I have no idea what dosage to take on day 1, 2, or any of the other days.
Start around 16mg - any more is pointless. Seriously. Doesn't matter how much gear your using. But for someone taking quite a lot, like you - start at a high sub dose, which 16mg is. Some doctors will advise 24mg,36mg or even higher doses - don't. It won't help you and will just make it that much harder to eventually get clean.
Take 16mg for the first week, each day. Ideally try and split the dose, if you can do 4x4mg that would be perfect, but even 8mg morning and night is better than 16mg at once.
That said, it has a more 'lasting' effect than methadone and apart from when you first come onto it, it's really good in that you can be inconsistent with your dose-taking times (and even dose amount), to the point that once you're on suboxone, you can even miss a day with no real discomfort.
However, when you first switch from a high dose of Heroin, to suboxone - it's always rough. Seriously. It's not like methadone, where you can just make sure you take enough until you feel fine. There's a limit to much much suboxone you should take, there's a limit to how much is more effective and worse, it's not even necessarily a ceiling-dose that you reach - but it can actually make you feel worse!
With suboxone, it has an incredibly high affinity for your receptor(s) and it will boot every last drop of heroin right off. As a result, if you have a heavy habit, you'll essentially be forced to have 1-5 days of feeling pretty shitty. Sometimes bad enough you won't be able to work/study/etc - so be warned. That said, it will get better and once it does you'll feel fine/great.
When do I start taking less?
Suboxone is pretty freaking amazing in regards to how rapidly you can reduce. I've had multiple stretches on both methadone and suboxone. Here's an example reduction I once did off suboxone: I went from using around 1g/day of H, I waited 24hours and took 16mg of sub, I took this dose for 3 days and then 12mg for the next 4 days (making a week), the next two weeks I took 8mg, then over the course of 2 weeks I tapered down to 1mg - then I jumped off (WDs started day 3, peaked day 5 and the worst of it lasted for 10 days, then another 30 days of night sweats, chills, etc).
The main question is not really how quickly can you reduce on suboxone (since you can literally halve your dose over-night and not feel the slightest bit of discomfort)- but rather how long do you need to stay on it for, in order to stabilise your life away from drugs: find work, relationships, new environment, routine, etc. Not point kicking the suboxone if you still feel like you need to use. Because you will use - everyone does (in that situation). You need to be ready to get clean. That's the main thing, not how quickly you can reduce your dose.
How long can I stay on the subs without becoming physically dependent on them?
If you are already physically addicted to opiates/Heroin - then the answer is zero days. You'll be immediately physically addicted, or more accurately - your existing addiction will still be there, you'll just be using something else to hit the spot.
If you had no opiate experience and just started taking suboxone daily for some weird reason, I'd imagine 2-4 weeks would be a reasonable expectation before you ran into serious trouble (WDs).
Now - saying all that, keep in mind you can absolutely avoid the super-brutal heroin WDs by taking suboxone and WD'n from that, instead. Now - think of suboxone as being a milder withdrawal - but drawn out over a much longer time (10 days strong, 30 days mild, before PAWS). Now, as a result of that, the longer you stay on subs for, the longer you'll experience both AWS and PAWS - and if you're on subs for a year+ you can definitely expect even like 6 months of feeling somewhat shite.
So - with that in mind, if you're not interested in actually staying the course and using the suboxone to get your life in order, but rather you just want to get off the gear as soon as possible, then I'd recommend not using the suboxone for more than about 10 days, 2 weeks tops. Just taper down from 16mg, to 1mg really rapidly. My advice: don't even spread it, try and get to 1mg as soon as possible and hit that for the final 3+ days and you can actually just about "cheat the reaper" so to speak. That said - it's really really really missing the point of how you're supposed to use 'done/subbys
The only way to avoid PAWS is to stay on the subs for a longer period of time and then tapering off?
I'm sure some people will disagree. But I would say the opposite is true. Heroin doesn't typically have a long PAWS phase. Whereas long-acting drugs like bupe and 'done DO - with 6months-1year not being at all uncommon for coming off long stretches on maintenance drugs.
The only downside to this is that my body will become dependent and I've heard that subs are harder to kick than H. Is this all correct?
You're body is already dependent. Or at least, if you're considering going onto subs - then you damn well should already be dependent, or you're about to do something really stupid lol. So - don't worry about that. However, you're right in that the quicker you kick it all (say from H to a super quick - 1 or 2 week - sub detox) then the sooner you'll feel good again, but the more intense your WDs will be (shorter, stronger). And the longer you stay on the subs for, then the longer it will take for you to feel good (after you've stopped taking everything) - (harder, longer)
Regarding what's easiest/hardest to kick. I've come off methadone, suboxone and heroin. I'd say methadone is probably objectively the hardest to come off and I'd strongly recommend jumping to suboxone once you're on a low enough dose of 'done and coming off suboxone instead. Regarding which is harder out of Suboxone/Heroin - that is tricky!
Personally - I've swapped my feelings around over time and ultimately now I would say they're about the same, but you know Apples & Oranges so to speak. It depends on a lot of things, like the environment in which you'll be coming off (Do you need to work? Will you have drugs available if you crack? Anyone looking after you? In Rehab or a detox Center? etc).
Ultimately - just kind of put it this way; depends on whether you think you'd prefer a quick, but brutal detox (heroin), or a much less intense, but super drawn-out detox (subs). For me, it's sometimes been one, other times the other, just depending on other factors like I mentioned.
I will say this: Kicking suboxone is no fucking joke. In Australia, ever since they introduced the film about 10 years ago or whenever it was, the lowest maintenance dose for suboxone has been 2mg/day. Further, you've always had to take your daily amount as a single dose (unless/until you get enough trust that you get take-home doses. But even then, the most take-aways you can get is 6/week which means dosing at least once each week in chemist, so if you have to take that at once, it may be worth staying consisten with your pharmacy dosing. Anyway - our doctors love explaining how it's super easy to just "jump off" 2mg. It's fucking not. Now, don't get me wrong, first time I quit subs, I jumped from 2mg, it was super rough, but I did actually manage 6 months sober, so definitely doable. However - I strongly recommend jumping from 1mg or even less if you think you need to. So if you're in Australia, save some of your films when you get take-home doses, so you'll be able use them to taper later on. Saving a single 8mg strip is fantastic - as that's like 4x1mg + 8x0.5mg which is suitable for jumping from. Further - if you save enough take home doses, you can just quit your stupid fucking maintenance plan and just dose yourself like a fucking adult and not a disabled child!
