I'm scared, angry and so-o frustrated!!

[pyewackkett]

-- Hello to you all!
I just found this site this evening. I was hoping I could find a place such as this, that was actively being used! In any case, I JUST found out that taking suboxone is a BAD thing. And here I thought that I had crawled out of my 'rabbit hole' .. but OHHH NO-OOO!!  ... August 9th.08' I went into rehab. After approx. 10 years of opiods for chronic back pain- I had 'graduated' to 180mgs of oxycotin a day. I finally became disgusted with it all. I thought that if the Dr's. couldn't make my pain tolerable enough for me to have a real life, then what was the point!? I had no idea what rehab was about, I was nervous, but as it turned out I slept for the first 5 days -- atleast that's all I can remember -- that and the nurses waking me up to have me stick some orange pill under my tongue. I didn't even know, until the day I was leaving, that they were giving me a narcotic .. to get me off narcotics. When I overheard the nurse talking to another patient about it, I felt as though someone had just thrown a pail of ice water on me!! My heart just sank ... until that moment I was so happy and upbeat .. and thinking I was 'cured'. I went home and began to get quite ill. I didn't understand why -- By my 3rd day I was rolled up in a ball, dripping with perspiration. In retrospect, I wish my husband would have told me that I could have stayed 3 more weeks. Since they had already taken me off the suboxone for a few days; I would have been able to detox from it as well ... had I only known and understood. -- However, another hospital admitted me ... and yes, they gave me suboxone too. They discharged me five days later - WITH a bottle of suboxone to take with ... and told me to find a Doc. that dispensed it, a.s.a.p.  -- I wish that I had gone online then and investigated this medication that I had never heard of before ... but I did not. I went to see the 'suboxone doctor' and he was very charming, softspoken and elderly; I figured that he knew his stuff.  He told me that it would control my pain without the addictive problems,etc. of oxycotin, morphine - and so on and so forth.  I was on 8mg. a day -- well, actually he prescribed more but I only took one a day. It didn't FEEL like a narcotic to me. Honestly, I had decided that I wasn't going to keep taking it ... after all, I hadn't gone to rehab just to be on more pills! When my husband filled the other half of the script (@ 22 pills) I took it here and there. One every two days and then 1 every three days ... I felt fine. I recall when I took the very last pill. I threw the bottle in the trash, smiled at my husband and said: " that's the end of that.." I was quite pleased.  -- About 5 to 7 days later I realized that it FELT as though someone had pushed a big,gray cloud over my head. I was so down. I couldn't understand what was wrong with me! I didn't feel sick ... it just seemed as though my sense of perceptions were 'off.' -- Then started what I read here tonight ... yawning, nose running, my legs were terribly restless, trembling. I went back to suboxone doctor and he told me that what I went through was: "..as bad as it would ever get.."  Although the nurse seemed rather shocked that I had just stopped taking it. --And I was in PAIN. I don't know anymore if the pain was from MY pain or pain because of and magnified because I stopped the suboxone.  -- And YES, I let him talk me into continuing to take it! -- But something has changed. I no longer have the cavalier, easy-going, "what-ever" attitude towards this orange pill, as I did before. From the time I began taking it in mid-August until that 'last' one the end of November, taking them really meant nothing to me. I thought I was just finishing the weaning process from the original narcotic I had been on for so many years. -- Then I went online about a week ago and began reading. Now I am frightened!! I am angry at all of THEM .. how could they think that THIS was the way to 'help me??'  Silly me, I was so-o proud of myself that I had gone to rehab. Now where am I ... what am I?? I feel like a failure. -- And that little bottle next to my bed no longer feels like a casual "whatever" to me. It has become a NARCOTIC.  Again, narcotics.  My attitude towards it has done a 180*  Now it's become the cloud over my head WHILE I'm taking it. It meant nothing to me and now I dwell on it each day!! ... I feel tethered to it. Previously, I never felt like it was doing anything for me ... meaning that I received no 'sensation' from it. But now I DO. Is this all just in my mind??? How can I 'suddenly' feel as though I AM 'under the influence' ... when I never did before?  -- I'm sorry this went so long. I admire any of you that actually made it through all this ... and I thank you with all my heart!! Perhaps you can help me understand what is going on with me .. something. I just feel like such a loser - as though the last 4 months were such a waste ... all for nothing??  So-o .. back to rehab for me ... some place without suboxone? HHMMM??  -- I appreciate your candor, and I admire your courage!!       Again, my thanks to you all !     God Bless**

[wannabefree330]

I think you are spending too much time dwelling on being 'tricked' and still being a slave to pills.  True you will have to eventually wean yourself off of sub, (and from what everyone here says, do so within 21 days) you ARE actually trying to do something about your oxy habit.  Sub doesn't give you the euphoric high that an opiate would, but it does attach to the same receptors.....thats why you get w/d symptoms when you stop taking it.  I have quit narcs twice CT and with my last relapse was taking so much I checked myself into detox....inpatient.  I started sub with the intent of getting off my drug of choice.  I don't see it as trading one for another. Because sub is clearing my mind and allowing me to begin working a recovery program that I wouldn't have been able to do without it.  Now, I don't view sub as a 'miracle drug' or 'an easy way out'.  I attend 2 meetings a week, and an aftercare meeting once a week too.  I have tapered my meds started at 32mg of sub and now down to 16mg.  I know it will take a very long time to taper, and I know i'll feel some w/d during the process.  But I'm willing to take as long as necessary to get rid of these narcotics once and for all.

So, instead of using this experience as a negative.....turn it into a positive.  If you don't want the sub......stop taking it.  Be prepared for 10-14 days or more of w/d and get it over with.  If the sub helps you with cravings, and you are willing to trust your doctor and follow his directions, continue it and be clear to him you want to begin weaning ASAP.  

[snowflake620]

i just read your post and am so sorry for all the emptional pain i don't have any experience with sub but many other people on here do so please keep posting and some one will be here to help you soon,please know that i will pray for you  and wish you all the best i do know one thing that may help and that is that things will get better it just takes time.
                   snowflake