Bomb319
Bluelighter
Going through many of the posts here related to MMT, I'd say that at LEAST 75% of people have negative experiences with this drug. Yes, if you are a semi-casual user and go on full blown MMT to avoid the sniffles, I can see that being a disastrous mistake. It is still an opiate, is certainly addictive, and you have to be on it for the right reasons and want to quit your habit on your own terms.
For people like me, who have been using 8 years, are literally tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, had addiction destroy every aspect of their lives from money to friendships and family, suffering hellish withdrawal again and again and coming to fear it like hell, knowing the pain of the daily grind - needing new ways to obtain money, spending hours meeting your dealer and only dragging your defeated corpse like body outside because you know you'll score - only to know the same thing will happen the next day...well it's been an indescribable life saver.
I tried to quit many times but always knew in the back of my mind that it would not work. Why? Because even if I made it long enough to get past the physical withdrawal or even PAWS, the desire to use - to feel that euphoria again, was burned into my brain and I would eventually succumb. So after losing my soul and becoming chronically suicidal due to the state my life had become, I finally toughed out the waiting period and interviews and got on MMT.
To say that methadone saved my life is an understatement. I used to look outside at people walking down the street and wonder how they had the energy to be out on foot without opiates. I'd go days without food to spend every cent I could on dope. There were days when I had access to student loans that I would spend 400 dollars A DAY on just FIVE OC 80 pills, sometimes there being only 2 or three real ones in the batch. You might think I'd be apoplectic at that type of loss and screw job but no..as long as I had enough drug to both cure my sickness while making me high along with enough left over so I knew I could do it just once more, I was happy.
6 months later and I'm working full time, re-established a full and loving relationship with both my mother and father (who nearly split up several times due to ramifications of my addiction) am able to enjoy activities I used to love doing, something I thought was COMPLETELY impossible to ever do again when I was addicted, and so forth. You've heard all the miraculous successes that follow a successful methadone maintenance treatment.
I learned a very important lesson though. Maybe some of you will think it's obvious and it may be, but there it is. I came to terms with the fact that addiction is most definitely a disease, but it's not the drug itself that destroys you - it's the lack of it. Opiates won't usually hurt your body in any way, and all the pain of an addict comes directly from having to bear the black market to obtain it and the physical and psychological hell of running out. Yes, this may be fairly obvious but bearing that in mind, I see methadone as a replacement for the endorphons my body used to produce. I see myself as having suffered from an endorphin deficiency which caused my addiction in the first place. I also had other symptoms that would suggest such a pathology including depression, migraines and chronic stomach problems and diarrhea.
With that in mind, I don't see methadone as a crutch used to help me eventually quit. It's the chemical replacement my body desperately needs to function - both because I initially lacked it, and also because I helped destroy my ability to produce what little I had. I take my methadone daily as one would take their insulin for diabetes or hydrochlorothiazide for hypertension. I've resigned myself to most likely being in it for life. And if I am, so what? After take homes are procured, there is really no serious inconvenience - particularly in comparison to the hell of using heroin or pills daily. I take my dose daily, have lost my cravings, have a personality again, cherish ambitions, am losing the few side effects that had come along with treatment, and overall have changed my thought processes so far from where they once were that I truly never thought such a metamorphosis was possible, even with the most intense psychological and pharmacological therapy.
So while I can see how those with mild addictions and urged to go on MMT when it was unnecessary would be unenchanted due to the fact that it does merely shift your addiction to a manageable pharmaceutical, those of us whose lives were totally dominated by this beast, and are incredibly lucky not to have lost them, have a saving grace that I am truly thankful for, every single day. If you use your methadone as a replacement and don't fixate on immediate reduction, the simple fact that you are able to escape that lifestyle even just long enough to appreciate your improvement, is the greatest gift I've ever been given.
For people like me, who have been using 8 years, are literally tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, had addiction destroy every aspect of their lives from money to friendships and family, suffering hellish withdrawal again and again and coming to fear it like hell, knowing the pain of the daily grind - needing new ways to obtain money, spending hours meeting your dealer and only dragging your defeated corpse like body outside because you know you'll score - only to know the same thing will happen the next day...well it's been an indescribable life saver.
I tried to quit many times but always knew in the back of my mind that it would not work. Why? Because even if I made it long enough to get past the physical withdrawal or even PAWS, the desire to use - to feel that euphoria again, was burned into my brain and I would eventually succumb. So after losing my soul and becoming chronically suicidal due to the state my life had become, I finally toughed out the waiting period and interviews and got on MMT.
To say that methadone saved my life is an understatement. I used to look outside at people walking down the street and wonder how they had the energy to be out on foot without opiates. I'd go days without food to spend every cent I could on dope. There were days when I had access to student loans that I would spend 400 dollars A DAY on just FIVE OC 80 pills, sometimes there being only 2 or three real ones in the batch. You might think I'd be apoplectic at that type of loss and screw job but no..as long as I had enough drug to both cure my sickness while making me high along with enough left over so I knew I could do it just once more, I was happy.
6 months later and I'm working full time, re-established a full and loving relationship with both my mother and father (who nearly split up several times due to ramifications of my addiction) am able to enjoy activities I used to love doing, something I thought was COMPLETELY impossible to ever do again when I was addicted, and so forth. You've heard all the miraculous successes that follow a successful methadone maintenance treatment.
I learned a very important lesson though. Maybe some of you will think it's obvious and it may be, but there it is. I came to terms with the fact that addiction is most definitely a disease, but it's not the drug itself that destroys you - it's the lack of it. Opiates won't usually hurt your body in any way, and all the pain of an addict comes directly from having to bear the black market to obtain it and the physical and psychological hell of running out. Yes, this may be fairly obvious but bearing that in mind, I see methadone as a replacement for the endorphons my body used to produce. I see myself as having suffered from an endorphin deficiency which caused my addiction in the first place. I also had other symptoms that would suggest such a pathology including depression, migraines and chronic stomach problems and diarrhea.
With that in mind, I don't see methadone as a crutch used to help me eventually quit. It's the chemical replacement my body desperately needs to function - both because I initially lacked it, and also because I helped destroy my ability to produce what little I had. I take my methadone daily as one would take their insulin for diabetes or hydrochlorothiazide for hypertension. I've resigned myself to most likely being in it for life. And if I am, so what? After take homes are procured, there is really no serious inconvenience - particularly in comparison to the hell of using heroin or pills daily. I take my dose daily, have lost my cravings, have a personality again, cherish ambitions, am losing the few side effects that had come along with treatment, and overall have changed my thought processes so far from where they once were that I truly never thought such a metamorphosis was possible, even with the most intense psychological and pharmacological therapy.
So while I can see how those with mild addictions and urged to go on MMT when it was unnecessary would be unenchanted due to the fact that it does merely shift your addiction to a manageable pharmaceutical, those of us whose lives were totally dominated by this beast, and are incredibly lucky not to have lost them, have a saving grace that I am truly thankful for, every single day. If you use your methadone as a replacement and don't fixate on immediate reduction, the simple fact that you are able to escape that lifestyle even just long enough to appreciate your improvement, is the greatest gift I've ever been given.
