What is the worst drug to have withdrawals from?

[RecklessWOT]

I see alot of people commenting about alcohol wd and talking about its worse since you could die or have a bad seizure, but that's not what I was asking. I made that clear in my original post. I'm talking about just the general feelings each wd would produce opiate vs alcohol

I would rather feel like I had the flu and be depressed than get DTs and have a seizure...
The general feeling of having a seizure is probably not a good feeling.

Opiate w/d is extremely uncomfortable, alcohol w/d is fucking agonizing.

I've had both.
More times than I'd care to.

Let's break it down:

Opiate w/d makes you sick to your stomach, you shiver, get a runny nose, have diarrhea, your body hurts, you can't sleep and get very depressed.

Alcohol w/d makes you sick to your stomach, you shake badly, you get delirious, can't fucking think straight, your body and brain hurt, you can't sleep and get very depressed, get brain shocks, you could have a seizure and even if you don't have one you feel like you're about to.
(I've never personally seized but I'm sure I was close on occasion)

The depression from opiate w/d lasts much much longer, the body aches are a little worse, and you're more likely to shit yourself, but other than that everything about alcohol w/d is much shittier and more intense. It basically completely fucks up your central nervous system and wrecks your world for a while.

You could seriously die from it. I'm not saying it's worse because the fact that you can die from it, but that's why it can kill you because it is that much worse.

 

[ovo1024]

I would rather feel like I had the flu and be depressed than get DTs and have a seizure...
The general feeling of having a seizure is probably not a good feeling.

Opiate w/d is extremely uncomfortable, alcohol w/d is fucking agonizing.

I've had both.
More times than I'd care to.

Let's break it down:

Opiate w/d makes you sick to your stomach, you shiver, get a runny nose, have diarrhea, your body hurts, you can't sleep and get very depressed.

Alcohol w/d makes you sick to your stomach, you shake badly, you get delirious, can't fucking think straight, your body and brain hurt, you can't sleep and get very depressed, get brain shocks, you could have a seizure and even if you don't have one you feel like you're about to.
(I've never personally seized but I'm sure I was close on occasion)

The depression from opiate w/d lasts much much longer, the body aches are a little worse, and you're more likely to shit yourself, but other than that everything about alcohol w/d is much shittier and more intense. It basically completely fucks up your central nervous system and wrecks your world for a while.

You could seriously die from it. I'm not saying it's worse because the fact that you can die from it, but that's why it can kill you because it is that much worse.

Good post man! Very informative and thorough

 

[ovo1024]

Well it seems the consensus is if you couldn't die of alcohol wd that opiate wd would be worse? At least a heavy opiate habit. Not talking 20mg hydrocodone a day. But more like a half gram Heroin IV a day.

 

[La La]

hopspital

 

[michelle1030]

Going through W/D from both alcohol and benzo's at the same time. Or even worse, going through a triple W/D (alcohol, Xanax, Hydrocodone). I still can't believe I lived through that nightmare.

I was without my daily diet of: 750mL of vodka, 2mg Xanax per day, and 150mg Hydrocodone. AT THE SAME TIME. I was pregnant as well. I obviously could not keep ingesting any of these 3 drugs, or I would risk losing my baby (I was already about 4 months pregnant and had tried over & over to stop each of these one at a time, but failed). I went through a special kind of hell that first day, that I can't put into words. I knew the w/d was probably dangerous for baby as well, so I finally went to the ER and told them everything. They kept me a few days to monitor me & the baby. Spent the 1st night in the ICU and pretty doped up. The next 2 days, they kept me as comfortable as they could (I was FAR from "comfortable") without giving me anything too hard on the baby or addictive. I was awake almost the whole time. Couldn't give me any sleeping meds, and obviously no sub or methadone for the opiate w/d that racked my body. They HAD to give me a small dose of benzo to keep me from seizing - which I have a history of doing.

The kicker to this story, is that after staying off all 3 for the next few months, my OB/GYN turned around and gave me a prescription for 30 Hydrocodone 5mg in my 7th and 8th months b/c my back pain was so severe, it made my BP spike, and that's worse on a baby than Vicodin is.

 

[Boku_]

Alcohol, hands down. Hallucinations, delirium, can't sleep. Hell, you can die from alcohol withdrawal.

For the record: I've gone through quite hardcore alcohol withdrawal, was absolutely incoherent for days. Haven't had that much opioid WD, just some mild codeine WD, but still.

How much Alcohol would you have to be drinking daily to suffer life threatening WDS that would require treatment at a hospital if you stopped drinking? Surely it would take years of drinking large amounts of hard liquor like straight Bourbon Scotch Vodka and other spirits from the bottle to built yourself up to the point?

A drinker who has 6 Jim beam and cola cans or Miller genuine draft beers daily for a long period say 10 + years and suddenly has a alcohol free day they would of course have mild withdrawals like anxiety nervousness insomnia and a upset stomach but the withdrawals would pass after a few days. I'm not trying to trivialise alcohol withdrawals but many pub and wine bar drinkers would drink medically speaking a lot on a daily basis so much so the their social drinking would be considered alcoholism seeing as medically speaking 10 or more standard drinks in a 7 day period is considered alcoholic. These drinkers would not be in danger of dying if they stop drinking but injecting Heroin 3 days in row would lead to a heroin user waking up on the fourth day with genuine withdrawal symptoms to deal with.

I think trying to decide whether alcohol or opiate withdrawal is worse or harder to quit it's a case of a much of a muchness and really is splitting hairs as they would say.

Both addictions are serious shit and yes you can die from opiate withdrawals in severe cases. A Young Thai women who was in the Sydney villa-wood immigration detention centre died while in a cell and going through acute heroin withdrawal. This Thai woman in custody would have had other health complications that contributed to her death but she should have been given medical treatment not thrown in a cold concrete cell to sweat it out.

 

[belligerent drunk]

These drinkers would not be in danger of dying if they stop drinking but injecting Heroin 3 days in row would lead to a heroin user waking up on the fourth day with genuine withdrawal symptoms to deal with.

Umm, no? If a person is opioid-naive and/or non-dependent, 3 days of even hardcore use won't send them into withdrawal.

It depends on the person how much they have to drink on a daily basis to go through DT. I don't think what I went through was life-threatening, but it was still god awful. And let's just say that half a litre of vodka was a warmup for me. Hard to remember how much exactly I used to drink for obvious reasons.

Having experienced both hardcore alcohol and mild/average opioid withdrawal (not at the same time), I'd say that opioids are harder to quit once dependentl. With alcohol, even though I felt like death, I was also severely hungover/fucked up and knew that drinking more wouldn't actually fix it. Well, I'd feel better of course, but I was still kind of majorly fucked up, so I just decided to power through and get it over with. As far as opioids go, though, a dose in withdrawal fixes all negative symptoms for me.

The most dangerous aspect of opioid withdrawal is dehydration, which I believe was the cause of death of that woman.

 

[Keif' Richards]

Alcohol withdrawal put the fear of God into me. Opioid withdrawal is just really shitty by comparison.

 

[bingey]

3 days is right around the limit if I use more than a gram a day it will definitely send me in withdrawal if it's 3 days if using 100 mg no it won't. Don't forget dose and or quality are important factors with opiates.

 

[treezy z]

I never liked opiates, I don't even know why I did them every day for a couple years. I think for this reason I mostly just felt sick as a dog when I kicked in February not much mental withdrawal.

Alcohol I've never gotten a habit by itself (only cross tolerance between that and benzos) but in general GABA drug withdrawal is hell, shakey as fuck, feel like you're going bonkers, nervous wreck, stomach fucked up etc. it can kill you if you do it too hastily (ie without medical supervision.)

 

[Bliss26]

3 way tie: insomnia making the every-minute-an-hour syndrome last seemingly forever with no break in sight,

Being a billion degrees , then needing 87 blankets, then sweaty, freezing, rinse and repeat

And, last but not least, that disgusting funk that emanates from every pore like pure funk. Smells sweet and sickly like rotten caramelized onions or something. As soon as you shower, in five minutes it's back. Barf.

 

[BirdSong66]

I tell ya, I was taking 16 oxy 30mg a day and I was kicking bad. I started taking the Imodium pills and it frigging worked !. I started with six and then six more the next hour. Then four every three hours all day.. By time I went to bed, the violent leg shaking stopped and the thoughts of anxiety stopped as well. The next day I did the same and I am feeling fine. I feel even better than when I would take Suboxone . It's going on five days and I am not in withdrawal. Amazing ! I get my script in another eight days. That still bothers me because I think of that high I get. That's the hardest part. But I don't think of it as much as when I'm taking Suboxone.
Go figure.

 

[treading threader]

it starts for me with hot flashes, sneezing, sweats, and dry heaves. progresses to insane restless legs and arms, headache, plus all the initial symptoms i listed. the insomia really does me in tho - that's the cruelest part.

does loperamide REALLY work though? i have a 200 pack just incase, but i've never actually tried it. it's essentially my last resort incase anything happens to my dude.

all in all, i hate what i've gotten myself into- requiring dope to function. i am very lucky to have a mostly disposable income to sustain my habit and never get sick (dude's always around as long as i've got cash).

 

[FnX]

The synergistic nature of the experience. Every minute awake you feel pain, you have restless legs (whole body) but no energy to do anything, you have terrible insomnia forcing you to be awake but you have no motivation for anything. Your body really needs food but it refuses to keep it in, stripping you from energy and motivation even more. The apathy and depression makes everything feel pointless, so good luck trying to motivate yourself. Then sleep deprivation starts to set in and kicks everything up a notch. Everything becomes more and more depressing. List goes on.

Luckily this synergy is also the achilles heel of the experience: if you can somehow break even one of the links in the chain, it will usually have a profound effect on everything. Sleep is an obvious one, if you can knock yourself out somehow for more than just a few hours it's like a blessing from the heavens, process moves forward and you don't have to deal with any of the symptoms. Get rid of the restless legs, suddenly you find it easier to fall asleep and reduce the problems from lack of sleep. Find a source of nutrition that you can hold down and it just might give you some energy to deal with other symptoms.

 

[BeachBum4u]

I had one month where I went bonkers on my Opana and ended up seriously short. I kept tapering and tapering but at one point I had, of course, the terrible diarrheas like crazy. We're talking like turning a faucet on and not to mention, it'd hit me and that we "it" in a matter of a few secords. So, I had to be ready to sprint to the toilet. Well this particular time I had the pleasure of "projectile vomiting" to the mix. I was actually on the john shitting while at the exact same time I had to barf! I had to make a call. I fugured the barf would be more tolerable to clean up that shit, so I sat there shitting and at the same time, barf was streaming towards the shower curtains. I'm telling ya, that bathroom was so disgusting! I have never seen anything so gross in my life (and I hope I never do!). You talk about "learning a lesson"! You'd think I'd never run out again, right? NOPE, I've actually run short in some recent months BUT the difference is I taper more properly and actually get down to where I can get by on less than a half a pill (and sometimes even closer to a quarter of a pill a day) for each of the last 3-4 days. I'm talking about next to nothing but it's just enough to keep me from getting sick and not one iota more.

I apologize for how gross some of this post was but seriously, I doubt it surprises anyone who's been on strong meds for any length of time. Suck it up ladies and gents! Seriously, love you guys!

 

[crazyhairman]

depends on who your are id say opiets but i dont drink either

 

[gmlifer]

I have decided the worse part of being dope sick is being out of dope!

 

[Blind Melon]

Ranking as the Worst of WD Symptoms:
Skin Pain / Skin Hyper-sensitivity to wind, cold, heat, contact of any kind.
The absolute conviction that I will never be happy again
The insomnia

Ranking as the Merely-Intolerable WD Symptoms:
The (constant) paranoia / anxiety
The (constant) nausea
The (constant) diarrhea
The bone pain (much like the growing pains I experienced as a child, only more acute)
The (constant) sweating

The Simply-shitty Symptoms of WD:
The Boredom
The Familial and Fraternal Shame
Dealing with the wreckage of the last run, whenever that may have been
The Lack of Energy and Motivation

 

[PushingDaisies]

Yeah that happens a lot. I'll sometimes even throw up due to the sickness/anticipation of getting everything into the syringe after i've finally copped and made it home safe..after i register and push it in everything feels so much better.

I can't even come up with a close number to compare how many times I've thrown up prior to using, I've always called it bubble gut, lol, it's really not funny but hey....it really sucks when you get your rig all set but shaking too bad to get it in and end up shitting on the toilet with the trash can in your face, gotta get it all out before I can get it in.....I don't miss those days oh and fuck that restless legs ughhhhhh I hate that, I just wanna chop off my legs

 

[bomber]

Perhaps that's the way you become a heroin addict, but I think, or just wanna hope it's not a cannon that everyone goes all the steps, it's possible to stop to any single of them.
Personally I never used other opioids except heroin. Did it 2 months ago, spent 2 or three days high every month and then get back to normal. Now I wait for the month to pass to have more and after that I will use it to my birthday, 2 months after my coming use.
I think I can keep it that way and tottaly quit using heroin after my birthday use. In general Im a very self disiplined person and the fact that I realy enjoy alcohol helps a lot.
I mean, come on, it's possible to use responsibly for a while.