Harm Reduction Last week I died... Oxymorphone's story and how it can happen to anyone.

[Oxymorphone]

Almost exactly one week ago I was dead. I don't normally post with this account anymore because my identity is compromised but I have nothing to hide here and if you are reading this and know me you know who I am. I simply hope this thread makes just one person be more careful and who knows what can end up saving a life.

About three or so months ago I relapsed on opioids. I was tapering myself off bupe when the cravings became overwhelming and I went to my good old middleman for some heroin, and subsequently also got a bottle full of hydromorphone and oxymorphone along with a box of fentanyl patches. I regarded the fentanyl as a free bonus and stashed them away for hard times while I drooled over my score of bargain Dillaudid and Opana. After a few days I ditched my IV heroin use and went on to micron filter batches of pills to create a delicious concoction of opioid madness. I forgot about the fentanyl.

For the next couple months I repeated my huge cheap opioid scores as my connect's pain patient parent had their scripts filled, and diverted eventually to me. I got some more fentanyl and stashed it away while I used a few previous patches transdermally to boost my high and hold me between doses so I could function as my tolerance grew. Then my connect's pain doctor went on vacation and I had a pill drought. Luckily I had a good stock of fentanyl patches to hold me over for a while. That's when the trouble started. First I tried using them to lower my tolerance. I didn't have any vials or proper gear left to do an extraction (like I used to hence my fentanyl extraction guide) so I went from first using several transdermally to using them buccally. It was amazing and I never thought buccal fentanyl was any good because my tolerance was way too high when I had previously tried it. When I did extractions I was very cautious and knew exactly how many mcgs I was injecting and could measure the effects immediately.

This time around it was very variable how fast the patches worked and if I nodded off or passed out from exhaustion (I was working 100+ hour weeks during this time) the patch would still be in my mouth feeding me the whole thing rapidly while I was out. This was the real danger. One evening, two weeks ago today actually, I had stayed up nearly the entire night working and scoring the few pills my source could dig up.

I shot 20mg oxymorphone and 12mg hydromorphone then gave up on them when I didn't get high. I stuck one fentanyl patch in my mouth not expecting much but I passed out. It just so happened a family member was coming to my place to meet me later that night. When I didn't answer my phone or the door for two hours they panicked because they could hear me breathing strangely through the door and from my history connected the dots. With some help they busted down the door and pulled the patch that was now lodged in my throat partially blocking my airway and after some time I woke up. That was the first time I ODed on opioids and I was very lucky. This led to all sorts of family concern and I stayed with family the following week and I later agreed to go to rehab.

At home with my family didn't stop me from sneaking all my drugs there. I knew I was headed to rehab and wanted to exhaust my drug supply before I went. I used all my oxymorphone and hydromorphone plus five fentanyl patches in the subsequent days (one for each day).

Last Wednessday early AM I used the last of my 4-MMC and at around 5:30AM hoping to help comedown and maybe get a little buzz I took my evening Restoril and Lyrica dose along with a large dose of diphenhydramine, and I stuffed what I thought were four empty or nearly used up fentanyl patches in my mouth and passed out maybe twenty minutes later. I woke up in the ER- those fentanyl patches turned out not to be so empty and it took multiple shots of Narcan to revive me. I was blue and not breathing and EMS told me if I wasn't found by my mother who saved my life I would have been dead for good ten minutes later.

I consider myself a very HR focused person and I thought I would never OD but if you aren't always on top of the safest practices and even if you are you still risk ODing. Please everyone be careful and take a look at your habits now and ask yourself how safe they are. I got very lucky twice, don't count on having the same chances I did. Fentanyl, along with many drugs- especially when you add potentiatiors and synergistic drugs into the mix, is playing with fire . Be safe and I hope this helps someone out there.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I was wondering what happened to you when you stopped posting in the Suboxone Mega Thread!

Glad to hear you're still alive. Combining potent opiates (fentanyl, or methadone for example) with GABAergics can really easily cause overdoses, so I am glad that they were able to bring you back.

 

[brutus]

I overdosed from methadone and a cocktail of CNS depressants 3 years ago to this day and died twice, I feel your pain man.

 

[SkagKush]

glad your alive holmes.....

 

[InvisibleEye]

Thanks for posting your story, I wish you the best of recoveries!

 

[Oxymorphone]

I was wondering what happened to you when you stopped posting in the Suboxone Mega Thread!

Glad to hear you're still alive. Combining potent opiates (fentanyl, or methadone for example) with GABAergics can really easily cause overdoses, so I am glad that they were able to bring you back.

Yeah my ex girlfriend found my account when she googled suboxone and sex drive and found my posts about it since I was having some issues then subsequently found out I was using all sorts of RCs. That was a nightmare...

I am glad to be alive and am actually in rehab right now- it's very nice and we are allowed laptops (I spent a week in the psych ward first). Anyway off to AA...

 

[Captain.Heroin]

If you have nothing helpful to add, please do not bother posting.

 

[jamesBrown]

Yeah my ex girlfriend found my account when she googled suboxone and sex drive and found my posts about it since I was having some issues then subsequently found out I was using all sorts of RCs. That was a nightmare...

I am glad to be alive and am actually in rehab right now- it's very nice and we are allowed laptops (I spent a week in the psych ward first). Anyway off to AA...

I effing hate nosy girlfriends. sometimes it can be good for you, but usually its just downright annoying/wrong.

 

[Cane2theLeft]

I'm *really* glad to hear you're ok and getting some help. You've always been a stellar contributor around here so people listen to what you say and thank you for sharing your story. Hopefully people will heed your warning.

As I frequently mention, I'm presently studying addictions counseling and have had a lot of training in this field over the last couple years so if I can assist you in any way, answer questions about recovery options or just be there to support you, feel free to PM or email me any time, man.

 

[Oxymorphone]

I'm *really* glad to hear you're ok and getting some help. You've always been a stellar contributor around here so people listen to what you say and thank you for sharing your story. Hopefully people will heed your warning.

As I frequently mention, I'm presently studying addictions counseling and have had a lot of training in this field over the last couple years so if I can assist you in any way, answer questions about recovery options or just be there to support you, feel free to PM or email me any time, man.

Thank you for the kind words. When it comes time for me to pick where I go from here I may have some more questions for you. Have any general advice about inpatient rehab and recovery?

 

[Cane2theLeft]

I would say try to be as open to the process as you can be, resistance isn't going to benefit you. Its important during this 'break' from your regular life to really examine what lead you to use and what problems this caused for you so you can make appropriate changes once you get out.

For most people, its a lot easier to not use in controlled environment such as rehab so you may overestimate your ability to stay clean once you get out. To address this, prepare as much as you can for this transition and you have to commit to making the necessary lifestyle changes once you get out so that you can maintain what you've accomplished through your recovery up until that point.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is by thinking this is a quick process and once they finish, they are all better. There is a reason addiction is considered a chronic disease so, especially early in your recovery, its so important to work on maintaining the changes you've made because if you do not do this, going back to your old life is nearly inevitable.

Next, if you do slip and use again don't throw away all that you have worked for. Almost no one who gets clean does so without slipping so use the experience to learn and grow from.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I agree with a lot of what Cane said. I wanted to expand on something though. Recovery does take time, generally speaking, a lot of time. However there can be a point where you have recovered, at least for some people. All people in recovery may not get back to the point where they were before drugs, but it's still a feasible goal if you are willing to put in a lot of hard work.

The acute withdrawal process is certainly the first "big step" of recovery, but it is after you have gotten out of acute withdrawal that relapse seems to be harder to avoid in my experience. When you are done having horrible withdrawals, you forget about the aversion of using heroin/full agonist opiates and then having to come down in the first place. Life may start to seem boring without "something", or you may feel horribly indifferent or depressed about your own life/existence.

In my experience, the longer you go without using, the less you will feel this way (if this happens to you). It's also important to remember that you have a lot of decisions within your own life, and to stay clean means you are making a constant decision not to use again to prevent a relapse/another addiction, or psychological/physical dependency.

While it takes effort and will power to make the decision to use in the first place, it takes even greater effort and will power to make the decision to abstain, especially after you have gotten to experience the euphoria of your previous drug of choice/addiction.

 

[HdoubleODeezy]

im glad to hear you're alright too, as i was also wondering what happened to you when you stopped posting.
I was thinking about sending you a PM seeing if you were ok because i remember the last time i talked 2u it was about you getting some RC's.. i don't remember if i actually sent you one tho, it was a while ago lol.

But again, it's good to see you're ok %)

Good luck with everything, hope all turns out well.

 

[Cane2theLeft]

When you are done having horrible withdrawals, you forget about the aversion of using heroin/full agonist opiates and then having to come down in the first place. Life may start to seem boring without "something", or you may feel horribly indifferent or depressed about your own life/existence.

This is where a lot of people get into trouble. Often people who have been clean for a while and are not properly maintaining their recovery start to romanticize/idealize their past use and forget about the havoc it wreaked on their lives.

Often times people at this stage will use, feel amazing and not suffer all of the consequences so they think that since they've done so much work with their recovery that now its safe for them to chip/use sporadically/responsibly.

Some people find this possible, but its less than 1 in 10 who can ever go back to casual use after addiction and almost 10 out 10 people trick themselves into believing that they are one of 1 in 10 who can do this. Beware of how easy it is to rationalize and how it was through this same rationalizing that you allowed yourself to get to these lows.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

This is where a lot of people get into trouble. Often people who have been clean for a while and are not properly maintaining their recovery start to romanticize/idealize their past use and forget about the havoc it wreaked on their lives.

Often times people at this stage will use, feel amazing and not suffer all of the consequences so they think that since they've done so much work with their recovery that now its safe for them to chip/use sporadically/responsibly.

Some people find this possible, but its less than 1 in 10 who can ever go back to casual use after addiction and almost 10 out 10 people trick themselves into believing that they are one of 1 in 10 who can do this. Beware of how easy it is to rationalize and how it was through this same rationalizing that you allowed yourself to get to these lows.

I tend to theorize there is a reason why this happens, and why BMT (buprenorphine maintenance therapy) helped me get away from heroin cravings all together.

When I first used heroin, I did not know about Bluelight. Sadly, I didn't know many other heroin/opiate users. I used it once and waited a week to do it again. At which point I bought a whole gram. No one was pushing me to get that much either, I just happened to want more than before. I guess at this point I still believed I had the ability to not to use it every day. When I got it, I used it for a few days, and decided I would just use it until it was gone and then be done with it. That was probably the worst idea I have ever had, ever... but that's what I tried. I used the whole gram over the course of 7 to 9 days (I forget how long it lasted me); keep in mind I was only snorting lines and I split it up between me and my fiancee. So I personally had only gone through 0.5g over the course of 7 to 9 days.

At the end of that point I was in withdrawal, and it sucked. It wasn't full blown withdrawal but it was enough to realize I shouldn't have been using it for that long. At first it didn't seem that bad, since I have had comparable "hangovers" from alcohol, for instance. However there was a lot more depth to how bad this felt; it was strictly anhedonia. I also felt mentally debilitated, comparable to sleep paralysis.

At this point, I smoked some weed and felt considerably better but still not good at all. Later on, I picked up some cocaine (got an extra 0.4g), and snorted this here and there over the course of another week. It helped a lot, and I am very sensitive to it. After it was gone (having shared it like with the first gram of H I got) I felt no need to get more cocaine, I don't find it addictive at all.

Eventually I started using heroin, again. As time progressed, there was a three week period where I went without it, due to inability to get more. I realized that it was almost a blessing that I wasn't able to get more, and that I was past the acute withdrawal. However life didn't seem right, and I really wanted to use it again, so I eventually got into using it again. I didn't even try to quit again until after a lot of bad things happened, unfortunately, but much later on I got on Suboxone.

I think that Suboxone is a way to "fill in" the point in life where you aren't using heroin, but would otherwise have the same problem with experiencing a mundane life. Eventually you'll have gone long enough without heroin to the point where you don't crave it anymore. Getting to this point for me took at least 9-16 months (after I had stopped using heroin for the last time) but I got there and haven't looked back since.

 

[Eagleman]

Yeah man, I relapsed in the worst way possible at the beginning of this month. I mean, truth be told, I have been chipping for awhile, but the last time I went through withdrawals about a month and a half ago I stopped using completely....well, let's just say that life's pressures got the best of me this time, and I injected a ridiculous dose of black tar after popping several MS Contins...I spent three days in ICU in and out of respiratory failure. I screwed up my probation and I am back in outpatient rehab. I am really under the gun, and now whenever I do ANYTHING out of the ordinary my ex-wife or my mom will make concerned phone calls to my PO.
I brought all this on myself and I'm dealing with it, but MAN IT SUCKS. So I feel your pain bro.

 

[Kenaz]

Glad you were able to cheat death: lots of people in that situation aren't so fortunate. Here's hoping you make the best of the life with which you narrowly escaped.

 

[lasthurrah19]

Good to hear you're okay. I know I rarely post but I feel for you and wanted you to know you are appreciated around here (and I'm sure IRL as well).

Be safe

 

[Oxymorphone]

im glad to hear you're alright too, as i was also wondering what happened to you when you stopped posting.
I was thinking about sending you a PM seeing if you were ok because i remember the last time i talked 2u it was about you getting some RC's.. i don't remember if i actually sent you one tho, it was a while ago lol.

But again, it's good to see you're ok %)

Good luck with everything, hope all turns out well.

Thank you. You did send a PM but when I tried to respond you were banned or had your PM box full. %)

 

[Oxymorphone]

Yeah man, I relapsed in the worst way possible at the beginning of this month. I mean, truth be told, I have been chipping for awhile, but the last time I went through withdrawals about a month and a half ago I stopped using completely....well, let's just say that life's pressures got the best of me this time, and I injected a ridiculous dose of black tar after popping several MS Contins...I spent three days in ICU in and out of respiratory failure. I screwed up my probation and I am back in outpatient rehab. I am really under the gun, and now whenever I do ANYTHING out of the ordinary my ex-wife or my mom will make concerned phone calls to my PO.
I brought all this on myself and I'm dealing with it, but MAN IT SUCKS. So I feel your pain bro.

Yikes I can certainly relate to that. Glad you are ok and it could always be worse. I am really fortunate I am not mandated or have worse legal problems like many people in the rooms.