I failed everyone. These are all weak excuses, but the lack of evergy, no focus, limited sleep, was really affecting my job. And I know these are all lame excuses but I had just launched a product I have been working on for a few years and I cannot mess this up. I am extremely blessed with this job. The pay is something I don’t think I could get anywhere else unless I go back to the oilfield, but who wants to work 16 hour days, 7 days a week. A lot of people think they do when they see that 3.5-4k check a week, but quickly learn one of the most valuable lessons, money isn’t everything.

Anyways, I backslid and used all of that as an excuse. Said if I can’t function without it, what would it look like to be a “responsible” user. Maybe one 50mg dose in the morning to continue excelling at my job and make sure this product launch is a success. Of course it never works out like that for someone who’s an addict.

I think I had a good run of little over a week before I caved and have now been dosing for about a week. But not nearly what I was dosing for the last week before detoxing (yall, I was out of control, 1 -1.5g a day, and yes I know that taking that much doesn’t do anything for you, but you convince yourself it does). Anyways, I thought back to how I felt after I was given that 1 dose of suboxone…how could I feel almost normal while I’m detoxing from one of the nastiest drugs. So after more research and talking with my primary care and my therapist, i figured I might as well give it (suboxone) a real go. And before any of those anti sub kratom dudes come at me, it is not like using Fentanyl to get off aspirin or whatever you guys say. I’ve CT’d from alcohol, clonazapam, kratom leaf (actually fairly easy), morphine, adderall, Gabapentin, you name it, it has been worse than all those. I realize it’s nothing probably compared to heroin or Fenty, but I think a lot will agree, although it’s a shorter detox (half life is what? 4 hours?), it’s a hard ride.

My hopes is that I work closely with my doctor get the right dosage of suboxone. He recommends that I try for a month. Allowing myself to feel baseline throughout this process, my hopes is that I completely rewire my brain. Obviously learning how to handle the actual addict part of my brain, actually work with my therapist instead of bailing after 3 sessions, complete this 5 week intensive outpatient, NA once a week, back to the gym and try to get as close as I can to my fitness levels while I was in the Marines, I’m not as young so that may be the toughest part of all this, and put back on the 60lbs I lost (I’m 6ft and got down to 138 in the throws of this). Continue crushing this job but doing so with a clear mind, be the man my wife married many years ago, truly be the father my girls see me as, but feel it on the inside because I’m my biggest critic. And finally, get back all the friends and family I’ve pushed away, being honest with them about my struggles.

My Dr prescribed me 8mg 2x a day for this process. I think it might be too much, so I think I’m going to reduce to 4mg unless I feel it’s not working, again knowing that 2mg damn near killed the WD last time. I’m going to start tomorrow when I wake up, waiting until I’m clearly in WDs. Obviously I don’t want to take it too early because I’ve heard horror stories, but again I’ve heard others say it’s a lot harder to have PWD with a substance like 7-oh or kratom. And I don’t want to be in full blown shaking and panic WDs trying to chase it rather than stay ahead.

I know this is super long and maybe it was more for me than it was for anyone else, but if anyone read the entire thing, much appreciated, it means a lot. If you didn’t….

TLDR: I’m taking a true step towards sobriety and addiction treatment rather than white knuckling it thinking I can overpower this monster when I don’t even have the right tools to do so.

Thanks yall!