Opioids So how bad will my heebie-jeebies be...will there be heebie-jeebies?

[EheheDurgs]

Long story short, I was switching back and forth between methadone (between 80mg-220mg daily) and heroin (.5g-1g daily), trying to basically come off both. I was doing ok, and then remembered a weird (or wired) system that I decided to tilt a whirl. But firstly, because I have been switching between methadone and heroin I never really had a huge buildup of methadone in my system.

So for the past 1-2 weeks I have been smoking crack and trying to totally stay off opiates. It's kinds been working.

I haven't touched my methadone in over a week, which is awesome!

I have done a tiny bit of heroin here and there to help the come down, but I'm trying to mainly use benzos for that. I've been doing 1-3 lines of heroin per day now and feel no dopesickness at all.

I'd call that progress on the opiate front for sure!

But my question is, if I were to totally stop the heroin right now, how bad do you think my withdrawals would be?

 

[Backfromthebrink]

Long story short, I was switching back and forth between methadone (between 80mg-220mg daily) and heroin (.5g-1g daily), trying to basically come off both. I was doing ok, and then remembered a weird (or wired) system that I decided to tilt a whirl. But firstly, because I have been switching between methadone and heroin I never really had a huge buildup of methadone in my system.

So for the past 1-2 weeks I have been smoking crack and trying to totally stay off opiates. It's kinds been working.

I haven't touched my methadone in over a week, which is awesome!

I have done a tiny bit of heroin here and there to help the come down, but I'm trying to mainly use benzos for that. I've been doing 1-3 lines of heroin per day now and feel no dopesickness at all.

I'd call that progress on the opiate front for sure!

But my question is, if I were to totally stop the heroin right now, how bad do you think my withdrawals would be?

I think theyd be pretty bad...

For some people, using stimulants and benzos during withdrawl seems to mask them somewhat (but for some makes them 1000 times worse).

Also swapping from one opioid to another thinking that it will minimise dependency is a myth...it's still constant mu receptor agonism regardless of whether it's heroin or methadone that's doing it..

I'd be willing to bet that if you stopped the crack and benzos, you'd feel bad withdrawls from the opiates...

The only way to get off realistically is by stopping the heroin, crack and benzos and doing a slow taper with just your methadone...any other way of chopping and changing drugs is very unlikely to bring anything other than more misery down the line

 

[Trabbamab]

I have known a couple of people IRL who did something like this: they stopped using heroin or morphine for a time by smoking crack and taking benzos. These people never got off long term. Only a week or two at a time. I think like BackFromTheBrink mentioned, you are masking your WDs. In the end, these people I knew just ended up addicted to heroin/morphine, crack and benzos and became multi-drug addicts. There really is a lot of wisdom in the idea that you get sober from everything when you want to stop using. If you start using a drug to avoid another drug, your addicted mind will make things just as bad with that drug. This is also why a ton of people get off of dope and then become alcoholics. They are just substituting.

Best of luck, though. My recommendation would be to throw everything away but the methadone. If you feel you need it, go to a clinic and get on it legit for long-term maintenance. Otherwise look into going to a clinic for a detox. This is a different service a lot of clinics offer. They get you started on the lowest dose that gets you straight and then start slowly working you down. The constant drug testing is also good to help keep you on the path.