Treated Like Everyone Else

Ya it only lasted like 3 hours tops for me,it really was just the first fix of the day which made for really long day's considering you have to be there between 4:30 and 5

I have a friend on methadone, I feel so bad for him been trying to get him to get on subs but he know they aren't as "fun" per say, so I think that's his hold up.
But he told me there was an easy way to combat the first fix problem you just mentioned. It was too build you tolerance beyond a comfortable level so that by afternoon your high and fine not sick high anymore. Problem solved! That's how he said it too. Like I said I really feel bad for him but don't know what to do. His dad is a neurologist at Emory here in Atlanta and has his own practice and said he would pay for any rehab he wanted anywhere on the globe.
You know how fast I would jump at an offer like that? I guess he just doesn't want help. I'm glad I said something about him though.
I got him hooked we were in elementary school together. Now I feel responsible for getting him off the hook. I just don't know how, and I'm sober so I can't drown or shoot or snort this overwhelming guilt that I have on top of trying to repair a lifetime of pain I've caused my family. Sh×t now I'm crying, isn't care I just wish I had the answers. I don't have web a handful of answers about my own addiction I think sometimes, so how can I cure someone else. Bit I really feel like I must. If he od's.... just can't let that happen.

@Josh111187 listen i understand that feeling of guilt and responsibility but you can't let it eat at you,you need to focus on your recovery,remember i told you emotions are going to hit you hard and i know it hurts because i have a friend who i don't know about anymore,but i showed him how to shot dope and the last time i saw him he was deep into a gang lifestyle and i worry that i helped throw him off track and ultimately am to blame for what bad choices he made after and then in the back of my mind i hear "You didn't cause it and you can't fix it" and i push forward.It's not easy to feel at fault or shame for something and you have to remember his dad said "any rehab on the globe"so the fault and blame is not yours to deal with,it's now his because he has a way out and consciously chooses not to take it.Your doing a fantastic job josh and i am proud of you my friend but we can't be responsible for the world and i struggle with that alot myself so i understand it but we improve the world we care about so much by improving ourselves and being a positive influence and beyond that there is nothing else we can do.Pray for your friend and reach out to him and don't be ashamed to let him see the genuine emotions you have and after that pray for him with him maybe he doesn't know how much you care but that's about all you can do.Stay Strong josh you are doing amazing

I've consciously hidden my emotions from him. I know he doesn't know how much I care. I needed to get that.

The road to recovery has many twist and turns and to successfully stay on track we have to travel them all.

Yep @deanokat that about sums it up,it's definitely a wild ride

Rite on

I feel/felt responsible for getting the heroin addict in my life sober. His family was clueless about addiction and I mean CLUELESS. One day they will be my family so I was like stuck in this grey area where when he would tell them something I knew was a lie. Do I tell them it’s a lie? Claiming he quit on his own, that he’s been weaning off it himself and is doing great, The best way I think I eventually worded it was, “ I understand the desire to believe him, you want to believe him because you love him and you want it to be true, but the likelihood of what he’s saying is true is very slim” So basically it SUCKED. Because I felt a responsibility to the family to be honest with them even if it upset them and wasn’t what they wanted to hear. I was the only person they knew in recovery so for awhile in put his fate on my shoulders. We had an intervention a few months back, and I can honestly say I gave it my everything. I bore my heart and soul to the person, shared with them everything I knew about addiction and recovery, shared my story. I gave him all my best “stuff” anything I could think of to break through to him. The whole time he’s looking at me with this blank expression, I can see he’s thinking, when is this bitch going to stop talking to me so I can go home and get high. I left that intervention saying, I am here for you when you are ready to get sober and I will help you in anyway I can. I don’t think he even knew the amount of pressure I was putting on myself to get him clean. But it was consuming me and for some reason I thought I could do it even though nobody else was going to be me sober when I was drinking. So I’ve let that go. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help. I wish so much that I could WILL him to want to get sober but I can’t.

I should also mention. I’ve stopped telling/talking to his mom and girlfriend about his addiction because it was just too much. Nobody was on the same page, the girlfriend was an enabler and the mom lived 1000 miles away. I was not close by any means with either of them before his addiction was revealed. So it was an awkward uncomfortable. But I tried really hard. I just felt like I was upsetting people. But I will say EVERY SINGLE thing I have said or predicted has turned out to be true. I feel like a shitty person saying this but I’m going to get it out there. I was getting backlash and straining the relationships with the mom and girlfriend for saying the truth and not sticking my head in the sand. But it almost in a weird way felt like I was being acknowledged when I was right. I suppose that a character defect I have to work on. Enjoying being right even in **** circumstances. Damn I hate it when I’m talking (or writing) and I realize I’m in the wrong. It’s just so weird being on this side of an addiction. I mean prior to this I had only really delt with my own. Now I have all these conflicting emotions, anger, empathy, frustration, desperation, despair, guilt, hopelessness and fear. Sorry this post was kind of a confession on things I feel bad about feeling. I haven’t been able to get to a meeting in like a week so I’m sharing here. Thanks for listening.

Ok it's starting to make a bit more sense,as i read this i read of emotion all over the place which i am starting to understand because mine go from one extreme to the next at this point and i believe your emotions are conflicting with one another and what i mean is your having a mix of recovering addict emotions and want to help an addict emotions and i don't really know how to advise in that because it's alot of emotion but the one thing i can tell and do see without doubt is you have a deep love for this individual and you are trying with everything you've got to help him and i must say you are an amazing person and the individual will one day appreciate and thank you for caring so much.As addicts we are struggling in so many different ways especially with an opioid.In the beginning we try it because we are curious,there is always something that made it curious and im sure for each addict it varies,then there is also something that keeps us going back for more and in the beginning it's not to keep from getting sick however it doesn't take long to get to that point and usually once it get's to that point is when it becomes extremely hard to stop because now we do it for two reasons possibly three.First we do it to not get sick,second we do it to numb whatever it was that drove us to be curious,and third and definitely the scariest we push it to the point of being "High"and for an opiate addict who is at this point has basically decided there is nothing that will help them except the drug and they have decided there is nothing that can or will change or help them except for the substance.At this time while we are stuck in active addiction with opioids we are lost emotionally and can't imagine ever coming to terms with what we are doing or what we have done both to ourselves and to our loved one's.There is always something that will help us or something that will change our way of thinking but finding that something at this stage of opioid addiction is not easy and from personal experience i have seen and lived it is usually the thing that other's point out often and the thing we screw up the most that we become consciously ashamed of and at that time it is hard because every time that scenario arises we dive deeper into our addiction because every attempt that doesn't work feels like another failure.My heart hurts for you and the individual you are trying to help.There is hope and there is a way but everyone is different and ever path changes.The only thing i can really think that will help at this time is for you to pay attention to the person's words very carefully when he talks even as the conversation changes we usually in some way compare what is bothering us to almost every thing we talk about in some suttle way,some small comparison to whatever eats at us or at least everything i have described above is as honest i could be about how i was acting or feeling or thinking while i struggled with opioids.I hope in some way this helps you or gives you something to consider or listen for.I will pray for you both and i will try my best to help in any way i can.There is hope we all know that,we just have to find the trigger and why it is so hard to deal with.Stay Strong my friend.God Bless you Both.

I love this forum! I can be thinking or leaning towards something and then someone says something and it opens up my world and my eyes. True you have been so very helpful! He spent the night lastnight granted I didn’t get home from work until 11 but everything went pretty well as far as I could tell. The addict in question is my fiancés brother. I never thought I loved him, I mean I’m not even sure if I like him. But one of the people I love most in the world loves him so I must in a sense. Also he’s an addict which makes me feel connected to him. He was respectful while he was here, kind, friendly and took good care of my puppy. I’d say it was a successful visit

I'm happy to hear it all went well and it's funny you said your not even sure if you like him...that got me thinking,i don't know for sure but maybe you don't like what the addiction is doing to him and can only process it into the thought of your not sure if you like him.There is no doubt the individual loves his brother and his brother as well loves him,i can't help but wonder what the age gap between the two is and were they raised in drastically different ways?He sounds like a good man respectful,kind,good to your puppy which i have no doubt he knows you love.There is hope for this man for sure and i hope and pray he starts to open up and give some sort of a clue to what drove him to the substance and hopefully as a family you can start to piece it together.How is the puppy doing by the way?I am an animal lover myself and can't stop wondering how his breathing is going.Anyways I hope you have a great weekend Take Care

The addict is five years younger than his brother (my fiancé). I’m right in between their ages. They were raised slightly differently. Their parents divorced when my fiancé was 18 and his brother was 13. I’d imagine having your parents divorce during such a puberty wasn’t easy.

Damn I can imagine that was hard for him and i can't be sure but i can see where he may feel he lost more than just his foundation in his parent's at a young age but also i can see where he may have felt completely alone at 13 considering his older brother also became an adult at exactly the same time and he obviously loves his brother a hole lot which is easy to see just through reading your post.So if i remember correctly from what ive read and assuming my math is correct he is now 23-24 year's old....I think this time frame has alot to do with his choices.So i wonder when in that time frame he started using and i'm relieved and concerned at the same time because again if i'm putting this together correctly he is "young"in his addiction meaning a few thing's when comparing what i've seen and been through.1 i assume his addiction is between 3-5 year's old meaning if you can convince him some how to change his life and seek treatment he may be able to make a full recovery meaning no long term damage and an easier time going through the detox process,not saying it will be easy,but easier.2 his addiction is "young"and he is getting to the point of no return,meaning he is right in the time frame where we as opiate abusers either learn to love the drug or we learn to hate it and we start looking for a way out.He's a young man with his entire life ahead of him and i hope and pray he is learning to hate the drug especially but not only because it sounds like he may indeed be getting a more enhanced form of heroin,considering the color and consistency you have described and if he is getting heroin cut with either fentanyl or Carfentanil he is really at risk i can't even imagine and i thought it couldn't be worse than what i went through as far as tolerance and strength of the substance but from what i've learned i got out just in time and that scares me as i couldn't have made it through much more than what i lived through and still to this day i thank God because there is no way I survived that detox without his help.I apologize for such a long reply but my brain just work's that way i play out as much as possible in my mind and type it down.I hope in some small way this helps.Stay Strong and God Bless

I agree with you, i hope he doesnt have the worst kind of heroin and then I hope he doesn't get some and not know it. It scares me to think about mixing fentanyl or as you mentioned above the even stronger Carfentanyl. I though about what you had told me how we we're kind of the first of the people (around that time and age group) who brought on this horrible opiate problem. Like you I feel blessed to have gotten out in time.
@CMMW, have you thought about getting him to try Suboxone?
If he's against that, and I know what I've said and I still stand behind it, but in this case maybe methadone might be a very short term answer it will help his mind clear up enough to go to Suboxone hopefully. However, if he just replaces one for the other - methadone, then its still not of much help. But I'm just throwing it out as an option, I don't know if he's been told about these new and increasing dangers of heroin, if not I would tell him, but that's just me and I don't know what your situation is.
Might though tell him and tell him that that's another reason you want him to quit. I looked up the Carfentanyl and not hardly any chance of living if you inject even like what could fit on the tip of a toothpick. Then offer those two heroin replacement therapy options. Being sure to encourage him he won't have horrible W/D's with Suboxone or if he must, methadone.
Just an idea.
But he sure sounds like if he gets help soon there's hope for him to be a fine man.

Yes that Carfentanil stuff is absolutely insane,i cannot for the life of me think of a single scenario where something that potent would ever be needed not even end of life care because that stuff will end your life in any situation 5000 time's stronger per dose than high grade heroin....i mean what is it's purpose and why on earth was it ever created?Fentanyl was already insane then they enhanced it...I'm still lost for word's of rationale on this one

Thank you both @Josh111187 and @True concern for all your insight and help. It warms my heart that both of you have put forth so much effort into helping me understand this addiction. I’m very grateful and thankful for both of you!

The feeling is mutual,i to am grateful for you @CMMW you got me to go to my first NA meeting and it's a good thing there is no clock on sharing online or i would break it lol