Author: christin
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 8:45 am
motherof3,
I also am a mother of 3. My three boys are grown (the last having graduated high school this year). Like you, I am not one of THOSE kinds of addicts (not on the outside, anyway. I’ve gone to enough recovery meetings to hear how much my insides are like the majority of them). 
As far as feeling awful through the induction, you could have been prescribed too much or it could be that you respond poorly to the induction. I think that some of us don’t react to inductions as well as others do. I want to warn you that the 4mg that you are taking on the third day include all the milligrams left from the half-lives of the doses that you’ve taken the previous days (the first day being 24mg). So, 4mg in another five days will not be what it is today. Hopefully, you can work this out with your doctor to find a good maintenance dose if you don’t taper.
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| So finally, to the reason I am here and the questions I have….I am absolutely FED UP with all of this! I just want this whole nightmare over and behind me. |
So many addicts feel this way. I know that I did. Unfortunately, addiction doesn’t work that way. At NA we say, "We didn’t become addicted in one day." Recovery takes time, even recovery with Suboxone.
Like you, I don’t have street connections. I’ve told my doctors and my father (who had my main supply). I’ve even told my boss. I’ve burned all kinds of bridges that needed to be burned. But, I also know that my addiction can take me places where I’ve never gone, placed that will completely destroy my family, if I don’t take the time to treat it.
As you mentioned, some addicts need the time that Suboxone affords to get their lives back together. Some of us are fortunate enough not to have lost everything. I still had my job and my family, my car and my house. What I didn’t have was the sane mind that I had before the addiction took control. My coping skills disappeared. My coping depended upon popping a pill. My emotions came to rule over my reason. I would wake thinking about using and that would be the prevailing thought of the day. That’s what addiction does … it takes who we are as free individuals and makes us a slave to the drug. It takes time to gain that freedom back. For me, it has taken two years, even though my active addiction period was extremely short. (Don’t let a short duration of active addiction fool you as to how powerful your disease can be. Just as some cancers can grow faster in people, addiction is a very, very personalized disease. After my first use, I was hooked. I couldn’t think of NOT having the drug. That was after keeping my disease in check for many years.)
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| I did quickly remind myself how blessed I was to have him and told myself that I would do it over again if I had to in order to have my son but this has just been absolute hell!!! |
That is beautiful to read. Many times, I have told God that I would have accepted almost anything if I didn’t have to go through the hell of addiction. I would remind myself that I haven’t had to endure the loss of a child (my eldest son is in the military). That is the only thing that I wouldn’t choose to trade for not being an addict. I’m trying very hard to understand that being an addict can be a blessing in as much as what I can learn from it and be able to offer to others because of it. Of course, I have a long way to go before I can truly appreciate that.
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| Should I taper fast and get the hell off this stuff? |
My advice would be: No. I tried that and relapsed. Then, I quit cold turkey and relapsed. Currently, I’m tapering off after two years of treatment. I agree that for most addicts (those who are merely dependent are another matter) at least one year of treatment is advisable. I can’t speak for you. Only you know where your head is at. I do know that if you start to taper and you start having cravings or if your mind is still preoccupied with using, a quick taper very well may lead to a relapse.
I wish you the best. Please feel free to pm me.
Hugs,
Christin
