ddod27

PLEASE HELP!! I am 23, a wife, mother, and an opiate addict. I want to be SOBER!!! This horrible addiction has taken control of my life more than I ever would have imagined. I went to detox about 2 months ago, and fell off the wagon right away. I KNOW that one of the biggest reasons I cannot stop is because I am terrified of w/d. I am a stay at home mom, and my children are my life. I have been able to taper myself off quite a bit, I am down to about 30-60 mg a day. At this point in my life, I am feeling like I just will physically not be able to kick this for good. I need help. I will write more about details of my addiction, but right now, I am just feeling like I need to know SOMEONE out there has been, or is, in my shoes. I want this to be over NOW, I have never wanted something so bad in life - I feel like I am failing in the game of life, I feel like these have totally taken control of me. I want my life back. Please help me.

FT

Hi DDOD27:

I would urge you to start reading the big LONG threads, "oxycodone withdrawal help..." and "I'm going cold turkey..."

That's where I went when I was desperately sick with withdrawals --- ALL THE WAY BACK in December 2010. Such a short time, really, to feel so much better.

I went there and cried for help. Right away the good folks on these threads jumped in and held out their invisible hand, to help me understand that I was not the FIRST ONE ever to have been sucked in deep into the OXY HELL HOLE, only to seriously wonder if I was going to be able to get out.

What you are going through.... This is what OXY does. It hooks you fast and sucks you in deep. It is one hell ride I don't want to ever repeat. Getting off of it sucks bad. BUT, the good news is that you CAN DO IT!

You have little kids that need you badly. I'm not giving you new information that you really can't parent them well while high. You just can't. I know you don't feel "high" anymore from oxys, but you are affected in bad ways while using. You really are. OXY wants you to put it first. Not your kids. Think of what an "addict brain" lie that is. Recognize it for what it is, and you can beat this.

You've already gone through the worst of withdrawal, and you just need to make it the rest of the way. I truly feared going OFF oxys, because my stoopid "addict brain" had me CONVINCED that I would never be able to function again, UNLESS I stayed on oxys. I believed that for a long time until I got so sick from the drug I had to admit addiction and stop.

Keep coming here, read the posts, let us help you. You are NOT alone. You can do this, kiddo. And your babies will thank you.

Hang on, dig in, and just do it. You really can. As SBH and G2C have shown me and a lot of others, you just FOK the OX. Flush the pills. Expect to be sick a few days. It does pass.

Bman0GTS

Hi d
Im Brian addict/alkie today is 80 days no pills and 67 days clean for me I dont post much but i visit daily my online i s my phone right now and it makes it a bit difficult i will tell you this what a difference already I guit c/t and as you know it was no fun at the time but as my mind clears some it was nowhere as bad as I thought it would be and I used 10 years I do 12 step recovery and also has made a hugh difference in my life
if you are truly ready to quit you will! I know it sounds insane to you righ th nowbut just dont use its no cake walk in the beginningbut believe people when they say it gets better every day
good luck to you you are worth it

Bman0GTS

Hi d
Im Brian addict/alkie today is 80 days no pills and 67 days clean for me I dont post much but i visit daily my online i s my phone right now and it makes it a bit difficult i will tell you this what a difference already I guit c/t and as you know it was no fun at the time but as my mind clears some it was nowhere as bad as I thought it would be and I used 10 years I do 12 step recovery and also has made a hugh difference in my life
if you are truly ready to quit you will! I know it sounds insane to you righ th nowbut just dont use its no cake walk in the beginningbut believe people when they say it gets better every day
good luck to you you are worth it

ddod27

Wow, thank you both so much for posting!! You are right....I still have an addict brain. When these really became a problem for me is after I had a csection with my last daughter and got put on perks....again. The biggest thing that sticks out is something that came from my own mothers mouth. She sat me down one day and said to me, "Dana, I just want to tell you how proud of you I am. Since you had this latest baby, you have been so on top of things, and super organized. You have somehow been able to keep your house SPOTLESS and keep everything in order for that baby. You are such a wonderful mother, keep it up." And then, a few weeks later, I returned to work. I was diagnosed with a bladder disease in the mean time that causes chronic pain, so my doc gave me a script for those little green devils - 15mg oxys. Back to me returning to work - I got a very prominent promotion within the first week of being back. My boss said something along the lines of how well I have been doing, and so organized with everything, and that I def. have earned my way up the ladder very quickly. What neither of them knew was that I was that organized on top of things mother because of the oxys. And that is how this began. I just cannot fathom as to WHY I am in out patient treatment and still having such a hard time getting off of these. I truly want this to be over.

tdbettr

Dana, At first the Oxy's made me superman with my family and work. i thought I was doing great. But then it becomes an ADDICTION I lost all interest at home, my job began to be sloppy and all i could focus on was how I'm I going to get pills. I fooled myself that If I stopped and went through WD I would be in hell i would not be there for my 4 year old and 4 month..plus wife.

I can only say I tapered of til I was at 30mg a day. I also noticed that the "M" are harder to get off than the"a's" So I made sure that I tapered off with "A"s. I loaded up on immodium, leg cramp med, and cold and flu medication. also I took I think 6 showers a day. I planned for my cold turkey on a Saturday so that I cold have the FLU. I still missed Monday but I know life had to start for me again.

I hope this helps some on day 18 and so happy not to be thinking about my next pill. take it one day at a time.

FT

Hi again ddod27:

Hey this morning!

When you are able to read some of the posts on the other threads, you will see yourself in there so clearly. I think most of us THOUGHT at one time, at least, that we did our "best work" while on oxys. I think you probably even still think that now. Because, at first, it seems to be true. It's hard to work when you are in pain. All of a sudden, not only is your pain lifted, but so is your mood, and SUDDENLY you can FLY!

Oh man, how I LOVED that! What a miracle drug this is, I thought to myself! Wow! Where have you been all my life! I've battle depression at times all my life, and OXY FIXED THAT, TOO! Oh My GAWD! OXY Baby!

Ha!

Even this short term "addict brain" lie is really short lived. And it really is a lie. During those first few weeks after your section, you probably SHOULDN'T have been cleaning your house like a super woman -- you should have been logging in hours hugging your new baby and letting someone else do that other stuff. Seriously. After all, you had to go back to work, and you probably would and should have rather spent some of those hours enjoying your kid. That said, it is a false state of being that is unsustainable, and should not be sustainable, given the cost on so many levels. How old is your baby now?

As to work, the same goes but in a different way. At FIRST, oxy seems to give more than it takes. Those first few weeks, and months, of oxy use are unsustainable. The way this drug works is to block pain response by filling the dopamine receptors in the brain, the pleasure centers. That works great until something called ADAPTATION sets in. The pleasure centers soon expect these regular bursts of oxy-produced-dopamine, a literal "flood" of pleasure which I'm sure you'll recognize by name by now. The brain knows that ALL of the dopamine centers are not "supposed to" be filled and so adapts by making more of them. Adaptation occurs again. The "addict brain" knows you have to give it MORE drug to keep filling the receptor sites, so you do. Your brain adapts again. Pretty soon, the adaptation can't keep up, and a saturation point is reached. At this point, the feelings stop being so pleasurable, and more of a sense of "normalcy" is the result of dosing. No more highs, but the "addict brain" keeps chasing them.

After adaptation and saturation is toxicity. This is when THE OX, which oxys have now become, starts making your body sick. Your brain/body has adapted so well, you can't feel normal anymore without using. You might get the "pleasure" feel after a dose, but not like it used to be, not like you want it to be. Pretty soon, you start using only not to feel sick. Because that is what you have now become, addicted. You stopped using long ago for pain, because that wouldn't bother you if the pleasure comes with it. And even the pain isn't well controlled by oxy after prolonged use.

Sorry to rant, or ramble. I do that a lot, and I've said most of the above elsewhere here. But not to you.

Once you have had a chance to review your work life off this poison, you likely will find out that you have not been doing your "best work" for a long time. At least not how you could be doing it if you weren't using. It is another "addict brain" lie. You may still good work, but your thinking is not as clear, you don't reach conclusions as quickly, you don't do anything as well anymore because you have become anesthetized to your world.

None of this is intended to be insulting. It just is what is going on, what you are likely thinking. I did, and I am a medical legal writer and have to review medical cases with a clear head. On oxy's, I truly thought I WAS doing my best work. I've only been clean since December, but I can still remember what I was doing last year through the OXY FOG, and I recall sitting at my computer, my chin hitting my chest as I found myself dozing off right after a dose kicked in. Funny thing is, I chased that same "high" all day long, never getting it by the end of my personal OXY HELL RIDE, only chasing it. I was NOT doing my best work.

I quit when the OXY was making me so sick I had to quit or die. Even at the end, though, WANTING to quit was not in my vocabulary. OXY doesn't work that way. You won't WANT to quit. You will be AFRAID to quit. Because, right now you may think you won't ever feel normal again. Can't feel normal again without the OX. But, that really is not true. ADDICT BRAIN LIE (I'm shouting to myself!).

I won't go in to all that, how and when I quit, it's all here on these threads. I always talk too much anyway.

You can quit oxys. You really need to, for you, for your kids. So you can live normally again. You can.

Oh, the pain part, just quickly. I have severe osteoarthritis, had two major orthopedic surgeries back to back, which is how the OX got me. My pain was no longer helped by oxys at the end of my run. The oxys actually made it worse by then. It isn't a good drug for long term pain for most people. That kind of pain requires professional management where drugs -- narcotic and non narcotic -- are managed in a combination that permits maximum effect and often rotation of drugs to avoid the adaptation/saturation/toxicity cycle from stopping their effectiveness. I won't go into those things here, but you won't find the American Arthritis Foundation recommending Percocet for long term, or even short term, arthritis use. For your renal issues, there are other ways. Your docs should know if you need long term pain management, and go there with you.

Hope you are well today. We all want to hear more from you.

FT

Bman0GTS

Hi again Dana
I venture to say you want to use oxy cause you are an addict but only you know that for sure. There comes a time where we need to be honest especially with ourselves.
Great posts here.. yes life was grand with a big bottle of pills or so we thought but for me it just got to the point where they consumed my life in more ways than I ever thought possible right to the point where I didnt care if I lived or died. Addict brain thinking seems to leave that part out.
Great post again by FT about the brain receptors. Early on I met an expert in that field by "chance" and it helped me understand a bit more about why when I quit I went into a fierce depression.
Life is good today.. not great but its heading that way.
Again you are worth it.
Expect a Miracle!!

Lenetrk

Just read your post and wanted to see how you're doing. I too was addicted to percocet for years.It all consumed me. I too was a young mother when I was using heavily. But none of that really mattered. My main focus in the a.m. was making sure I had enough to get through the day. Yes the kids were taken care of and no one really knew the severity of my addiction. But what I wasn't aware of is the long term affect on my kids. Little things that may not seem that important to us at the time have stayed with my kids all these years.It's easy for someone to say you need to get clean but you need to be honest with yourself and know you can't continue like this.It doesn't get better. I started using 6 daily up to 300! You can do this! You need to take care of yourself before you can take care of anybody else.It's not an easy road but with help you can actually feel normal again. Appreciate Life.If you need help honey ask!! We have all been there

ddod27

Thank you all SOO much!! I was doing wonderful....until I had to have surgery a few weeks ago. I was alright monitoring them on my own, surprisingly. But when I didnt need them for the pain anymore, I started to go through withdraws. ive been on them for 4 weeks, but I am now tapering myself off, to avoid the SEVER withdraw. I just got an AMAZING new job, and I cannot afford to have "the flu" and have to take off of work. Sorry it took me so long to post again, I lost my internet access and then found out about having to have emergency surgery and just got it connected again. My baby girls just woke up, but I have so much more to tell you all. I will post more in a few hours. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stick by my side....thursday is the day that I will be off of them yet again. Talk to you all soon, much love to each and every one of you. I feel blessed to have all of your support right now, because I will be honest....I have no support group in my life besides my outpatient treatment program, and those people in the group meetings are there for all the wrong reasons.

FT

Hi ddod27:

Hi kiddo. You are hurting and I feel so bad for you. I read your other thread, but I thought I would post here, since there is still a lot of valuable info for you on this thread you should read back through. Also the other threads on this forum. Join in on the Kicking the Ox thread, because some posters only seem to post there.

For the moment, about tapering. I couldn't do it. Some people swear by it. When I look back over 2010, I spent the whole year trying to taper off oxys. It never worked. For me, tapering was a series of continued withdrawals, over and over again. All together, I spent much of the year feeling sick. The last 3 months since I quit pretty much cold turkey have been easier than withdrawing over and over last year.

I don't think your doctor understands addiction. An addict who has a handful of pills is not likely to divvy them out to themselves and stick to a "plan." When you feel the sickest and the worst, can you just take half a pill? Not me! I found that the only way that worked for me in the end was to have NO ACCESS to ANY more pills.

Your doctor doesn't seem worried about your quitting pretty fast. My vote is just to go cold turkey and get it over with. Check out "The oxycodone survival guide" free on line. They want to sell you vitamins, which I didn't do, but the guide is good. It will tell you which symptoms to expect when.

If you can, tuck yourself in with your little kids and watch cartoons all week. Take hot baths. Drink lots of liquids. Expect to suffer some. Just get it overwith. Your new job would probably not be thrilled to know that you need oxys to function. You don't, of course. That's just the "addict brain" talking.

Keep us posted.