Yeah, since i'm back living with her i want to be as open as i can so she understands how my progress is going. no, she doesn't have a clue really what methadone is because my parents are from brazil. and heroin doesn't really exist in brazil, the hard drug over there is crack. all the heroin from south america comes here to the U.S.
Yeah, i was warned about methadone before i started, but out of desperation of not wanting to fail and end up on heroin again, i decided to not listen. so i gave in, and i was quite happy with it for a while, till i started reading about how hard it is to get off of it. i always heard that it was hard to get off of it, but i didn't know that the w/d would last a couple of weeks. but around summer time, i'm going to request lowering my dose. i want to be on about 20mg or less same time next year.

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Hi dfx,
yeah, family members don't really know. They are likely to believe that it will take away your addiction. But we know, methadone got me straight and so I knew instinctively it was just another drug.

you wrote:
and all these drugs caused you problems and now you've switched again to methadone and you believe that a year on methadone and you will It didn't work that way for me dfx. I mean, how is taking a drug going to give you confidence that you can live life without drugs? A year at the clinic, with the staff there, and the lifers, well, it's more likely to convince you you'll never make it witout drugs.

Sure, you may get out of the habit of going downtown for heroin, but what happens when you try to kick the methadone and find the withdrawal and post acute withdrawal worse than before?

Now, I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm a guy who was on methadone for 6 years, so believe me I know what it's like to feel pretty helpless. But you should know that I came to regret that I ever started methadone.

So do what you think is best. Personally I think going on methadone is a mistake but I know all of us addicts make a whole bunch of mistakes before we finally get clean. Maybe this is one you need to make, I don't know.

But you should also know that we're here at ODR to help each other detox off of drugs and learn to enjoy life without them. There's not really much more to say till you're ready to get clean. I hope you make it there because recovery is very real, it takes courage though. Methadone? it's the same old thing. And like a good friend of mine always said, if nothing changes, nothing changes.

Dave

thanks for the reply. well, i have decided to stay on methadone till i get stronger through therapy and abstinece from heroin. i know i shouldn't be counting on methadone to correct all my problems for me. but methadone is a legal drug, i'm not running around for it, i might be replacing my addiction with methadone. this might be true. but it's giving me enough time so i am not stressing the fact that i might use again and work on therapy. my cravings for heroin have gone away. i know once i'm off of methadone they might come back. but through therapy i'll be stronger and i'll know how to handle it. right now i'm too fragile. i haven't gotten enough therapy to know what to do when i feel stressed from different things and run into different triggers. i don't know how to handle that yet. so i hope you understand what i'm saying. i'm not just taking methadone everyday and lying back and doing nothing about my addiction.

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Good luck with your recovery and congrats on getting to where you're already at. I'm 17 days clean from smoking heroin, which was approximately a 1.5 year habit for me and I was using on average, 1 gram per day, toward the end of my addiction.

I took about 4mgs of suboxone the first week off heroin, worked my way down to 2mgs by the end of week two and have been taking even less the past couple days. I'm not saying that you should get off Methadone and get on Suboxone, but from what I've read and what I've been experiencing, and for a lot of people, Suboxone/Bupenephrine is a more desirable alternative than Methadone. Just something to maybe look into and consider as an alternative if you're skeptical about MMT.

Regardless on which path you choose for recovery, great job staying away from the heroin so far!

I strongly recommend you don't do that; you are exchanging a frying pan for a fire and that's all I'll say about that.

i haven't gone to the clinic in 3 days. i took my take home dose for sunday on monday. and i still haven't gotten sick. but that's because i don't take my take home dose on sunday. i've been trying to save it till i start feeling sick and i haven't had a need to take it. so i usually throw it away monday morning when i go into the clinic. but i haven't gone at all this week and kinda don't want to every go back. i'm probably gonna go tomorrow to return the bottle. i don't know. i've been kinda depressed, i think that's why i don't wanna go anywhere.

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dfx,
Usually, if you don't go for a certain number of days, they kick you off. If you want off, I'd suggest you go there and tell them that.

I can't tell from your original post how long you've been taking methadone but jumping off is not usually a good idea.


You've come to a forum where people are trying to detox. But all of us were using prior to reaching the place where we were able to do this. Just because you've come here and read some of our posts, it doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to join us. If you are, I'll try to help, but I hope you realize we're here to support each other, not to talk anyone into quitting drugs.

So I hope you're ok. Methadone withdrawal often doesn't get bad for a few days and by then, the clinic might not take you back.

Dave

DFX that depressed feeling is normal, keep telling yourself it is. Can you not tip some out of your takehome bottles like i do?, i tip out 2.5mg for a week, then i do another 2.5mg i feel better in control of it , without making it permanant at the clinic. That way i know i have left a back door open , but for now it works. I have it there and knowing that helps, so far so good week 2 .