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Opioids Methadone: When is the party over?

Keif' Richards

Moderator: BDD, OD
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Lowell/Charlestown, Massachusetts
I started MMT about 3 months ago. Before you go flaming me for the title, I am in serious recovery. I use zero drugs and zero alcohol, although I do smoke cannabis on a fairly regular basis. I got on MMT to help me overcome my heroin addiction which, by that time, had taken almost everything from me. When I was first starting out (20mgs), I was pleased that I caught a nice little buzz for most of the day. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it was nice. As I have continued the treatment, the initial buzz has become more and more fleeting. I have experimented with various potentiators: tagamet, grapefruit juice, etc. with limited success. My question is, at what dose can you basically not get high on methadone anymore, regardless of dose increase or potentiators. The general consensus is around 100mg or so. I am currently at 65mg, will I ever be able to catch that buzz again with either a dose increase or some other kind of potentiator? I am relatively serious about my "sobriety", so benzos and such are obviously out of the question. Thanks BL'ers!
 
I'm currently on 55 mg of methadone since april 17th. When starting there was an occasion or two when i would be very sedated & nodding sort of. I still get a very good effect from it as i have a couple ailments which have requied painkillers in the past, stuff like codeine dhc & tramadol stuff like that, then i began uasing extra morphine & eventually heroin on top of my scripts, which i could always fall back on, until my doctor pretty much sussed i was injecting after seeing the trackmarks on the back of my hand.

Then i started methadone & it was like killing 5 birds with one stone, pain relief, sedation, anxiolytic, mood lift, & my liking for recreational drugs. During the time i've been on "MMT" i've only used heroin once & codeine twice, have barely drank & today is the first time i've bought any ganja in weeks.

However, everyday i've been drinking strong good quality kenyan coffee which i feel adds to the effects of methadone.

Also i'm prescribed amitriptyline (which in the past, for sedation, i hated) i take 25/50 mg of that an hour or so after the methadone to add the analgesic effects of the methadone, which i believe it does quite well, then another dose at night to help sleep.
 
I would say that it usually takes about 3 to 15 weeks, depending on the person, to lose any effects from the methadone other than making you feel "normal" and not in withdrawal sickness. The only way to get those effects back is to raise your dose. Then the same thing will happen, you will become tolerant to it and lose the effects. There are many reasons not to continuously raise your dose, especially if you don't want to be dependent on methadone for the rest of your life. Also most doctors will not just keep upping your script every couple months without reason. For many people, it gets to a point where no matter how much methadone you take (well unless maybe you took like 10 times your dose or something?) they eventually just can't get "high" off methadone at all. The exact quantity at which this happens really varies from person to person and personally I think it has more to do with how long you are on methadone. If you are, as you say, serious about getting clean, then you will have to learn to live with not getting high anymore and just feeling normal.
 
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OP, trust me you don't want any part of chasing a methadone high. Yes you can increase dosages and catch a buzz for a limited amount of time after the dose goes up. Then it will go away and you are left with going up again to chase the high.

It is not worth it...getting off methadone is one of the hardest most grueling detoxes out there in the world opiates.

If you are serious about sobriety, you aren't doing yourself a favor by obsessing with chasing a buzz. You should really consider switching to buprenorphine as a maintenance drug because if you are keen on getting sober and still trying to get high on your methadone you might be heading for a crash and burn type relapse.

IMO, buprenorphine did a great job for me in terms of controlling my cravings and thus allowed my obsession with using drugs to somewhat dissipate. Wanting to catch a buzz on your maintenance drugs is like pulling a U-turn on your intent to be sober.

PM me if you wanna talk more, good luck bro.
 
^ I agree. Look around this site a bit... You'll notice that most people on bupe lower their doses over time, while most on methadone raise.
 
"i use zero drugs and zero alcohol"

hate to burst your bubble but methadone is an extremely potent drug..i was on MMT and i tried to trick myself into believing i was clean when i wasnt..i used to get that warm comfort feeling from it like you did but it didnt last..

not meaning to call you on it but if you are truly serious about your sobriety, then why do you wish to keep the 'buzz' from methadone?
 
and yes, most people at the clinic i went to kept chasing the methadone high, they kept ramping their doses upward...
 
I knew someone who chased the methadone high. This person kept upping the dose until he hit 200mgs a day, although its something I strongly do not suggest in the interest of harm reduction. When I saw him two years ago he seemed to be getting very high from his 200mg a day methadone dose. He was constantly nodding out and looked like he was in the state of bliss.
I ran into this person two years later, and he's still on 200mgs a day. The only difference is the 200mgs a day dosn't make him high, but he just feels normal.

I'm not sure if his intentions are on on staying on methadone for the rest of his life, or what but 200mgs a day would be hell to detox off of. This persons age is in his late 20s so he still has a pretty long life ahead of him.

-PLUR
 
My dad was on treatment for about four years, he was up to 150 miligrams and there were other people on much higher doses than him... I think the ceiling is really high it probably depends on the person.. I can tell you when mom and dad came off of it, they got down to 10 miligrams before they went cold turkey- their withdrawal symptoms were horrible and lasted two weeks. They could only lay in bed and sweat..
My uncle was on the treatment for about five years, but along with the addiction to the methadone he also took Xanax which from what I could tell put him on a perma-high. He didn't get more high after taking his daily dose because he was constantly high.. I wouldn't recommend taking benzos with methadone, in my home town it was a horrible epidemic when the clinic opened, that year about 7 people over dosed from mixing the two drugs. I remember watching my uncle come home from work and snort a Xanax and he would be comatose for at least 10 hours- I thought he was dead several times, I don't see how he's not.
 
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I've been at 30mg for about 3 weeks, and I'm still getting a real nice lift. In the past I've been on doses as high as 105mg, and I get a lot more of a lift out of my current dose, than I did at those triple digit doses. I think the lower the dose the better, as each time you take the methadone, there is a more pronounced spike in the blood levels, similar to how low dosages of buprenorphine are more euphoric.

I mean, of course you would get more buzzed if you splurged here and there and added an extra XXmg's, but in the long run, no dose will continually get you high.
 
i have to say that I never got anything from my meth it just made me not w/d, I had a two bag a day habit and ended up on 70mg of the green stuff daily. As tricomb says the party is over, you shouldn't be looking to get high from you methadone, and if you are why are you on it?? It's for quitting, not hitting.
 
I got a buzz from 20 mg up until about 60 mg. After that, I chased the high all the way to 120 mg even though I'd been held by it since maybe 40 mg. Don't beat a dead horse, lower dose is better, yada yada yada... Good information in this thread.
 
Less is definitely more. If you've been put on methadone then it's about time to stop chasing a high. Look where it's got you sofar
 
Methadone is definitely a different kind of high.......its a sedation high & ive never gotten a euphoria from it. Its great for pain tho. From everything I have read, people that take methadone for treatment, take it to feel normal, thats the basic reason.
 
I found that methadone can be incredibly euphoric, and similar to heroin at certain dosages, but it is just too dangerous to fuck around with for the sake of getting high. At low dosages methadone feels like a stronger version of buprenorphine to me, meaning it's stimulating, and long lasting. Once you pass the 60mg mark, it turns into a different creature, and instead of energy, in comes the lethargy and sedation (similar to how 1mg bupe will keep you feeling good consistently, but 16mg makes you feel just tired after a few days, and then it's like taking nothing once you've completely gained tolerance to it).

Keif' I recomend that you try and lower your dose if you want to get that lift back. It will take a while for your body to adjust obviously, but it might be worth it. For me, the blocking effect is not helpful or important. When it comes to maintenance, I unfortunately need to feel as if I'm consuming some kind of mood elevating substance, or else I will inevitably end up getting high, or attempting too. I feel completely stable at the dose I'm on right now, and I have yet to lose that nice boost I get every morning. Wayy better than in the past when I was on dosages over 80mg.

I also just want to say, for some people, being on a blocking dose is necessairy and does help with their cravings-my point is that I get the most relief from psychological cravings when I'm actually feeling my methadone or suboxone, then when I'm not. I Get the feeling that you (the OP) are similar in that regard. Titrating your dose up and down, with the approval of your doctor or clinic of course, is way better than going back to heroin or whatever opiate you used that made you choose MMT in the first place, at least IMO.
 
Back when I was hooked on it, I could take 20 miligrams up my nose right before bed (it BURNS really bad)
and I would go into this weird euphoric floaty state where i was fully asleep but still feeling the euphoria it was weird it lasted for about two hours after i fell asleep... it was awesome though i miss it. XD
 
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