Forums › Drugs › Drug Addiction & Recovery › My boyfriend is a Heroin Addict…
hi alina
:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug
sorry you are having a hard time of it sunshine
we are back to that bit where however much we love them you cant make them do it – they have to do it for themselves or it doesnt mean anything :hopeless:
you are right to come and let off steam – its much better to talk about it than to bottle it up and you are gaining experience in problems which will serve you in good stead in later life [regardless of the outcome of this]
please realise that he is the only one to blame if it doesnt work – you can light the path but only he can choose to walk it
i hope he gets a grip on himself but in the meantime maybe you should back of a bit and gain a bit of detachment from the problem
[it might be what brings him to his sense too; i would not want to alienate you if you were my GF:love:
i think it takes real balls to try to help some one with this kind of problem and i am hugely impressed at the caring you have shown him in this difficult time – many people would have fled at the first sign of the problem
dont ever let anyone tell you that caring like this is wrong but always take the time to extend to yourself the love you show to others – you are very special and well worthy of that love
:love::love::love::love:
raj
you know where to find me if you want me:love:
raj youre fuckin awesome,
well said.
alina
well well well, its been a super long week and a lot of shit went down… so dont hold your breath while reading this…
so my friend was self medicating himself with methadone right, he tried to slow it down and ease off, but soon after 3 weeks, realized he couldnt! he got big, and said he wants to prove to everyone that hes serious and wants to quit, and enrolled himself into detox. very well done, but this was monday and detox couldnt take him until thursday. they also said that if he was to stop taking the methadone and do heroin for the 4 days, he would be better off and would not have to stay for 21 days, only 10. so mr addict for the first time was able to do heroin, which was accepted! he found out the hard way that it wouldnt be so pleasureable, as he was coming off of the methadone and was basically withdrawaling on top of sorta being high for a bit.
thursday rolls around, and he goes like a good boy to detox, i was very proud of him.
unfortunately he lied to them so he wouldnt stay longer than needed (at 600 USD a day, he felt bad for his mom’s pockets), so they ended up giving him dosages for heroin, not methadone. he felt awful super fast, and the medicine was just not working for him. well today, saturday evening, he called me and was flipping out, it hurt so bad, they wouldnt give him more meds. i called on his moms behalf who basically had a heart attack because of the whole nights ordeal. they said they administered more, enough to knock down 3 ginormous men, but not jessie!
he called me and his mom and many other people, and begged to be picked up so he could go do heroin, that this place was not working, he hated it and had to get out of there! i thought i was doing the right thing, well at least for myself, not to pick him up, so i didnt, i gave him my love and said dont kill yourself.
i warned his mom to lock the door and not let him in, but she called the detox center and they said HE HADNT LEFT AND THAT I WAS HIGH!!! what an insult, sorry no offense.. so to her surprise he comes running in,drops off his bag, runs to his room to grab a guitar to pawn i dunno broke something, police were there already cus she had callled them to pick her up for the hospital, i dont know, she was hard to undersrtand, flipping out herself.
he leaves and calls me and was like i told you i was gonna leave, gezus.
anyway his plan now, is to continue to do heroin, until the methadone is all gone. heroin medication is much more comfortable than the shit they gave him at detox! once the methadone is gone, he will give himself urine tests, the will either detox for heroin or do cold turkey…
i applaud him for trying, and understand methadone is a lot harder to come off. how does this all sound to you? pretty crazy to me. i dont know what to say to him really. i told his mom to cut him off, but i guess if hes still trying thats not too fair yet. anyone have any opinions or suggestions?
i just wonder how long its going to take to detox from a 3 week methadone habit at around 50mgs and less a day?
anyway thanks for reading,
its good to spill out to people who wont keep telling me im crazy!
alina:hopeless:
hey alina
:group_hug :group_hug :group_hug
how are you holding up there?
sounds like this is being really tough on you – having to tell his mum the brutal truth so often when she doesnt really want to hear it [respect for keeping at it :weee: – not many would have hung in there as long as this – just remember to take care of yourself too please:love: :love: ]
so the light is now dawning for him that this a really serious problem:hopeless:
never a nice moment in anyone’s life to realise that the drugs are in control and not you:hopeless:
i agree with you though – he is not going about it very sensibly – he needs to sit down and make a clear and detailed plan and stick to it otherwise get his mum to put him back in detox and leave him there until he is clean [they are used to all the excuses – they have heard them all i am sure]:you_smart
at this point he now realises he has a problem which is good but will try and ignore it if allowed to TBH it is time for his mum to get tough now if she wants to see him be normal anytime soon:hopeless:
it is not that i dont have every sympathy with how crap he feels – withdrawls are very brutal when he has been taking enough to need that much medication – no two ways about it
but still he needs someone, preferably not emotionally involved with him, to whom he needs to explain himself and who holds him to the reduction plan who he cant manipulate into letting him get his own way [he will almost certainly try this – he would be exceptional if he did not try it]
which is why detox clinics exist in the first place; to remove this strain from the families of the users and to give the counsellors a slightly detached viewpoint from which to deal with the problem; mind you i am not hugely impressed with that clinics lack of transperancy about the fact he had run away:you_crazy thats pretty useless
the problem with having him out of the clinic is that he would need to be constantly supervised to make sure he is not sneaking extra heroin which is no fun for anyone and with street drugs you are never 100% sure of the strength of what you are getting so there is no real way of assessing the dosage he is getting – this is a major problem in a reduction plan – sounds like his opiate use was very high indeed as well
sorry i cant be as much help as i’d like to be here
:group_hug :group_hug :group_hug :group_hug :group_hug :group_hug
i am here if you want me:love: :love: :love:
please keep coming back and letting off steam – bottling this up is going to hurt you – we are always here for you to come and do so:love: :love: :love:
all the best
raj
Sorry to sound awful Alina but your BF is just going round in circles ATM. He needs to STOP making excuses ‘for going back to H’. If I was him and he seriously wanted to get his life back I would first of all stabilize on a suitable methadone dose and then when he can taper down to 30mils he can then switch over to subutex (or suboxone in the States). Do some research on sub on the net and I’m sure in the long run this will definitely be the best option. Forget about rapid detox methods in your BF’s case because it’s quite clear to see that he still wants to use H as a drug of choice. I’m sorry for being so blunt but all I keep reading in your BF’s case is a plethora of excuses. IF he seriously wants to quit heroin then first of all he needs to stabilize his life on a substitute, which initially should be methadone and then onto sub, which works as a partial agonist (the H wont fully work). When he stops craving for H that’s when he can start detoxing. Send him my regards as I fully understand what he’s going through. But it can be done if he WANTS to quit.
PLUR. Stephen.:love:
Maybe i didnt say this right.. but his problem now is because he was self medicating himself with methadone, he is addicted to it. he doesnt crave it at all, but when he went to detox, he could feel the methadone leaving his body, and it was “horrible”. he lied to them there because only wanted to stay for 10 days instead of 21. but it started to hurt so bad, he told them, and then they gave him more dosages, but nothing worked. he felt SO MUCH PAIN??? i dont understand. i called the place so many times and said can you give him all possible so he doesnt run away, and they said they gave him enough, he couldnt take it and left. basically, he thinks he needs to do heroin until that methadone leaves his bones, because methadone takes forever to come out, he believes its all the methadone, not the heroin. he talked to an X addict whos been clean for 20 years, goes to the meetings every day, and he said youre right. you need to get the methadone out first, and then get rid of the heroin. doing it double would be death.. why couldnt the detox place do this for him though?!?! i called them and said one last time hes going to leave, he told me hes at the door, then i called his mom, his mom then called an said he did not leave and I WAS HIGH. but in reality he fucking left, so they lied???? they also said when i asked to give him more dosages, that HE NEEDS TO SHUT THE FUCK UP, wow that was professional? its insane, im so confused. but yes i am not has half as worried about him dying as his mom is, she almost had a heart attack yesterday. i was the calm one, he hasnt taken over my life and that wont happen, im just going to be there to mediate. im going to give him that second chance, hes gotta get rid of the methadone for sure. i just cant understand why this highly acclaimed place couldnt hold him down?!? i feel like he was cheated this time, but becaue of the way he handled this situation, nothing can go his way anymore.:yakk:
hey alina:love:
i am going to get stuck right into this:love:
TBH the detox clinic relys on him telling them the whole truth about what he has been taking and in this he fouled his chances up good by lying to them about how much he was on:hopeless: it is impossible to treat effectively if opiate abuse level is mis-represented
its very possible that had they known about the total opiate abuse they might have handled his medication a bit differently and maybe considered other options particularly as he was apparently mixing opiates
i am not defending the clinic here – i am not much impressed by what they seem to have done – but they were off to an extremely bad start when he didnt fess up truthfully about the amount he was doing:you_crazy and their handling of the situation does not appeared to have helped much
:hopeless:
all this stuff you have told us would lead me to conclude that he is not really one hundred percent on board with the severity of his problem and, to get him off it, this will have to change.
he appears to still think that he can get a handle on it all by himself and do it his way; this will also have to change for him to get better as he will require support from professionals and those who love him to get through this – it can be done alone but people who can do it alone would generally not be in this bad a mess [they would have gone woah what am i doing here before this point]
he would also appear to be cherry picking the stuff he likes out of the information he is being offered – again this can be a symptom of an inadequate understanding of what a mess he has got himself into and how difficult it may be to get clean again [or more cynically it would be seen as a refusal to see what he doesnt like and only do what appeals to him]
WRT the pain, it will be physical and psychological – the mind aggravates the real symptoms and this makes him think about them and that makes it worse again:hopeless: and its a vicious circle spiralling downward
the clinical reason for using methadone is that you cannot get a heroin prescription in most countries even though it is less toxic. In the planned reduction of opiates it is vital to know exactly how much is being taken every day and this is not possible with street drugs – purity varies enourmously from one batch to another. Hence the use of methadone which is available on prescription and allows accurate knowledge of how much is being used.
It is fairly pointless to get bogged down in the pros and cons of methadone vs heroin – to be able to stabilise opiate addiction levels you need to be able to dose precisely and that leaves you with methadone. And it needs to be only methadone – mixing it with heroin does not help in anyway and anyone who kidded him on that this was a viable solution needs their ass kicking into touch:you_crazy:you_crazy:you_crazy:you_crazy
he needs some kind of professional support to help him get through this as quickly as possible – are there any other options available to him other than detox clinic? please let me know so we can discuss them with you:weee:
sorry to have been so blunt here but there was no nice way of saying this
:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug
please take care of yourself and put yourself first – you will be better able to help him if you do:love::love::love:
and if it all gets too much step back from the situation and get some perspective on the problem
you know where we are if you need us
:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug
Hi Everyone,
Apologies for not being able to put my pennies worth in sooner.
You can never change a person.
The person who wants to change has to do it for themselves.
You can never make anyone give up anything.
The person has to give up for themselves.
If the person does not want to give up then I suggest you have little part to do with this person and just support them when they are going to make progress.
My familly did the same to me and I had to make a conscious decision to give up gear. But all the times I tried I did it for other people which I always failed.
I hope that he does make the right decision to come off but they have to do it when it suits them. Normally when you hit rock bottom.
PLUR
Elliot_e_babes
Well I dont know what to say: My bf was a junkie he told me it was valium and I believed him even took hin away to get clean. mnths after i thought i would have a little toot (this was a heroin substitute and onlty addictive if u used to do H) He still didnt tell me wot it was even after 8 mnths in the end a neighbour told me.That was the same day I went on to needles.
Seems like you hav given him loads of chances if he loves you he will stay clean but if he wont you should leave him. you cant say his habit is to strong coz i’m getting clean for my little boy Because I love him. If you give him no option you will find out.
But again I have a 20ml methodone script my mum has taken me out of my flat and area and I am staying with her. Not every one has that.
Well done sweetness and respect to your mum for being there for you
:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug
Get clean for you and your little boyraaaraaaraaa
If you want us we are here for you
:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug:group_hug
if he is willing to try ibogaine you may consider that. I know where to obtain 98% pure ibogaine but it would probabily be better to do it with pros on the subject.
A good friend of mine was a heroin addict and he went into a high security rehAB centre for 7 days and was sedated whilst going through “cold turkey”. When he was finished there he went and had an implant, which was done in an operating theatre under anaesthetic. This costs around £3000 for the whole thing, but in the long run its a good investment in your future with this man. The implant is places under the skin of the stomach and contains tablets which means when the person takes heroin, they become violently sick and do not feel the effects of heroin, making them ween off the drug. My friend had abombinated his 7 year addiction in 2 weeks! he is now very sociable and is out with friends every night! he is a completely different person, he even appears to be healthier, much more full of life and generally a nicer person. Before he would isolate himself in his room and smoke heroin all day long…not anymore tho! im sure you can find details of the implant treatment by searching google! hope ive helped a little, danielle x
I need ADVICE
So it started in 04 when i met him, he was so cute, awesome, fun, like a little kid, he was 25 and i was 19. I met him one night through mutual friends who warned me about him. i noticed he had beads around his neck, i asked if they meant anything he said he was a recovering addict. Well little naive me was just like oh, so hes recovering, that means hes all better, yay. well i had no idea what heroin was about, i am a recreational pot smoker and never met anyone who was addicted to anything but pot. so we dated, and had a great time. he is a good person inside and wouldnt hurt a soul. well i started to notice that he was acting funny sometimes, like almost falling asleep at random moments, shutting his eyes and opening them for a bit???? i noticed there were red scabs on his shoulders and scars from scratch marks??? itchy much?? his mom told me he was on it again but he didnt want to tell me, i asked him so many times but he swore he wasnt. i broke up with him when i found out, although he said he was going to get help.
but after 2 weeks i couldnt bear to not see him, i fell in love with this guy soo quickly… well he became an asshole and was aweful, i saw him one night out and was just horrible, but i could tell he was high, so i didnt hold it against him, it just really hurt for a while.
i ran into him one night after he got out of rehab, he said he missed me and of course i could not resist. he wanted to hang out so bad, we talked on the phone and made plans, but he just didnt show up, i didnt see him for the whole summer after that and just thought about him all the time.
i ended up calling him on his birthday that september. we started dating again after we talked and he told me he had been clean after going to rehab, he was just afraid to be with me or hurt me again. we dated until i left to leave the country in jan of this year, so this is where i need the help……..
i returned this mid summer, we kept in touch a bit and couldnt wait to see each other. i called him and he seemed dull sounding and wasnt as excited as i was to see him!! this hurt, but whatever, he had some excuse for being tired o well. he hung out and have been for the past couple weeks. NOW like 2 times ive noticed the sleepy thing he does, he looks flushed and his face is sweaty, he blinks slow, in the car the other day he shut his eyes while driving and looked like falling asleep. i yelled at him, he was like what! im just tired. but yeah right, no one does that?? his mom told me this morning that he has the scabs on his arms again, i saw a brand new one yesterday and am totally freaking out again, his sex drive is kind of low, and when we do make it, it takes forevvvverrr for him to get off.. i just got so tired one night so i was like do it yourself, he said he couldnt, he cant turn himself on??
I love him so much, and have loved him since 04, he did the rehab thing, but i know he needs to do it again now or needs some type of mentoring. he doesnt go to any meetings during the week and doesnt take meds. one big problem though is that he lies to everyone, his family, friends, and ME, but not his one drug addict friend!! i just wish he would be truthful with me, i love him unconditionally, i just dont know what to do anymore. i feel as if he hates it that i dont trust him and i keep asking him… theres no way of catching him, hes so clean about it, but i dont want to catch him, i dont know what i want.
i just want to be there for him….
please leave any advice, addicts who had relationships, please let me know how i can make him open up to me, and his problem! i cant tell if hes lying to everyone just so they dont find out, or if hes lying to himself. i just dont think he wants anyone to realize hes failed again. how do i even have this conversation with him when he denies me?
– Lu
In response to every bodys posts….
The implant the previous poster is talking about is called naltrexalone. Its a full opiode antagonist, which means it completely blocks the effects of ANY opiate (including any opiate based painkillers)
Yes, it sounds like your bf is in a very destructive cycle. Methadone has its pros and cons, its a very potent opiate and dependance is formed very quickly. It is a lot harder to come off as it has a half life of around 48 hours, therefore it takes four days for the last dose to come out of your system. After that your body has to begin the process of recovery, re-building neuropathic pathways, producing its own dopamine, seratonin and noradrenaline (which can take months and years for long term users, the dreaded PAWS) Its a long process.
I was a heroin and methadone addict for ten years, I eventually became so sick of it all (I was ready) and I stopped. I weaned myself down over the course of two years from 120mls of methadone to 10mls. It was hard, painful, depressing but I did it. I then swapped to subutex (buprenorphine, a partial opiate agonist/antagonist), stabilized on that and weaned down to a tiny dose before stopping three weeks ago.
It can be done, but it has to be done right, with determination, support and the right medical treatment.
Your boyfriend NEEDS to be stabilized, methadone would be his best option im afraid. Methadone gives you time to prepare for the withdrawl.
If you need any advice im happy to IM with you or even speak on the phone if things are bad.
My best wishes, you are both in my prayers
Gary x
Ok, so you asked for any suggestions etc….
heres myne which is kind of repeating itself over and over again….
On your own (the addicted person) is in simple terms….
F***kd….
Support is the only option to get Clean and more importantly STAY clean….
There are a number of support groups, etc (FREE)and im sure they have already listed them on here back in the mists of the thread.
Sometimes the truth in black and white is alot easier to digest.
In my expirience, my peers did not get off Herion or methadone or the countless other narcotics they were all using and prescribed, on their OWN.
It takes hard work, determination, and digging deep. And if people could do it successfully on there own then there wouldnt be a thing called “6-month rehab” 12-week Day programs, 90meetings in 90 days.
Good luck to those who can, for my friends It was different they had to drop their ego, get humble and admit they was beat. They also needed the ones who loved them to do the same, and take the support that was offered and stop Enabeling their madness.
Take care of yourself and set an example.
My morning devotion will be to all who are suffering. Good luck.
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Forums › Drugs › Drug Addiction & Recovery › My boyfriend is a Heroin Addict…
