Author: rachelliss
Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 8:42 pm
I just want to thank everyone for all the valuable information that you have provided to me from my initial post of coming off 4mg. I am now on 3mg and proceeding slowly. I am still attending NA meetings and am on Step 8. I was just commenting today on how foggy my thinking was to my boyfriend because he asked me where my car registration was. It came when my liscense was suspended and I was on morphine ( a lot of morphine like 500mg). I had someone tell me that when they got off suboxone that they found their memory was a bit foggy but I am sure it was nothing like 500mg of morphine foggy. I have gotten a good amount of feedback and helpful suggestions including using clonidine. I will find out hopefully for myself if suboxone had clouded my memory; I believe it is certainly possible. I do not feel like it is now but I do not remember what its like to be drug free including sub. This is as clean as I have been since I was 15.
I am on three blood pressure meds but my blood pressure was 174/116 or similar on several reading so Dr. Sy put me on clonidine. I take .1mg twice a day and my blood pressure decreased to 136/88 or 138/95 a significant improvement. The pharmacist told me not to stop taking it abrubtly- I hope everyone taking it knows that it causes a rebound effect where your blood pressure can skyrocket if abrubtly discontinued. I could swear when I took it that I was calmer but that could just be in my head.
I plan to stay in NA and keep working their steps that they have in a step writing guide; when I am answering questions in the step writing guide it keeps my mind off of worrying and keeps me grateful. My head is a very dangerous place to be in; I am certain that left to my own devices I am hell bent on self destruction. In my addiction I was really miserable and suicidal in the end. I know the week in the county jail without my meds before they gave me a small amount of valium was so intensely miserable that I could not stand to be in my own skin coming off 8mg sub and 8mg of clonazapam and alcohol. I was a mess and had to beg for some clean pants after I soiled mine and sat there for hours in those nasty pants. The slab had a pad that was like the chicago tribune to sleep on on top of steel slab and I had bruises because I was so thin, my hip bones and my knees. The food was practicly inedible. It is almost as though they went through trouble to make it less palatable. I was freezing and they would not provide another blanket. You could not make phone calls unless someone bought $30 of phone time. I called Rich collect and that was my one three minute collect call. I couldnt call out collect to anyone. I knew then and there that anything that caused me to end up in such condition in such a place had to go. I was finally willing to surrender and be serious about it. Hell, looking back on it I believe it was the best thing that could have happened to me because before that suboxone was just another drug to use. I used it in between my morphine runs. I got thirty 100mg morphine capsules each month and went through them licketly split. I should have been doing things like scrimping and saving and my court cases would have been over sooner. There is a million "i could ofs….."
I just want to tell everyone who has replied to my post thank you. I appreciate all your feedback and am so glad that I stumbled upon this site. I hope some day to be able to post here when I am off of suboxone and share my experience, strength and hope! Thank you all so much! I still have a lot of reading to do but every post is a gift.
I know many of you have been through a lot worse things and many of you may still be struggling with addiction. You are in my prayers. I hope it does not take you 38 years to realize that an addict can never control their using and addiction is slow suicide. Since I have been clean I have been able to pay a $800 credit card bill that I had gotten forging a check from my parents account. My mother is not only speaking with me she will come up and stay with me on the 15th while she is in town to take care of my handicapped sister’s medical needs. I have gotten my driving privleges back which I never appreciated until I lost them for 14months. I have to do 75 hours of treatment but hell, things could be worse. I will worry about paying for the classes and the $1000 fine and two yrs of probation one day at a time. I like how someone called themselves a dopeless hopefiend. That is what I am today.
Thank you for all your posts and I wish everyone serenity and recovery.
Rachel Liss
