I’ll add my experience to this thread soon. Or post in blogs and link here, as I need to update mine after years of inactivity
And for what it’s worth, IME the success rate of something like ORT is more around 20-50%.
I’d highly recommend slowing your taper to 1mg/week and taking a couple weeks off tapering at the 40mg, 30mg and 20mg points. Especially as you get lower, breaks from the taper will make it a lot easier on. With such a taper, I experienced next to no discomfort going down from 90mg to 14mg over the course of about 1.5yrs. It can get frustrating with how long it takes, but by the same token, each time I stabilized on a lower dose I actually got more out of methadone. By the time I jumped off, I far preferred the effects of methadone in terms of therapeutic value (related to experiencing fewer side effects) at lower than higher dosages.
For anyone tapering ORT, I cannot recommend MBSR courses and learning how to meditate strongly enough. It is another topic entirely, but it really facilitates the process. More than you might be able to imagine. And it will also come in extreme handy by the point you need to deal with the transition off and detox. I tend to agree with Noah Levine in that anyone who can find the time and dedication to meditate for even just 30min three times a day for 90 days is more than capable of finding lasting success in early recovery.
With the slow process of an effective taper, meditation really helps deal with the urge to just hurry up and get it over with. The fact of the matter is that a slow taper will set you up for success, whereas a faster taper or just jumping off tends to set people up for relapse. Anyone who can deal with the time and effort of a slow, reasonable taper is more than capable of meeting and overcoming challenges in early recovery. Actually, it is great training while still tapering off ORT in terms of similar challenges you’ll face after you jump off.
A lot about recovery tends to deal with the desire to get wherever you want to be in life already, as opposed to focusing on the here and now, meeting yourself where you actually are instead of spending all your energy stressing out about how you’re not where you want to get down the road. All this takes time; recovery is nothing if not a process.