3 ms·

I would just add my personal experience and say that while it was possible to get off of opioids, I do feel that my sense of pleasure from other things in life

I would just add my personal experience and say that while it was possible to get off of opioids, I do feel that my sense of pleasure from other things in life has been somewhat blunted for many years after. After ten years abstaining from opioids and cocaine I still don't feel quite as much drive to do normal pleasurable activities and when I do them they don't feel quite as great as they once did. Strenuous exercise definitely works the best. If I get a good weight lifting session in, go for a run, or bike ride I get a pretty strong endorphin high now. Even five years ago I didn't feel nearly as strong an endorphin reaction as I do lately from these activities.

Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
Kudos to you to staying clean and on your path despite of those perceptory artifacts. The fact that you did shows that you (and your brain by extension) does not always, and does not have to optimize for simple pleasures, and can instead choose to optimize for higher modes of being.
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
I used and abused meth-amphetamine for the better part of a decade. Five years clean and I’ll say the same thing with regard to lifting and running and doing strenuous short (<5hr) hikes. I’ve also sound Vitamin D and magnesium aminoacid chelate to be beneficial. But, I want to add: given what I’ve read here, and heard elsewhere, from people who never used drugs: it would seem my experience of life with regard to lacking energy and motivation, and a history of depression and suicidal ideation, isn’t too dissimilar to the non-drug users experience. So I’m not sure how much weight to place on the drugs as a cause or a misguided attempt to self-mediate. Probably both. I don’t think the drugs help anyway.
moltar 8y ago
I’ve never done those drugs, but I feels similarly. I think this comes with age and added stress, which also comes with age.
bfuller 8y ago
>I do feel that my sense of pleasure from other things in life has been somewhat blunted for many years after. ex addicts always say stuff like this. or, "I started balding after getting clean!" "I have no more energy!" its also known as getting old.
Jugglerofworlds 8y ago
I currently take naltrexone with buprenorphine for my depression. I highly recommend checking out low dose naltrexone, which is usually defined as a dose less than 5 mg. There has been a large surgre of interest in LDN on /r/nootropics and /r/depressionregimens in the past six months. Most people are trying it either for autoimmune diseases or to reverse opiate tolerance. The typical starting doses for LDN are around 1 mg Before anyone says that I'm just getting high, you should know that I've been on 20+ different antidepressant treatments and none of them worked. That includes ketamine and rTMS. So it was a medication of last resort. My other options were basically electro convulsive therapy or deep brain stimulation. There is an experimental antidepressant called ALKS 5461 that is composed of buprenorphine and samidorphan. The company who makes it (Alkermes) recently submitted a new drug request to the FDA, but it was denied because the FDA wants more studies on how ALKS 5461 compared to buprenorphine. Samidorphan has a similar method of action to naltrexone, and the dose of samidorphan is 2 mg, combined with 2 mg of buprenorphine. If the FDA would have approved it, it would have been released in 2019.

Erlich_Bachman 8y ago

Kudos to you to staying clean and on your path despite of those perceptory artifacts. The fact that you did shows that you (and your brain by extension) does not always, and does not have to optimize for simple pleasures, and can instead choose to optimize for higher modes of being.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

I used and abused meth-amphetamine for the better part of a decade. Five years clean and I’ll say the same thing with regard to lifting and running and doing strenuous short (<5hr) hikes. I’ve also sound Vitamin D and magnesium aminoacid chelate to be beneficial. But, I want to add: given what I’ve read here, and heard elsewhere, from people who never used drugs: it would seem my experience of life with regard to lacking energy and motivation, and a history of depression and suicidal ideation, isn’t too dissimilar to the non-drug users experience. So I’m not sure how much weight to place on the drugs as a cause or a misguided attempt to self-mediate. Probably both. I don’t think the drugs help anyway.

moltar 8y ago

I’ve never done those drugs, but I feels similarly. I think this comes with age and added stress, which also comes with age.

bfuller 8y ago

>I do feel that my sense of pleasure from other things in life has been somewhat blunted for many years after. ex addicts always say stuff like this. or, "I started balding after getting clean!" "I have no more energy!" its also known as getting old.

Jugglerofworlds 8y ago

I currently take naltrexone with buprenorphine for my depression. I highly recommend checking out low dose naltrexone, which is usually defined as a dose less than 5 mg. There has been a large surgre of interest in LDN on /r/nootropics and /r/depressionregimens in the past six months. Most people are trying it either for autoimmune diseases or to reverse opiate tolerance. The typical starting doses for LDN are around 1 mg Before anyone says that I'm just getting high, you should know that I've been on 20+ different antidepressant treatments and none of them worked. That includes ketamine and rTMS. So it was a medication of last resort. My other options were basically electro convulsive therapy or deep brain stimulation. There is an experimental antidepressant called ALKS 5461 that is composed of buprenorphine and samidorphan. The company who makes it (Alkermes) recently submitted a new drug request to the FDA, but it was denied because the FDA wants more studies on how ALKS 5461 compared to buprenorphine. Samidorphan has a similar method of action to naltrexone, and the dose of samidorphan is 2 mg, combined with 2 mg of buprenorphine. If the FDA would have approved it, it would have been released in 2019.