I don’t share this very often, for fear of scaring the shit out of people, but I feel compelled to share this again.

During my detox from Suboxone (which I jumped from a fairly high dose), I automatically knew what day of my detox it was all the way up to day 118. Day 119, 120 and 121 I had to really start reminding myself what day it was, so I use day 118 as my……?????……I don’t even know what the hell to call it? Anyway, I can certainly relate to what both of you are going through.

Rmac, keep hanging in there, it keeps getting better. It’s like trying to push molasses up a sandy hill, but it’s worth it in the end. I’m at 1.5 years off of Suboxone and I honestly feel pretty damn normal, I honestly NEVER thought I would feel normal again, but here I am. BTW, normal for me means that I don’t feel like I’m dragging a fucking boat anchor around every waking minute. I have way more good days than bad days, I’m happy more often than not and I don’t dread life anymore.

Shane, have you tried Clonidine yet?? Clonidine is a blood pressure medication that’s prescribed off label for opiate wd. It calms the sympathetic nervous system and it made a huge difference for me. I didn’t even start Clonidine until day 30 into my Suboxone wd, but it still made a big difference. Clonidine is by FAR the best med I took during my wd.

It still astounds me how some of us who get off Suboxone take an absolute shit kicking as far as wd is concerned, but then others have a much easier time. It makes me wonder if I’m the biggest cry baby in the continental U.S., it makes me wonder how much my OCD played into amplifying my wd by obsessing over how shitty I felt all the time, it makes me wonder if there is something else in our make up that condemns us to a brutal wd??? I wish I had the answers, but I don’t.

Shane, know this, what you’re going through is not abnormal for opiate wd. I remember driving by work around day 23 to talk to my boss and let him know that I’d be off for another week. I talked to him for about 30 seconds before I broke down sobbing. He knew what I was going through, I had been up front with him, he and I are good friends, but it was still humiliating to be bawling in front of him. I remember telling him over and over how this wd was just breaking me to pieces. I felt like I was being held together with tissue paper during those days and that the slightest scratch would just have me completely unravel…..which happened often. Crying became something I did pretty regularly back then. I didn’t do it on purpose, I just couldn’t stop myself from crying at times. Now, I did NOT feel that shitty for 118 days. The first 10 days of my wd were the worst, by day 30, when I got the Clonidine, I was feeling a little better. Around day 35 I went back to work and that helped too. Things improved in fits and starts between day 35 and day 118. Day 35 through 118 weren’t hell, but I most certainly knew I felt like dog crap for most of that time.

While Tearjerker is correct in a lot of what he said, if he said that to me during my early wd, it would have gone completely over my head because my brain was still so buggered up. I don’t think I would have had the capacity to understand what Tear said during my early wd.

Bottom line guys, it gets better. I promise you, it gets better. I’ve been EXACTLY where you guys are and I clearly remember thinking I had permanently screwed my brain up, but amazingly, the plasticity of our brains allows to heal and feel good again.