jeremy87

hi my name is jeremy im new to this forum im trying to kick my addiction with the percocet 30s if been snorting 2 to 5 a day latley ive been using for 2 years
except when im working i go offshore scallop fishing for 7 to 12 days a trip i use when i am home which is about 10 days to 2weeks at a time. the first few days of the trip are tough but i work through it. seemed managable so i had a strong sense of denial "i can go a week or two with out i must not have a problem" how ever i got injured a month and a half ago and cant work so ive had some time to build up a tolerance. I now realize im powerless over drugs.
tried the taper method but didnt work for me. im on day two cold turkey
experiencing loss of appetite , hard time sleeping, restless legs, dialated pupils, yawning, watery eyes and lethargy. how long will these syptoms persist? im opposed to the suboxone methed. any advice would be apreciated. i got too much to lose 4 year old daughter, wife, job, friends ect...

MsPINKAcres

((Jeremy))

Welcome to our SR family

I personally don't know much about the withdraw symptoms, hopefully some of our other members will be alone soon to offer support ~

I just wanted to offer my support, good thoughts and prayers!

So glad you are reaching out for help for YOU ~ You deserve a happier and healthier life without being controlled by your DOC (drug of choice)

maybe if you are open to it ~ you can find some meetings in your area to offer face to face support!!

PINK HUGS (hope, unity, gratitude and serenity)

Rita

**you might also find a more active forum as the "Substance abuse" forum for more members to offer suggestions**

Don't give up before the miracles happen in YOU - YOU deserve them!

Dee74

Welcome to SR Jeremy

Have you spoken with your Dr? Might be a good first step to at least canvass all your options.

You'll find a lot of experience and support here

D

CleanBreeze

The worst should be over by Day 4 then it gets a little better everyday from there... Good for you that you realized you have a problem and remember that everytime you go back to taking the pills the withdrawals will get worse and your tolerance will get higher. About a week or so out you should be better able to function.. The sleep is always the last thing to come back. Good Luck!! This is the best thing you could do for yourself.

IvanKatz

My suggestion,
Go fishing and when you get home - stop using. If you can go on a two week trip and work through it... You're out of the W/D by then.

IvanKatz

You're either serious about this or not!

OxyMaddened

Jeremy,
I myself am currently on day 5+ (started withdrawal late Friday afternoon) and am now past the worst. It truly is the most difficult thing I've ever done. I first got on this forum back in June stating how I wanted off oxys too. Like you & many others I failed all self-imposed pseudo "tapers" and ended up just doing more.

A common refrain is "I won't sugar-coat it" and so I'm warning you that the next step may be vomiting. For me it started 3pm Sunday & the last time was last night. As of now my chills have been subsiding, so just find a way to get through the next two days and it will get much better!

Just the thought of no longer draining my much-dwindled bank account and not being a slave to these pills any longer is worth the pain....no matter how bad it gets and feels...everytime you feel especially bad, just focus on your body healing from needing it!

Good luck to you. The worst WILL be over soon!

jeremy87

thanx for the suport its alot harder kicking it at home knowing that its just a call away and also considering ive been out of work for a while so the symptoms are worse than the norm. i have plenty of good people in my life ill try n stay close to em. also it dosnt help memorizing the pill guys phone number but i hope my will power is enough to resist.
bordem is trigger when im in from a fishing trip i dont have any structure or routine. i want my life back

jeremy87

OxyMaddened

Jeremy,

As to the parts I put in bold font: Yesterday morning, when I was at the peak of my discomfort, I picked up my phone to call a long time friend to tell her what I was doing. Before I could dial I saw a text from my pill man. The weird thing was, even with the huge amount of physical distress I was in, I was NOT tempted, because since the worst of the withdrawal started, I have been associating the use of these with all of this horrible unpleasantness. I called him to say, "do not send me any more messages, I have quit."

That's what has worked the best for me right now. Just thinking about how difficult, painful, and distressing the Detox/Withdrawal has been over the past several days is enough--at least for now--for me to never want to abuse this crap again. I don't ever want the possibility of ever having to go through this again.

Perhaps if you associate all of these experiences DIRECTLY to even taking one more pill that will be enough for you to not "want" them anymore. I know it's working for me so far.

Hang in there, Bud. You absolutely CAN get through this! You're a young man with a lot of good years ahead of you.

jeremy87

i know im going to get the call eventually but dam i made it two days there is no turning back. like you said im gonna have to tell him "dont call anymore"
I have some people to weed out from my life, they're not real friends anyway. thanks for the support

Shining~Again

Welcome Jeremy - I hope today is going as well as possible for you.
My quickie list for the first week would be:
--hot baths a couple times a day
--stretching - just standard on-the-floor-type where you work the muscles some.
--potassium pills (they're super cheap too)
--multivitamin
--sleep aid (otc or from doctor)
--sleepy time tea - or any decaf tea. Just sipping something hot seems to calm.
--mindless internet games (go to the Arcade section here -there's heaps)
--Go down to bottom of SR and pop around to the Whiners Corner and Movies games and such. It's nice to branch out some.
--Find a couple people that can be there via email/phone.
--Write! Journal privately or on a blog (they have them here too). Mark it private if you need.
--Easy to prepare foods that also help stomach/bathroom issues(eggs, bananas, soups, gingerale was my lifesaver)
--Immodium (!!) :-)
--Netflicks or any of the tv places online were also super helpful.

those things helped me...and during moments I was in pure hell, I just told myself that it wasn't going to last much longer. It didn't. :-)
It was seriously was like a case of the flu for me.

IvanKatz

OxyMaddened,
I'm going to fill you in on a little secret. Once you're a few weeks out, or even a few months - something happens. All that pain you went through, all that misery for days on end becomes "fuzzy". What I mean by this is your brain "forgets". That's right! It forgets!

Your "addict brain" will lie to you and say, "Hey, now that we're out of the woods we can take a pill here or there and CONTROL IT". This is why many of us refer to the meds as "the biggest lie ever told.

Generally what happens is your brain tends to romanticize all those "good times" when you were using and shelves all those bad times. Believe me when I say that I speak from experience!

I'll make an example. Let's say that you're two months out of W/D and doing really good. Someone calls you and says "Hey, so and so is having a party this weekend at the lake and you're invited".
Now, addict brain tells you,
"Hey, remember last year when we went to the lake party and had soooooo much fun? All the girls thought we were so funny and we even got a nice little hook-up because she though you were so charming and witty"?

You addict brain had just romanticized that memory and tells you, "We can take a few pills with us and we'll have even more fun this time! After all, now we can control it"

The trap has opened up and is waiting to spring! OK, so let's say you go to that party and only take a few pills. The next morning you wake up with a screaming headache and you feel horrible. HEY! I know, I'll take one little pill and we'll fix that!
Then the next weekend rolls around and you actually just went 5 days without using. Ah-ha!! Your brain says, "See, I told you we can control it now. Next day you take a couple of pills because this party is slammin!
You wake up and take another pill.
Wouldn't you know it, It's Wednessday and you've had a complete cr@p day.

Addict brain says, "Let's take just one or two pills and we can just forget about it. Next day rolls around and you decide to take another.

Next thing you know, You're back to where you were a square one...
__________________________________________________ __________

I'm very sure that the other SR members will back me up on this one... Because many of us have been there... many times!

Just last Monday I had a VERY BAD DAY! The kind of bad day I haven't experienced in a decade! I wanted to use soooooo bad just so I didn't have to feel the excruciating emotional pain I felt in my heart.
I didn't use because I knew from experience that if I put one pill in my mouth, I'd put more in the next day.
Instead of getting high, I faced the problem head on and had it resolved that evening.
The next day I was just fine and also very proud of myself that I didn't take the easy way out of it. Instead, I did the hard thing and it paid in dividends!

One day you may realize that sobriety isn't a matter of not using, but rather how you change your life. Sobriety means taking what life throws at you and how you respond to it without taking a drug to deal with it.

I hope this makes sense to you because I've been there all too many times buddy. I sincerely hope that you can dig down deep and do the work to become sober.

IvanKatz

Hey AngelWW!
You wrote "Go down to bottom of SR and pop around to the Whiners Corner and Movies games and such. It's nice to branch out some".

I hope you meant winners corner... Because I know there is a lot of "Whining" going on!

LOL! Sorry, that was a typo I couldn't resist : )

Love ya girl!

NewAttitude

Dear Ivan,

WOW, just WOW!

Thank you for once again just laying it all on the line for us! I am really grateful for all of your posts because you just really know what to say...at least for an addict like me!

Please keep posting, you are batting a thousand ***

Zencat

I too at one time was feeling powerless over my drug addiction. What helps me is to have a daily addiction treatment. Going from powerless to empowered is the best feeling ever.

Detox is nasty but once its over you can start on making a new life drug free. Keep putting those clean days together.

jeremy87

day 3 only 2 hours of sleep i went to an aa meeting even though alcohol is not my doc there were plenty of people just like me with the same problem. it felt good being face to face with other addicts. i finally got a text from my pill guy and told him im cleaning up my act. unfortunatly, I live in a small town so inevitably I will bump in to him again which might be a trigger. I reluctantly got a suboxone from a recovering friend and broke it into thirds to ease my discomfort, so much for cold turkey. he told me I should go to the clinic and get some but i am unsure? can they prescribe them for a short term to get through the w/ds? I dont want to trade one poison for another? what to do?

OxyMaddened

Ivan,

I definitely understand where you're coming from and appreciate your thinking and attitude on how easy it could be for a person to get right back into that situation. I'm NOT going to sit here and claim it couldn't happen to me. I'm not so blind to think I would be unique and be immune to such an occurrence. However, you seem to be projecting your own experiences onto me as if I were the same person as you. Yes, I developed a dependence over the last 2.5 years. Except my situation is nothing like your above scenario, however. It's actually equivalent to FT's. She, like me, is a 50-something woman with osteoarthritis who eventually became dependent after surgery. I'm not a young male party animal looking to hook up with chicks. My intent was never to take these recreationally. My recreational drug of choice has been marijuana -- since age 19. It, and everything I ever tried recreational, have never caused me a single problem my entire life. Having grown up in the '70s I tried many of the things out there, cocaine, meth (hated it), acid a few times, Qualuudes (before they were banned) etc. Never did I use pain pills of any type recreationally. I occasionally drank but have never been that fond of it, and only do so 1-2 times a year with a couple groups of friends I see on special occasions. My earliest history of taking pain meds was 2-3 days a month from age 12 for severe, debilitating menstrual period cramps. My parents would go up to Canada and buy 500 count bottles of their OTC codeine, I don't remember the dose, I think it was about 8mg.
So, fast forward to September 2009. Still undergoing PT for reconstructive surgery, I became frustrated by the inability to function normally yet. I couldn't do (usually) easy household chores w/o bad pain. I still wasn't taking meds each day; I took a little prior to PT appointments, but not enough to mask all the pain so I would know where I was at. Sometime within a few weeks it gradually occurred. By the time I figured out when I'd done, that I'd slipped down that slippery slope, I was scared to death of what would happen if I stopped abruptly. Then, like FT, I tried and failed numerous times to taper on my own, and once with my BF holding onto them.

Now of course the issue is that I DID become physically dependent, but what I've found occurred during that time the somehow, increased use doesn't just allow you to build up a tolerance, it also made (at least me) MORE susceptible to pain, which also caused me to increase my usage. Perhaps that doesn't matter though...I understand my brain chemistry has been altered, at least temporarily, and it's perhaps a dubious idea to think of using any amount. Just because I was able to successfully manage my usage of these types of drugs for 39 years doesn't mean I can continue to, and I do recognize that. Aging might have a factor in my body's ability to process such substances, too.

I know you want to help, but I think you shouldn't project your own experiences directly onto anyone that have zero basis on their lifestyle. I don't go to parties. I don't have any friends who have EVER used any pain meds recreationally, just a couple of my late Ex's former in laws who used to but I rarely talked to them before this started; I don't associate with them anymore; they were the ones I was illegitimately getting them from. I have informed them of my decision last week and will not have contact with them.

I also plan to talk to my Doctor as soon as I can get an appointment to let her know what occurred, and ask about alternatives for pain management.

Again, thank you for your concern, it is noted, appreciated and understood.

Remember, we are NOT all the same. there in fact ARE people out there that can manage certain substances, and others that cannot manage ANY. For me, I ended up with a physical dependency based (initially) on legitimate use, but it spiraled out of control. The only reason I didn't quit long before now was the fear of how horrific Detox and Withdrawal would be, and was.

Tryin2Recover

Hmmm...

Anyways, let us not derail Jeremys thread here. Congrats Jeremy on taking the first step. I would suggest you stick to those meetings, get involved and get a sponsor. You dont ever have to use again.

Shining~Again

Hey Jeremy - just wondering how you're doing?
I have every post I make on a thread go to my normal email, maybe you
do also and will know me (and others) are thinking of you!