Tapering off suboxone is hard, psych wants me in rehab, should i move first?

[recover]

Some background info:

I was addicted to heroin and other opiates like oxycodone for years.
I finally found a place where they could help me to get on suboxone and taper that off in a while (it's their policy to don't let someone be on suboxone for longer than a couple of months, including tapering.

My max dose suboxone was 24 mg, when i tapered it off to 6 mg, a close family member had an enormous accident and was in a coma for weeks.
According to the policy from where i get the suboxone, the suboxone needed to be upped in this sort of cases. They upped back to 14 mg.

A month went by, and when the family member was out of the coma i started tapering off myself, because i didn't wanted to be on such a high dose of suboxone for a long time.

Now months later i have to hardest time to come off the last tablet (2 mg) of suboxone. I take 1 tablet every 5-7 days, but i'm still getting sick and don't feel well after a few days after i took the suboxone, i wait a couple of days (sick to my stomach) and than take another tablet, but every time i try to strech it longer before i take the sub.
I asked my psych for the 0.2 bupe tablets, he didn't want to give me right away, because the blocker is missing in this preparation.

MY 'PROBLEM'

A week ago, i woke up and really wanted to take a shot or heroin again, and so it happend.
Didn't feel great, also sick to my stomach for a while, but when the bag was empty, i felt like buying another one anyway... that's what scared me, so i didn't buy it again.
The next days i was withdrawling pretty bad from that little heroin and after 3 days i still wanted to satisfy my needle fixation and shotted the 2 mg sub (very poorly filtered, did it like 3 times through a cig. filter, but the solution was still cloudy).
The vein where i shotted the most of the sub i still feeling hard and a little painfull after doing that, so i'm never gonna do that again.

Now i'm really wondering if i'll be ready to be off all opiates. Because i relapsed while i was almost tapered off suboxone, and after i didn't took a sub for 5 days.
I moved years ago to a place far away from family and friends, to start a family with my girlfriend back then. She left me, i lost my job and study and all i have is my house, my pet and my computer... a situation what makes me love opiates so much.

My psych wants me in rehab for 3 months, a place where you can't even smoke cigarettes or anything... it feels tempting to go there... but after the 3 months... i'll be back in my lonely home, far away from everybody... will this be the right way for me? Should i move back to my birth-place first? When i'm at my former home (far away from here), i don't have the urge to use opiates. My life is still shallow there, not much friends anymore, and the friends that i have are busy with their own settled family, jobs, education etc.

I really don't know what to do, move back to my birthplace? Go to rehab first? Take a larger daily dose of suboxone to keep me away from heroin? (on a larger dose of sub. i never had the need to use other opiates)... maybe i should take myself to an iboga center? Experiment with other psychedelics like magic mushrooms to get my mindset in the right way?

Im stuck here, fuck.

 

[bonomoopiojo55]

Can you ask your doc about maintainence or switch docs for sub maintainence ?? It doesn't sound like you are ready to come off subs, sorry to hear about all your losses, you got alot on your plate, I've been there, the back and forth of using, on higher dose of sub the cravings aren't as bad, let us know how ya doing, bono

 

[My3sons]

You aren't ready and will be using daily in no time if you come off. Dont make the same mistake I did. i lost my insurance and started to reduce my subs when i wasnt ready yet and it turned into a 2 yr relapse. Now i am on mmt bc i got beyond the point of subs and blew my entire 125,000 savings from my divorce! All bc i came off subs too fast. You aren't even off and already relapsing. Tells you something.

 

[recover]

Can you ask your doc about maintainence or switch docs for sub maintainence ?? It doesn't sound like you are ready to come off subs, sorry to hear about all your losses, you got alot on your plate, I've been there, the back and forth of using, on higher dose of sub the cravings aren't as bad, let us know how ya doing, bono

I was with the same doc for years, they didn't wanted to put me on any maintenance opioid, other medications are no problem, but subox or methadone was a step too far.
I found a different doc at the other side of the country and went there for the suboxone, because i really wanted to come off with suboxone. There was also a maintenance program, but not for subs, it's for methadone only.

Now i'm back at my old doc, because i needed more treatment than i could get at the other side of the country (i can't go there 2 times a week for instance).
My old doc wanted me to disconnect with the psych who gave me the subs, they didn't want two captains on the boat.

My biggest problem now is that i'm still here far away from everybody i love, and no job or education anymore... i don't know if i still have a future here by staying in this home. I wanted to start a new life over here and start a family with the gf i had back then. This has all fallen apart...
Maybe it's better for me to move back to my birth-place. When i'm there i'm more surrounded by people i love and my family, what makes me not even think about opiates.
The psych wants me in rehab for 3 months, and from there work out how to proceed further.
But I think i'll be far more cured when i just move away from my house, back to my old place with the fam and friends around... maybe after moving i could do a rehab course anyway.

What should i do?
Ask for upping of the subox?
Going to rehab asap?
Move first to my humble old birth place where i'm not tempted by opiates and get a lot of distractions from opiates from people i love...

Tomorrow i'll receive some mushrooms, i'm planning on doing a ~10 gram dose somewhere in the upcoming week, hopefully i would get some insights from it, together with your support from BL, i'm hoping to fix this asap, and make a definitive descission on how to go further.

I'm also worried about my veins. In the years i used alot of the same veins. Sometimes it was hard for me to get the right needles, sometimes i used a way to big needle (for IM shots) for my IV shots, just because there wasn't anything else around.
My veins feel hard and bumpy, im worried daily about that... i saw people on iboga getting vasodilation while tripping, is iboga in any way helping in recovering veins?

What should i do (except don't inject anymore), to get my veins in a more healthy state?

You aren't ready and will be using daily in no time if you come off. Dont make the same mistake I did. i lost my insurance and started to reduce my subs when i wasnt ready yet and it turned into a 2 yr relapse. Now i am on mmt bc i got beyond the point of subs and blew my entire 125,000 savings from my divorce! All bc i came off subs too fast. You aren't even off and already relapsing. Tells you something.

Thanks for your response, what you tell me, i hear a lot, also from some doc's that are talking about tapering off / maintenance subs...
Why quit the low dose subox with the high % risk of relapse, when the risk of relapse on a low dose sub is so much lower...

Makes me a little anxious though... chronically taking a opiate... what happens if i got stuck in a major accident and they can't give the correct painkilling because i'm on 14 mgs suboxone for instance.
What if there's something inside my body what gives of pain because there's something not good there... but i can't notice the pain because of the subs... scary idea that i might not get alarmed soon enough, what eventually turns out in something that isn't easily curable anymore, because it took to long for me to notice something is wrong...

 

[bonomoopiojo55]

Holy Moly and wow! I'm stumped at all that! Are you injecting subs? If you really want to give up being an addict you gotta stop the behaviors. Stinking thinking! Can you afford to go to rehab, time and moneywise? From what I've read I would suggest rehab most definitely, would be a huge plus for you. You have alot of figuring out and accepting to do. Not sure about moving, there is this thing called "geographic cure" it is hard to tell if that is it, I would suggest going home if your ready to be sober, but right now you seem to need some kind of support system to get to that point, you don't have to do it alone, you are most vulnerable right now, I would suggest getting help to see what is causing you to want to use and go from there, fondly, bono

 

[recover]

Injected a sub once, don't gonna do that again.

Maybe rehab is good for me... to find out a lot of things.. but the situation where i now live in makes me love opiates, it's so lonely here, i really don't have anybody but my doc to talk irl over here...
How much would rehab help me when after the course, i go right back to the place where i felt like shit and where i'm surrounded with heroin (couple blocks from my house)

Yes i have the money for rehab (it's insured over here). I pay around 100 euros a month for my insurance. Going to rehab is paid by my insurance company. But that's only from rehab centres i get referred to by a doc. No private practices.

The suboxone is also free for me, well.. you have to pay the first 500 euros of medical costs, after you surpassed that the medicines are free.
You always first get the meds and pay after. So it's not very hard to get meds too.

I used to take alot of other medicines (quitted them all a while ago, one day i really don't wanted them anymore). so i'm far over 500 euro, so i dont have to pay for the subs

 

[cj]

Coming off suboxone is really rough. I can almost guarantee you that if you try and do it outside of rehab you will relapse. Especially since you are having cravings and slip ups while still on sub. That being said I don't think you are ready to come off of suboxone yet. If there is another doctor you can see who will let you be on subs long term then I would do that. If that's not an option then rehab is probably your best bet. Be aware that suboxone is a hellish drug to kick so you will be very sick the first month your there. Make sure they will be able to give you comfort meds like gabapentin, clonidine, soma, ect. Without those you will be in for a nightmare.

 

[recover]

Yes that's what i'm experiencing too... quitting cold turkey heroin was much easier, but after done that a couple of times, i really thought it was better for me to go on suboxone and taper that off. Now i'm using it longer than planned (because of the accident with my fam. member) and having a real hard time.

I was on gabapentin when i started suboxone, upped the dose to the max before tapering it of, had it switched to pregabalin (because it works better for me, and longer), but i was also using venlafaxine, aripiprazole, methylphenidate and sometimes like once a month a benzo.
I've used that combo of meds for a couple of years, so also that was hard to change... no doc dared to change anything in it, freightend that they'll removed something from my meds list what made the whole med thing instable.
I decided to stop them all at once, maybe not the smartest way or the healthiest way... but i just didn't want it anymore, got side effects from time to time who scared the shit out of me. I'm not even 30 years old... don't want to die yet.

The rehab they want to put me is very strict, also smoking cigarettes is not allowed.
It's also uncertain if they give me suboxone to taper off there, or that i go cold turkey when i'm in.

Thanks for thinking this through with me, soma isn't available here, but there are meds-like.

And the slip-up with heroin was the result of me thinking that it would be an option to cut through the sub wd with a shot of heroin, i was hoping the heroin would give me a ~24 hour relief, then redose once and then wait it out for the wd's coming back up. Was hoping that i would be able to cope the wd's better, because i rotated the opiates. But it got me nowhere, it got me WAY BACK, now i get wd's after 24 hours when i take a sub. Before the 2 heroin shots, i was able to be wd free for 4-5 days and took the sub at day 6, 7 of 8.

I'll contact my psych in a few hours to update him and go from there. Haven't took another sub for a few days, but wd'ing pretty bad.
Just took some gabapentin (still got a lot of meds leftover) and before te night 3 mg lormetazepam, got me sleeping for a couple of hours, now i'm right awake, and cold again (with the home temp @ 24 degrees celsius).