-The- Heroin & Opioid Mega Discussion Thread (Volumes 1+2 Merged)

[JestemPolka]

no problems deleting other thread

 

[mebroken]

Just read all 16 pages of this thread - oh it's all so familiar. I'm in the process of taping my H habit down- gone from 2 buns a day to 6 bags a day in past 2 weeks. Plan is to get to 1-2 bags a day and jump off from there. Have lots of gabapentin and phenobarbital (odd I know- just happened to run into a free bottle of 100 1/2g pills) and cough pills(DMX) and loperamide and a couple kpins- wish I had more of those cause they help the most imho. Motrin and Aleve too. Vit B complex also.
3 year run of iv H I'm hoping the wd won't be like last time...curled up in ball on bathroom floor so dehydrated from projectile fluids from every end, legs kicking so bad ended up all bruised, no sleep for days and days and days-well you get the picture. But I feel much more prepared this time- did lots of research, thank you BL. But I'm getting old 58 now...means I've been shooting dope for 42 years now, longer than most of the posters on here have been alive. Yeah I'm one of those "functional addicts" meaning I hold down a good job that I love and no one knows that I'm really a stone cold junky except my BF who is also the same- but can't function hence the reason to kick. Me personally could continue to shoot dope forever but he makes everything fall apart so backed into severe financial corner and we are about to lose everything. Plus it is getting really hard to find a vein anywhere on body at this point,kwim?

I don't know why I'm posting except for feeling squirrelly right now and it is hard, really hard, not to do a shot right now but to stick to my plan I have to wait 6 more hours before I'm allowed next 2 bags. Do you know how hard it is to wait when there is few buns in house? But wait I must if I want this plan to work. It is easier mentally to stick w/ plan when at work and too busy to dwell on how I feel physically but I'm off today and tomorrow.
Must stay strong.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Tapering dope by using the dope itself is soooooo hard. Is there any chance you could get your hands on some buprenoprhine or methadone or extended release morphine or oxycodone or something to help you out a bit? Short acting opioids are just so tough to kick on their own.

I encourage you to start your own Recovery, Addiction or Detox Journal to document your journey. Keep your head up mebroken!

 

[mebroken]

Thank you TPD for your reply. Yes tapering dope using dope is incrediblely hard. especially with damn tooth ache that started 2 days ago. Taking Ab's for it cause so can't afford to go to dentist. But I held on last nite and only did the planned 2 bags at the planned time and slept pretty good. I'll start my own recovery thread....it will end up being a long one since this is going to take time. I wish I could get my hands on some morphine pills or oxy's but gov has made it so hard to get pills while so easy to get H- yeah for the never ending war on drugs!

 

[Jabberwocky]

No worries, recovery threads (like recovery itself) is nothing but more than what you make of it, so feel free to experiment and have fun with it

And yeah, don't get me started on the war on drugs... that is probably my favorite topic of discussion next to the treatment industry (and really the war on drugs and the treatment industry are two sides of the same coin, I'm sad to say)

 

[MaCherie]

It took me some time, but I have finished reading the entire thread. I'm going leave out my back story at this time because I think it may be better suited in another thread. I started using opiates recreationally in 2013, specifically 10/325 hydrocodone. I had a connection and they were free...but I digress. I didn't realize I had a problem until my connection was no longer and I ran out. Whoa! I was taking 6-8 pills a day orally. I quit for a few weeks and started back up again once I found a different channel of obtaining them. What a mess. Now it's 4 years later. I am tapering again, I did this bs a year ago. The physical w/d for me is uncomfortable and inconvenient, but temporary. It's the emotional aspect I don't much look forward to. After about 3 weeks of being off opiates last year, I fell right back into it. But my tolerance was through the roof! I happened to get a bottle of 10mg oxys and another bottle of 4mg Dialaudid. I substituted, thinking it would be easier to jump off from oxy or the dilly because it wasn't what I preferred. Pffffft. What a joke. I was kidding myself with that one. I keep thinking that I used to do all I do now and more- without any opiates. Like wtf? How? Lol. Ahhh. The irony. Anyway, I am so glad I found the BL community. I have read and learned so much valuable info here, thank you all.

 

[d3athadone]

Day 5 here. Doing this for the thousandth time. The crazy thing is, when I'm sober, I'm as bright as can be. I'm such a bright person and have such a warm and open heart. Its crazy how I can be like, then run into a trigger, and fall into the depths of hell in 2 weeks. Thats all I used for. I ran into some fuckin kid I used to know who ofcourse offered me some free shit right there, then continued to offer me free shit for like a week. Guess he was lonely in his hell. Ended up with me and his dad all getting fucked at this crazy weed dispensary his dad owns. They were shooting blow and shit the whole time. I could care less about blow, but was shooting h. Anyway they are so completely fucked up its beyond belief and I really am not. I mean, I have a serious medical problem and addiction issues, but I havn't given up on life or love. So these people really hurt me because I spent time around them. It brought me back to all the fuckin losers I met around my dad and to some of the early junky fucks I chilled with in my early twenties.

Somehting really bad happened this time around too. I was in like 3 days of withdrawal cuz I had decided enough was enough, when I came up with the totally stupid idea that I would go get some weed at this dispensary. Its amazing how the mind can trick itself. So I walked there and when I got there, obviously cravings overtook me. I tried to fight them, but got extremely desperate. I wasn't desperate before I got there. Anyway, all the had was 1 half shot left in a spoon. I never ever share gear with other people, but out of my fucking crazy desperation I did the other half of the shot. So now I dunno its probably 50/50 I got hep c. who knows. At this point, so much bad shit has happened to me over the course of my life that I don't even care anymore. Just another drop in the bucket. It is traumatizing to think I was that fuckin crazy and desperate again though.

 

[MaCherie]

Day 1 off of everything. I was searching for info about withdrawal and help with symptoms and read the entire loperamide diaries thread. Wow. 8( The only reason I even read it was because I am using loperamide to help with my withdrawal. I was able to taper myself down to only 1 10/325 a day this entire week of the hydrocodone. It was rough, especially since I had to work and my job is pretty physically and mentally demanding. I made it through though. I know my system is pretty sensitive, so I started with the basic 2 tablets of the loperamide. After 4 hours I took an additional tablet and I don't feel terrible at all. I only plan to take it as needed over the next few days, not going to take any more than I need to. I don't want to get high, I just want to feel normal again. I am resolved to be done with opiates. I have always smoked weed and that is helping immensely as well. When I got off of opiates last time I had been weed free for 2+ years and didn't smoke. I remember wishing I could at the time. Really happy that I'm off work, can relax, search BL for info and binge watch some shows. Going to take it easy while I can but also make sure I don't fall into that whole-"I'm sick" state of mind, which is very easy for me to do. I will update as my weekend progresses.

 

[Jabberwocky]

That is fucking awesome MaCherie! Might it be time to start a recovery type journal to document your progress? Hearing about your journey helps a lot more people than you might imagine.

 

[MaCherie]

Thank you! I definitely think I will start a journal. I have always journaled through tough times and have all of my thoughts on paper from age 15...damn lol. Never had a recovery journal though. Always been my emotional/relationship dysfunction. Would I start a blog here? Or what do you recommend?

 

[Jabberwocky]

You could certainly start a blog, but as you're still a Greenlighter I suggest just starting a thread in SL that you get enough posts sooner rather than later to become a full fledged BLer (you'll be able to send more pms as a BLer).

You can update it daily or on whatever basis you choose (when you feel like it), and use it to discuss whatever you're going through (good and bad). Basically do it in a way that is helpful for your own process. It is really helpful for other people to also get a chance to hear about your struggles though, because it helps give them insight into what they themselves are struggling with most of the time. But there isn't a trick to it, it's just a place for you to come and check in and get feedback from others about what you're going through.

I can move your earlier post above in this thread and create a new recovery journal themed thread for you, you can cut and paste it to start your own thread or you can start a new recovery journal themed thread from scratch. Whatever you'd like, it's just a matter of getting it started.

I look forward to getting to hear about your journey! I have seemed to notice that the recovery journal practice can be very grounding and useful for helping people keep themselves on track with their goals in recovery. Hopefully you also benefit from the practice MaCherie

 

[MaCherie]

Perfect! Thank you Toothpaste :D I will start a new thread in SL.

 

[deficiT]

Hello H&R. I am reopening this megathread to be a place to talk generally about opioid addiction and your experiences.

 

[shinehaid]

I just got started on suboxone about 2 weeks ago from a doctor. I am SO GLAD!
I quit cold turkey last time, but when I relapsed, I relapsed hard, and my tolerance got worse than it had ever gotten.
It's just so nice to be completely craving free, and it allows me to enjoy hanging out with my friends without thinking about copping drugs at all. I am getting into a healthier routine slowly, but this is finally the step in the right direction.

After several years of increasing strengths of oxycodone under a pain med Dr's care, I finally ended up on MS contin 15 mg tab 12 hours apart (which is supposed to cover baseline pain) and/or withdrawal, and 10 mg oxycodone three times a day (to cover any breakthrough incidents - pain or withdrawal. Unfortunately, the morphine isn't at a high enough dose cover most of the pain so I have to stretch out the three 10 mg tabs over a 24 hour period which is inadequate. My doc won't increase any further and referred me to a doctor who deals with addiction and uses Subutex to control withdrawal and pain. Subutex is just buprenorphine alone and Suboxone is the buprenorphine/naproxen combination if I remember correctly. I'm very interested in what your experience with the pre induction and induction stage for taking Suboxone was like. Mostly I'm wondering what it was like to force yourself into withdrawal and how long you had to do that before the induction phase. I've read it can be anywhere from 12 to 72 hours depending on what the person was previously using. If only short acting opiates then it should only take 12 hours to get it out of your system. But for people who are using long acting opiates, like me, need to go 24 hours or more. So I'm not particularly looking forward to 24 hours of withdrawal even though what I will experience will probably be orders of magnitude less than what many of the people who are reading this have gone through. However, I'm still scared shitless of the withdrawal as I had an *extremely* bad experience withdrawing from Lyrica by accident. I asked my new doc if I could get away with 12 hours, and he said yes but it sounded to me more like you would say it to allay my fears. So, I have to wonder if he's contradicting the literature based on my level of addiction and the relatively short time I've been on MS contin (about 3, maybe 4 weeks). Any comments from the peanut gallery are always welcome. This is my first post on what looks to be an extremely helpful resource so do I get a free something?

 

[shinehaid]

I just got started on suboxone about 2 weeks ago from a doctor. I am SO GLAD!
I quit cold turkey last time, but when I relapsed, I relapsed hard, and my tolerance got worse than it had ever gotten.
It's just so nice to be completely craving free, and it allows me to enjoy hanging out with my friends without thinking about copping drugs at all. I am getting into a healthier routine slowly, but this is finally the step in the right direction.

By the way, congratulations! I hope maybe I can learn from your experience.

 

[hwbush336]

Going to a MMT Center for methadone addiction?

hello, i have recently lost my job, which means no more insurance, which means no more dr or rx.
I dont wanna buy off the street cuz its waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy to high so i was wondering if anyone knew that a METHADONE MAINTENANCE TREATMENT center would treat you for addiction to METHADONE?

i was prescribed for a syrinx in my T7,T8,T9 that causes tremendous pain, but the neurosurgeon doesnt wanna do the surgery because he's only done one and paralyzed that patient.

Absolutely they just give you methadone with nothing I your system now !! This post is 12 years old lol I she got fixed up !!
I'm new just searching around I've been a silent mingler since 2010 first time posting
On 178 mg of methodone

 

[carbonhalo]

Jumping back to the first page of this thread

I think that an opiate addiction, however insidious it might be for the normal individual, is probably even worse for someone who suffers from chronic pain

Welcome to my world.
Thanks to legislative changes, pain clinic froze my Oxycodone dose in 2019.
So now I'm stuck....can't go forward, can't go backward.
At my last review, when hearing about depression and suicidal ideation (never had an impulse) he wouldn't let me leave until I responded to "are you feeling unsafe?"
If I hear that phrase again from the guy who won't bump or rotate me, I'll have to try really hard not to punch someone.
(My impulse control can't be that bad...when I insisted another doc refer me to a dermatologist for a spot my carcinoma plagued partner didn't like the look of, he said "it's nothing"...but reluctantly referred me. 2 days after my dermatologist appointment I was in hospital getting an invasive melanoma removed. At my follow up appointment with the GP he remarked "you're lucky I spotted that one"... I don't know how I didn't punch that face)

 

[AngelsandFairiesarereal]

Jumping back to the first page of this thread

Welcome to my world.
Thanks to legislative changes, pain clinic froze my Oxycodone dose in 2019.
So now I'm stuck....can't go forward, can't go backward.
At my last review, when hearing about depression and suicidal ideation (never had an impulse) he wouldn't let me leave until I responded to "are you feeling unsafe?"
If I hear that phrase again from the guy who won't bump or rotate me, I'll have to try really hard not to punch someone.
(My impulse control can't be that bad...when I insisted another doc refer me to a dermatologist for a spot my carcinoma plagued partner didn't like the look of, he said "it's nothing"...but reluctantly referred me. 2 days after my dermatologist appointment I was in hospital getting an invasive melanoma removed. At my follow up appointment with the GP he remarked "you're lucky I spotted that one"... I don't know how I didn't punch that face)

How do you deal with your pain if you don’t mind me asking. I’m a pain patient too & they are getting so crazy about pain meds, it’s been seeming kind of hysterical to me. Like just let a patient get some pain meds already, it’s clearly not stopping all the ODs in the streets from illicit fentanyl so I really don’t see the reason they are making it hell to get meds when you’re in chronic pain.
Sorry I’m prob bitching under your post my bad. My insurance company is even getting crazy about the fact that I’m on small dose of tramadol that I’ve been on for years & now trying to get my doctor to not prescribe it anymore, so I don’t know what I’m going to do (maybe because I’m on a benzo too ? Who knows … apparently you’re not allowed to have PTSD & permanent injuries & chronic pain …. I'm starting to feel like I’m going to flip out on a doctor which won’t help but I don’t know.

 

[skipjames]

I don t even post where to post this, dark side, venting, opioids, general insanity I hope you people can give some tips to clarify the mental ROLLERCOASTER i m going to

Day 3 of forced oxy w-d, I have dealt with the first two days mostly using kratom loperamide and Xanax so during the week end I ve been mostly sleeping, been there doin that so many times that it feels like the seasonal flu.
But day 3 is the worst and being a Monday I had to call sick (first time in my life) and I ll do my classes online.

My friendealermiddleman is having some troubles but he ll be back. And I ll do oxys and I ll be happy and at most do coke occasionally if ever that ´s how it s supposed to be used, but oxy will disappear again and see supra, loperamide kratom and benzos if I m lucky, or I ll realise that I have a beautiful wife and that my penis can do more interesting things that peeing then I ll quit oxys. I ll be cool for at most a month then boredom and nothingness wll kick in.Coke dealers will be happy to help me out. A month of this shit , I ll be a mess, oxys. On and on and on and on it goes.

Junk and oxys have been my DOC on and off for the last 17 years, after using all kinds of drugs. I managed to be functional and do something with my life , I could have done better, who knows? But here I am, I graduated, got a couple of MAs, a PhD from an important University, I ve done things and seen place that my parents could only dream of, I teach at a Uni that s what I wanted , got a beautiful and understanding wife, but I m only fully happy and functional on opioids. But...see supra.

Will I always have to live this way? Will I be an addict forever? and is being an addict forever THAT bad after all, if the alternatives are constant nervosism and insatisfaction + binge drinking during week end or getting poly addicted to coke benzo and booze? The only convincing reason I can find to reduce my intake of oxy are the unreliability of the market and the libido thing, but who knows, I m not saying I could smoke a bag and get laid as I did in my 20´s but maybe less pharma and natural opioids like...weak poppy tea like the ones people used to drink back home in South Italy for ages I will not necessarily be Dr Floppy ( my people were not exactly known for low sexual drive) and give me that minimum of calm and peace I need to be a better husband friend professional heck maybe even a better Catholic ( at least when it comes to writing and teaching. Plus I have found myself having discussins with the most improbable persons mostly in the music crowd)). I m aso not an hypocrite, my students are aware of my vies of drugs and that I have quite an experience on the subject, I don t deny or confirm my current use for obvious reasons but I m happy that they feel comfortable to share their thoughts on the subject with me and that I have managed to help someone who was going too far.

If some psychiatrist was filling my ass of random shite that would be ok, I know exactly what works for my anxiety but that´s a no no, u junkie scum...and I have always felt that something was missing in my brain and in my soul, chemical imbalance, moral weakness, having opened Pandora´s Box, dunno....

maybe some people will always need something, I remember that when I first did smack, I woke up still high and my mum, bless her hearth, said something like " I finally s u are happy for a change! and I was 22....

If so I m not that different from people on antidepressants or anxiolytics. Or maybe I m a cunt still in love with the romantic aspects of drug culture and simply used to it cos I ve been into it since I was a teen and I m too lazy and self indulgent to look for something different ? Or...what? any input- help -fuck off appreciated, that ´s the Help I m looking for, some clarity.

....sorry for rambling, I ll get hold on something sooner or later and we ll be back talking about H-R, giving tips and support, discuss about theology and philosophy and blues etc, but if someone can remotely understand is u guys,in these moments I don t even know who s doing the thinking, me, my addiction or both cos we are one and the same...
Cheers

 

[carbonhalo]

How do you deal with your pain if you don’t mind me asking

I avidly followed the pain clinic program when I started there. Most of the useful techniques I was already doing but I never managed to kick my sugar habit.
When we started on pharmaceuticals it was pregabalin or Gabapentin for chronic nerve pain and tramadol for my spinal degeneration.
I kept up alternating between the first two but felt they were only helpful for a few days then I had to switch to the other.
The tramadol seemed slightly more useful but I needed 800 mg a day and that stopped working after a year or two.
Then went to Tapentadol which did nothing.
Oxycodone was an immediate success. Since spinal surgery is more dangerous for me thanks to my connective tissue disorder they won't operate until I'm paralysed. I was told I would be dependent and I accepted that I would be on a slowly increasing dose for the rest of my life . They escalated my oxy over the next several years (although my pain doctor was also on the pain team at the hospital for 4 subsequent major surgeries.. he decided that while I was on ketamine they would try to cut down my oxy intake.
I was on 6 X 5mg daily at that stage. That was when I discovered ketamine wasn't cutting it. When they took away the ketamine pump it made no difference.They discharged me with a box of endone.
My GP agreed that during major surgery is a terrible time to cut down and promptly restored my original dose.
My pain specialist was ok with this and I had my dose bumped a few more times over the years.
Bring on the 2019 revision of the safe script program and my dosage freeze.
I have requested a bump from 5 X 10 mg daily to 6 every year since and been refused on the basis the overdose potential is greater.
It honestly feels like they want me to go black market.
But to answer your question.... Poorly. I have not had anything to counter breakthrough for years and have to endure at least 2 hours a day with withdrawal symptoms.