Dilemma
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Bethesda, MD
Posts: 9
Dilemma
Hello to anyone reading this. I want to ask the advice of anyone who wants to give it. I'm presently looking into treatment facilities for heroin addiction (I feel like a dirtbag just typing that -- how did it ever come to this?), but finding it a bit difficult to find an inpatient facility that will accept my insurance (Fed BCBS). One helpful person I've spoken with several times on the phone yesterday and today might be a Forum Leader here (recognize the name and location), but I'm not sure. I had simply dialed a help line I found online and he's tried to help place me. I can't recall how I came to this website now, but I registered and posting away.
Anyway, I'm wondering if I should just get into a detox facility asap and worry about sobriety maintence later. I want to keep my job and hope the Family Medical Leave Act can keep the door open for me while I detox from the opiates. About a week, right? Anyone tried those super-fast detox programs where it's supposed to cleanse the system in a day or two? All I know is what I've read online in the past week. I've never been to any sort of treatment and never imagined I'd find myself where I am now.
Back when I was in the service I wondered if I had a drinking problem because I was getting drunk all the time, but it turned out I was more an abuser, never developing a physical dependence. I don't drink now, save for a glass of wine or a beer every now and then -- maybe 5 or 6 times per year, and having not been drunk for several years at least. I think I just got tired of feeling like **** in the mornings, but don't remember when or exactly why I gave up knocking 'em back like I used to.
At any rate, I remember when my present problem began: the first time I discovered what it felt like to take more Percocet than prescription provided. I had 3 herniated discs in my lower back and developed a chronic problem with my sciatic nerve. If 2 Percocets relieved the pain, 4 felt like a warm blanket over my entire body. Before long that same blanket required 6, then 8 tablets. Then I needed the 10/325 tabs to acheive the effect without ODing on acetaminophen. Around this time still I had enough sense to realize I had better ease up, so I asked my doctor for a non-narcotic pain reliever. He prescribed me Tramadol and said it was non-habit forming. In a word: ********.
I didn't know that at first, though, and was taking the daily max for about 6 months. Like my old self, I again realized if 6 was good, 12 was great. I even liked the effect better than oxycodone. Plus, this stuff was available over the Internet so I didn't have to worry about running through my script so early. That's when I had my first experience with withdrawal. Ugh. I saw a different pain specialist who prescribed me 120 ct 10/325 oxycodone AND 15 100mg Fentanyl patches each month. I didn't even ask her for them, she would actually ask me if I thought I needed more. Things spiralled down from here.
I couldn't even feel 13 at once 10/325 tabs. My tolerance was out of hand. That summer I developed kidney stones (6 -- all too large to pass on their own), probably from the excessive Tramadol ingestion. In the hospital, the morphine pump barely provided relief at all, which shocked my doctors even though they knew how painful stones could be. That's when a trip to Baltimore turned into a treasure hunt. Actually, it wasn't difficult at all. I asked a homeless person where to find heroin and I had some in 10 minutes.
I'm still amazed at how easily I made the jump. I had smoked pot in high school, but heroin? I would have sooner walked on the moon if you had asked me back then. But I needed the opiates and knew it would deliver the most for the least. And it did, at first. Then I was injecting it every day, then twice a day, then 2-3g/day. Zero to out of control in 3 months.
I reject the idea that problems I may be having elsewhere in my life caused me abuse drugs. Everyone has problems. Not everyone slams heroin. I liked to get high, plain and simple. I'm where I am solely by my own stupid short-sighted choices. I did have problems in my life, sure, but that's not why I started abusing drugs. I don't believe it is, anyway. I did notice, of course, that drugs made them seem smaller to me. In actuality, heroin didn't make my problems go away, it just made me not care about them. They were still there.
So now I have all of them plus an out of control heroin addiction. Nice. Real smart of me. I know of several methadone clinics in the area I could visit every morning on my way to work, but I don't want to do that for months or years. I need to get my system clean and then deal with my desire to get high from anything.
Is a 7-day detox followed by NA meetings realistic? Let's just assume my wife will not be a source of support for me. She's a wonderful, kind person, and probably would be, but she wouldn't understand. She comes from another world (UC Berkeley PhD, Harvard Med) and would never look at me the same again. I hate keeping this, or anything, from her, but I need to carry my own water on this one.
Sorry for the life story, but no one made you read it. And for some reason that felt good telling it. Thanks.
Anyway, I'm wondering if I should just get into a detox facility asap and worry about sobriety maintence later. I want to keep my job and hope the Family Medical Leave Act can keep the door open for me while I detox from the opiates. About a week, right? Anyone tried those super-fast detox programs where it's supposed to cleanse the system in a day or two? All I know is what I've read online in the past week. I've never been to any sort of treatment and never imagined I'd find myself where I am now.
Back when I was in the service I wondered if I had a drinking problem because I was getting drunk all the time, but it turned out I was more an abuser, never developing a physical dependence. I don't drink now, save for a glass of wine or a beer every now and then -- maybe 5 or 6 times per year, and having not been drunk for several years at least. I think I just got tired of feeling like **** in the mornings, but don't remember when or exactly why I gave up knocking 'em back like I used to.
At any rate, I remember when my present problem began: the first time I discovered what it felt like to take more Percocet than prescription provided. I had 3 herniated discs in my lower back and developed a chronic problem with my sciatic nerve. If 2 Percocets relieved the pain, 4 felt like a warm blanket over my entire body. Before long that same blanket required 6, then 8 tablets. Then I needed the 10/325 tabs to acheive the effect without ODing on acetaminophen. Around this time still I had enough sense to realize I had better ease up, so I asked my doctor for a non-narcotic pain reliever. He prescribed me Tramadol and said it was non-habit forming. In a word: ********.
I didn't know that at first, though, and was taking the daily max for about 6 months. Like my old self, I again realized if 6 was good, 12 was great. I even liked the effect better than oxycodone. Plus, this stuff was available over the Internet so I didn't have to worry about running through my script so early. That's when I had my first experience with withdrawal. Ugh. I saw a different pain specialist who prescribed me 120 ct 10/325 oxycodone AND 15 100mg Fentanyl patches each month. I didn't even ask her for them, she would actually ask me if I thought I needed more. Things spiralled down from here.
I couldn't even feel 13 at once 10/325 tabs. My tolerance was out of hand. That summer I developed kidney stones (6 -- all too large to pass on their own), probably from the excessive Tramadol ingestion. In the hospital, the morphine pump barely provided relief at all, which shocked my doctors even though they knew how painful stones could be. That's when a trip to Baltimore turned into a treasure hunt. Actually, it wasn't difficult at all. I asked a homeless person where to find heroin and I had some in 10 minutes.
I'm still amazed at how easily I made the jump. I had smoked pot in high school, but heroin? I would have sooner walked on the moon if you had asked me back then. But I needed the opiates and knew it would deliver the most for the least. And it did, at first. Then I was injecting it every day, then twice a day, then 2-3g/day. Zero to out of control in 3 months.
I reject the idea that problems I may be having elsewhere in my life caused me abuse drugs. Everyone has problems. Not everyone slams heroin. I liked to get high, plain and simple. I'm where I am solely by my own stupid short-sighted choices. I did have problems in my life, sure, but that's not why I started abusing drugs. I don't believe it is, anyway. I did notice, of course, that drugs made them seem smaller to me. In actuality, heroin didn't make my problems go away, it just made me not care about them. They were still there.
So now I have all of them plus an out of control heroin addiction. Nice. Real smart of me. I know of several methadone clinics in the area I could visit every morning on my way to work, but I don't want to do that for months or years. I need to get my system clean and then deal with my desire to get high from anything.
Is a 7-day detox followed by NA meetings realistic? Let's just assume my wife will not be a source of support for me. She's a wonderful, kind person, and probably would be, but she wouldn't understand. She comes from another world (UC Berkeley PhD, Harvard Med) and would never look at me the same again. I hate keeping this, or anything, from her, but I need to carry my own water on this one.
Sorry for the life story, but no one made you read it. And for some reason that felt good telling it. Thanks.
I do'nt know anything about heroin, but the folks on this forum might have more knowledge and experience to share with you, also may have more info on detox facilities.
Substance Abuse - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information
Please give it a look and ask all your questions. I'm sure someone with more experience can offer you support and hope.
Welcome to SR!
Substance Abuse - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information
Please give it a look and ask all your questions. I'm sure someone with more experience can offer you support and hope.
Welcome to SR!
I have no experience with heroin or rehab either Wash Caps.
I hope that others here, or in the sub abuse forum, will help you with their experiences.
I do wonder tho, how you anticipate keeping this from your wife?
I also recommend you start dealing with your desire to get high now - look into NA now - right now...
rehab is not, of course, a magic wand - as you say, you have to carry your own water.
good luck
D
I hope that others here, or in the sub abuse forum, will help you with their experiences.
I do wonder tho, how you anticipate keeping this from your wife?
I also recommend you start dealing with your desire to get high now - look into NA now - right now...
rehab is not, of course, a magic wand - as you say, you have to carry your own water.
good luck
D
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Bethesda, MD
Posts: 9
Thanks, and I see now I posted in the wrong forum. Sorry.
Friends and family are more likely to notice anything wrong (and some have) than my wife. I love her and she's terrific, but she is a workaholic. She travels a lot, often abroad, but even when she's home it's rare for her to get home before 9 pm. Weekends are just shorter work days. I hate keeping things from her, and I directly lied once when she found an orange cap on the floor of the bathroom. I may end up telling her, but not until I beat this myself. Then I'll let the chips fall, as they say. Am I just protecting myself? Perhaps. I'm struggling with it and have gone back and forth.
Thanks again for the suggestions. I'll post in the proper forum from now on.
Friends and family are more likely to notice anything wrong (and some have) than my wife. I love her and she's terrific, but she is a workaholic. She travels a lot, often abroad, but even when she's home it's rare for her to get home before 9 pm. Weekends are just shorter work days. I hate keeping things from her, and I directly lied once when she found an orange cap on the floor of the bathroom. I may end up telling her, but not until I beat this myself. Then I'll let the chips fall, as they say. Am I just protecting myself? Perhaps. I'm struggling with it and have gone back and forth.
Thanks again for the suggestions. I'll post in the proper forum from now on.
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