painful road, but eventually you will be able to feel good again, and happy. It will probably involve a lot of life changes and not letting the insane addict part of your brain fool you ever again.

...

I was hooked from the first time I got a proper opiate high. I really was, I see that in retrospect. Obviously I wasn't physically hooked, but I loved it, it was instant perfection in feeling. So the idea was implanted then. It was a constant draw that I didn't even understand was a draw at first, to do opiates and achieve that feeling. It got harder and harder to resist and it was inevitable that I was going to fall down the opiate addiction hole farther and farther until I hit the bottom and either stayed there until I died, or finally get enough sense to say, enough is enough, I feel the draw but I feel the draw more to get out of this insane hellhole. The funny thing is, I could have chosen to break the cycle at any time, because we always have the ability to choose. But I never did choose to, because it took reaching a certain point for me to have the strength to make the choice to turn my back on opiates, that's how strong the draw was for me. No other type of drug, and I've done them all, and still do some of them, has been even close to as intimately intertwined with every aspect of my life, nor had such a strong pull as strong opiates. I consider myself really lucky to have escaped after 10 years of it (it's been 3.5 years now), and I used ibogaine to be honest, I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't.

So that's the real experience of opiates from one end to the other. One of my closest friends died recently from an opiate OD. She was clean for a long time (from opiates anyway, she had a lot of drug problems), and got some pills, we think oxycodone, and shot them up while she was on quite bit of benzos. Now she's gone, she never even got a chance to hit rock bottom. She went through a heavy IV heroin addiction for years, and we all thought opiates were behind her. But the draw still had her after all that time.

Think very, very hard about this if you're thinking of trying opiates. If you haven't gone there yet, stay away. Seriously. The best case scenario you could possibly achieve is that you feel good, come down, and you've gained and lost nothing. But if you're a person who is going to get hooked by opiates, you are probably going to experience something similar to the above. It's not even 1% worth the indescribable hell of opiate addiction to experience the high. If you are a person with an addictive or compulsive personality, trying opiates is about the most foolish thing you could do.

I hope this helps someone avoid what I and so many others have experienced. <3

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I dont know if it was justsituational, or my brain, or that I'm still young, but I first tried oxymorphone at 16, heroin at 18, oxycodone before that, first IV at like 21, second and tenth at 25, never been a daily user or physically dependent. Maybe it's been sheer luck. I am still young, and have sworn off all other addictive drugs, but opiates still tempt me because I haven't suffered many serious consequences with them yet (other than the 4 accidental overdoses due to adulterated drugs). However I have seen from other drugs that thinking i am somehow different, or better than other users can be quite the toxic train of thought, so I do want to tread carefully.

My use has very rarely exceeded monthlyif thatt.
 
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Probably pretty high, I'm sure there are a lot of 'functioning' users out there. Thing is though that somebody can use functionally for years without any real problems but then they can suddenly find their use and their lives suddenly unraveling. It can be going along just fine until suddenly it isn't anymore.
 
I have h on the way and I'm planning to snort it. I was in the hospital recently (for calling the cops, backfired {you have to be carerful with your WORDS} and no kratom I did not realize the withdrawals it brings...esp. because i was binging on kratom extracts recently....damn maybe the worst pain of my life until they gave me ativan which was like a kiss from some divine goddess healing my entire body.

I just want to at the very least be able to spend 25 hours a week composing music as its literally what I can contribute most to humanity, I'm worried addiction will consume me too much as weed addiction has in the past and literally in the past like 2 days I drank an entire 750ml bottle of vodka practically which is totally uncommon for me. Also lost an entire day because I ate like 5mg xanax. Some kind of switch went off in my brain since I took that 200ug of acid 2 days back no joke.
 
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