Want to get off suboxone quickly

[rungsat69]

Hi, I have a question. I developed a 50 mg hydrocodone addiction per day after having tooth gum surgery. I have had opiate problems in the past that were much more serious. For some reason I couldn't kick the hydrocodone. My doctor started me on sub on September 5th. 2 mg in the morning and 2 mg in the evening. I have taken 2 mg today and i dont want to take the other 2 mg tonight. I dont want to be on sub any longer than i have to. I havent taken the hydrocodone since September 4th. so i feel i wont go back to them. my goal now is to ween off the sub as fast as possible. Is it okay to not take that second dose tonight. i went through treatment in may for alcohol i was doing fine then the tooth thing. i have been sober for 4 months. i was only going to use it for pain. I hadnt taken opiates since 2005. I feel really bad that i got hooked that fast. Now i feel like i am a prisoner to opiates again. I am really scared please help

 

[dopemegently]

Try not to become hopeless and scared now, it could be a hell of a lot worse; there are far worse drugs to be dependent on. If you've not been on it long, there's a good chance your withdrawals won't be too bad at all; bupe WD's can be far less severe than traditional opiates. A 2 mg reduction is the standard taper at my treatment centre, so I think you'll be fine dropping that amount, although you may want to try doing it in 1 mg increments if you struggle with that. (the pills are easy to cut with a razor or small knife). Also, you may find it simpler to consolidate your bupe into a single daily dose. (It's what my drug worker advises me to do).

 

[neversickanymore]

Hey rungsat and welcome to BL.. Here is one take on this. You will need to identify if this will be a plus or will be a trigger for you. Also you will most likely experience a surge in you desire to drink alcohol when you are off the maintenance meds.. I certainly did.

Link>> Switching from Subutex to Morphine for faster withdrawal...bad idea?

 

[badbrain1]

I weaned off 36 milligrams of sub a day over the course of 4 weeks by just cutting the dose in half every day, then once I hit 0.5 milligrams a day I started staggering to every other day, then every third day, then finally nothing. I won't lie to you, it sucked at the end but not nearly as bad as kicking dope. Suboxone is an incredibly strong opiate agonist/antagonist, much stronger than heroin, and the less time you spend on in it the less likely you are to get your opiate receptors acclimated to it. I know guys who have been on low doses, 2milligrams a day, for years and can't seem to get off. I think it's a miracle drug for short term use to help one through withdrawal but becomes more dangerous the longer you're on it.

And I also noticed a strong desire to drink more when I got off it.

 

[dopemegently]

The one thing I've never experienced with sub withdrawals is the absolute, rock-bottom despair WD'ing from opiates such as smack will give you. I remember back in the day, bupe was originally seen as the "holy grail"of opiates-a powerful opiate painkiller with little of the addictive side effects of comparable drugs (of course heroin was marketed originaly as a morphine substitute)...obviously it didn't turn out to be quite so simple, as many are getting hooked on this stuff, in many cases for a very long time (myself included).

IME the WD's are really unpleasant, but nothing compared to heroin. It's just the duration that wears on you; the half-life is crazy long.

The thing that worries me most is how little some of the drs and key workers here seem to understand about the reality of sub addiction; to them, it's effortless to come off. Also, it's quite scary how eager many of them are to push very high doses of up to 32 mgs...