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lortab addictation

i have been taking pain pills for about 6 or 7 months straight. i take about 30 or 35 mg per day....everday.  i know i need to stop.  mostly for my health, but also i am probation.  if i drink alot of water how long will it stay in my urine? what are the effects of long-term use?  i know i need to stop, but i am scared of withdrawls?  how bad will they be?  i have 3 small kids and i have it in my mind that i can't do the things i need to do w/o them.  please answer my questions and give me some encouragement.  thank you
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Avatar universal
hello everyone,

I would like to comment on the last post, if your taking the perscribed amount per dr's script this is great, but when you start self medicating adjusting your doaseage upwords this is not good behavior and is definatley borderline addiction.
It has been explained to me many times when you start self medicating > having vivid or what they call using dreams and if you start experiencing negative setbacks from the decesions you have been making or lets say you find yourself going to more than 1 doctor for pain pills this is whats called croosing the line of chemically coping to full ddiction.Please understand everyone is different as far as pain tolerance levels and even having a high resistance to certain opiates meaning you take 1 pain killer but the pain does not subside and your dotor needs to increase the daily doesage just because you need a larger dose does not make some one a addict. You can look at addiction this way if you find yourself thinking about your pain meds several times a day, or working on plans to get more,because you ran out early or you start mixing other medications to increase the side effects then I would bet you have crossed over into the nasty world of addiction. Addiction is a certain set of negative behaviors, practices and even in a lot of cases ritual ways of taking your drugs. I am not a doctor but have been clean now for 18 months give or take a month below is a little more about how I bcame addicted maybe you can identify with some of my crummy behaviors lol I wish you god speed in your decesion to get help and recovery just remember this you need to ask yourself this truthful question Why do I like taking these pills and what will happen if I stop thanks if I can ever be of help to you please ask tony

My name is Tony I am 43 married with a 11 and 13 year olds, If I may be give you some of my history/experiences both personal and professional it may help the both of us. At the end of my addiction (my rock bottom)I was injecting 1300-1600mg daily of ms-contin it depended on what pills I had on hand at that time as I was visiting about 3 steady Dr's every month 1 pain management dr, 2 regular dr's as well, I did this every month for 2.5 years without interruption. I would like to add that when I would run out I would get myself admitted to the hospital rather than go thru withdrawals. I was prescribed approx 120 4mg diludid tabs on top of the ms-contin for breakthrough pain. Please bear in mind I also maintained my job and public stature in my community with out any suspicion or some one trying to interfere. My work background was in Emergency Medical Services as a Medic and Law Enforcement this is where I first received multiple injuries/surgeries which began my initial drug use/abuse, I have had a total of 27 operations for multiple problems sustained from my working environment so it would be fair to think I would always suffer from chronic/post surgical pain. I am telling you this so maybe you can identify with some of my habits I am not proud of this either as I became the worst of the worst Rx Addicts I had the experience, pathology, and knowledge to manipulate my doctors and was extremely successful at this. To be fair to myself I can place blame on my first pain killer doctor as he was prescribing me an inappropriate amount of oral hydrocodone with in my first year (approx 400 plus 10mg pills a month) Unsolicited. But I take the blame for my addiction and actions This for me was my first stop on the road to recovery I had to admit I was hurting myself and killing my wife and probably emotionally damaging my awesome kids as they seen me practice my addiction and since they knew I was a paramedic and had doctor friends this was normal behavior to them. Today they know this was not the case and it was a drug induced set of habits, practices and rituals. I did not just wake up and smell the roses and decided to plunge in to recovery one day it took me 2 30 day treatment centers and 2 7-10 day detox tries to get the message from my body to my brain that enough was enough, but not mention my family became homeless in the middle of the summer in Las Vegas in 122 degree weather, to be honest that was not a direct effect of my abuse but if I was able to have a clear mind maybe I could have taken care of my families business a lot better which could have caused them not to be homeless. I have a lot more to my psychosocial stressors maybe I could share at a later time if you are interested. After my last detox of 7 days at a exclusive drug rehab center in Vegas I started my recovery this was in July 05 I had no choice to enter a methadone maintained program for 2 reason first was to control my cravings for morphine and second I have severe chronic pain from 27 operations and other injuries sustained over my work career so this was do or die for me because at this time I knew that I was too banged up for my type of work, and that if I was going to take more drugs I knew my family would suffer even more, I made a financial decision or at least I thought it to be a good one for my wife and kids at the time that I would just kill myself because I knew I was smart enough to make my death look like a accident I was worth more to my family dead than alive so I thought. If it was not for my beautiful wife of 16 years asking me why would I try to kick my addiction just to leave them any way then all that I had put her and the kids thru would be for nothing she also pointed out that one thing she knew was that I was not some one who QUIT at things when I was either afraid of failure or if a situation got bad it was then I knew I really had one choice and that was to stand up and be the husband and dad I should have always been and to fight for what was mine and this was a healthy non-abusing drug free life and to fight for my family as this addiction/drug was attacking them just as much probably even more in other ways. So yes as of today I have kicked/controlled my substance abuse of almost 1600mgs of morphine a over 24 mgs of inject able dialudid per day for at least 2.5 years I have not had any pain meds other than my prescribed dosage daily and I have only seen one doctor per month(the same dr) its been a year and 6 months now I can say it is a daily battle for me and that when I hurt both physically and emotionally so bad I want my drug of choice I just have to remember these 2 things in this order I owe my wife and children a good healthy life without drugs and how much it would hurt them to let them down and to be very honest once you hit rock bottom withdrawal pains you really do not want to go back and chase that demon either. I hope this helps you to understand your not alone and that this road you are certain to take can be traveled safely with purpose and most of all successfully please tell yourself that your life is worth it and so is the happiness and emotional health of your family and network of friends, I hope I now can become part of that network as well. Thank you for asking how and letting me in you are on your way. Tony ***@****

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Avatar universal
I would say you are not an addict unless you are detoxing to get off of them. If you, like me, can take the pills and not have withdrawl symptoms when you don't have them to take, then clearly your body is not addicted to them. I also "dream" about them and think about having them often when I don't have them .. but my body can funciton normally without them which means I am not addicted. I guess you could say we are both headed down that road if we do not watch out, but we aren't there yet by the grace of God. I read your other post about thinking you may be damaging your liver, and if you are only taking the amount that you said in your post, then I would think that pain is related to something else. I have taken way more than you for a long period of time (as directed by my doctor) and I have yet to have any liver problems. Good Luck.
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Avatar universal
I dream about pills too, it's SO weird. Does this mean I am an addict? I take 3 pills 5/500's daily. Is this really damaging for my liver? It doesn't exceed the 2000mg Tylenol limit. Does it matter that I take the 3 pills almost at once?
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Avatar universal
Loratab can stay in your system for up to 21 days longer for some I am in recovery 18 months now I was taking up to 50 10mgs pills per day finished up with injecting 1600 mgs of morophine a day for 2.5 years. Who needed loratab anymore with morophine being fed to me by my doctors. My point is get a handle on this now loratab truly is a gateway drug
good luck

tony
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Avatar universal
thank you so much for the suggestions.  i will be praying for you also. you have done so well at getting off of them, kep up the good work
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Avatar universal
WOW, way to go wolf! What an acomplishment!! I sooo envy you. Can you share how you did it? ie: weaning, or cold turkey?...
Man I wish I had that strenth. It is so much easier to stick my finger in that bottle than it is to walk away from it. But I am not up to 8-10 sometimes more daily. They are 5/500's. I run out constantly, then get them off the street running me broke. 45 pills that should last me 14 days only last me about 4 days. This is just nuts! I know once before I was low and HAD no choice but to suffer it out, could not get my hands on any and around the third day I could feel relief. But soon as I could get them I did. WHat a mistake! What scares me now is that it has been this long for you and you still get the craving for them? All the time, or once in a while?

Like I said way to go to you! That is just awsome.
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Avatar universal
Hi. I don't know how long it stays in your system, I can't help you there.  I am 37 days off of vicodin.  The withdrawls really suck, but each day gets better.  I don't think I have anymore physical withdrawls, but I still think about them and even dream of them.  I haven't given into my thoughts of taking any.  Stay away from the people who you usually get them from too for awhile, or tell them you are not using and trying to get off of them.  You will be sick, sweats, chills, restlessness, leg cramps.   Take hot baths or hot tub is real nice for body aches - you will get all of these.  I ate bananas for the leg cramps, lots of fluids gatoraide and water is good, a good multi vitamen.  It is rough, but I did it and worked 32 out of 40 hours that first week and I also raise my 7 year old grand daughter and I did it.  Good luck, I'll be thinking about you and praying for us all.
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