Opioids Methadone help

[Ace3580]

Hello all
I have been using BL for years and received a lot of information. This will be my first post though.
Please dont respond to this by saying have him pick a different treatment or methadone is bad or anything like that as the final decision has been made to start methadone.

Now to get to the point. A close friend has been struggling with a fentanyl/heroin addiction for the last 2 years. After some legal trouble, issues with his job and family and finances and espucally his own views on who he bacame he has decided to get treatment.

The treatment him and his dr decoded on is methadone due to the fact that he cannot afford Suboxone/Subutex and where he lived overdoses have became an epidemic in his city and the city is becoming an example as to why not to get on that shit for the whole country. So this city is now giving methadone for free to helpnwith these problems. He has been going to NA meetings and counseling and all that and finally in 2 days he will start methadone.

He is very nervous to start due to the fact that he believes he will still have to go through the withdraw and from what hes read methadone wd is basically the same!e as that on fentanyl except while fent wd last about a week he's heard methadone lasts about 3 weeks. If he could get through 1 week he wouldn't need the help of methadone but he can't.

Please share your or SWIY experience on detoxing off heroin of fentanyl with medical assisted methadone treatment.
How did it help?
How was the first few days (especially the first night)?
How was coming off methadone?
Did it hekp or not?

Thank you all

 

[Invisible Helper]

Dude methadone usually makes things way worse from what I've heared and I've been doing opiates 5 years straight heavy . I only tried it a few times in small separate doses because I heard they're called "liquid handcuffs " because it's even worse than H he really should do everything in his power to not do methadone rather subuxone if possible

 

[Spideronthewall]

First off: don't use methadone or subs unless you're completely out of options and cannot get clean any other way. For me methadone ha become a long journey that may be life long.

Secondly: withdrawal is a few months of hell instead of 2 weeks like short acting opiates.

Make sure you're are ready to have a clinic define how you go about your daily life.

This is coming from personal experience. It has helped me live a normal regular life but I am bound by clinic hours, appointments and dosing schedules. It's fucked at times.

 

[Spideronthewall]

Also we don't use SWIM/SWIY here. Talk in first person please.

 

[speedballs_over]

Completely disagree. Methadone saved my life.

That said, a short habit could be treated without replacement therapy.

Considering the danger of OD if you were my child I'd ask you to try methadone, just keep dose as low as possible.

That's real harm reduction. The answers above appealed me.

HR means anything evidenced based to maintain life and health, methadone is an excellent choice. NA isn't bad, but it isn't a solution per scientific evidence. Methadone has a fifty year history of saving lives.

 

[My3sons]

Im happy with methadone. If you follow the rules you are not bound to their daily schedule because you get take homes. As long as you pass your drug tests and are doing what you are supposed to you can go on vacation and live a very normal life. Like anything else in this world different people will say different things about it. If you want to live a normal life like work, pay your bills, take care of a family, and have stability free of cravings and that little devil on your shoulder you can find success and peace through methadone. You need to be on for the right reasons and follow the instructions from your doc. If you are just trying to chase a high or use methadone to hold you when you are out of money like a lot of people do of course you will never stabilize and benefit from what it has to offer. A lot of addicts give it a bad name because they're not following the rules or are on for the wrong reason. It will be what you make of it.

 

[chelle216]

When I started using dope on a more hardcore basis, I firmly believed that I would not have lived past the age of 25. Because I had absolutely no hope for a future, I used with reckless abandon (permitted I had the funding). Heroin addiction is no less pervasive than cancer with the exception that we choose it. Methadone was a choice that saved my life and allowed me to see no all was worth grumbling over.
Best of luck

Btw, I also got off of it after four years, and given a proper taper, I suffered nothing.

 

[CBDizzle]

Methadone is a life saver. Heck, even J.F.K. was on methadone for pain. I prefer MS Contin, but with insurance stripped away, it costs an arm and a leg from the pharmacy. So, alternatively, methadone was my only option. And talk about withdrawal...I was on 200mg MS Contins 3x a day and I had to cut down (immediately) to 120mg of methadone... It was a 2 month perpetual withdrawal!!! So, people who say that one opiate's withdrawal symptoms are better or worse, don't really know what they are talking about (IME). It is all relative... Also, the intensity of withdrawal is a factor. Like, with a precipitated withdrawal (from taking Suboxone too early) it may be short, but it is absolute hell... That is an exaggeration, but the concept is the same.

Now that I'm stable on the methadone, it works great. I don't ever need any more than I'm prescribed. I use it for long acting and have my choice of hydromorphone or oxycodone IR for breakthrough. But all that without some GABAPENTIN, just isn't as effective as with...