Good topic, endlessness!

I'm currently in Methadone Maintenance Treatment for oxycodone and heroin addiction. It's a pain in the ass dosing every day and you cant get take-homes if you have a dirty UA. It's really best for holding you over while you work on fixing your issues and getting your shit together. Many people however start abusing the methadone, dosing higher and higher. I plan on slowly dosing down and getting off this stuff as soon as possible. All I ever seem to do is sleep all day because it makes me tired and lazy.

I feel that you can be addicted to many things, and that everyone is different when it comes to how much trouble they have with addictions.

Clearly, this will vary depending on where you are, but if you can get your methadone dose to take home with you, a good way to taper the dose down is to acquire a syringe of the appropriate volume (ie on 50ml or more/day then a 50mg syringe is ideal) and reduce your dose by 1ml every 5-7 days, having measured it carefully (and with no cheating!).

This is a relatively painless way to get your dose down to 10 or so mls; then taper even more slowly thereafter.It varies from person to person but Ive known of people on 2ml methadone/day who are unable to reduce further.I dunno if this is wholly physical or not.

Ive known of people who have done this with good results, and some have (sensibly IMO) reverted to a shorter-acting opiate like H/oxy at this stage to reduce further to less potent agents like dihydrocodeine.

Ultimately, theres no easy way out of an opiate habit, but some methods are less arduous than others.

The low dose naltrexone approach sounds very intriguing but, AFAIK, only a very limited number of private places would entertain this approach.Merits alot of investigating, IMO.

So apparently naltrexone is not as easy as I hoped to obtain, I did however get methadone, about a weeks worth, and have finished that regiment. Today is my first day truly clean and its not going too bad, and as I take the ideas and opinions of those here on the nexus seriously I am using a bit of everyone's advice. Anyway, I finished the methadone and forced myself out of town to stay for a few days to finish the process. With,no means of travel and only enough money for food, no connects and a legit desire to quit this shit...here's to hoping this will be my last battle in this war.

Thank you all.

For mild to moderate withdrawals, I have found cold water therapy to work:

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=26111

Good luck, SpireCatalyst. You can do it!!!

Thanks Spartan! It's going good actually. And I gave the cold water therapy a try the other day, skeptic, but it did help for a while.

http://www.inspire.com/g...low-dose-naltrexone-ldn/

This link is some person who put together a summary of low dose naltrexone information. He says that LDN gives a two to three times boost in endorphin production during the night. I think for a heroin addict, it would probably just take the edge off, barely, but for a lesser opiate addiction it might do more.

It's apparently good for depression as well, I'd bet if you took a cold shower in the morning after a LDN dose the night before you'd have yourself a nice day.

I'm seriously considering a three month of this for a friend. He's probably going to be getting a dog soon, and he knows about the cold shower bit I learned about on this forum recently. So the combinations of things IMO is a great way to get him straightened out, something he wants very much. Now if I can just talk him into visiting an ayahuasquero...

****
The low dose naltrexone stuff is surprisingly able to treat a huge variety of conditions. It reminds me of cannabis in this way, because it has few and mild side effects, it's cheap, plus it benefits a wide variety of conditions.

I commend you...it's cooooold, but you feel so good afterwards! I'm about to take a hot/cold shower after I log out.



That does sound like a potent combination, I'm definitely going to try that. Thanks for the link.

Yeah, a few minutes seemed to last a loooooong time, but well worth it.

100% true in my own experience, it's so much easier to stop than to keep it stoped!!



So very true also, my friend went as far as taking a large amount of Eboka (40+ grams of potent root bark) in hopes of getting rid of his addiction/withdrawal to kratom, alchohol, and MJ. Had a very powerfull and profound experience. To make a long story short, didn't get rid of ANY withdrawal symptoms, cravings or post anxiety. Actually, pulled through the physical withdrawal part of it all, a couple of days later post physical withdrawal, just couldn't tolerate the SUPER hightened state of anxiety probably due to a poor support system and ended up relapsing right back to the start.

So much for brain "reset" after the flood. He can't even imagine coming off of anything harder than that and having to be left stranded like that. Just a word of CAUTION for anyone else with high expectations. He understands that there are a lot of people with success when it comes to this but it is what it is. I guess noone is pre-wired the same.

Hi,

I've been on methadone program once few years ago. One of my bigger mistakes in life. I'm clean from opiates about two years now. I'm actually more scared of being addicted to methadone than to smack once again. Liquid handcuffs.

To get 'stabilized' with help of methadone did not work for me very well. Turned out that methadone dose over 50ml is almost toxic for my body. Uncontrollable sweating, swollen belly, felling sick, emotionally empty and detached from life. After 6 months I started to notice a hormonal changes as well. I was loosing chest muscles, getting fat ass. I checked the internet and it is true, long term use of methadone is causing sex and hormonal changes and turns man into fat woman. One dose per day wasn't enough either. Methadone is scary too. I missed 50ml dose once and faced full on methadone withdrawal whole night. Pure hell. Finally I could not touch harmalas with methadone in blood stream, so...

It became a personal quest for me to get rid of methadone from my life after 8 months of liquid handcuffs. I asked doctor to tell pharmacist to give me half of my 50 ml dose home every day so I could drink it later afternoon. It worked and I got better straight away.I got stabilized and being given take aways for a whole week. Than I tapered down to 20ml easily by 5ml a week and than I went 2ml a week till I drunk 2ml a day. I switched to kratom for a week and that was it. It took few months to taper methadone down.
Kratom helped afterwards with PWS too(I'm not sure if there was any really). I read on internet that kratom is used instead methadone in New Zealand.

My point is that methadone is not right treatment for everyone and it's scary, but it was not actually so hard to get rid of it if one is clean of heroin and taper down slowly over time. There are other options as well, but I would not take buprenorphine for long either, I heard it's a long and painful withdrawal from it too and it's hard to taper down because it's very potent even at few milligrams.

Heres an interesting article on the potential benefits of combining low dose mu receptor antagonists with mu agonists.

http://www.paintrials.co...ublications/Capasso8.pdf

Propably it sounds like a small problem to opiate addiction but I still got problems to quit smoking. I already quitted it for 3 years and had no desire at all to do it again. The first cigarette after that tasted horrible (although I liked the taste of joints).

My problem consists mainly of two parts, the first is the voice in my head that tells me excuses for doing it. So I do stop mostly for one or two weeks, and then the next time when I'm drunk, argue with my girlfriend or s.th. else (which is a excuse) I start again.

The second one is that most of my friends smoke and I also want to keep smoking ganja. But the problem is if I quit smoking I start to smoke really a lot of ganja (for the nicotine). That's why I don't buy it anymore just use it when friends got some.

I truly want to be a none smoker, I know it's anoying for other people, it cost's money, it's bad for ur health and you are not fit etc. But still my mind tells me, hey today it's ok because you have this or that excuse.

Also I think I'm some sort of addcition guy. When I go out and drink I mostly spend all cash I got with me, so my strategy is just to take that with me, what I want to spend. I was sort of gambling addicted (luckyly I was very good and it did finance my life). But I quitted online gambling and do play only with friends anymore, because I was spending on average 6h per day on it. I'm kind of addicted to sex (I could have it 5 times a day, every day ), I think some of my relationships ended because of that. I'm addicted to shugar, if I have ten bars of choclate at home they are gone till the next day, the only thing I can do against that is to not buy it.

You see my overall strategy is to limit myself to prevent doing s.th. But I'm afraid that I may get one day into serious trouble. E.g. getting addicted to s.th. harder because of a major life crisis or the wrong girlfriend, who knows. Ok I'm not that guy, who solves problems with substances and also I say no to new addictive substances like coke or heroin (which I got offered several times for free). Shure I know it would be great but I do know me. I think I've some serious nature to get addicted to things which provide pleasure.

So what I want to know, how I can gain the control while beeing in the situation. I mean this limiting stuff is better than nothing, but I want to belong to these people who take 100$ into a club and just use 20$ for example. That's also my problem of quitting smoking forever, because it's hard to limit yourself. I mean you can get a cigarette from everybody everywhere.

In the past 12 months, I was able to quit cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and, with the help of methadone, prescription painkillers and heroin. I'm now almost done with my Methadone Maintenance Therapy and will be off of that too. So I'll tell you what worked for me:

If you're trying to quit cigs, I recommend that you stop drinking for a while. You need all the willpower you can get. Drinking while trying to quit cigs is like shooting yourself in the foot while you try to walk.



Maybe stop hanging out with your using friends who could negatively influence you while you work on trying to quit. You need to eliminate distractions.



Make a list of the reasons you want to quit, then meditate on this list every day, and visualize yourself as the person you want to be, as if it's in the present.



You need not only an unbending intent to stop addictions, but also emotional energy. Over-indulging in food, sex/masturbation, gambling, or any other addictive activity needs to stop. They will drain your emotional energy and sabotage your efforts.



How about instead of trying to limit these addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, and sex, you temporarily stop everything, one after another, starting with the least energy-draining behavior, then the next one, and the next one, etc.

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”

-Carlos Castaneda

You see, once you're deep into your addictions/indulgences, it's very difficult to moderate (limit) them. You need to reset yourself and start fresh. Once you have systematically eliminated your addictions, keep yourself busy with hobbies and healthy activities:

-Detoxify your body and your mind by reducing your meat, dairy, processed and junk food intake.

-Eat lots of organic fruits and mostly raw vegetables, drink lots of pure, unfluoridated water (spring or distilled) If distilled, be sure to add electrolytes.

-Exercise. Aerobic exercise can boost your body's natural endorphines and speed up the detoxification process. See my thread HERE for a fun way to exercise without going anywhere.

-Try Cold Showers to help stimulate endorphines and possibly relieve depression and boost immune function, as well as many other (potential) benefits.

-Connect to your Spirit or Higher Self by meditating and spending time in nature. Go for walks, read books, work on hobbies, spend time with family, pets, whatever brings you inner joy.

-Eliminate environmental distractions by staying away form negative-influencing people, and cleaning your living space.

-To prevent "relapse" into old ways when you're bored, work on Gratitude. Gratitude is a powerful tool to use against boredom. When we are "bored" we basically have just temporarily forgotten to appreciate the simple things in life. Make a Gratitude List and write down everything you feel thankful for. Make it as detailed as possible and read it every night before you go to bed and every morning after you wake up. Maybe try to add one new thing every day. It's not necessary to thank anyone specifically, just be thankful.

“You have little time left, and none of it for crap. A fine state. I would say that the best of us always comes out when we are against the wall, when we feel the sword dangling overhead. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way."

-Carlos Castaneda

You will feel like shit for a while, but it gets better!

Then, and only after you have reset your mind, detoxed, eliminated distractions, saved up emotional energy, and connected to yourself spiritually, you can decide if you want to start indulging in a little alcohol, or smoking a joint, or a little gambling, or reconnecting with your smoking/drinking friends. Now you are strong and have the available emotional energy to spend in small amounts if you choose to. But you may find at this point that you no longer have the desire to indulge in some of the things that brought you pleasure in the past.

"Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within."

-Eckhart Tolle

You don't have to live the life of a nun or monk, but you have to understand the process of emotional energy saving, know yourself (your Self), and become at peace with your Self before you can "moderate" or "limit" addictions/indulgences after you're already deep into it. Tap lightly from life.

Again, this is what has worked for me, and is what I believe, but only you know your own body and mind. Listen to the quiet, inner voice of intuition.

I hope this helps you (and anyone else who is struggling with addictions).

I wish you peace and happiness.

I was a heroin addict for 5 years, not an average user either.. I was doing very large amounts, very large.. What seemed to work for me the best was a suboxone benzo combo to start the kick followed by a suboxone taper. I read in a post in this topic somewhere someone stated that suboxone doesnt kill all of the withdrawl, this is true... I believe it has something to do with the Narcan in the suboxone, it just blocks the buprenorephin from dealing with the mental, anxiety side of the withdrawl, which for some -like me is the worst. The best solution i would suggest would be to try and find subutex, there is no narcan in it and you could technically do a shot of smack/ or what other preferred method, of whatever preferred opiate you have - take a subutex and swith right over. subutex IMO is harder to find then suboxone. If you cant find it , as was the case when i quit, there is the route that worked great for me. I went 24 hours without any opiates- it was very, unpleasent to say the least- and after 24 hrs i took 8mg of suboxone. The suboxone will not even begin to touch relief of your withdrawls(for most) but you also need to take some sort of benzodiazapine as well.I used valium, I also stayed on valium for the first 3 days and kept taking the suboxone..i didnt withdrawl anymore after those first 24 hrs. This is the best way that I have found as methodone and cold turkey were not appealing to me.

~A C H U M A~

So I've posted a couple times my attempts to pull out the claws of the the awesome and evil opiate, and with regret...posted my failures as well.

Taking bits and pieces of advice from all forms of inspiration(you nexians, 12 step programs minus a few steps, methadone minus a little time on it).

Point being...I'm clean. For once in 4-5 years...I'm FUCKIN CLEAN!!! Sorry for language, I'm ecstatic about it, if u can't tell.
I'm a co-dependant, me and my girl gave it up together, which is not easy in so many ways. But great in others.

Anywho...as I can realize how I did it, accurately, I will document and explain. I just had to tell somebody.

Greetings, it must be wonderful to manage to quit such an addiction !

I, for sure, will read about it with interest.

I realize this thread has been dormant for 19 months. But, I just want to point out that Subutex and Suboxone can both precipitate withdrawal. The precipitated withdrawal you hear about is caused by buprenorphine, not naloxone. Buprenorphine has an extremely high affinity for a person's opiate receptors. It basically just knocks most (if not all) full-agonist opiates/opioids off of the receptors, which causes withdrawal. Suboxone only contains naloxone to defer people from injecting/insufflating the tablets.

I also wanted to point out that taking benzodiazepines in combination with buprenorphine (or ingesting any combination of multiple CNS depressants for that matter) is extremely dangerous, and can often be deadly. If anyone else comes across this dormant thread in the future, please do not attempt what stolenface has recommended here.

Great thread! I'll post my little story and how I was triumphant in a bit..As soon as I can figure out how to sum it up in a way that doesn't take two days & a thousand pages.

I WILL go ahead and put this out there: Anyone that's still struggling with addiction, DO NOT give up on yourself. Anything can be overcome if you're devoted, honest with yourself, & serious about taking your life back. I'm walking, breathing, living proof....and I was the definition of a self destructive, full blown Heroin/any drug I could ingest addict. For years.

It isn't a cake walk, as everyone knows. However, if you possess the ability to use, you possess the ability to quit. Successfully!

Sounds like the younger versions of you and I would have gotten along quite nicely. lol