Toasticle posted:

Toasticle posted:

Alcohol and I guess nicotine are the only two drugs I have problems stopping, haven't had a drink in 10 years at least. The fact that they are legal just makes it that much more depressing. And I've done quite a few other drugs.

And I agree and said the Oxy epidemic was loving evil, I just wish it hadn't led to therefore all opiates are evil. But again, addiction from taking as prescribed is worlds easier to get over than from abuse. If you aren't No Butt Stuff and intentionally abuse them there's no little to no psychological addiction and getting over the physical if you step down your dosage gradually over a few weeks is not that unpleasant (YMMV as always). Baclofen has been found to almost eliminate withdrawal and I can vouch personally that it does. I take 60mg a day and before I moved to mail order refills when I'd get issues with pharmacies I discovered that the baclofen got rid of almost all withdrawal, essentially going from extreme pain to 'this sucks but I'll live" as long as I didn't have an 'attack'. If it worked better as an anti spasmodic I'd drop the opiates in a heartbeat.

Pill mill doctors were defiantly a thing especially where I live (WPB Florida) but before that opiates were not that big of a deal, you could get refills by phone as long as you saw your PCP every three months but thanks to people abusing that to hell and back people who really do need them now have to go through hell. Even though I have alcohol issues I don't think that means other people should not be able to get alcohol but because of people like No Butt Stuff just using them to get stoned for a year people who do actually need them get penalized which is my problem.

Edit: What are your feelings on alcohol and say Paxil? Alcohol withdrawal and benzo withdrawal can actually kill you, most people trying to get off Paxil will say it's months of living hell, forget feeling poo poo for 3 weeks, try 6 months of seriously contemplating suicide. If addiction is the most important factor to consider, why does it only apply to things like opiates when there are dozens if not hundreds of other prescription drugs or legal things that are far worse to kick, that's not even counting things like I think it was a toenail fungus med that had "sudden death" as a possible 'side effect',

Edit 2: Ketoconazole. Side effects are potential liver damage severe enough to require a liver transplant and sudden death due to heart problems. For fungal infections (it has other uses granted) . Pure opiates when not abused you risk 3-4 weeks of feeling like you have a severe flu but are otherwise essentially non-toxic but becaus some people abuse them to get high it's somehow worse.

Mercury_Storm posted:

If so I wonder how the main subject in the doc is coping now.

Ytlaya posted:

This kind of scares the poo poo out of me as someone on suboxone (which not only gives you a tolerance to opiates, but actively blocks other opiates). While I carry a card in my wallet that is intended to notify people of this, the amount of opiates that would be required to be effective is so huge that I imagine doctors would be hesitant to use them even if they knew about the suboxone. I just try not to think about how hosed I would be if I got in a serious car accident or something.

Hardawn posted:

I've been on suboxone/zubsolv for almost three years and I loving hate it. I'm such a fool for listening to my brother and the super nice doctor he worked with to bump me up the waiting list to be one of the 100 patients he could prescribe buprenorphine/naloxone to. I only stayed in rehab for 9 days before my insurance denied the claim, stating "me being there wasn't a necessity" even though I had a needle habit for 13 months and a nasal habit for a year and a half before.
So I had almost 15 days clean of everything and was feeling fantastic then I see the doctor, and he recommends subs to help keep me off. I agreed without understanding the long term, and at the time suboxone was being prescribed as a short term solution, then I realized we never had any discussion regarding getting off, so after that I was determined to at least try to take less over time. I never really took above 12mgs which is 1 1/2 of a sublingual strip. Getting onto suboxone was the biggest mistake in MY recovery. withdrawal from heroin sucks, but when I went to my brother first, we went to a GP and he prescribed me a medicine to lower my blood pressure and an anti-nausea medicine and I had the easiest withdrawal I've ever had in my life. I was fully truthful and got excellent care to ease me into being opiate free. It's not good that the stigma of abusing/addiction keeps people away from getting the early help. I definitely kept preferring to not be judged by my dealer than to be forever branded a junkie in my medical files when I wasn't visiting the doctor to aquire pills.

Just another thought, heroin still isn't exactly popular or cool, at least in my experience interacting with other recreational drug users. Pills are cool, heroin is strong as gently caress and a fraction of the price. Plus it has a seeding introduction system that older junkies cultivate new junkies who have fresh money. I didn't actually get my dealers number until my "friend" was wanting to get high so bad I had to go pick some up and drop a needle and spoon off at the cracker barrel.

Guavanaut posted:

Definitely, it's not easy. But the raw stats from John Marks's study shows that a generous compassionate heroin maintenance has better outcomes than other opioid maintenance while reducing ODs, drug dealing, gang violence, theft and robbery, and HIV transmission.

And then they shut him down under DEA pressure.

It's a bit like the wet house programs for homeless people with alcoholism; we know enabling alcoholism is a bad thing, but pragmatically wet houses, compassion, and optional recovery seems to cause less overall suffering and sometimes better results.

the great deceiver posted:

I was a heroin/opiate addict for almost a decade and ended up doing 3 years in federal prison for dealing. Rehab was worthless and 12-step programs were a crock of poo poo. I've been off dope for almost 4 years now and I hate to say it but what turned me around was going to prison.

Weldon Pemberton posted:

Another new documentary that focuses on fentanyl prescriptions for non-cancer patients and street heroin cut with fentanyl. Around the middle, it goes into some of the scummy practices used by companies like Insys to get people with mild pain using their product. They had someone who was told to say "uh huh" on the phone to insurance companies when asked if the patient had cancer, the only disease that guaranteed it would be covered, because "uh huh" doesn't count as "yes" and they couldn't be held liable. Another company put out an ad with an old man sucking on a fentanyl lollipop like it's no big deal and was forced to pay out millions of dollars.

the great deceiver posted:

I'm not saying they don't work at all but they definitely don't work for some people. They take a very cult-like approach towards the whole issue, basically saying that they are the only way to get clean and if you leave you'll be back on the streets using. If you're not using and aren't in meetings they say you are a "dry drunk" and it's just a matter of time until you use again. I left and have been off dope for almost 4 years. They honestly feel like a relic of a time when society did not understand addiction at all, mostly because that's exactly what they are.

Ytlaya posted:

Zero impairment in terms of ability to function or think or anything like that. I think that most people who are predisposed to becoming opiate addicts tend to not be very impaired by them unless they take huge doses (for example, I've never had some of the symptoms, like nausea, that other people mention on opiates, even before becoming addicted). But I feel zero excitement or enjoyment or anything like that on suboxone. It's like my brain doesn't produce much dopamine anymore or something.

Maintenance drugs are useful in certain situations. They're generally a good idea if the addict isn't ready to quit (and quitting will invariably fail in the long term if it isn't something the addict is truly committed to), since they allow a lot more stability than using other drugs and remove the risk associated with using drugs off the street. This is mostly due to the fact that suboxone only needs to be taken once a day, compared with having to use most other opiates every few hours. And some people are able to feel totally normal on suboxone (I'm unfortunately not one of them, due to the lack of pleasure/happiness I mentioned above), so if you're one of those people it can often be a good idea to just stay on suboxone for the rest of your life, particularly if you're old.

I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to get permanently clean. I can deal with acute withdrawal, but I've always experienced extremely bad PAWS. It's not the depression or anything that gets to me; it's more that I am completely incapable of resting both physically and mentally and perpetually have this feeling of physical discomfort. I can't sleep without (strong, prescribed) chemical assistance, and even when I do it doesn't feel restful. Feeling unrested and uncomfortable 24/7 with no respite ends up driving me crazy after a while. All I can think about is how much I want to be able to just feel comfortable and rest my body. It's horrible and I don't know if I'll ever be able to deal with the year+ of those symptoms that will be necessary for me to fully recover.

PT6A posted:

Why would a psychiatrist prescribe opiates? Or do you mean as part of a treatment program for someone who's already addicted?