Taper your dose when quitting?

[rhudson]

Have any of you detoxed off heroin simply by tapering off? I'm really surprised everyone seems to be simply quitting cold turkey when with some will power it is possible to attenuate the withdrawal symptoms a lot simply by tapering off slowly. I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts on this...

[fiveleggedrat]

Tapering is a very good method of quiting. Many people cannot muster the willpower to kick a full blown addiction cold turkey without getting outside help, detox help, etc.

Tapering is highly recommended for any drug that can produce physical problems. Having the brain acclimate to reduced doses is FAR more pleasant than completely cutting off the supply of said doses.

Personally, Swim would taper off if he had a physical addiction. Far easier to set those type of goals and stick to them rather than big, drastic changes like cold turkey.

Also, not sure if you searched before you posted or not, but Swim is sure this has been covered elsewhere. Please make sure to search before making posts

[Richard_smoker]

yeah, i agree with all that Rat said, but tbh, heroin is a different bird than pills...you still have the whole ritual of shooting up and all...i would think that you MIGHT be better off converting addictions to something longer lasting (like methadone) and then **most important part** start weaning yourself off the pill.

that's the only proven method besides cold turkey that will actually work. and i'd say that it going to require that you muster the EXACT same level of dedication to quitting! nothing will be 'easy' especially if you let yourself change your mind too many times before you get serious about it.
-DICK

[fiveleggedrat]

Yeah, IV addictions are of a whole different class.

Swim was thinking oral/snorted heroin.

[sbt8080]

SWIM has never been addicted to heroin, but he has been addicted to pills (oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine) and poppy pods before.

Tapering is always a great idea, but unfortunately it is very difficult for a lot of people - perhaps even more difficult than going cold turkey - because it requires so much willpower to be executed effectively.

SWIM could always find an excuse to take "just a few more pills just this once." The result was a continued full-blown habit as long as SWIM continued using. It is a psychological thing... quitting, at least for SWIM, is all or nothing. There is no such thing as moderation. If SWIM intends to quit, then he has to throw away the rest of his supply and be done.

Of course, different methods work for different people, so I am not saying that tapering won't work for anyone. However, for some people such as SWIM, it is simply not an option.

[JaWill88]

a taper is definately a good theory. swim just wonders exactly how much it would reduce the withdrawal symptoms. he never did it on heroin but is on suboxone now and has been for a couple years. anyways the problem with tapering heroin is the unreliability as in potency and weighing out exactly the right dose for the taper ect. but yeah the pills could work once again in theory. but even on the pills swim never wants to actually reduce his dose cause he is comfortable. and if he reduces, he won't be comfortable. as mentioned, it's highly psycological. in fact the only time swim got down to a low dose on suboxone he was forced. he was taking 16mg then was not able to get them for financial reasons, got really sick, then only needed 8. then the same thing happened again for like a week and a half and finally got them and only needed 2mg. so swim would definately like to hear from anybody who had the will power to taper or is tapering off methadone/suboxone/heroin/whatever

Reputation Comments on this post:

yes, i've also heard this is a common problem with tapering from heroin.

[beena]

^ yep, SWIMs drug-worker also told her that the trouble with tapering with heroin is that it is impossible to know the correct potency/purity of an individual batch - but it could work in theory - especially if a person has a reliable dealer (lol, well as reliable as any of them are!), who they can get from regularly (so can stick to the same dealer, not have to shop around) and whose product is generally consistant.
SWIM went on methadone and was still using heroin sporadically whilst on a script so decided to deal with both by coming off them via use of morphine pills (MST - which, thankfully and luckily SWIM can/did have a ready supply of). Yesterday was one month since SWIM last took methadone and three weeks since she last took heroin.

[Junkhead23]

Yes the problem with tapering is that Heroin constantly changes batches almost ever few days so SWIY could never be sure of the purity unfortunately.

[Psych0naut]

^^^^ Hmmmm, SWIM really thinks that depends on one's connections(dealers). In some countries and regions, it is indeed never reliable, and purity changes daily, even the dealers one get's his/her dope from. But SWIM hardly sees much difference in purity among his dealers, it's nearly completely the same, and never changes in purity or concistency.