Gave up oxy's, now feel like my brain and my life is ruined

[ShroomySatori]

Today is the 9th day free for me, from heroin, things are really looking up but I still feel pretty dead inside. Something really triggered me to pick up my second language book, but I can't do it. I can't concentrate enough to read something like that yet. Things that used to come naturally just don't. I really have to force myself to do things and yesterday I just got out and walked around 10km. I felt way better after that and smoked a couple joints in the woods. I had a lot of energy, but knew I'd crash today. I've been depressed today as in low energy, but no more morbid suicidal thoughts. The physical sickness is pretty much over... my legs are still rattling but the worst symptoms are over (full body muscle aches, especially in my upper arms, feels like its burning alive). So I have mild physical withdrawals left and a hell of a lot of back pain.
I'm definitely improving but now I am having trouble sleeping. I can sleep a little in acute withdrawal and then once I feel okay I cannot for the life of me get to sleep at all. My panic attacks start getting to be at their worst. It totally sucks, but I know it will get better and even if I have chronic pain in my spine it is no excuse to be a fucking junkie. I'm not worried about cravings... I'm worried about cracking under pressure. I have really fucked my life up and for several years at that.

 

[Mafioso]

Strictly speaking I didn't say people go back to drugs cause they regret quitting, I said saying that nobody regrets it is meaningless. Ok, virtually nobody goes back to using because they "regret" quitting as the motivation. They do it cause as you said they still have the problems that started the use in the first place. But while that may not be regretting quitting, they aren't exactly thinking that quitting has helped enough to stay off it either.

All I'm getting at is saying that nobody quits and regrets it isn't something I find particularly helpful or motivating. Cause like I said my addict brain just dismisses it by going "well no but so what? If I quit and did regret it I'd go back to using wouldn't I?".

I get what you're saying. It's just right now I'm in the process of trying to quit heroin myself, and to me reading it, it doesn't feel like there's any weight behind it. It feels a little like saying "nobody who improves their life regrets it". Yeah it's true, but it doesn't mean anything, it's not helpful.

You are free to criticize people who are trying to help all you want, but all that was meant by that is that you have nothing to lose by quitting. It helped me, but if it doesn't help you then find something that does rather than latching onto why it doesn't..

 

[JessFR]

I’m not latching on to it. I almost didn’t say anything at all and would rather not be still talking about this.

Look man I’m sorry if I came across as critical. I’m not trying to be. It’s just that, reading it, my brain went “yeah but that doesn’t mean anything” and in doing so, made me feel a little negative towards the kind of stuff people say to motivate people into quitting as a whole.

I thought others might feel the same way, and I thought that by pointing out how I felt about it that might be helpful.

I’m really not trying to be critical. All I’m saying is, for me. It didn’t feel like it meant anything. And I can imagine other addicts might have a similar reaction. If it was criticism it was meant as constructive criticism.

 

[solidsnake77]

While I agree with you that opiates aren't really a good thing, to say that no one successfully quits and regrets it is kinda neither here nor there. Cause if you quit them and did regret it, you'd just go back to using them.

I'm being a bit pedantic here, but my point is that quitting alone isn't going to fix your life. It's a good step, it's a big and important step, but one step of many nonetheless. I guess what I'm saying here is just getting off them isnt usually enough on its own to make life worth living.

I'm totally agree with that. I had a long addiction to opiates (oxy, fentanyl, morphine..) for almost 4 years, prescribed for chronic pain, but I ended as an addict anyway.


Today, almost 2 years ago has past since I ended with my daily habit of opiate for years. I was in a Suboxone program for 7-8 months, but I couldn't tolerate Suboxone well after 2 months of treatment, and I was in a low dose. The doctors recommendeded me stay in Suboxone for at least 2-3 years, but I denied it and I did a progresive reduction. Was a hell of withdrawal, really, I can't imagine if I would took high doses or stay in the treatment for years.


I recognize sometimes I consumpt, when I so deep in the hole. But no daily habit anymore, I manage my pain with kratom (godsend plant) and a good part of my anxiety and depression too. I think my brain is a bit fucked up after take opiates for 4 years daily, maybe I still in PAWS, i don't know.


But anyway, I want to say that my expectatives before detoxication were so much elevated. I thought that my entire life would change after that, and that things went to be so much better. And well, in a way it is so much better: months after detoxication I found a girl that I infinity love her and she to me aswell, we have a relationship of 1 years and 9 months. And I was working in my sector at the beginning of this year, but only was covering a sustitution and was just temporal. It's really hard to find a work here nowadays (I'm from Spain, so you can imagine...)


And for these expectatives placed very high, I fell in deception and relapse more than once, so many times in fact. But well, never more daily use (is not the same thing with kratom, but anyway, everybody is addict to something, at least now I'm addicted to a natural plant to can manage my condition, not to fentanyl or oxy...)


Don't place your expectatives too high, because the important thing is not the fall, it is the landing. Life doesn't changes only by quit an addiction, there is so much hard work to do before see great changes.

 

[JessFR]

I'm totally agree with that. I had a long addiction to opiates (oxy, fentanyl, morphine..) for almost 4 years, prescribed for chronic pain, but I ended as an addict anyway.


Today, almost 2 years ago has past since I ended with my daily habit of opiate for years. I was in a Suboxone program for 7-8 months, but I couldn't tolerate Suboxone well after 2 months of treatment, and I was in a low dose. The doctors recommendeded me stay in Suboxone for at least 2-3 years, but I denied it and I did a progresive reduction. Was a hell of withdrawal, really, I can't imagine if I would took high doses or stay in the treatment for years.


I recognize sometimes I consumpt, when I so deep in the hole. But no daily habit anymore, I manage my pain with kratom (godsend plant) and a good part of my anxiety and depression too. I think my brain is a bit fucked up after take opiates for 4 years daily, maybe I still in PAWS, i don't know.


But anyway, I want to say that my expectatives before detoxication were so much elevated. I thought that my entire life would change after that, and that things went to be so much better. And well, in a way it is so much better: months after detoxication I found a girl that I infinity love her and she to me aswell, we have a relationship of 1 years and 9 months. And I was working in my sector at the beginning of this year, but only was covering a sustitution and was just temporal. It's really hard to find a work here nowadays (I'm from Spain, so you can imagine...)


And for these expectatives placed very high, I fell in deception and relapse more than once, so many times in fact. But well, never more daily use (is not the same thing with kratom, but anyway, everybody is addict to something, at least now I'm addicted to a natural plant to can manage my condition, not to fentanyl or oxy...)


Don't place your expectatives too high, because the important thing is not the fall, it is the landing. Life doesn't changes only by quit an addiction, there is so much hard work to do before see great changes.

If you're on Kratom, depending on how much and how frequently you use, you shouldn't experience PAWS. Same as with methadone and subuxone. You don't experience PAWS from just stopping getting high on opioids. You experience it from stopping using EVERYTHING. Getting off opioids entirely with no maintainence. So long as you are on maintainence therapy with a sufficient dose, and I do include Kratom in this, you shouldn't experience much PAWS.

Avoiding PAWS was the biggest single reason I went with methadone to get off heroin instead of trying to get totally clean. I knew I'd never make it in the long term once PAWS on top of my natural depression started kicking my ass.

 

[ShroomySatori]

I am 11 days clean from a 5 year mostly insufflated heroin habit. PAWS is getting brutal, especially with my panic attacks being exacerbated. I will never give up the fight because if I do, I'm essentially giving up on having a happy life. Things have already improved so much, my family has really noticed and are being so helpful and supportive.

I freaked out yesterday, panicked all day. I almost got myself hooked up with some dilaudid but I honestly cannot do it. I know a relapse after all this time would be fucking hell. So I got a gram of coke, and drank six 7% tall cans at a party where my friends were dropping acid. I still have a lot of the coke left and it killed the PAWS symptoms but of course I will crash when I run out. I needed a break after all that hell, and I have been using cocaine very sparingly for 15 years without problem. Downers are the death of me.

I am so proud of my progress. I picked up my guitar today for the first time in forever and rocked it. I notice that almost everywhere I go ladies are either checking me out or flirting with me, something has completely changed about my energy. I have my spirit back, the will to live and endure life's struggles. I even applied for several jobs today in person and with confidence I could never have as a heroin addict. I mean, I will always be that... it has scarred me for life, but I will never use again.

I'm really excited and enthusiastic to get back into the workplace despite my chronic pain issues. I'm excited to meet a new lady now that I am fuelled by testosterone and it will undoubtedly happen again. I am starting to read literature and poetry again. Creative outlets like journal writing and my hardcore genre guitar playing (at least I never sold my guitars).

I have been through hell this year. Fucking agony, chronically relapsing and losing a quarter of my body mass. I am done with that bullshit and it took a huge mistake and losing at least for now the lady I would like to marry one day because I relapsed three times when I was with her. I can't have a relationship as an opiate addict because the drugs will always come first and romance is one thing I really would like from life.

There is no time to waste. Life passes by so quick, get clean now! If you don't, time will pass and you'll be wasting your life. I have regrets but also I learned the most valuable lesson of my life that came from drugs. More than any mushrooms or acid trip, by far. I have grown into a responsible man with plans for the future, from a dopsick junkie obsessed with getting money for my next fix. Tolerance rose so high I couldn't afford it anymore and things were getting really nasty; I had taught myself to shoot up.

I can't ever go back and all it takes for me is a couple of 5mg percocets. I'm doing really well. Exercise helps even just walking, getting up, moving around and keeping active. I am taking a huge list of health supplements on top of clean eating when I have an appetite. PAWS is horrible but I know I can get through it. Today was the first day that I was busy the whole entire day, non stop pushing myself to not just get better physically, but to clean up the broken life I have after that hurricane harry hit.