Withdrawals

[Oneofus]

I'm not sure just how important it is to register in on this, but unless myths are exposed they will never be dealt with.  This idea, "Withdrawal symptoms are hell, and unpleasant, but not life threatening," is one of the most unbelievable and extraordinary lies with which the medical profession has ever satisfied itself.  "Oh...heh, heh...you may feel like yer gonna die...and you may wish you were gonna die...but, chuckle, chuckle, you can't die from withdrawals."  Garbage, garbage, garbage.  If you piled up all the poor souls who have died from withdrawals, you would have the equivalent of the China Wall.  There is a great deal of research I have put into this (unlike all the people who pretend to know this "undeniable fact"), and I can't put it all down here for lack of space.  But I will give you a couple of things to chew on all by yourself in your spare time.

1.)  There is no data to back up this statement.  Not one heroin addict who has, in fact, died flopping like a fish has been diagnosed correctly.  In the unlikely event that some poor junkie even had an autopsy, there is no diagnosis available to the coroner he can write down that says, "Died from lack of heroin," or the equivalent.  In every case it will read, "heart failure," or some other organ breakdown.  But how many poor souls found dead in a gutter somewhere get an autopsy?  They shovel you up, write "natural causes," and plant you.  Is it any wonder the medical profession contents itself by saying, "No one has ever been diagnosed as dying from withdrawals"?  No such diagnosis exists.  
2.)  Consider the assault on your system.  The real question is, how can people NOT die from withdrawals?  Use some average person as your example.  This person has a balanced chemistry, not addicted, no tolerance.  Now introduce an equivalent amount of what anybody who is seriously strung has been taking into their system.  What's a fair example -- 3 or 4 hundred mg of morphine?  The dose is lethal.  It will kill them.  Now reverse the sequence.  The test person is balanced at 800 mg morphine/day.  Now take it away.  The assault on the person's system is exactly the same when you take it away as when you add it.  It's the body's inability to adjust to the difference quickly enough that is lethal.  The shock is too great.  There are those who have survived by virtue of a strong and robust constitution, but if you assault a weak system, it must yield.
3.)  It is well known that addicts die young.  Just what, please, are they all dying from?  Certainly some die of toxicity and other system breakdowns, but don’t tell me none of them died from withdrawals.

I’m not going to monopolize any more of this space with this subject, because it may not be the right venue, even though there is much more to be said, but I invite anybody to back up the statement, “Withdrawals are not life threatening.”  

One Of Us,
Rider

[motye51]

Im extremely glad you responded to this.

[Ben727]

I realize this post is from 13 years ago, but it’s so egregiously incorrect that I’m going to reply anyway. What the poster does not understand is that opioids themselves are not toxic in the sense that they cause cellular damage. The vast majority of people who die of an opioid overdose die from respiratory depression - in other words they stop breathing. This is due to the action of opioids on the parts of the brain that regulate breathing, specifically the medulla and pons, which are part of the brain stem. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, sick or healthy, if you take enough opioids to shut down your brain stem, you will stop breathing and die.

Alternatively, if you are an addict and you stop taking opioids, you are NOT performing an action that shuts down your breathing. Remove the opiates, remove the potential for opiate-induced respiratory depression. Pretty straightforward.

Now, if you are at risk of heart attack or stroke, or have other pre-existing medical conditions, opiate withdrawal is going to put your body through a lot of stress and you should definitely do so under doctor supervision. I do know exactly how hard it is, I went through it myself about eight years ago. If you have mental health issues, the stress of withdrawal could certainly create a risk of self-harm or suicide. So again, withdrawal with proper supervision if this is the case. But if you have no underlying conditions, and are generally healthy, there is no reason not to go cold turkey if you have the mental toughness and motivation to do so. At the end of the day, whatever you have to do to quit and stay quit is the right way forward.

[wait2long]

What i REALLY have a hard time understanding, is how someone 'WHO HASNT BEEN THERE" can even make a statement like "withdrawals are not life threatening", those people who say that are the judgemental ones who havent been there YET, i say yet because i know a couple that just about damned me for my problem, but guess what happened to them, they got a big lawsuit settlement and now they are in the same boat i WAS in, BUT WORSE... and i called them and offered any help i could give, told them about methadone and suboxone, and i knew of a doctor who will help them...they said "no thanks" we are fine "no problem", so they arent ready because they are in complete denial about addiction, i cant help them until they are ready. they werent around for me when i needed help and i was not in denial, that is when they shunned me and left me to my misery, as much as i resent them for doing that to me, i couldnt NOT help my worst enemy, i will be here to help them when they are ready.

[Dad of 8]

You couldn't have said it better.  My first day and a half in detox,  they had a nurse in the room with me because they were uncertain if I was going to stop breathing. I had a 25    325/10 hydro addiction that I was detoxing from and I was very jaundiced and my breathing became very shallow.  They are fooling themselves if they say that "you can't die from withdrawal" because that is just a down right lie.  I'm not saying that stopping that from happening is by feeding the addiction,  but I also don't want medical professionals with this false sense of security thinking that as long as a person is deprived of the demon that put them their that it would be smooth sailing from then on.  It just isn't that easy unfortunately.  I am currently 57 days clean.  Yep, still count it by the days.  And from time to time, I still have some withdrawal.  I realize that it is more psychological, than physical, but it is still real.  I wish you the best and God speed.  Tom

[wait2long]

I totally agree with  EVERYTHING you said, but you may have forgotten to touch base on one more way to argue that "withdrawals are not life threatening" what about ones mental state, i know for a fact people have committed suicide from "lack of drug of choice", or simply not being able to keep up with the lifestyle of an addict... i can say with everything in my soul that withdrawals are nothing but sheer hell physically, but i will say in my case the mental part is what was almost my fate, that part doesnt ever seem to go away...and i will back you up before any misguided statement from a doctor or someone who has never been there, i will go to bat with you against anyone who wants to say that "withdrawals are not life threatening" they are full of BS...

[Mgm1313]

I agree 100%. I am taking currently 800 mg of morphine for spinal issues, (huge accident-ankle, knees,  hip replacement so far, back next, sidetracked by a hysterectomy. I also have fibromyalgia and 23 other autoimmune diseases.

All of a sudden my health group, NSHS, Northshore Health Systems, located on the Northside of Chicago suburbs where mostly wealthy families live. NSHS has now (4-2020),  decided that they will no longer prescribe morphine,  or any other opioids. And that includes those like myself, who have taken it for 15 years. Apparently they no longer want anyone to have any pain meds,  in fact they want to write no scripts for pain meds, which I find absolutely asinine.

I wonder how many people will die?  Since I'm a writer for healthcare CEOs, as I had been a CEO for 25 years , before my accident, this is going to be my next major debating topic. Just when do you say no to a patient? And conversely when do you tell a doctor he doesn't know what the hell he's doing and it's time to get a new one. Why isn't it the patient's right to be pain-free?  

Why do they say in the doctor's office, if your pain is under 3 on the Pain Scale you're taking too much medication? Why wouldn't you want to be pain free? It's this Quaker religious BS that has always existed in the United States, brought by a bunch of settlers that were scared of their own shadows and dictated this ridged life of no sex. Purity, self-harm, and SHAME ON EVERYTHING THEY BELIEVED WAS BAD. Including but not limited to sexuality and being ashamed of just about everything each of us as human beings experience,  because that is how our bodies have been designed. This is getting in the way of real people in the 21st century, who have a real suffering, and  who should be able to take whatever they ******* well want to take.

Find a physician who will write what you need. No reason to go through withdrawal and die,  or suffer for even ONE MOMENT!

There's absolutely no reason for you to suffer in any type of pain, it's your life. You get to do with it what you want . Don't let some physician in a white lab coat tell you what HE'S GOING TO DO,
DON'T THINK FOR ONE SECOND he KNOWS YOUR BODY BETTER THAN YOU OR THAT HE'S SMARTER THAN YOU, HE IS NOT, AT LEAST NOT ON THE PAIN YOU FEEL.
ONLY YOU CAN ACCESS HOW TRULY HURT YOU ARE. Unfortunately we cannot feel other people's pain , and therein lies the problem. How can anybody tell you what you're feeling? They can't is it possible there's no such thing as a mind readers or pain readers, only  you  know what your body feels, when it feels bad, and when and what gives you relief.  Only you like and should be the guide of controlling your pain.

In closing I want to let you know, I have known three people personally who actually died from withdrawal. It really does exist. And it was because doctors took she's also here and three friends of mine in a pain group off of their meds and put them on Lyrica without tapering them down. Two had heart attacks one had a stroke. Announced that cause of death was not listed as reduction of opiates. It's about time doctors are educated pain medication.