Have You or Anyone You Know Ever Successfully Weaned Off of Methadone? ( Long Story Ahead :) )?

Question by TedDanson: Have you or anyone you know ever successfully weaned off of methadone? ( long story ahead 🙂 )?
OK.. I was addicted to the painkiller Oxycontin for a couple years. It is an opiate, (which of course I didn’t know when I started using it) and is basically just as addicting, or maybe even more addicting than Heroin.

I wasn’t a guy who got in accident and was prescribed it or anything. Actually I was a successful drug dealer who had a lot of money to blow on these stupid pain killers which I snorted up my nose. I never wanted to believe I was addicted to this stuff, and actually self detoxed 9 times throughout a 2 year period, always relapsing around the 3 week, 1 month mark, because I couldn’t take the depression and boring-ness of normal drug free life. Eventually I decided to change my life around and stop selling drugs. When I started working a normal job, making normal money there was no way I could financially support my PK addiction. So knowing that self detoxing will only result in re-lapse, I checked into a methadone maintenance program.

Best Idea of my life. I also decided to turn my life around, which I KNOW is the real reason I stopped using drugs. I stopped hanging around my gangster friends, moved away from the town I grew up in to a nice spot in the city by the beach. I went back to college and started my own business, which is a local free newspaper. I only hang around friends that don’t sell/use drugs and I focus all my time on other pleasures in life such as my girl, business, education and recreational activities.

But I’m still on this Methadone. I have been on for 5 months, and sick of it. I don’t need drugs anymore, I have gone back to the part of my great life before drugs and realized this is much better than the last couple years. Now this Methadone is like a ball and chain around my ankle. So a month ago I started reducing my methadone prescription slowly so I can eventually get off it. But I’m scared, I’ve heard horrible stories how Methadone withdrawal is worse than Heroin (which I have never tried) withdrawal. Has anyone ever successfully used methadone to be completely opiate free?

If you ever have, or know someone that does, can you please tell me and give me some hope, because I am so scared of this withdrawal, and sometimes think I would rather die than do it again. I have gone from 75mg’s to 50mg’s so far, going down 5mg’s a week, and so far no problems.

And if you ever wanna talk or have any questions or comments, my email is [email protected]

Best answer:

Answer by Rebecca S
You just have to go slow and if you get sick jump back up for a little while. This will take time and patience. Then when you get off of it don’t be afraid to get back on. One big thing is to talk with your doctor or who ever is in charge of your care. There may be other ways to handle withdrawal. It took me two years and I still have rough patches even though I have 4 years of being sober.

Answer by Pico
My best friend was on it for at LEAST a year (for heroin). It just takes time. I know you’re sick of it but you have to hang in there. She’s been clean 10 years now.

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