So I thought I'd start off with a little overview of where I stand with my addiction and what the plan is for getting clean. I don't intend to go into details about specific drugs and dosages as we go here - my habit has consisted of various prescription or over the counter opiates, never anything illegal like heroin etc. I've never injected anything, it's been down the hatch, or up the other hatch lol.
To kick things off, today I decided to take a fairly big step down. I've reduced my dosage about 15% from what my average over the past year or so has been. I've tried a lot of times to follow a strict tapering plan, but it's never worked. I think the key is finding the happy medium between going so slow you take way too long to get things done and too fast where you suffer and get discouraged. So I'm going to make it two weeks to zero. So that amounts to about 7% reduction per day.
I'll be dosing twice per day, in the morning before I go to work, and then when I get home from work. Two equal doses. I've been doing three doses daily for quite a while, but I'm going to drop that because it ends up being pretty late in the day and I've always found that it interferes with the quality of sleep I can get when I take something within a couple of hours of going to bed.
I have some Kratom which I purchased a while back. I've actually had a cup of tea I made about twenty minutes ago and I find it provides a pretty mellow relaxed feeling, I feel quite good actually. But I've never found any kind of major euphoria like taking opiates, which some people have reported. So I think what I'll do is stick to my twice a day dose of opiates, tapering down, and then have a cup of kratom tea later in the evening before I go to bed. I don't use that much of it, basically a tablespoon of powdered leaf, not the extracts or anything.
I have Diphenhydramine 25mg tablets which I might use to help me sleep if that becomes a problem. I picked up some Aleve, which is naproxen sodium, I've never taken it before but I've read people reccomending it as being more effective than other OTC painkillers. I've read people reccomend loperamide, maybe I'll get some if I feel I need it. But it is an opiate I think and could set me back in the process of having my brain reset all those receptors back to a point where they can function naturally. And honestly after years of constipation having things moving along more regularly would be welcome, but I know if it gets severe it can lead to dehydration and needs to be addressed. I'm going to be adjusting my diet and taking some supplements, but I'll discuss that in the next post, which will be about the changes to my life I plan to make, this one here is just about my plan with regards to getting clean of drugs. If anyone has any other suggestions of importance I've missed, I'd greatly appreciate any advice.
I think this will be the right balance, this rate of tapering. The longest I ever went without during the last five years was three days, cold turkey. I could have gone through it, it was very unpleasent but certainly not unbearable. But honestly at that point I hadn't seen enough of the negatives of my habit so I wasn't motivated enough to get off. Now I have seen them, I'm wasting my life right now. I've become really pathetic in a lot of ways, it's sad, but my emotions feel numb, opiates do that to you. I remember when I quit for three days, at one point I was feeling awful but I had this sensation of emotion I'd been missing so long, I look forward to getting that back again.
So that's the plan. I'll post updates of my progress, how I'm feeling, what I've taken to deal with symptoms etc. I think I'd like to keep that up on a daily basis over the next couple weeks as I approach zero.
It's been a lonely habit. Me and me alone, nobody else knows what I've been doing. Maybe some have been suspicious, coming into work each day with pinhole pupils... That's telltale to those of us who know, but I think the average person doesn't recognize any of that. It would be nice to have some support from people I know, but I don't think I'd gain anything from sharing the truth, in fact I'd surely suffer being marked with that label, the average person is very close minded and unsympathetic to drug users. Writing this down feels good though, even if nobody reads any of this I think it will give me some motivation and allow me an outlet for my thoughts and feelings which I can't share with anyone personally. But if anyone is interested to follow a long a bit and share their thoughts it would be even better!
Thanks for reading,
I'm going to do it this time, I'm determined.
To kick things off, today I decided to take a fairly big step down. I've reduced my dosage about 15% from what my average over the past year or so has been. I've tried a lot of times to follow a strict tapering plan, but it's never worked. I think the key is finding the happy medium between going so slow you take way too long to get things done and too fast where you suffer and get discouraged. So I'm going to make it two weeks to zero. So that amounts to about 7% reduction per day.
I'll be dosing twice per day, in the morning before I go to work, and then when I get home from work. Two equal doses. I've been doing three doses daily for quite a while, but I'm going to drop that because it ends up being pretty late in the day and I've always found that it interferes with the quality of sleep I can get when I take something within a couple of hours of going to bed.
I have some Kratom which I purchased a while back. I've actually had a cup of tea I made about twenty minutes ago and I find it provides a pretty mellow relaxed feeling, I feel quite good actually. But I've never found any kind of major euphoria like taking opiates, which some people have reported. So I think what I'll do is stick to my twice a day dose of opiates, tapering down, and then have a cup of kratom tea later in the evening before I go to bed. I don't use that much of it, basically a tablespoon of powdered leaf, not the extracts or anything.
I have Diphenhydramine 25mg tablets which I might use to help me sleep if that becomes a problem. I picked up some Aleve, which is naproxen sodium, I've never taken it before but I've read people reccomending it as being more effective than other OTC painkillers. I've read people reccomend loperamide, maybe I'll get some if I feel I need it. But it is an opiate I think and could set me back in the process of having my brain reset all those receptors back to a point where they can function naturally. And honestly after years of constipation having things moving along more regularly would be welcome, but I know if it gets severe it can lead to dehydration and needs to be addressed. I'm going to be adjusting my diet and taking some supplements, but I'll discuss that in the next post, which will be about the changes to my life I plan to make, this one here is just about my plan with regards to getting clean of drugs. If anyone has any other suggestions of importance I've missed, I'd greatly appreciate any advice.
I think this will be the right balance, this rate of tapering. The longest I ever went without during the last five years was three days, cold turkey. I could have gone through it, it was very unpleasent but certainly not unbearable. But honestly at that point I hadn't seen enough of the negatives of my habit so I wasn't motivated enough to get off. Now I have seen them, I'm wasting my life right now. I've become really pathetic in a lot of ways, it's sad, but my emotions feel numb, opiates do that to you. I remember when I quit for three days, at one point I was feeling awful but I had this sensation of emotion I'd been missing so long, I look forward to getting that back again.
So that's the plan. I'll post updates of my progress, how I'm feeling, what I've taken to deal with symptoms etc. I think I'd like to keep that up on a daily basis over the next couple weeks as I approach zero.
It's been a lonely habit. Me and me alone, nobody else knows what I've been doing. Maybe some have been suspicious, coming into work each day with pinhole pupils... That's telltale to those of us who know, but I think the average person doesn't recognize any of that. It would be nice to have some support from people I know, but I don't think I'd gain anything from sharing the truth, in fact I'd surely suffer being marked with that label, the average person is very close minded and unsympathetic to drug users. Writing this down feels good though, even if nobody reads any of this I think it will give me some motivation and allow me an outlet for my thoughts and feelings which I can't share with anyone personally. But if anyone is interested to follow a long a bit and share their thoughts it would be even better!
Thanks for reading,
I'm going to do it this time, I'm determined.
