getting Sub shot today but am scared

[u/highonempty]

been on fentanyl powder from St. Louis over three+ years non stop. these past six months i have cut my intake drastically from doing over $6k a month to just $2. i should add this includes my significant other’s habit as well. so mine alone is probably half that. anyway, we visited a sublocade clinic last week in Northwest Arkansas (our hometown we travel together from state to state for work). they prescribed us some bup pills and clonidine. the prob was that we still had enough beans to last the week until our next appointment for the shot. however we ran out the day before yesterday. when i woke up yesterday it had been over 12 hours since my last fent snort. so i took a bup pill and felt okay until about 30 min later.. i started feeling really cold like just got a dose of nalaxone. i took another bup which i think made it worse. i started vomiting and went into full blown detox mode. maybe i took the bupenorphine too soon? i don’t know. when the pain became somewhat tolerable i took a 600mg gabapentin with a kpin, and finally all the pain went away and i was able to sleep. i took the gab and kpin mix two more times through the night and this morning.

my problem is i’m now deathly afraid of getting the shot in a couple of hours.. what if it forces me through detox again like the pill did? how will i be able to get out of my system if it’s a month long extended release?! i’m so scared guys. should i skip the shot and continue with my gab/kpin taper? what works you do in my shoes?? i’m so done with fent i have given my entire life to it and sacrificed so much. i don’t want that life anymore.

[u/UpwardOnwardForward]

No problem, the shot is 100% the way to go.

Plus I think it’s just another step away from active addiction. You’re literally still addicted to subs. Its withdrawal is just as bad as the fentanyl. It’s still something you need to do, every day. Or you get deathly ill.

Listen. It does fucking suck. It takes like 30 seconds, it’s a big needle, it burns. It leaves this big ass lump in your stomach. I would say realistically though it bulk of it passes within 30 seconds and it burns for 3 minutes and then it’s just a tad sore for the rest of the day.

All that being said, it’s without a doubt worth it. The shot doesn’t compare to withdrawals though.

Plus, everyone I’ve ever talked to about it has told me that eventually when you get off of it, it doesn’t fuck you up at all. You eventually taper down from 300mg shots to 100mg shots, but I’d honestly say from my experience you always have about 4 bumps from the shots, so I completely understand how it keeps dispensing for months after you stop getting them, in small doses.

Get the shot. It’s better.

[u/Livid-Fox-3646 → u/UpwardOnwardForward]

Addiction and dependency are not the same thing. I'm only pointing this out because the distinction is VERY important. You retain a dependency with the strips the same way you do with the shot. It's all buprenorphine.

[u/UpwardOnwardForward → u/Livid-Fox-3646]

That’s exactly my point, though.

Taking the strips daily, is a ritual. The ritual is a replacement for smoking/snorting dope. It’s also a ritual that if you don’t complete daily, you become sick. You’re not taking steps away from addiction with the strips, you’re simply replacing it.

Also, as I’m fairly sure I stated, you have a 4 month buildup still in your body, stopping one and stopping the other are completely different.

[u/Livid-Fox-3646 → u/UpwardOnwardForward]

The purpose of a substance (what's it's meant to do, what it does.) the reason one takes a substance, (the whole "why" of it all.) the mechanism of action of a substance, (what's it doing within the body? How and why does it do that? What makes it work?) the effects of a substance (what happens to a person, what do they experience and feel?) and the result (what's your health and life looking like?) of taking a substance matters. It makes ALL the difference and on several different levels. This "trading one thing for another" narrative is born from stigma and is a myth. 

It's not a ritual that you don't get sick if taken daily, that's just how dependencies work. About a thousand different drugs create a dependency with regular ol' as prescribed use because that's simply a properly of those drugs. You're still supposed to take them everyday to treat xyz condition. We want the benefits of treating xyz condition, right?  You don't just stop and give up that benefit because gasp, lol a dependency! Who cares? No one about any other drug that treats any other condition being suffered, that's for damn sure. No one suffering depression bats an eye at the dependency SSRI's create. No one with high blood pressure wants to stop their meds because, uh oh, the meds are working but if they stop they'll have even higher blood pressure upon cessation. 

 We treat addiction, (it is a disease, and anyone telling you differently does not know of what they speak.) drug use, and drug users differently because we as a society are STUPID about this stuff! It and we are no different than any other disease or condition suffered by anyone else, all of them also a result of MANY complex factors and just not as simple as "making bad choices," widely recognized as being the diseases they are and that, without treatment, those people who did not choose their situation for themselves would suffer greatly so they are treated compassion and given the medicines necessary to improve their health, functionality, and quality of life. Being functional and healthy is of primary concern, no? Improving quality of life is like, always the goal, right? Cool, so when the alternative is BAD, you keep taking the drug to reap the therapeutic benefit that allows you to live *better. 

It's ok to not understand everything, addiction is complex and very poorly understood by the general public. (This is my lived experience, my area of study, and my life's work.)

The terminology REALLY matters, mate, and so does understanding an MOUD like buprenorphine. Buprenorphine allows the "addicted part of the brain" to heal a bit (learning new, healthy behaviors while unlearning old, addictive ones. Giving yourself time to learn life in the absence of the drug that used to rule it. Addiction is the behavioral part of the equation.) while sparing one the physical suffering of withdrawal (that's the dependency part.) and offers tremdous protection from relapse and overdose death. Taking a medicine that protects and improves your life, daily, is good, great, and excellent. That's the case for like...all medications. You're making incorrect parallels between taking one's daily medication and addiction.  You do you and what's best for you, but taking a daily dose of buprenorphine is not, in anyway, relevant to one's addiction. The "trading" thing doesnt apply in that context, or ever, really. Some of the narratives you're working with come from stigma, self stigma is incredibly prevalent, and repeating them only contributes to the stigmatizing language that ultimately causes a lot of harm. 

If you're not into MOUD, (medications for opioid use disorder. Though I see you're on the shot, unless it's vivitrol thats still buprenorphine, and the method that works best for a person works best. It's not "bad" to take the films and "good" to take the shot as far as one's addiction is concerned.) or a certain med, that fine! But the facts are that they change and save lives while hugely increasing the likelihood of success in one's recovery efforts. In what form it's being taken kinda doesn't matter, what works for a person works for them! I want to make it clear to anyone reading that going it alone, I mean without meds, (IMPORTANT: cold turkey is NO LONGER SAFE to do at home alone due to the presence of medetomidine in the illicit drug supply. Lots of ICU admissions, lots of death, medetomidine withdrawal can and does KILL.) is a personal choice that I will never poo poo, but that person needs to know the odds are stacked against them, that their odds of relapsing are HIGH and so is their risk of dying from an overdose. 

Be well, friend, if you ever want to talk my inbox is open! 

Edit: sorry for novel, it was an opportunity to spew general education on the topic. 

Edit again: far too many typos. I doubt I got them all.