scared to death

[dorton]

How do you know when enough is enough and kick your 20 year old son out of the house. He had been in counseling and on suboxone since Oct. he says he wants help but never seems sincere. I just don't know anymore. He says he is leaving but it is below freezing outside and he has no where to go I am at a total loss. If he leaves that means no health insurance, he will drop out of college and have to start paying back student loans, etc etc. I am trying not to react to his saying he is leaving but it is KILLING me inside. I am so scared he will end up in jail.

[krissypissy]

as a parent i wish i could say that i relate but my girls arent yet old enough to tackle these obstacles. however, being someone who isnt too old yet to remember this age like yesterday, it took my parents dishing out some damn tough love to get my ass straight. i wont say this is the only option, but a consideration. your son has to want this...and want it bad. i really feel for you because as a parent we want good stuff for the kids, to help them/pick them up when they fall over and over....i dont have answers for you but would like to pray for you, for peace in whatever heartbreaking choice you must make and some comfort in knowing youre doing the best thing for your boy....please keep posting, we are here to help and support...take care and blessings

[catlovermi]

Welcome!

If you re-post this in the friends and family section, you will find a host of peers and support, from people who have been where you are.

Hope to see you there!

CLMI

[Stagebear]

Originally Posted by dorton

How do you know when enough is enough and kick your 20 year old son out of the house.

I think, maybe, you already know.

All I can tell you, as an addict in early recovery is that we frequently make promises but ultimately it's what we do that will show what's inside. It sounds as though your son is showing you what's inside.

The consequences are his to bear. The pain is your own and you need to decide what you'll do with it.

Wishing I could kick your son sober, and knowing I cannot, I remain,

[bval]

Um ... why would you kick him out (is that what you're saying?) if he's taking suboxone and not abusing other drugs, I wondering? Just cause he doesn't seem 'sincere' enough about getting all the way clean?

I would have to say, I'm pretty sure my mom probably doubted *my* sincerity about getting clean, too, when she was paying for my entire life for the 7 months *I* was on suboxone ... and that was at 40 years old!

Then, lo and behold, when the time came, I went ahead and got clean, and have been that way for 19 months now.

So ... ya just never know about those 'perceptions'. Not saying they're incorrect, only that ... they might be

I guess I just don't have enough information to understand the situation, nor to give 'proper' advice on this matter. From what you've said so far, I don't see any justification for kicking the kid out into the freezing weather, if that is indeed what you're saying you're going to do ...

[dorton]

Since posting that in the middle of the night I have talked to his counselor and gotten a dr. apt for tomorrow to up the sub. I know there is no real answer to this but can anyone give me a ballpark idea of how long it takes to get a sub. dosage right and the cravings to stop. This was presented to us in Oct as a mircle drug that would work immediately and it hasn't. He has been on 2 mg, 4mg, now 8 mg and tomorrow probably 16 mg. Is it normal to play around with the dose. A lot of my fustration comes from thinking this should be so much better by now with this med.

[bval]

Do you have a good idea of what he was on before, how long, and how much?

Yes it's normal to play around with the dose, but typically Dr's start out on the higher side and work down as opposed to the other way around. Not sure if that's necessarily the 'right' way to do it, but that way seems more typical.

I will say also that if someone 'breaks the rules' and continues dabbling with other opioids, they'll never 'stabilize' and feel 'right' on the subs. You have to get all the other crap out of your system first.

The first few days on subs are often not particularly 'comfortable', so if you/he is expecting the transition to subs to be totally 'pain-free', that is not really realistic, unfortunately.

A good ball park would be that someone coming off a good-sized opioid habit is going to need between 12-16mg of subs for the first week, and should have little difficulty dropping down to 8-12mg/day after about the first week. A person should wait at least 18 hours since their last sniff/hit/shot to start the stuff, but 24 hrs is better and is generally the 'recommended' time frame.

Now, when I say 'good-sized', I don't mean like 50mg of hydrocodone a day for the past 6 months, I mean like multiple bags of heroin, or snorting 160+ mg of oxycodone/day, for the past 2+ years. So if they started him slow on 2mg/day, that could be cause he wasn't that strung out (or isn't telling the truth about how strung out he was).

After starting subs at the proper time (say, 24 hours after the user's last hit), it typically is going to take a person 1-2 more days to get to feeling as well as they're going to feel on subs. And any other opioid taken during this period will pretty much 'reset the clock' on that schedule.

Also, if there has been ANY methadone involved in the patients recent past (i.e. the past two weeks), it complicates the matter of switching to the subs pretty significantly, so you may want to inquire with the kid as to whether or not he's taken any recently, adn to tell his doc if he has. Methadone in the system (with its very long half-life) makes the transition significantly rougher/longer.

So, that's about all I got for now, lemme know if you have any other ?'s ... I've got a lot of experience, and done a lot of reading on this stuff, so ...

Oh ... one more thing ... it's best to suck on the tablets for a good 20-30 minutes, hold the saliva/pill mix in your mouth for that whole time, swish it around, etc. Otherwise, you end up wasting a lot of the medicine, cause it absorbs pretty slowly. You can spit it out afterwards, cause your stomach (and liver) just destroy the medicine anyway unless it goes directly into your bloodstream like it does when you hold it in your mouth.

If someone does this 'right', gets the dosage figured out, hasn't had any methadone recently, and STAYS OFF of other opioids during the transition, I'd say on average it takes between 48 and 72 hours since someones last hit before their PHYSICAL cravings will vanish. To expect their to be absolutely no 'psychological' cravings, though, esp. in the first couple weeks, is also not realistic. But these kind are just the cravings to get high, which, although they may seem pretty strong, are not the 'real' cravings of opioid withdrawals ... the ones where you're craving cause you're legitimately dope-sick. Thus, ultimately, they are more manageable, and tend to pass fairly quickly, esp. if someone is serious about wanting to get clean.