Poised on the edge of a fresh heroin binge

[Sleep and Fall]

I figured something out this year that disturbs the crap out of me. Years of opiate and opioid use has seriously damaged my brain chemistry. I went heroin to methadone to subs to heroin to sub to heroin to subs to heroin to subs and just subs, tapering, tapering, and finally to nothing. PAWS seemed like they would never end.

I was SO GOOD. And CLEAN. For what? So I could rot in depressing hell where I'm barely able to function because I've barely the energy to stand up and hardly the emotion to say "hello?" For what???

(I'm not writing this to discourage anyone else. I'm just being honest and letting my rant fly. Seems like the thing to do right now. Seems like the thing to do while I am teetering on the edge of making some very bad choices. Or good ones. Who knows?)

Over the past few weeks I've started cheating on my clean regime. On six days I did poppy tea. Wonderful stuff. Not only did I get quite nicely high, but on those pod tea days I was fully alive and functioning. The only other opiates I did were two 4 ounce bottles of weak ass codeine cough syrup - which hardly did anything for me.

This brings me to today. For the past few days I've been feeling low level dope sick. I think much of it is in my head. Six days of pod tea spread over weeks shouldn't cause me to be dope sick. But here we are running to the toilet every hour. So today I get five weak vics and a couple percs from a friend of a friend to get me through the next couple of days. Only I've finished the supply already and will have nothing tomorrow.

If this year of hell has taught me anything is that I'm going to have to maintain myself on something if I'm going to have any kind of enjoyable life at all. I'm in my early forties. I'm too fucking old to throw away another year to the false idol of "cleanness" PAWS and debilitating depression. Fuck all your prozac SSRI bullshit! Been there done that. Doesn't work at all for me. Opiates and opioids are the only thing that works.

So what do I maintain myself on? Subs? Ok. Subs are ok. But they make me seriously constipated. Anyone else here have to go to the emergency room for intestinal blockages? Not good. I left the ER feeling like I'd been ass raped.

How about methadone? This is a no go for me. Methadone turns me into a drugged out zombie. I lose a fair chunk of my personality and a bigger chunk of my creativity. It becomes impossible to work. Which is very bad.

How about going to a pill mill with some well faked pain problems? Even if I can make this work in the increasingly anti-pain treatment USA, pain pills really don't do much for me.

I just learned about Kratom from this site. I've yet to try it because my order hasn't arrived yet. But I do have high hopes for it. Perhaps with daily kratom I can maintain, possibly adding in the occasional pod tea for special occasions.

But what I really fucking want is heroin. Yeah, big surprise there, huh?

Part of me is thinking that maybe if I was just a bit more disciplined about my heroin use, I'd be able to maintain myself in dope without screwing up work or the rent. Perhaps if I set standard fixing hours.

See, when I lived in NYC and got into the heroin to subs back to heroin cycle, my habit during heroin runs was about a bundle a day. I'd keep going until I was far too broke, at which point I'd start a new subs detox. But if I could figure out a way to keep my costs down to half that much - I'd be right where I want to be.

Is that a total relapse? Sure. But I don't really care anymore. Heroin would be my preferred drug on which to maintain. If I can figure out a way to afford it.

Now here's where it gets marvelously stupid. Supposedly there is decent dope to be had in my area. But I'm very isolated here and don't know anybody. Since I get paid tomorrow I'm actually thinking of buying a ticket back to NYC just so I can cop a decent supply to get me at least through the New Year flying on H. This hare brained scheme sounds really really really really good to me right now.

Or I could just wait for my kratom package to come. Which would certainly be the fiscally prudent idea.

Any thoughts?

 

[OverDone]

It sounds like you are desperately searching for that perfect formula that will allow you to use without any consequences. There are always consequences and you have already felt some of them through anhedonia, PAWS, obsession, etc. These after effects are unavoidable after we're caught in the grips for so long. BAsically, there's no avoiding those negative effects after we quit using but they do pass in time.

All your other indulgences fell short because ultimately you want your initial love which is heroin. The thing is, we can make all sorts of rules in regards to regulating our usage but that never lasts long. We start compromising those ideals and eventually we end up exactly where we were or progress deeper than we were.

There's really no knowing how long your binge will last. One day? One month? 14 years? It happens quick like that. The time passes and we find ourselves asking 'What the fuck happened?'

Heroin would be my preferred drug on which to maintain. If I can figure out a way to afford it.

The reality is that you are chasing a fantasy. I've said things like this before as well. 'Everything would be fine if I just had enough drugs and everyone left me alone'. There's never enough drugs and never enough money. In time, our 'maintenance' gets greedy and our tolerance builds and builds. Next thing we find ourselves saying the same thing but more desperately 'If only I had enough drugs'. Rinse. Repeat.

I think you know what you need to do and I think you recognize that you are bullshitting yourself. What's the next step?

 

[PhrostByte]

I would tell you not to do it but you won't listen. I know.. I never listen. I know what the right thing to do is.. I used to be a hardcore east coast dope fiend too but since moving to Israel I've stuck with codeine.. usually just once a week, since I usually only have one day off.

The thing is.. I still obsess about it. I look forward to it all week... I feel like shit all week. I feel like I'm just going through the motions, completely devoid of passion. The problem is last week I had 3 days off and went on a 3 day binge... I still feel horrible. But that's the way it is... a few more days and I'm sure I'll be feeling better.

 

[Sleep and Fall]

"It sounds like you are desperately searching for that perfect formula that will allow you to use without any consequences."

Not exactly. Even my worst pre-relapse justifications are laced with realism. I know there will be consequences. I'd just love to the formula for continuing to use with manageable consequences. Which I freely admit isn't remotely likely. Because you're right. Tolerance and the increasing cost of supply will get you every time.

All that said, the heroin to subs to heroin to subs circle, with ever increasing times between heroin relapses, may actually be just about the best I can do at this stage in my life. Time will tell. I do know that I've got that pre-relapse feeling as strong as ever. At this point I'd give myself a fifty fifty chance of resisting.

But even if I do resist, and even if I resist well, I've got to maintain myself on at least a small dose of something. I can't do another six months of hell just so I'm no longer taking anything at all. In retrospect my PAWS depression etc. was every bit as destructive to me as my worst heroin relapses. More destructive than most of them.

The way I see it, I'm left with a group of bad choices. Methadone rots my brain. Subs take a health toll on me and have a tendency to prime me for relapse eventually, partly by making detox so easy. Heroin costs lots of money. Total abstinence is unmanageable.

Whether or not I go on an expensive happy fun time super heroin bender, the next step for me is to try kratom. No doubt there will be problems with that too, but it's definitely worth a shot.

Anyhow, this is my outlook without the fiending for a relapse ranting. Am I bullshitting myself? I don't think so.

 

[Sleep and Fall]

I would tell you not to do it but you won't listen. I know.. I never listen. I know what the right thing to do is.. I used to be a hardcore east coast dope fiend too but since moving to Israel I've stuck with codeine.. usually just once a week, since I usually only have one day off.

The thing is.. I still obsess about it. I look forward to it all week... I feel like shit all week. I feel like I'm just going through the motions, completely devoid of passion. The problem is last week I had 3 days off and went on a 3 day binge... I still feel horrible. But that's the way it is... a few more days and I'm sure I'll be feeling better.

Thanks PhrostByte. My heart goes out to you because I can relate so completely to what you said. It reminds me of a period in NY where I was barely paying the rent and trying to chip on the weekends. Starting the week sick. Always obsessing about payday. And then those wonderful four hour waits for the dope man. 5 or 6 days out of 7 that was terrible.

 

[donnie080208]

@sleep and fall

Heroin would be every addicts ideal maintenance drug but if methadone and bupe defo dont help you have to try and stay sober or lose everything.
The chances of maintaining , with fix times, low doses etc, an illegal H habit are virtually nil, its always more , more more.
I know how you feel without an opiate to have EVERY day i am miserable, suicidal and it makes my mental health problems far worse.
Couldnt you get back on subutex and get something regular for the constipation, this looks like your best short to medium term soloution. Best of luck to you bro, heroin maintenance should be available going into the year 2012 to those that need it, i.e. addicts pain patitients

 

[skinnylegz]

If methadone makes you a zombie, maybe you were on too high a dose? I'm on methadone, 180mgs and I can barely sleep. Everyone is different when it comes to the dose that works.

 

[Sepher]

@sleep and fall

Heroin would be every addicts ideal maintenance drug but if methadone and bupe defo dont help you have to try and stay sober or lose everything.
The chances of maintaining , with fix times, low doses etc, an illegal H habit are virtually nil, its always more , more more.

Even more complicated by the fact that you're not just craving the pleasures of the drug itself, you're craving the relief it gives you as a mood stabiliser too. The only fix for that is clean time. Give your mind and body time to recover and find some equilibrium for itself, and just wait the fucker out. Unless you're the single unluckiest ex-addict who ever walked the earth in time the cravings, the psychological pull and the physical manifestations of PAWS will pass, if you let them, but you have to be free of opiates for as long as it takes. You can't keep topping up tolerance and reinforcing psychological addiction without something gonna break at some point?.

How long did you have a full blown habit for, and how long had you been off? 3 months, 6 months, a year? And did you come off with the idea you and opiates were finished forever, and glad to see the back 'em, or was it more just cashflow and circumstances and struggling to fund your habit? Makes a huge difference because it the second case you have never resolved to not succumb to cravings no matter what, and long as you let them, occasionally indulging them they'll tease you back towards something more on their terms than yours.

 

[opi8]

I feel the same as you in many respects Sleep and Fall, if only Heroin was legal, taxed and available to people like us who are fully functional, and in my opinion, much better members of society while on the drug. Unfortunately, this is not the case and I think the best thing you and I can do in the current climate is to get off, stay off, and hope that PAWS, depression and general shittiness eventually subside and we can go on living our lives as best we can without being handcuffed to a drug.

 

[Sleep and Fall]

So what happened? I binged on junk. Got a very nice deal on ten grams which I tried to make last until Dec 27. Oops. I ran out on Christmas Eve. I had failed to secure a supply of suboxone, so on Christmas day I started WDing hard. Relatives with no idea what was really happening forced me to go to an urgent care facility where they pumped me full of fluids and sent me off with scripts for anti-nausea pills (promethazine) and clonidine. Conidine doesn't seem to do very much for me but the anti vomit pills helped a great deal. I returned home on the 26th and immediately made myself a strong pot of poppy tea.

Poppy tea is fucking amazing. I never knew about it until quite recently. This was my first time using it to cure full fledged dope sickness. It worked perfectly. Now it's January 5 and I'm hooked on dried poppy tea.

I finally found the one clinic in this backwards ass midwestern city that subscribes suboxone. I went to my doctor appointment sick as a dog because I expected him to prescribe suboxone right then and there. In fact, I made sure I was in acute withdrawal because my last clinic based suboxone doctor told me there is a new regulation which requires clinic doctors to visually watch you take your first pill or strip. My old doc admitted it was an asinine regulation, but he was a good doctor and an excellent human being. I miss him.

This asshole refused to give me suboxone. Instead he sent me out with a script for clonidine and a promise that he'd consider suboxone at my NEXT appointment! Which turns out to be a fucking WEEK LATER!

So of course I went right back to the poppy tea. Nice job doctor fucking idiot! Either he really wants me to cold turkey WD and THEN go on suboxone for maintenance OR the clinic has some fucked up "you can't get suboxone on your first visit" policy in order to maximize the number of doctor visits they can bill to medicare and/or medicaid. This same clinic also has a reputation as being a pill mill, although the rehab doctor works out of a different office in the same building.

So yeah. Of course my binge turned into a disaster. They always do. We all know that. I am of the opinion that I am slowly making progress because my binges have become fewer and less frequent as time goes on.

One other thing of note about this particular binge. After reading so many arguments against IM use on this board, I decided to make a concerted effort to IV most of my shots this time. I had of course IVed before, but really not very many times at all. And almost every time I've IVed in the past - it was someone else shooting me up. I discovered that finding a vein on my own is a hell of a lot easier than I had thought. I also discovered that the rush everyone talks about isn't anywhere near as good as everyone makes it out to be. It's nice. It's really nice. But c'mon. The slow creeping rush from a strong IM shot is superior. Also, with IM shots the high lasts longer. This was quality east coast heroin 4 (not so sure about the 4 part) so I am of the belief that there is no increased health risk associated with IM use - provided one is very careful). I have serious doubts as to whether IV use instead of IM is any kind of harm reduction.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: The above paragraph is purely one junkies opinion. I'm not advocating IM or IV use. If you don't already use needles you are best off staying the hell away from them. I honestly don't know which is less harmful when injecting east coast powder, IM or IV. Pictures of one armed junkies who died from an abscess don't convince me. It seems as though half of lethal overdoses are of the more or less instant variety with the OD taking effect moments after injection. It seems to me that at least with an IM shot, I would theoretically be capable of calling 911 myself if I were to ever inject myself with a lethal dose. DO NOT TRUST ANYTHING I SAY. I don't know. I could be very wrong and you might die.)

@Skinny legs: Most of the time I was on methadone my dose was 110 or less. I'm certain methadone had this effect on me. I may be over stating how strong it effected me, but it most definitely dulled my wits. That is probably just my individual reaction to the drug, as I don't hear many others complaining about it.

@Sepher: I chipped heroin on and off for twenty years. Then five years ago I finally got strung out. Five month habit. Followed by over a year on methadone. Followed by suboxone to get off methadone. Followed by heroin runs of decreasing lengh and frequency with suboxone used in between.

The answer is no. I don't think I have ever truly deep down sworn off opiates for life. Scratch that. I know for damn sure that I have sworn them off for life, but that's never been a lasting oath, if you know what I mean. I'm not talking about breaking the oath. I'm talking about my desire to be clean. Most of the time I'm not even sure I want to be clean. It's more like I know I must be clean to keep other things in my life from getting all fucked up.

It seems like no matter how many times she breaks my heart I'm still in love with her warm embrace. Replace the girl in those old Hank Williams songs with heroin and that's not a bad description of my relationship with the drug.

@opi8 - I loved your post. It made me feel very not alone in my struggle.

So what's next? I'm going back to see that asshole doctor to get suboxone to get me off the pod tea. Then I'm going to maintain on a small dose of subs for a while. I've been reading about NET machines. Anybody know anything about those? I tried searching bluelight for it but came up empty handed. Which surprised me. This one site (against the rules to say which one?) talks about a machine they sell which sounds like it could be godsend for people like me.

I'm willing to try anything.

Thank you all for your support. It has been really quite helpful. Sorry for being so quiet until now. I actually read your comments long before writing this reply.

 

[Miss Kirsty]

Are you in the US of A mate?....Your Doctor sounds like an asshole dude...Anyway you look up and find another?...SOme Drs are fucking compasionate and some are pricks!!!...

 

[yteek]

In regards to original poster,
Have you tried any other non-narcotic meds to help... possibly an antidepressant or even maybe a mood stabilizer... I heard lyrica is beneficial to some especially with their withdrawals. Also look into maybe some blood pressure medicine like clonodine to keep some of the symptoms at bay. Perhaps joining a group like NA or AA or maybe just a simple group therapy... also perhaps try giving individual therapy a chance.

I know it may sound like the same redundant bs, but its important we keep trying.

 

[batmanplaybaseball]

I started at the first post, but it looks like you are already knee-deep in it by now. What can I say that has not been said before...nothing. What can I say that will directly mean anything to you...nothing. What your purpose was in making this thread...I really can't be sure.


Let's put it this way, you are asking or searching for a way to maintain on some form of opiate, or opiate derivative, and you ask if you are bullshitting yourself. Plainly, yes you are. An opiate addict, regardless of their drug, their resources, their willpower, they will always find themselves in the same place, waking up sick, barely able to make it to their fix. You can bet that someone like Keith Richards, with all the heroin he could ever need, would wake up sick as shit from night terrors, sweating, freezing and struggling to find the energy just to get to his desk. Then he would shake and achingly stab himself with a needle until he found a vein. Then everything was alright, for the time being.

The point is that maintenance is a delusion. The only real way to bring passion and energy to your life is to get out of that cycle, get out and stay out. Stay out and just keep staying. Yeah you waste some time, two, three, six months, a year (if you let it), but, I mean, you only have your entire life to gain.

 

[inmymindimeveryone]

immodium. get back down to where you have slight withdrawal and it will likely take them away. do a search

 

[Sleep and Fall]

@Miss Kirsty - Thank you for noting the seeming asshole qualities of my doctor. Unfortunately I currently live in a particularly backward part of the United Snakes of America. This doc the only one my insurance will pay for. Tomorrow is my second visit with the man. If he doesn't write me a script for suboxone this time, I'm truly fucked.

yteek: I've tried all that psychopharmacuetical (sp) bullshit. It doesn't work. The only shrink prescribed med that ever did me much good was amphetamines. Depression is NOT caused by a shortfall of serotonin, as much as the drug companies would like to believe it is.

@BatmanPlayBaseball - Why did I start this thread? To express myself and start a conversation with people going through the same kind of issues. Why the fuck else would I do it?

I disagree with your pronouncement that MT is bullshit. I've known people who have done their 5 or 15 years on MMT and gotten off it and at the end of it all they say little but good things about it. MMT aint for me on account of how it seriously dulls my wits. Suboxone on a low dose? Why the fuck not? If I'd have had that low dose of suboxone in December I would have probably been able to keep from going on an H binge.

I'm trying to find a home CES/NET machine that can be set on 96hz. Or is it khz? Anyhow, I'm willing to give it a try if I can still purchase such a machine. Looks like the company that made them went belly up.

Lastly, immodium. If this doctor fails me tomorrow, I'm going to try mass doses of immodium to help get me through WDs. Then I dunno. I'm tired of this life.

 

[batmanplaybaseball]

@BatmanPlayBaseball - Why did I start this thread? To express myself and start a conversation with people going through the same kind of issues. Why the fuck else would I do it?

It was basically a rhetorical question. I was only trying to say that often there is little that can be said to help someone who has made up their mind to start using again. There is even less to be said to someone who has already begun their relapse. I'm not harassing you or saying that it's stupid to make a thread and talk it out, just that i get personally frustrated with my inability to help someone in your situation.


And when I talked about maintenance I was referring to self-maintenance, with street drugs. Although I will say that I don't like maintenance treatment programs, long-term, either.

 

[Sleep and Fall]

Oh. Ok then. Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh. I'm not a huge fan of long term maintenance either. That said, I'm thinking I need to maintain a bunch longer than I did last time.

 

[ptrsnake13]

Methadone on a correct dose and you won't be a zombie