Question by theheatheatwave: Should I go on suboxone for a poppy tea addiction?
I am addicted to poppy tea. I take 8-14 grams of powdered poppy pods a day. This is equivalent to about 18 mg of Oxy a day— though I do not take oxy as it make me feel too swimmy and I don’t like to buy things on the street that might be stolen/fake. When I take less than 8 mg of poppy powder I have withdraws: nightmares, sweating, very painful tummy like being stuck with knives, sore joints, crankiness, suicidal thoughts (I know better than to act on them, of course), depression, no appetite, feeling worn-out and unable to work or care for myself. (Even taking a bath sounds like too much work.) I have tried to quit *three* times twice on my own and once with my husband’s help through a slow taper. But, when I get down to the low levels around 6-5mg a day, the withdraws just seem to keep building then stress from work makes me snap and I give in to the desire to take more poppy powder to make the withdraws go away so I can get my work done. (That’s what I tell myself.. but deep inside I just feel weak and like a failure.)

This has been going on for 7 months and I’ve had enough. I want to get clean. I want to have a kid some day, to travel to places like China, I’m a long distance runner and my training has not been good. (My addition traces back to pain meds I was given after a car accident last year… after I used all of the meds I was desperate for something else like the pain meds to make my depression about not being able to run go away.) I’m back to running now, I ran 3 miles today and it was good– so, really why do I still take this drug? It’s time consuming, and some of the time I get the dose wrong and end up sick– or if I forget it I could have withdraws at work which SUCKS.

SO HERE IS MY QUESTION. I have an appointment with an addition specialist to see about going on suboxone as a stepping stone to getting off the poppys. But ,I have read online in many forums (drugs dot com for example) that suboxone is addictive and VERY hard to quit. So, this “treatment” might make things worse for me. I am not taking huge amounts of poppy and my life is not at risk from it. I don’t need to do dangerous injection or buy my drugs on the street. It is also not very expensive. So is suboxone a good idea for me? Or should I give all of my drugs to my husband. Have him buy a SAFE (this time) and go for the taper again.. this time extra slow … I even have a digital scale to make it precise…

I can’t make up my mind.

I also worry about stressing out my husband. It’s not his fault that I got in to this so why should he have to clean up for me? That’s one reason I Iike the idea of going to a doctor and suboxone. He is very supportive of whatever I want but I want to respect him and not be like those drug addicts I have read about who hurt their loved one. So, what should I do?

Best answer:

Answer by Mer
Well suboxone can be addictive mostly if you inject(as I too have read online), and it prevents withdrawal syndromes. However suboxone itself only gets you “high” if you don’t have a tolerance(and you do from the poppies) so it wouldn’t give you the same high but you wouldn’t feel the withdrawal symptoms as hard. I’ve taken suboxone but have no dependence as an experiment and it’s pretty strong(2mg), so you probably will be prescribed a dosage a bit bigger. But nothing compared to the grams of poppies you ingest, so this medication will do less harm on your insides seeing as that you will most like get a 5-10mg prescription.

My older sister was prescribed it after rehab for Oxycontin and it helped her, but eventually she did relapse on Oxycontin. But she didn’t have much support, so if your husband is really supportive I’d so go for it 🙂
And eventually they ween you off the suboxone.

Best of luck.
p.s. if you do try to taper down what if you relapse? or worse move onto harder drugs like oxycontin?

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