I hope you are able to find ways of managing your symptoms more effectively. This probably means some kind(s) of medications for a month or two, but there is nothing wrong with that. You should be able to manage your symptoms without using opioid based medication if that is what you want (and if you find you can't, you can address that down the road if/when you come to that realization). You can pretty easily avoid issues with ongoing use of said medication if you just use it as prescribed.
Do you have access to a non-habit forming sleeping aid? They only can help so much during acute withdrawal, but definitely are useful to have around for the first year of abstinence. Something like trazadone or Seroquel is commonly used for this purpose, but there are lots of other options too (although they tend to be related to sedating antidepressants and sedating atypical antipsychotics in terms of the non-habit forming stuff). Sometimes, when one has a shitty day going to bed at 8pm is the most skillful thing one can do.
I believe there is a pretty vibrant Refuge Recovery group culture in NYC. With you're interest in recovery and mindfulness oriented meditation, you might benefit from checking them out. I prefer the Against the Stream groups (ATS is more harm reduction oriented, RR is more abstinence-only oriented), but have benefited from engagement with both groups.
Yes, I still need to send you that PM
I need to figure out what I personally need in that kind of system, but I promise I'll get to it today. I also need to create recovery journal thread for myself today. I'm just feeling a little lazy as my day just started, so I'll probably get to this stuff a little later, after I medicate, have breakfast, clean up a bit, you know - the morning routine
Today is my first full day of winter holiday, with time off from grad school, and I have nothing to do but try to enjoy myself as I detox myself from kratom. I am SO thrilled to finally have the time to devote myself entirely to getting off kratom. I've been literally waiting for months, as I wasn't comfortable doing it while I had work to do for class.
I'm discovering how remarkably easier it is getting off a few months of daily kratom than a similar situation with opioids. A little gabapentin helped with the restlessness and cravings yesterday, CBD made it even easier, and I have zero desire to use kratom. I even slept really well with just 50mg of trazadone and a little melatonin last night, so I'm doing pretty well as far as I'm concerned. But I want to get setup with the SLiPP thing, been wanting to for a while now, so today's a perfect day to get to it.
In terms of insomnia, something I realized when I was getting off methadone and had really difficult insomnia, was that sometimes when I can't sleep trying to sleep doesn't help. It actually can make it more uncomfortable. So, at a certain point, after I obviously am having trouble sleeping, getting out of bed, listening to NPR episodes (Radio Lab, Snap Judgement, Note to Self, etc are all great shows to listen to when you can't sleep), or reading a book is what I'll do, or even going out for a walk. Going out for late night/early morning walks when most everyone else was still asleep was actually a lot of fun when I detoxed from methadone. It in many ways kept me sane while I dealt with the insomnia for a few weeks. Making a cup of non-stimulating late night tea and really savoring the process of making and consuming it is also delightful, but late night walks are really where it's at with severe insomnia IMHO.
It's just a matter of time till your body adjusts to its new state of equilibrium, or life without opioids. The concept of homeostasis is rather misleading, but it helpful in this specific instance. Try and do whatever you can to keep yourself comfortable during the time it takes to adjust. It won't be forever like I said, so it's just a matter of doing what you can to increase your QOL while you undergo these changes.
The biggest challenge with what you're currently doing is how to go about it all skillfully. That means exploring safe, healthy ways of being kinder and gentler with yourself and your process. In American culture, and in most cultures for that matter, learning to be kinder and gentler with one's self in healthy ways can be quite the challenge. We're all about doing, producing, making money and "success." But what good is material success if you're miserable and addicted?
Material success is necessary, but so to is learning to take good care of yourself in terms of physical, emotional and psychological needs (and we all have them, though they might look a little different from person to person, they tend to center around how we bond and connect (or how we struggle to find connection) with others). Learning ways to be kind and gentle with yourself in healthy ways is a lot more nuanced that it might sound - which is to say what being kind and gentle means won't necessarily be self evidence, and you'll have to explore and experiment to see what it really means for you.
But that's what long term recovery is all about: learning to explore and discovering what does and does not work well given your own unique, individual set of needs (again, the entirety of your physiological, emotional and psychological biopsychosocial needs).
I'll PM you soon about the SLiPP though
