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Re: Xanax or Ativan....thoughts please » Lindsay Rae

Posted by squids on December 21, 2003, at 0:55:11

In reply to Re: Xanax or Ativan....thoughts please » krazybirdlady, posted by Lindsay Rae on December 19, 2003, at 22:35:47

Thanks for sharing that. Wow, I can really relate. I once got vicodin for a root canal and suddenly I was truely happy for the first time ever. I've had severe depressions all my life and the prozac/zoloft/etc got me out of bed in the morning and let me go to work. But happiness?
That "exaggerated sense of well being" I got from opiates seemed like the way I was supposed to feel. Somehow I was born with this constant dysphoria. And I could do so much more on those pills- talk to people, work harder, enjoy socializing.

Long story short, the vics went to percodans and finally to intraveneous heroin. After a while the happiness effect stopped working, but by then the physical addiction made it too difficult to quit. After some years of shooting H for nothing except to prevent from getting sick, I realized life really sucked and I had to do something about this problem.

Luckily Buprenorphine received FDA approval this year and I was able to detox off the heroin (1 gram of black tar a day for 5 years) in 7 days
"relatively painlessly" - all things considered. I had to do it in an inpatient unit. Got Buprenex (liquid form) under the tounge every 3 hours in constantly decreasing doses along with phenobarbital and some med for stomach cramps.

When I say painless, I really mean it. I'm so grateful for buprenorphine. It was like having a mild flu. The buprenex was pretty sedating, so I slept a lot. But it wasn't that fucked up anxious opiate withdrawal sleep. After they stopped the Bupenex, I had serious insomnia - but the other physical discomforts from opiate withdrawal weren't present anymore.

So now I'm clean and I admit I do think about the feeling I used to get from H occasionally. And it is tempting sometimes. But I remember how bad things got as an addict and I have absolutely no desire to return to that lifestyle. If remembering what it was like out there is what I need to stay clean, then so be it.


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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20031208/msgs/292042.html