Author: broseph

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 8:50 pm

Hey guys.

I posted in the introduction forum a couple of months ago and talked about how I had tapered from 32mg, quickly down to 8mg, and then to 1mg over the previous 8 or so months. 2.5 months later and I’m down to .75. I’ve been at this dose for about 4 weeks now but don’t yet feel comfortable dropping. I know it’s time when I can actually sleep 8 hours regularly without issue. Even at 4 weeks in, there are still nights I have a hard time getting more than 4-5, but my sleep is mostly back to normal.

It’s kind of crazy, but I coasted to 1mg. I started trying to go over some things in my head and realized it took me about 7-8 months to drop my dose 87.5% (from 8 to 1mg), so to go from 1mg to .125 might take another 7-8 months where I had planned to do it in just a few months.

I feel like I should be ready for another drop next week. I think I’m going to go to .625 then to .5, then to .4, .3, .2, .15, .1, .075… jump? somewhere around there. I just had a buddy jump last month from .1 after stabilizing on that for about 6 months and said he had about a week where he felt like shit and then started to feel great. He’s a lucky one, but this has given me great hope.

I was planning on jumping early 2013, but it I’m realizing now that if I want to do this with very minimal withdrawal and side effects, I’m going to have to take my time the same way I did dropping from 8 to 1mg. So right now I’m planning to do all the above doses for ~a month and jump next summer. Perhaps I’ll be able to do it sooner, perhaps not, but if dropping to these lower doses is anything like dropping from 1mg to .75, I know it’s going to take some time.

For anyone out there still using, or trying to stop, or thinking about stopping… There is hardly anything I can write here that will change what you do. But I was once where you were. Coming here infrequently, knowing one day I would be here myself, but just waiting for that shoe to drop… Anyway, what I wanted to say is that you can use suboxone successfully and taper, even with a monster habit. I did it. I never in a million years would think that nearly 10 months after stopping that I would have gone from 32mg to .75 mg. I would have probably guessed I’d be at 4mg by now if I were lucky. But I got serious and have been able to get lower than I’ve ever been on sub, and definitely in a better place than I’ve been with opiates in 6 years. If you commit to this drug and use it responsibly, it is literally a godsend.

I plan on continuing to update this thread with my drops. They may come in 4-6 week spurts, but I’ll keep you guys posted.

I’m going to do this. It’s just going to take a little bit more time than I initially imagined.

I know I haven’t posted around much, but I’m still here, reading, learning, being inspired. Thanks again to everyone on here, in many ways this place keeps me motivated to keep dropping and dropping. And I love this place for that.