DOSE:

16 mg

buccal

Pharms - Buprenorphine

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

190 lb

Better stick to the title and save the back story for another time. People who like telling 'war stories' fill the rooms of younameit anonymous. The course in question being the road to freedom from methadone maintenance. I hated waking up feeling lousy to ride the subway during rush hour so I could jostle for place in line so that a nurse that regarded me as a subhuman degenerate not worthy of her time could give me my cup of juice. Even after years cooperating with clean urine I still had to be there more days than not. Being unable to leave town was what made my mind set.

I had been on 120 mg methadonen for 3 years or so and said to the doctor I intended to go down so I could start suboxone. Detox or maintenance made no difference so long as I was not incarcerated in the clinic. I dropped 10 mg every 28 days and each month withdrawal was dogging me even as I demanded another reduction. I think 35 mg was the upper limit before I could make the switch, and by 50 or so I was dropping 5 a month. So I was doing this for a long time. But I stopped when I reached that 35.

After a few days cold turkey start my new life. No trying to get high just take my pills or films first thing in the morning go back to bed even let them dissolve while going to sleep a bit more. This allowed me to wake up feeling OK. Soon I would get my script and there would be a refill so I only saw the doctor every two months.

This continues for a few years. Things could be much worse. Which they inevitably became. I was living near JFK airport in far Rockaway. Surrounded by the sea on all sides but a thin strip of a few blocks connecting us to the mainland (to the extent New York City has a mainland outside the Bronx). Suddenly we're being evacuated because Hurricane Sandy is meeting up with some other weather phenomenon to create a monster storm like NYC never had seen. I stayed because I had nowhere to take my dog. When she hit it was high tide too. My apartment filled to the ceiling in minutes so I raced to the apartment upstairs with what I could carry.

Homeless and housing in short supply my girlfriend who had visited her family in Tennessee when the storm hit whisked me down there and here I am. Last script was sent to me and I tapered for months but about a week ago it ran out. Now with withdrawal in full swing and the lies about easy detox dispelled by other unfortunates and my still early stages foretell a tale that should have been obvious given the half life (24-48 hours according to the insert). Long terrible days and nights. I've detoxed from opiates of many kinds over the years. Pills, smack, opium itself. It all sucks and is agony. The difference is habit size and length of detox. Length of detox is a function of half life or how long the drug lasts (of course that is not a definition of half life but is essentially how it pertains in this case). Thus the main difference between getting off opiates like heroin (short half life one fix wouldn't get me through the day) as opposed to one like methadone (long half life won't feel sick till next day after getting my dose) is mainly one of duration of withdrawal. Think heroin withdrawal but lasting 5 times longer.

So whereas oxy-dis-contin-uance is hell, and I know first hand, it is nowhere near the 24-48 hours of methadone or bupe.

Only now years after stopping my determined reduction of methadone, close to the end I detoured to be doing it all over without support.

Exp Year: 2013	ExpID: 100062
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 34
Published: Oct 14, 2019	Views: 1,571
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Pharms - Buprenorphine (265) : Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Addiction & Habituation (10), Medical Use (47), Not Applicable (38)