How did you quit a pill addiction? How did you quit suboxone or methadone?

[Privet]

Hi all,
I would like to hear from anyone who had a prescription pill addiction, and has been clean for a year or more, how did you do it?

My sister has tried suboxone and methadone, but when the time comes to stop, she has withdrawal effects, and starts on the pills again. If you used suboxone or methadone, how did you get off that? If you quit cold turkey, what did you do? Did you have to take time off work? What can family do to help? She is a nurse, works full-time, and it is very hard!!! Husband is an addict, gives no financial support. This is her 3rd or 4th relapse (maybe more, not sure), this time it is after a year of suboxone. She says she can't work on the withdrawals.

It is weird, because I'm a recovering alcoholic, 2 years sober. But I never had withdrawals. Just horrible cravings. I feel on one hand, I can relate, but it seems that what she is going through is different and worse than what I went through. But I know without the "mental armor" that I got from AA, I would not have recovered. And I had to stop hanging out with active users, and get sober friends, especially friends who are recovering addicts and alcoholics. That helped the most!

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ccgirl2]

Getting off is the easiest part; staying off is another story.


She has to have some kind of long term plan to stay clean and sober. Twelve steps meetings have helped me, but there's other options out there too.

Being clean is not just physical; it's mental too.


As far as cold turkeying, when I've tried that in the past, it's definitely not a productive time in my life. I rented movies, stayed close to the bathroom and rested..... a lot.

[Sugah]

If I were in her shoes, I would have a very difficult time committing to a program of recovery while married to an active addict. I know people who've done it, but I don't know that I could have. I would look at my now-ex and say, "If he can, why can't I?" I had to change people, places and things, and he fell into the first category.

(I did cold turkey and became involved in AA & NA immediately)

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[peachy1005]

Hey Privet,

I wanted to respond to your post even though I don't meet your criteria (only 2+ months sober now).
I had been hooked on massive doses of prescription narcotics for 2 years (daily use) and came off of them pretty much cold turkey.
"pretty much" because I did wean down on them, but cold turkey because I didn't use any substitutes to come off. I had been taking about 200 mg oxycontin along with 100mg of hydrocodone daily for two years, and got to the point that I didn't want the pills ruling my life anymore. Suffered through the most agonizing withdrawals I have ever experienced for the first 100 hours off of them, and am still battling the mental urges to pick up again.
If your sister has a similar habit, she can do it cold-turkey, but it is not a fun experience. I, myself, was unable to work through the withdrawals (quit on a saturday, and had taken mon and tues off the following week). My wife said she would not have let me out of the house on mon morning, no matter what. Even if my boss said she would have fired me, I still would not have been able to come in. You could see that something was wrong with me, my eyes bugging out, my hair standing on end, the lack of sleep through that entire time certainly didn't help my physical appearance either.
She can expect a miserable experience for the first week or so, to include a frustrating bout of insomnia (I think I totaled 10 hours of sleep the first week), blowout diarrhea, chills and restless-legs, but if she can get past that, the rest is purely mental, and easier.
Many people here said that they were unable to quit cold-turkey, that an intensive, in-patient rehab was their only option. And a lot of people on here swear by suboxone. I'm certain you will get responses from people with both of these experiences, too, and hopefully you will get a better idea of what each route of beating this addiction is like, and what each entails.
See my thread a few pages back titled "100 hours clean" to get a better picture of what I went through that first week if you'd like, or PM me with any specific questions about my weaning process or anything else.
The most important thing that needs to happen is your sisters complete and utter agreement that she needs to quit. Only when she has gotten to the point that she feels that her situation is totally unacceptable will she be able to suceed in discontinuing use.

-Brad

[windysan]

neither. detox 3 days then rehab.

[exjunky]

I've tapered from both.

Methadone tapering is as painful and difficult as tapering off of the prescription painkillers, if not worse. I never would have been able to taper off the stuff if they gave me take-homes, luckily they didn't. At the very end I thought I was losing my mind.

Suboxone is a horse of a different color. What I found, as many people have, is that if you lower your dose to extremely small measures you can jump off without much discomfort. I was sneezy for a few days, that was about it. At the very end I was taking less than 0.5mg every other day. You do this by cracking the 2mg in half, then breaking the halves in half.

Once your clean you still have to stay clean, that's the part I need work on.

[Privet]

She SAYS that coming off suboxone was worse than coming off methadone, that no one prepared her...blah blah blah blah blah, basically blaming her doctor for not preparing her.

I say that's an excuse for being an idiot and using again.

I want to hear more coming off suboxone stories, if anyone has any...