Where Wolf?
Bluelighter
OP, that's a bold, brave taper, but like other posters have said, it was always going to catch up with you: 'done has a long half-life, so the extreme discomfort you're experiencing now probably reflects the elimination of the methadone backlog in your system. Forgive the long post, but this is serious territory...
Be careful with the Xanax: it's the crack of benzos, short-acting and a very fast track to physical dependency, which can be harder to kick than opiates. I've tapered myself off of pharm painkiller and dope habits (never went for 'done, for fear of ending up a lifer, though I very occasionally get a 5mg physeptone tab to kill cravings), but am struggling with a medically supervised benzo taper. If you use for more than a few weeks, then it can be dangerous to just stop - some people won't experience any withdrawal, some will throw seizures, most fall somewhere inbetween. 2mgs of Xanax = 40mgs of Valium, and if used for consecutive days over more than a week or so, it's not a great idea to CT. I'd strongly advise getting hold of some valium if possible - it'll both hold you for longer while dealing with the 'done withdrawal than xanax, and is the benzo of choice to taper from, owing to its long half-life. If you need say 40mgs of diazepam a day for a month, you should then be able to taper pretty quickly - 5mgs or so a week, then be really careful when you get close to zero, it's safest not to kick till you're on less than 1mg.
I know, it's frustratingly slow: but I've tried to rush coming off a long-term benzo habit, and ended up needing a shot of midazolam in the ass while two nurses held me steady, 'cos I was shaking like a jelly in an earthquake and on the verge of a seizure (doc said to drop 2mgs: I dropped ten, and it caught up with me over a week later, still repairing damage done to friendships in a borderline psychotic episode). The other things you might want to consider are loperamide and kratom - I've used them at the tail end of opiate tapers, and both are surprisingly effective at minimising physical discomfort, though it takes some trial and error to find the right dose. Generic loperamide's dirt cheap and easier to come by than kratom (which tastes like dirt, a cap'em'quick machine and empty gel caps are the only way I've ever been able to keep the stuff down): but coming off a year-long on/off oxy, morphine, dhc, hydro, fent, et cetera habit (every pharm I could get: there was a dope drought), I found diphenhydramine 90mins before a dose of 10 grams of plain crushed Bali kratom leaf kept me straight for a full day, even in high-pressure work situations. It's then easy to drop a gram a day, and withdrawal symptoms are minimal. If you go that route (doesn't work for everyone), don't bother with the extracts, they're either shit or spiked with RC opiods like O-DM-Tram. Plain Bali is the most reliable kratom out there - google around, I think it's legal in most states other than Massachusetts, but there may be a few other exceptions.
I can't over-emphasise: careful with the benzos. It was Xanax I got hooked on, and more than two years on, I'm still on 44mgs of Valium a day, officially, and have repeatedly slipped and supplemented that dose, even though there are no real recreational effects. Still, I'm a lot more stable now than when on fistfuls of the more enjoyable benzos - and Xanax is close to the top of that list. Valium's not hard to come by, prescription or otherwise, and 10-20mgs once or twice a day at most will almost certainly be a lot more effective in holding the horrors at bay than xanax.
I don't know (except, I guess, for the proft margins of pharm companies), why methadone remains the drug of choice for opiate maintenance. I've kicked opiate habits by finding a stable dose of morphine (generally around 120 - 150mgs, just enough to feel almost normal: it would have taken 2 or three times that much for a nod), gently tapering 30mgs a week till on around 30, then switched to time-release DHC, stabilised, switched to alternating kratom and codeine till I'm down to about 5gs of Bali or 4 doses of 10mgs codeine a day, halved that over a week and kicked. No physical trauma, a week or so of depression and the sniffles, and then I've been fine, other than PAWS and a strong tendency to relapse whenever I find a new connect. I just did it again - found myself on two bags of dope a day, and then had a week on methadone, which was all it took to renew a mild physical dependency. Now I'm tapering on DHC, and planning to be clean in a week or so - but it was a very brief habit. I wish I could get hold of just one or two 8mg sub tablets: I know from experience that crushed and used judiciously, they'd bring me down and clean almost painlessly.
You're doing incredibly well, but watch the benzos, they can be tricky, and are a very hard category of drug to leave behind, even though they're not much fun at all. It's ironic - the best highs I ever had were from non-addictive psychedelics, mixes of X and shrooms and so forth - but the lamest of 'recreational' drugs, benzos, have proved the hardest to say goodbye to, even though I don't enjoy them and have generous, tolerant medical support.
Final thing: if all else fails, you could always resort to a very low dose of 'done, say 5-10mgs, and taper from there. Your tolerance may have dropped far enough that you'd get a lot from very little, and could drop a mg or so every few days to a week without much pain. I know, you want to leave it behind completely, but you've dropped a big dose in a short space of time, and a 'controlled relapse' would be better than developing a physical addiction to benzos. But if you go that way, don't mix methadone and benzos: very easy way to stop breathing. After running out of dope, and with a very high benzo tolerance, 10mgs of methadone and 20mgs diazepam knocked me out for sixteen hours. 5 days later it took 40mgs of methadone and my usual valium dose to get a normal night's sleep, and I realised I was in serious trouble. Hoping I can nip it in the bud without medical help, otherwise I'm going to have to find a sub doctor, which means paying serious money.
Good luck, be strong, and get yourself some diazepam - if you must use benzos, it's a hell of a lot more pratical than alprazolam.
Be careful with the Xanax: it's the crack of benzos, short-acting and a very fast track to physical dependency, which can be harder to kick than opiates. I've tapered myself off of pharm painkiller and dope habits (never went for 'done, for fear of ending up a lifer, though I very occasionally get a 5mg physeptone tab to kill cravings), but am struggling with a medically supervised benzo taper. If you use for more than a few weeks, then it can be dangerous to just stop - some people won't experience any withdrawal, some will throw seizures, most fall somewhere inbetween. 2mgs of Xanax = 40mgs of Valium, and if used for consecutive days over more than a week or so, it's not a great idea to CT. I'd strongly advise getting hold of some valium if possible - it'll both hold you for longer while dealing with the 'done withdrawal than xanax, and is the benzo of choice to taper from, owing to its long half-life. If you need say 40mgs of diazepam a day for a month, you should then be able to taper pretty quickly - 5mgs or so a week, then be really careful when you get close to zero, it's safest not to kick till you're on less than 1mg.
I know, it's frustratingly slow: but I've tried to rush coming off a long-term benzo habit, and ended up needing a shot of midazolam in the ass while two nurses held me steady, 'cos I was shaking like a jelly in an earthquake and on the verge of a seizure (doc said to drop 2mgs: I dropped ten, and it caught up with me over a week later, still repairing damage done to friendships in a borderline psychotic episode). The other things you might want to consider are loperamide and kratom - I've used them at the tail end of opiate tapers, and both are surprisingly effective at minimising physical discomfort, though it takes some trial and error to find the right dose. Generic loperamide's dirt cheap and easier to come by than kratom (which tastes like dirt, a cap'em'quick machine and empty gel caps are the only way I've ever been able to keep the stuff down): but coming off a year-long on/off oxy, morphine, dhc, hydro, fent, et cetera habit (every pharm I could get: there was a dope drought), I found diphenhydramine 90mins before a dose of 10 grams of plain crushed Bali kratom leaf kept me straight for a full day, even in high-pressure work situations. It's then easy to drop a gram a day, and withdrawal symptoms are minimal. If you go that route (doesn't work for everyone), don't bother with the extracts, they're either shit or spiked with RC opiods like O-DM-Tram. Plain Bali is the most reliable kratom out there - google around, I think it's legal in most states other than Massachusetts, but there may be a few other exceptions.
I can't over-emphasise: careful with the benzos. It was Xanax I got hooked on, and more than two years on, I'm still on 44mgs of Valium a day, officially, and have repeatedly slipped and supplemented that dose, even though there are no real recreational effects. Still, I'm a lot more stable now than when on fistfuls of the more enjoyable benzos - and Xanax is close to the top of that list. Valium's not hard to come by, prescription or otherwise, and 10-20mgs once or twice a day at most will almost certainly be a lot more effective in holding the horrors at bay than xanax.
I don't know (except, I guess, for the proft margins of pharm companies), why methadone remains the drug of choice for opiate maintenance. I've kicked opiate habits by finding a stable dose of morphine (generally around 120 - 150mgs, just enough to feel almost normal: it would have taken 2 or three times that much for a nod), gently tapering 30mgs a week till on around 30, then switched to time-release DHC, stabilised, switched to alternating kratom and codeine till I'm down to about 5gs of Bali or 4 doses of 10mgs codeine a day, halved that over a week and kicked. No physical trauma, a week or so of depression and the sniffles, and then I've been fine, other than PAWS and a strong tendency to relapse whenever I find a new connect. I just did it again - found myself on two bags of dope a day, and then had a week on methadone, which was all it took to renew a mild physical dependency. Now I'm tapering on DHC, and planning to be clean in a week or so - but it was a very brief habit. I wish I could get hold of just one or two 8mg sub tablets: I know from experience that crushed and used judiciously, they'd bring me down and clean almost painlessly.
You're doing incredibly well, but watch the benzos, they can be tricky, and are a very hard category of drug to leave behind, even though they're not much fun at all. It's ironic - the best highs I ever had were from non-addictive psychedelics, mixes of X and shrooms and so forth - but the lamest of 'recreational' drugs, benzos, have proved the hardest to say goodbye to, even though I don't enjoy them and have generous, tolerant medical support.
Final thing: if all else fails, you could always resort to a very low dose of 'done, say 5-10mgs, and taper from there. Your tolerance may have dropped far enough that you'd get a lot from very little, and could drop a mg or so every few days to a week without much pain. I know, you want to leave it behind completely, but you've dropped a big dose in a short space of time, and a 'controlled relapse' would be better than developing a physical addiction to benzos. But if you go that way, don't mix methadone and benzos: very easy way to stop breathing. After running out of dope, and with a very high benzo tolerance, 10mgs of methadone and 20mgs diazepam knocked me out for sixteen hours. 5 days later it took 40mgs of methadone and my usual valium dose to get a normal night's sleep, and I realised I was in serious trouble. Hoping I can nip it in the bud without medical help, otherwise I'm going to have to find a sub doctor, which means paying serious money.
Good luck, be strong, and get yourself some diazepam - if you must use benzos, it's a hell of a lot more pratical than alprazolam.
