Author: pmsl
Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:26 pm
I have been prescribed 4mg this week at my request. 8mg was comfortable and I went to 4mg for 2 days and have been taking only 2mg for about 4-5days now (I’ve been spitting out one 2mg tab when the chemist isn’t looking). The suboxone on it’s own hasn’t left me too comfortable but I have used small amounts of benzos to regulate some kind of sleep and calm me down in general.
I am now of two minds. With the discomfort at 2mg should I just drop it altogether and use what Valium I have left to ease the w/d’s over the next week or so OR should I stay on a comfortable dose (now that I’ve found one) of Suboxone as the past year to 18 months have been spent cold turkey/smacked up then cold turkey/smacked up and so on. I’ve been to 2 NA meetings and I’ve remembered why I stopped going in the first place so without suboxone yet another relapse is possible as I have been expressing to my GP that I seriously think there is an element of depression behind this even when abstinent but he’s not interested.
In answer to your question I use whatever drugs I can get my hands on when I’m performing at my best. Crack,smack,benzos, alcohol, chloral hydrate and other stuff but my DOC is heroin. It’s hard to say how much I was using due to variations in quality. At the latter stages I was either injecting a sixteenth (1.75g) or smoking an eighth (3.5g) daily costsing anything from £50 to £150 per day then the cost of other drugs on top of that.
The other meds you mention to use when stopping completely aren’t likely to be an option as the doctors here are ballbags and so I’ve been able to buy enough valium to sort myself out but I would much rather use something weaker as I really don’t want a Valium habit. I came of 120mg of it per day the same time as I came of 120mg of methadone cold turkey in 1995.
I have seen clonodine mentioned in a few forum threads and plan to read up on it before asking if I can have some to help me through w/d.
I don’t expect much help from the CAT (community addiction team) or my GP so I’ll just have to man up and do it with what’s at hand should I go cold turkey. I can access some codeine which I might use but am unsure how long I should wait between the last dose of suboxone and using the codeine I have.