Co Codamol addiction. What should I do?

Exactlt how many other people are falling victim to this and unknowingly becoming addicts having their life controlled by a pill!  I know because you are quite "good" with sticking to doses ect a go should give you a codeine phosphate only prescription have regular app. And sort a tapering plan Good luck I hope u can beat this 

You will beat this because you have made up your mind to beat it. I wont wish you good luck, I will wish you something that luck does not need a part to play... May your journey bring freedom away from this horrible drug and that once stoped your body will start to recover..

Thank you Matron.  I will do my best to beat this. 

I am 47 have been taking 30 over 500 co cosMology effervescent tablets for the last seven years and cannot get off them and I am astounded at just how many of us have fallen into this legal trap from the doctors not once have any of my doctors tried to take me off them they just regularly sign my repeat. I wonder how many other people have that embarrassing and guilty feeling when we go to chemist to pick up our pills I actually feel like a regular junkie and the chemists themselves know we are addicts but never say anything. I am desperate and try really hard to get off them but just as I think I have had a good day and cut down from my 8 a day to 3 the next I go back up 

Hi Amanda

I could have written this, its been me in the past. I have been on them for over 20 years. I was also getting a top up with 30 mg of co code. Yes doctors junkie.. the good news is that I am now down to just 16 mg three times a days, no para just code... I may well have left it too late, yet the doctors still keep giving me a repeat parcritpion.. Please start to reduce your habit slowly but don't back, you have to come off these or your liver will kill you.

Hi there just read your last mail and I know that it is probably doing irreparable harm to my liver and that's what scares me the most. My mum was,a drinker and a co codamol user and I lost her last year due to I have Hinkle the pairing of them together her liver gave up after being told there was a problem but it was wY too late, I sat at the hospital after she lost consciousness one day at home and stayed with her without leaving her side for 6 days in the vain hope she may wake up to give me a chance to say goodbye but wasn't to be.

I did have a glass of wine myself every night sometimes more but normally one and the co codamol was about between 3 and 6 a day , I stopped drinking just before Xmas and don't miss it or so I thought but I think I have kind of replaced some of the not feeling right in myself with an uptake in my co codamol I feel like I am in such a vicious circle. I really feel that really needy feeling if I don't have a dose and I was thinking just the other day I don't honestly think I have much in the way of actual pain just a sort of I have to have it to go out of the door and to work and I am sure I am not alone with how I am feeling.

Have you been able to reduce your doses and how as I said before I can do it a bit and then it just grabs me again and I think I need a painkiller, I have to make sure I never run out or to I low or I feel really anxious, but it sounds stupid I don't want to tell my doctor as then my head says he will cut them down and my heart says I am too bloody weak to do it.

Please do you have any advice?

Dear Amanda.

I hope you can pick up my other post to you today. Yet reading this and with honesty which is all I can offer on a site like this, I must say why did you need these pills in the first place.

Secondly, do we have an addictive personality, I do.

As a kid I tried different drugs, thank goodness I stopped, however I did replace the drugs with drinking. I had a stressful job, a family to feed, so the drink along with smoking just seemed to become part of me.

 

I gave up drinking over 20 years ago. Smoking 10 years ago. My point here is not how cleaver I have been so if anyone else reads this please don’t see it that way..

The point is looking back I needed a crutch.

 

So did I replace my drinking with Co-cod and codeine. It started with a bad problem I had after falling from a height, I had to keep on working so kept taking the pills…. Yet never stopped.. Anxiety, stress, even depression can hook people in. Yet I know this drug will make depression worse, can make anxiety worse, if some has stress the link is there.

 

So its maybe tackling the anxiety head on which will help the link with the pills.. I know when I gave up drink, I felt good, and giving up smoking I became so relaxed…

 Copper    

Its an absolute horroble trap but firstly well done for recognising your addicted and wanting to change I knew I was addicted along time ago but I dodnt really care because the only time I felt happy and normal was when I was taking them whatever you do do not drop alot in one week it just wownt work do a slow taper plan yes it not ideal we would all love to click our fingers and be codeine free. I literally cant trust myself with them anymore I confided in a close friend who helps me taper off them. Even half a tablet a week is a great start!dont rush urself because u will feel anxious and take more. Sit down and decode how many u take if its 8 for the first week take 8 then try dropping half a pill if you feel comfortable. Cold turkey is a hard one because u feel so rubbish that u end up back at square one 

Hi after fall down flight stairs really damaged lower back and right shoulder so started co codamol then and at first hated the fuzzy sick feeling but after while realised my pain felt bearable and after time the sick feeling was disappearing and was beginning mingle to feel able to work properly again.

Unfortunately the all too familiar addiction was slowly sucking me I. From taking what I thought was a few became more and more with constant pain creeping back daily so my I take of pulls grew to compensate.

I make bespoke furniture for a living owning my own business it is extremely hard and very heavy work and I also do the finishing spraying which I. General is normally all done by men but I love what I do and feel generally fit for my age and can and have to do long hours plus then have the running of the business and the nightmare of paperwork estimates etc etc along with Wkward customers who want it all and run you ragged but somehow don't Luke the putting their hands in their pockets at the end of the job and then we have the worry of keeping bank managers happy so I guess you could say stress can play huge part in my life.

I think you again are correct in the fact that we need so.e sort of crutch I never smoked but I did drink which I now don't do and funny enough don't miss ( tell me that a year ago and I could not have imagined not having my wind down hard day at work glass of wine after work) but now have upped my co codamol intake I think in replacement as it is that relaxed feeling I crave and I keep telling myself it is fine to take ad my back still hurts! Why shouldn't I. But deep down I know this is not good!

What helped you ease down when you say cut tablets down very slowly I try this but ultimately end up taking more and keep telling myself no it's fine.

What helped you and you mentioned you are only on codeine now not paracetamol so how do you cope with your pain and how do you get the codeine without the paracetamol I really need some advice I get the headaches and the feeling rubbish and so want to get up with the zest for life I did before I ever took these Mohammed awful pills if only I could go back in time I would never ever have started and doctors are awful for allowing down this path.

Hello Amanda

Addiction sadly looks for all the ways it can to bring us back to a drug. We will look deep inside for any excuse to keep taking them.

I would like to confide to you that I was a self-employed carpenter years ago, 12-hour days, pricing up jobs and all that goes with it.

I developed arthritis in the knees, feet well its here there and everywhere from years of abusing my body for work and a sport. So pain plays a real part in my life. However early in the year I badly ripped my left knee, the pain was 99 out of 100 on a pain score. Did the codeine relieve the pain, no, did taking 60 mg + paracetamol + an inflammatory help, the sad truth was no.. so I was left in such bad pain for many weeks without much sleep until it got better. Another reason why to stop taking these pills, as the pain effect they should give you won’t work when you really need it.

I think you and I can be honest with each other. I look at how hard you work, and maybe the stress that goes with this work. A need to relieve the stress comes into play, codeine makes people feel good, more relaxed, that is why so many people take it. It starts out a different way, pain, then we like the feelings the meds give us…… the rest is history.

An outlet to relieve stress or to make us feel good is needed, yet not dear old codeine. Somehow you must find time, time for you to do something that makes you feel happy and relaxed without pills…..

Getting free. We all when starting to cut down feel the need to go back up again. We cut back, do really well, then have a bad day, so we up the dose, saying to ourselves I will only do this once, I need to feel good its been a bad day so one day becomes many.  

I am a recovering alcoholic, dry now for over 23 years. I used to take drugs when I was young. I used to smoke very heavily yet gave that up as well ten years ago. I have worked in rehab at ground level so know all and everything an addict me/others will say or do for a fix while coming down off gear. Codeine is gear, we are addicts weather we like it or not.

Am I more predisposed to take this drug than anyone else, NO for I have a better awarnes than most, so should have known better. 

I leave what is very personal in my life laid out bare for all to see only to try and help.

The good news is you can beat this. It will not be easy; it’s got to be one day at a time. Yes start cutting down slowly, try cutting just a quarter of one fizzy tablet at first, do this for two or more weeks. Then a half and so on over whatever period works for you. The other way is to cut from taking this muck four times a day to three times a day; it was much easier for me to do this at first. Then I have been using Dihidrocodine in small amounts to equal the amount I was taking of the fizzy pills yet without the paracetamol.

If you have a bad day and go off course for a day, so what just get back on line the next day, keep in mind you want to beat this and how much better you will feel when you beat this. I got off this drug for 6 months some years back yet only started to take it again because of the pain at the time. Then of course got hooked again. I went cold turkey the first time I stopped, yet had time off work to deal with it.

I am on a low amount now, just twice a day and I have given myself the right to take paracetamol when I really need it for pain, and for short term use only, once I am free again.  

You will beat this, and if anybody else who is hooked reads this, you can to. Yet don’t kill yourselves with the paracetamol and high salt intake.  

Yr post is excellent well written and makes sense..im going to taper the solpodol, I take 30/500 several times a day...they don't help now I don't think so anyway ...i suffer with panic disorder so even more worried about tapering as will affect my anxiety level and I already suffer panic attacks anyway!....started them several years ago for agonising disc rupture...very concerned about what they are doing to me so want to...stop slowly but start taper asap...i know from past experience when missed a couple that my stomach will be bad and upset, but i know i must protect my liver and kidneys and hope they will be ok....any further advice will be much appreciated...!

Hi Codieslayer, your post has given me the courage to quit, but I keep questioning my strength to do so, I've been taking 30/500 tablets up to ten a day for the last ten years (originally for neck pain, which eventually went along the path of feel good and addiction). My doctor keeps repeating my prescription but my tablets run out after a couple of weeks max so I buy shop tablets (8/500) to cover me until my next prescription. When I come down from the higher dose I feel rotten (typical sweats, anxiety, diarrhoea, awful flu like symptoms) I've suddenly had a wake up call, in so much as I'm totally fed up of being controlled by other things, like drink or smoking (don't smoke much but stopped a week ago, also drink most nights, not to excess unless a weekend when I tend to binge drink with 'friends' I desperately want to quit all of these evil substances that I didn't use, want, crave or depend on when I was younger (I'm 53 and also still in a stressful job). I simply want to live again, have enough energy and focus to get on with day to day work, but Without looking forward to that fix that has enveloped me, whether a cigarette, a drink or two more tablets. I could scream I'm so angry with my tablet addiction, my pathetic inability to stop smoking and the fact that my last full two weeks without a drink was probably when I was 16. I want to stop.