My name is Ben, and I'm a drug addict. I guess I'll use this first post to tell you a little bit about myself. I grew up in Memphis, TN mostly. Got into a super codependent relationship as soon as I turned 18 that filled the next 6 or 7 years of my life with heavy drug and alcohol use. I spent that time leveling up like a character in a video game. Alcohol. Weed. Ecstasy. Cocaine. Prescription pills. Opiates. Then got to the final boss fight: Heroin. And I stayed stuck on that final battle for years.
My relationship fell apart. It was built on a foundation of drug use and codependency. After that happened, my dad and step mom moved to another town and I was alone in a city with nothing but a drug habit to keep me company. I thought I had bottomed out at that point. My life was a mess. I didn't have a job. I was months behind on my rent, about to be evicted. And my only friends were people that used each other as a means to get drugs or not be alone when we were fucked up. So I called dad and I asked for help. Enter the next stage of my life: Rehab.
My dad did what any loving parent would do for their kid. He found one of the best rehab centers in the country to send me off to: Hazelden. In the heart of a Minnesota winter, I was sent to a town where I didn't know any old using friends. In theory, it was a great plan. Hazelden is acclaimed as one of the most effective 12 step programs in the country. I spent 28 days there, then moved onto a 4 month halfway house program.
During my time in Hazelden, I did everything wrong. Looking back now, I see that I really wasn't ready to be sober. When I was living in Memphis I was just completely out of options. I needed a place to go and somewhere to stay, so I reached out and asked for help. That is not the same as wanting to be sober. But being the inventive and deceitful addict that I was, I found a way to fool everyone that was trying to help me into thinking that I was actually working a program and trying.
At Hazelden, the guys and girls are separated into 2 separate groups in order to discourage you from trying to get into a relationship while you're going through the battle of sobriety. I found a way around this and found what I believe to be one of the most mentally unstable women in the place to sneak around with and build another codependent relationship. I was codependent and needy and so was she. It was fake-love at first sight.
She followed me to the halfway house where we lived for 4 months. During that time, you're supposed to work a low stakes job, work a 12 step program of recovery, stay away from romantic involvements, and build a foundation for your recovery. I did the exact opposite of all of these things. I eventually jumped right back into a call center job that was toxic and stressful in an attempt to become self sufficient. I snuck out with the girl every chance I got. And I only went to enough meetings to keep my counselors satisfied. There was a lot that happened during this time, but this is the relevant stuff.
After I left the halfway house, I moved into a "3/4" house. This is an independently owned house with a group of guys in recovery all working, paying rent, being self sufficient and being drug tested randomly every so often. While I was living there, I was free to be involved with the girl. So I did that. And go figure, within a week we were both using again. I eventually got drug tested at the 3/4 house and she did at her house as well. We both got kicked out. Her involvement in this story is key because of how she was living before rehab: a train hopping hobo. I had never lived on the streets before, that was her lifestyle for many years pre-hazelden. So of course, she showed me the ropes.
We decided to live on the streets together. During that time, I truly believe that I bottomed out. I lived under a bridge with her for 4 months. It was summer now, the weather in Minnesota was warm enough to sustain outdoor living. We woke up every day and took the light rail system into downtown Minneapolis where we set up camp on the street and begged for change. We did this until we had enough money to buy our daily dose of heroin, shoot it up, and go back under our bridge to fall asleep in our tent. It was during this time that I truly believe I could have and would have died if I had stayed there any longer than I had. I got involved with some nasty people. I was treated like the scum of the earth. My family, completely perplexed, had stopped speaking to me. Not that I had any means of contacting them. But the times I did find a phone and call, not many of them answered. They were all too hurt to see me slowly kill myself.
After 4 months of this, I was tired. I had nothing and no one to go to except for a girl that was completely content living under a bridge for the rest of her life. Winter was coming up on us quickly and I needed to make a change before I died. So I sought help from a methadone clinic and a homeless shelter. And the girl followed. I began trying to live at indoor shelters and take methadone instead of getting high on heroin. I had tried a 12 step program before but it didn't work (although looking back I'm not sure that I could call what I did "trying").
My mom came to visit me in Minneapolis and took the girl and I back to her place in Des Moines for the weekend. She saw that we were trying to get sober with the resources that we had available to us, so she made me an offer: Put the girl on a bus back to Minneapolis, stay in Des Moines with her, give sobriety another try, and if I fuck up again I'm right back out on the street. So I did it. I sent the girl crying back to Minnesota. Honestly, nothing her and I ever had was real and it had only damaged both of our lives. The time had come for both of us to separate and trying and fix things individually. I knew she had family to go back to and we were toxic together. So I stayed at my moms. I went through withdrawal for about a week before realizing that I was just trying the same thing that I had tried before and it wasn't working. I was slipping quickly and if I had stayed on that path it would've all gone downhill again. So we took a new approach.
Enter: Suboxone.
My mom knew a guy that owned a methadone clinic in Des Moines. They were planning on starting a Suboxone program in 6 months, but he moved it up for me. I was and still am their first ever Suboxone patient. I went on a Suboxone maintenance program. I started working at Target. I enrolled in college for the first time at age 26. I was now in another completely new town where I didn't know anyone. But I had family there, and I think that was important and key. Family is huge, and not having it around really helped me realize that. I eventually met the true love of my life, the woman who is now my wife, while I was working at Target. I stayed off of illegal drugs. I eventually jumped back into "real" "adult" work. My wife and I got married. I got a college degree and a decent job. My wife got a kidney transplant, a college degree, and a real job. All this time, Suboxone had helped me develop healthy habits.
Enter the next phase of my life and the reason for this blog: Becoming Suboxone free. I have, over the last few years, tried many times to get off of Suboxone to no avail. The side effects of this drug have become unmanageable. The constipation. The drop in my sex drive. The need for a job with good health insurance. The constant fear of being without my Suboxone. It has thrown up road blocks in my life that I am ready to tear down. So I finally got tired of it and started on a tapering plan. I will be posting on this blog every day during and after the tapering plan.
There's a few reasons that I'm doing this. Writing is a healthy way to me to cope with the condition that I have. It feeds my soul to express what I'm going through. What also feeds my soul is to know that there are others out there who are and eventually will struggle with the same things that I am struggling with. And to know that, by me writing a daily accounting of how this feels, it might give them some idea of what to expect. Knowing that makes me happy. Because there is hope. There is the possibility to be free from these things. But it takes acceptance. It takes strength. And it takes resolve.
Acceptance is key to this because I know that I am going to feel like shit. It's just part of the process. Suboxone is an opiate and it's physically and mentally addictive. It's latched onto my body and my brain and tearing it off is going to be painful.
Strength is key to this because, when I'm feeling awful. When I'm feeling depressed, hopeless, and am physically in pain, I will need to be strong. To know that this too shall pass.
Resolve is key to this because I have to know that what I'm feeling will not last forever. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and turning back or staying at the same dose will only make it take longer for me to reach that light. And that light is eventually living without the use of an addictive substance over my head.
Suboxone is wonderful. It got me to where I am today. And I truly believe that I could not have done what I did without it. I'm just ready to be done with it. The 12 step programs are also wonderful. I learned things in Hazelden just from being there and listening that I still use today. In the end, I wont use either of these programs to stay off of drugs. My belief is that I've found a combination of these programs to work, and that works for me. Suboxone helped me get there and to learn healthy habits along the way. 12-step helped me learn about powerlessness, acceptance, and love. I have a group of addicts and family members and a counselor that I talk to for support. And that is, in effect, what the 12-step program teaches (more or less).
But I have found, the hard way, that putting myself in a room with a bunch of other newer drug addicts only gives me the opportunity to find a place to score. Maybe eventually, I'll be strong and healthy enough to go to those rooms and help those people. But for now, I find the support that I need from the people I have around me. The people that have gotten me to where I am today and who will take me to new places in the future.
I'm writing this intro retroactively on the 21st day of my tapering plan. I used a tapering calculator (which I will link below) to help calculate my 55 day tapering schedule. I have been keeping a journal day by day of my doses and how I am feeling on that particular day. I have also been seeing a counselor weekly. I will continue this blog as long as it stays relevant. My hope is that someone will find it in a time of need and it will give them some idea of what to exact and some semblance of hope that this can be done. No one is a lost cause. No one is hopeless. We are all as strong as we choose to be. All it takes to get there is a choice.
Suboxone taper calculator: