GettingOff4good

2 years ago we started on oral roxicdone, about 1 per day or 30mg. Then we switched to OP80s and we probably did about 50-60mg/day. Then I discovered a cheap way to make fentanyl nasal spray, as the pills were ruining me financially. So we started at taking about 15mg/day from the nasal spray (note I don't know if the fentanyl powder I used was 100% pure, but it was advertised as such). Let me tell you, having a fentanyl spray around all the time is just impossible to not use, it's just too easy. After about a year and a half of fentanyl going from 15mg to 9mg, we started to taper and got all the way down to about 2mg per day. I thought we were almost out of the woods, but then our fentanyl ran dry. So 4 days ago I got 90 norcos and we went through those in like 3-4 days. Yesterday I hit up everyone I knew for opiates and got nothing, so we were forced into cold turkey.While weening we stupidly wasted our gabapentin and clonidine, which are wonderful detox meds. I took about 3600mg the first day but because of tolerance it didn't do much. Usually I can get through the entire first day with about 2400mg of gabapentin, but tolerance builds quickly and it stops helping. We're now 36 hours into detox and miraculously my girlfriend has been asleep for almost 11 hours. We both got up at about 6am today and I took 100mg of mdma. I was able to sleep/rest through the next 4-5 hours very easily with that, but that is now wearing off.

Previously, we were planning on getting more opiates, but after taking the mdma and making it 36 hours in I feel like we really should just take advantage of this opportunity and get clean. Ironically my goal was to get clean in June, and we spent time weening but it was looking like a total fail once we started on the hydros. However if I do take advantage of this I may actually meet my goal. Any advice/suggestions? I've heard LSD can help detox and I happen to have some, but I've never done it before and it might be odd/interesting to take it for the first time during opiate detox. I'm adventurous, but my girlfriend may protest that idea.

Any advice/suggestions/encouragements? I'd really like to know how long it will last. yesterday was god awful but we went tanning and the warmth was nice. I also did some walking but I probably should drink more water. Today I do feel better than yesterday, but I thought that a few days in were the worst days, do I have more misery ahead or will it continue to get better?

imhooks

Do you want to get clean or not??? Using other drugs or mind-altering substances will lead you right back into the depths of your previous addiction. Just because it isn't your DOC doesn't mean you are clean. Please consider taking this time to actually get clean. You sound like you half-want it. Do some soul searching and find that other half if you can. Good luck to you.

Cross addiction leads to relapse 9 times out of 10.

If your girlfriend doesn't want to get clean then you should drop her like opiates. Sorry for the tough opinion.

OpioPhobe

Well, you wanted to get clean in June so now you have the opportunity. Symptoms would peak by 72 hours for me. That was coming off of H though so I am not sure if it would be applicable to fent / hydros. Fent gets dosed in micrograms so I have my doubts about the fent producer's advertising. You may be coming off of something else completely.

I have never taken MDMA or LSD during withdrawal. If you have never taken LSD before trying it for the first time during opi withdrawal sounds like a terrible idea to me. I wouldn't have the balls to try that unless I was in the waiting room at the psych ward.

Welcome to SR. Opi withdrawal is rough, but it is possible to make it through to the other side.

GettingOff4good

You guys are right about half-wanting it. I really, really do want it, and have for about 18 months, but being busy with heavy responsibilities means I don't get much time off to get clean. Right now I have the time and I really do want to get clean, but like any recovering addict there's always the thought of taking more to cure your wds.

As for cross-addiction, I've never been "addicted" to anything besides opiates, and that's what I really want to get clean on. I've always had strict self-control rules for all other drugs, it's just opiates hit us out of nowhere. My gf's parents got divorced right as she graduated, which sort of triggered it, and I had a bunch of roxis that I was intending to give to others but we ended up keeping them to ourselves. I kept asking myself, am I addicted? about 2 weeks in we had to do a 1 day detox before more supplies came in and I realized it. At first it was wonderful, like always, I did some of my best work in school (computer science prestigious university) while in early addiction, but now I'm at a point to where all I want is to not have to be dependent on a god damn drug. I can't go anywhere without bringing my **** with me and it's cumersome in life. My girlfriend wants to get clean, but just like me she was trying to find some yesterday but we both had no success. I am truly in love with my girlfriend, mutually, so I think I can convince her to take this opportunity, but I do appreciate the advice. We both want to be clean but at the same time we both want to get high and take the pain away. I think I'm probably just a little more open to admit that.

I usually have a once a month rule with mdma for festivals but I can't even enjoy them anymore while addicted. Went to EDC 2012 and it was magical, and right after that is when we got hooked. I might take it a few times during wd because I haven't taken it in some 6+ months, but I will of course limit myself there. I don't really consider MDMA as addicting. I've responsibly used almost every other drug out there, so my concern isn't on that, but mostly the opiates. I know a lot of people have a tough stance on any drugs period, but I am 100% certain I can control myself there and it wont lead to opiates.

So I guess to answer the question, I do want to get clean, of opiates. They are the worst. I'll also never get into regular benzo use, although I just took the smaller half of a 2mg klonopin (say 0.85mg) along with 75mg dramamine and 8mg immodium. I do think most of the GI withdrawals finished during the ween luckily because when I had horrible diarrhea while around 2-4mg of fentanyl a day.

Being in this position sucks. I have a friend of mine who was hooked on huge amounts of H, living with his dealer, and one day he just walked about 10 miles to another friend's house to live there and he had almost no detox symptoms, makes me angry lol. But he's managed to stay away from opiates for over 2 years now, he respects the addictive qualities of opiates, but now is clean. I think he used H once since then, but it was a one and done situation which didn't hurt him. We do all sorts of other drugs together and we're all a very supportive group of friends. One friend who hasn't ever been addicted, one who's clean 2 years, and me, who's currently addicted. They help me out with advice and support and just the whole constantly telling me I need to get clean gives me the encouragement that I need.

imhooks

Im sorry but you HAVE to look into the science of cross-addiction. Youtube it. It does not matter if you have never been addicted to anything other than opiates. Im 29 days clean and can tell you, had I not quit casually drinking, or smoking pot I wouldn't have made it this far. Your brain instinctively goes back to that pleasurable feeling you got from opiates. I WAS 15 months clean from opiates but failed to kick benzos(prescribed) or drinking or pot. Look where I am at now.

Please read this:

One of the more common questions around treatment centers and the recovery fellowships goes something like,”I’m addicted to prescription drugs, not alcohol, so why can’t I have a drink? What’s this cross-addiction I’ve heard about?”
That’s really not an unreasonable question. Why do addicts who don’t seem to have problems with alcohol need to stay away from it anyway? Why can’t a prescription drug addict have a few drinks?
There are really two reasons:
Alcohol reduces our inhibitions and increases the likelihood that we will make bad choices; and
Just as they say in the rooms, “A drug is a drug is a drug.”
Number one is pretty much self-explanatory, and can be attested to by anyone who has regretted something he or she did while they were drinking. The parts of our brains that are responsible for taking in information and allowing us to make reasoned decisions are among the first functions to be depressed by alcohol, along with some motor skills. (See any relationship to drunk driving problems there?)
We make poor decisions about driving, about kissing the boss’s wife at the Christmas party, about arguing with large men who carry guns and handcuffs, and all sorts of other things, including whether or not to drink more or use other drugs. “It seemed like a good idea at the time” can become a major problem when we’ve had a couple of drinks. Essentially, booze makes us dumber while convincing us that we’re smarter.
The second reason, known as cross-addiction, is a bit more complicated but makes perfect sense when you understand a few things. Cross-addiction refers to how we addicts, once addicted, are far more likely to get hooked on other drugs or behavior in addition to our drugs of choice.
Why do we drink or use drugs? We may say we like the taste of whiskey, but the fact is that we like it because we associate it with the way alcohol makes us feel. We use alcohol and other drugs because they change the way we feel. They make us feel “good,” or they “relax” us, or they (insert own reason here). Sometimes we use because we’re happy and we want to feel happier, but most of us use drugs and mood-altering behavior because they distract us from reality. Trouble is, the drugs always wear off, and we’re always there, wishing we still felt good. It doesn’t take us long to figure out how to make that happen.
Certain activities stimulate the production of chemicals in the brain that make us feel pleasure. Generally, these relate to things that are mostly beneficial: seeing a loved one or good friend, eating, exercising, playing games — especially if we win — fun, daydreaming, getting a good grade in school, a compliment, sex and so forth. They are quite literally our bodies’ way of insuring that we keep on doing things that are good for us. We refer to the portion of the brain that is stimulated as the reward center.
Alcohol and other drugs also stimulate the reward center, and they do it extremely well to begin with. When we start drinking and using drugs, the feelings are phenomenal. They are much stronger than the normal sorts of feelings, because the drug causes the production of extra quantities of feel-good neurotransmitters or, in some cases, stimulates the receptor sites in the reward center directly. Now that’s a reward, we think (sort of) — a powerful reward for using the drugs instead of our natural system of feeling good. Doing it again seems like a very good idea indeed.
But the goodness doesn’t last. As our reward centers become accustomed to the higher levels of stimulation, they become pretty much immune to the natural reward chemistry. We begin to need chemicals in order to get any sense of pleasure, and eventually just to feel normal. As we increase the levels of drugs, our brain attempts to compensate for the high levels of stimulation in two general ways: first by reducing the production of the natural feel-good chemicals, and also by building new receptor sites to deal with the excess chemicals floating around. It does this in an attempt to keep things to something like normal, but it’s doomed to lose the contest. Eventually, we have to have the drugs in order to function at all. We’re — guess what — addicted.


Substitute drink/alcohol with whatever drug you choose. "A drug is a drug is a drug"

GettingOff4good

44 hours now, magically my achiness is wearing off, as well as the restlessness. it FEELS like i'm close to off, but based on others who say it lasts 7-15 days, i'm a bit worried about whats ahead. Maybe because I weened and then switched to a different drug for 3-4 days, would that at all shorten it in any way? I had ta

In terms of cross-addiction, I understand your point. I already don't drink, had my fun with that my first semester in college and realized it just made me stupid. I am not a drug seeker in any way, but if its offered, sometimes i'll accept. So I don't know if frequency of use plays into this at all, but I don't do it very often. The only drug I go and buy on my own (besides opiates in the past) is MDMA for festivals, once every 45-90 days or so. I do plan to strictly stay clean of all drugs (except maybe weed) for about 30 days, but after that I may resume very casual use of other drugs. I have a friend who basically needs a drug every day, usually coke or weed, but isn't addicted to anything specifically, would that be cross-addiction? He fears he's just addicted to drugs in general. As for myself, I understand the pharmacology of all the drugs I take very well and I respect them way more than anyone else, people always come to me when they have a question about a drug because I'm a bit of a "drug researcher"

Speaking of weed, I used to smoke every day. Could easily stop, and did a few times over a period of ~30 days all 3 times, but I noticed I stopped smoking weed mostly about 5-6 months into the opiates. Is this cross-addiction coming into play, replacing weed with opiates? Part of the reason I'm detoxing at home is so I don't have to do a 12-step or anything like that where they pretty much control your lives. The whole point of getting off of these is to gain control of my life, not put it in the hands of others, so I plan on probably having the occasional bowl of weed and/or maybe something else on occasion. I definitely see that it is important to consider, but I do truly believe that if I am cautious I can be that 1 out of 10. I could be "addicted" to weed and still control my life just fine because its so easy to quit, but when exactly does cross-addiction come into play? I understand it's a no-drug period policy usually, but does cross addiction hit on the first drug you use? I guess maybe I'll understand this better when I'm clean and have that first drug and see if it triggers an opiate response.

But anyways, 44 hours and feeling pretty ok, which is surprising based on what I've heard. I am definitely going to get clean, but my girlfriend will require some convincing.

OpioPhobe

GettingOff4good - what you are describing with your addiction to opis sounds like something I could have written. I tried almost everything in the book, but opis 'clicked' with me immediately. The problem is that people change over time. Even though I may have been able to take or leave other drugs in the past, it doesn't mean that will hold true today. In my opinion, once the addiction genie is out of the bottle he never goes back in.

Here is an example. I drank heavily in college, but never felt a 'pull' to drink. That was before the opi addiction took off. The last time I drank alcohol something weird happened. The next morning when I woke up and I started craving a drink. Even when I was drinking heavily in college the mere thought of booze when I first woke up would have made me gag. This go around I have stayed away, and I honestly don't miss any of it.

It is a catch-22 anyway. There would be no point in taking something recreationally that I wouldn't find addictive. That would mean that the drug sucked in the first place. Also, being completely clean and sober doesn't mean that you are condemned to a boring life or something. For me it is way better than when I was using. I don't need non-opi drugs either because life is good on its own.

I wish I could offer more advice on withdrawal timing, but I don't have any idea what you are coming off of. You are lucky to not have died from whatever you bought that was supposed to be pure fentanyl. Do you realize how tiny the lethal dose is with that drug?

GettingOff4good

yeah I joined a fraternity second semester freshman year lol. Gave up drinking and refused all the drinks they gave us. As for the fentanyl, I have a mg scale and I started with 30mg in a 2oz spray bottle with about 200-300 sprays, so cut 30mg by 200 and thats 100mcg - 150mcg per spray. I later went from 30mg per bottle to 25mg then 18mg, but as you see the dosages I took were in micrograms, we just used water to dilute it essentially. We've never even come close to overdosing, I never even really got high after awhile it was all just about getting normal. And the fentanyl was probably not 100% pure, as pharmaceutical fentanyl is strong in even smaller doses, but I've never actually had prescribed fentanyl. 48 hours gonna try and sleep

imhooks

Im not necessarily saying that you WILL take up drinking or weed. I'm speaking of neuro receptors in your brain. You are wired for pleasure from addiction. Therefore, if you were to use other mind-altering substances during your recovery from opiates your brain will automatically remember how opiates made you feel and lead you back to that addiction. Just read up a little. Don't just focus on the alcohol word or marijuana. If you can smoke weed and trip on LSD while recovering from opiates then more power to you. It must be nice. Good luck to you.

SparklingSeven

Don't take the acid.
Don't, don't don't !!!!
Keep well away.
It can open doors you'll really wish you'd left closed. And once they're open...
NO LSD

purechaos

How ya feeling? This deep in I would keep going. .. will only get better. ..

upnorthamy

Hi there I am addicted to opiates have been for the past 9 years and in them years I tryed cutting down and tryed to detox myself but I alway's found myslef back doin the things over and over again, It took me to go to a treatment center for 22 day's that helped, they really helped me with Suboxen detox and I can honestly say I would of never been able to kick my habbit without them, maybe u should look into a detox treatment around ur area,most places offer Detox 3-7 day's then a doc talks to u and take his reccomdations he is only there to help. 26 days sober today!!! with the help of suboxen

DecBaby

It doesn't sound like you're serious. You want your cake and eat it too. You want good advice? You got it in the posts above. Too bad you have a ton of excuses why you can still use other drugs. Hope it never comes back to bite you in the butt.