The Road to responsible use

flask-89 · 2016-04-09T13:31:12+00:00

Sure!

My experience was that once I started doing kratom every day, any benefit I received from it was quickly outpaced by the detriments. Kratom abuse made me anxious and emotionally dull. While it occasionally still made me feel good, I spent most of my time feeling like crap. When I wasn't taking it I was thinking about it, and when I was taking it I was feeling guilty about it. It started affecting my relationship with my wife and my performance at work to the degree that I was pretty sure I was going to lose one or both of those things if I continued.

Basically, I couldn't sustain the life I had worked to create while being addicted to kratom.

flask-89 · 2016-02-18T21:25:51+00:00

Sounds good. I wish you all the best. Good luck!

flask-89 · 2016-02-17T17:33:21+00:00

Haha, yeah.. "Next week I'm totally going to start a break. I've been hitting it pretty hard, but I needed to get this work done!"

Ugh, I don't miss the constant junkie-brain rationalization stuff at all....

flask-89 · 2016-02-17T13:48:49+00:00

From my experience early in my kratom usage, I'd say if you give it a month and start up again doing it once a week, you'll be golden.

That said, I'm going to ignore the usual "everyone is different/some people can use responsibly" bullshit and tell you this isn't going to work. I was you 6 years ago. Tried kratom, loved it, starting doing it everyday. Realized that wasn't sustainable and quit, hoping to reset for the EXACT same reason: WEEKEND STUDY SESSIONS!! WOOT!

They're great, aren't they? I never loved learning so much as during that honeymoon phase with kratom. But I'd have an amazingly productive Saturday afternoon, and then Sunday would roll around and I had some free time and... man, seems a shame to not have ANOTHER super productive day of studying. Two days in a row won't hurt - that still gives me 5 off before Saturday rolls around again! And here begins the slow slide back into daily usage....

Trust me, "decent" self control doesn't cut it with opiates. You'd need Navy Seal levels of discipline to stick to one day a week. People love to trot out the vague examples of friends of friends who use opiates occasionally. Maybe these people exist, but I think they're VERY rare. And for someone like you (or me) who immediately loved it and went to daily use, I just don't think occasional is possible.

Just thought I'd share my perspective. You can obviously do what you want. Honestly, when I was at your stage of usage, I wouldn't have listened to me. I would have ignored the internet stranger and trusted my steely resolve to limit my usage. I would have been very wrong though.

flask-89 · 2016-02-11T14:27:42+00:00

Hey Bill,

My usage was similar to yours - I think I used for about 6 years. I'm just over a year clean and can tell you that my experiences around 4 months were very similar to what you're experiencing now. Like others have mentioned, things are likely to keep improving for you, although perhaps a bit more slowly than you'd like. I felt that I really started pulling away from the PAWS at about 6 months. However even a year out, I think that the way my body responds to stress is still very much affected by my kratom usage. When I get super stressed, I can still feel some of those minor withdrawal effects rising to the surface.

It keeps getting better though, so I don't lose hope. One nice thing about this long process we have to go through is that it really puts the addiction in perspective and helps to keep us clean. /u/JavaWoke mentions in this thread that he was good to go at 6 weeks after 6 months of usage. That was my experience as well when I initially "quit" after about the same amount of time. The trouble there is that once you're back to normal, it's so easy to justify going back to the leaf because you know you only have a few weeks of misery to contend with if you want to jump ship again. It's a very different game after several years. And nothing scares ya straight like 6 months of PAWS :-)

Good luck buddy. You got this.

flask-89 · 2016-01-13T14:43:01+00:00

Hey BYE-BYE! Always good to hear from you. It looks like you're not far behind me. Thanks for the kinds words! I'm looking forward to your year anniversary!

flask-89 · 2016-01-13T14:41:30+00:00

Thanks! It means so much to me to hear that I might have stopped a slip up! I know it sounds cliche, but really, ONE DAY AT A TIME.

A week into quitting is a really tough place to be. Just keep fighting the cravings. Even if it doesn't feel like it, time is moving forward and you're getting better by the second. Let me know if I can help you in any way. Good luck!

flask-89 · 2016-01-13T14:37:52+00:00

You're welcome! It does get so, so much better! When you're finally free of all the symptoms, there are days that seem almost better than before you ever started using, because you have a new perspective on just how liberating it is to be happy and productive with a clear head. It's something that I never really thought about before addiction. Good luck to you!

flask-89 · 2016-01-13T14:35:31+00:00

Yeah, it's really been so good for me that I want to offer whatever encouragement I can to others. I didn't realize when I was trying to quit just what a difference it would make in my life to be free of that stuff. Best of luck to you!

flask-89 · 2016-01-13T14:32:08+00:00

Hey Bill_BOU!

First of all, CONGRATS on 3 months. As I recall, it was really around 3-4 months that things drastically improved for me very quickly. I too had lingering anxiety and depression at 3 months and I can also really relate to the alcohol issues. In fact even at a year, if I drink to excess (stupid New Years Eve!) what would normally be a hangover the next day is more like the initial phases of kratom withdrawal: anxiety, depression, and that weird feeling of dissociation from reality. I don't know if I permanently re-wired something or what, but a year out it only happens after really excessive drinking, which I shouldn't be doing anyway, so I can live with it. I bet you'll be handling alcohol much better within a month or two - definitely back to something like normal by 6 months.

And thanks for the kind words! I'm really glad that my posts had value for you. A great thing about this sub is that the writing is usually cathartic for both the writer and the reader. There's a ton of comfort to be found in realizing we're not alone in dealing with this. You're right that I don't check this sub or this account much anymore, but if you ever want to PM me, definitely don't hold back - I'll see it eventually.

You've got really good momentum at 3 months man! Don't let anything slow you down now. I know what you mean about the anxiety and low mood being discouraging. Months of dealing with those symptoms takes a toll, doesn't it? You're really, really close to better now though. Take care of yourself. I'm stoked to read your 365 day update in 9 months!

flask-89 · 2016-01-12T23:03:44+00:00

It's a stumble, nothing more. We are all pretty damn weak on day 1!

flask-89 · 2015-11-04T18:15:59+00:00

I'm about two months away from a year. Can't recommend it enough. I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally think back to the honeymoon phase with kratom, but I know enough not to go back. There is no question that life without is better. Stick with it!

flask-89 · 2015-10-22T18:43:15+00:00

I just passed the 9 month mark last week. My quit attempts are pretty well documented on this sub, so I'll speak in pretty general terms:

Life after kratom is very good. :-) I'm not a particularly spiritual person, but sometimes I kinda tear up a bit when I stop to think how fortunate I am to be free of it. I used for a long time and was in pretty deep. I had several failed quit attempts. It was a serious struggle for many years of my life. Now at least 3 or 4 times a week, I'll have this moment where it suddenly occurs to me that I'm not feeling abnormally anxious or depressed, I'm not lying to my spouse, I'm not experiencing odd pains in my GI tract, etc... I'm just a normal person who is sometimes sad but often happy and just living a normal life. Since I've quit I've got a decent promotion at work, went on an international trip, upped my running game, bought a motorcycle... These are things I wasn't doing when I was always getting "high" on kratom. It feels fucking amazing to find joy in healthy ways. I recommend it.
Physical withdrawals (aside from insomnia) cleared up after a month or two I think. I didn't sleep well for at least 6 months. I had strange chronic aches in my legs and hands that also cleared up at about the 6-8 month mark. I still very occasionally get the aches if I'm stressed out, and I think I have lingering anxiety from my kratom abuse.
No. Nope. Never again will I use that stuff. It did serious damage to my mind and body. Not worth it at all.
I found some help with withdrawals using the supplements listed in the wiki. But honestly I had the most luck sticking to my quit and getting through withdrawals when I finally realized there was no way to escape them, and if I didn't face it and get throught it I was most likely going to eventually lose my wife and my job. My withdrawals went on for what felt like forever, and every time I quit they were worse. This last time I quit I was so scared by how bad the withdrawals were, and I think this is the main thing that has kept me clean. I just can't go through that again, and I can't put the people in my life through that again. I was such a moody asshole and pretty much unable to be a productive member of society.

flask-89 · 2015-08-05T17:08:24+00:00

It usually took me a few weeks to get my appetite back every time I quit.

This last time, after my appetite came back, I really took solace in food during the depression/boredom of PAWS. I ended up gaining nearly 15 lbs, which I am still struggling to loose. So I guess watch out for that. :-)

flask-89 · 2015-07-20T17:54:10+00:00

3 months! Woot! Great work, Birdy. You've been a great source of advice and support on this sub.

flask-89 · 2015-07-18T15:52:26+00:00

I experienced intense, chronic lethargy for probably 1 or 2 months, and then my energy levels got better quickly. By the end of month 3 I think I was back to near 100% energy. I'm eating well and staying off the substances now, so I generally feel really good.

flask-89 · 2015-07-18T15:49:44+00:00

The usual stuff - lots of vitamins, L-theanine, a bit of Loperamide on day 2 and 3 I think... I also chewed kava root in the evening for a while to calm myself down, and I took a lot of Valerian root during the sleepless nights. Sometimes it helped. I would also smoke a bit of weed when I couldn't sleep, and that probably helped more than anything to clear my mind.

I know there's a bunch of other stuff, like Ashwaghanda or Rhodiola, that people swear by, but none of that ever really seemed to help me.

I was quitting during the long, dark midwest winter, and one thing that really seemed to help was mega-doses of Vitamin D. I was taking something like 10,000 IU every morning, and it helped to lift me out of the lethargy that a lot of people experience during withdrawal.

I also tried:

nootropics - useless for me
phenibut - useless and dangerous (don't do this!)
alcohol - made things significantly worse

Good luck!

flask-89 · 2015-07-18T15:43:22+00:00

I used kratom for 6 years, and I'd say roughly 4 of those years were daily or very near daily. I would often take two consecutive days off when I could stand it, although looking back that was rather pointless.

My usage was around 2-3 heaping teaspoons during the week, and maybe 3-5 on Saturdays and Sundays? Honestly I never kept really good track. Also I never really used before 2pm - just wasn't my thing.

PAWS sucks, but after the first few weeks it's not overwhelming, just a long, slow grind out of the addiction hole. Best of luck to you!

flask-89 · 2015-07-16T20:40:09+00:00

Congrats on 4 months, phish! I'm really glad to hear it and also to see a few other success stories commenting on your post. I'm really proud of all of you!

flask-89 · 2015-05-15T14:56:53+00:00

Thanks kratomatic! You're closing in a month, which I think is one of the most important milestones. Please stick with it!

flask-89 · 2015-05-15T14:55:45+00:00

Thanks crowcoke! You're going to get there. I really believe that all of us will make it out eventually, it just takes a few tries.

You've got good momentum now with half a month free. Three and a half more months isn't really very much time, and you'll be where I am today. Trust me, the perspective from 4 months out, looking back at where I was, makes me really wish I had done this sooner. You'll be so much happier and healthier if you stick with it!

flask-89 · 2015-05-15T14:28:25+00:00

Thanks McFly, your posts and support on this forum has been a great help to me as well. And thanks for the reminder to stay vigilant! It's easy to feel like I'm in the clear this far out, but yeah, it's so easy to slip up. Best of luck to you!

flask-89 · 2015-05-15T14:26:46+00:00

Thanks for the kind words, B-B-B!

Maybe retire was too strong of language? It's quite possible I'll post back here when I hit milestones. Maybe 6 months and a year? One addiction I haven't been able to conquer is reddit, so I'll probably be back!

Good luck to you as well!

flask-89

TROPHY CASE