Jimmy can do it, with your help

[Jimmy3]

Hey all, longtime/firsttime and im glad to join your community. My name is Jimmy and Im a 25 year old kid hanging on to a heroin addiction that just needs to go. Ive been doing drugs for over 10 years and while i do believe many substances are beautiful and benificial, the past 5 years of opiate addiction has been hell, ala the dark side...

2 years ago I was arrested for a drug case, and then spent 18 months in prison for pretty much being a stupid heroin addict. I was released in September this year, and sadly went right back to shooting heroin. As much as I knew i needed to be turning my life around and recognizing the opportunity I had, in my head I still had a desire and reservation to use. Im my own worst enemy!

I recently aquired a couple 8mg suboxone strip and started taking a couple mgs throughout the day to take a break from shooting dope. The next day I saw my doctor and while telling her about whats been going on she told me her partner happens to be a suboxone doctor and introduced me to him. I told him my situation and he gave me a script of 14 strips for my first 2 weeks and wants me to go on a 12-18 month maint program. I see him in 10 days.

Unfortunately my addict ass decided to stop taking subs for a few days and get high on dope one last time day.... which turned into a couple days.. and so here I am.

I woke up this morning telling myself I was going to take 1mg of sub at 11am (roughly 20 hours after my last shot). at 10 am some money fell into my lap and my dealer just happened to pick up the phone when I called (Crazy huh). So here it is, 3pm its been an hour since my last shot of dope (did roughly .2 - .3 of some average quality dope throughout the day), and I know this has to stop.

Tomorrow morning I am taking 1mg of suboxone film (sublingual) probably around 11am or noon. I will see how this affects me and have 2 or 3mg on standby if I need more for the first day. I will take another mg or 2 later in the day as the night is setting in so my night will be alright. The next day I will probably take similiar dosages (paying more attention to my symptoms and not just taking sub without having the actual w/d symptoms). The third day I was thinking I might lower the dosages slightly for two days, then so on.

To prevent the same thing from happening as this morning, Im going to a friends house an hours drive away and sleeping over tonight. Hes a good friend, he's aware of my situation so he's rooting for me and not just gonna let me do something stupid without objection. We'll make music (both musicians) and maybe smoke a bowl and have an easy night. Hopefully I get some sleep but honestly Ive been doing this stupid back and forth with dope that I deserve whatever discomfort I have comming.


Any insight, help, tips or advice you guys have would be greatly appreciated. This is a long post but I could say so much more but Im gonna leave it open to comments. Im sure you guys get a lot of posts like these but I really do believe I can do this, I really do wanna leave the dope behind. I guess the one glowing question that I should really put to you guys is do any of you think I should actually do the long term maint program? Thats a whole nother discussion right there so let me know what you guys think. Thank you so much guys


peace,
jimmy

 

[Sepher]

Don't do months of maintenance if you can possibly avoid it. Fucking doctors, they love long-term maintenance when they're getting paid for prescribing the damn pills! Have to question their motives at times suggesting it when what you're asking for is a bloody detox from them. 8) Fast taper over a couple of weeks tops then off if you must use them at all, maintenance no. Just delaying the inevitable, may as well have done with it now. What's to be gained from another 18 months of a habit then detox anyways? Nothing, that's what! Longer you're an addict the longer you have to deal with the continuing temptation to use without ever having chance to get past that.

Loperamide is often recommended for fast detox here, cuts a lot of the worst symptoms. I've done fast tapers with carefully dosed codeine phosphate a good few times, easiest rips I ever did by a long way without stringing the withdrawal period out beyond the usual five days or so for the worst symptoms. Benzos or similar for no longer than a week or two to help re-establish a sleeping pattern once out of withdrawal, may even sleep through some of the worst of it too though rarely did in my case. Hot baths with a few drops of lavender oil are a source of instant relief and a proven sleep aid too. Start putting in place some kind of support structure now, NA or similar maybe to help you sustain the motivation and learn how to deal with the cravings that will taunt you for some time yet while you learn what your triggers are and how to handle them most effectively.

Best of luck with it! You can beat it, no question.