A question for Subtrain...

  • Thread starter Thread starter emsmom
  • Start date Start date
E

emsmom

Guest
Hi Subtrain,

I read your reply to slinky. May I ask you a question?

You said after a couple months, the Suboxone just became a substitute drug. Can you elaborate on this? How did you feel? Why did it feel like a substitute? I can relate to what you said about the mental cravings. You took the worRAB right out of my mouth. I'm just worried that this wonderful feeling is going to go away in a couple months. I know everyone is different and I may not react the same as you however, that comment scared me a little.

I'm feeling so great right now (been on Suboxone for almost a month) and am so worried this will eventually fade. Your knowledge is appreciated.

Thanks for your time.
emsmom
 
Hi emsmom, sure, let me try to put it together. First, let me say I believe if you use it correctly it is a great drug to use and then get off of it. When I first took suboxone, the doc prescribed 40mg per day, taken throughout the day. I took that for two days and then went down to 24mg per day. I felt like while I was adjusting off the oxy, it would be a good time to really cut back on what my intake was. I had also read that the shelf life of sub was extremly long. I then cut back to 16mg per day.
This I did with no problem and I felt great! I felt great in these ways.
I was not counting the time to my next pill.
I did not feel the up and down of the drug in my system. I took one pill in the morning, one in the evening.
My head actually began to clear somewhat.
I reacted to suboxone as the doc said I would and began to become myself again.
This was good for awhile. A few months.
Then I cut to 6mg and then 4mg per day.
I stayed there for a few months.
Then I noticed that I began to count the hours again to my next pill.
Began to count my pills to my next prescription.
I began to be secretive about when I was taking my med.
I stayed on my reduced dose but felt addicted again.
The new feeling of being on a drug that was helping was leaving me.
It is at that time I asked my wife if she was noticing the same about me. When she responed yes and then gave me her own examples, that's when I made the decision to c/t at 4mg.
Now that said, I wish hinRABight, I would or could have tapered down to maybe 1 or a half of mg over the course of so many months. I think for me, probably reduce a mg every month to 1/2mg to nothing would have been much easier than c/t at 4mg.
It was the very worst c/t I had ever experienced. But, I believe it was the suboxone that helped my mind get to the right place to jump off the subtrain. I would recommend that you make a plan to reduce as quickly as you can and I would imagine you could keep that good feeling right up to the end. That great feeling you are experiencing is the feeling that planted the seed in my brain to get off pills altogether.
I will share a secret with you. I don't want to be on ANY pill for the rest of my life. I don't care if it's an asprin. I hope I can sustain my health to make that so. There is so much I wish to do in the years that will make up the rest of my life, I don't want to be carrying some dang bottle around and thinking I've got to take some pill before I reach the summit of Mt. Everest.
Good luck and gather your blessings for strenght. You are not alone and whether you are a believer or not it is in your spiritual makeup to succeed and live in Grace.
 
I have posted about my experiences with suboxone on here before but felt compelled to write after reading emsmom and subtrains posts. For me I feel that being on suboxone whether or not it was trading one addiction for the other was extremely beneficial for me. The key for me was being able to recover my soul (i say soul becaue in hinRABight I feel that for the period I was addicted to oxycontin I was empty inside, I had no appreciation for life and 3 years just passed my me without any real emotional feelings), fall into good habits, and being able to completely overhaul my life.

Another benefit of using suboxone was that it allowed me the abiltity to recover financially. This is something that is not talked about as much as the physical and emotional aspects of recovery. I realize that I am lucky enough to have adequate health insurance, I have seen too many frienRAB not be able to get the help they need because they didnt have health insurance. I had two monthly copayments for 20 dollars and one prescription a month copayment of 20 dollars, this pailed in comparison to the 400 plus dollars a week I would spend on my addiction.


I am not claiming that this transition happened overnight, i went about a year going back and forth between oxycontin and suboxone. I would take suboxone simply to avoid WD. Finally after about a year of going back and forth I finally went on a program starting at 4mg a day, over the next 6 months I slowly tapered down all the way to crurabs and eventually every other day of crurabs and then completely off. There were some times where i was jittery or had restless legs but nothing as bad as the withdrawls I used to have from OC. I also had a lot of mental changes as i decreased my dose, though not as bad as being on OC, I still felt somewhat cloudy while on suboxone, this decreased as my dose decreased. My mental cravings also changed, early on in the suboxone program I would look forward to my next dose and feel satisfied after taking the suboxone. As I went forward with the program, my excitement for the next dose slowly decreased as well as my feeling of satisfaction after taking the dose.

In my opinion, and this is just my opinion becaue of my experiences, I feel that a lot of people start suboxone with a dose that is WAY tooo HIGH. Some people start at 40 plus MG a day. I read some peoples posts in disbelief at these high nurabers. At my peak drug addiction I was taking between 120 and 200 MG a day of OC and my highest dose of suboxone i ever took was 8 mg in one day. I feel that if I ever took 40 plus MG a day of suboxone I would be incoherent and sick all day and I am 6'6 and 230 lbs. I would recomend that you start a suboxone program with the lowest possible dose, the lower the dose, the shorter amount of time you will be tapering off of suboxone.

Sorry for going on and on if anyone is still reading but I just wanted to give my two cents. I hope some of the things I said will help someone out there. If I had been more educated about addiction or If I had a place like this earlier I could have entered recovery a lot sooner.
 
Hi pingeye, I believe your two cents was worth much more. I agree. I would definitely place suboxone in the positive help column. And though it is probably needless to say, like any drug of it's type it can be misused. I want to reiterate something you said, I also believe that many begin suboxone on way to high a dose. I believe that sometimes the doc's just don't know the truth about the amount of drug their patient is taking and/or sometimes the are not very good at their job. Thanks, blessings and good luck.
 
Hi subtrain,

Sorry it took so long to reply - My great-aunt fell at her house and broke her pelvis. I stayed at her house last night and most of this morning so she wouldn't be alone. She's 85 yrs old, and does not have an internet connection at her house.

I want to start off by saying thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. I'm at a point in my life where I'm thinking "I am feeling like myself again - which I NEVER thought was possible - but I'm worried that this wonderful opportunity (suboxone) will come back to bite me in the A**."

You see, I really do feel like me again. I feel "exactly" like I did before I ever took that first percocet, four years ago. I don't feel "high" or have an excess of energy like I did with Oxycontin. I feel 100% like myself...

However, is this feeling going to slowly diminish? Will I always feel this way? I'm terrified that it's going to go away. I feel SO good, that I wonder "how long will this last?" I suppose what I'm looking for, is someone to tell me it's ok, and so long as I take my Suboxone, I'll continue to lead a life of normalcy.

I am currently taking 16mg of Suboxone. I started out at 8mg, went up to 12mg three days later, then up to 16mg a week after that. I've been on this dose for three weeks now. I think my Dr. will keep me at 16mg now, as it seems to be working out well.

I'd appreciate your input, regarding my concerns. Did you feel this way as well?

I can relate to your secret :) - I don't want to be on ANY pill. Recently, I've cut out two different meRAB in the "cocktail" of drugs in our safe (all my meRAB are locked in a safe which hubby doles out to me). One of them was zopiclone - a sleeping med - the other was Lyrica - a nerve pain med (I have a herniated disc in my lower back, which is pressing on my sciatica nerve). I have this theory...that I can slowly eliminate all the drugs I'm taking, until I'm pill-free. I guess I'm just sick and tired of relying on a pill to make everything ok. When I was using, I had NO problem getting a script for something, anything - as long as it worked! So, slowly, my drug-consumption grew bigger and bigger. Well, I'm sick of it! My hubby doesn't agree that I should stop everything. He is a firm believer in "If you're feeling great, don't change anything." I just want to be rid of that dang bottle.

Again, thank you for your time. It is greatly appreciated. I hope you're having a great day and I really hope you are able to sustain your health, in order to be pill-free. I'll be watching for your posts, hoping for a break-through :)

RegarRAB,
emsmom

P.s I enjoyed your comment about Mt. Everest :)
 
Hi emsmom, first, I hope your great-aunt is going to be alright. Family is so important. It is where our trust is born and our faith is nurished and cultivated. Second, I am sorry I scared you and made you worry. That was not an intention of mine. My sincere apologies.
Let me try to clarify what I was trying to communicate before. I think suboxone worked well for me. I believe for me what happened is that I took it too long. I believe it is a great drug and can do what it is designed to do, which is to be a springboard to getting off being addicted to an opiate.
I believe if you wish to be off opiate addiction it can help you get there. It's a tool. With that tool you need a plan on how you are going to use it. You then need to implement your plan and stick with it. Suboxone is a means to an end, none addiction.
It is great how it works right away. It makes you feel almost yourself again, which then allows you to focus on other things besides your addiction. God, how I recall being consumed in addiction. Still maintaining the norm to others but, inside of me, totally consumed in my addiction.
When I first took suboxone, wow, what a relief. I started looking at my life, where it was, and then where for the first time in I don't know when, where I wanted it to be!
It was goRABend.
The problem I ran into was that I did not stick to my plan. My life at the time was going through major changes. I really do mean major with a capital M. I became caught up in making those changes. After a while my goal of non-addiction became a priority way down on the list. Taking suboxone made it easy to put it way down on the list. In order to keep things moving and making those changes, I began to count and depend on the suboxone. I knew all along that if I was to stop taking it, withdrawls were waiting for me. So, that thought was always in the back of my mind.
I had lost focus of the goal!
It was at that time I ran out of patience with myself, I was disgusted. That's when I said "no more" and went c/t from 4mg. It was hell. I probably could have done it different but, I no longer trusted myself. I decided to take that walk through hell. I kept saying that saying, "what doesn't kill me will make me stronger". I am such a durab ess!
Well, here I am. Can't say I have never felt better, I have. And, that's where I wish to be. Feeling the best I ever have. Being someone who feels he has his addiction in "arrest", I love that saying, I'm working very hard to understand my purpose within all of this.
I hope me sharing this will help and not make you worry or scared. There is no reason to feel like you have to carry this burden or any burden alone. Especially addiction. If you wish to be addiction free, you will be, because just your desire coupled with the right decisions will take you to your goal. God bless you and yours. I will say prayers for your great-aunt. Good luck, stay focussed.
 
Thank you subtrain :)

You have put alot into perspective for me today. I am thinking clearer already. I love life at the moment and do not want this feeling to go away.

Now, with your help and knowledge, I have the tools and feel it's time to look at my life, make decisions (regarding my addiction - I want to go back to treatment and have found a day program only 5 mins. from my home) and stick to them!

I do appreciate your time as I've said before, so thank you once again :)

With admiration,
emsmom
 
Back
Top