I also dealt with opiates/heroin addiction after i broke my ankle.. Kept hooked with a morphine drip for 1 month then prescriptions of percocets..after all that i became addicted..6 years later i had enough and quit cold turkey too..32 days of hell no sleep no eating! If i did it you can do it too you are strong.. Get your life back!!
Opiate addiction is a dark thing, but people who survive it seem to come out the other side with a profound new outlook on life. Some of the most down to earth, decent human beings I’ve met are former drug addicts and I have nothing but respect for them.
I had an opiate addiction for years. That was the darkest period of my life. It’s hard to look back on that part of my life and see it as reality. It almost seems like it was a movie. I’m doing much better now though. I’ve been in treatment for almost 2 years now and doing great. I’m about to sign a lease for my own place next month. It’ll be the first time I’ve been independent in almost 10 years because of my addiction. ❤️
We all have the strength to do it. We just need to make sure that we support each other, and take it upon ourselves to be responsible for spreading this message. Much love to everyone living the struggle.
It’s scary how easy it is to find yourself in this scenario. It just shows how much of a problem it is when even someone in the medical field wasn’t familiar with the severity of the dangers of this type of habit. Anyway, I went through almost exactly what you did, but ended up being placed on the methadone program (I do regret this decision, but I’ve definitely made a lot of positive steps since). As it’s a long-acting opiate, tapering off can (and in my case did) take years, as each reduction can take 3-6 months for the body to adjust. It’s a hell of an unenjoyable experience to be dealing with withdrawal symptoms for months on end. Either way, if you do find yourself in this situation, seek help as soon as possible. There’s still a real stigma attached to the whole thing, so thank you for sharing your story with honesty and humility, Peter. Much respect.
Use L-Theanine for opiates. It relieves and makes a massive difference for the withdrawal symptoms. I think it was a NIH study that says it's involved in blocking the receptors in the brain.
However be careful with the dosage and possibly get medical supervision. As much as L-theanine helps, some do experience paradoxical anxiety both from de-addiction and other factors like excessive dosage, Gaba irregularities, corresponding neuro chemistry imbalances, etc. In addition, I am guessing that the NIH study spoke about L-theanine's inhibitiory activity much like opiates & other inhibitiory mechanics but then again if you get them wrong then your brain will still adapt and it may have dire consequences. Also applies to others like phenylalanine, L-Tyrosine, etc which are opposite, ie excitory. In short, supplementation don't work similar to pharmaceutical drugs both in terms of quality and how you react/absorb depending upon your situation, so caution is required especially in sensitive situations like withdrawal and de-addiction. Exercise interestingly works great in such aspects as a adjunct therapy to reset your brain while dealing with psychosomatic factors ranging from anxiety, pain to relapse, etc.
Thank you so much for this, all of you. I need this inspiration and motivation in order to deal with my dependence too. Was diagnosed with MS last year and opiates are currently the only way to ease the pain and it f**king sucks knowing that I’m going down a very dark road... You have no idea how many need videos like this. Thank you again.
I sprained my ankle in college and prescribed OxyContin 40mg. I’ve told other doctors about it and they couldn’t believe what they what I just told them. Anyway, I ate the whole bottle, loved them, called that same doc and told him I acoiddntally dropped them in the toilet and he immedislty wrote me another script. He eventually wrote me a prescription for oxy 80mg because I told him there was a pain in my back that was keeping me from working and he did it, no questions asked. Took me years to kick the habit.
Damn, where do you live? I have stage 4 cancer and can't get anything stronger than 30 milligrams. I've had allot of brutal surgeries and lots of chemo. 8 years of daily excruciating pain and somebody gets double to triple what I get for a sprained ankle? Even after being given very little time to live so you wouldn't even care if I got addicted. Just isn't right
Went cold turkey on antidepressants as a teenager. My dad put me on them because i used to make scenes over motorcycles/atvs my passion was riding and he was very much against it. I went through hell. Severe paranoia, suicidal thoughts everyday, panic attacks and have developed Borderline personality disorder which i still carry with me til this day. I was a very happy kid. Adamant on riding motorcycles and he thought it was a bright idea to sedate me and drug. I'm 28 now and my mind is still a scary place at time. All this to say that doctors need to take it easy with the over prescription of drugs that can literally scar our brains forever. Sorry for being long winded. It's just one of those days where i need to vent
Prescribed opiates while I was with wounded warrior battalion west at the naval medical hospital at Balboa after I was wounded in Afghanistan. Many others and myself at the hospital were wounded were hooked on pain killers. Once I got out, it took me half a year to realize the opiates weren't good for my body. I went cold turkey, it was the hardest month of my life. The shakes, sweating, couldn't sleep, and mood swings. Glad that I did it, if I didn't do it. I would be dead or living under a bridge.
Here's some more positive thoughts. If you are trying to get sober from percs just now either this guy has 0 ability to deal with discomfort or he's lying because quitting percs or vics cold Turkey isnt really that bad. You can do it easily man. Just use a little kratom for like 3-5 days and stay busy. You can do it no problem.
I'm battling quitting benzos and alcohol. I wish I could go through detox from Opioids 10 times again rather than go through this evil chaos of a dream. Please take my advice. DO NOT TOUCH ALCOHOL, AND BENZOS ESPECIALLY! They are the only 2 classes of drug that can kill you when stopping.
@@aalagao5872 you got this. On the bright side alcohol is super easy to quit. Just focus on the benzos man. Give an update in a few weeks on how you are doing. Goodluck!!
Peter is absolutely correct about people wanting to recover from an addiction needing to get new friends. You cannot be around people who use drugs and expect to stay clean. It’s just not realistic. He also is right about needing to focus ALL your attention on some other goal. He at least had physical rehab and finishing Med school which are both huge accomplishments. The bottom line is recovery starts when you decide to work toward something more important than maintaining the addiction.
1 year sober, all walks of life I mean all get addicted, it all stems from pain, psychological, mentally and emotionally. You don’t need to so drugs & Alcohol to be an addict or struggle with addiction, you can find any form of addiction to escape reality.
this is really surprising and inspiring. all the comments as well. I overcame my addiction to opioids and still carry so much shame about it but its kind of freeing to see other people embrace the pride they have in overcoming it and still being successful in-spite of it. helps me make some sense of my past.
Hey congratulations to you for beating the addiction and being here a in good way to tell us about it. Crazy thing so many people have lived through the overperscribing of these pills.
People complain that doctors over prescribe opiates/opioids. The bigger problem is that they don’t prescribe them enough and people have to get stuff from the street. Especially now with the predominant street opioid being fentanyl
I haven’t experienced anything this extreme but I did have my own run in with substance abuse. When I started college I started experiencing intense anxiety for this first time in my life. I also went through a big breakup which brought on depression. I started self medicating with weed at times when I felt anxious which quickly turned into using it all the time every day and not being comfortable if I wasn’t high. I made it through 2 more years of college doing that every day and just going through the motions. It helped with the anxiety but I also was aware of my dependence on it to function and be comfortable. I knew there was a problem when I kept telling myself I could easily stop but was never able to. Long story short I eventually managed to stop and it made me realize that it’s so easy to fall into something like that and I can’t even imagine how difficult it is for people who struggle with hard drugs or alcohol. Being able to admit that you have a problem really is the first step towards progress.
I had to deal with this after a surgery and I remember absolutely not allowing myself to take more than 100mg a day but had to stop cold turkey to go back to work...that was unbearable hell for 3-5 weeks. The cold sweats, the tired agonizing slog of doing ANYTHING that I used to enjoy, and then the complete mass exodus of my bowels lol fuuuunkin terrible! Doable though, just need the proper motivation! I will say though...it should be built in to the process of surgery, physical rehab, and detox. I think that would prevent a huge number of addictions. Thank you for your work Jocko, Echo and crew!
@@bobbystones9612 Yeah...I remember having some of that as well. I can't imagine how bad it could have been if I would have taken DOUBLE the amount I was, as this guest was. That part is absolutely astonishing to me. How he didn't die from it is beyond me.
A lot of doctors are either over worked or don't care and it it easier just to prescribe pain killers or what ever medication they think you need which unfortunately is leaving a lot of people stuck on these meds which is just shocking, over here in the uk a lot of doctors were prescribing valium to patients for years and now they have been told to stop but the ones who have been prescribed these for 10 or 20 years are now stuck on them because apparently if you were to stop suddenly it would kill you, now I don't know how much truth is in the latter of that but just goes to show how messed up things are
OxyContin is a tiny part of the American Opiate story....we’ve known of the addictive potential of morphine and it’s analogues/derivatives for over 100 years. Any individual doctor claiming they had no idea is lying.
Same story here, it happened at the dentist though. The dr. Refilled my prescription multuple times. Happened to my mom and she is not at all the type of person to use any kind of drugs. Opiates have a weird way of taking over. Great now, hell later.
In medical. , happened to me, 15 years ago and I still feel so much shame from then. Thank goodness I eventually stopped. I never was a partying person. Was very quiet and calm. Never saw it coming.
At a time when I was addicted to a few things, I ended up needing surgery for my gallbladder. Afterward, they gave me opiates for the pain. A week later, I ran out of pills. Even though I was completely fine, I went back to the doctor's office pretending to be in pain so I could get a refill. Whether it was true or not, the lady at the desk told me the nurse who signs prescriptions had just left, so I'd have to come back the next day. When I got back to the car, I realized how stupid I was being. Actually faking pain just so I could get more of those pills. I was disgusted with how pathetic I was, and vowed to never go back. Those pills were SO GOOD that I knew I'd ruin my life if I did. Whether she meant to or not, that lady at the desk gave me a chance to stop being dumb, and I took it. That was 5 years ago, and I've quit absolutely everything that I was ever addicted to. Never again will I be a slave to my weaknesses. 💪🏻
Used to be a heroin addict started with prescription painkillers that they gave me for months and months and stopped cold forcing me to find an alternative. Just got clean 90 days ago going cold turkey is next to impossible unless you have the heart of a navy seal and you’ve hit rock bottom, otherwise methadone or suboxone treatment is the best.
I’m currently in the same situation (or similar) ... I’ve unfortunately moved to heroin. Never in my life would I have ever thought I’d be using heroin... it’s horrible.
Opioid withdrawal CAN be lethal. I discussed this at lenght with the lead anesthesiologist at the hospital I went to, who was (and is) also one of the national addiction experts. In his words, opioid withdrawal is generally safe, however it may cause self-harm due to the pain - it may, however, be dangerous for patients with heart conditions, or in cases where a patient is experiencing abnormally severe withdrawal. I personally required ICU treatment on both times quitting pain meds. When quitting morphine painkillers the first time, I ended up with severe heart issues that apparently very nearly killed me, on top of it being literal torture. The next time over (got hurt again, worse) I did it alone at home and ended up in the ER at the last possible minute. The combination of heart issues, seizures and the absolute inability to hold any liquid nearly did me in. The amount of loperamide I required to halt the constant diarrhea and vomiting of bile would have been extremely toxic, which was another nice hurdle. All in all I implore everyone to avoid cold turkey when dealing with massive opioid doses. It can do lasting physical and mental damage. The second time left me with years of psychological trouble. I had issues with an extraordinarily high natural tolerance and with a general tolerance that was building up abnormally quick, leading to frankly stupidly high doses of morphine, fentanyl and oxycodone during that period. The worst part was the lack of a high - the only time I have ever gotten a pleasant feeling from opioids is whenever I was injected with the stuff, and I wasn't going to start sticking myself with my needle phobia. In tablet form the stuff just made me itchy, annoyingly drowsy and generally just unpleasantly slow. I just got the withdrawals like a junky but none of the high.
Goggins talked about how he rubbed some people in the SEALs the wrong way, something tells me Jocko is one of those people, notice how they never talk about each other
Not only did I pray you would succeed, I prayed that the lowlifes who created those evil demons would have to pay us all that had to battle them through no fault of our own. We "listened" to the so-called professionals and it bit us in the ass!
@@domalbanese9691 I'm prescribed #90 8mg subutex and have only taken 1 a day most days how hard do you think it would be coming off? Have been taking for 6yrs now!!! Before the subs I would eat roughly 12 to 15 yellow 10mg hydros did that for 7 years unfortunately it's 7 years I can't get back. And I let down 2 special people that deserved much better.
@@jamiehohenshelt5260 , I agree and have listened to it several times and it’s very good, though it does have a subscription paywall now for the full content (not necessarily disagreeing with that decision, but just wanting to put it out there).
I broke my leg Spiral fracture. I took one Percocet. After I woke up I threw em in the garbage because I knew I would lose the battle if I took another.
@@crf450rbulletdavid9 no problem brah. I had Honda cr 80 and 125 then a 250 r's when I was a kid before 4 strokes caught up. That redline on the 2 stroke lol.
I’m still under the influence of the VA pill mill, well I was and then they cut my OxyContin, cold turkey. I’ve had to go to 2 neurosurgeons to see them, stall the so I can continue to get oxy’s. I tried to go cold turkey but it’s hard. This in combination with my behavioral meds ( 9 different), all this from a round to the hip, replaced it and then back surgery 3 years ago and I have been on them since, it’s hard brother jocko ( I was a corpsman attached to marines as their medic). Yes I take it for lots of pain but my body craves it all the time, gotta beat it. Thanks for this video
Man, i just had my wisdom teeth out. I was given percs. They worked great, i felt like i was on cloud 9. The the side effects fucked me up. Dizzyness, nausea etc. I felt so ill from it. I ended up mixing them with used cat litter and trashing them.
I'm battling quitting benzos and alcohol. I wish I could go through detox from Opioids 10 times again rather than go through this evil chaos of a dream. Please take my advice. DO NOT TOUCH ALCOHOL, AND BENZOS ESPECIALLY! They are the only 2 classes of drug that can kill you when stopping.
Never realized I had the potential for an addiction when I was prescribed Percocet. hurt my back in the Navy, originally got the typical motrin, had a tough time controlling the pain so I got Perc to try. Didn't do shit with one pill, so naturally I took two pills once. ONLY once. Saw spots for hours and felt shitty and weird. DID. NOT. LIKE. IT. Back to motrin and never considered percocet again.
He's underselling the withdrawal process. It is not all mental and depression-based. It is 100% the most wrenching and torturous physical experience also.
@Tim Morrison yeh that shit is bad news. It’s been sold as a super safe alternative but it be very addictive in and of itself. Still better than heroin though I’ll admit that.
Kratom is much safer than any other thing you can take. It's like weed in that it has many uses and your not gonna die from it. Although there are claims it can kill you. That's BS. Docs just don't have a clue about this shit. And other substances are always taken with it but yet it's Kratom that is being demonized. I've taken a LOT at once and the worst thing that ever happened is I puked it back up. And it's legal so it's available. So no ones knocking off the local 7/11 for a K fix. Chris Bell did a good documentary.... *A Leaf of Faith* .... later....
if you quit kratom you have to taper. Even then you're going to be awake for at least a week straight, once you finally drop it. At least you can't OD and die from it.
You know who’d be a great guest? Dr. Jon Kerstetter. Former Army flight surgeon who did several tours in Iraq and ended up suffering and recovering from both a stroke and PTSD. He also did humanitarian work in Rwanda and Bosnia in a civilian capacity. He wrote a book called “Crossroads”, very much worth reading.
Read and watch everything you can on Peter Attia - the man is a beast on paper and otherwise (MD, surgeon, McKinsey consultant, prolific writer and self-experimenter, etc.). And he’s about the most honest broker you’ll ever hear, particularly from someone with his credentials and track record. His candor on this snippet manifests this.
Watching JW and JP opened my mind on how are world is fixed in our own different dogma's. I don't support globalism or this hypocrisy in America but I do have a lot to learn and hope everyone has a good day!
I’ve been addicted to opiates and alcohol. And being addicted to alcohol to the point where if you stop you die is a special type of hell. I needed a drink almost every hour to keep the shakes away. If I went more than 6 hours without a drink I would feel like complete death. You don’t drink to feel good at that point. You keep drinking to stay alive
Getting off the stuff is way more work then he described. You must have a family or a great support system around you who know everything about your addiction so they can help when needed.
The physical is FAR WORSE THAN HE LETS ON. He forgot to mention dry heaving, hot and cold sweating until you’re drenched, kicking(physically uncontrollably twitching kicking and punching/flailing) , the muscle pain and joint pain, no sleep, no eating, and of course every minute that goes by feels like an hour. Opiate withdrawal is the worst torture I’ve ever experienced mentally and physically. Forgot to mention stomach pain and diarrhea.
WTF 1:59 operated on the wrong side. Good now you get evened out with a Competent Dr. Thanks for sharing your story. I'm taking kratom instead of pain pills. I'm trying to get the courage to get operation at 47yrs old.
No reason to do all of that to get off opiates, just do a quick taper and get off. You’re more likely to just not get off if you take too long. As for taking other drugs after you get off, that’s just switching drugs, it’s unnecessary, physically unhealthy to keep being on drugs, and mentally unhealthy to keep ignoring your problems. Yes opiate withdrawal sucks but you just have to deal with it
Anyone wanting to wean themselves off of opiates , use a concentrated CBD product before you use a substitute like suboxone . some CBD products have amazing pain relief properties with 0 side effects!
Heroin at best , methadone at worst. This was before fent. Now it’s just methadone at 4am one hour before I leave for 10 hours at the cheese sandwich factory
Been on methadone for a year? now. went from Opana, oxy, Suboxone, than methadone. My Doctor is from Columbia, #3 of his class and wrote many many books on it. This guy knows his shit and METHADONE Is safe, I lost weight, gained muscle, and am in the best shape of my life. No
Hooked for 2 yrs on oxy from coworker giving me a qtr pice of a 30 mg blue oxy, quit with Kratom. and prep h for the horrible ass ripping diarrhea. You can do it.
I hate to say it but I drank every single day 24/7 beers chugging for fifteen years getting really bad for the last 8 I’m talking all day every day but I quit cold turkey when a friend died it was rough but I was already drinking a ton of water and taking vitamins.. u just have to do it at that point ur life is so pathetic if ur gonna quit don’t be afraid of that shit.. ween off.. I know for sure there’s a lot of people using that death as an excuse when really they would be infinitely better if they stopped right now. Get somebody to check on them.. heroin addict here too this is all relative I’m glad he respects the junky side of things but u have to relate... this guy was a junky he knows exactly what it’s like to shoot heroin up and exactly how it feels.. no difference in my mind between him and someone needling everyday.. it’s hard for people to understand that it’s this easy to fall into and then nobody in society gives a fuck about you.. they think ur an asshole
What they put you on methadone or wanted to? That's way worse. This is the problem. I was offered methadone a decade ago and didn't even know what it really was. Big mistake. Once you get stuck it's a minimum of 3 weeks no sleep great physical pain extreme discomfort, just to get off.
I don't understand how people can get hooked on those things. I was put on percocet one time for dental work, and they made me so queasy that I threw them out after a few days. They just made me sleepy, sluggish, and pukey. I'll never get why people like them.
I understand what you are saying. I've heard stories about how people (who were on opiates) would accidentally doze off at the most inopportune times - at work, behind the wheel, while watching their children, etc... For me, and for many, many others as well - opiates does the exact opposite... I was absolutely astonished at how opiates were able to alleviate the crippling depression that I have struggled with for most my life. On top of that, they made me FAR more energetic - and they gave me this amazing sense of clarity, well-being, optimism and enthusiasm - I mean, they really made me feel like for the first time in my life that I had my shit together. They were also the most amazing appetite suppressant EVER - which helped to suppress my never ending appetite, which made all the extra poundage I had been carrying just melt off. So for many of us, opiates can REALLY seem like an absolute magic cure all anecdote... Until you find out otherwise, that is. Thankfully, it has been just over ten years now that I have been off opiates, and I fought like HELL to get off of them, and worked my ass off to get out of that horrendous addiction. I wouldn't wish that kind of agony on my worst enemy. Anyway, just thought I'd offer some insight about how oddly different brain chemicals can work from one person to the next. Take care! :)