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Quitting opiates/addictive substances - Tips, strategies, complementary tools

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endlessness

endlessness

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I would like to start this thread to gather information to help those who are struggling with different addictions. Several nexians have quit different addictive substances and therefore have hands-on experience and could potentially give tips to help others.

What strategies and tips have worked for you or for those close to you?

To start the thread I am attaching a paper by Jonathan Ott. I've been to a talk where he mentioned being a habitual opiate user and how at different times of his life he had to quit his use for some time. He has mentioned a certain pharmacological trick that has helped him reduce usage to 0 in only two weeks with no withdrawal symptoms at all, even having been a daily user of very high doses for long. His experience has mostly been with quitting codeine but he says it works for other opiates too. It involves using microgram doses of naltrexone. Corpus callosum, were you aware of this, whats your take on it?

There is also the iboga therapies that can help by the pharmacological action of ibogaine and its metabolite noribogaine, plus the psychological/spiritual work which reinforces the desire to quit destructive habbits. In any case its important to remember that first of all iboga is no miracle drug and by itself it wont necessarily cure addiction, and also that one should do some medical check up due to certain health dangers (specially related to the heart it seems) and take it under professional/experienced supervision.

Then there are the controversial government-backed substitution opiates, such as methadone and so on. Maybe we can get some perspective on advantages and disadvantages of this, or how an overview on how to not simply substitute but eventually also quit those substances?

Are there other tools you guys know of? What about other changes in life and context that can help?
 

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Well the most arduous addiction that I have conquered is heroin/methadone. They give you so much methadone, that it is hard to get a high from heroin, so you quit taking heroin. A major downfall of this is that say you start with 80ml of methadone, you slowly reduce the dose until you are at nothing.

The trouble with this is that everytime you drop down - say, from 80-70ml, it hurts. So it is basically a year of periodical pain, anxiety and illness.

Another major problem with methadone is that you have to (in the UK at least) go and get your dosage from a pharmacy everyday. This is extremely disruptive to life, and because of it I failed my first year at university, which I am now nearly finishing after four years instead of three.

I have also tried subuxone, which kills physical withdrawal. But when you are in the grip of heroin addiction, it is more than just a physical high - so suboxone didnt really work for me.

From all this, I think for heroin addiction at least, if it ever happened again (which it wont) I would go cold turkey - it may be harder, yet would last a few days, rather than dragging it out and basically ruining a year.

The plus side of my experiene, is that now I doubt I will ever get addicted to anything again - I know the trouble signs, and how to avoid them - a worthwhile lesson I reckon! :)

The key to escaping addiction is to completely cut all ties with your 'drug group', whether they are your friends or not (which they often arent anyway - they are just after someone to get high with.)
 
I've thought a public declaration of sobriety to my peers here would honor bind me to follow through. I could never bare the shame of lying to you ppl... just a thought.
 
Thank you for starting this thread endlessness. I look forward to reading the various contributions that I am confident it will garner.

Speaking for myself, I de-toxed opiates and a couple other things all at once approx. 28 mos ago. It was one of the hardest choices I have made and one of the hardest things I have done in my entire life. Yet, it was one of the best choices I have made and I suspect I will enjoy decades of additional life due to it. I highly recommend this choice to others who are addicted.

It is terribly miserable and difficult to de-tox.

What helped me to make my choice was looking forward to the remainder of my life. I didn't like what I saw. I couldn't get through a day without these substances, couldn't imagine a single evening without dosing and my dosing had been increasing over time and achieving less profound effects due to tolerance. I did not like what my relationship with these drugs was doing to my relationships with friends and family.

When the time came, I basically confined myself to room for three days. This was not in my home, nor in my home town. I got out of the old mileau. It wasn't pretty and I get goose flesh if I let myself think deeply about it. One thing that helps to keep me stay solidly clean is remembering that cold turkey detox and never wanting to ever go through that again.

So, there's the ugly truth. In my experience there was no easy way. The only tips or strategies I can offer is rip yourself out of your old mileau completely - get out of that neighborhood, disconnect from those friends, throw away the dealer's number. Then, understanding that it's as hard as you think it will be and harder, that YOU CAN DO IT. No matter how impossible it feels, you can find the inner strength to get through this and move towards health. Even if you need someone to tie you up or lock you up and throw away the key then guard the door, YOU CAN DO THIS.

The physical detox is horrible but then the physical need/cravings are gone. It's intoxicating in and of itself. I found myself experiencing enhanced appetites for everything from food to art to nature to sex.

The next six months were tough for me too - this is the psychological part and in a way it's almost more difficult in my opinion than the physical part. Here's why: Every stressor is the PERFECT excuse. My boss yelled at me, some a-hole tagged my car, my cat died, the car needs a new alternator, you have a legit bad physical pain, it's all the perfect excuse. I had to fight this almost daily, especially with physical pain - doctors and dentists almost insisting that I take opiate drugs, and my saying don't waste the paper of the prescription - I'll suck it up.

But after that six or so months things got TREMENDOUSLY better. You know, you can think of this as a long-term investment - in your happiness and health. Remember, you did not become addicted overnight, it took some time. It will take some time to try to program yourself back to sobriety.

19 months after my detox I had a profound and deep iboga root bark experience, that continues to rock my world. It's going to take a very long time to integrate that monster, but I can say it really did lock in the detox. Things got so much easier after that in terms of cravings it was a joke. What cravings? Victory!

For me personally, the key was sucking up the cold turkey detox - something so rough I never want to do it again. Then locking in with the iboga root bark. I am not sure what might work for others, but I do know that I've had some rough days and some agonizing pain but I have not backslid even once.

Freedom is never free, but definately worth fighting for, even on a personal front. You can do this, but you have to make a choice. I re-iterate, speaking for myself, it was one of the best choices of my life.

Peace & Love
 
I never got into the opiates, but speed + alcohol became my undoing almost two decades ago. The solution was simple, yet it was the hardest thing I ever did. I had to change approximately 95% of my life that s all. My playmates and playgrounds all had to change. I had to readjust my thinking in many ways about coping with my emotions. My old MO was to pick up something (a drink, a freeway line, a joint or a pill) if I felt angry, depressed, happy, sad, or anything. Numb was my best friend I thought. Then the horror of horrors began to occur. I would feel something, and then take something and something did not make those uncomfortable feelings abate.

I was at the end of the road. My head still went on endlessly even after consuming amounts of the old cure that used to work for me. I ended up in a therapist office... I detoxed for it seemed three months. I had no skin it felt like. Every little thing was horribly uncomfortable and slowly I learned to cope without my speed, weed, and booze. I found new friends who were trying to stay clean and stuck with them. It helped immeasurably. If I had not stopped, I probably would have been dead may years ago.

Now I watch my son struggle with this shit. It sucks.
 
Good thread.

Pandora-I hear and feel your words acutely.

Endlessness-for some reason I cannot get access to the Ott paper but Ive heard of methadone with ultra low dose Naltrexone tapers done over a couple of weeks with much less in the way of withdrawal symptoms and cravings.I think its to do with reduced cAMP within the cell post mu-receptor activation but the exact mechanism is unclear.In the grand scheme of all things poppy-related, codeine is however a much milder agent to quit than say heroin/oxycontin/fentanyl/buprenorphine.I have also heard anecdotally that with the ULDN approach , PAWS can be less of a drawn-out affair.

Ive alot more to say but will definitely post later to this thread.
 
Iboga obviously, the king of anti addictive substances

other psychedelics combined with the right intention might also give insight which will anchor ones decision to stop abusing


if you need to reset your endogenous endorphine (immune response, reward, mood, ...) system, which usually gets fucked up by heavy drug abuse, i can recommend Low Dose Naltrexone LDN over a 3 month period. Good stuff this for the fuggered up.
May not need it if you take iboga but it is possible to take it together with iboga no problems.
 
Pandora said:
But after that six or so months things got TREMENDOUSLY better. You know, you can think of this as a long-term investment - in your happiness and health. Remember, you did not become addicted overnight, it took some time. It will take some time to try to program yourself back to sobriety.
Click to expand...

This is very true - it takes a long time for you to feel 'normal' again. The methadone doctor told me that even after quitting completely, and being totally clean, that a certain imbalance will remain in the seretonin in the brain. For me it meant I kind of sank inkto quite a deep depression, that no amount of sex, healthy food, fun things, or anything else could satiate, the emotional hunger.

However, the seretonin DID eventually balance out, and now I would consider myself pretty happy most of the time, even when faced with difficulties.

I have been free of opiates now for four years, and there is no way I will ever return to them,except perhaps for a killer toothache :) .
 
corpus callosum said:
methadone with ultra low dose Naltrexone tapers done over a couple of weeks with much less in the way of withdrawal symptoms and cravings.
Click to expand...

I promise you, there is nothing mild about methadone tapers, especially if starting on a high dose. Saying that, I was never offered naltrexone, so that may be why. I thought all naltrexone was was an opitae blocker though?

Buprenorphine is pretty good, but it depends what kind of addiction you have - at the time , I personally needed the opiate glow - which buprenorphine doesnt give you.
 
jdubs said:
corpus callosum said:
methadone with ultra low dose Naltrexone tapers done over a couple of weeks with much less in the way of withdrawal symptoms and cravings.
Click to expand...

I promise you, there is nothing mild about methadone tapers, especially if starting on a high dose. Saying that, I was never offered naltrexone, so that may be why. I thought all naltrexone was was an opitae blocker though?

Buprenorphine is pretty good, but it depends what kind of addiction you have - at the time , I personally needed the opiate glow - which buprenorphine doesnt give you.
Click to expand...


Yes, you are right-methadone is the mother of opiates to taper down.But it seems that the effects of very low doses of naltrexone which are insufficient to have mu blocking effects do have different effects.
 
Personally i have been struggling with opiate addiction for years now, ive quit and relapsed more times than i can count. ive tried methadone that seemed to work but i always fall back into my bad habits. tapering slowly with anything: norcos vicodin methadone buprenorphine, seemed to be a temp fix. i need long term relief and dont know how to find it, i cant afford rehab and no one in my family knows of my ailment or at least not that i know of. These claws are in me so fucking deep it hurts. pardon my language.
 
Can you try to find naltrexone ? Maybe it can help you at least with the physical withdrawal aspects.

Is there anything that particularly leads you back into using, some common aspect of your relapses?
 
Numbness i suppose, im not particularly happy with myself at this point in my life and running away is easier. i honestly think im scared of failure because its happened so much already. i just cant shake it.

Ill have to give the naltrexone a try, see if i can find it.
 
I think opiate addiction stems from an inability to deal with the chattering brain. Learning to accept that it is what happens, it is the nature of conciousness (to us unenlightened ones, at least). Maybe channeling what that brings into productivity, is the key to overcoming it. Its kind of like running away from growing up, and opiates are there to avoid dealing with life. LIfes pretty good (mostly), so just drop the opiates man, and the greatest rewards you shall recieve...
 
jdubs said:
I think opiate addiction stems from an inability to deal with the chattering brain. Learning to accept that it is what happens, it is the nature of conciousness (to us unenlightened ones, at least). Maybe channeling what that brings into productivity, is the key to overcoming it. Its kind of like running away from growing up, and opiates are there to avoid dealing with life. LIfes pretty good (mostly), so just drop the opiates man, and the greatest rewards you shall recieve...
Click to expand...

Opiate addiction stems from the inability of your brain to work without opiates anymore.
Your endorphine system is fucked up. Unable to feel good anymore if not using.

You can basically go cold turkey for a month and then be very busy working for 2-3 months and you will be back to normal. But that requires great willpower or somone to force you to do it.
Although if you have the willpower to do it and keep it up you can do a lot in life with it.


endlessness said:
Can you try to find naltrexone ? Maybe it can help you at least with the physical withdrawal aspects.
Click to expand...

Dont use Naltrexone for physical withdrawal aspects :shock: That stuff will induce immediate withdrawal symptoms. It is only used with full anesthesia to do that.
After that, one gets an implant, shot a week or pills to eat everyday. All of which make you "immune" to the opiate high if already in the system before the opiate comes in.

Best is iboga, which is not without danger, which removes most symptoms of withdrawal while giving great insight into ones life. Then followed by LowDoseNaltrexone 1x 3-4,5mg every night. This will speed up the recovery of your endorphine system. E voila, month or two your born anew.


Generally, being busy and having some duties/responsibility helps a lot to overcome ones selfish tendencies and care less about withdrawal
 
Opiate addiction is such a multi-faceted problem, and we need to remember that the impact it can have on the addicts life has physical, psychological and social dimensions.For example, the unemployed teenager from a disadvantaged background with a habit will have specific social aspects to their 'story' that the rich son of some big business man or politician, who has plenty of cash, will not have.

Ultimately both their stories will have the same ending- but ones book is shorter than the other.A feeling of total defeat, physical malaise and spiritual death.

Refusing gear is not like turning down a couple of tickets to the latest opera/gig/show whatever.The mind might say nay but the cells rule the decision.

An opiate addict can sit and list all the advantages of stopping and the risks of continuing the path, but I think in the majority of cases, the main reason they fail to stop is because the effort required to really get free seems an unsurmountable hurdle, and that is to change your whole life in some pretty fundamental ways.

As Pandoras said, the physical withdrawal is easier to achieve than staying off; the sense of being so totally lost, unsure whether its better to plod on through the emptiness or to return to the at least familiar misery of addiction- this, I think, defeats many.

But it can be done-if one prepares themselves correctly from the psychological perspective.Many things can ease the misery of withdrawal but its a case of unlearning the habits/conditioned responses which have oft-times taken years to learn, in order to stay free.
 
bindu said:
Dont use Naltrexone for physical withdrawal aspects :shock: That stuff will induce immediate withdrawal symptoms.
Click to expand...

Did you read my first post and the attached paper? Im not talking about a full dose, it is this "trick" where microgram or sub-microgram doses of naltrexone seem to really diminish or completely prevent withdrawal symptoms.

btw corpus can you still not get the paper I linked ? I can try to send you some other way.
 
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