Hello gang, my name is Devin. I was born in 1984, therefore I am what the media refers to as a millennial. I also have no fucking idea what that title means. I hate taking selfies, I’m not into what do kids refer to as, “Netflix and chill.” I can’t stand watching reality TV, and I am not entitled, at least as far as I know. One thing I am though, is a recovering opiate addict. Though the title of opiate addict is not really a fair title for what I used to be. A decade before the opioid crisis, I was what I like to refer to as a human garbage pail.
Why shoot some opiates, when you could also swallow Xanax bars with them? Not to mention drinking whiskey, smoking meth, eating Somas and Adderall, etc. Amusingly enough though I couldn’t handle weed of all goddamn things, it always fucked with my stomach. While consuming gargantuan amounts of narcotics, I didn’t give two shits my body. What I want to talk about today is what is the actual reality of all of the heroin / pain pill alternatives when you’re quitting and how effective they actually are.
Doctors and rehab workers will try to pretend like they’re experts on this subject, but as far as I’m concerned until they’ve got a couple of years of straight shooting under their belt, their opinion on the matter isn’t really that relevant. Now there’s several options when you decide you want to give up the hard life. I’m going to focus on most of them and tell you what they’re each like.
First off I’m going to start with full on sobriety. If you are interested in a life of complete boredom and anxiety-ridden daily activities such as going to the store to buy some milk, or talking to your parents, or something as simple as checking the mail,sobriety is for you. Will all become dicey propositions in that first year of sobriety, first of all you want to detox completely chemical-free if you’re going full sober. Depending on the built-up of drugs in your system your withdrawal can last anywhere from 2 days, all the way to two weeks. In extreme cases lasting up to possibly a month.
This is the easy part of detoxing and withdrawing. You then have to deal with a crippling depression that makes you feel so motherfuking low that you want to stick your head into an industrial oven melt, you know, just to get a break from suffering. The depression you feel after going off to chemicals is unlike anything you will ever experience, if you’re doing it solo with no outside clinic help, you’ll come close to killing yourself without a support system. I am not a fan of this full on sobriety method. I feel like it’s unnatural to be that sober.
At the very least if you’re going to be stubborn and want to stay 100% sober, do yourself a favor and at least talk to a mental health professional during the withdrawal period. After you get done with the rough part, well from what I remember about it, mind you, I am a complete unrepentant misanthrope, but being sober I recall my anger levels at an all-time high, as well as a newfound hatred of the human race. I wouldn’t recommend this method, but for some people 100% sobriety is the only way they can stay sober.
One last thing on the 100% sobriety, if you’re one of those fucking nimrod’s that happens to believe in God, then I guess go to N/A with all the other freaks and psychotics. For me, I hated those fucking people, and after some research I also learned that basically in a is just a bastardized version of AA, which is just a bastardized Baptist pamphlet turned into a sobriety mantra created originally by Bill W, and some other jack off. Try SOS instead if you’d rather hang around with a bunch of atheists. What a lot of addiction specialist are recommending now, that is if you’re irrational critical thinking adult is a combination of psych meds and therapy. The psych meds not being a narcotic by the way.
Now I’m going to tackle the medication methods, first I will start off with methadone. Now since they’ve had the first rehab facilities, doctors have advocated the use of methadone as a alternative or proxy for heroin and or hard painkillers. Let me let you in on a secret. Methadone’s actual name is Dolophine. Dolophine is an artificial painkiller oh, that was originally created by the Nazis in World War II, mainly because they had poppy shortages and they had to invent a pain killer. All you are doing by taking methadone is replacing one monkey with a chimpanzee.
If you work through a methadone clinic they start you off on a fairly high dosage and then gradually over a long period of time. They work you down slowly to a tiny dosage. I actually know people that this method worked for legitimately, but if you’re a self-control lacking Maniac like myself then methadone’s probably a bad idea. On the bright side, is you’ll be a brain dead zombie, toggling between nodding and fiending. The plus side though is you get state-sponsored dope, so yay America!
The next method is to go on a choice of two different medications, one is referred to as Suboxone, or in more advanced terms it is buprenorphine with a small dosage of narcan. Essentially what Suboxone does is block your opioid receptors. At the same time it puts enough dosage of naloxone or narcan to make you regret falling off the wagon and taking anything else if you fuck up. Think Antabuse. If you’re going to go to Suboxone route make goddamn sure your system is completely clean, or the naloxone will make you go through 3/4 days of withdrawal in about 6 hours. It is advised by experts that you add in clinical therapy and or psych medication with your Suboxone.
The other side of the coin is another medication that’s almost identical, it’s just referred to as Subutex. Subutex is just like Suboxone except it has no naloxone or narcan. So you can take Subutex immediately after trying to get clean. The thing about suboxone and Subutex is the first week or two that you do it oh, it will get you a good buzz. After that your body gets adjusted and you can’t get high anymore. Just like Suboxone it is recommended that you get help with psyche medications or therapy as well.
Now apparently there’s some other stuff out there that’s referred to as antabuse or I believe Vivitrol or something like that. They are injections, now I’ve never had one so I can’t make any comment one way or another on these.
Good Luck!