Been a while but time to quit - please offer your advice/support

[*=Regulator=*]

Hi guys,

I'm somewhat of a Bluelight oldschooler and have been anywhere from posting daily to weekly to monthly to just lurking over the past eight years or so, particularly in TDS. I've done more lurking than posting lately but would like to re-engage, for the slightly selfish reason that I'm finally going through the process of kicking my Suboxone habit.

Here's some background, feel free to skim over or skip if you can't be bothered reading:
My battle with drugs started in 2000. I was on an anti-depressant called "Aurorix" (active ingredient Moclobemide) which is an MAOI. Unbeknown to me at the time was the fact that this drug massively increases the effects of MDMA. One night in 2000 while on Aurorix I took a decent e-pill and ended up in hospital with what several Dr's suspected was seritonin syndrome. Almost immediately after that I developed severe anxiety and depression. I dropped out of university and went home to live with my parents, where I very slowly recovered.

I recovered to the point that I was able to function pretty well and ended up going back to school, getting excellent grades and graduating from a commerce (marketing) / arts (psychology) degree.

About that time my dad died after a few years battling cancer which kind of set me back. I was back on anti-depressants and benzos and have been on them (in various forms) ever since.

A year or so after my dad died I moved away again to do an honours degree in marketing. During this time, I discovered codeine (through this place ) and found it to be an amazingly potent, helpful and hedonistic drug, and I proceeded to abuse the fuck out it, doing up to 1200mg a day. I cruised through my honours degree and finished second in my class. I still think of this as the best year of my life.

After I finished honours, I was left with a large debt to one of my best friends as he had been (unbeknown to him) lending me money so I could buy increased amounts of Codeine (packs of Nurofen Plus, when you used to be able to split the pills down the middle to separate the codeine side from the ibuprofen side). I had to get a job and realised that my addiction wasn't sustainable.

Pertinent Information:
I went to a 'drug specialist' Dr. who was used to dealing with heroin addicts, more so than pharmaceutical abusers like me (this is NOT a slur on heroin or other drug use by me). He put me straight onto Suboxone and told me to keep increasing the dose until I felt 'good'. I started at 4mg and ended up at 14mg - a dose that is many, many times more potent than the amount of codeine I was taking.

I've begun to taper and I'm now down to 8mg and I'm starting to feel it. I also drink up to 8+ standard alcoholic drinks a day and take around 2mg of Xanax and 150mg of Effexor (anti-d). I also smoke a little bit of weed at night.

I've quit my job and have two weeks to go. The plan is to get down to 4mg or 2mg and then do a week long detox.

I've got a great support network through my family and they know about everything except the weed. They are willing to support me financially while I get off Suboxone and get back on my feet.

I've had a five-year long career in marketing and have been pretty successful so finding a job won't be hard when I'm clean but I am worried about whether or not I'll be able to work when I'm completely off the Suboxone. Although ironically, I feel that the Suboxone is greatly impeding my ability to reach my potential.

Anyway, I'm pretty scared about going to detox for a couple of reasons; I've never mixed with the 'hardcore' drug crowd (i.e. IV heroin users) and I've never withdrawn so I don't know how bad the sickness will be.

I'm also not sure if the alcohol is associated with my other problems or a cause of most of them. If the alcohol is a bigger problem than the Suboxone, maybe I'm approaching this from the wrong direction? The same goes for the weed - it's a daily habit but I don't smoke much. The same again goes for the benzos! Still, I'm guessing with the benzos, the Dr's will use this to keep me going while I kick the Suboxone and I can taper the benzos when I'm finished in detox.

So far in the past three weeks with the Suboxone, I've gone from a week of 12mg, to a week of 10mg to a week of 8mg. I'm doing another week of 8mg and then will go to 6mg for the my last week of work. After that it's 4mg, then maybe 2mg or straight into detox. If I think I can kick without detox I'll do so but I haven't made any pre-judgement on that. I'll take it as it comes.

Oh yeah - I'm snorting the Sub rather than taking it sublingually and this is starting to fuck up my nose. No one knows that I'm snorting the Sub.

So this thread is to chronicle my experiences, seek advice and I guess just to vent. Please post anything you've got that may help or any advice - I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

[*=Regulator=*]

Seriously, nothing?

 

[SilverFeniks]

Firstly, I enjoyed the read. Always nice to see a fresh/well-spoken perspective on here as opposed to the usual half-witted drivel.
Wish I could offer some advice, but seems you have a very objective, rational, informed approach to your own situation at this point.

About all I can say is, don't underestimate the effect that using five drugs simultaneously have on you. Even the seemingly-benign (your effexor and cannabis use), when thrown in the mix with more volatile chemicals, could be wreaking unknown havoc on your psyche/health.

Having 8 drinks a day by itself is double the recommended maximum. And I can't imagine that abusing suboxone (via improper administration) is doing you any favors.

You're clearly quite intelligent and rational (like me! :D ), but sometimes that just means you can fool yourself better than the average fool ... put that brain of yours to work, don't falsely mitigate your behavior, it's gonna damage you in the long run.

Also like me, you're pretty well-educated and accomplished for your age (a lot better than you could be, at least) ...
SLC punk comes to mind, when Stev-O asks himself why he bothered trying all those years.
"a mind is a terrible thing to waste" ... anti-drug propaganda ... and something I've finally come to realize myself, after both excelling and seemingly wasting the past few years of my life doing nothing but idly killing brain cells, complacent with my boring, drug-addled life.

If you truly have no ambition, and no desire for any, then there's no reason to change. But if you studied those subjects for a reason, realize that your drug use is going to negatively impact your future career .. maybe not tomorrow, or even this year, but when you're even more addicted in 3, 5 or 10 years, it might be too late to regret what could have been.
I'm just finally realizing this myself, and trying to adjust my attitude to get back towards "being all I can be," rather than just being what I've been for so long.

 

[*=Regulator=*]

Thanks a lot SilverFeniks!

I completely agree with what you're saying. I'm constantly told by health professionals that "I'm in a good position to recover because I have really good insight into my issues" and I'm worried that could make me think that I'll be able to get through it, no matter what happens. That leads to a situation where it's very easy to delude yourself into thinking that you can have that 'one extra whatever' and still be OK.

Maybe I need to focus on the poly-drug abuse more. I'm kind of hoping that since I'll be de-toxing anyway, I'll get through my alcohol and weed dependence at the same time as I kick the Sub. Maybe that's just rationalisation (as I said above) and I need to get off the booze and weed before I have any chance at getting clean and staying clean?

My other concern is really that I'm snorting the Suboxone. What it means is that I'm taking the drug via a ROI with a higher bio-availability than the recommended ROI, which effectively means that my 8mg dose is the equivalent to another's 6mg dose. Does anyone have any experience with this, and have any good ideas about moving from snorting to sublingual administration of the Sub?

On the other hand (and here again comes the rationalisation), I figure if I get down to a low dose, snorted or otherwise, and then go into detox, it's going to end up in the same way; being free of Suboxone. For example, if my 2mg dose is higher 'than it should be', it just means I might taper down to 1mg before detox, instead of 2mg. Are there any major flaws with that line of thought?

Finally, just picked up my weekly dose of Sub (7*8mg tabs) and because I finally got through all the Sub I had 'saved up' last week, I'll truly be limited to 8mg a day. I'm going to 6mg the following week, which will be my last week at work. Hopefully I can function well enough on 6mg that I don't completely burn my bridges at work during my final week. I'm confident that at the worst, I might have to tell them I'm a bit 'sick' to explain any difficulties completing my tasks. Not to mention, being my last week, my 'tasks' at work should be pretty limited.

Again, apols for the wall of text. Thanks for reading (if you did) and please offer any advice/support that you think will help.

Cheers

 

[*=Regulator=*]

Anything else guys?

I was really hoping that the TDS community could be a good source of advice but haven't had anything except SilverFenicks' excellent post.

Anything would be good - you don't have to read the whole thread!

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Exercise, proper diet, and having a support network are all good things to implement.

It sounds like you are on the right track! I would try to discontinue alcohol if at all possible, because it has a tendency to increase affect no matter whether it's positive or negative (which overall could counteract the anti-depressant you're on).

Taper as slowly as you need to, and over time your body should start to feel a lot better. I have tapered for a long time now and I barely get WD symptoms anymore.

Oh yeah - I'm snorting the Sub rather than taking it sublingually and this is starting to fuck up my nose. No one knows that I'm snorting the Sub.

What you should do is either switch to sublingual use, or, cotton filter a solution of Suboxone, and then use it via a nasal-spray pump. Cotton filtering will help remove some of the inactive ingredients that you are currently snorting.

 

[boodha]

I can relate to a lot of what you are posting here,

definitely agree with trying to cut the booze out, even before the sub perhaps ? but, whatever works for you, is what you should be doing.

have you gone through bupe withdrawal before ?
it seems to affect different people very differently, some saying it was not that bad, some saying it is hell incarnate, most agree it is LOOONG.
but good on you for getting proper help, im sure you can beat this, I would really like to hear how you go with this, perhaps updates as you are doing it maybe ?

 

[*=Regulator=*]

I can relate to a lot of what you are posting here,

definitely agree with trying to cut the booze out, even before the sub perhaps ? but, whatever works for you, is what you should be doing.

have you gone through bupe withdrawal before ?
it seems to affect different people very differently, some saying it was not that bad, some saying it is hell incarnate, most agree it is LOOONG.
but good on you for getting proper help, im sure you can beat this, I would really like to hear how you go with this, perhaps updates as you are doing it maybe ?

Thanks for the post boodha.

I know I should be cutting back on the booze. Maybe I'll try to really measure exactly how much I'm drinking and start limiting it to 2-3 drinks per day and eventually stopping. I usually drink before I smoke a bit of weed. I'll try smoking first and seeing if it's enough without anything to drink.

I've never withdrawn from bupe - the closest I've got was down to 4mg but I ended up going back up to 12mg after that because I couldn't focus at work.

I intend to keep updating this thread as I go through the process but I'd very much like other people to jump in with advice or observations.

 

[*=Regulator=*]

The double life...

Update...

Had a bit of a 'life' setback today. I've gone down to 6mg and am definitely starting to feel it. As a result of the decrease, I've had to take a couple of sick days from work and haven't been performing particularly well on the job. So, my boss (who has no idea about my Suboxone cut-downs) has decided that he wants me to finish up a week early because "me being there when I don't want to be is having a negative impact on the team", my work "is not good enough" etc. He's obviously pretty pissed.

On the one hand, it's a positive because the most likely course of action is that I'll get paid for the extra week without having to work it (if he tries to stiff me out of that last week's pay he'll be getting a letter from my lawyer - one of the benefits of every single member of my immediate family being a lawyer and I will get paid for that last week ).

On the other hand, it means that I've probably burnt my bridges there and won't be able to get any kind of reference. That's a bit of a bitch because after four years working there, it's going to be hard to explain to future employers why the management at my old place won't give me a good reference. The one saving grace is that my former boss who has already left the company has said he'll be a reference for me. That's really good but not as good as a reference from the company.

It also means that I won't get a 'send off' (usually a lunch or drinks after work) to say goodbye to my friends at work - some of my best friends work there and they'll probably end up thinking that the reason I had to finish early was because I just slacked off. :/

So, I'm a bit pissed off with this whole situation and my timing. I'm going to the Dr. today and will ask him to write a letter to my manager explaining that I've been medically unfit for work for he past few weeks etc. and that any negative performance at work can be explained by my illness. Hopefully that will make the 'fall' a little bit easier.

Whatever the case, I'm not going to let this effect the tapering of my Suboxone dose. The whole thing kind of shines a big spotlight on how hard it is living the 'double life' of a user of drugs/maintenance therapy and being an otherwise productive member of society...

BTW - Today's my 30th birthday!

 

[EPSdeja24]

Happy birthday my man!!!! Keep your head up, as for the fact that you've been able to stay consistent at work is something you should be proud of and build upon when the suboxone detox period or tapering gets rough.. Because it will. trust me. Tapering is a great idea, but first, you have to deal with the alcohol side of the detox process. Take the time in between jobs to get yourself straight.. While the detox comes on, you need to take one step at a time.. I can only say so much here, but i'm here to tell you that I am a source of help/support as I know you are going through a rough period. You can always private message me and journal what's up and what you are going through and i'll check back on this thread.. Best of luck.

 

[*=Regulator=*]

Thanks man, it's good to hear from someone else who's been there.

I am proud that I was able to hold down a job in a professional, high-stress, deadline driven environment for 3 years and also get promoted. Still, it makes me think - where the fuck could I be now if I wasn't such a fuckup; drinking, smoking and snorting opiates on a daily basis.

That's the key to this current process I think. I tried to live the 'functional addict' life and all I could do was be 'functional' (duh ). With the opportunities I've been given in life, that just isn't acceptable. I've opportunities that people would literally kill for and still got myself into this fucked-up mess. Still, even with my pretty shattered self-esteem, I realise I'm a pretty smart person who could go a long way if get my shit together, and that motivates me to push through any sickness or problems I encounter while I'm going through this process.

I'm kind of viewing this as 'the last roll of the dice'. If I don't come out the other side clean and ready to get my career going, I think I'll just relapse into a shitty 9 to 5, drug abusing lifestyle. I haven't even tried heroin yet so there's a long way for me to fall. That might sound bad but I think if I try to make this whole thing carry some high stakes, I'll be more likely to realise how serious it is.

I think sitting at home by myself on my 30th with just enough suboxone to get me through the day, a bit of gin and some weed, while waiting to face the music at work tomorrow is probably what I deserve after all this. I just hope I really have something to celebrate on my 31st....