How I deal with opiate (heroin) withdrawals

[Sodacrates]

I think I need to preface this with an "everybody's different" cliche, so I have no idea whether this would work for others. Another thing is that I will take a bottle of loperamide and I don't want to recommend that anyone follow me in the name of harm reduction, but it has cured symptoms for me. Oh and this might belong in Basic Drug Discussion, but I know I read hundreds of pages of the Dark Side while I was withdrawing and that's why I wanted to post this here. I, sort of, feel I'm giving back as much as I can to the website that helped the most.

So I joined the army and got addicted to heroin in Afghanistan, and when I came back (the first time), I went through seven days of sleepless, horrible withdrawals. I told myself I would never do that again and so far I haven't. I'm not saying I haven't gotten addicted to heroin, but I have found a cure, for me, for withdrawals. So after taking heroin for about a month, if my withdrawals aren't going to be bad, loperamide and klonipin (or whatever benzodiazepine you can get your hands on) are enough. But most of the time withdrawals are way too bad for otc meds and anxiety medication.

The second time (getting home from my second tour in Afghanistan) I got back, I realized I needed Methadone. By then I knew where to find heroin (everywhere) in the states, but the desire to do it correlates heavily with stress and anxiety and I was feeling pretty good getting home. I didn't go to a clinic because I didn't want to be on methadone for any length of time, but rather I found it illicitly. I actually recommend going to a clinic. Methadone is probably the most dangerous opioid due to the experiential and analgesic effects ending long before even it's half-life and I think medical professionals should probably supervise it's use (a little off topic, but I find methadone to be a pain killer that none rival; I've taken every major, American, prescription opioid from codeine to opana and fentanyl, but I can usually feel pain, but with methadone, I have yet to feel any pain). I find methadone to be highly pleasurable. I didn't stay on it long. Just long enough to switch my addiction. I probably took between 40-120mgs daily for two and a half-weeks. After that I took a much weaker third opioid to prevent me from withdrawing from methadone. Tramadol. I would bet this works for me because the three aforementioned opioids are on opposite ends of the scale and I've always noticed that Tramadol gets me high even with opioid tolerance. While there is cross tolerance between all off these opioids, I seem to have found the right combination, for myself, that after a week to a week and a half of tramadol (I tried taking as little as I could, between 100-300mgs) I can stop Tramadol and I won't have any withdrawals to speak of. Sure I still crave heroin (and oddly methadone), but I was easily able to stop myself. I was going to switch from Tramadol to loperamide (I had this idea planned out in my head, but I didn't really think it would work), but one day 14 hours after my last Tramadol does, I realized I had no withdrawal symptoms.

I'm not claiming some miracle cure for Opioid withdrawal. I have read up on using Tramadol for Methadone withdrawal and some say it works and others don't, but generally the ones who don't tend to be heavily methadone users and the whole point of how I dealt with this, is I was never a heavy methadone user (I would've switched back to heroin had I actually started going through methadone withdrawals; I was hoping to go through Tramadol withdrawals which I imagined would be light and non-existent with loperamide, but there were none). I have read about clinics doing, sort of, similar things to this, so I know I'm not alone in quickly switching to different opioids and ending being clean, but I would bet that some people would still have gone through withdrawal.

In Basic training (well, quarters, I was sick with MRSA) a friend of mine, took 7.5 mg vicodin as prescribed after he got his wisdom teeth removed, then he took 7.5 mg percocet and then 10 mg percocet over the course of a week as a doctor prescribed and sure enough he had two days of withdrawal. I took a good amount of heroin over two and a half weeks and quit with no symptoms except I craved it. I know that guy got deployed, but I sure hope he never got hooked on heroin, because if he's that sensitive to it, the withdrawals might kill him. And the whole point of that anecdote is I don't believe what worked for me would work for him.

So, thank you bluelight for existing when I needed you too. And hopefully, I'll manage to be a regular member from now on.

 

[cj]

I gotta ask. How does the heroin in Afghanistan compare to the stuff in the states as far as quality and quantity?

 

[RedLeader]

I'd almost be more curious about how you got addicted to heroin over there. Were a lot of soldiers using it? Did you steal it, buy it from locals, etc? Did senior officers know that it went on? Were you doing it to escape the trauma of what you had to do over there?

Anyway, great post. I've never used Loperamide to help with WDs, but it seems like it does work rather well for an amount of people around here. Just be careful with it, as it is actually possible to OD on it (there was a notable BL death that involved it...not sure if it was part of a cocktail or not), and you can definitely get physically addicted to it.

I don't believe you mentioned Suboxone. I find that a rapid Sub taper is the best way to get off of a heroin addiction. Once you figure out how to time and dose it optimally for your own body, it makes that week almost painless. Granted, this can almost be enabling, as it takes away the fear of withdrawal that keeps a lot of addicts at a distance.

Suboxone never did shit for my psychological cravings, but at the end of the day, getting off any opiate requires will-power and a desire to improve your life that cannot be found in any prescription bottle. People take methadone to get off of heroin, Suboxone to get off of methadone, I've even heard of heroin to get off of (long-term) Suboxone. There's a blurry area between always switching opiates to detox off of one with another, and being an opiate-addict who just likes to cycle the DOC for the novelty factor.

There are a few military BLers around here who might be able to tailor advice a little better to your situation, and to whatever underlying issues hide behind your addiction.

 

[Sodacrates]

Ok, uh. Heroin in Afghanistan was virtually free. It was incredibly inexpensive. I saw an article that said a kilo goes for like 900$s. I don't think it was that cheap (as obviously a gram would be 90 cents), but for a few dollars you could get a gram depending on where you were. I have tried tar here, and I can't stand it. I mean it's heroin, but it does look or feel pure like the stuff in Afghanistan did.

To say it was widespread is an understatement of inconceivable proportions. I don't know about every company deployed in the field in Afghanistan, but mine, it was all of us. I've seen every type of officer short of a general shoot heroin. People probably wonder about the drug test (which officers often helped enlisted get around), but I was never drug tested while I was deployed and in my 4 years I was only drug tested once despite being a minimum of one drug test a year. I know Marines have it worse and I hear it's less of a problem with them, but I wouldn't know from personal experience.

You are probably right about Suboxone, but I've never tried it. I guess I said I tried every major american prescription pain meds, but I actually haven't tried buprenorphine. Methadone to tramadol, works extremely well for me though.

I've read bluelight for years and I remember reading about the loperamide death. Of course, he took three times the dose that I ever have (and with a third of his dose, I managed to stop full on heroin withdrawals and not feel anything but a bit of lingering anxiety) and was drinking which is just not something I do with other drugs. And I would never tell any opiate naive person to take as much as me as it did get me high a few times unexpectedly (with regular heroin use tolerance). I would never even recommend that someone who was withdrawing take that much because I have no idea if their physiology can take that.

 

[badfish45]

I agree with RL most addicts that I know praise suboxone due to the fact you still feel functional and you can work on killing psychological cravings better on your own not to mention the fact it's not quite as addictive or risky as methadone. Great post though I'm sure this will help many bluelighters.

 

[Sodacrates]

I don't mean to bump my own post, but I realized I didn't answer all of RedLeader's questions.

First off, we bought it I think. When we were on bases, which was most of the time, someone just had it. I had one chance encounter with a local once and bought it, but most of the time I got it from other soldiers. As I was a medic, I did a lot of the slamming. I heard a lot of times about soldiers stealing drugs stateside though. One of the bases I was at, the bloods declared war against soldiers for killing a few of their dealers and stealing their stuff. I was not involved and only heard by rumor. Say what you want about American Soldiers, but we know how to shoot people. Before I joined the army I thought that the M16 was stupid, but then you hold one, aim at something 300 yards away and miraculously hit. You think it's a fluke, so you shoot at another 300 yard target and again hit. After a while, that thing begins your greatest companion.

Why did we use? This question is difficult to explain. My heavily usage started because of things I did (I believe I was justified each time, but that doesn't put a dent in guilt), but usage started before I was ever in a fire fight. Before I ever saw someone get shot. There's a movie, Jarhead. It's a bit odd, and I didn't get it when I watched it first. I thought it had good acting and directing, but it didn't resonate with me the way full metal jacket or Apocalypse now did. War is hell even without fighting. The uncertainty of everything becomes very overwhelming when you first arrive.

In all units, I'm sure this is the same, moral starts high with you doing training exercises and a ton of pt everyday, but after months, it seemed to wear on the officers just as much. I mean my captain was a great guy (I never saw him use anything but alcohol). He was enlisted before he was an officer, and he was tough and fun, but after a few months he grew deary. And we were there longer than a few months. But in the beginning, even with moral up, the chaos is scary. I had no idea what to expect. Eventually you just need to relax, and I had taken oxycontin before, so when somebody had heroin, I barely think I had a choice. Just like in Jarhead, War is hell without you having to fire a bullet, but it gets worse when there are bullets, which there were. I didn't get addicted until I did things that despite believing they were right, I feel guilty. I've never gotten tested for PTSD, but I have nightmares. I've seen people with it so bad that I couldn't in good conscious say I suffer from anything like them. I know a guy who refuses to drive on large open roads. His wife told me that once traffic pushed them into a freeway and he froze and almost killed them both. I don't have panic attacks or anything of the sort, but I know that my addiction stems from stress from the army. 68Ws are rarely supposed to fire their m4s (I had an m4, some others had m16s, even the PA in our unit carried an m16), but I unfortunately got ample opportunity. I really wanted to stay more than 4 years and become a PA and then get into med school, but I saw what a couple more years does to some people and I felt I was heading there.

I've seen a PA shoot up a colonel. I've seen captains shoot up. I've shot up lieutenants. Yeah officers, enlisted, heroin was like alcohol where I was. I don't know if it's the same everywhere, and I didn't really here about overdoses, which surprised me (but then again no one had alcohol and very few had prescriptions for benzodiazepines and they almost never could get them filled). So I think answers all of your questions somewhere between my two posts and again I'm sorry for bumping my own thread.