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Treatment What is a doctor's convention - letting the patient administer their own Suboxone/methadone or mandatory detox facilities?

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Warren25

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The bags have about 1/4 teaspoon worth of black tar low-grade heroin.

My plan to taper was to use two half bags in the day, each bag being used when feelings of withdrawal become to uncomfortable.

Should I be expecting withdrawal at all? If so, how bad would it likely be considering dose, quality of the heroin, route of administration and period of using.

What is a recommended taper timeline for me? I had planned to do this for a week and then stop.

I am going to the doctor tomorrow to get some Valium to assist with the withdrawals as I'm also tapering off meth so the sooner I can get the heroin out of the picture the happier I'll be.

I'm keeping the meth in play to also just assist with morale and stave off depression.
 
I'm going to try taper off my heroin. Should that fail, would a doctor let me buy and take home the Suboxone or methadone to administer myself or do I have to have it administered and facilitated by a detox clinic?

I ask because my mom doesn't know and we live together so I'd prefer to administer it myself in the privacy of my room.
 
This depends on where you live. The regulations are different everywhere.

In most countries you can't do this with methadone. You generally start off with supervised doses and then you might get takeaway doses for some portion of the week after you're stable on it.

Subuxone generally has looser rules but I still doubt this is feasible. If you wanna do what you're talking about you'd likely have to do it as a detox under supervision I'm sorry to say.
 
you will be on supervised doses at the start and if you piss clean for a few months they may allow you a few take homes. i don't know of any country that deviates from this broad model but as @JessFR said details will vary depending on locale.

i believe that in the other thread you posted about tapering you said you'd only been using for a month. i think its highly unlikely you'll get sick and if you do your withdrawals ought to be mild.

i used daily for over a year before getting a proper physical habit and even then it only started when i started using in the morning.

maintenance is a huge step, your life will be somewhat dictated by your pickups for a long time. i would avoid it if possible.
 
chinup said:
you will be on supervised doses at the start and if you piss clean for a few months they may allow you a few take homes. i don't know of any country that deviates from this broad model but as @JessFR said details will vary depending on locale.

i believe that in the other thread you posted about tapering you said you'd only been using for a month. i think its highly unlikely you'll get sick and if you do your withdrawals ought to be mild.

i used daily for over a year before getting a proper physical habit and even then it only started when i started using in the morning.

maintenance is a huge step, your life will be somewhat dictated by your pickups for a long time. i would avoid it if possible.
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I haven't seen the other thread, but the big question if have is if the poster has experienced dependence in the past.

If you've been dependent before you can become dependant a lot faster than someone who's never been dependant. Usually the first time you become dependant takes longer.

If you've only been using a month chances are your tolerance isn't that high if you have one at all, you'd probably be better to try getting off it without tapering first. If you are dependant you can go from there.
 
yep, i am still suffering from the effects of opiate receptor disregulation despite being mostly clean off heroin for 2.5 years!!

the impression that i got from the other thread is that this is his first time using opiates daily, but i could be wrong.

i am going to merge it into here so pepole have a clearer view of the situation.
 
chinup said:
yep, i am still suffering from the effects of opiate receptor disregulation despite being mostly clean off heroin for 2.
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Yeah, that long term PAWS sucks I have to say. Couldn’t take it the first time and jumped back on to subs. What do you do to help with it? Anything?
 
VerbalTruist said:
Yeah, that long term PAWS sucks I have to say. Couldn’t take it the first time and jumped back on to subs. What do you do to help with it? Anything?
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Seems to just take time. I'm not aware of another solution.

If this is the posters first time using opioids and they've only been using a month I would strongly advise to just try and quit now.

If you keep going sooner or later you will go through withdrawal, and it can take quite a long time to really recover from the way the drugs mess with your brain. The withdrawal stops relatively soon but it can take the brain a lot longer to really get back to something akin to how it was before it was exposed to opioids repeatedly

Very not fun. :(
 
VerbalTruist said:
What do you do to help with it? Anything?
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nothing specific- i am on sertraline for PTSD and i guess that probably helps a bit, still see my therapist, and try to apply mindfulness. do you have any recommendations?

i also try to avoid any opiate based painkillers as that is likely just prolonging it, and i get slightly sick if i literally use OTC (i.e. very low dose) products containing codeine exactly as stated on the packet. i have had a couple of dental surgeries trying to sort out the damage i did smoking crack so its not been feasible to steer completely clear.

JessFR said:
If you keep going sooner or later you will go through withdrawal, and it can take quite a long time to really recover from the way the drugs mess with your brain. The withdrawal stops relatively soon but it can take the brain a lot longer to really get back to something akin to how it was before it was exposed to opioids repeatedly
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very true. the sooner the OP stops and draws a line under this, the better.

it is also well worth getting some psychological help. i say this to everyone who posts in here. to be using heroin in the first place, something is wrong. to be able to get clean and stay clean you need to address that underlying issue. mutual support though NA/SMART/whatever is also invaluable.
 
btechlc said:
other thread in case anyone finds it helpful: https://www.bluelight.org/xf/thread...-meth-benzos-and-heroin.903816/#post-15213588

To others giving advice in this thread - What do you think of the OPs plan to use meth while he tapers off H? I would imagine that would make a lot of the physical aspects of opiate WD (restless feeling, unable to sleep, no appetite ect) worst?
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I think meth can help in the earlier parts of withdrawal, but there's an upper limit.

I used it several times when I was just trying to get shit done and make money to get my next shot of heroin, but using it to actually get through a full heroin withdrawal is quite a different matter.
 
i don't get why you'd even taper meth?? i mean i've not much experience with meth specifically but my experience of stimulant addiction is that its better to have none than a little.

there's arguments going both ways for whether to do all at once or one at a tme. all at once is a lot. but i had never smoked crack without also being on heroin so it would have been near on impossible to continue using that and actually get off the dark.

i really think with short term use the fear of the withdrawal is way worse than the withdrawal itself. before i properly got a habit i'd go to my parents having used every day for ages, fully expecting to feel ill as fuck, and be fine. but the anxiety it caused would drive me half mad.

the bigger question is why the OP is fucking about with heroin in the first place, that's a massive red flag that something is up and if they don't get that addressed then they'll just go back to using. i don't know how many clucks i failed at cos i'd not grasped that there is more to quitting drugs than just quitting drugs.
 
From personal experience I'd say that you were on point focusing on quitting one addictive substance at a time. However you might consider modulating your doses of the other two as needed. As a for instance if you're having significant insomnia you could reduce the amount of meth
 
mate you can't taper off street heroin co syou don't know the purity. and if its laced with fent then there will be vast differences between even different parts of the same bag.

the longer you draw this out, the more likely you are to actually get in a situation where you go through withdrawal. if you'd have quit when you made your first thread on this subject then your chances of an easy ride would have been a lot better. stop obsessing about tapering and just do it. the longer you use for, the worse it gets.

it seems like you are drawing this out, which makes it seem like you're reluctant to stop. in which case no tapering schedule will work because you need proper help.

a 3 week taper on a couple of months use is insane. i could taper relatively painlessly using pharmaceutical opiods of known strength after a 6 year gram a day IV habit in one week if i got lucky. but then i started again straight away if i got through, cos i hadn't addressed my underlying reasons for using.
 
He's right if you fixate on the substances (the symptoms) you're not addressing the deeper reasons for your addictions. Which is why a support network of other addicts in recovery is so valuable, meetings/sober living/rehab etc.

Don't underestimate the importance of exercise and nutrition. Work. Family/friends. You need healthy habits if you want to cut loose the bad ones.

Your plan to reduce & quit the "heroin" has the downside that it might fail, and then you'll learn from the experience. But the upsides are huge. Most critically: That one less time you use could have been the one that killed you.
 
darvocet21 said:
From personal experience I'd say that you were on point focusing on quitting one addictive substance at a time. However you might consider modulating your doses of the other two as needed. As a for instance if you're having significant insomnia you could reduce the amount of meth
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Thank you, I have reduced my meth to a quarter of a bag. Following the heroin taper, I will begin that taper and finally the benzo taper. I don't want to be a hero and just stop and then scare myself back into using the amount I was using. I'm just going to follow the best plan I could lay out for myself. Thank you for your input.
 
That "best plan" would also have a strong, "Get your ass to some meetings and get a sponsor." component to them as others have suggested.
 
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