Good luck with everything man!
You can definitely win this round! You didn't lose that first time in detox, even if it felt like it. Now you've got a chance for redemption though and this time you're giving them a swift roundkick to its pod-face! You've gone through this long of a taper, stay the course, and don't give up on these last bumps in the road. You know you have it in you to do this.
See what you’re saying right there is what I believe is the most important. I mean the last month or 2 will have been a complete waste if I jump off right now. I’m pretty sure my body will slowly be withdrawing from the higher doses for another week or so, so I do consider this the most important part of the taper.
I prob realistically don’t even have to go much lower as much as I need to really just stay low for another 7-10 days. I was thinking 4-5 days yesterday, but I think I’m gonna aim for another 7-10. Besides the days are really moving fast now so I’m able to be more patient then I was towards the beginning of the taper.
The last part of your post is what struck me the most as it's the thing that bothers me more than anything else about opiates.
It's not that I don't go out and do things or I don't do new things or don't move forward, but when I'm on any opiate and using it daily, I get too complacent with everything. Even if I'm just on a maintenance dose of sub and I'm not getting high, I just don't have the same drive that I have when I'm not on opiates. I've been thinking this for a while now and I really feel like opiates take away a part of my personality and it's the part that makes me...fun...different...something better than when on opiates. It's like I'm reduced by 5-10%, enough that I'm still pretty much the same person, but enough where I don't have that same 'spark'.
WOWWWW. Wow wow wow just wow.
That paragraph got me right to the core like nothing else.
That is one of most concentrated, refined, statements I’ve ever read about opiates my whole life.
And they definitely do not teach that shit in school or NA.
The 5-10% analogy you used. In school teachers tell you basically “drugs will ruin your life, you will spend all you money to get high, become homeless, and die a lonely life on the streets”.
NA tells people “if you ever use again because you’re a drug addict for life you will get sucked right back into addiction and lose all control over yourself”.
Its that **5-10%** analogy that has been a reality for me.
That is the TRUE evil of drugs imo. Sure they can make you sick, they can make you steal money, but its that 5-10% reduction in productivity that very slowly and elusively comes to take over your whole life.
THAT is the snaky heart of addiction.
I almost wanna get a frame for that paragraph and hang it on my wall just so I don’t forget.
I don’t lose ALL my motivation. I don’t drop out of school or quit my job and just start doing horrible shit. Very slowly things around me start to fade away. I sloowwwwly lose the ability to keep my life glued together.
I slowly stop hanging out with friends. I SLOWLY become a desolate recluse. One day you wake up, and although you may still have a house, or food, or be capable of paying your bills… EVERYTHING has changed.
People don’t trust you. People don’t call you because you care more about getting high than going out. You stop interacting with people and doing things. But MOST OF ALL you lose your drive to evolve in life. That’s really what does it for me. Between now and the first time I used this time around, I have been frozen in a block of ice. I haven’t evolved or brought anything new into my life. I haven’t accomplished anything. NOTHING has improved or gotten better. And just because of that, it makes your life so much worse. I can relate to that statement in so many different ways its appalling. I genuinely think instead of teaching kids the crap they are learning in schools about drugs, all they really need to do is a lesson on that 5-10% drop in productivity. That seems to be what always winds up doing me in. You literally just pick your head out of the sand one day and look at your life like “how the fuck did this happen?.. I didn’t rob any banks or shoot anyone this time around… why does my life suck so badly” … “oh I guess it was that sneaky 5-10% drop again… mfkr always gets me” lol.
The longest I've been off of any opiates in the last 4.5 years was this 4 month period in 2008. I did use oxy once every few weeks, but never in doses that I would nod, and I kept it to infrequent use. Heroin was what eventually brought me down. Anyways, that period of time was like the Golden Age of Carl Landrover.
I was more outgoing, more personable, was having a lot more fun, was more social, it was awesome. I was going out a lot more then and went on the funnest vacation of my life to Hawaii. I met my first serious girlfriend at that point and I definitely wouldn't have talked to her or hit it off as well if I had been on opiates at that point.
4 months huh? I don’t mean to sound pushy but as intelligent as you sound on these forums you know you can do a lot better than that right?
I mean me of all people should be talking but I think you really owe it to yourself bro.
I WANT to see you make it for at least a few years next time lol. I genuinely think you have the mind control and ability to do it.
The last time I got off everything was this past fall where I spent the majority of October tapering off of suboxone and feeling like shit. Then nary a week went by and that serious girlfriend became a most serious lying betrayer of an ex-girlfriend! That pretty much made me feel like I was WDing again. After getting off sub, I had been hoping to reap the rewards of getting my head straightened out and feeling good sober, but boy did she fuck that up. One of my concerns is that if I do actually get clean again that something shitty will happen and I won't be able to deal with it.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
8)
I think that girl could still be the reason you’re having issues with staying clean (I *think I could obviously be very wrong). You could have got over a large deal of it, but her lying or whatever it was could have def planted a bitter seed in your mind that is still affecting you today.
It just seems hard to get over a breakup at all when you’re using any drug on a daily basis. You still feel the pain and anguish but its almost like delayed wds. Just because you’re on drugs you’re still delaying a lot of the natural torment you should have prob experienced all at once when it happened. It would obviously depend a lot on you but I know how I am with breakups myself and how those general emotions work.
I just don’t see how someone can “properly” move on (if theres such a thing) when they’re using drugs. I purposely avoid relationships now just because of that. Getting over a lover involves being able to feel a consistent natural low of which drugs can obviously fuck with. Again its very well possible you’re completely over that whole situation, but if you think you’re not, I’d really like to try to help you be done with that shit. And I have a lot of different things you can do to help you be at peace with whatever that bitch did. Not talking about you’re feelings or anything lol, but I do happen to have a few nukes in my arsenal just for the purpose of getting over and done with breakups fast.
Kind of didn't mean to turn that into a post about me. It's definitely been inspiring to see you taper down and keep to it. I'm hoping you're able to get clean, though that may be partly because I've been in a tapering phase for the majority of the duration of this thread and if you don't make it, I feel like it'd be that much harder for me to make it. No pressure or anything though.
This thread is just as much yours as it is mine man so talk about yourself all you want. I am one of those people who finds other people way more interesting than myself so its also very rewarding to read.
And about the pressure thing lol, I honestly think I feel enough pressure by myself that it doesn’t really add much strain knowing you’re depending on me too. I WILL get off this fucking crap I guarantee that. Its just going to turn into a battle of time and sobriety afterwards. If after I get clean I become complacent with my life in anyway I can be back using very quickly. I’m also expecting for some reason something bad to happen the first year I get clean (if I make it that long) I’m not sure why, but it just seems like god is always testing us no matter what.
So I need to make sure I’m in a good frame of mind when I AM clean just encase anything comes my way that I’m not ready for. But I’d very much like to see you, me, quasi, and everyone else in this thread on the other side. And I’d like for this part of our lives to be nothing more than a dark distant memory in the future.
Since pods are made up of a number of different opiates and alkaloids found in them, doesn't that make the typical pod WD longer than some other opiates? I don't think I'm going to try to taper off of suboxone or at least not where I'm taking it more than a few days in a row to prevent it building up in my system. I'd rather it be shorter, even if it's a little more painful. For the first time since I tried them I have a reliable oxy connect, so I'm hoping to try and taper with them and then take .1mg size doses of suboxone if I feel like I need a little something to get by. Oxy definitely leaves my system a lot quicker than sub does and I'd rather just try to suffer through a weekend.
Also, for the loperamide what do you buy? Imodium or is there a generic loperamide? I've never actually tried it for WD and I've seen others mention it's usefulness as well.
That thought makes me depressed
I remember when I cold turkeyed in detox to be honest after day 5 or 6 I was already feeling really good. By day 10 I felt like my normal self again. I never got anxiety (which was odd because I’ve had anxiety problems for most of my life), no paws, no depression. It actually did go rather quick for me that last time.
That’s why I often get confused when I see people still feeling physical wds after a week with pods. I was using A LOT the last time around, for even longer than this run, but it still went really quick for some reason. It must have something to do with my fast metabolism because I definitely have one.
I’ll tell you straight up sub was impossible for me to drop and I don’t understand how people do it. Once I switched back to pods it was easy (after stabilizing which sucked) to start dropping again. Subs are really so absurdly strong I think that even when you drop like .1mg its like dropping 400mg of morphine or something. I mean just the volume difference from the sub I was on to the pile of pods I needed to take MASSIVE. But the tapering at least for me was infinitely easier using the pods instead.
I’d suppose you could use oxies to do it, but you might have a real easy time just switching to pods. Pills in general I’m also very tempted to abuse, but something about pods being a plant just makes them *seem so much more innocent. I know their not, but I’m somehow able to control myself and it has to be something about the form I think.
As far as the loperamide I just get anything that has loperamide in it really. It depends whatever store I’m at but all brands have worked the same for me (not sure how many brands there even are).
I believe lope works great I just think most people who take it wind up taking it to battle severe wds and it doesn’t work so they claim it to be useless. When realistically if they didn’t take the lope wds would have prob been that much worse.
Maybe theres some people it doesn’t work for, but from all the reading I’ve done on lope it seems to work for most people who *understand how it works. Its all about being low enough number 1, and number 2 about being able to match your dose (which can have a lot to do with luck). Even as low as I am I still need about 8mg to completely hold me. But the good thing is it will basically hold me 100% at this low a dose. Just the problem is I’ll wind up needing to taper the lope instead of the pods. So I only do the lope every 3-4 days. It seems to have a very long half life too so I think it’s a waste to do it everyday anyway.
If it wasn’t for the lope though I know I’d be getting a ton more hotflashes and chills then I am, it also moderates the goosebumps, my stomach, and actually will prevent the severe fatigue from tapering. It really is a wonderful drug I just need to always make sure that I’m tapering it just like the pods. Alright didn’t mean to make this as long as I have but I’m going to smoke a cig. Ttyl!
