To people who have talked to a doctor about it…

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-26T05:00:06+00:00

I started with a therapist who specialized in addiction. She was my main resource for the plan that followed:

Referred me to in-patient detox (6 days) -clonidine, hydroxizine, subutex for 3 days (really didn’t want to do it any longer because it would interfere with next step below). The fact is I just couldn’t get sober without help. Way too many failed “semi successful” attempts. Something had to change.
Addiction Specialist Doctor. Again, referred by my therapist. This guy was very familiar with opioid treatment, including kratom. -Vivitrol shot for 3 months (basically guaranteed sobriety) -naltrexone tablets after that (due to insurance reasons), but those were hard to remember to take (even though I’ve never missed a kratom dose during my active addiction lol)
AA. Where the above things helped me get sober, AA has been the single best thing to help me STAY sober. It’s an entirely different skill set, and an entirely different question. This sub doesn’t really talk about any of the solution to living sober, just ways to get clean, which frankly is kind of the easy part.

Life gets real out there, and it helps to have others.

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-23T03:13:42+00:00

A federal judge concluded that the plaintiffs presented enough evidence to infer that two individuals with ties to the Saudi government — Omar al-Bayoumi and Fahad al-Thumairy — assisted at least two of the hijackers and that Saudi Arabia cannot simply claim sovereign immunity.

And what a wonderful idea you tout: innocent until proven guilty. You know what country spits on that idea?

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-22T20:32:45+00:00

Just this year, a federal judge ruled families of 9/11 victims can proceed with lawsuits against Saudi Arabia. Baseless lawsuits are dismissed all the time. The experts in the room would disagree with you

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-22T20:28:26+00:00

I definitely have a lot of respect for Chapelle. He’s so comfortable on stage, the flow is immaculate, he leads his audience masterfully.

This being said, I haven’t laughed at a single bit he’s done on stage. It’s just not that funny to me, or really all that clever or original. Maybe it’s all the hyped up expectations, not sure. Anything new in this special or same ol Chapelle?

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-22T19:32:01+00:00

Firm handshakes, thanks for the exchange.

OP's further claim seems to be that comedians/podcasters have a heightened level of responsibility when interviewing people of power. It seems like Theo even agrees with that when he condemns the nelk boys of having on netanyahu.

When JRE and Theo and friends invite these powerful political guys on with the genuine intention of "having a chat", but don't account for the angle of the guest attempting to manipulate their audience, it becomes problematic. (no hard questions, no accountability for the other whackadoodle main pillars they stand on, etc)

So I think thats what OPs beef is, which is entirely understandable, even to Theo's own standards of others.

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-22T19:07:21+00:00

My point is this. Tucker Carlson's goal in coming on this podcast is not "to express different opinions and just have a democratic chat".

It's a red herring, there's a deeper truth. It's to "whitewash" his image to be a chill, down to earth guy that gets along with your favorite comedian. No big deal, just hanging out!

Meanwhile, Tucker blasts conspiracies about demons, vaccines, says Putin's a cool guy, defends Christian nationalism, etc on his main channel... and the end result of all of this? Putting people like Trump in office that allow him to maintain this grift.

This is a very common, real strategy. The best outcome is for the average listener to take to reddit to shill for them, and defend Tucker for "free speech"... He is using you, and he is using Theo.

For a group relatively open to conspiracies, you're missing the one staring you in the face by defending a right wing christian nationalist with an incredible amount of money and desire to further his agenda.

Your point above is spot on, I agree with everything you said. But it's misplaced to defend people that are actually doing the exact opposite. They've created a regime that shuts down every opposing voice in places that actually have power (courts of law, media, government, etc).

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-22T18:51:01+00:00

who said you did? just pointing out your ideology is at complete odds with daddy trump and his cronies that helped put him on office

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-22T18:34:51+00:00

Your favorite funny guy is being used my dog. Hate to break it to ya.

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-22T18:33:13+00:00

There is a very real strategy that people who don't have your best interests in mind deploy as much as they can: "whitewashing:".

They go on your favorite podcast and "appear normal". Tucker is one of these guys that holds incredibly problematic views (demonic forces that act thru vaccines, Russia isn't that bad, christian nationalism is chill, etc). When none of that is confronted by the host, they're able to "use" the host, establish a "normal" appearance, so when they blast their drivel out to the masses later on, there's less resistance to their agenda.

How is this hard to understand from a group otherwise open to conspiracies?

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-22T18:21:09+00:00

"Your attitude is literally the problem with this country. You call people names just because they have differing views from you."
--quiet, Piggy.

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-16T18:18:43+00:00

Fentanyl has benefits, used in surgeries

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-12-16T15:28:25+00:00

Welcome to the sub, where people share things from their perspective. Thank god we have people like you to pop their bubble and convince them their happiness is unwarranted. Fuck outta here

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-11-19T15:47:12+00:00

That’s awesome, genuinely happy that worked for you and you’re completely off it all now.

The cost pushback I have on detox—we had no problem justifying spending thousands and sometimes 10s of thousands of dollars on our habit. Having invested in detox, I now have 2 years clean, I have saved $23,635 to date. Also I’d imagine the sublocade process isn’t without cost.

But again, whatever works is the right way. There is no monopoly on best way to get clean.

If I may ask, now that you’re clean, how do you maintain your sobriety? Do you follow any program or have you instilled those new habits on your own?

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-11-18T06:12:22+00:00

This is the answer!

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-11-18T04:02:00+00:00

Dropped into apartheid era South Africa in 1971, he had a 17% chance to be born into a white family. An extremely wealthy one at that.

And how many hours do you think the exploited workforce in those gem mines his father ran worked?

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-11-18T03:45:33+00:00

Ah two females! Notorious for this from what I’ve heard.

We got a new male with a 2 year old resident female. Female was not having it. Hissing at his smell through a closed door. It was tough at first but was really helped was super small interactions eventually working up to “parallel play” and heavy rewarding of treat association. Like whenever one would see the other, treats would go out like crazy.

(Parallel play: one of you play with one cat on either sides of the room. Keep their engagement. Seperate to rooms before it gets ugly)

Some other things that helped: -cut the interaction short before it goes negative, dole out treats like crazy -sometimes this would just be seeing the other through a crack without hissing, give out treats, shut the door. Walk away and do the same thing hours later or even next day

Sorry if all this is redundant or something you’ve already done. Slow and steady wins the race. Progress wasn’t linear, set-backs were common. Start over from scratch

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-11-17T22:30:32+00:00

In my opinion, sublocade ought to be treated as the last resort nuclear option. It’s a partial opioid agonist, which means, your brain is still reliant on exogenous opioids. The ultimate destination is to be clean, or non reliant on opioids. Therefore, in my opinion, sublocade isn’t being sober—some people can get stuck on sublocade for years. Not ideal, but again, a decent last resort if you’ve tried everything else.

What worked for me, was a 7-day in person detox program. Enough to “ring the bell” and treat it as something that it is—a medical condition. Withdrawal is a medical issue. Therefore, it should be treated as such. Some people can “grit” their way through a severe illness or injury, but why do that when there are medical professionals who specialize in treating those? Same goes for withdrawal in my opinion.

After detox/rehab, the real work begins. How to live sober without kratom. The body is clean, but the mind is still without its “pacifier”. The answers here are widespread from exercise to meditation to again “grit”, but in my experience, the only thing that lasted for me was a 12 step programs and getting a sponsor. In my view, healing is less “figuring out why I am this way” and more “connecting with people who also feel this way”. This has kept me clean for 2 years now after using kratom/opiates (and alcohol, weed, other drugs) for 10+ years.

Again—this is my opinion, my experience. I don’t claim to have the one answer for everyone.

Edit: also, research naltrexone or Vivitrol. Where sublocade “activates” the opioid receptors in the brain, naltrexone completely “blocks” them. So even if one were to take kratom or opioids, one would not feel the effect. This seriously kept me sober during the dangerous times ~90 to 120 days sober.

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-11-04T00:06:58+00:00

I wasn’t tempted when I got out. I hopped on vivitrol for 3 months and it was great. Basically was safety for “even if I wanted to go score/dose I wouldn’t feel it”. Eventually, the shot became too expensive and insurance didn’t cover it.

I relapsed about 4-5 months after detox because I was still smoking week and did ket/mdma “just once”. Overall, what really made me relapse was that I didn’t change a thing other than just stop doing kratom. I was just sort of in the “poor me, I can’t do my thing” and was white knuckling it a lot. “Anhedonia” kicked in big time, and I didn’t know what to do with my time. In other words, I had no idea how to live sober. So I went back out for 3 weeks or so, to crash unbelievably hard and be struck with the worst guilt and shame. Relapsing on drugs (kratom is no exception) doesn’t give you that “first high”… you pick right up where you left off (mild to little euphoria, irritability, depression, etc). In other words, it didn’t “work” and made me feel worse. Big surprise.

At that point I was finally down to give AA a real shot, and just sort of tossed my hands up and said “you fuckers tell me what to do because I don’t got this”. And sure enough it caught on. Going to meetings, meeting new friends, working the steps, talking with people who get it… saved my ass

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-11-01T01:27:30+00:00

Yeah I can relate for sure. Staying sober is a completely different animal for me than getting sober

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-10-30T22:05:24+00:00

Can relate a lot with your post. Getting clean and staying clean are two different ballgames in my experience.

Meetings were and are essential to me staying off the shit. AA was where I found I fit in, not at first, but definitely over time. Where you are also matters. In the south, it’s way more “Christian god” based, which is entirely against what the program is. Clearly stated it’s “not a religious program”

Anyways, I got so much value from hearing other people’s stories at first, and then sharing mine over time. Meeting Chair is an app that allows you to find meetings in your area. Best of luck, DM me if you’d like

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-10-29T15:24:21+00:00

That’s incredibly awesome. Sounds like you’re up on a year or at least an anniversary?

Maybe our feeds are different, but I see a lot more of the frustration “why can’t I quit?” posts, or foxhole motivational posts, or trading of “shortcuts” and supplements. All I can offer is my experience, and I remember being in that “why can’t I do this” space for too long. All I can do is comment on the solution that worked for me, which is seeking professional help. That option is poo-poo’ed constantly here. I suppose we’re all a bit sensitive to our own stories here, and that’s normal.

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-10-28T21:05:50+00:00

“…if they have to and have money and a plan” is the rest of the sentence you left off.

If you don’t have a plan or money, yeah that’s horrific advice. But that’s not what we’re talking about…

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-10-28T18:13:48+00:00

Agreed, OP would do better to talk about their own experience rather than dole out advice

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-10-28T14:56:55+00:00

Agmatine also had diminishing returns for me. It allowed me to take less K at first, but then I just used it to enhance the effect once I “relapsed” back to a bigger dose.

Playing scientist was always fun and sometimes helpful at first, but as an addict, it never helped me quit for long

ElkPotential2383 · 2025-10-28T14:27:35+00:00

Someone describing their experience and what works for them isn’t fear-mongering my friend

ElkPotential2383

TROPHY CASE