Tom @ Recovery Help Desk talks about suboxone (subs) dos and don’ts and its controversy and a Mom agonized about finally supporting it for her son, presumably an opiate addict. Her blog is called “A Mom’s Serious Blunder”Check out the links and discussion. Suboxone like any treatment is a tool. It takes a commitment. There are many stubborn young knucklehead addicts that use it as a crutch, take sub vacations and use other opiates intermittently. They are the toughest to deal with and fuel the controversy.
your views so far!
- 116,982 site visits
Current Notices
Breaking News & NoticesCHECK OUT PAST POSTS HERE >
Addicts we lost & grieving
RECENT POSTS
- Owen
- Intentional Overdose on the Rise
- Less Drug Prosecution Coming
- AI’s Ability to Stop the “Next Fentanyl” Overdose
- Purdue Pharma Pleads Guilty
- Purdue Pharma. Guilty!
- House candidate suspends campaign overdose
- Dr. Gabor Maté – Damaged Leaders Rule An Addicted World! Russell Brand
- Jamie Lee Curtis – Opioid Addiction
- New Tucson police program will refer opioid addicts to treatment
mission statement
YOUR COMMENTS
- Bill Ford on Talking About Suboxone
- Bruce Morrison on Talking About Suboxone
- Bill Ford on Heroin Is Like Licking The Breath Of God
- Taunia on Heroin Is Like Licking The Breath Of God
- Elevation Malibu on A Dad’s Legacy
- Linda Lawrence on Jason
- Columbus Crystal Meth Anonymous - 6:30PM Friday, 1160 N. High St on Losing Someone Close to Addiction
DadOnFire 
18 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 20, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Barbara
Excellent point. My son was one of the knuckleheads, especially when he found out he could sell them. I think it would have been a huge help to him if he had given it a chance to help him.
March 2, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Holly
My daughter has been on suboxone for almost a year. My husband thinks its wrong; just another drug. I don’t know. I have four children and three of them have an addiction. I think some days she still looks high. Can anyone tell me; can you stop the suboxone? she wants to get married this summer but I worry she is not ready yet.
March 2, 2010 at 3:55 pm
dadonfire
I’ll forward this to someone who might have some information for you. People’s response to suboxone really varies on the addict and their willingness to want to get get clean.
March 2, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Keith
I got the fwd from dadonnfire, and i’m the one he said he would fwd too.
i have been on subs for over 3 years now. they have allowed me to change my life for the better. i suggest people work a recovery prog.(aa/na) along with subs. subs allow the addict to feel normal. and normal is a gift at first cause that’s why opiates have such a low recovery rate. cause when u quit, cold turkey without anything and then go on with life, you do not feel normal for up to a year or 18 months. and many people don’t know that. ur husband can sit back and talk shit all he wants. is he an addict that has been addicted to opiates? if not then he doesn’t know what he is talking about. i don’t call people in the middle of the nite for my subs, i don’t sit on the corner waiting for the dealer to come with them either. what i am getting at is subs allow you to cross the thin line from addiction to drug dependence, meaning you are dependent on subs or bupe the active ingredient in the subs. just like a diabetic is dependent upon insulin or an asthmatic is dependent on an inhaler, if u are dependent on subs you are just medicating your disease of addiction.
they allow the addictive behaviors and the past behaviors, the hurt and pain and guilt that an addict has built up to be worked on thru the steps, or a therapist or what ever way they choose to work on themselves to become a better person.
the people that do best on subs i have seen are end of the road addicts, people that have tried every other way of recovery that there is out there and have failed at it. like myself. subs were the last thing that i tried. and i have been doing good living a great productive life ever since. if you want some good resources on the med you can go to http://www.naabt.org there is a chart there on how subs work. you can give it to your husband to look at too. and if he wants to talk more smack you can give him my info and he can talk to me. cause until he has been where ur daughter has been or i have been he can’t say anything.
and if you stop the suboxone like any opiate, she will get sick. and she still looks high prob cause you tell yourself she looks high. suboxone has a ceiling effect meaning unless you try hard to get high on it, ur not gonna get high, u have to add a benzo like xanax in the mix and not take it for a few days to get any feeling on it, its very very hard cause of the properties of the bupe. if u want to talk to me more get at someone on here and i’ll talk to you. opiate addiction is a mofo to deal with and for someone to recover they have to be willing to do anything it takes.
its like my reference that i use, if you haven’t been in war shooting at other people in the military, you dont know what its like. i don’t know what its like to have a bomb go off right next to me or have people shooting at me, so i can’t go up to a vet and go man up, its BS doing that. cause i have no idea. that’s what ur husband is doing (if he hasn’t been where she has been, he may be an addict i don’t know).
people that don’t use drugs, just don’t have a clue what we go thru to get clean, i like to say they don’t even have a clue they don’t have a clue.
January 20, 2011 at 1:09 pm
kathleen Gevorkian
I could not agree with you more. Ive tried it all. And Subs is the best answer I have found for a while. I here so much negative about it. I have been on it for 2 months and I am able to live a much better life and help others instead of being on the street. Narrowed minded people would have us all out there screaming for help that just say no dosent always work. I was sober in AA for several years and I want to say that it was a great life. The very best I have known. I was a child addict of 13 shooting drugs. After 13 years of recovery I could not stop using opiate realted drugs. 20 years passed I spent over 9 years in prison and 3 years living on the streets. Several recovery centers and for what every reason I can not get that clean time back. Lots of really bad things happened out there. I wanted to kill myself because I could not meet the standers of even NA or AA any more. It has not been until I found out about s. that I have even been able to look at my self in the mirror and say you can do…I have a chance again. I am not in the streets looking for a fix. I have a sence of dignety and self respect again. The prisons are full of drug users and adusiers. It costs our state plenty and the habits you pick up in there are negative to the whole family thing. This is the first thing that has helped
March 2, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Holly
do u look high on suboxone because there are days my daughter looks clean and somedays she looks like she is taking something more than suboxone, she gets mad at me when I ask.
March 2, 2010 at 8:54 pm
dadonfire
Check out your local Al-Anon and Nar-Anon support groups. One addicted child is tough to deal with. You have three. Don’t deal with this alone.
March 4, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Holly
Thank you for this blog I need all the help I can get.
June 19, 2012 at 12:02 am
sarah
Some kids will sell their suboxone for other drugs and go back and forth between using and being on the suboxone. If she doesn’t take it for 24 hours her opiate receptors will begin to come unblocked allowing her to get high again.
March 4, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Tom at Recovery Helpdesk
Keith gave a great comment. I agree with everything he said.
I’m currently doing a series on my blog (recoveryhelpdesk.com) about methadone called 10 Things You Should Know About Methadone.
I plan to follow with a similar series about suboxone/buprenorphine.
I suggest you read the methadone series because much of it also applies to buprenorphine…including information about intoxication from the medication, why it isn’t “trading one drug for another,” and information about how long treatment should last.
You’ll also find some posts about buprenorphine.
If you would like to chat sometime, you can find me at junkjunk.ning.com It’s a social networking site for people with opiate dependence, their families and friends. It’s free, and there is a chat room there and I’m often online there in the evenings…or you will find other parents etc. to talk to.
Lot’s to learn, and it’s important for you to learn so you can help support your daughter in the best way possible.
Tom
March 4, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Tom at Recovery Helpdesk
p.s. Keith it would be great if you would join junkjunk.ning.com…you have a lot to contribute. Also, I hope you will stop by my blog and leave some comments. Maybe you would be willing to do a guest post on my blog about your experience with Suboxone? Tom
March 10, 2010 at 8:02 am
Holly
Tom
thank you for telling about junk junk alot of info, I did join the site I have not been on in the evenings yet but hope to tonight I’m looking forward to chat with others.
April 5, 2010 at 1:41 pm
madyson007
I think my son is the knucklehead too and I am so sad about it… I have given him every opportunity and every tool available and he is still relapses.
April 5, 2010 at 1:43 pm
madyson007
I am the mother from a Mom’s Serious Blunder… nothing is every easy about addiction.
January 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm
kathleen Gevorkian
I am working of my recovery while using s. and it is working on keeping my life in balance. I need most to forgive my self for being a addict. I did not chose this life. But today I can chose to live better and get a better grasp on thing and hopeful one day go off of in. But should i need it again I do not have to commint a crime and risk my like any more. As i learn to for give the way I am I would like to ask a lot of readers who see all this information and make opinions that are negative to please forgive us and your self if your recovering because the ones who are injoying a clean life free from all mind alderting drugs are the toughs ones. Maybe because you have never relapced and you think you have all the answers. Well, maybe, but could you please make room for some of us who have not injoyed such gift.
November 19, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Michelle Sands
Suboxone saved my life. I have been using drugs for over 15 years. My dad says he can tell when I take my pill because I get a burst of energy, and sometimes my eyes do look glossy. I was one of those addicts that did try everything to stop. I even managed doing drugs and taking suboxone only on the days I couldn’t get my drug. I made sure I didn’t take enough to block the effect of the opiate. But for the last year I have been taking them the way I should and I feel great. I don’t wake up sick and I have no thoughts or cravings of getting high. I love my life today, although I’m not on my feet yet due to my addiction I am clean and know that I don’t have to worry about my next fix. For people who have their doubts please research it and talk to addicts that it changed their life. And I promise you it may change your opinion. People that haven’t walked in an addicts shoes will never understand the pain we go through to try to get better. Its not easy, as much as we want to its so hard. Because it is a disease. I didn’t understand how in the beginning but I do now. Its like cancer.
March 28, 2017 at 11:04 pm
Bruce Morrison
Im on 8-2mg twice a day ! Im having my toe amputated , how long do I have to stay off the sub so pain medication will work ! My Doctor knows nothing about sub and gave me meds with codeine !
March 29, 2017 at 8:59 am
Bill Ford
Bruce, use your judgement. It’s your pain; your addiction. I trust in the power of will and if you choose to stay clean, you will know how to handle this; but no need underestimate how powerful your will to survive is. Men have been doing this for eons. We do what we have to and when we have made the mistake of going too far in the past with a substance, we can exile it from our lives and feel little or no temptation when in a place like this. Its all about your power and trust in God; god being your inner sanctity, peace and strength or your Christian god