Congratulations on making this choice for yourself. You are in for some hard times this is for sure, but many here can attest: it is possible to do it.
For me, suboxone helped tremendously w/ the immediate acute withdrawals. No one should put themselves through cold turkey. It is just beyond the pale. At the same time, I was terrified of becoming dependent, and the stories of post acute withdrawal made me shudder. What I did was a low dose taper over 7 days. The docs wanted me on something like 24mgs long term maintenance, which would have been more comfortable, but implied the possibility of the already mentioned fears becoming a reality. They worked w/ me to do it my way; it wasn't painless, yet it was nothing close to cold turkey.
I also benefited immensely from inpatient detox, followed immediately by in patient rehabilitation for about three weeks, further followed by outpatient treatment. The two most helpful aspects of inpatient treatment was the distance it gave me in days from my last use, and, perhaps more importantly, meeting great people in the same lull as I and fomenting a sort of (more or less) sober crew. Having people to turn to who understand the battle is unspeakably important. Whenever the boredom or despair confronts me I have a litany of numbers I can call and genuinely awesome people to help me. You can find this sort of thing at self help meetings such as NA or SMART if rehab isn't an option. Personally, I don't even go to NA for the program; I go for the community.
Bluelight is an amazing resource as well, so you've already happened into a den of healing - the Darkside! Welcome and commendations on your strength and foresight.
we don't use SWIM here by the way. That being said:
