Author: Diary of a Quitter
Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 10:55 pm
Yeah, at these lower doses of Sub you are giving your brain the opportunity to "heal" or downregulate some of the additional opiate receptors that were created when you were abusing opiates. That’s why you feel some withdrawal each time you decrease your dose, and then as your brain adjusts your tolerance comes down to match the level of your dose and you stabilize. You’re also giving your brain an opportunity to ramp up production of endorphins, which would have slowed down considerably during active addiction and while on higer doses of Suboxone.
That’s kind of the reasoning behind doing the long, drawn out taper down to very small amounts of Suboxone. You’re giving your brain a chance to adjust so when you do stop the withdrawal and PAWS won’t be as severe or long-lasting. So far the anecdotal evidence points to this working.
I think some other ‘healing’ goes on while we’re on suboxone as well – especially if we used that time to cultivate good life habits. You’re not constantly going through the cycle of withdrawal, use, getting high over and over so that has to be beneficial, and when you practice other coping skills that creates new neural connections. Even just meditating for a short time each day has been shown to have a positive effect on the brain. Our brains are more plastic and able to heal than we ever thought, it’s really good news!
