Author: finallyachance
Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 2:20 am
I have seen a few posts on psyching ourselves into having worst withdrawals symptoms and experiences, and I am really curious as to this and would appreciate opinions and comments on the same. Every time I get into full blown withdrawals the same things always happen, in the same order and the same intensity. Could it be because I am expecting them to happen this way and to the worst extreme? Just for example I will tell you about the last time I was in full blown withdrawals. I have always known beforehand that when I am going to be in withdrawals as I have been fortunate that I never had to deal with withdrawals because I could not find something or was locked up etc…Every time I have been in withdrawals was because I chose to give dope up etc…And I knew the only way to get thru it was to go thru it. And withdrawals were an absolute and there was no way around them. I will also use this to introduce how I got in MMT.
I knew about suboxone and methadone three years ago, but I had done the suboxone years ago, in a detox setting but knew they do not offer it in any detox setting around here and I could not afford it unless I am selling dope to pay for it and if I am selling dope than I am doing dope ya know what I mean? And methadone well I just thought it really was for heroin users not pill users so I had a lack of knowledge there.
My girlfriend had called me one day about three years ago and said a bondsman had approached her and ask her if she would consider helping him get to my dealers thru me. She told him yes, even told him she wanted to participate in getting me involved as maybe I would get some help I needed to get off the pills. He fell for it but in all actuality she was setting him up to find out what he had in mind so she could tip me off and she did
Anyways because of her call I knew my dealer was being watched and I was being followed etc…I went home that afternoon and looked at my Husband and told him that I was going to have to get clean. I have this seventh sense that has kept me one step ahead of getting busted all these years and when I feel it kick in I take it very seriously. Well he immediately told me that I was going to have to check myself into a detox this time as he has had the terrible experience of detoxing me himself and each times he gets to the point he feels I am going to die on him plus I am a terrible patient no matter how good of a nurse he is being. I am ashamed to say that but it is true. He didn’t believe my friend was being truthful so I led him to our front window in our house and told him to look across the street in the church parking lot. There they were again, the cops. And this time unlike the few days before hand I knew it was me for sure they were watching. I had been getting some gut feelings though.
I had already called my dealers and tipped them off and they had already called me back and gave me a round about where they were in case I wanted to come un-followed of course. The first thing on my mind was OMG if they grab me for any reason, I will be in jail under god knows how much bond etc…therefore probably going to be sick as hell in jail so I began thinking the worst of the worst scenarios therefore, I told my husband I was going to the store for cigarettes grabbed the three hundred or so pills I had and took off. I know that was stupid but it was one of those all or nothing moves and I was not going to be a sitting duck nor was I going to leave all my pills I was going to need because my dealers were now three counties away.
Believe it or not I was able to shake the two cars that were following a good distant behind me as I guess they did not know I knew they were back there so therefore they were too confident in that advantage. Soon enough I was able to get on the interstate and head to the woods three counties away. I stopped at wal-mart bought a trac-fone and went to where my dealers were. My husband was furious when he finally got a call from me from the new phone and I had to do a lot of talking to convince him that I knew what I was doing and he needed to trust me. I told him I had a few pills (lol) and I would be calling a detox the next day to get into as usually you are safe there at least for a while and for sure if there were no warrants for me. My girlfriend was now telling me they realized I was tipped off or something and she was not being kept in the loop as before but she knew they were thinking we were together and in Waynesville somewhere. Well the minute she said that I knew maybe my husband was talking to her or someone to try to get me home as he hated these two dealers anyway and maybe he was trying to wheel and deal with them etc… So I did not tip them off this time, I just said I needed to go that detox was going to take me that day. I even acted like I only had about fifty pills and I gave those pills to them for their road trip etc…
I then drove to Canton this little rinky-dink town checked into a motel and did call detox and I was told I had to call every morning at 6am to see if a bed opened up. I had about 100 opanas 10mgs and right at 150 mixtures of 10mgs oxy and hydrocodones and the bank card. I knew I had to hideout and make these 250 pills and money last. Well lucky for me two days into my motel stay, a detox nurse called me back and told me to be there at 6 am the next day which was a Monday. I had about 40 opanas and 30 or so codones left and I by no means was going to leave those behind so I called my Husband who dodged the cops and came to the motel to spend this night with me and take me in the next morning. Well that night and all night I took pill after pill after pill and worried about how bad the withdrawals were going to be. I was scared to death but knew I had no other choice and even though it had been a few years I knew what to expect as far as being sick plus I was hitting them harder and had added the oxymorphone to my list. I cried and went over in my mind and out loud to my husband of what I was getting ready to go through. He did all he could to make me feel safe, secure not scared etc….Well needless to say I worked myself up into pure panic, hyperventilated at times, thought about suicide etc…but eventually 5:30 am rolled around and my ever persistent husband drove me there walked me through those doors. He left me a pair of pajamas and told the nurses he would bring more things to me but he was not convinced I did not have some stashed so I checked in with nothing.
They gave me the clonodine test which I failed so I was told how sorry they were but I would be one of the white knucklers which added to my fears. I thought about leaving because I knew within twenty four hours I would not be able to walk out by myself I would be bed-ridden but I stayed. I made it a full day sitting with every nurse or caregiver I could informing them just how sick I was going to be. I was given the whole speech of how everyone over reacts and it’s never as bad as they thought, but I kept telling them I would be that bad and then some. On my first night there, I still had enough in me that I got by mostly with just the sneezing, yawns and runny nose, but by breakfast which was about twenty four hours in I was laying in the bed refusing to get up rolling around with RLS and, Goosebumps chills/sweats and soon thereafter the vomiting and diarrhea starts. Once that begins it is only hours before I am dehydrated and dry heaving so bad I popped a blood vessel in my eye. At that point I make no sense, you cannot talk to me, and I cannot talk to you. I moan and cry and plead out loud for God to help me. Some of the nurses give me a hard time about being so loud; clients are popping their heads in the door asking if they can help me. I cannot get up to even check myself out nor call my husband either. I feel I am in a tunnel with no way out. I really want to die but do not have the strength to try to fathom how I can kill myself. It is bad. A few of the nurses I told them it would be bad are coming in to clean me up, agreeing that I am one of the worst cases they have had. Day 3 thru day 8 I am taken to the hospital twice a day and given IV fluid and liquid ativan that does not really help but maybe let me grab 20 minute power naps here and there. I am being told by nurses and medical staff that they may have to consider discharge and admit me into the hospital as I am too sick to be there. The doctors actually come to my room instead of me going to their little offices. They too are telling me I am too sick. I am thinking each day is a day closer to the end, but being discouraged at the staff for making me feel like at any moment they are going to release me etc… I am too weak to take or make phone calls etc… But there was this one consistent nurse that would sit with me and put cold compresses on my forehead and would wash me up as I would throw up in my hair etc…I had a toilet bedside and she would literally hold me up on the toilet so I did not topple over and she was a very special nurse.
She would talk to me and try to make me talk myself into feeling better. She believed that I was my worst enemy in expecting it to get worse and worse as each day went by. She would tell me I could change my thoughts and that would change my physical symptoms etc… And last but not least she took every opportune time to discuss MMT with me and tell me that maybe I should just consider doing that instead of taking any risk of relapse etc…On about day 9 some of the severity subsided and now I was able to talk back and/or listen more successfully. I was able to read the letters my husband delivered there every night and apparently she had talked to him quite a bit too as he was also talking about MMT etc…On day 12 I was discharged. I found out that my girlfriend had gotten my cell phone from my husband and had worked with the bondsman and sheriff’s department to get my dealers busted. I guess they thought I would be ok with that but I was not okay with that at all. They convinced my dealers that my speaker was busted on my phone and I needed help to go on the run with them so thru text messages they set up a meeting place and “Bonnie and Clydeâ€? were taken down. She got $3000.00 dollars and I got the snitch reputation. Anyways just one of those drug horror stories. I went home waited to be busted never was and then I waited to feel better. Day 19 not feeling better Day 30 not much better etc… 6 Months into sobriety wondering why? Why don’t I feel ok? I have no energy still. I have no thrill for life? Nothing taste good, feels good or is good. I just feel flat. No joy non nothing. Little did I know I had apparently after 30 years of drug addiction ruined my natural abilities to produce endorphins etc…So eventually at about 8 months clean I got tired of the flat feeling. I wanted some joy in my life. I wanted energy and I wanted to feel better so I relapsed. I hid it well for a few months but when word got out I was shamed into the rooms of MMT. My husband remembered what all the nurse had told him about me needing to consider Methadone and so did I so I made an appointment FYI, I have been with my husband for 13 years but even though I called him my husband all through this story in all actuality we were not married at this time. We got married the very first day I began methadone maintenance as a commitment to my investment in methadone treatment. And in the same his investment in our relationship etc…
So of course now I am frozen in fear of ever coming off MMT and yet I am fearful something also could happen that could or might end my resources in being able to be on MMT. I have QT prolongation (a-fib) and clinics do not like to treat clients on methadone that have this condition. I currently have a doctor that allows me to practice what is called informed consent wherein he informs me that it can be fatal when on methadone and I inform him I would rather take the risk than risk me relapsing on drugs. So he consents to treat me and I consent not to hold him or the clinic liable. But we all know that could change if the clinics directors either medical or clinical were to change etc…I am a rapid metabolizer so therefore I require rather high dosing and this complicates the issue of qtc’s even more. So some clinics may not even allow me to be a patient if they become aware and/or they could make me decrease to a non effective dose. Which may promote relapse. You know from the beginning even before I knew all this I had a feeling I would be that one client MMT would not work for etc… I know a lot of you are going to say why I don’t do suboxone well because I have been told that if I require 190 mgs of methadone to quite my withdrawals and cravings then Bupe will more than likely not work for me. I went to one appointment and took my records she was willing to take me on but when I found out the dose she would start me at and I did the math it was going to cost me $900.00 a month and there is no way I can do that. Methadone cost me $280.00 a month and sometimes I have a hard time coming up with that on the straight and narrow path.
So pretty much I live in a fear all the time that something could happen that can take this only option I feel I have away and then this 50 year old woman is on her own and left to my own devices I do not do well. Ultimately what I would like to see happen is me be stabilized on methadone for a few years and taper off and my endorphin maker heal because if that does not heal I will always be seeking to “feel better� therefore one pill away from feeling better. Not a good place for me.
I feel I don’t have many more relapses and/or detoxes left in me. So I am either going to die in active addiction or find a way for MMT to help me find a new path etc…I have no desire to go through anymore withdrawals and feel I had rather die than do it anymore. With that being said I am always researching and trying to make a plan on what to do if I were to ever have to come off methadone and tapering down to 30 mgs and suboxone is one option if I am only on the suboxone short term I could not afford it any other way or I have been looking into that Ibogaine detox but my god it sounds scary etc… I want to have a plan though to avoid ever being so sick ever again so that is why I am interested in finding out if maybe I made my withdrawal experiences so bad because I psyched myself into being so bad. Maybe I could psych myself into it not being as bad. Maybe?????
I know I have lost several people from even reading this post because it is so long but to know me is to know I don’t miss too many details. Thanks for humoring me and reading it all. I would love your take on things unless it is going to be rude etc…please don’t bother then. I have turned to this site for support not debate or degrade.
