I kind of feel that the most obvious way out of this would be to do a slow taper as opposed to trying to do it all at once. This is a very common issue I run into with folks. I've been through this myself, so I totally understand where you're coming from. You reach the point where you've had enough, you tell yourself you're gonna solve the problem and you rush into it with good intentions. The thing is, doing it all at once is generally not the most likely method of success.
You have these pills that are already in small, individual dosing units which makes things a lot easier. Like you said, I think the best way of going forward is to do it slowly and methodically. If you go slowly enough, you shouldn't have to deal with extreme symptoms of withdrawal. The hardest part will likely be at the very end of your taper, which is when you can start reaching for the comfort medications like Gabapentin. You ideally only want to use the Gabapentin for ~2 weeks if you're looking to completely avoid tolerance/dependence, though it's not out of the question to be on it for a month and still get away unscathed. The maximum effectiveness of the drug however is going to be in that first two weeks.
@Iceman1216 on here we often talk about volumetric dosing as a means of performing a similarly slow taper when you only have pills that are of relatively high dose. A lot of people are put off by this suggestion as it seems difficult. It really isn't difficult at all if you have a basic understanding of fractions/decimals like I think we all have here. Sure you can break a pill in half and perhaps even quarters, but after that, you really can't do anything with any kind of accuracy.
Say you have a 10mg Hydrocodone (Vicodin) tablet. You get an oral syringe from the pharmacy. They will give you one for free if you ask the pharmacist, though they also sell them for a few bucks. They will typically come in increments of 10ml and these are of course divided, so you can easily measure 1ml at a time.
You take a Hydrocodone tablet and you crush it into powder. You take a glass or whatever vessel you want to use, it could be a pill bottle for instance. You then fill the syringe with 10ml water. Transfer the powder into your vessel and add the 10ml water. Mix thoroughly until you have a solution. The solution will likely be stable after mixing, though it's a good idea to mix it each time just to be extra sure.
Now, you have increments of 1mg Hydrocodone that you couldn't get easily otherwise. Want to take it a step further? Fill that same vessel with 20ml of water, now each 1ml increment you draw up will contain 0.5mg Hydrocodone.
Now, let's say you're taking a total of 60mg Hydrocodone per day, if you reduce by 1mg every week, you could theoretically be close to the end of your taper after one year of commitment. If that's too quick, you can do 1mg every 10 days or 0.5mg every week. At the latter pace, you will be totally done at the end of 2 years.
A lot of people make the mistake of saying, "but that's too much time, I need this to be done right now". I've thought this myself. I've been there too. However, a lot of people end up stuck in the same place for their entire life because they're not willing to accept the long-term plan. 2 years is like the blink of an eye in the span of an entire life, right?
If anyone needs/wants any information about volumetric dosing, we can definitely talk about it further.
