Hello BL Fam,
I’m currently at 2mg/day bupe/subs. My goal is to eventually get off of it so that I’m no longer a slave to pharma. I was asked to start tapering down to 1mg then to half it again then again. My question is, currently I get a good energy/dopamine boost lasting most of my day allowing me to be very productive. If I eventually jump off, will I experience decent energy or natural dopamine release or that’s not your experience?
I also feel that Bupe helps with my depression, however I can’t be certain and it may just be placebo/psycho sematic. What do you with mild depression feel when off Bupe? Thanks.
I think you will be fine. I realize that there is a lot going on biologically when coming off bupe, BUT what I find that a lot of it is mind over matter tbh. A lot of the withdrawal I believe is placebo and I do understand there is actual evidence of physical withdrawal going on but I’m just saying that a lot of that withdrawal can be mitigated by not reading into people’s horror stories and feeding into your fear of being uncomfortable/depressed.
Certainly some people do experience severe withdrawals from it but I was on sub maintenance for 5 years at 16 mg a day, went to 8 mg a day, and then 4 mg a day, and then I jumped off CT and get this no lie I had zero withdrawals.
Subs are a long acting long half life medication as I’m sure you are aware so yeah if you get withdrawals they tend to last longer BUT because it is long acting I believe that the withdrawal is less intense for most ppl than say heroin. But that’s just my theory so please take that with a grain of salt. It’s the best I could come up with for trying to figure out how I had zero withdrawal.
And for those of you that know I take kratom now, I do. BUT I didn’t start taking kratom until about 11-12 months after quitting suboxone cold turkey. And I didn’t start taking stimulants which I used kratom to get off of them until 3 months before I started kratom so what I’m saying is that it’s not that I was self medicating with other substances either. I was clean during that time, completely.
I guess what I am trying to emphasize here is that a lot of the withdrawal I believe is mind over matter and it’s like placebo in the opposite direction. People believe they will have severe withdrawal and then psychosomaticly cause those symptoms. Just my theory.
I’m not saying you won’t get withdrawals jumping off at 16mg or something but I think you will be fine when you jump off at .5mg or lower no issues. And also, what
@Noodle473 was saying about yoga and exercise is very true. You can modify your dopamine by adding things like yoga or even just going on 20 minute walks in nature or any other exercise. Yoga works great tho because it has a lot of mindfulness and strenuous exercise works great too because more dopamine is released.
Also, it’s scientifically proven that getting 20 minutes of sunlight in your eyes (not staring at the sun though) triggers dopamine.
This guy is a nueroscientist that is a professor at I think it’s Harvard. One of those schools like that. Here is a video about dopamine
Here is the notes for managing dopamine:
This newsletter will detail how to manage dopamine levels to enhance motivation.
hubermanlab.com
It’s really interesting and if you don’t feel like watching the full podcast this note section should cover all the highlights.
Best of luck man.