To the OP:
In my experience and I think many on here will agree the first 2 or 3 days transitioning from a full agonist to Suboxone can be fairly rough. Suboxone is not some magical solution that just takes all the withdrawal symptoms away right off the bat. Your body still has to make the transition from being used to having a full agonist all of the time to only having a partial agonist all of the time. It also takes time for the buprenorphine to build up in your system to an appropriate level.
Its like the first 2 or 3 days are like you are halfway in withdrawal and as the days go by you will notice the symptoms fade and maybe even get a little bit of an opiate lift or buzz. Usually by the 7 day mark all symptoms are gone and each dose just provides a bit of relief from the intra dose withdrawals as your still building up an appropriate level in your system.
At about the 10 to 14 day mark is when you start to realize that taking your sub is like taking a vitamin as your plasma levels should be stable and the intra dose symptoms / relief should be gone. This is when it actually gets really hard for me as I actually feel normal and the cravings really kick in. This is when the addict side of me really starts looking for reasons, excuses or whatever to justify using. By this point those first few days that were so harsh seem to have faded in your mind and you start to think that the past couple of weeks were not that bad and that transitioning back and forth from full agonists to Suboxone really isn’t that hard. In fact in your mind you think that its so easy that you can just binge anytime and then fall back on your Suboxone when time comes to quit the full agonists. Well this is where Suboxone turns from a helpful tool to a terrible enabler. If you go down this path you will find yourself in an endless loop of being half sick and half well half of the time and well enough to get board and crave like crazy the other half of the time. Yes, Suboxone will keep the full withdrawals at bay and hold you more or less indefinitely, but NO it is not a cure or an answer for opiate addiction. At some point one has to make a decision to do what it takes to make themselves well, whatever that means, Suboxone is really only a tool or a bridge to help one make that decision whatever it may be. When its used as a crutch or a back up plan it is really no better than ones DOC.
I think when one finds themselves in a situation where they are just using Suboxone to get through to their next dose of their DOC then a totally different treatment approach needs to be looked at. For those that just can’t seem to control there use no matter what, but still want to have a better non junky life, I think long term Methadone Maintenance is the way to go. For those that have just had it and really don’t want to use but for whatever reason can’t escape the drugs, then long term inpatient rehab followed by sober living and a drastic location change may be in order.
Anyway, wow, didn’t mean to go on such a rant, but hopefully maybe someone will read this and not go down the road of enabling Suboxone use.
