I've not been too good at writing posts recently, my only excuse is that when I cleaned up, life kinda took over!
It's coming up on six months now since my last Iboga flood.
Apart from a couple of minor slips, ie: one or two small shots, months ago, I haven't slipped back into a full time opiate habit, nor am I on any maintenance meds anymore! :)
As ever when coming off long term opiates, it takes quite some time for the body to heal and adjust. Often longer than you expect, actually when I got clean back in '06, I tapered myself off a 120mg a day methadone habit.
It took about 18 months of dropping 1-2mg each 4-5 days.
It was slow and arduous but it worked, I got three years opiate free after that too!
I'd never heard of Ibogaine at that stage, if I ever had to do a slow meth taper again I'd microdose with rootbark without a doubt.
Funny too, I'd not heard of the dreaded PAWS back then either, I think if I had I'd have probably talked myself out of the detox, or at a minimum suffered a lot more.
Looking back now, knowing more, I did struggle with it. From 120mg down to about 12mg was easy in comparison to that last 12mg!
I got so worked up convincing myself that the last drop, from 1mg to 0 I'd go into hellish cold turkey that I nearly talked myself out of it altogether! I started to do the addict thing of coming up with justifications why I should just stay on 12mg forever! Haha
As it happened, I actually swapped over onto subutex for the final bit. It wasn't easy, the transition is difficult and I got pretty sick. I was really pissed that I ended up needing a full 32mg to hold me, I thought I'd be ok at 16mg max!
It took about a week of pretty shitty withdrawal symptoms to stabilise, I then stayed at the 32 for a couple of weeks then started tapering.
It was much easier to taper with, I set myself a three month limit for taking subs, much longer and I've noticed people start to struggle getting off.
I got right down to 0.02mg, shaving the pills with a razor.
When I finally stopped altogether, I remember sitting at home that day waiting for the ct to hit me, I had subs on hand if it did... It never did!
Yeah, I was amazed.. But it just goes to show, if you have the discipline and willpower to taper it is possible..
Anyway. I'm getting off track..
I wanted to talk about PAWS, or Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms/Syndrome, like I said, I'd never even heard of it, so I didn't really know what to expect in the way of symptoms when I finally stopped.
Physically I had minor sweats and chills, goosebumps and sneezes that went on for maybe another week or two, my main problems were insomnia and depression.
For about a year after I stopped I was battling severe depression, I researched medications and antidepressants that were good post opiate addiction and the SNRI Venlaflaxine/Effexor came up. I asked my doctor and was prescribed Effexor. I can't say I felt on top of the world but if lifted me out of the suicidal zone.
It seems to take about a year to fully recover from long term opiate abuse, after that time I felt pretty much 'normal' and happy and had forgotten all about my past life really.
Why am I talking about this?
I guess because its kind of where I'm at again now, feeling sad and suffering a lot of anxiety.
Iboga rootbark helps me loads, I take about a gram whenever I feel I need it, which is usually about every two weeks. It seems to stop any drug cravings I'm having dead in their tracks and lifts my mood.
I actually even stopped smoking about six weeks ago too. Which is just crazy for me, I've always loved smoking and never had much intention to stop.
I bought one of those E-cigs from the pharmacy and never looked back, haven't smoked since! :)
Can't recommend them enough
That's all for now anyhow
Sid
