My Journey of Stopping

I can go around 2 days without suboxone at around 1mg dosage. then I feel like I just gotta take a piece of a strip. can a film be dissolved? I wanna taper using the liquid method. sounds promising. I been off IV oxy contin for 5 years. Time to move on. I'm one semester away from getting my degree inpsychology. I wanna be free from all this madness when I start my carrer.

Not sure if you can dissolve the strips but when I was cutting the 8mg strips into teeny pieces someone here recommended I get the 2mg strips and cut those.. so thats what I did and tapered from there
good luck, go slow and listen to your body

you dont need to do the liquid method with the strips because you can cut them very very small. I cut mine down to .016mg.

thanks. I havent took any in 2 days. I'm waiting on the symptoms to begin before I take anything. It would be nice if they never come.

I've been following this thread with interest. It is so strange, how some people insist that their withdrawal while tapering buprenorphine is absolutely horrible, and others find the symptoms to be very mild.

I have known a good number of people now who had almost no withdrawal at all, while stopping buprenorphine. I cannot find any common denominator-- except perhaps excercise. Another positive is having a personality where the person doesn't obsess over physical symptoms. I think that exercise MAKES people more tolerant of physical discomfort-- maybe that is one reason it is helpful.

Anyway... just wanted to say congratulations to the future RN--and thanks for sharing your experiences. I'm also very impressed by the discussion--- thanks, LadderTripper, for all of the great links.

Dr. J, you bring up a question that has perplexed me for a great while now and funny enough, last week another piece of the puzzle fell into place for me.

Compared to many others on this board, even those who jumped from a fairly high dose like I did, my wd from Suboxone seems to have been fairly extreme and I have come up with a few "answers" as to why this might have been.

#1--During my entire Suboxone treatment, I basically abused my Suboxone. I didn't shoot it or snort it, I just took it several times per day in anticipation of that little bump in mood I would get from it. I hardly ever had Suboxone left over at the end of the month because I always took as much as I could, leaving myself empty handed on the day of my next Suboxone appointment.

#2--I have OCD tendencies. I'm not diagnosed a full blown OCD, but I certainly obsess over all manner of nonsense.

#3--This is the one that fell into place about a week ago, I was reading cnn.com and ran across an article titled "Introverts Run the World." I've known for a long time that I'm an introvert, but I didn't have a full appreciation of just what an introvert really is. After reading that article at cnn.com and then spending the rest of the afternoon learning (obsessing!) about introvert behavior, it dawned on me that being an introvert probably had a great deal to do with my wd being pretty harsh. Apparently, introverts spend a great deal of time in thought (I honestly thought everyone did that?), they spend a lot of time in reflection (I thought everyone did that too?). When someone is in wd and they're spending most of that time reflecting on how their feeling....well, it's like a feedback loop. I also learned that there is really no such thing as a person who is 100% introverted or 100% extraverted. These traits are measured on a kind of sliding scale, with almost 70% of the population falling somewhere in the middle (ambiversion). From what I've learned and understand about introversion/extraversion, I am firmly in the introvert camp.

I now believe that these 3 things combined had a huge effect on my wd.

On a side note, my recovery has moved ahead by leaps and bounds with this newfound knowledge of my introversion. For the longest time I've been trying to address behaviors that NA teaches are addict behaviors and all the while those behaviors are due to me being an introvert. For example, what I once considered to be self obsession I now understand is a component of introversion. I'm not necessarily self obsessed, I just enjoy spending time alone with my thoughts just as I enjoy spending time with my family or close friends. Now that I'm no longer beating my head against a wall trying to change those behaviors, things have obviously gotten a lot better.
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Be kind to yourself. Our character defects do NOT define who we are!

Romeo - I read a book called "The Introvert Advantage" a while ago, and I felt so relieved when I read about how most of my tendencies and how I deal with things is related to my introversion. I had never looked at it that way, I just thought I had something wrong with me. The book helped me a lot in learning how my termerament is the reason for many things I do, and it gave me a totally different perspective on myself. I had so many lightbulb moments when reading this book and I stopped punishing myself for things that I thought were negative behaviors, but are really just the "innie" way of dealing with things. Wink

Well hello fellow introvert, nice to meet ya!!

Reading your post made me smile....I was honestly afraid that all I would hear was crickets chirping after posting about my introversion, it's nice to know there are others out there.

I'll be honest, as I started reading more and more about introversion, one of the first thoughts to pop into my head was "Oh Crap".....not only am I an addict, which tends to separate one from society because we're not understood, now I find out I'm a full blown introvert too....like I need another "condition" that's not very well understood by most, thus separating me from society even more. But I caught myself quickly and said a great big "EFF THAT!!!", I gotta keep learning to roll with the punches and learn to accept myself, damn it!

I love how you said "I stopped punishing myself for things that I thought were negative behaviors, but are really just the "innie" way of dealing with things." I'm headed over to Amazon.com to get a copy of that book!

Thanks Taurus.....I was gonna say you don't know how much I appreciate it.....but you probably do!! Very Happy

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Be kind to yourself. Our character defects do NOT define who we are!

Reading the book is so worth it! It helped me a lot. Let me know when you start reading it. I just pulled out my copy a few weeks ago and started reading it again because it has been years since I read it the first time. I just wish extroverts in my life would read it! Introverts are so misunderstood by extroverts...they tend to think something is wrong if we don't react to things in the same manner as them. But we just have different needs.

Ok, I'll stop there since this thread wasn't really about this. Laughing

We can start a new thread or pm me when you read the book because I'm sure you will want to talk about some of the things in it! It's very interesting and easy to read.

By the way, the full title is "The Introvert Advantage - How to Thrive in an Extrovert World" by Marti Olsen Laney, Psy.D.

Good topic and useful info for me. Thanks.

I am also an introvert. I am an INFJ on the Briggs-Myers scale, which is extremely rare, especially for a male. Guess I would describe it as an empathic introvert. I love helping people, which is why I have worked with children and the homeless so much. It makes it difficult because when I see people in pain or struggling I feel very much for them. I also beat myself up way too much.

However, with Therapy I am learning to deal with this. I have done tons of work, so I look at it as a gift. I am actually going to be going for my counseling masters soon.

In regards to withdrawal. This Sub withdrawal has been pretty easy overall. The hardest part is that my family is aware of what I am going through, and they will get suspicious I guess. I have to carefully explain everything to them (for my own sake at the very least):

"I am feeling tired because of my medicine"

"Clonidine slows you down but it helps with my muscle tension"

"This is only a temporary thing, you know I have been preparing for this for a long time".

Etc, Etc, Etc.

I always tapered when using full agonists, but I just pretended to be sick. Those were always quick and dirty (using other substances to try to mask) tapers. This one feels controlled.

stephent - I am an INFJ too..crazy!! I took the test 14 years ago though, so I'd like to take it again to see if anything has changed. I think I've hardened a bit in the last decade and a half.