Author: tearj3rker
Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 11:53 pm
| tattoo tommy wrote: | ||
How long have you been odff sub?,,And can you say briefly how long of a taper you did?,,cause since you are one of a few who hasnt experienced PAWS,,maybe you can help those that have to get off sub for whatever reasons. I have friends that apparently didnt do it right,,maybe got off too soon ,,but they experienced PAWS, if ya wanna call it that. |
I got off long acting opioids twice – once with 13 months clean, another I stayed clean for 9 months. Both times were before I’d ever heard of this PAWS thing.. One of the times I jumped off a high dose of bupe (6+ mg), the other I went straight from heroin to detox.
Looking back I probably did probably experiencing some symptoms that could be classed as PAWS. I sweated more easily for a good 3 months, and I was a bit edgy, like a fish out of water. I felt awkward and like a "shell" of a human, like I needed to rediscover myself on some fundamental level. I suffered premature ejaculation (proved handy given I was in a rehab where sex wasn’t allowed) .. And I also felt some really mild residual withdrawal symptoms from time to time, but never enough to impede my life.
I guess the reason I wasn’t surprised that I had residual symptoms was because I never assumed that post-detox I would be 100% fit. Of Course!! it takes a while to adjust and settle after detox, and I never assumed otherwise. Acute withdrawal really, for me, only a tiny slice of what makes up recovery. I always knew the real challenge lay after detox – ie staying clean. Maybe I was so focused on staying clean that I kinda neglected any residual physical symptoms I was going through.
The other main thing is, at least for me, the first time I got clean and stayed clean for about a year, I’d been on opioids for so long I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be clean. Come post-detox, I had no real comparison to know whether what I was experiencing was normal or "PAWS". The only way I could tell with any accuracy was with hindsight. ie at 6 months clean I could tell how sick I was at 2 months… same with 12 months looking back at 6 months. IMO it’s a futile act, while in early recovery (especially the first 3 months), to try and assess whether what you’re experiencing is PAWS or just how it feels to live without drugs. I was running on the faith that things would get better (all the NANA’s told me so), and that I would have some kinda insight into the process of recovery as I got some clean time under my belt.
I guess my issue is not whether or not PAWS exists, it’s whether or not we should be pathologising the idea, and giving it a name, and freaking people out with the concept. IMO all people need to know is that their body and mind still has some adjusting to do post-detox, and they’re not 100% recovered once their withdrawal symptoms finish. Especially with long acting opioids like methadone and Suboxone, there isn’t really a start and end to detox in the same sense as heroin. With Sub, and esp methadone, it kinda "fades away" slowly and, at least for me, I would still get flashes of residual withdrawal.
I guess I’ve drawn a line for myself as to where I stop pathologising things, not because I disagree, but because it’s not useful for me to do so. And pathologising early recovery and giving it a medical term like PAWS only seems to freak people out.
