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Oxycodone, Alcohol

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cwby

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Aug 12, 2014
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I've been taking 40-50 mg of oxycodone (10mg ir), ed, prescribed by a doctor, used as prescribed, stemming from a farming accident, for about a year now. I've also started drinking more and more to the point I think it's too much. I suspect my desire to drink more may be because I've grown physically dependent on the oxycodone, and the synergistic effect is a constructive "increase" in my dosage. I do not need the oxycodone for pain anymore. I just got addicted after legitimately needing them. Going through a divorce and custody battle (unrelated) didn't help any either. But I believe I need to stop taking the oxycodone because I think it's become a problem that will end up having long term side effects if not dealt with. I don't get any high from them. I think I've developed a tolerance where 50 mg/day just makes me "normal."

i know mixing alcohol and oxycodone is potentially very dangerous, but my tolerance for my existing level of medication is such, I'm not that concerned about that. I'm mainly concerned about the long term consequences of taking oxycodone, and my increased alcohol consumption leading to alcoholism. I've had accidents before, been on pain meds, and just stopped whenever I felt like it, and had no withdrawal whatsoever. And the pills would just sit in the medicine cabinet for years, and I wouldn't even think about it. But now, I think my family problems (again, unrelated, alleged affair issue) has led me to use oxycodone and alcohol as a crutch for depression related to the breakup. But I want to stop.

What I'm unsure of is how. I'm thinking I should reduce my dosage by 10 mg per week, then stop. Also, I should do the same with my alcohol consumption. Reduce it, rather than just stopping. I've read on here of very high doses, and 50 mg may seem little to some, but I still want to quit, and would appreciate any advice. I never have taken more than one 10mg tablet at a time. And I've never taken it by any other means than orally.

Can anyone give me any advice as to my strategy, suggested alternate, what I should expect, anything else I may need? Any help would be appreciated. This is my first post.

thanks
 
Hey cwby. Welcome to BL:).. sorry you are finding yourself dependent on the opiates and also dealing with the restructuring of your family.

I have been through allot of this so maybe i can help you out a bit.

The ideal time period to taper is based off the drug that is to be taper half life. Half life is the time it takes for half the substance to be eliminated in the body. So it works like this, if a person takes 120 mg of a substance that has a 10 hour half life this is how the removal of the substance goes.
hours 1-10 the substance is reduced from 120 to 60, straight forward rite, but then hours 10-20 the sixty mg left is only reduced to 30.. and so on so
h.............mg
10...........60
20...........30
30..........15
40..........7
50..........3.5
and so on
So the half life of IR oxy is

The total plasma clearance was 0.8 L/min for adults. Apparent elimination half-life of oxycodone following the administration of ROXICODONE (oxycodone hydrochloride) ® was 3.5 to 4 hours.
Click to expand...
>source<

The way half life works we can take 6 times the half life and then add four days as a very good estimate for how long it takes to get past the worst of the acute withdrawal.

So 6 x 4 = 24 hours and then we add four days to get 5 days. So five days after your last dose you will start to feal better.

Thats just some information for when you kick this opiate trap. The reason I presented it now is so that you know the correct time between cutting for the taper. So given how it works out you seem to be rite on with your plan.. If you have the pills to do it I would consider cutting at five mg a week as opposed to 10, but really ten is fully doable.

How do you plan on fielding the emotions as far as the family split as the medications you have been useing to dull the pain ware off? That shit is very hard, I know I have been there.

Do you think your going to cut the alcohol for good or at least until you deal psychologically with the tuff stuff your faced with? The thing with alcohol is it covers up what we have to think through and does not allow us to overcome and work through them, so with heavy use we just wake up and face the same day of hell over and over and that awful. if we take a little time off from the booze then we can work through the things we need to in our minds and benefit from the peace that results.

Here are some medications that will help with opiate withdrawls..

medications for acute opiate detox

The medications I would explore the use of for detox would be:
>Clonidine< DOSED EVER FOUR HOURS..

one of either
>NEURONTIN< >HERE< >HERE< >here<
OR >Lyrica<
OR >phenibut<

>A BENZO BUT JUST AT NIGHT<
>a nsaid<
>melatonin<
tylenol
Senokot S is a stool softener and laxative. If you do not want the laxative you can go for strait stool softenerDioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate.

(Opi Withdrawal) what is the best comfort meds for opiate w/d?

Your Personal Opiate Withdrawal Arsenal

Your going to figure this out.. pretty good suport and wisdom here on BL.. Keep us in the loop.
 
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Thank you so much for responding. I'm a little confused about the alcohol part. I've read that immediate cessation of alcohol can have withdrawals. I have been consuming about six beer every evening for probably about six months. Is that a lot? Enough to be problematic in immediately quitting drinking? I have a prescription for valium 10 mg, I only take it at night to sleep, probably about 5 days a week. That started as a result of going to sleep on a pillow of tears for weeks on end because my partner wouldn't show me any love or intimacy which really depressed me emotionally. She's no longer living with me, and I sleep alone, but we do have a little boy together. Do you think it would be best to stop alcohol totally, immediately? Or, slowly reduce it over a few days? I'm confused because I know the alcohol impairs judgment, and could potentially conflict with mentally sticking to the oxycodone reduction. But, I don't know if immediate cessation would be detrimental either. I'm so embarrassed by this. I've been getting more involved in church. I've joined the choir. I'm self employed, and have a business to run. But, even though the present time is one of my least busiest times during the year, I do have responsibilities, and I'm my own boss. And, I'm also a parent with a little boy starting first grade tomorrow. I only have access to oxycodone, valium, non-scheduled prescription medication, and over-the-counter medication. Thank you for your help.
 
Congrats on the little one starting 1st grade.. starts to roll so fast right, at least it did for me.

From what you have posted its seems like all the family stuff has hit yiu really hard and you have found comfort by self medicating. Its a hard thing for real.

So the amount of beer is likely not high enough to cause you any dangerous problems to withdraw from. It does pose a problem in that people who withdrawl of other substances have a tendency to slip into heavier and heavier alcohol abuse. Alcohol is the strongest drug out there IMO, because its use is so toxic to the body and brain. It also weakens significantly the prefrontal cortex or conscious mind. This is were all out problem solving, free will, and rational thought comes from. All we need to do is think of someone we have seen really drunk to visualized this in action.

The PFC or conscious mind is the source of will power, so if this is weakened we have a much harder time resisting other substances we are attempting to withdraw from. Also the unpleasant emotion signifies a puzzle we are supposed to deal with. The area that needs to deal with this is the PFC or our conscious mind. The reason it feels so awful is to motivate us to resolve it. By circumventing the system we never solve the problem and wake up with it day after day after day.

Along with this we have tolerance begin to happen. This happens because the brain does not like to be ignored. So we continue to take the drugs and it starts to compensate for the drugs being included in the system. It begins to increase the power of its emotional response to try and get back to having the problem it wants solved, solved. This is likely why you have had to add the alcohol onto the opiate pain killers and finish it off with the valium. Its also why it will never be a long term solution. if its continued you will need a steadily increased doses, or bigger combinations, of drugs and medications to achieve the same result.

I talk to allot of good people that end up facing situations like you are and from my personal knowledge and from what I have learned through other experiences your doses indicate that you are not in a huge hole yet. This is good. OMO your in a pretty decent opiat dependency and you will feal a little sick coming out. but thats ok right, cause after a few days you will feel much better and after a little while you will feal damn good and be free from that crap.

The detox im pretty sure you can handle with very little problem, farmers are as tough as they come. But toughness doesn't always do so well when it comes to the wounds and pain we acquire when there is a split between loved ones and our childrens lives no longer accompany ours like our hearts want.

If when we detox from the drugs we used to avoid the pain from situations like these we run into a big problem. We used the drugs to avoid this, which means its still there as it was to painful so we did not face it and work through it mentally. This combines with the results of the tolerance. With the tolerance we have the emotional response being ramped up to try and overcome the additions of the chemicals. When we remove the chemicals the response is still set as if the chemicals were still there. So the pain we were trying to avoid ends up being so much stronger than it ever was. This combines with the other negative effects of detoxing and can make us feal very miserable and make it really hard to get and stay clean.

Its like if you have a slow self adjusting thermostat set for 400 and then add ice to the system for a week, it will adjust its temp to make up for the ice returning the system to 400, then remove the ice and its going to run real hot until it adjusts back down, with the removal of the ice it runs at 560 and slowly works its way back down. Add this effect to a already unbearable emotion. So before we started useing the emotion was a nine. We were not ready to face that so we sought solace in the drugs. The system compensated for the drugs by increasing the emotion, so when we remove the drugs they emotional level ends up being at a 16 and we face a very hard situation.

So I guess the detox will go pretty well for you and I will lay out what I think is a good plan for you to consider below, but do you have an idea of how you can promote any healing needed around the family changes?

If it were me I would go about it this way.. I would cut the beer right away when you are going to do this. If you want you could cut a beer or two a night. I dont think you will receive much benefit from a taper on this, but it won't cause any harm either. If you cut the beer out straight off you may a rocky nights sleep, but given the valium I think you will have no problem.

Then I would give yourself four or five days of no alcohol just to stabalize back in. Just to reiterate I would draw a line in the sand and make a deal with yourself that your not going to drink for six months or so, to give yourself the proper time to figure everything out and avoid trading a opiate dependency for a alcohol habit. If you do this your beer intake will go up significantly and you may find find yourself finishing off 12 packs or more every night. Alcohol as you know crushes people and is terrible for them. This is something I would plan ahead in order to avoid if I was in this situation.

After the alcohol is gone then I would tackle the opiates. valium works well to alleviate opiate withdrawal symptoms so I would do this last, thats if you were planning on dropping that as well.

As far as the opiates, your taper plan looks great. There really isn't any rush with tapering. So many people do it to fast and when the half life catches up find themselves miserable. Some people are terrible at tapering, this includes me..lol.. just never could manage it that well. If you start to struggle with the taper you may just need to jump off.

Just a heads up please avoid kicking your valium up a bunch to try and feel better through the opiate withdrawals as benzos like valium are worse to get off than opiates so Im pretty sure you dont want to trade on for the other.

But I think the most important thing to think about how you want to address any wounds from the family split. Do you have any ideas around this?

You can and will do this cwby:)
 
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Well, the family split is finalized (final judgment) so thoughts of reunification is unrealistic. I think I can handle that part. I think the solution is to find a replacement. But I really think I need to get clean first. I just don't feel normal anymore. Thanks for your advice. I'll stop drinking today.
 
When I said replacement I was referring to a woman, not a substance.
 
I got ya cwby. =D

In regards to the split, with the finalization you may still need to think things through in your own mind, come to an understanding with yourself or think it through until there is deeper acceptance of all the events that went down. Achieving this will remove any anger, resentment, guilt, etc, that may be there. If any strong emotions remain around they have a good chance of being really strong during the detox. Strong unpleasant emotions are one of the number one reasons people return to the substances and they are no fun to try and deal with. Im not saying that you haven't worked through this already, I just post it for your consideration.

Here is some information on addiction and PAWS. There are two types or stages of withdrawal. Acutes and post acute withdrawal syndrome. Its a good idea to familiarize ourselves with what goes down, what we are likely to experience, and probable time frames. We can then create a individual plan to address any issues that come up while we are in better shape to do it. Doing this will both increase the chances of success and provide the most peaceful trip through.

Addiction Guide

PAWS LINKS
Why We Don’t Get Better Immediately: Post-acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS)
Post Acute Withdrawal (PAW) Excerpted From “Staying Sober” By: Terence T. Gorski
Post-acute-withdrawal syndrome Wiki

Exercise and Brain Neurotransmission
Neurobiology of Exercise
Exercise 4 Health, Mental Health, and Addiction vs. I worked all that out

Chemicals and supplements to recover from opiate addiction
Diet & Neurogenesis

it is a powerful thing to keep our thoughts possitive and here are some threads many of us use to help us do this.
Managing depressive thinking
Good things about being off drugs/getting sober
Share something POSITIVE from your day!
Today I Am Thankful For... Ver. 3: Earth, Wind and Fire!

Here is the mindfulness thread.
Anhedonia MEGA Thread

Most people get through the PAWS in less than six or seven months. The severity of symptoms vary greatly from person to person. The whole goal is really to make it two years without starting back up. No need go through detoxes more than once, as once is enough.

Sorry Im loading you up with so much information, but looking it over and coming up with a plan of action is a really good idea. ;)
 
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Well, already deeply depressed, received news today that my operating loan has been cut off due to my fathers actions. To a farmer, that's like getting fired from a job. It was all a result of my fathers physical assault of me a month ago, and his refusal to show any remorse, but evidently delight in my refusal to defend myself. He's backed me in a corner leaving me no option but moving out of my home for 14 years, which is on his farm, and moving to the cabin on my farm, and evicting him from his ~300 acre use of part of my farm, and suing him in court to remove the mortgage he holds on my farm for the purpose of verbally abusing me, assault and battering me, using whatever land and equipment he wants, basic blackmail. It breaks my heart. I'm trying to figure out whether I want to go through it all, suing my own father, or just die. I don't understand how there is so much hate in this world. When I heard about Robin Williams, I was not surprised, I thought, he must have felt like I do.
 
^ sure thats your only option.. sounds like that will make the fucking lawyers happy, complicate both your lives a bunch, and create an even bigger riff than already exists in the family. Any way a calm man to man around this could ever be possible?
 
NSA beat me to it, but what I would do is just go down every Sunday by 5mg until you were off. At that rate you probably wouldn't experience any kind of withdrawal.

If you do experience withdrawal I would go to your doctor and ask for Clonodine and Valium to help with the withdrawal.
 
Less than two years ago he punched me in the head three times. I did nothing. After he made the same threat, I tried to be the better man, and a few days later just hugged him and told him I love him. Now, less than two years later, same thing again. I spent my childhood abused by him, spending many nights in a closet with a rifle in my mouth crying down the barrel of a gun. I'm 36 now and he's still manipulated a way to continue the abuse.
 
And btw, I am a lawyer too. And still in abusive situation which will just be made more inflamed by going to court. And if I just take the blame, be the bigger man, I just subject myself to the repeated cycle of abuse. I'm backed in a corner.
 
Sorry to hear of this cwby.. I think you may be right then.. time to seperate your life from your fathers. If he ever man up and makes the big changes he needs to then you can always let him back in. Some people never end up getting it. You seem right to consider severing your entire relationship with your father for now. I would make sure there were no loose ends that he could try and pull his control thing on.

Then on to building a life that flows like you do.

We are almost the same age. My father is and was a damn good father in so many ways. The way their fathers acted and the way they their fathers parented, was often a harsh thing. I don't know if it was the result of them coming back from the war, or the result of societies expectations for men at that time, but it left so much to be desired. Back then men were supposed to be these rocks, little or no affection, harsh discipline, no shows of emotion. I think it fuked people up. Then the generation of our fathers either continued on with the whole awful tradition, or at least parts of that bullshit.

I was up at our families hunting land and cabin, with my father and my son, a few weeks back. It was kinda amazing to see my fathers reactions to the manner in which I parent and interact with my son. it was even more interesting to see little glints of astonishment at the results its produced. Those guys are old school and they were taught and brought up on this nonsense that in order to be a man you need to be tough, but they had what being tough is all wrong. The also had some idea that they had to make their sons tough by being hard on them. Thats a boat load of shit and it does not make people though, it fucks them up and makes life much harder for everyone.

As I said my father is an amazing father and thats no lie. But the some of the ideas and behaviors that were instilled on him by his father around what it means to be a man, how to be a father, and how parent a son, well they are already dead as im full grown and I have not passed on any of them. But as he is also a very good man and father, so a bunch of them are alive and proudly passed on.

Have to say again, I smiled a little bit at the sometimes quizzical reaction my father had to the positive results rendered from taking a very different approach then his and the generations before them had.

Be the change you want to see in the world, right.

Edit: well if you're a lawyer then you can try and get legal fees from him if you win.. no matter what you lawyers dont fool the rest of us, what would have cost you a bundle, won't end up taking that much time since you can do it yourself.;)

Dont worry about being the "bigger man", seek out a just resolution, but pad your initial claim as courts are courts.
 
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I was so ready to get clean. Then I'm stabbed in the back by my own father. I've run out of tears.
 
Yeah, talking with someone about similar experiences can be a very good thing as carrying the weight of the world alone can make for a very arduous life.

When we are dependent on substances we really need to think through thought patterns and what we feel honest results will be.

Negative emotion indicates a problem we need to address. It feels awful and uncomfortable to drive us to address it. If it felt good why would we ever do anything about it right. By taking comfort in a drug we circumvent the system and feal relief even though the underlying problem we were supposed to address has not been dealt with. This causes trouble with the system because we start to stack up emotion after emotion and there unsolved problems. This combines with tolerance to the drugs and we find ourself facing more and more things we need to address whit the comfort of temporary fix that gets weaker and weaker. So we become more and more miserable.

So what we need is address the problem instead of temporarily covering it up.

Your still ready to get clean, just have to accept the fact that you are going to feal uncomfortable for a bit, thats alright. Then you will need to find a good way for you to think through and thus address what the emotions are driving you to address.

You can do this cxby. Take your time and try and come up with a plan that will help you. Consider trying to put all this off for a awhile and taking the time to clean up and heal a little from that and revisit all the other aspects at a little later time. they arent going anywaher. Als the vast majortiy of people who try and clean up while dealing with all the hassles that have acumulated in there lives at the same time, fail.

The best plan of action is to put cleaning up and healing at the number one position on your list. I made the mistake of not doing this many times. I ddi not make it those times and I ended up loosing or doing nothing positive for the other parts of my life I thought were so important. They were important, but by focussing on them instead of keeping my eye on the prise I ended up with no good results and many negative ones. When I finally concentraited on overcomming the physical dependence and addiction, placed this as number one, the rest fell into place like they were just waiting to do so.

It was good talking to you tonight cwby.
 
I sure appreciate your advice. I'm going to do by best to follow it. Thank you for caring.
 
Growing up with a parent who acts... less 'parental' than they should (to put it mildly) can really mess with your head. It's easier to believe there's something wrong with yourself, than to believe that there's something wrong with your parent and they just don't love you the way they should. Trust me, I know. But life gets immeasurably easier when you just let it all go. I had to realize that my mom is never going to say the words I want her to say. She is who she is. My happiness is never going to come from her, I need to go out and find it myself.

It sounds like you and your father have a difficult relationship, and I know you're going through the end of a romantic relationship too, but there IS a life out there for you, past all this stuff. You can have it, if you want it and are willing to work for it. xx
 
You're right. It's just been hard to accept I guess. And the path forward is going to be ugly.
 
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