What was the catalyst for you quitting opiates?

[What was it?]

O, and I feel better, look better and am happier than I have been in a long time. The rest of my life has magically fallen into place, who'd a thought?

I always pull back in line before it gets out of hand....but who knows, it might get out of hand one day. Not there yet.

 

[ActiqAnnie]

Lets all be honest, this is the key ingredient. If we all had an endless money supply, we would be arguing why opiates are so bad. Yes opiates are very addicting & can screw up lives but with an endless money supply, you wouldnt have to worry about getting sick & money problems.

I tend to agree. I know that some out there also feel a lot of guilt/shame about addiction, but I do not. I have always thought that drugs, all drugs, ought to be legal and I think that when used safely and responsibly (sterile equipment, known ingredients, not driving when incapacitated, etc) drugs are not the evil vice they are portrayed as by our governments and branches of law enforcement.

Personally, I don't drink alcohol. I dunno why, I just don't...I don't like how it makes me feel. And I have to admit that I'm kinda tired of many of my very-often-drunk friends feeling a deep sense of entitlement towards getting drunk off their asses, in public, whenever they wish, yet giving me a hard time for having scripts for pain drugs and even some gave me a hard time for taking an antidepressant for a year. Doesn't seem fair!

 

[phr]

---> tds

 

[maxalfie]

My best friend had been a heroin addict for about 9years using around 4 x .2 bags each and every day. He was on a methadone script also but had no real intention of stopping using gear.
The thing that finally made him quit using all drugs was the fact that he had got himself into about £800 of rent arrears and faced eviction if the debt wasn't cleared soon.
He knew he couldn't face having to live in hostels again and so from that day he stopped using all drugs and put all his cash towards paying off the rent arrears.
That was nearly 2 years ago now and he hasn't had any heroin at all in that time and he now has no interest in ever touching it again.
I don't think if I had those debt problems that it would have stopped me. I am so proud of him as I know it wasn't easy for him to do as he really used to love the gear.

 

[Deleted member 137730]

I quit alot of drugs after oding on mda and caffeine/ amphetamine. After this i can no longer get the same high from opiates or alcohol so its not enjoyable anymore. Only high dose amps can get me good now.

 

[Bojangles69]

I have not quit opiates in totality but the reason I quit my opiate of choice (pods) was because they gave me a pretty extreme case of hypersomnia. I'm the type of person that tends to believe that drugs don't ruin peoples lives, that people ruin peoples lives. Almost like the gun arguement. A gun can kill a person or save a persons life, what determines that is the person. Same way opiates can ruin a persons life or save it, its what the person does that matters imo.

But still with that said no matter how hard I tried, my body just always needed 10-12 hours of sleep every night. Sometimes as much as 14-16. And that side effect put me in a rut of complete lack of productivity and being inable to live a functional life. Now I'm on sub, I do not need to sleep more than 8 hours, and I don't feel like I'm sedated and slowed down on it. I know my metabolism is which is why its hard as fuck to lose weight, but for now sub works so I have no reason whatsoever to quit that yet.

 

[ranunky]

eh, psychosis probably

 

[mushroompizza]

Been clean from pods and pills for about a year now! Life's better without the opiates. I can't even remember what my state of mind was like back then. My mind doesn't want me to remember because that was such a dark time in my life compared to now.

I started doing a lot of yoga, thinking about how to improve my life, thought about all those unpleasant thoughts that were haunting me. Took an objective look at my situation. I had to admit to myself that I was using opiates to run away from my problems because I was too lazy or afraid of failure to fix them.

The catalyst for stopping, just like with anything, is to take a positive first step. Whenever you do something that you know is good for you you get a good feeling in your body. That good feeling gives you the motivation to do more good things for yourself.

 

[ampakine]

Can't afford them. If it was cheap, legal and abundant I'd most likely be happily addicted to smack right now.

Been clean from pods and pills for about a year now! Life's better without the opiates. I can't even remember what my state of mind was like back then. My mind doesn't want me to remember because that was such a dark time in my life compared to now.

Good to hear! If you have any post acute withdrawal symptoms I recommend looking into hypnosis. Not only will hypnotic suggestion completely eliminate PAWS, it will replace them with positive effects. A new paradigm is nearing. The age of psychotechnology

I'm the type of person that tends to believe that drugs don't ruin peoples lives, that people ruin peoples lives. Almost like the gun arguement. A gun can kill a person or save a persons life, what determines that is the person. Same way opiates can ruin a persons life or save it, its what the person does that matters imo.

Exactly. I've concluded that its pointless trying to explain this concept to people who are blindly opposed to psychoactives because it seems its only people who can readily think outside the box that can grasp this concept. A better analogy for this argument is electricity. Its dangerous and used irresponsibly can kill you but that does that mean its bad? Whether its good or bad depends entirely on how its used. Powerful things almost always have the power to do both good and bad. A good example of this is nuclear power. It can be used to power a city or it can be used to obliterate a city.

 

[suessmayr]

Yeah this ^. I wonder if I would ever have felt any need to clean up if I'd been living say in 19th Century England or in Afghanistan today. It just became such a fucken bitch to constantly be trying to source opiates. And I never had a connect - I always doctor shopped.

This plus the fact that I just felt like a fucken misanthropic gelatinous loser. I lost contact with people and my grades suffered. Oh and my depression got way worse ultimately, although it was obviously better at the start.

 

[suessmayr]

I have not quit opiates in totality but the reason I quit my opiate of choice (pods) was because they gave me a pretty extreme case of hypersomnia. I'm the type of person that tends to believe that drugs don't ruin peoples lives, that people ruin peoples lives. Almost like the gun arguement. A gun can kill a person or save a persons life, what determines that is the person. Same way opiates can ruin a persons life or save it, its what the person does that matters imo.

But still with that said no matter how hard I tried, my body just always needed 10-12 hours of sleep every night. Sometimes as much as 14-16. And that side effect put me in a rut of complete lack of productivity and being inable to live a functional life. Now I'm on sub, I do not need to sleep more than 8 hours, and I don't feel like I'm sedated and slowed down on it. I know my metabolism is which is why its hard as fuck to lose weight, but for now sub works so I have no reason whatsoever to quit that yet.

And this is a good post. In my case, subs made my SO FUCKEN LAZY! I think it's in the nature of opiates to slow everything down - ultimately, anyway. So they can give you a buzz and a boost at the start, but eventually you just want to mong out all day. Taking opiates and trying to be active or to exercise is like taking crystal meth and trying to meditate.

I got sooo sleepy. Some days I would sleep for literally 20hrs! I'd be waking up at 8pm and shit. I was put on modafinil but it did fuck all.

 

[AndroidsDreamofBTC]

I've been clean for about 14 months.

I'd say the main thing that made me quit was a change of surroundings. I went to live in a new city/country, got a job, new friends and so on. I don't really feel like doing H ever again. I do occasionally get the desire to do H when I am really depressed, but these feeling pass quite quickly and are getting rarer and rarer.

 

[TINK]

I took opiates for medical reasons. Was addicted for probably 8-9 years. I got pregnant and couldn't stop and had a miscarriage. So after that I went to detox. I really didn't even think of myself as addicted. I have a medical condition and the doctor's were treating me with medication. My medical illnesses will never go away. In fact they are getting worse and I am now getting diagnosed with more issues. I was opiate free for 5 years. I currently take xr morphine 30 mg 1-2 tablets every 8 hours but it really doesnt do anything so I just take one in the morning to keep the edge off and one and night to sleep better. If the doctors were to take it away, I would probably be like ok sure no problem. At this point I have given up. I have no friends that understand what I am going through and I feel like I am totally battle all these issues alone. Every time I en up in the ER the also ask where is your driver, and in an embarassing tone I say I drove myself.

 

[yuhhhhh]

i've been off opiates for 2 months. i started with hydrocodone before pretty quickly moving to oxy, opana, fentanyl, and eventually shooting dilaudid and heroin. i lost basically everything i had (job, girlfriend, place to live, tons of debt, etc.) but even that wouldn't have stopped me if the law hadn't. i got two DWI's in less than a month. first time i had taken xanax a couple hours before doing a shot (big no-no, i understand) and thought i was cool since i drove around high as can be more times than i didn't. woke up in my neighborhood on the opposite side of the road with my foot on the brake and cops surrounding my car. obviously that didn't stop anything so i kept on plugging away until i lost my job for nodding off at my desk over and over. the same day i was driving home and hit a curb and a cop was behind me so i was pulled over and arrested again. i thought i was for sure going to jail and my bond would be raised when i went to court and the judge knew i was already out on bond when i got my second DWI (this is in houston, texas by the way) but she told me to be in an inpatient treatment facility in 3 days for at least 30 days. so i found a place and went there. shot dope in the bathroom of the facility the moment i decided that was the place i was going to stay at and haven't touched it since. it's more detailed than that, obviously, but you get the point.

i still dream about using every single night and have moments when i'm REALLY glad i'm removed from the situation (i now live in nashville, tennessee) but every day is manageable. i'm not ashamed to admit that i still view opiates, particularly heroin, in this strange romantic way. like regardless of where i ended up while using, it's not hard to focus on what i really enjoyed.

 

[Ixchellian]

I just got tired of it, so I quit.

I knew what was eventually down the path of junk, far before I became a junky. I know what that brings, and I got tired of being so close to absolute zero.
Junk is perfect for avoidance of pain, but there comes a time when avoidance of pain becomes avoidance of living.

 

[4Trinity]

its been about 2 days for me now. My reasoning is because my first kid is on the way, wife is due in November, and hopefully my physcological depends will be over by then. Another reason, was spending $2000 a month to keep it going. Rediculous.

 

[4Trinity]

I've been clean for about 14 months.

I'd say the main thing that made me quit was a change of surroundings. I went to live in a new city/country, got a job, new friends and so on. I don't really feel like doing H ever again. I do occasionally get the desire to do H when I am really depressed, but these feeling pass quite quickly and are getting rarer and rarer.

God Bless you. That is sooooo inspirational for me, just knowing the urge reduces in time.

 

[Zardokk]

I knew it was time to quit when I woke up one day flat broke and realized that the opiates were ruining my relationship with my girlfriend (who was also on them, we were usually using maybe 50-60mg Opana sniffed at a time, or whatever else we could get...). Now I'm down to 0.5mg Suboxone daily (1/16th of a strip) and I expect to be totally sober from opes within 2 months or less.

 

[Shvibzik]

Have you ever considered that anxiety/dysphoria may only manifest themselves because you think they will? As a man thinketh so he becomes..

Do not walk around and suggest that people with psychiatric issues/anxiety/bipolar consume LSD. I sincerely doubt that any experienced psychonaut would recommend this. Anxiety and dysphoria manifest themselves because you are a nervous person and now your fucking tripping balls. You are talking to someone who feels more normal when they take benzos. That means on the average day, they are probably highly anxious.

For me, it was an incredibly frightening experience.

I bet what you are talking about (consuming hallucinogenics and overcoming opiate addiction) can work for some people. I've heard of it working for some people! Not people with psychiatric issues in an uncontrolled setting. Bad idea.

 

[carolyn11491]

This is my first time trying to be completly sober from opiates. I have a pretty low tolerance compared to many people on this site, but I have to take a dose everyday to not go through withdrawls. When I have no money or I cannot get any, I will buy suboxone (very cheap for me) and function very well for about two days or until I can get my pills again which starts a two-three month binge.

I really want to quit for good because of the money and the fear of not being able to get anything. It is exhausting trying to plan how you will get them, how to get money for them, and how much to take each day. Not to mention if I want to get really high one day ill have to buy even more.

To be honest Id like to get off them just so I do not have to depend on them everyday of my damn life. If I could do that I feel like I could just take them recreationly, you know when im going out or hanging out with friend, just every once in a while. I still like getting high on them and love the feeling, but the dependence of them is killing me. Is there anyone who can just take them as the want and not everyday, and feel normal the majority of the time they are not taking them?

I am conflicted on wether I can start playing around with them every once in a while after I can stop depending on them.

Also, I am taking gabapentin for opiate withdrawls and its working great! I think because of my low tolerance, but works for hot and cold sweats, anxiety, and although I am alittle queasy its not as bad. Still have a messed up stomach though, but I can deal with that and take immodium.