How to Get Through Heroin Withdrawal – a Personal Timeline
Hey people, obviously everyone is different when it comes to withdrawal and the doses and timelines here will differ for everyone, but after going through withdrawal SO MANY TIMES (50+), this is the method that gets me back to full health in the most painless and effective manner. I'd love some people to chip in and expand this as there isn't much information available that fully explains how to deal with each stage of withdrawal (maybe there is, but I can't find it). So here is my personal guide:
Hour -12: Even though this is very difficult, you must spend one day beforehand doing less drugs than you would usually do. Delay scoring for as long as you can. In my case I took a lot of Red Vein Kratom to stave off the initial mild withdrawal and the doom that comes with not knowing quite HOW BAD the withdrawal is going to be. Take what you need to sleep for a long time the night after the previous day – I took 2 x 1mg Xanax, 2 x 5HTP (available from Holland and Barrett) and two large hash joints. This is the make sure that you don’t wake up 6 hours later sweating and anxious.
Even doing this you will still almost certainly wake up 8 or 9 hours later which is 3-6 hours before it is safe to take buprenorphine (in my case anyway, no one wants acute withdrawal, although it’s very handy to have strong Seroquel pills on hand to knock you out if you do find yourself in acute precipitated withdrawal.
Once you wake up and the anxiety kicks in about the incoming withdrawal, you must take another Xanax (1mg in my case) and as much Red Vein Kratom as you need to feel OK. In my case I have the capsules and it took around 32 of them (approx. 11g) to have some sense of normality and stave off cravings. Although the Xanax is important as taking large amounts of Kratom can induce a caffeine style anxiety. The Xanax will balance this out. It is also handy to have some Ashwaganda (available from Holland and Barrett). I also have a prescription to Lisdexamfetamine which also helps to override the lethargy that you may feel after the Xanax and Kratom. I assume that many of you will not have this privilege but any stimulant medication or focus capsules from Holland and Barrett will work.
Once you have balanced out your anxiety and pushed cravings back a few hours you must construct a plan to go and pick up the minimum amount of drugs that you need to feel normal and rid yourself of the incoming withdrawal. I managed to wait 13 hours since my last heroin hit until I picked up again. Once you have picked up (in my case I got 3 bags of drugs, 1 to feel normal and two more to have in the bank to prevent your brain from convincing you to buy more when you run out. YOU MUST NOT LET YOURSELF RUN OUT OF DRUGS BEFORE YOU HAVE MADE A PLAN TO REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THE SITUATION!
Once you feel OK again after having whatever you need to not be sick, get the fuck out of there. Go stay with a friend or family or anything. But make sure you go somewhere that going to pick up is much more difficult than your normal situation and make sure it’s with someone who knows about your habit. Usually even though it’s painful to tell someone how fucked up you are, if you make it clear that you need this to start the recovery process and you’ll find that at least someone may be receptive to this. If you don’t have someone like this, then go to a meeting and get someone. If you communicate that this is essential for your recovery then someone will help you, even if it takes a few meetings to find that person.
In my case I bought an expensive train ticket (£95) to go stay with my brother up North. My brain tried to convince me that I couldn’t afford it but I’d have spent that on more drugs that night if I hadn’t left.
Arrange your get-out and then go pick up a little bit of drugs if you have run out, or take what you have left with you on your way out of there. That way your brain won’t be in a panic that you don’t have any drugs and it will be easier to authorise your journey out of there in your head if you still have a bit of drugs left.
If you can’t do all of this, then just really try to create distractions throughout the day once you’ve picked up your first loot. Go to something that means you can’t go home for several hours or whatever. You can still take drugs with you but if you set a time constraint then you will automatically do the drugs slower than usual to make sure that you don’t run out before you can pick up again. Then when you finally do pick up again, do the same thing until it is late enough to go to bed.
It’ll be hard to not just keep picking up drugs through the night one you are home and dry, but take as many downers as you can to make yourself too sleepy and lethargic to bother to go out in the night to pick up. In my case I took 2 x 1mg Xanax, a THC vape cart (normal weed is fine) and more 5HTP.
When you wake up on day 1 of withdrawal, immediately take the same combination as mentioned earlier or add a little extra, I woke up 8 hours after I’d taken the Xanax and was already in mild withdrawal. I took 2 x cocodamol (codeine phosphate would be better, or tramadol or something), 20 capsules of Red Vein Kratom (approx. 6.5g) and another 1mg Xanax. I was having really bad RLS and doom about what was coming but then I just fell asleep again. It’s pretty grim to experience this but is nothing compared with acute withdrawal. I woke up 3 hours later with slightly more severe symptoms. Sweating and constantly needing the toilet, a bit of anxiety but not as much as if I hadn’t taken the Xanax.
Once it hit 12 hours (40 minutes of RLS and sweats wasn’t great, but again, you can get through it if you know that your subutex is gonna get in you soon. I took my subs at 12 hours as I couldn’t wait any longer. The last hit of drugs I did was 12 hours before but it was a really small bit and I mixed it with lots of crack to make sure that the heroin intake was tapered. So really it was around 14/15 hours since I had done enough heroin to potentially send me into precipitated withdrawal. You do not want to include methadone in this or you’re in for a fucked up time.
I took 16mg of subs and another 1mg Xanax, which sent me back to sleep for an hour or two. Once I woke up I was still feeling restless, anxious and lethargic. I took another 6mg of subs (totalling 22mg – some Doctors say that 24mg is the max you can take before it stops doing anything but I’ve taken up to 40mg and seen the benefits (coming off a really bad habit). Generally, 32mg seems to be the barrier for me.
Once I’d had my subs and some of my physical symptoms had subsided its now time to wake the fuck up instead of lounging around in bed all day and then staying up until 4am watching doom programs about drugs and prison on Netflix. I took my prescribed lisdexamfetmaine but the real hero at this stage is PREGABALIN. Take 1 or 2 300mg pregabalin, have a few coffees and you’ll start to feel human again.
Once the pregabs have kicked in, get dressed, go eat something (takeaway pizza or whatever) and drink and much water as you can (obviously do this throughout the whole process. I took a couple of Ashwaganda too to de-stress the central nervous system. Try and eat what you can – if you can include a banana or some broccoli or something then good on you. Usually I just eat a fuck tonne of ice cream but this time I had some broccoli and chicken (although I was lucky to have my brother attend to this and present me with everything I needed, which is why it’s important to go stay with someone that knows about your problem and can help you). Drink coca cola, Lucozade, monster – whatever you can to get some sugar in you, eat chocolate. If you can’t bear the thought of eating, then smoke a fat hash joint to make you hungry for snacks.
You should be feeling well enough to at least talk to whoever you’re with. Ask them for the things that you need and reassure them that this means the world to you. Most addicts do not like to burden others with their problems because it is an obviously repetitive cycle of getting clean and then going back to a habit. You must ask for what you need from people that you can. It is not your fault that you are a drug addict, your brain just doesn’t produce consistent levels of dopamine like other peoples’ brains do, so it’s no surprise that your brain will trick you into giving it substantial amounts of dopamine whenever you can, to account for its fluctuation in production. You cannot do this alone or at home because you will always go and pick up 100% of the time eventually.
Have a chill night, drink fizzy drinks and water simultaneously, take more bupe if you need it, take another pregab if you don’t feel as though you’ve got enough energy.
Sit on the sofa or in bed and watch something funny, binge eat and hydrate to fuck. Herbal teas are good, more orange Lucozade.
As hard as it is to get to sleep early (on the eve of day 1 for me I revel in staying up all night where no one can bother me, watching doom programs and smoking joints, but again as before, take what you need to get to sleep before midnight. More Xanax will do it, 5HTP or if you’re still not feeling good then knock yourself out with a Seroquel.
The second you wake up the next morning, take another Xanax or two. That day 2 restlessness and anxiety is a killer. Then take the smallest amount of bupe that you possibly can to feel at least that you can get up and get dressed.
Get through the day however you can. If you can get out for some fresh air, then great. Cycling, running is great but obviously it’s fucking hard and I will admit that I have never been out to exercise whilst in withdrawal because the thought of it makes me want to throw up everywhere. Now you wait. Don’t take anything else once you feel alright. Maybe pop another Xanax is you start to feel anxious and another pregab if you don’t have energy.
Once you feel the small amount of bupe start to wear off and you notice mild withdrawal symptoms (irritability, sweats, bathroom problems, whatever) then it’s time to get fully onto the Kratom. Take enough to make you feel OK again (another 32 capsules for me).
Usually you will need to re-dose the Kratom every 3-4 hours I have found so get all your doses ready in cups right next to where you are.
Some people suggest that taking Kratom and then bupe may produce a slight precipitated withdrawal, but since it isn’t actually classified chemically as an opioid then I believe it to be safe. I certainly have never had precipitated withdrawal after taking Kratom and then bupe a little bit later if the Kratom isn’t strong enough to battle a severe withdrawal. Maybe some of you will, but I can’t see how.
Keep taking Kratom whenever you start to feel withdrawal symptoms kicking in. Try to lower the dose each time by 2-4 capsules (somewhere between 0.5 – 1.5g). For me I needed 6mg bupe in the morning and then I dosed 32 capsules (10.5g) 7 or 8 hours later. I did take another Xanax and another pregab beforehand though too. I then dosed 28 capsules 3.5 hours later, then 24 3 hours after that. This took me to midnight on day 2. I then took another 1mg Xanax and some 5HTP, smoked a THC vape and went to sleep.
Make sure you have medicine handy at your bedside. If the Kratom doesn’t cut it then take more bupe, but be aware that the idea is to come off bupe with Kratom so always take it slowly in stages until you feel OK. Keep doing this and taper down off of Kratom over a period of 2-3 days. This will mean that the medicine you are taking will be strong enough to significantly soften your withdrawal from heroin and 1.5 day’s worth of bupe.
Always have Xanax at hand – Xanax is key. Always have Pregabalin at hand – Pregabalin is also key.
Keep dosing Kratom (in high-ish doses) and subsiding the effects with Xanax and pregabalin. Get off the bupe as soon as you can. You only really need it on day 1 and 2 just to give you the capacity to get out of bed once your physical symptoms have subsided and start your taper.
In my case it took me 4-5 days to fully taper off of Kratom with intermediary Xanax and pregabs. If you take bupe for 3 consecutive days or longer then it’s going to be much, much harder to withdraw from because it builds up in your body.
Drink or swallow your Kratom, sit in the park, talk to your friend, get to a meeting or go meditate in a group session. Do whatever you can to create peace of mind or a sense of community. Ask as many people as you can who know about your addiction to help you and tell those who don’t know if you feel any sensation of trust (loads of people in meetings you can trust) but only if you think that by telling them you will be able to benefit from their support. Do not include anyone who you may feel will add unnecessary pressure on you to be well. Prioritise your recovery, sign on, try and get benefits, rob supermarkets, ask friends to borrow money, rob your friends if you can, sell you stuff. Do whatever you can to make sure that your primary concern is your own personal recovery. You can apologise to these people afterwards and they will sympathise. Once you are well your energy will be powerful enough to engage those you betrayed and to make them realise that they have played a life-changing part in your recovery, whether consciously or not. They will forgive you and be flattered eventually, as long as you prove to them that you did what you did to stay well and make sure you stay well. Get to meetings every day, get a sponsor, go meditate, do some yoga, cycle to a lake, go camp in the woods, whatever!
You are now well enough to fully start your recovery. You are clean of heroin and clean of subs. Once you reach this stage then go home, but make sure you have some clear plans that will keep you busy through the early days. If the person you stayed with can come with you then that’s a bonus, but they are probably sick of the sight of you by now.
Keep distracted, write down in a diary the things that you have achieved, keep drinking Kratom and that will subdue your cravings. It’s cheap and you can buy loads of it from countries where it is legal. Do whatever you need to do to not pick up. If you feel like picking up then take more Kratom, take a Xanax and a Pregab and call your support person/sponsor/family. This will help to dissuade you from picking up again. Delete all of your numbers obviously and block ‘ON 10/10 got both live’ messages (lol). Join the gym, go swimming, go lift weight or whatever you do, go cycling, go SKATEBOARDING, deepen your meditation practice, do yoga and restore your body and mind, go on retreat, practice rejoicing in others, practice kindness and giving, practice gratitude, read all the text that you can, microdose LSD or Mushrooms (I personally cannot dose shrooms as I find it gives me too much decision making in my intentions which my ADHD cannot handle as I suffer with decision paralysis and rejection sensitive dysphoria. Microdosing LSD really helps me. Read the big book and the stories in the back, take supplements such as L Dopa, L Theanine, Ashwaganda, Lions Mane, Vitamin B Complex, 5HTP before bed to balance your serotonin for the morning. Don’t be afraid of taking as much Xanax as it takes to crush any anxiety you have in the first few days of withdrawal. Go on retreat, join a local meditation centre, learn Buddhist philosophy, do whatever you can to better yourself. Do whatever you can to connect with others and expand your community and therefore your support network. Share in meetings, get to meetings early to talk to people, get a commitment at a meeting or a community centre. Give the fuck back to society and it will make you feel great again.
You must get to the point where if you take drugs you know that you will be letting a lot of people down, that other people will suffer if you cannot keep your commitments. You must get your dopamine and serotonin from giving to others, helping others and appreciating every little situation or gift in life. Trust in a force greater than yourself. Trust that karma will slowly distance you from drugs if you give enough back to other people. Make amends, take accountability for your part in every situation. Respect people’s boundaries and create your own boundaries. Giving back will dramatically increase your self-esteem and give you a sense of purpose.
Saying all this is easy, but putting it into practice is difficult. Make one small change each day, try to initiate a small act of kindness each day. Insanity is doing the same things and expecting a different result. Consider the history of your drug abuse and notice when you are repeating history and put every fibre of your energy into not repeating history
I am on day 1 and I’m dressed and feeling OK. The mountain is in front of me and I must climb it and practice what I preach.
Stay well my friends, stay well.
