In Recovery From Opiate Addiction.

Most of my story is over at the BPD forum, but just to share about my previous opiate addiction...

I was an addict for 7 years. Opiates never made me high. They evened me out per se. I have many psychiatric disorders and opiates were the only thing that kept them at bay (sometimes).

I have overdosed because my tolerance quickly grew. However, it wasn't an overdose I did on purpose. That is when I went (the first time) to try to detox. The ER I went to sent me away saying they couldn't help me. They sent me away with more lortabs.

I was taking around 20 vicodin/lortab mixed with ultram per day, off and on for 7 years. They pretty much became my life. They were me.

I decided once more to get off the drugs January 17, 2009. I went through pure hell. My mother came to get me because I thought that I should be on methadone. I went into the methadone clinic because I wanted to be dosed. My skin was crawling, I was sweating through my clothes (it was freezing out), I was vomiting, and I haven't eaten in 2 days. (I had been off the opiates for 2 days now)

They refused to treat me. Saying that I needed to do intake, and this and that, and that they would see me the next day. I told that it was unacceptable, that I was literally going to kill myself if I went through this another night. So I went to the bathroom and vomited. But I woke up with paramedics around me. They said I had a seizure, on that d*** methadone bathroom floor. I remember when I was woken, I had so much foam on my face. It was a nightmare. They wouldn't allow for my mom to take me to the ER, they took me by ambulance.

I got there and they treated me with clonidine, phenobarbital, and compazine. (Which I am allergic too) That made it worse but my mother didn't think to tell them no compazine or phenegran. I laid in that bed for 7 hours ******* and having "seizure" like fits. The doc said that he gave me the maximum amount of phenobarbital, enough to knock out three people. Didn't touch me.

They finally released me and sent me home with a RX for more clonidine and phenobarbital. That helped a lot with the physical withdrawals, but nothing could touch the mental part.

Now, it's been 90 days. I have a sponsor and I am opiate free. It's hard to believe it, but it's so surreal. Now my battles are with my psychiatric disorders. More fighting to get through. My sponsor says I am a newborn to the sober world, that it is going to take some time to figure out "who" I am. Whoever that may be.