Please save me from the needle

[Get2Think]

Hey guys I just wanted to check in and ask a few questions. Tomorrow I am set to begin Methadone maintenance for the first time because I don't have any money for Bupe and the methadone clinic here takes medical so that is basically my only saving grace. I can't believe I'd ever reach the point where I needed nearly 2 grams a day just to feel good (not euphoric). This thing is truly progressive.

Right now I'm doing research trying to find a addiction therapist who deals with low income patients. I would jump at any opportunity to be on sub maintenance because it'd helped me in the past and the problems always arose once I started trying to get off it.

At this point I am so tired of this roller coaster of relapse and recovery that any stability that opoid maintenace can provide is deperately wanted. I don;t give a shit if its cheating or real sobriety or not. I have too many shoes in que just ready to drop on my heade and crush me if I dont get my shit together and become a functional human again. I'm spending 20-80 on H a day and my car is always just about to run out of gas, actually its happened twice in the last month. And not to mention the stealing and other illegal behavior. I might get kicked out of the house at any moment.

Things are so terrible and if Im lucky Ill be able to get on methadone and get a job ASAP. If Im not lucky I will be begging for gas money all the way to a treatment center, the kind where they work your ass off and you stay for 6 months to a year.

Please pray that everything goes smoothly at the methadone clinic tommorow morning folks.

 

[bcfly7x7]

Get2,

Sorry man, would have replied sooner but it was my first day back to work in 5 weeks. Sorry you couldn't get the subutex. That's the way you need to go, rhun was right. So what I would do is take the methadone only until you have the money to switch to subutex. I know you know that basically you're trading one for the other, but methadone is one hard motherfucker to kick if one it for any extended length of time. If you think H is bad, methadone is Satan. I only advocate for it for a quick detox, it worked for me. As maintenance to fix a problem with H is just saying, im gonna use H legally. I'm praying for you man, anything is better than the needle. I wish you the best and hopefully you become clean and get your life back. Take a minute before you go, look outside, take a deep breath, what a wonderful world.
Keep us posted.

Bob

 

[BlueSaffron]

Hey guys I just wanted to check in and ask a few questions. Tomorrow I am set to begin Methadone maintenance for the first time because I don't have any money for Bupe and the methadone clinic here takes medical so that is basically my only saving grace. I can't believe I'd ever reach the point where I needed nearly 2 grams a day just to feel good (not euphoric). This thing is truly progressive.

Right now I'm doing research trying to find a addiction therapist who deals with low income patients. I would jump at any opportunity to be on sub maintenance because it'd helped me in the past and the problems always arose once I started trying to get off it.

At this point I am so tired of this roller coaster of relapse and recovery that any stability that opoid maintenace can provide is deperately wanted. I don;t give a shit if its cheating or real sobriety or not. I have too many shoes in que just ready to drop on my heade and crush me if I dont get my shit together and become a functional human again. I'm spending 20-80 on H a day and my car is always just about to run out of gas, actually its happened twice in the last month. And not to mention the stealing and other illegal behavior. I might get kicked out of the house at any moment.

Things are so terrible and if Im lucky Ill be able to get on methadone and get a job ASAP. If Im not lucky I will be begging for gas money all the way to a treatment center, the kind where they work your ass off and you stay for 6 months to a year.

Please pray that everything goes smoothly at the methadone clinic tommorow morning folks.

good luck, I hope everything goes well Just go slow when you decide to taper off methadone. Actually, for me anyway, when I did it semi-right and started at a good holding dose (70 mg), my taper was pretty easy til the end. I was fine down until 25, and then shit got real :/ So when you taper, go slow. Go SLOWWWWW.

You can do this

 

[rhun]

Hey guys I just wanted to check in and ask a few questions. Tomorrow I am set to begin Methadone maintenance for the first time because I don't have any money for Bupe and the methadone clinic here takes medical so that is basically my only saving grace. I can't believe I'd ever reach the point where I needed nearly 2 grams a day just to feel good (not euphoric). This thing is truly progressive.

Right now I'm doing research trying to find a addiction therapist who deals with low income patients. I would jump at any opportunity to be on sub maintenance because it'd helped me in the past and the problems always arose once I started trying to get off it.

At this point I am so tired of this roller coaster of relapse and recovery that any stability that opoid maintenace can provide is deperately wanted. I don;t give a shit if its cheating or real sobriety or not. I have too many shoes in que just ready to drop on my heade and crush me if I dont get my shit together and become a functional human again. I'm spending 20-80 on H a day and my car is always just about to run out of gas, actually its happened twice in the last month. And not to mention the stealing and other illegal behavior. I might get kicked out of the house at any moment.

Things are so terrible and if Im lucky Ill be able to get on methadone and get a job ASAP. If Im not lucky I will be begging for gas money all the way to a treatment center, the kind where they work your ass off and you stay for 6 months to a year.

Please pray that everything goes smoothly at the methadone clinic tommorow morning folks.

Hey, don't be hard on yourself. Any progress is good progress. Is methadone ideal? Probably not. But I don't regret the year I spent on it. Looking back, it probably saved my life. For me, it just put everything on pause. I couldn't continue my life and move forward in recovery but I was also alive, stable, and able to work and deal with daily life while being out of the daily grind and hustle to stay well.

There is one REALLY important thing you can do for yourself though. Do not increase your dose, stay at 40mg or below. You'll be fine, I promise you won't get sick. Remember it takes a full 4 days for methadone to build up in your blood and level out so if you don't feel 100% immediately give it a day or two. The doses will stack up. IF for some reason you still feel poor after 4 days you can go up a little but you gotta be brutally honest with yourself here. From the habit you've described a small dose (25-30mg) should hold you. It's really tempting for us as addicts to feel that initial sedation from the methadone and keep increasing our dose to chase the high but I can absolutely guarantee you that if you do feel anything it'll be gone quickly and your ass will be stuck on a high dose.

A lot of insurance plans will cover buprenorphine but only once you try methadone and say it wasn't successful for you. Unfortunately, switching from mdone to bupe can be a real bitch. Methadone lasts forever in your system and you have to wait 4-7 days to make sure you don't go into precipitated withdrawal. It totally can be done, but it's another reason you want to keep that methadone dose low.

I would find a low dose that you're comfortable at physically, wait a week to stabilize, then taper down. If buprenorphine isn't an option right away, taper slowly 1mg every 4 days worked great for me and I never had any kind of withdrawal till 15mg. If you hit 15-20mg and still aren't able to get on bupe then just chill there. Work that recovery program. Keep improving your life. If you can get on bupe or you're stable enough to come off then it won't be such a struggle.

Just set goals with your methadone and please work a recovery program alongside this. It's just too easy to get stuck on this shit for life. If you make some smart, conscious decisions early on like the ones above you'll only be setting yourself up for success and saving yourself a lot of heartache.

Let me know your thoughts on the above and keep us posted on what happens! Stay strong bro, you can do this and you deserve some stability and happiness in your life.

 

[ToNeLoC]

What if you spaced your hits out a few days at a time, would that make detoxing a lot easier?