Red Bali kratom.
I used it to get off oxys and had nearly ZERO withdrawal symptoms.
Worked great for me for two and a half years. Kept me straight sober, except then I realized I was actually just chasing a little
wee tiny dragon for those two and a half years and eventually it wasn't doing the trick and suddenly I was going on 2 hour bus-rides to isolated mountains to go on long hikes to distract myself and then one day I got on the bus to Buttfuck Asstown and the two people who sat down in front of me were fentanyl dealers and when I got off the bus there was a bum doing dragons right in front of me and then my girlfriend showed up and starts digging around in her purse for change to give the guy while I'm just standing there watching him roast hoots off the tinfoil listening to the clinking of change while she spends a good 2 minutes scrounging up dimes and nickels...
Yeah, that was like a year and a half ago I think? Now I'm in the same boat as you. Advice is tricky. You're like me - you never let your addiction spiral entirely out of control so it's hard to justify quitting. Sure it's annoying being sick and tired all the time but the rationale when you
are sick and tired often overpowers the desire to quit when there isn't some massively traumatic experience associated with it. I.e. when I made it that two and a half years I was simultaneously escaping to a small island to hide from a physically abusive girlfriend who would kick my door down and punch me in the face while I was in bed whilst screaming "Stop hitting me!" until my entire friend group assumed I was a violent misogynist (I'm a soft spoken hippie) and I was getting threats and all of that linked together with the heroin.
That made it relatively easy to quit. Plus the heroin was actually heroin then.
FInd somethng that you love more than drugs. But also something that you can't do on drugs. My thing's music. Except I can play more music, and for longer, on drugs. So that hasn't gotten me far.
The other option is to have a profound spiritual experience. I'm being called to one. The voice is heavily muffled by the thick opioid blanket but it's becoming quite clear and I know the consequences are going to become more serious if I don't heed the call soon.
Interesting point to note: even though most modern-day logicians hate the 12-step program due to its spiritual/christian overtones, it was actually the father of analytical psychology C.J. Jung who unwittingly created the first step and thus essentially laid the framework for the program. In the 30s he and the rest of the psychological associations worldwide agreed that addiction was scientifically and psychologically untreatable. One of Jung's patients returned after a two-year stint of sobriety, having both thought him to be cured. But again he was uncontrollably drinking and sought help from Jung.
Having tried everything he could, Jung bluntly told the guy it was hopeless. He was shattered and said that couldn't be the case, there must be something else. Recalling a much earlier case of an alcoholic who had evaporated a lifelong drinking habit following a spiritual transformation, Jung basically suggested that the only hope the man might have was to go on a pilgrimage and hope to find something that invoked and inspired feelings in him stronger than those of the addiction.
Bill W. shortened that to "Acknowledge your powerlessness over your addiction and seek help from a higher power."
Interesting how much the context of the first step changes with a reference point shift like that. I'm actually interested in attending 12 step programs now.
