Nipping a new habit - morphine & xanax - in the bud: how fast a reduction?

[Where Wolf?]

So, after years of priding myself on my ability to stay unaddicted, I fucked up and began popping pills on a daily basis. For a solid month, now, I've been on opiates, with two months of near-daily use of benzos - mostly xanax, in doses from 0.5mgs to 2mgs, and sometimes nitrazepam (5- 10 mgs with less daily xanax).

In August, I was on 5-20 of hydrocodone a day, after years of recreational opiates, and hardly feeling them: in the past months, I've been through piles of dihydrocodeine 30mg tablets, bottles of Oramorph oral morphine linctus, and Mscontins, crushed to side-step the time-release. My 'stable' dose has been 120 mgs of mscontin every 24 hours, typically in two doses. It's been about 2.5 weeks at least since I had a day off opiates.

I realise - this weekend brought a moment of clarity - that I have to stop, now, or this habit could grow to destroy my whole life. I'm currently working long hours, and can't just turkey - but I'm determined to begin and maintain a reduction. Any advice on how quickly I should go with both drugs - especially from people who've been through this - would be very welcome.

I'm hoping to bring down my morphine dose to 90mgs today - amibitious, I know, but it's a very new habit - keep it there tomorrow, then jump to 60, 30 by week's end: then try a day without. Is this unrealistic? I'm running out, and really don't want to get any more - but I can't take any days off work this week (maybe Friday, at a pinch, giving me three days to jump-start turkey). I also have 3 x 25mcgs an hour Fentanyl patches - but I'm tempted to just throw them out, as I think it was using two last week that pushed me over the edge into habituation. Or could I cut these into pieces, and use tiny fragments of them to help with the reduction? Any ideas?

For the benzos: I should have some diazepam arriving tomorrow. I'm going to try to start by just switching to 20mgs a day(equivalent) of the longer-acting diazepam, then come down in 2.5mg increments every couple of days, and kick once on 2.5 mgs. Does this sound plausible? Remember, I'm only on about 1mg of xanax a day (sometimes the bar doesn't split evenly, and it can be a little more or less.)

I have a big day's work - meetings, travel, et cetera - ahead of me. This morning I took half my daily wake-up dose of Morph - 30 mgs, and about 2/3rds of a 0.5 xanax fragment: I feel a little fragile, but there are no obvious signs of w/d. I'm hoping to get through the day and night ahead with just 0.5 mgs more of xanax tonight - but will take 0.5 with me, in case I start to feel shaky.

I'm torn as to what to do about today's morphine dose. It's occured to me to just take the coating off a 60mg MScontin, and chew it slightly before swallowing, so there will still be some time-release effect, before I leave for work for a few hours, and hope that holds me till tomorrow. Any ideas as to whether this is a good/bad plan?

Thank you all in advance for any responses (including useless/dumb ones) - as people who've been through this will know, I'm in a dark and lonely place: only my gf and one friend know about this, in any detail, and it's difficult to face the world - let alone work - with a secret like this in your pocket. I'm hoping I can drop it quickly, before it becomes too much of who I am.

 

[NoPromiseMade]

I would say see how sick you actually get if you try to stop. When I was a newb to popping pills there was a two month stretch of daily use and I had to quit abruptly with no ill effects besides a runny nose and a little diarrhea. It really doesnt sound like you are using that much. Besides if you do start to go through real w/ds then you can always pop whatever pill/s you have and then make and try to adhere to a taper plan.

Best of luck.

Edit: As for the benzo's I would definitely taper on those.

 

[Where Wolf?]

Problem is, I can't afford to be even slightly sick today - or for the next 3 days, so just stopping cold isn't an option. But thinking back, I took over 100 30mg doses of dhc in the course of about a week, months ago - and experienced NO w/d. You may have a point...(my favourite hit over the past few weeks has come from days on like morning doses of 450 mgs DHC + 30 IR morphine, with another 150/30 or so about 8 hours later. Oh, and I've been using antihistamine potentiators).

But since then, there have been periods of binging, and at one point two-three weeks ago (it's all so vague, for some reason), I got through 4 Oxy 80s in one day (though oxy doesn't seem to hit me as hard as other people). So my 'stable' doses are already a bit of a reduction from recent high points (one day last week, I was on 2 x 25mcg an hour fent patches, and got through 4 or 5 60mg mscontins in a day). I think that's when I went over 'the tipping point'.

That's why I know I have to stop, NOW.

Anyone tapered recently from a low-dose benzo habit?

 

[PLUR2000]

benzo tapers is a definable medical necessity.... seizures are no joke, find some valium or kpins and @ 3 days 1/2 dose (you know your body best). just IMHO, use the time released as directed, and as for the other maybe just hal those bars for a week, then 1/4 them... I've been bad off b4 and though it looks bad atm, it'll b better clean.

Another point maybe to look at why you're using to start, maybe anxiety is a factor, it was for me. If so check out a doctor and see if vals or kpin miggt help u kick the habit (worked for me)

 

[Where Wolf?]

Close the thread, mods, I've found the one I need....