i'm reading gabor mate's book the realm of the hungry ghosts, literally this morning i read his saying that being honest with people around you is beneficial to recovery, it gives your addiction less places to hide. i'm glad you've told him about the alcohol, i hope he's being supportive.
subutex is longer acting, which makes the withdrawal longer if you cold turkey rather than taper. how bad withdrawal is depends on the length of you habit (entire, not when you moved onto ORT) and how much you were taking. to avoid getting sick you will need a supervised taper, and you will need to stick to it. i have never done ORT cos i knew loads of people on methadone who used heroin on top. i've also never successfully tapered cos tapering off street heroin just isn't really possible, i couldn't control my use and even if i could, i didn't know the purity and it varied day to day. i've never successfully cold turkeyed either, got to day 3 over 20 times, got to the end 5 times, and always always taken some other opiate to alleviate the withdrawals, which drew it out.
subutex will stop you feeling ill all the time, and will give you freedom in that sense. in another sense, it will take away your freedom, you will very likely be on daily pickup, and have to take your dose in front of a pharmacist, at least initially. as it is an opiate, it will give you some of the feelings you get from DHC, subbies are used recreationally for that reason. if you're prescribed over 8mg (i think), then its opioid antagonist properties will come out, and you'll get sick if you use on top. this is also why its important to be in withdrawal when you start it, otherwise you will precipitate withdrawals when you start the subutex. my ex tried that and it was not a pretty sight.
its a tricky one, but the fact is, you've found that you can't taper on your own (marc lewis has written about willpower doesn't work for addiction in his book on called the biology of desire, you're not weak, its disfunction in the brain), so you need a supervised taper. you're most likely to be offer methadone or subbies. the methadone withdrawal can take over a month, subutex withdrawal is quicker, but will vary depending on your dose. the withdrawal is longer than DHC or heroin because they are longer acting, which they have to be for you to not get sick between daily doses. in the week before rehab, i was supposed to be detoxing at my parents, but ended up doing 3 days off then using 1 20 bag of gear followed by 4x4mg subutex, which is not much at all, but was enough for me to still be waking up sweating well into my 2nd week of rehab.
i used to be very prejudiced against ORT but since coming into recovery i've met people who it actually works for, the people I knew on it in my using had no intention of getting clean. unfortunately UK drugs policy is still more based on keeping daily mail readers happy then science. the daily pickup and consuming in front of the pharmacist is so people don't sell their scripts, but all the subbies i've ever bought were from people acquiring them in this manner. so, unfortunately, they tar the system and you have to abide its draconian rules as a result.
getting you off the DHCs but not sick will remove an immediate stress, and hopefully get you getting the psychological help you need before you come off opiates fully. tapering will not get you well on its own. i've realised that i simply couldn't get off heroin because there's more to stopping taking drugs than stopping taking drugs. drugs are doing something for us very well to get such a hold, and what that is for you and learning how you can get it elsewhere requires therapy.