TDS fiending hard, help?

jklolbrb69

Greenlighter
Joined
Feb 15, 2013
Messages
4
here's my situation- took oc30s for years, graduated to h about 8 months ago. since then and up until a week ago i was using between .1-.4gr/day. for the last week i've been taking suboxone, successfully tapered down to a fourth of a strip per day. haven't been sick. i've got half a sub left. i'll be tapering all the way down to 1/16, should be cured by then.
problem is, cravings get more intense by the hour.. seriously.
i'm two hours away from home (at my grandparents') in a tiny town where dope surely does not exist. i'm just worried that i'll relapse when i come home in a few weeks. i don't want this to happen. then again.. i definitely do.
who has gone through this before, and what was the outcome? is this completely normal or am i going to fail just because i don't even know that i want to be clean yet? and most importantly.. is there a good way to reduce cravings? help appreciated.
 
Everyone gets cravings, it's completely normal and you're not going to fail at staying clean just because you are fiending. It comes down to your willpower to not give in to them.

Have you been staying at your grandparents while you were coming off the dope? Do you have people you can spend time with in a non-drug related situation once you get home. Keeping yourself busy and away from old haunts will help keep your mind off the cravings.

Good luck
 
For now you have to distance yourself from the scene. That means deleting and destroying all contacts, on your phone, scraps in your wallet, everything, and avoiding dope spots and open air markets. Do not surround yourself with the same friends and take up the same routine. You will eventually start craving it less and less when you surround yourself with healthier activities and also with time.

You have the strength in you, you just have to give yourself a fighting chance.

<3
 
It sounds to me like this is your first major attempt at getting clean from h, or at least removing your physical dependence to it. If you can stay clean after your first attempt, then this will be great and we'll all be very happy for you. But if you don't, then you'd best pay attention to what made you fail and how you attempted to control how long the relapse lasted. Saying that you "definitely do want it to happen," or that in the back of your mind you would be ok with a relapse if it were to happen, indicates to me that you're not truly ready to quit. Which is completely normal if it's just your first time trying to quit and maybe you don't think you've hit a true bottom yet in life (when you really want to quit, you feel a drive within to stay sober that's different from all of the previous times when you still had that voice in the back of your head telling you that you could do it once again in every while after you rid yourself of the physical dependency). I'm not going to lie to you, it's extremely hard to stay off of h when you come back to the same environment with the same people, place and things. It will be a constant battle with your own self-control and with your cravings (as triggered by the people, places and things) and might begin to feel more like a 'whenever I do relapse' and not a 'if I were to relapse...' state you're living in. A lot of people stay away for a long time when they really want to get clean just because it's so much easier not doing it when you know that it would be next-to-impossible to find it.

You're going to get cravings when you get back, and the best advice I can give you is to just stay extremely busy. Things like work and/or school will be there, but you need to fill up every single hour of your day with activities, as the idle time is when you think yourself into trouble. Some people in recovery love exercising, and others love going to support groups. You should definitely give both of these areas a try to see if they would help you. Read books, watch TV series, movies, documentaries, etc. You'll probably develop some sleeping troubles too once your body is free from all of the opiates (Suboxone included), and the insomnia will test your patience. So again I stress having plenty of reading material to help you here. A lot of people also encourage journaling or blogging, to keep busy, to help you remember what you've had to go through to get clean and for others to read and (hopefully) benefit from. Others still will tell you that you should go out and help others in need, to volunteer in charity work, to keep yourself busy while helping others.

Good job making the decision to go away and get yourself clean. I'm sure that took a lot of courage and strength. If you can do that, then you definitely can do the next chapter, as long as you're dedicated. It's nowhere near as intense, but at the same time is a long-term commitment, which requires lots of big changes to your life that might be uncomfortable at first. But just take it with open arms and a mental challenge to live in ways you never have before.

Best of luck, you got this. If you fail, remember that you're not a failure and that you should not let that enable you to keep the relapse going. If you succeed, don't get too confident in yourself and do continue to put the effort you need into reach and every day to make it until the next without going back to your old ways. The phrases about it being a 'day-by-day' effort are very true. It is. You made it through today, wrote this post today, etc. What are you gonna do tomorrow? You should always be able to answer that question!
 
Also, consider spending a longer time on the Suboxone. No shame in being on it for awhile while you get your self together bud. I am not sure where in the Midwest you are, but dope seems to be exploding all over the place in the Northern Midwest. Maybe consider a move or something if you have trouble staying clean at your home?

Are you getting your Sub off the street or via a doctor?
 
I suggest staying on the sub until you don't have intense cravings. Your body just isn't used to life without dope right now. so it's going to crave it. give your body time to heal and the cravings will not be as intense.
 
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