Disclaimer: This thread is about Burt, my pet rattlesnake's experience, in first person for the sake of cogency.
So I've been using and abusing opiates for over eight years now, I started with oxycontin, and have dabbled in everything except fent. At my worst, I was snorting about 300mg a day of the old OC's. Over the last year and a half, due to the crackdown on pills and their outrageous prices, I switched to heroin. I was snorting about a gram a day, combined with 4-6 mg of xanax. I would have been iv-ing, but I am very petite and my veins are tiny, so fortunately for me, I never had the luxury of using the needle unless someone else would do it for me. Due to my fiscal situation, and overall diminished quality if life, I had to quit. I've been through cold turkey withdrawal more times than I care to count, so I am no stranger to the rattle and bite of withdrawal.
My advice is based on what I've done over the past month. I successfully weened myself off of a gram a day habit (a year and a half of heroin usage, with some 30mg roxies every once and a while for good measure), to 2 bags a day or less (average dope- powder form, not fire but not garbage either), and then nothing, with almost no withdrawals. I thought it was impossible to do, but it is possible and for anyone who wants out of the cycle, I recommend the following...
To successfully ween off, you absolutely need to give yourself a month on the taper- I think this is where people stumble bc they attempt to taper off too quickly and if you mess up one day and do too much, you are back at square one. Giving yourself time for your body to acclimate to the smaller dose allows for some human error, as I cheated and overdid it once or twice, but went back on the regimen right away and was able to recoop what I'd lost in my fiendishness
I jumped off from a gram a day, insuffulated, to 4 bags a day initially. This wasn't without some pain, but it was minimal. After 4 days, I went from 4 bags a day to 2, and I stayed there for 3 weeks. Please keep in mind that it's not a precise science bc, as we all know too well, the purity of dope varies greatly. But I typically tend to find that if I cop from the same person consistently, there isn't too much variation in the purity of the dope I get, unless lightening strikes. If you attempt to quit this way, it's important to be honest with yourself bc there is no metric as to the purity of dope. I kept myself comfortable, but not high. Only you know the difference between comfortable and blitzed, but I promise that for most healthy people with normal metabolisms, if you adhere to this advice, you won't suffer through unbearable physical withdrawal. While the psychological dependence is still there, this will eliminate all, if not a great portion, of the physical symptoms.
As the weeks went on, I tried to space out my dope usage as much as possible, so that the two bags would last me 36 hours whenever possible. Eventually, in the last week, I went down to a bag and a half a day for the four days before I jumped off completely.
Here I am, days later, and I am not experiencing any withdrawal symptoms except for insomnia. Any other time I've gone cold turkey, by 24 hours I am deep into the shit, feeling like I got hit by a bus, sweating and stinking and freezing, unable to get into a comfortable position, with copious amounts of stomach pain and diarrhea and vomitting in unison... Not pretty.
The key, for me, has been working with my dope dealer, as funny as that sounds. I told him to limit me to X amount of bags a day, and he did. I also had someone else hold my cash, so I wouldn't have the option of copping from someone else. If your dope slinger isn't as cool as mine, have a friend or family member ration it out for you- someone mentally strong who won't give into your pleading for more.
This past month I've still managed to have good times as well, it's possible to still get a nice buzz when tapering this way, if you potentiate the dope correctly. In my case, I pretty much quit using xanax outright when i went on my taper (I can't recommend quitting xanax cold turkey to anyone bc of the risk of seizures, but bc I'm telling my story in it's entirety, I can't leave this out). Once every 7-10 days, I let myself do a little xanax with my dope and get loaded. Now, just .5mg of xanax gets me high as hell, compared with the days I was using on the regular when 3 or even 4 bars wouldn't make a dent in the way I felt. Something about continuing to use dope during benzo withdrawal allowed the xanax withdrawal to become barely noticeable, which is weird, bc benzo withdrawal has been a bitch for me in the past, with mad hallucinations/delusions, insomnia, and a foggy ass brain. However, when I've ct'd xanax in the past, I'd been quitting opiates at the same time (double the fun), so I felt the pain of benzo withdrawal in unison with opiate withdrawal. The days I allowed myself to use xanax, I took about 600mg of cimetidine and chewed on antacids 30min before using dope or xanax. Cimetidine/tagamet potentiates both the heroin and the xanax, so you get more bang for your buck.
In a nutshell, the most important part of successfully tapering off of heroin has been to allow myself a month to do it. I didn't shock my system, I let my body get used to less and less dope until I didn't feel like I was dieing from not having it. Because the dope I get is prob around 20% pure, it's certainly not fire, that has helped a lot too. I'd recommend stepping on it if you do get good dope and you're attempting to taper, or instead of tapering down to 2 bags, ween yourself down to 1 bag or 1.5 bags/ day. Again, unfortunately it's not a precise science and it's def something you have to play around with. As a rule of thumb, don't let yourself get too comfortable or complacent, there should be a little discomfort involved, especially the days you lower your dosage, just not enough to get off of the program. Being mentally strong, even if it's just a little stronger than you usually are, is key.
I have zero self control with dope, so I have relied on other people control it for me, and I've been lucky enough to have someone there that won't allow me to cheat. Enlist help. And please post any questions or pm me, as I am beyond thrilled to share something that actually works for once. I can't afford rehab, rapid detox or ibogaine, so this has been a God send. I've tried to be specific, but I'm sure that there are holes in this or questions that might arise, and I have no problem fielding them. I've done about 50 searches to see if anyone else has had success tapering off of heroin, and to this date have yet to find another success story, and I believe that's mainly due to people attempting to go through this process too quickly. It took a while to build an addiction, and it takes a while to break it, but the human body is amazing and cooperative.
Cliff's Notes:
The gradual nature of this tapering method is tantamount.
Day One: From 1 gram/ day, powdered heroin, circa 20% purity, insuffulated
Day Two-Day Five: 0.4g/ day
Day Six to Day 26: 0.2g/ day
Day 26 to Day 30: between 0.2g to 0.15g/ 36 hours/ day
Day 31: jump off, no usage
*Optional, if you still feel the need to party, because hey, we can't all be perfect saints: Allow yourself a small amount of xanax once a week to feel high, no more than 1 bar, but refrain from using xanax the rest of the month. If you stay off of the benzos except for this small amount of usage, a quarter to half a bar should do the trick- the less it takes, the better for you physically, psychologically and financially. Also consider using cimetidine, antacids, and white grapefruit juice 30 min before usage to potentiate the heroin on the days you use xanax.*
**Final notes: I know the majority of heroin addicts preferred ROA is IVing. If you can get off of the needle and snort your heroin instead, this process works better, as the bioavailability goes down, and physically you are less dependent. However, I would venture to guess that this method will still produce results for those of us who do IV. If you can limit yourself to IVing under 2 bags a day as recommended in this process, you'll fare better in the end.**
So I've been using and abusing opiates for over eight years now, I started with oxycontin, and have dabbled in everything except fent. At my worst, I was snorting about 300mg a day of the old OC's. Over the last year and a half, due to the crackdown on pills and their outrageous prices, I switched to heroin. I was snorting about a gram a day, combined with 4-6 mg of xanax. I would have been iv-ing, but I am very petite and my veins are tiny, so fortunately for me, I never had the luxury of using the needle unless someone else would do it for me. Due to my fiscal situation, and overall diminished quality if life, I had to quit. I've been through cold turkey withdrawal more times than I care to count, so I am no stranger to the rattle and bite of withdrawal.
My advice is based on what I've done over the past month. I successfully weened myself off of a gram a day habit (a year and a half of heroin usage, with some 30mg roxies every once and a while for good measure), to 2 bags a day or less (average dope- powder form, not fire but not garbage either), and then nothing, with almost no withdrawals. I thought it was impossible to do, but it is possible and for anyone who wants out of the cycle, I recommend the following...
To successfully ween off, you absolutely need to give yourself a month on the taper- I think this is where people stumble bc they attempt to taper off too quickly and if you mess up one day and do too much, you are back at square one. Giving yourself time for your body to acclimate to the smaller dose allows for some human error, as I cheated and overdid it once or twice, but went back on the regimen right away and was able to recoop what I'd lost in my fiendishness
I jumped off from a gram a day, insuffulated, to 4 bags a day initially. This wasn't without some pain, but it was minimal. After 4 days, I went from 4 bags a day to 2, and I stayed there for 3 weeks. Please keep in mind that it's not a precise science bc, as we all know too well, the purity of dope varies greatly. But I typically tend to find that if I cop from the same person consistently, there isn't too much variation in the purity of the dope I get, unless lightening strikes. If you attempt to quit this way, it's important to be honest with yourself bc there is no metric as to the purity of dope. I kept myself comfortable, but not high. Only you know the difference between comfortable and blitzed, but I promise that for most healthy people with normal metabolisms, if you adhere to this advice, you won't suffer through unbearable physical withdrawal. While the psychological dependence is still there, this will eliminate all, if not a great portion, of the physical symptoms.
As the weeks went on, I tried to space out my dope usage as much as possible, so that the two bags would last me 36 hours whenever possible. Eventually, in the last week, I went down to a bag and a half a day for the four days before I jumped off completely.
Here I am, days later, and I am not experiencing any withdrawal symptoms except for insomnia. Any other time I've gone cold turkey, by 24 hours I am deep into the shit, feeling like I got hit by a bus, sweating and stinking and freezing, unable to get into a comfortable position, with copious amounts of stomach pain and diarrhea and vomitting in unison... Not pretty.
The key, for me, has been working with my dope dealer, as funny as that sounds. I told him to limit me to X amount of bags a day, and he did. I also had someone else hold my cash, so I wouldn't have the option of copping from someone else. If your dope slinger isn't as cool as mine, have a friend or family member ration it out for you- someone mentally strong who won't give into your pleading for more.
This past month I've still managed to have good times as well, it's possible to still get a nice buzz when tapering this way, if you potentiate the dope correctly. In my case, I pretty much quit using xanax outright when i went on my taper (I can't recommend quitting xanax cold turkey to anyone bc of the risk of seizures, but bc I'm telling my story in it's entirety, I can't leave this out). Once every 7-10 days, I let myself do a little xanax with my dope and get loaded. Now, just .5mg of xanax gets me high as hell, compared with the days I was using on the regular when 3 or even 4 bars wouldn't make a dent in the way I felt. Something about continuing to use dope during benzo withdrawal allowed the xanax withdrawal to become barely noticeable, which is weird, bc benzo withdrawal has been a bitch for me in the past, with mad hallucinations/delusions, insomnia, and a foggy ass brain. However, when I've ct'd xanax in the past, I'd been quitting opiates at the same time (double the fun), so I felt the pain of benzo withdrawal in unison with opiate withdrawal. The days I allowed myself to use xanax, I took about 600mg of cimetidine and chewed on antacids 30min before using dope or xanax. Cimetidine/tagamet potentiates both the heroin and the xanax, so you get more bang for your buck.
In a nutshell, the most important part of successfully tapering off of heroin has been to allow myself a month to do it. I didn't shock my system, I let my body get used to less and less dope until I didn't feel like I was dieing from not having it. Because the dope I get is prob around 20% pure, it's certainly not fire, that has helped a lot too. I'd recommend stepping on it if you do get good dope and you're attempting to taper, or instead of tapering down to 2 bags, ween yourself down to 1 bag or 1.5 bags/ day. Again, unfortunately it's not a precise science and it's def something you have to play around with. As a rule of thumb, don't let yourself get too comfortable or complacent, there should be a little discomfort involved, especially the days you lower your dosage, just not enough to get off of the program. Being mentally strong, even if it's just a little stronger than you usually are, is key.
I have zero self control with dope, so I have relied on other people control it for me, and I've been lucky enough to have someone there that won't allow me to cheat. Enlist help. And please post any questions or pm me, as I am beyond thrilled to share something that actually works for once. I can't afford rehab, rapid detox or ibogaine, so this has been a God send. I've tried to be specific, but I'm sure that there are holes in this or questions that might arise, and I have no problem fielding them. I've done about 50 searches to see if anyone else has had success tapering off of heroin, and to this date have yet to find another success story, and I believe that's mainly due to people attempting to go through this process too quickly. It took a while to build an addiction, and it takes a while to break it, but the human body is amazing and cooperative.
Cliff's Notes:
The gradual nature of this tapering method is tantamount.
Day One: From 1 gram/ day, powdered heroin, circa 20% purity, insuffulated
Day Two-Day Five: 0.4g/ day
Day Six to Day 26: 0.2g/ day
Day 26 to Day 30: between 0.2g to 0.15g/ 36 hours/ day
Day 31: jump off, no usage
*Optional, if you still feel the need to party, because hey, we can't all be perfect saints: Allow yourself a small amount of xanax once a week to feel high, no more than 1 bar, but refrain from using xanax the rest of the month. If you stay off of the benzos except for this small amount of usage, a quarter to half a bar should do the trick- the less it takes, the better for you physically, psychologically and financially. Also consider using cimetidine, antacids, and white grapefruit juice 30 min before usage to potentiate the heroin on the days you use xanax.*
**Final notes: I know the majority of heroin addicts preferred ROA is IVing. If you can get off of the needle and snort your heroin instead, this process works better, as the bioavailability goes down, and physically you are less dependent. However, I would venture to guess that this method will still produce results for those of us who do IV. If you can limit yourself to IVing under 2 bags a day as recommended in this process, you'll fare better in the end.**