My last Day 1 (Recovery Journal)

[P0kemama]

VE: Wow.. you are doing amazingly well... I think your attitude rocks! From your first post on... you gave a sense that you are determined and will persevere no matter what... and you did! Thanks for letting us take a peek into your own little world of withdrawal... so interesting and helpful!

 

[VastEmpty]

Alright guys - I'm fixing to write a long post sometime soon to answer questions and give more background. Probably sometime in the middle of the night when I get bored staring at the ceiling in the dark.

But for now, I wanted to update. I'm officially at day 7 in about five minutes (just to be clear, that means I'm going into day 7, not done with it...not sure if that makes sense - maybe a better way to say it is that it has been 6 entire days of ZERO oxy!!).

It feels good mentally that I am 6 entire days into this - but doesn't feel good physically. My cold is about 75% better today - thank goodness. That's helping a bit. And I do feel "better". I completely cut out the cough syrup with codeine in it. The last bit I had was yesterday morning around 9:00 am. The only Kratom I have taken today was this morning at 4:00 a.m. when I woke up feeling like shit. It didn't help much but was only about 3 grams (probably less cause I'm weighing them capped now). That may be my last dose of Kratom. I'm not entirely sure. Maybe one more tonight if I just can't sleep...at any rate, I've got 11 more caps (about 4-4.5 grams) and after that I am done. I have more Kratom, but I shouldn't need it and have set a boundary for myself with being done by day 7 or 8 at the latest.

So, I'm slowing weening down on the Kratom and almost done with it - now I need to do the same with the Ativan. I've got about 13 of those left, and I highly doubt I will need all those cause I started with 26. If I took 13 over the first six days, there is no way I'll need the same amount going forward. and by day 10 I need to be done with them. I am terrified to get an addiction to any benzo - Moreaux scared me straight on the benzos after reading her story! Does anyone think 10 days is too much on the Ativan? I also have the phenibut still - never broke into that because I never needed it. Should I switch to that instead of the Ativan for the next few days and then be done, or is there a cross tolerance?

Thank you all so very much for your kind words. It might seem like I'm doing fine without them, but really, I'm not. This has been a hell of a trip and BL has been so helpful.

- VE

 

[BigPoppaGoonie]

You da man! Awesome job, stellar! Just wanted to give you answer about the benzo, I was on klonopin for about 2 weeks and stopped cold turkey. The only real withdrawal I had were occasional "brain zaps" where i would get really dizzy and lightheaded for a split second. You might experience something similar. I had ativan before but it didn't do much for me.

 

[MisterNotSoClean]

Ahh... So I wasn't the only one getting the random short bursts of vertigo. It only happened maybe 10 times or so but it would literally make me either plop on the bed or sit down wherever I was. Don't know if the wds are the same for benzos as opioids but I know that one feeling in particular.

 

[VastEmpty]

BigP -

thanks for the encouragement - I was just thinking that I should feel better about what I've accomplished than I do...I'm going to start telling myself how awesome I am until I do believe it though. Some day I will feel really fucking good about it. I do actually believe that. I'm just not there yet, so it's hard to fully appreciate. Thanks for the response on the benzos, too! In that case, I won't even touch the phenibut cause there is not point if I don't have to.

I know those brain zaps very well. They suck!

Oh also, I am SO the man (as are all of you others working to do the same!) - even though I'm a woman .

- VE

 

[MisterNotSoClean]

Congrats VE!

Glad to hear it sounds like you are coming up on the upswing.

If you have ever seen the Lego movie you got that song stuck in my head with your awesome... "Everything is awesooooome!"

You are so the Whoa man ;P

 

[BigPoppaGoonie]

BigP -

thanks for the encouragement - I was just thinking that I should feel better about what I've accomplished than I do...I'm going to start telling myself how awesome I am until I do believe it though. Some day I will feel really fucking good about it. I do actually believe that. I'm just not there yet, so it's hard to fully appreciate. Thanks for the response on the benzos, too! In that case, I won't even touch the phenibut cause there is not point if I don't have to.

I know those brain zaps very well. They suck!

Oh also, I am SO the man (as are all of you others working to do the same!) - even though I'm a woman .

- VE

Oh no!! Im so sorry! Man, woman...either way you are a rockstar!

 

[vision conquest]

Huge congratulations, you are doing awesome VE.

I will just give my opinion, I would still taper your benzo as opposed to stopping abruptly.
I agree with what has been said previously, the amount you have used is unlikely to cause much of a problem but in my experience anything over say 4-5 days of consecutive benzo use can cause rebound anxiety if stopped abruptly.



Better to be safe than sorry, you want to absolutely minimize anything that could throw a spanner in the works at this point.

Maybe I am being over cautious it's your call.

Either way, you are achieving something to be proud of here and giving many others hope and confidence in the process.

All the best.

 

[the last dose]

way to go VastEmpty!!! i woudnt worry about the ativan i took xanax for a month almost everyday a couple times and came right off it this could be i was also taken oxy at the same time possibly without it would be different. any reason why you didnt do lyrica too? BIG CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[VastEmpty]

Oh no!! Im so sorry! Man, woman...either way you are a rockstar!

No worries, BigP. I've been fairly vague about gender, just cause I wasn't thinking about it I guess.

Update from the later end of 6...I've definitely turned a corner physically. My cold is almost all the way better and my withdrawals are at a very manageable level. However, I think I've turned a corner mentally which I'm not all together happy with. I'm having my first actual "craving" for anything. I don't even crave an opiate necessarily, just anything to get me out of bed. I must be in the no energy stage of withdrawal or something. And I have an awful headache. Ugh, I've always had a habit of taking a pill if I'm not doing great physically - maybe that's half my issue. Im only taking Ativan and Clonidine still. Done with Kratom for good now. Maybe that's why I'm a bit down.

There usually comes a point for me, in this process, where I have a sort of have breakdown and just push the fuck through it. I quit taking everything and just push through it. I think I'm close to that now. For some reason, the mental shit comes after the physical shit - which I'm sure is a small blessing that it's not at the same time. So, I'm currently mentally strapping myself in for quite a ride.

On a positive note - I don't have to go back to work for two more weeks. That'll give me enough time to feel human again.

Thanks again for for all the support and encouragement. You guys are all I've got for support!

- VE

 

[VastEmpty]

I keep promising more background on useage and quit attempts, so I figured I would pull a few things from my first thread from a few months back:

This is my first post, so I will give you a bit of background. I have an autoimmune condition that causes chronic pain. I have been using opiates for about 9 years - most of those years I've been taking 10 mg oxycodones. Probably about 6-7 of those 9 have been daily use. I started at 25 mgs a day and have worked my way up to about 80 mgs a day. I have a strong desire to quit these goddamn opiates.

Late last year I tried cold turkey and made it 9 days. Earlier this year I did the same thing and made it 42 days (I feel sick typing that. I cannot believe I gave up 42-feel-like-I-want-to-die-days!!). My first two attempts were unsuccessful and I absolutely know what went wrong both times. I'm learning from my mistakes but they are really painful lessons. I don't know if I can handle another cold turkey.

I'm doing a lot of things differently this time, which I will have plenty of time to post about going forward.
Im currently at 80mgs of oxycodone a day. My dosage schedule is as follows - approx. 7:00 a.m. (Or when I wake up - my work schedule is very erratic) - 10 mgs. Most days (80% of them) I take another 10 mgs at 10:00 a.m. Then between noon and 1:00 p.m. I will take another 10 mgs. Then when I get off work - which varies sometimes, but not as often as my start times - at about 5:00 p.m. when I take an embarrassing 50 mgs. I'm pretty strict about times and dosages. The only one that varies much is the morning dose due to my schedule.

My current plan is to detox in late October of this year. I plan to try to taper, but I'm not a good taper-er.

here is some more on my two previous quit attempts:

As for what happened the first two times - I've figured that out. The first time I ended up saying I had the flu and calling in to work for 7 of the 9 days. When I got back to work, I quickly learned that calling in sick was a disaster and I need to schedule my absences. When I got back to work after 9 days off, I was SWAMPED in work. I had to work 12-15 hour days for 3 weeks to catch up! So I quickly caved on that 10th day. I was through the worst of it physically, but I was exhausted still from wds and certainly couldn't do 12 hour days after first returning. I told myself I had no other choice but to go back to the pills and plan it better.

So I started taking oxy again and started planning, and planning and planning for my next J-Day (as I called it, jump-day). The second time around I was far more prepared. I had a friend quitting around the same time who was working with an addiction specialist - he got all the comfort meds - clonodine, seroquel (sp?), Xanax, etc. he got some extra for me so I had those. I had scheduled two weeks off of work and had a "backup" so that I wouldn't come back to work with an overwhelming pile of shit waiting for me this time. I had told my mother who is the one person in my life who I can always be honest with. I thought I was set.

So, I ended up making it 42 days and things were going as well as could be expected. I didn't feel 100% after the 42 days, but that's to be expected - and I honestly had very little cravings/ physical symptoms past PAWS at that point. And then I stumbled upon a HUGE weakness. I hadn't talked to my doctor about my plan to quit, and I let someone in my life talk me into going to my doctor and getting a refill because I "might need it someday" and "you know how hard to come by those are!" So stupid. They aren't actually hard for me to come by because of my medical condition. But I did it...

Then I had a prescription for "just in case." Hahaha - we can see how well that turned out. Jesus, it is embarrassing that I let someone talk me into doing something so stupid. But alas, I can only learn from it and try again. So, as I said, this time I have fixed that issue. I will be proactively discussing this with my doctor so that he knows not to give me any opiate refills after my J-Day.

And here is some information on my plans for pain management after opiates:

I have discussed non-narcotic ways to control my pain for years with my doctor. Unfortunately, I really think I've never given them my all because of the opiates. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but opiates take away my motivation to stick with something or to go through anything even remotely painful - and sometimes you have to push through stuff like that. I can't. I cave. However, without the opiates I do so much better! I can stick with a healthy diet, exercise, cutting down on smoking, etc. last time I quit, I was down from a pack a day smoking to just 3-4 per day. As soon as I relapsed my smoking shot up again.

I don't know if I'm even making sense, but I feel like it's all or nothing - all-natural or all-unnatural! So I'm moving in the direction of all-natural. No chemicals, period. For at least six months. If none of the natural ways work after I have actually given them a shot, then I will need to reassess where I'm at. But that's six months clean - so I've got a long time before I have to worry about that.right now, this is my number one priority!

Hopefully that answers some of the questions I've missed!

- VE

 

[the last dose]

After reading your last post VE im praying for you 3rd time is a charm!!!! You will do it this time i really feel you will!

 

[VastEmpty]

Cruising along in day 7 - almost to 8. I still feel pretty rough, but nothing like days 1-5. Just mentally kinda fucked. And physically just absolutely exhausted and beat down.

A little story about my day. Woke up at 3:00 a.m. and felt really awful. I was soaked in sweat but freezing. Took me like 20 minutes of misery to get my ass out of bed, change my pjs/bedding - all the while shivering so hard I thought I might die from cold. So I laid around in bed until 7:30 feeling pretty awful, then slept till 10:00. At that point i thought "well, I'm going to have to get dressed and do something at some point in life - today will be the day." It took me about 30 minutes to get ready to leave the house. Getting dressed was exhausting - not to mention rounding up purse/car keys/cell phone, basically things I haven't seen in a week...

So, off I went, telling myself the whole time to just "fucking do it already." I went to the juice bar and stocked up for the next two days. By the way, I would highly recommend fresh pressed juices during wds. They are soooooo much easier to get down than food. Then off to my local health food store to pick up stuff easy on my stomach and healthy. All in all, it took about an hour from leaving to getting back. I live in one of those areas where they don't have bags at grocery stores and you have to bring your own, which I had forgotten.

So I get home and start gathering my stuff into my arms as best I could, make a trip in...come back out and pick something up off the drivers side floor that I had dropped and my eye catches something little, round and pink. I knew it was a 10 mg oxy in about .3 seconds flat. So I reach down and grab it, and sure enough - that's what it was. I swear to god the thought of eating it immediately followed the recognition - it was so fast I was taken aback. I think I stood there with it in my hand for only ten seconds, but I thought a hundred thoughts. It went from - "VE, it is your lucky day! Finally after 7 days you will have some relief!" Then my more reasonable self was saying "yeah, "some relief," a lot of fucking good that will do me. I need to heal, not be relieved of this." Then The thought of what to do with it came..."just stick it in your purse and worry about it later." And then the more reasonable self thought "yeah right! Get that fucker away from you!" I walked into the house with it cupped in my hand and directly thereafter I handed it off to my loved one who is holding the rest of my extras. I would say, from the time of finding to the time of handing over it was less than 2 minutes.

Crazy, I was having zero cravings for oxy until I saw that. How could I have actually even DROPPED one at all? In the decade I've been doing this shit, I think I've "dropped" or "ran across" two pills. Like most of us, I wasn't a big "dropper" of my little pink life-forces. I had them all accounted for...

Anyway - crisis averted. I feel good that I didn't actually take it - it could have turned out so much worse. This could be a relapse post. I think, if it happens again (which is soooo unlikely!) that I will do the same thing. I hope. No, fuck that, I KNOW I will. This is my last day 7.

- VE

 

[P0kemama]

Thank you for providing the history around your attempts to quit opiates. You are a strong person, no doubt; you seem determined to stay off the pills for the long term this time. I wish I wasn't so traumatized by my cold turkey go around in 2012... it would have been better if I didn't know what awaits.

I am damned to tapering attempts for now; however, I will refer back to your posts when the time comes for me to jump off! I love how you got rid of the pill you found... you are on the right track!

 

[VastEmpty]

Thanks, Poke!

Ive been meaning to ask, but don't want to sidetrack your guys' thread on tapering - have you considered tapering with some other opiate? Like if you are on ER Morphine and IR Oxycodone - I wonder if you couldn't ween down pretty far and then jump to the hydro and maybe make the process easier?

For me, tapering is a pretty big mind-fuck - worse than cold turkey. Cold turkey, for me at least, is the easy way out. With cold-turkey, my body does the work and I'm just along for the ride and to help it out as much as possible. But with tapering, your mind is doing the majority of the work. I guess that says something about me trusting my own mind! 8)

But I totally get that you can't do a cold turkey again after your awful experience and ER visit! I've just always thought that tapering from your current meds is sooooo hard. If you don't mind my asking, were you on blood pressure meds and/or Clonidine when you c/t'ed?

I am not at all trying to say you aren't doing exactly what you should be - just wondering. I see tapering as the hardest thing a person can do - literally. (I mean in terms of quitting - not like harder than flying to the moon or anything!) I am always soooo interested and awed by people who can actually do it. My hats are off to all of you. In fact I'm going over to your thread this minute to tell you that!

- VE

 

[VastEmpty]

Well, I'm 40 minutes into day 8...

yay?

- VE

 

[I cup]

Well, I'm 40 minutes into day 8...

yay?

- VE

Beautiful !!
I bet your heart skipped a beat seeing that laying there ..... I kept my last one w/ me for 3 mos. in my work truck , esp the first 2 weeks just knowing I had it if I absolutely needed it was good mentally I think - I knew I wouldn't take it , but knowing it was there made me feel stronger I guess ......
The only other time I quit I lasted almost 6 mos. , then back on them the last 3 years ..... Shitty feeling , like your 42 days you had , those days sucked last time - I think it's the little kratom I'm still taking daily this time helping soo much w/ the f'd PAWS lethargy / mild depression - but it's ALL about having your mind made up , and you sure sound like you have had enough this time to break thru ! Day 8 is a long 8 days you've had , easily now on top of " the hump " ; ) you should go do something fantastic for yourself , I always recommend an hr. long massage - you'll forget about life for an hour !!

Keep on truckin' on , I'm smiling for you !!

 

[P0kemama]

VE: Congratulations on Day 8!! Thank you for stopping by our tapering thread... I think that we are kindred spirits in that we are so into Harm Reduction; however, I am chicken to cold turkey, and you just got right in there and ripped off that band-aid. I totally understand what you are saying ... I do not feel judged at all by you.

I just think tapering is so much easier on my body... I don't have to get full on sick... just a lethargic depressive feeling... sometimes upset stomach, but nothing like c.t. I like how you phrased our experiences... with c.t. "your body does the work, and your mind is along for the ride"... and tapering is such a mind thing... it is so all consuming for me.

When I went cold turkey in 2012, I stayed clean for 15 months... I could knock myself in the head for starting again. I ended up in the ER, on about the 3rd-4th day... with skyrocketing blood pressure, and was almost admitted. However, they kept me for several hours observation, with a clonidine patch, and stabilized my blood pressure so that I could go home.

I now have one small bottle of clonidine, some kratom, ativan too for when I jump off. I am ready, let me tell you! I desperately need a new car... but the money I would use for the monthly car payment goes to my pain management doctor, who takes cash only. I would do anything to be able to c.t.... I tried a couple of weeks ago, when my pain management doctor suddenly canceled my appt, due to having his license pulled; however, it was so much worse than I remembered it being, that I caved. I found another doctor who was willing to take me, and so here I am.

If I could get any subs, I would do a week taper, as I read here on BL that it helps immensely with w/d's and if you stop right away, then you don't get addicted to the subs. However, I don't know anyone with them and I don't want them prescribed, as then I am in the state data base as having an addiction problem.

I will continue to work on my taper... and try to stay at as low a dose as I can. You keep up the good work!!

 

[VastEmpty]

Beautiful !!
I bet your heart skipped a beat seeing that laying there ..... I kept my last one w/ me for 3 mos. in my work truck , esp the first 2 weeks just knowing I had it if I absolutely needed it was good mentally I think - I knew I wouldn't take it , but knowing it was there made me feel stronger I guess ......

My heart did skip a beat for sure Actually, the second time I detoxed, when I lasted 40+ days, I had two in my wallet so they were on me every second of the day the entire time. I never once did it and I actually forgot they were there after awhile. I remembered them when I started up again. I guess I felt the same way you did - but then, last time didn't work, so I've taken a whole new approach this time! No opiates in my possession for the foreseeable future.

Wow, six months clean? How did you feel? How long ago was it? That's so great, do you know what happened to cause you to relapse this last time?

Best of luck and thanks for the encouragement!

- VE

 

[the last dose]

WOW reading your post about your day made me depressed i guess how tough of a challenge i have coming, then you had me laughing alot! in so many ways we are all so alike. The part about finding that oxy and I walked into the house with it cupped in my hand was fucking hilariuos! Of all the things for you to find somehow that was a evil test and you passed in flying fucking colors! good for you! thanks for the juice tip. Did you use any lyrica after jumping just wondering what all your comfort meds are during withdrawl sorry if you posted already.