This is true and I'd forgotten about it. Since being on opioids for many years my natural pleasure/feel good chemicals don't exist anymore. Even when I stay off them for years I still don't get the release of feel good chemicals when I have a full meal, accomplish a long term goal, and even sex doesn't tickle the brain like it used to. Most opioid addicts I know are very selfish too so I don't think these doctors are wrong.
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- Thread starter dopamimetic
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This is true and I'd forgotten about it. Since being on opioids for many years my natural pleasure/feel good chemicals don't exist anymore. Even when I stay off them for years I still don't get the release of feel good chemicals when I have a full meal, accomplish a long term goal, and even sex doesn't tickle the brain like it used to. Most opioid addicts I know are very selfish too so I don't think these doctors are wrong. 
dopamimetic
Bluelighter
Oh yeah and suspect that I actually benefit from this having an overly empathic nature which makes delimiting very hard and leads to chronic infringements. But has a bitter after taste as I loathe what opioids do with the moral and character of others (not everybody though, a close friend is heavily into morphine, doing like 1.2 grams and it only smoothens her personality, as I suspect it does with me but I am more susceptible to lethargy and anhedonia).
It's a good question whether the experience of opioid bliss causes permanent changes and creates a chronic discontentness with natural pleasure. I experience this too, unfortunately, but it was this way after dissociatives and before any opioids. It feels more like it just set the bar much higher and not the body releasing or responding less to pleasure chems. This is a phenomenon with speedfreaks too but with these I have a real hard time to emphasize.
Some times, especially when using memantine, or serotonin releasers, it feels like nothing has changed and I'd just need to wait for DeltaFosB to normalize but then again often enough the opposite feels very real.
I can maintain on opioids but I notice myself being more selfish with my time. When I'm taking opioids I mainly want to be left alone and find other people to be annoying. I have a habit of ignoring friends/family and being annoyed when they want to spend time with me. I notice such things and try to remind myself that I need to spend time with them. When I'm talking of friends that use opioids being selfish I'm referring to things like not sharing opioids mainly. While I sympathize with not wanting to share your stash I do not like behavior where they take advantage of other people in w/d. I knew a guy for a long time that was scripted insane amounts of oxycodone. He'd often refuse to give someone in bad w/d one tablet when he had 200+. He'd charge someone in w/d a lot more money that they were worth on the street or weasel his way into having the person give him rides all over town. Of course when he was in need he wouldn't hesitate to guilt trip someone into doing a favor for him.
It isn't just opioids, I noticed a lot of friends got very selfish and withdrawn in general once they had a heavy habit. People that used to be fun to hang out with and would share with the group suddenly hiding weed from everyone or scheming on friends/family in an attempt to get money or favors from them. I eventually ended up cutting most of these people out of my life. Perhaps they were like this before opioids and were just good at hiding it. I noticed similar behaviors in myself when I had a very heavy habit. For example I was always one to share anything I had with others: weed, LSD, MDMA, and any other drug I would kick out and give doses to anyone that wanted them no matter what I had invested. With opioids I was always doing things like hiding how many pills I had from other people or going home so I could do my stash with out sharing. I never did this type of thing with any other drug including cocaine.
From what I can remember when you start taking opioids your body stops producing endorphins to try and find balance. When you take away the opioids the body doesn't start making natural endorphins again for a long time. Since opioids hit those receptors harder than endorphins even when you achieve balance again it never feels as good as before.
dopamimetic
Bluelighter
Yeah I've made similar observations and experiences. If I have plenty I need to watch out not to share too much, independent of what substance or also non substance ressources and try to estimate whether the individual would do the same or at least help me in withdrawal. Where the answer tends to be yes for weed and no for others. Remember that I hesitated to share when I feared of running out but guess that's normal.
Tend to cut contact with people who refuse to share or even trade. They will go over my borders elsewhere too. Has a pale after taste for sure and I don't get how people can become like this, theorized about addiction pressure but then again many individuals have these traits independent of substance use.
Some times I feel like I'm in a bad trip of reality where sick shizo personality is normal and normality is seen as weird, nerdish or ill (guess that matches the textbook definition of shizo personality or something similar). But I know things are skewed, altogether upside down and am glad to at rare occasions meet people who confirm my perception - even better if done unintentionally.
That's indeed problematic when/that the body kerps releasing less endorphines and enkephalines after opioid use. Need to research more whether ultra low naltrexone or dissos could inhibit / reverse this. Both inhibit tolerance development but they have oppositing effects on NMDA receptor density which is mind boggling.
Wonder whether it'd be possible to antagonize or reverse DeltaFosB and increased dynorphin / kappa activity (at least stimulants do this, and I experienced salvia to somewhat opposing mu agonism). If buprenorphine is any different and if blocking / inverse agonizing kappa would be of any help.
Kappa is a weird one. The only receptor (?) which appears to have an overall negative profile and would be better off blocked but in biology everything has its reason so I guess kappa will fulfill a purpose too?My personal opinion on NMDA receptors and opioid withdrawal is while drugs that tickle those can be helpful I didn't find much use for them. I did use them twice to stop opioid abuse and at one point I was dosing a drug daily in an attempt to avoid tolerance build up. I found out that adding more drugs into what was already heavy poly-drug use didn't help things in the long run. I'm a firm believer in letting my body find its own balance now. There are no short cuts with opioids. If you're going to stop using them you have to just stop and wait it out.
I did DXM once while in heavy withdrawal because I ran out of opioids the day before Christmas Eve and had to attend family gatherings the next few days. Instead of getting relief like I did the first time I attempted that I ended up having a horrible sleepless night in full on acute withdrawal. I was very spaced out the next day and it was obvious to everyone that I was off. I couldn't feel the symptoms of acute withdrawal as strongly but they were still there. Instead of looking like someone with the flu I looked like a space cadet that was on something who also had the flu.
Now I'm not going to say they're totally useless. I think daily dosing DXM at a low dose beside opioids can prevent tolerance from building as fast as it normally would. The downside is you're taking away some of the good effects of the opioid and now your body is used to yet another substance on top of the opioid. DXM even in suggested doses for cough has a habit of making me feel like shit. I don't know if this is due to using it a few times to trip and having a bad experience or if it was always like that. DXM just makes me feel awful now and the sight of the gelcaps sometimes makes me gag. I only managed to have one good time with DXM and that was the first time I took it at 300mg or so.
I haven't tried K for this purpose but I imagine it would work better and feel cleaner than DXM. It comes with its own set of problems and as someone that chases an opioid high I'm not sure it's a good idea to add K to the mix daily or weekly. Same goes for MXE. While I loved MXE I know it's easy to talk yourself into using it daily. My friend and I had the same reaction to it when I initially sourced some;
This is a lie of course because there is a downside with disso abuse. A really horrible downside. The only problem is you can always justify escaping into the hole and while you're using it you don't notice what it's doing to you. Next thing you know it's a week later and you're manic.
I'm curious about naltrexone too. I have some but I've never taken it. I wonder if a low dose whenever I felt the need for an opioid would prevent getting back into full blown opioid use. I hesitate to start something like that though because I think the body should find its own balance. Also I'd hate to be dosing it daily then get into a car wreck or something. If I ever need morphine in the ER I want to make damn sure it's going to work.
dopamimetic
Bluelighter
At which age did you first use opioids and how was your abuse pattern?
Granted, I probably wasn't really abusing them but in common maintenance doses (bupe 4mg, metha 40-60mg, morphine 200-600mg) and altogether more than 2 years. Just that I started late, after the age of 25, like smoking, which also is very easy to quit for me. Stims were at the age of 20, they are medium yet still what I really struggle with is serotonin, these SSRI fuckers entered my life with 17 and daily.
For me the NMDA vs opioid thing is among the only drug related concepts that really reliably works. I can switch from 200mg morphine to memantine or DXM without withdrawal and after a few days my tolerance is back to baseline. I suspect this works better the less intense cold turkeys somebody went through.
Other thing that works is, again NMDA and stim but here the wrecked serotonin system lets me struggle and it is my primary concern.
Wonder whether something like microdosing in psydelics could heal it a bit over time, at least they come with loads of nice growth factors.
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Never tried to withdraw with K but guess its half life is too short. This effect works different than the rapid AD one and needs you to be on a disso while the body re-adjusts to skip w/d. I agree that DXM and memantine might be too weak for hefty habits. Combination is worth a try, its more lucid. I've tried deschloroketamine and O-PCE, very different but hints of psychosis specially with PCE. The ketamines can be combined with DXM or memantine, don't take all three - psychosis risk.
ULN sounds really promising, it's the only thing which actually lowers NMDA density but I have a brief experience with naloxone (above UL though) which waa scary.
My first use of opioids was really young. I was probably 7 or 8 years old. My Dad used to give me half a pain pill for headaches and other pain back then. I can't recall how often he did this but it was the go-to medication in my house at that age. I found out later in life that he was struggling with pain pill addiction for a few years after he divorced his wife. He quit cold turkey at some point. I found out after coming clean to my family about opioid use that it ran in my family. My Great-Grandfather was a morphine addict, my cousin had been caught forging prescriptions for opioids multiple times, my Mom was hooked on opioids for 20+ years she got from her doctor, others in the family had similar addictions. I think a family history of opioid use combined with being given opioids at a young age primed me for liking them so much as an adult.
My first real exposure was in my late teens. I was selling pot and someone talked me into trading a bag for one of the old formulation Oxycontin pills. I can't remember what the dose was but I snorted half the pill as instructed, got my first real nod, and did the other half later that night.
A year or so later I met someone else with a heavy opioid habit. I didn't realize at the time they were so addictive. I'd smoke pot with them and they'd kick out oxycodone pills all night. People would just give you handfuls of them. At some point he moved away and I got w/d for the first time. I didn't put it all together for many years later and assumed it was just the flu. My real abuse picked up as I went through my early-mid 20s. Pills were still cheap and there was a constant supply in the area. I could maintain a 50-100mg oxycodone habit for about $20 or less a day. When the Government started cracking down on doctors prices went up on the street and I eventually moved on to other opioids like morphine, oxymorphone and later heroin.
I have no idea how many times I've gone cold turkey due to lack of supply. At one point in my life I was going through it at least twice a month as supply dwindled. When these times would come I'd attempt to replace my DOC at the time with whatever was available. This was the period where I tried most opioids on the market and alternative drugs to mask withdrawal like DXM, Gabapentin, benzos, and many other things. After that phase I went through my stint with methadone and subs. Even when I was using those without the intention of seeking a high I would always fall into patterns of abuse where I would take double my dose on my days off work.
Now I'm at a point where if I stay off opioids for many months/years I can obtain nods from doses higher than what I could in my active use. For a nod I would need about 50-60mg of oxycodone (I always work up slow of course). Obtaining a nod is hard even when I attempt one with morphine now. I know my tolerance will probably never go back down to baseline. The main problem is any use beyond a one-time use will bring withdrawal back full force. If I stop after the first night I don't have much trouble aside from a strong desire to do it again. If I go forward and use the second night I expect bad withdrawal on day three. If I use for three days I expect withdrawal nearly as bad as when I quit a heavy habit.
At some point during heavy use I found drugs like MXE would help me skip acute withdrawal. The problem was I would replace the opioids with those. So instead of chasing nods I would be chasing holes. I found chasing holes harder to do than chasing nods. When I chase nods at night I can still function the next day provided I have opioids to avoid withdrawal.
