So, not many people in my life know that I have been struggling with opiate addiction for about a decade now. It all started in my early 20's when I was selling weed and cartons of cigarettes on the street to keep a roof over my head. It was around this time that I tore a tendon in my arm while arm-wrestling a buddy of mine. The doctor gave me ibuprofen, which didn't cut it, so my dealer offered me some morphine to manage with the pain. I got my first taste of the magic here.
I had a "client" that offered to pay me for a carton of smokes with a few handfuls of oxycontin. I turned 90% of those oxy's over for a 5000% profit and the other 10% went into my nose for shits and giggles. That was it, I was fucking hooked. Problem being, this was when it was easy to get oxy's, so naturally my supply ran dry and I had to start buying them online (which was wayyy too fucking easy if you ask me. The online black market drug scene is 10x worse than what's on the streets now. Middle man is now Fedex and UPS).
Withdrawls from opiates are a motherfucker that I wouldn't wish on anyone in my life... not my worst enemy. Some people compare it to the flu, but it only compares to the flu if the flu gives you crippling depression and anxiety for 1-2 years after your physical symptoms subside. It was at this point that I would take whatever opiate/opiod I could get my hands on, just to not feel sick and depressed.
In Canada, we can buy Tylenol #1 over the counter. It has 8mg of codeine, 15mg of caffeine and 300mg of acetaminophen. Taking any more than 10 of those straight would kill you by the acetaminophen alone, so I was using a cold water extraction to just get the caffeine and codeine. I was doing a bottle every day or 2 just to level out... the massive dose of caffeine would keep me wired, but the dose of codeine was all I needed. Liver converts codeine to morphine, so yeah, it was a good dose of morphine in the end. It was getting harder and harder to get what I needed as pharmacists were asking for my health care card, or I was using more than the 1 bottle per month I was allowed to take out. They started keeping track of who was taking out what and all of the systems were linked at some point. I had to get crafty to keep the beast on my back.
This is where it gets a bit strange. I looked online for ways to keep straight if I couldn't get opiates. Something easy. I learned about poppy pods and poppy seed tea from here. If you can get pods from a craft shop or seeds from bulk and make a tea from it, it can get you a nice dose of morphine/codeine. Well it worked and I was hooked on yet another batshit crazy potion that would keep me going and keep the withdrawals and depression away.
This went on for about 5-6 years. Making Pod/Seed tea when I could... if I could get some percocets or oxy I would. Anything to keep me level. I was spending at least $20-$50 per day to maintain. If I missed even one day the withdrawals would kick in and I'd have to start missing work (I'm surprised I still have a job after all the time missed trying to get off of opiates) and I would turn into a shitty nasty troll that was sick and depressed and wouldn't be able to get out of bed. FUCKING SUCKED. There's nothing worse, and I mean this, than getting dope sick. There is no pain or misery on this planet that I have ever even been close to experiencing worse than being dope sick. I had tried about 6 times going cold turkey or weaning off and it never worked... I always caved because only one small dose would get me feeling back to normal and it was too goddamn easy to get that dose and too goddamn hard to keep pushing through withdrawals.
My wife has been the most patient woman in the world throughout all of this. I have lied to her so many times about my addiction that we have been on the verge of divorce several times. 2 weeks ago, she caught me in a lie / using again and it was over in her mind and mine. We went a week not talking, but before that it was discussed that I would find a new place to live. I was crushed. I didn't want to lose my family... I needed to fix this somehow.
That brings us to last week on Tuesday. I had made an appointment to see a drug counselor in an ODP (opiod dependancy program). They gave me the option of taking a drug called Suboxone. It's not a full opiate, but a partial opiod agonist, meaning it doesn't completely bind to opiate receptors, but it does kick full opiate agonists off of the receptors. I had read about people's success with Suboxone and needed to try it. It was my last chance really. I was soooo fucking close to losing my family and my job. I had to try. So Tuesday, I take my first few doses. You have to be in moderate withdrawals when taking Suboxone because if you aren't you'll get tossed into massive withdrawals in a matter of minutes. Some weird brain chemistry shit. I was in withdrawals and took 3 doses over 2 hours and by the 3rd dose I felt fine! I continued taking the few doses the next couple days and leveled out at my lowest required dose which is 4mg. The last 4 days I have been taking Suboxone and I have not once even considered going out to find any kind of opiate that I was hooked on before. I have completely leveled out and have no side effects whatsoever (minus a bit of a headache on days 2 and 3). This shit is a miracle drug for opiate dependency. I know I'm still using something to get by and am not by AA or NA standards "clean" but fuck those guys if they think this isn't helping. The old habits of my addiction are gone and over time will be a distant memory. I feel so incredibly optimistic that the old chapter of my life has come to an end. The lying, sneaking bullshit is done with. I can live a somewhat normal life again.
The plan is to stabalize on this dosage for a few months... exercise regularly, get counselling, go to meetings (not NA or AA, fuck that BS) and start rebuilding relationships that I've lost in the past or start new ones. I feel great.
I guess this long ramble has to end somewhere and I'd like to end it with a warning. Don't take opiates for an extended period of time. I know some people with bad injuries are prescribed them and even have the option of taking them long-term for things like back pain... but really it's just masking a bit of pain and you end up having to take more and more just to feel a little bit. It takes over and once you get to that point it's not easy turning back. Kicking heroin, morphine, oxy's ETC. is fucking hell on earth if there ever was one and there are other ways to deal with long-term pain. Thinking about railing a line of 80mg Oxy? Trying heroin casually in a truck stop bathroom? Don't do it. It will never be worth it. Opiates are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY overprescribed in North America and it's destroying lives and families all over the place. These new Fentanyl and Carfentanyl drugs are fucking disastrous. Hundreds and thousands times more potent than morphine and heroin. That shit will get you hooked hard and fast and even worse to kick.
My kids are only 5 and 7, but I know there will be a day when I sit them down and tell them this story (or some version of it) and I hope it keeps them at a safe distance from actual bad drugs like Oxy or Heroin... I'll never tell them weed is bad or the occassional magic mushroom, but I will tell them the hell of the opiate addict and hopefully I can help them avoid it. I have addiction and alcoholism running back several generations in my family and the only thing that scares me more than withdrawals is knowing that someday my kids may have an addiction like I did.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far... hoping I can help a few people down the road if possible.