16 months on pods - Tapering completely in 4 weeks (log)

17 days clean from opiates. It's hard to believe, but the cravings have been starting to subside. I spent many days where my arms, legs, mind, and body were screaming for a fix that they couldn't have.

When I was using poppy tea smoking weed was enjoyable only whilst high on poppy tea and alcohol was the same but generally crappy. After beginning to recover from opiates I am noticing that the alcohol buzz is enjoyable again. But 17 days is really only the beginning. I still want to try and use.

My parents told me in no uncertain terms that any drugs in the house would result in the loss of my car and being kicked out of the house. I don't even know what I would do if that happened....

Well, the point is I have completely dropped off and although I cheated a little with suboxone during the first week I've been using nothing but loperamide (10 - 15 pills per day) and I'm doing okay. I have had some AWFUL cravings for a couple of days at work where it felt like my entire body was screaming for a dose but I've pushed through them and am doing okay for the time being.

Hope to hear from an update from Bojangles and also hope he is doing well. This stuff is no joke.
 
BoJ, I'd start skipping days with the sub ASAP to get off of it a quickly as possible. Sub wds are some nasty business. A lot of times people will skip a day and work up to skipping four days then stop. Having only been on it a short time will really work in your favor if you jump sooner than later. The T3's will take the edge off of any wds for sure. I've been off sub for three weeks and feel almost 90% The first week I was very unmotivated and tired but forced manual labor helped alot. I've also replaced l-tyrosine with Dlpa, look it up, it prolongs the lifespan of your natural endorphins and helps with mood/depression from Paws. Sub has it place IMO, but it definitely bloats and fatigues some of us more than others.
Jake glad to see the klonopin is helping you out, it's probably the best benzo for anxiety will a desent halflife and not so overwhelming like xanaxs and others. The AD and Kpins will make getting of of sub a whole lot easier when the time comes/
 
I remember when I was quitting poppy tea and I took some sub it would literally keep me straight for 3 days before the withdrawals really popped up. In 2 days I'll be 3 weeks off the shit and I'm starting to be happy for that.

I've been using loperamide to slowly taper down, I'm at about 8 pills per day and trying to slowly decrease it. When I don't take any lope I usually feel a bit sick but it's convenient and a hell of a lot cheaper than poppy tea.
 
Lope really helped me during the first week and a half when I jumped off sub. I was taking 6-8 mgs a day. I think it's an overlooked detox aid by most. I think it's beause a lot of people fail to realise that there are opiate receptors in other parts of the body besides the brain. It took me 8 years to finally realise how helpful it can be.
 
After being off the pods for so long I feel really sensitive to the loperamide, to the point where I feel almost 100% normal when I take around 12mg of loperamide. It didn't help me very much when I would drop from high doses of poppy tea but I finally feel like I'm over opiates for a long time.

I live with my family so it's kind of hard to use PPT without someone noticing and it's beginning to not seem worth the effort. It feels really nice not to have to fear awful withdrawals anymore, I'm using loperamide for the time being but I think sometime very soon I will taper down. I'm dropping 2mg every couple days. I think it's been 20 days since I'ved had a drop of opium tea. It's pretty crazy. I've been feeling the anxiety of withdrawal slowly fading. I can finally relax without poppy tea.
...And yet I can still feel that I have a ways to go until I'll be 100%. I'm at about 75% right now I'd say, up to 100% when I take some lope. I think that by about a month from now I'll be feeling a whole lot more complete and sure of myself than I have in my life. It's such a relief to be clean and past the difficult part. I suffered so much during the 2 years of use and yet I couldn't seem to quit.

It basically took me an intervention to get me clean but I think it might have been worth it now.
 
I'm back from the virgin islands today just encase anyones wondering where I've been (no internet).

I apologize at being so short with the update and I'm gonna write something much more in depth tommorow. I've been maintaining on .5mg - 1mg sub daily for the last 2 weeks and was able to at least enjoy my first vacation without pods and have not indulged compuslively on any kind of get high dose of opiates.
I consider it a simple unplanned maintanence phase that had to go into action and have already planned switching back to pods to finish the part of my taper that I felt I honestly needed to extend for a week or two longer.
I've convinced myself thoroughly just from my drops with sub that it IS much much easier for me to drop doses of pods. I just felt more comfortable tapering with the pods. So I'll be switching back to the lowest pods dose possible to finish the taper and jump off at the pace I really need to. It was just too difficult feeling the pressure of the past time frame I set for myself before vaca.

But I will be back tommorow to annoy you all with the second half of this story. I'm not finishing this thread till I'm off completely.
Be back in the morning with stories, some insights I had during this wonderful vacation about life, and my general state of mind. But I am still 100% motivated to continue where I felt I personally had to leave off.

Thanks all for keeping this thread going as long as it has!
 
Hey Bojangles,
I remember some of your posts from the ultimate Poppy Tea thread. IMO the most important part of getting off the tea is the desire to be clean. It has to be stronger than the allure of getting high. It sounds like you're at that point.

My taper took a long time too, because I fucked it up and relapsed twice. But damn it feels good to be opiate-free now. Now when I get a chill I don't have to wonder if I'm in withdrawal. Good luck man, I'm rooting for you.
 
Hey Bo - glad to hear you were able to enjoy your vacation. Meet any cool chicks?

I'm 18 days sober - 32 days no opiates, 33 no pot. I'm glad I finally got off everything, my financial situation is sketchy, but I've got some good leads going on. I have to face it, when I leave any room to drink or use I get nothing done. I had a bunch of starts and stops before I finally committed to the pod taper (and started my thread) - but it's done now and I'm feeling good.

Finally did some maintenance on my bike and went out for a ride to get some exercise and some sun today. I hadn't been exercising because I just didn't have the will/energy/motivation. Now that I've started though, I know I'll shortly be working out every day. That's my `drug` when I'm not drinking/using.

Anyways - just wanted to say I'm glad you're still doing well and I look forward to seeing you get off the pods entirely. It really isn't bad at all with a good taper. The worst is behind you, in my experience.
 
OK UPDATE TIME!! lol

I did mean to update much sooner but nothing has changed much as I'm still stablizing off the sub.
And thanks Jay for the update no I didn't meet any cool chicks. I met 2 but they weren't really "cool", one was an arrogant brit who I couldn't stand and there wasn't many other single girls on the ship. Most of them were middle aged married woman to be honest. The other chick was american but was also a drunk. I wound up hooking up with the brit but the american I stood up one night when I was suppose to meet her at the club and took the elevator back to my room to go to sleep.

I can't really drink on suboxone and wasn't about to try explaining it to her. Whats funniest is on a boat you can't really avoid people as your bound to pass them at the buffet or pool at some point. And when I did wind up seeing her I know she saw me but she turned her head the other way and I laughed under my breath about it.

Anyway the sub I complained about in a large post in the sub thread. I was having a lot of severe side effects like sweating "syrup" from my pores, always being hot and sticky. I developed a serious sweating problem on it and started to have weekly "migraines". Sub was a miracle however for working out. I feel bad now because I worked out like an animal for 3 weeks on sub, and now I've been back on pods for 3 days and haven't lifted once. That energy is no longer there and its kind of sad.

Subs are great though I don't deny it, today I had my first hot flash and never had one my entire time on sub. I matched day 1 off .6mg sub to 12gm pods which held me over well. Then I took 12gms the following day and felt like I was still in wds. I couldn't for the life of me figure it out untill I realized it was the suboxone still in my blood that was slowly decreasing. By day 3, today, I can very much feel those "inbetween" hot flashes and goosebumps. Makes me almost wanna go back to sub but theres no point delaying this all another 2-3 weeks which is what I have left subwise.

At this point I have no pods, a bunch of codiene, and the left over 2 1/2 pills of sub. I took 30mg codiene BEFORE my pod dose today to find that it didn't do ANYTHING. Amazing how codiene is rendered so useless by the stronger drugs leaving my body. Doesn't even stop the hot flashes.

I'm hoping like death that my pods arrive tommorow so I don't have to skip a taper dose. But even if they do come I can't brew them up because my brother will be home all day. So depending on what happens I may take .5mg sub just to get me through the day. 24 hours without pods is my "ok time". I mean I hate the hotflashes but when I get around hour 48 I'm usually in full wds which I'm trying to avoid.
It won't be a big deal if I gotta take a crumb of sub to get through the day. But knowing my luck I'll trigger pwd or some shit.

I have to say the biggest let down right now is simply the heuristics of my situation. I just went from being on sub and working out everday, socializing with people and having fun to being back in my house like a prisoner far from the carribeans alone trying to finish this neverending taper so I can get back to life.
But it just feels like life is on pause again. I felt like I was actually living life for those 3 weeks on sub, as shitty as some of the sides were, but I still was very active and motivated to get things done. Now its just a train of empty days passing and all I have to keep me getting through the days is that one day I will be off for good and ready to live the fulfilling life I've always wished for.

I guess patience is def a virtue in this predicament. Will update when the pods get here!
 
yo i just got back from france.................drank a lot which i never usually do . had my klonopins and sub and im ok i guess , and my paxil
 
SWEET!!!!!!!!!!! Haha I was waiting for you to get back. I'm envious that you can drink on sub I tried one night and got sick as fuck.

NJ fucking sucks monkey ass I've been bored as fuck since I got back. Theres too much to do on the virgin islands and NOTHING to do here.

Well glad to see your back. I'm off subs was getting a lot of bad sides on them that I wrote about in a page long post in the sub thread. Subs are IMPOSSIBLE to taper off of also. Which is why I've been on pods for 3 days again and just prefer to use them to finish the taper.

I'm at 12gms so the subs didn't fuck me up too badly. Def don't plan on relapsing I'm just genuinely sick of this lifestyle for once in my life. I also go to bed earlier (well I try) so we'll talk tommorow bro! Good to see yah back!!
 
^^^
Patience is definitely a virtue in getting off them. I dropped off pretty much cold turkey and went through about 2 weeks of withdrawal, which makes sense seeing how I was hooked for 2 years.

But it just feels like life is on pause again.
It's weird because that's exactly how I've felt since dropping the habit. I wasn't really going anywhere with my life when I was on poppy tea, now I kind of feel like I'm not going anywhere except I'm not high anymore. I feel just sort of apathetic for big picture things, I have to focus on the day ahead of me and how I'm going to get through it. It's like school would be nice but figuring all that out is so much hassle and it's hard to get motivated for such a thing.

I must note that I'm finally feeling the return of normal endorphin production after like 20 days of yawning and stretching all the time and just feeling generally anxious. It's really nice not to have the constant fear of withdrawal ahead of me. That's what I hated the most, constantly having to withdrawal to catch a buzz. It was just like the rollercoaster of heroin abuse only the ups and downs were more spread out due the long duration of PPT.

The experience has left me shaken and not one that I'm eager to repeat. I know I could return to pods and get high as a kite after 30 days clean, full on nodding and euphoria like I hadn't felt in months (or maybe even the last year!) while I was in active addiction. But then I think about how badly the pods messed me up and how terrible some of the days were when I stopped and I realize that using now would surely result in a repeat of the struggle I had. I don't need that shit.

I basically rode the opiate addiction out as long as possible before I started using other drugs (particularly benzos and 1,4 BDO). They became my withdrawal aids and eventually resulted in a hospital visit for falling down the stairs, driving my car off the road while nodding off, a fist fight with my father, and (the icing on the cake) an overdose on a combo of phenazepam and 1,4 BDO. My parents learned the extent of my drug addiction and realized I was using morphine poppies. At the time it seemed like a tragedy but I had decided that there was no way I was going to continue living here and using all the drugs for a crutch. Maybe this will prove to be the best thing that's ever happened to me though it doesn't always feel that way right now. Hopefully this segment of my life will only be a relatively short one in comparison to the long road ahead.
 
Quasi I think that had to be one of the deepest posts I've ever read in this thread really. Its people like you who actually make me reconsider my taper like "maybe going CT and just getting it out of the way is the way to go" but due to the secretive nature of my addiction and noone knowing I can't send out any red flags being in severe wds.
So I'll just have to continue to be patient with the process.

I wasn't expecting it to take more than a month to do but its good I realized LATER that it would took longer because I'd already invested a certain amount of time into tapering. And because of that its harder to abandon and go back to using.

I still do feel I haven't payed back the majority of suffering I owe for as long as I got high. I do feel even though I'm still on real low doses that I just haven't really faced the beast yet. But as long as I feel the beast will have been weakened by my recent taper decisions I should be alright. Its sad that it looks like I might not even be off till mid summer completely, its already July and I was hoping to be off before vacation even started.

Its interesting because my supplier also went to complete shit in the last 2 months I haven't ordered from them. They now sell less than half of the weight of pods they use to sell for the same price. Even if I wanted to get back into full addiction I know couldn't financially afford it anymore. With the deals I use to get sure, but now a full addiction could run me $75-100 a week and I just don't have that money to be spending. So now not only do I have will power I have practical real world situations keeping me from getting high. I guess thats better than anything but I was still pissed because I'm not sure if this batch will take me to the end (it wound up being 200gms) but we'll see one way or another.

I had to raise the dose a few gms yesterday as the sub was leaving my body and today I was in moderate wds most of the day waiting for my pods to get here (I time shit to a t lol but sometimes it backfires too) so at least I can take a full taper dose. I think I did only like 8gms yesterday when the day before 16 barely held me over, but today I'll just gauge it and see how much it takes.
I still honestly don't feel "stable" yet so I haven't started tapering back on my schedule. I've just been really up and down getting use to the shorted pod half life but I feel like I can get started dropping again tommorow or the next day. I just need to feel held properly on a dose and I'm more or less waiting for any sub I have left in my body to leave so I know I'm running on pods alone. But I'll be dropping again very soon.
 
^^^
Wow I'd been watching some of the vendors and noticed a lot of them were running out and were promising more stock for July. Now it seems that there is a genuine poppy shortage, the one vendor revised they're website and is only offering pods at a seemingly ridiculous price. The other one has relocated to California and ran out of all sizes except for a small shipment in a few days of small/medium pod mix. It appears the spring shipment that they were counting on has been late...

Honestly since you have the will power to do it I would continue to taper. It will probably mitigate your suffering in the long run. For me, tapering was a sort of tease to myself because everytime I tapered in the past it was to lower my tolerance and get high again so that was naturally what i wanted to after a few days of trying to taper. I also had a tendency to taper quickly and experience a lot of suffering anyway.
 
^^^
Wow I'd been watching some of the vendors and noticed a lot of them were running out and were promising more stock for July. Now it seems that there is a genuine poppy shortage, the one vendor revised they're website and is only offering pods at a seemingly ridiculous price. The other one has relocated to California and ran out of all sizes except for a small shipment in a few days of small/medium pod mix. It appears the spring shipment that they were counting on has been late...

Honestly since you have the will power to do it I would continue to taper. It will probably mitigate your suffering in the long run. For me, tapering was a sort of tease to myself because everytime I tapered in the past it was to lower my tolerance and get high again so that was naturally what i wanted to after a few days of trying to taper. I also had a tendency to taper quickly and experience a lot of suffering anyway.

Wow you are definitely right about that its much more spread out than just 1 vendor. I was about to send them a "your order was a joke" email but they've always been good in the last 2 years I've been using them. They took down 90% of their products and only list like 10 different selections now at about double the price they use to be.

I had no idea this even happened but I went to another vendor who doesn't even look like they're operating anymore. Something is DEFINITELY going on with the poppy business I can't believe how expensive they've got now. Like I said only a couple months ago on my last order I got like 500gms worth for $67 dollars, now at the same vendor I spent $82 and got **200gms** so you can tell how serious it is.

I have no idea whats going on but wow did I pick a good time to taper lol. If these places start going out of business though (I don't see who the hell could possibly be getting high at those prices anymore) I'm really in trouble if this batch doesn't cut it.

I'm gonna do a bit more looking around to see if any places have actually shutdown from it..
 
I think that there has been a significant delay in the spring crop that these businesses usually get during the summer. I dunno if anyone is going to shut down from it, the one vendor says it's only a temporary shortage and that things will return to normal in August.

I'm glad that I'm off them though seeing that I probably would have run out and ended up withdrawing anyway or spending far too much money on what was already an expensive habit for me.
They took down 90% of their products and only list like 10 different selections now at about double the price they use to be.
Yeah I saw that! Just a few weeks ago all of the products that they cut from the list had a message implying that they were coming in on July 16th or something. It would appear that is no longer the case. And yeah it looks like they did double their prices...

Looks like we picked ideal times to get off these fuckers because it got a lot harder to secure a cheap order.
 
Yeh wow I mean that jumps the price up for me from $10 for the avg "get high dose" to around $20-25a day!
I'd have a hard enough time now using even amounts like 25gms a day at those prices.

I just can't believe how angry I would have been if I had to taper because of this. Life is so fucking weird sometimes how it works out. The whole time I'm on vacation I'm worrying that when I get back I'm gonna relapse because the fear of not being able to bring pods on a boat is gone at that point. I get back, don't relapse, and then notice I really couldn't relapse even if I wanted to.

I mean seriously using 200gms in 4 days is nothing, thats $82 its preposterous. I just sent an email out to PPD to see what the real deal was so I guess I'll let you know when they answer. I know at this point information like that is largely irrelevant to you but maybe I'll get a better answer directly from them.

I can only look at this as a sign from someone above that there are bigger plans in my future than poppies lol.
 
Wow - I hadn't looked at my usual supplier in a while, and yeah, something is going on. Damn - I would have been fucked big time if I didn't get off them when I did. Crazy...

As far as being a shortage in shipments to my supplier - they claimed their's were grown here in the states.

Bo - let us know if you get any good inside info on the situation. Can't help but wonder if our guv'ment is finally making things tough on pod suppliers. It was really TOO easy for so long.
 
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As far as being a shortage in shipments to my supplier - they claimed their's were grown here in the states.

Yeah they should be grown here in the states. That doesn't mean that the shipment from growers couldn't be late or something which is what I think is going on. I bet their is like a big supplier or something that ran behind or has a shortage or something. I really kind of hope the government isn't doing anything because it was so easy if you knew what to do :D I could never go back to kratom, that shit was nastier than PPT (in foul flavor anyway, by addiction standards PPT had me much worse off).
 
feels like im replaqcing subs with klonopin . but i just tell myself they aer just short ternm to help stop sub,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
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