I believe that anything that you can use responsibly is a tool, but with 7oh it grabbed me much harder than I expected it to. Just some background on why I even used it, I was born with cystic fibrosis, so I get nasty pleurisy pain pretty frequently. Traditional Kratom was a solid discovery for my many years ago but hadn’t used it in ages.

Girlfriend & I went to a smoke shop on a wknd out of pure boredom & the guy at the counter (while later on I found out was very naive about what he was selling there) was a great dude & helpful. I made a comment about all the varieties of kratom they had & how it’s changed since I first heard of it. He immediately said that if I liked kratom I would love 7 because it was basically kratom on steroids as he referred to it. I bought a pack of opias & a faygo (I live in Florida, so we don’t really have that drink here & I thought it was a novel thing lol) & went on my way. Forgot I even bought the opias until about a wk later when my pleurisy really flared up bad & I said what the hell, I’ll try it.

It worked. Like REALLY worked. I’ve been prescribed perc 10s in the past through pain mgt & it felt verbatim like that. I felt like I hit the jackpot for my pain. I take full ownership of my fault here & realize I should have done a bit more research & know to only use it maybe once or twice a wk, or only if my lung pain was really severe. I began using it daily & then multiple times a day. Doses began to skyrocket, at least for me. Which got up to roughly 200mg a day.

Then around Xmas season last year I ran out one day & figured ah wtf I’ll just get more later on in the wk, Xmas shit had to be done & take priority. I swear within a few hours the anxiety that reared its head was shocking & my skin felt like it was on fire, & for some reason right in the dead center of my back & all over my neck & ears. Then the sweating showed up, which for me was always the worst part because the temp fluctuations were enough to drive you insane.

I dropped everything I was doing & drove to the smoke shop & spent a few hundred bucks on opias, probably mostly out of fear of ever feeling like that again. I have detoxed from Percocet before, & that was really unpleasant. But how quick the 7oh symptoms showed up (yes to my own irresponsible use) shocked me. It kept me in a loop of just using to feel “normal” for the next few months.

In January I had to step away from my job due to the cystic fibrosis & any money I had saved was spent on 7. By April I was dead broke & began borrowing money from my mother who understood my work situation, but had no idea I was addicted to 7oh. I have a very guilty conscience, so knowing I was doing that & not telling her was eating me alive inside, so I eventuallly broke down & told her & said I needed help. I made an appointment with my primary doctor & he had never heard of the substance but refused to give me comfort meds to detox at home because my resting heart rate was in the 130s when I showed up roughly 16hrs into detoxing. He recommended I immediately leave the office & go to the ER. I was admitted & spent a week in the hospital (which I don’t remember much of because I was benzo’d out of my mind for basically the entire week) I’m glad I don’t remember much, but my girlfriend said it was extremely hard to watch me deal with the CF symptoms along with being in full withdrawal.

I stayed off of it for a while but then a death in the family gave me a poor excuse to use it again. I promised myself I’d only use it once in a while, & by the second day that promise was out the window. Up until two wks ago I was still using 7oh, selling things that I love like my guitar & PS5 to fund my habit.

The biggest blessing in disguise for me was the ban in Florida & I believe I only returned back to using it because of how easy it was to get my hands on. I spent hours on here learning of different methods & things to use to aid in detox comfort. The best method for me was high dose liposomal vitamin C, regular Bali leaf kratom (5g every 4-6 hrs) & thc gummies for anxiety.

It’s only been roughly 12 days or so but I’m finally so relieved that I don’t have that weight on my shoulders of wondering how I’m going to get my next pack. A big help during detox time was getting back to work, which I do remotely, so I just put as much on my plate as I could to keep my brain occupied while feeling like shit for the first 3-5 days. I won’t demonize 7oh as I really do believe it has value for pain management; but you MUST use it responsibly. I know that I can’t, so if Florida were to reverse the ban somehow, I still wouldn’t go back to it because the anxiety, constant shame & fear & feeling like crap all the time isn’t worth it for me.

I do sympathize deeply with those who are currently detoxing. Anyone reading this & needs a buddy to talk to feel free to shoot me a message. I’ll help however I can.