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Ask HN: Best way to recover from an opiate overdose

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Ask HN: Best way to recover from an opiate overdose

#1
Hello. I'm trying to deal with the consequences of my bad decisions from the other night. If anybody has any perspective or advice. Please throw some my way.

The other night, while hanging out with friends, I seen an unopened bag of heroine on the ground and decided it would be smart to snort it in their bathroom. They said my body went cold, they frantically tried to revive me, called 911, I turned blue, paramedics came and gave me 3 doses of naloxone to bring me back.

I definitely have a history of drug use/abuse. I've done my fair share of prescription drugs and earlier in the 2010's regularly used prescription opiates until I got on suboxone. I did suboxone throughout my Comp Sci degree and then weened off of it.

After that I would still randomly try prescription opiates when they were available. If I could get my hands on them, I would do as much as my body craved which was a lot. Up to 180 mgs of oxycodone sometimes.

Since the pandemic, those prescription opiates haven't been as easy to get. But I would find myself searching the dark web sometimes trying to see how much Bitcoin I would need to find them. Luckily, I wouldn't go through with that.

About two years ago, I discovered Kratom and started doing that regularly. I did this pretty routinely for almost a year-and-a-half.

At the beginning of this Fall, I made a conscious decision to stop doing it to have more energy for work. It's been over four months since I last did Kratom.

To be perfectly honest, I randomly stumbled upon low-grade prescription opiates 3 times in the past couple of months. I say this just to illustrate that I wasn't regularly using any form of opiates before this ordeal.

But other then that, I felt like I was doing the best I ever have been. A big help there has been finding a good therapist, getting on a combination of SRI's which work for me and doing bikram yoga 2-4 times per week.

And then the night came the other day and I _overdosed_. From the time I stumbled upon this unopened bag of heroin on the ground to me waking up from Narcan was roughly 30 minutes.

I put my non-drug using friends through hell because of my dysfunction. It'll never be the same again. The rest of my social group knows about it now, too. It's absolutely soul-crushing that I could feel so good about where I'm going/how I'm feeling before the ordeal to a heroin/fentanyl _overdose_. If I was by myself, I would most likely be dead.

It's roughly 72 hours since the ordeal and things are really starting to sink in. Initially, I wasn't beating myself up about it and told myself it was "just" a one-time mistake. But it's starting to really set in, and I'm afraid that perspective doesn't take the issue seriously enough.

This came at the end of a long break from work and I happy to get back in to get my mind off of this and try to recover in time. I will also continue to do the hot yoga because I enjoy it and its therapeutic.

Does anybody have any experiences or perspectives on how to recover best from this? Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to recover from an opiate overdose

#2
Don’t beat yourself up, use this as information that you are not to be trusted and it is a big freaking deal.

However, it does not mean you’re a bad person. You have an illness triggered by external factors. Do your best to look forward, try to understand how this mistake happened, and patch this hole.

Now, if I’m being honest, it sounds very unlikely that you stumbled across this doing the same things a non-addict would do. Were you somewhere frequented by addicts? You should stay out of those places.

Try to think like a sports coach might. You made a mistake, that happens - the most important question is what you’re going to learn so it doesn’t happen again.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to recover from an opiate overdose

#3
Not being sarcastic, but maybe move to a place that does not have so many behavioral triggers like... bags of heroin on the ground? That's really not a normal thing to experience in the first place. I know a guy who struggled with opioid abuse relapses until he moved to a different state and got new friends. Clean over ten years now.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to recover from an opiate overdose

#5

Don’t beat yourself up, use this as information that you are not to be trusted and it is a big freaking deal. However, it does not mean you’re a bad person. You have an illness triggered by external factors. Do your best to look forward, try to understand how this mistake happened, and patch this hole. Now, if I’m being honest, it sounds very unlikely that you stumbled across this doing the same things a non-addict w…

I live in a major NE city with an open-air drug market about 2-3 miles away. I know what these bags look like because my abuse progressed to using heroin in the early 2010s. A user or dealer had dropped this bag on the sidewalk and I stumbled upon it. I was with my two friends who definitely like to drink and smoke weed but nothing major. This bag should not have been on the ground. But it was. When I came to, my friend's girlfriend did not believe that I had found it on the ground. But that is the sad truth.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to recover from an opiate overdose

#6
> I put my non-drug using friends through hell because of my dysfunction. It'll never be the same again. The rest of my social group knows about it now, too.

Good. Ask for their help! What is there to lose now? Maybe it won't be the same anymore, maybe they'll be able to help and you'll have some support! Losing a friend to an overdose is extremely traumatic, so if anything strive not to put them through that. Even if it means they have to know what Narcan is and where to jab it. Talk to your friends and tell them you need their help and give them an easy way to cut ties if they can't handle it.

About two dozen people from my friend group have a "WhatsApp Anonymous" group going to keep myself and four other friends on the straight and narrow after we lost a few from the group to fentanyl during COVID lockdowns. The rule is that anyone can post "!!!" to the group and someone will figure out a way to get them out of the house and their mind off their troubles. One person used the emergency squawk today and was immediately invited to a New Years eve get together (They're there now, getting drunk but at least supervised). There's no rules and no obligations but it's worked well for almost three years now.

Sorry I have no other advice to offer, I'm still working on my own addictions* and addiction is absolute hell. All I know is that the love and help of other people is the way out. For some people it's Narcotics Anonymous, for others its professionals at a rehab facility, but for most of us it's our friends and family. People who care.

You need to face facts though: Fentanyl is everywhere now and if you keep using, this won't be your last overdose. The cravings will always come back and it'll be something you struggle with for the rest of your life, but it doesn't have to define you and it doesn't have to kill you.

* Ketamine, amphetamines, nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis - haven't used either of the first 3 since COVID started

Re: Ask HN: Best way to recover from an opiate overdose

#8
post #7

Do not post questions to a startup forum. Do seek medical help.

I've already been to the hospital. I believe there is something to be gained from hearing other people's perspective on this. Maybe someone out there has gone through this themselves.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to recover from an opiate overdose

#9
I'm a pretty heavy amphetamine addict and from what I've both heard and from my own use I think clonidine should help a ton with the coping aspect of withdrawals

it probably won't help with any physical pain your body might be in though. Idk if that's a thing with opiates, they don't have the same sort of addictive pull on me that stimulants do so I've never experienced heavy withdrawal from those

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