Anyone else hate suboxone?

[Valis]

As 6/7 and others have said on here, Buprenorphine is a wonder drug for a number of reason, for those who want to get clean of heroin. I may as well add my experience, because it I can't emphasise enough the degree to which this drug has been designed for opiate maintenance, and prepared to deter abuse.

Once I realised I had serious problems with heroin I got a Suboxone script. I found 8mg held me (after snorting up to 8 bags a night for months; no high, just nodding). It took a few hours to properly feel ok; I was put to 16 mg but felt that was superfluous, so I just took 8mg and stashed the rest in case of emergencies, getting stranded somewhere, whatever. I do travel a lot.

Just to reiterate, Bupe in the Suboxone or Subutex form is very good for people who just want to put opiate addiction behind them and get on with their lives.
1) Once you feel withdrawals heroin coming on, you take it in small doses until you feel okay.
2) It stops physical cravings
3) For many it appears to have a calming, anti-depressant effect.
4) It stops other opiates working. Bupe sits in your receptors better and kicks them away.

It won't necessarily stop the psychological cravings e.g. ritualistic elements such 'needle fixation', 'nasal fixation' etc. But I was properly into snorting H daily for months, and once on Suboxone, it just became another med i take in the mornings along with multivitamins and bananas. The desire for H went away

But beware: you may find yourself getting into a different drug instead e.,g. Crack. If there was a Bupe-like maintenance preparation for the psychology of crack-fiending and cravings we would have a powerful harm reduction and clean up arsenal, this would terrific news for many unhappy people whose drug use is way beyond their control. I don't believe I have heard of much on this front. Anyone heard of anything?

There are countless other opiates you can enjoy recreationally if you want to. Bupe preparations have been designed for people who want out of heroin and the liquid handcuffs of the desperately flawed methadone programme. You are wasting your time on Bupe for fun; if you have a bad time trying to get high on it there are countless posible reasons why, because believe me, the designers have their bases covered. It's just not worth it.

Bupe is a recovery aid. Unlike Methadone, it doesn't swap one addiction for another; it is simple to taper off it, but if you are like me, you just kind of forget you are taking it routinely and get with your life. Taper off when you have truly left heroin behind. Or if you for some reason decide you want the heroin lifestyle again. http://i.bluelight.ru/s/eyesclosed.gif

I just don't get. With so many opiates get high on, why bother with the one that is brilliantly designed for opiate maintenance and clean up, and full of mechanisms to prevent abuse?

 

[immaturepoop]

Suboxone was great for me while I was on it to slowly wean myself out of the drug/heroin culture until I decided to finally get free from opiates all together. I was on it for about 2 years at 2mg a day before I finally kicked. Tapered down below 1mg before I jumped. The anxiety, lethargy and depression lasted forever. And I've noticed that the PAWS dragged on for about 6 months, roughly. It aint no easy kick! haha. It is nice to have all your old passions and hobbies replace the constant thoughts of dosing, always carrying your pills..etc. And having more money in the bank account!

It is a very useful tool for detox in my opinion, but unfortunately everyone who has ventured into longterm maintenance with sub are still on the drug, unable to successfully kick. My doctor told me I'm his only patient that has quit without returning. It was a very long road for me, not only because the w/d process is so long, but because of how inconsistent it was. I'm not knocking anyone who decides to maintain on sub, this was just my personal experience. anyways, thanks for listening!

 

[babygetoboy]

For me personally suboxone does nothing for the cravings at all.

 

[JahRed24x]

Suboxone was great for me while I was on it to slowly wean myself out of the drug/heroin culture until I decided to finally get free from opiates all together. I was on it for about 2 years at 2mg a day before I finally kicked. Tapered down below 1mg before I jumped. The anxiety, lethargy and depression lasted forever. And I've noticed that the PAWS dragged on for about 6 months, roughly. It aint no easy kick! haha. It is nice to have all your old passions and hobbies replace the constant thoughts of dosing, always carrying your pills..etc. And having more money in the bank account!

It is a very useful tool for detox in my opinion, but unfortunately everyone who has ventured into longterm maintenance with sub are still on the drug, unable to successfully kick. My doctor told me I'm his only patient that has quit without returning. It was a very long road for me, not only because the w/d process is so long, but because of how inconsistent it was. I'm not knocking anyone who decides to maintain on sub, this was just my personal experience. anyways, thanks for listening!

YEAH im honestly starting to get kinda scared about the day that i come off subs.. Im on about 1mg a day and now i gotta start tappering down to where im doing like 0.5mgs every other 3rd day,, that's what i did last time i detoxed with subs and i was clean for about 2 weeks then fucked up.. SO i hope i can get off of subs!

 

[SKL]

I did a suboxone taper, a pretty quick one, for a dope habit that was real but relatively mild compared to many people who post here, and TBH, I gotta concur that the PAWS is still there like a fucking bitch. In fact, daily I get thoughts of gettin strung out again and getting back on subs for life. But ... in terms of dealing with the acute withdrawal and in terms of keepin my mind off the drugs and keepin me motivated and able to function, Subs were a godsend,and at least in terms of the short term, the taper was a cinch.

 

[Inrvizion]

I Suboxone and Subutex

The only way I was able to get off of junk was using suboxone. I have 2 1/2 months clean now and I feel fantastic, I take it everyday and I only take 12mg... It sounds like your were taking 32mg a day which is the Max Out point for buprenorphine. If you take any more than that it just will not effect you more. Methadeath on the other hand is some nasty shit, I was on the program for 7 months and did a twenty one day taper from 100 mg to nothing, that's when I started doing black again and thus found myself on suboxone. Anyways, everything effects everyone differently. Maybe you're just immune

 

[eon_blue]

Suboxone was great for me while I was on it to slowly wean myself out of the drug/heroin culture until I decided to finally get free from opiates all together. I was on it for about 2 years at 2mg a day before I finally kicked. Tapered down below 1mg before I jumped. The anxiety, lethargy and depression lasted forever. And I've noticed that the PAWS dragged on for about 6 months, roughly. It aint no easy kick! haha. It is nice to have all your old passions and hobbies replace the constant thoughts of dosing, always carrying your pills..etc. And having more money in the bank account!

It is a very useful tool for detox in my opinion, but unfortunately everyone who has ventured into longterm maintenance with sub are still on the drug, unable to successfully kick. My doctor told me I'm his only patient that has quit without returning. It was a very long road for me, not only because the w/d process is so long, but because of how inconsistent it was. I'm not knocking anyone who decides to maintain on sub, this was just my personal experience. anyways, thanks for listening!

Amen to that. I got taken off 4mg of Suboxone/day cold turkey when I got sent to rehab. I had access to all the clonidine, immodium, motrin and seroquel I could ever want though 8) Flexeril if I was lucky and only after begging was I able to get some Mirapex for my restless legs.

That shit dragged on for nearly 2 months. It never came that close to the agony of heroin withdrawals but the subtle symptoms of buprenorphine withdrawal went on for what felt like forever. Not to mention I didn't get more than a few hours of sleep per night those first 6 weeks.

 

[Inrvizion]

I'm prescribed 40mg per day. no joke.

My doctor is actually pretty knowledgeable about drugs too so it's kind of surprising. Obviously I don't take that much. I'm fine taking 2-8mg per day.

Your doctor is a fucking idiot, 32mg is the FLOOR of Buprenorphine, if he prescribes you 40 mgs a day he's not only being stupid, he's breaking state and federal regulations. Sounds like your doctor is in the mafia if he's really giving you a script that gratuitous...

Good luck explaining that to him though, if you are being truthful, he is a fucking idiot and you should just keep filling your scrips, doing whatever you want with the extra 90 a month that you get...

 

[Canis aureus]

The Problem of buprenorphine

The problem of subs for longterm users (or real users or heavy users or mu-agonist users) remains to be the same: bup has no strenght to kill the opiate hunger, like methadone; and that makes life on buprenorphine undesiderable.

Many of traditional junkys feel truly unhappy and uncomplete with buprenorphine, and won't quit using...

Well, the problem is and will be the same as antagonistic pograms: living or being on something which only cut the effects of dope, not making recovering life to feel complete like dope did, could not be succesful in long run.

I always played with dosing so that I had a chance to use and feel full (agonist feeling) again.

That's the problem of buprenorphine, in short.

 

[Tchort]

The problem of subs for longterm users (or real users or heavy users or mu-agonist users) remains to be the same: bup has no strenght to kill the opiate hunger, like methadone; and that makes life on buprenorphine undesiderable.

Many of traditional junkys feel truly unhappy and uncomplete with buprenorphine, and won't quit using...

Well, the problem is and will be the same as antagonistic pograms: living or being on something which only cut the effects of dope, not making recovering life to feel complete like dope did, could not be succesful in long run.

I always played with dosing so that I had a chance to use and feel full (agonist feeling) again.

That's the problem of buprenorphine, in short.

Agreed.

The 'anti-depressant' activity so often talked about with bupe leads me to believe non-opioid receptor activity on the part of bupe, especially in a maintanence setting, leads some people (myself included) to have extremely severe withdrawals, especially an exponential increase in the severity of mental illness withdrawal symptoms (depression, anxiety, paranoia, insomnia, hallucinations, etc).

In the long run, the US will experience what the rest of the world is already dealing with. The current programs that allow private doctors to prescribe 3 months of Subutex or Suboxone with little or no follow up is asking for disaster. Many doctors get that 8 hour certificate, write a 3 month RX, and never require a follow up, and will phone in future scripts for the patient without a visit. Naloxone does not induce withdrawal in Buprenorphine dependant patients when injected, especially if the dose of Bupe is high (16-32mg/day). This means a Bupe maintanence patient can shoot either Subutex or the more prevalent Suboxone, usually with additives that are available OTC, can be ordered legally online, or prescribed.

 

[malfunkshun]

I really don't understand the naloxone in the suboxone. I don't know a lot about this, but doesn't naloxone force opiates out of your receptors? Wouldn't somebody go into withdrawal if they took it? I don't get it.

 

[johanneschimpo]

^ The naloxone does nothing. When the drug company dreamed it up, they thought it would do something, but they were wrong. Buprenorphine has binds stronger than naloxone does, so the effects of naloxone are irrelevant. Anyway, it has a terribly low bioavailability taken sublingually, so even if it did do anything, it wouldn't be absorbed sufficiently when taken correctly. But that doesn't matter because bupe trumps naloxone.

Hasn't this been discussed over and over and over and over and over? Being a member for 5 years it seems you would have read that by now.

 

[dread]

If there was a Bupe-like maintenance preparation for the psychology of crack-fiending and cravings we would have a powerful harm reduction and clean up arsenal, this would terrific news for many unhappy people whose drug use is way beyond their control. I don't believe I have heard of much on this front. Anyone heard of anything?

I don't know if this is related, but they are testing methylphenidate and d-amphetamine as replacement/maintenance drug for speed addicts. I haven't heard of the results yet, but what works on one stimulate could in theory work for another... so maybe if it works it could be applied to cocaine/crack addiction as well?

 

[dread]

^ The naloxone does nothing.

Actually, naloxone taken orally works as a laxative... When I started on suboxone I was running to the toilet every morning after my dose..

 

[bingey]

^
that's more likely to be caused by the buprenorphine knocking it's metabolite (norbupe) off the receptors causing a very short kinda semi-withdrawal , a few other posters here have had the same experience

 

[SKL]

I experienced that too, but only when tapering down to lower doses of the sub.

 

[Virtuoso]

Stuff

As others have mentioned, bupe is not to get high on. Its so you don't have to get high anymore. Saying it sucks because it won't do what it isn't supposed to is like saying cars suck because you can't fly in them.

 

[malfunkshun]

Hasn't this been discussed over and over and over and over and over? Being a member for 5 years it seems you would have read that by now.

I haven't exactly spent the last 5 years hanging out here. I take year long breaks at a time. This place is great, but it ain't my life. 8)

 

[Naptown Wicked]

suboxone doesn't do jack for me. It doesn't help cravings, I've taken it while high on OC and it didn't put me into any withdrawals. It's basically just like a sugar pill TO ME. Awesome for everyone here whom it helps!

 

[infinity2k7]

Personally i only snort subutex and no other opiates and i love it. Although im at daily use of about 2mg right now and the mild withdrawals when stopping are kinda annoying. Still its nice and cheap, get some good sleep on it too which i like.