What is Opioid Use Disorder?
One of the best things you can do to empower yourself in this is to learn about what you're dealing with. We have a LOT of resourced for this in the
SL Directory, just scroll down to the Eduction section and explore the various links.
You could spend months learning about what you're dealing with, tools to help you turn your obstacles into opportunities and explore what recovery means for you personally. What do you want your recovery to look like? What goals would get you there, short mid and long term? And then how would you achieve your current goals? Just want to get you thinking.
Here is an explanation of opioid use disorder. Basically it is a checklist. Opioid use disorder is now defined in terms of mild, moderate and severe. If you check off six or more boxes, you qualify for a diagnosis of severe opioid use disorder. If you only check off two boxes, you have mild opioid use disorder, and between 3-5 means moderate opioid use disorder. I'm just guessing, but I imagine you'll check off six or more boxes just from the info you've already provided here. Anyways, here is the info:
https://www.bmcobat.org/documents/r...f+Diagnostic+Criteria+Opioid+Use+Disorder.pdf
Recovery as a Developmental Process
The mid to late 20's is a great time to get sober. The vast majority of people with substance use disorder "age out" of addiction in organic ways around their late twenties/early thirties. I can attest to this myself. As I've put effort and resources into my overall development, as a friend, colleague, professional, and recovery figure, it all has become much much easier. I started exploring recovery in my early twenties, and it probably took me about six years of trial and error mostly listening to other people's self serving advice (trusting people who work for rehabs to provide you unbiased information about addiction and recovery is very messy) before I figured my shit out.
I'm just trying to say that now is a GREAT time to start thinking more about putting more substantial resources into your own personal development. If you cultivate a healthier lifestyle, integrating healthy habits into your daily life, recovery becomes much more accessible. And as you continue developing neurologically and physiologically in your late twenties (the human brain continues to develop into the thirties for most people) learning to engage in healthier, more skillful decision making becomes more accessible.
I always assumed I was an adult when I turned 21. I was always so depressed thinking about how I hadn't achieved any of the goals I though I wanted for myself during my early and mid twenties. When I learned that, no, one doesn't actually become an adult until (for men) about 32 (it's a little earlier for women I believe, but of course there is plenty of variance), that helped me feel more at peace with my situation. For better and worse, where I'm at today is where I'm at today. Being able to accept that and be okay with where I'm at now despite it not being what I thought I wanted once upon a time, acceptance makes changing more accessible.
Tools for Recovery Worth Exploring
I'd strongly suggest you explore the section of the SL Directory devoted to treatment (it's the first section).
Most people (drug users included) understand very little about evidence based clinical substance use disorder treatment. The reality is that, for someone with severe opioid use disorder, you're like to benefit most from integrating some form of ORT, long term outpatient support (3-12 months), individual therapy and wellness or recovery oriented peer support.
ORT is opioid replacement therapy, using buprenorphine or methadone. It is a horrible name because it isn't just replacing one drug with another. That is an important part, because part of its value is that you replace unpredictable, unregulated often adulterated highly ILLEGAL black market substances with a LEGAL, safe, regulated, and standardized medicine.
Honestly the best thing about ORT IMHO is that it allows me to live a lifestyle that doesn't revolve around breaking the law. What led me to methadone, which was what ended up working for me, was getting arrested a number of time. I couldn't deal with the highly illegal and stressful nature of the heroin scene any longer, especially considering how it exacerbated my mental health concerns.
Another HUGE benefit of ORT is that, once you've stabilized on the medication, you are able to pursue the other work you need to do on yourself to address the issues that lead you to self medicate/use drugs like heroin. You don't have to worry about getting high, cravings (when managed properly) aren't an issue, and you can just focus on making progress on your underlying issues.
Just think what it would mean to be able to put all that energy and resources you're currently devoting to using into healthier pursuits, because you don't have to worry about where or whether you'll get your fix - that's removed from the equation and you can just focus on getting healthy.
As you make progress on you underlying issues (for me it was most anxiety and social phobia, with some depression and PTSD complicating things a bit), you will be able to taper off your opioid replacement medication. Most people seem to be successful using ORT for 6 months to 3 years, although some people benefit from longer term use as well (it is very individual, based on personal need).
Eventually you'll get to a point where you're stable enough without the drugs, and then you can detox (and detoxing, when managed properly, is not at all as bad as the horror stories you hear - it's just a matter of having the right knowledge and resources to comfortably manage your transition off ORT, and there isn't any mystery as to its done, it's just that a lot of doctors don't know shit about substance use disorder or ORT).
Chipping
I'd ask, what attempts at getting sober have you made? Chipping is weird. Some people are able to chip and live productive lives. But for the safe of your own wellbeing it is best to assume you are not one of these people. I mean, if you're interested in trying chipping, I'd go for it. Try it out, but be real with yourself how it affects you.
Generally people who ask whether others think chipping is viable are not the people for whom chipping works out very well...
I've experiments with chipping myself numerous times over the years. What I finally discovered, the realization that got me to realize chipping wasn't a viable option for me, is that after just one dose of something like heroin I'm left in a weird funk for about a week. In terms of my mood, even one small dose of heroin will fuck it up for days and days following the one off use.
So I discovered for myself that chipping isn't viable, because my responsibilities in life prevent me from taking the time off I'd need to recovery from chipping. The only kind of drug use I can safely and healthy engage in is maintain use and SAM (single administration module - stuff like iboga and other enthogens).
It's like once your body has really become heavily dependent on opioids, it's just really hard to chip. Your body recognizes the input of exogenous endorphins (opioids are like endorphins) and immediately starts preparing and compensating for the tolerance it expects if you were to continue using. The body learns and adapts, and after it has really gotten to know dependency, it's really easy to fall back into it with even just one or two uses. So, like I said, while chipping is possible it isn't something you should assume is viable for you.
But if you're curious, I say try it out.
It's you're recovery and your life, no one else's. You have to learn, figure things out and make up your mind for yourself.
What matters most is what you feel like you need to do for yourself. If you feel like you need to chip, try it out. But if it doesn't work out as well as planned or continues getting in the way of your managing your responsibilities and achieving your larger life goals, be real with yourself about it.
If you try chipping, and it doesn't work out, I'd highly advise you to consider an outpatient IOP buprenorphine program or methadone. I benefited more from methadone, because it is a lot more effective at controlling craving (buprenorphine helped for a time, but eventually it didn't do what I needed it to). I also preferred treatment with methadone because it is highly regulated. There are lots of restrictions and controls on use, and clinic rules - while a huge pain in the ass sometimes - they help develop a more mature and responsible attitude IME.
If you are just trying to detox, we can help with that, just let us know if that's what you need help or info with.
Relationships in Addiction and Recovery
So much can be said on this topic, but I'll keep it shortish...
Being in a relationship with someone who is also in active addiction is really hard. I don't want to really comment on this, because I have nothing positive to say about it. One's individual recovery is challenging enough - having to do it in a relationship with someone else who is also struggling has the potential to pay off big time, but it also has the potential to crash and burn. I see relationships like that crash and burn far more often than succeed long term.
Where to Go From Here
But whatever we can do to help you achieve your goals as you define them, that's what we want to encourage. Doesn't matter what the goal is, we primarily are interested in you finding a sense of health self-confidence, explore the liberative and empowering experience of co-regulating with health people in safe environments. If we do anything, I'd like us to help foster a sense of independence and can-do, because you are capable of more than you know right now. Heroin use makes it really difficult to see things clearly.
So I've basically given you enough material to explore for months if you went through all of it (I don't expect that, but I do hope you explore it to some degree as you educate yourself). We want to encourage an empowered attitude for you because, other than resiliency, recovery is all about learning to advocate for yourself. But both resiliency and learning to advocate for your own needs is at the heart of a life of recovery. Doesn't need to be perfect, just moving in the right direction - that being, the direction of more personal and social health, in a word, the direction that fosters healthy connection.
A growing number of professionals who work with addiction don't see abstinence as the opposite of addiction, but connection. Connection is the opposite of addiction. What might the implications of this be in your own situation Hollywood?
A lot of people benefit from peer support. There are lots of options for peer support in recovery communities (12 step stuff, refuge recovery, smart recovery, etc), but there are also lots of wellness oriented groups, like MBSR and the mindfulness community. But finding some kind of peer support that helps you foster healthier habits and ways of being in relationship with both yourself and others, that's really instrumental and helpful in establishing and maintaining your recovery.
Requesting Your Feedback
If you answer any of the questions I've posed in this ridiculously long post (sorry, verbose is kinda my middle name when I get into it like this), I'd like to hear more about where you want to go with this.
What do you want, in life and regarding your drug use? This question is too rarely asked, yet it cuts right to the heart of the matter.
) It's healthful to make a pro's and con's list for how heroin and opioid or other drug use affects you. It's important to recognize the benefit you derive from something like heroin use, because no one uses something like that with "good reason" (good reason meaning the drug use addresses something in the person that needs to be addressed). 