Week 3

teresa36659, even cutting down your intake by one tablet each week is something to be proud of.You are doing really well. Almost everyone who has addiction problems has some kind of underlying problem. I was fairly athletic when I was younger and then in my twenties I began to eat too much and put on a lot of weight. I knew I couldn't go on like this so I got down to it and lost that extra six stone.However I always had the idea in the back of my mind that if I lost the weight not all of my problems would go with it. But I was only partly right in thinking this. All my problems did not go away, but they became much easier to manage,  I was addicted to codeine as in co-codomol for fifteen years. When I finally went to the doctor for help he said I should have been dead years ago, but the fact  that I am such a big man saved my life. By then my weight was back to normal and he meant big as I am  6' 4''. Everyday during my addiction I woke up at dawn after a sweaty restless night watching the clock waiting for the pharmacy's to open. I reached rock bottom one Monday morning when I visited the usual pharmacy where the rather timid pharmacist gave me what I needed and took the money without saying a word, Despite this I would always say please and thank you., One morning I dropped the coins from my change and as I picked them up a lady asked the same pharmacist for 24 nurofen plus, he refused. She then asked him fr twelve and he refused even more rudely. It suddenly dawned on me that this pharmacist was intimated by me, and my beard and longish hair and of couse size. I was mortified as I am not this kind of person, if he had said no, i would simply have said thank you and went somewhere else. I was out the door just before the lady who had been refused when she tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to sell her some of the nurofen plus I had bought. She was well dressed, well spoken, and obviously well to do, but addiction knows no boundry's, She was in bits and obviously desperate for codeine. I refused her money but gave her twelve tablets for which she was very grateful. Now she said when these had taken the edge off her withdrawls, she would drive to some nearby towns and replenish her stock. I was shocked that my appearence would intimate a pharmacist and that such a respectable middle class lady would sink so low because of a substance that their are almost no places in treatment centres for. I hadn't been to a doctor for years, but he was sympathic and put me on a reducing dose of pure codeine and as I was taking so much it was almost a year before i was completely free of this poison. There were days when I took seventy tablets and this didn't happen overnight. It gradually takes more and more codeine to have the same efffect. teresa36659 you are well on your way to overcoming your addiction. And when you do become clean, you'll find you problems are not that serious afterall and you'll be able to handle them much better. I too missed the routine of the daily ritual of trying to figure out which pharmacy to visit to procure my fix........I can only wish from the bottom of my heart, that you will suceed in beating this viscious monkey off your shoulder......I'm sure you will........kindest regards Banesh

Hi Tim, Teresa, Drew, Nikki, Katyp et al,

You are correct - this drug knows no stereotypes, and I am shocked at just how deep within our society that this 'respectable' drug goes. I know the feeling of refusal - from someone who doesn't know, doesn't understand and you feel judgementalism seeping from their power tripped pores.

What a  guy in giving that lady some help Tim. We all know that the problems we face seem hugely amplified when priority number one is to sort out the fix first. We can use drug terms here no matter how uncomfortable that may sound, and as there exists programs for heroin users to get clean, there also too exists treatment centres for people like us, addicted to readily available OTC codeine.

I'm a film-maker and intend to blow the lid off this, and as part of this documentary will need to speak to doctors, pharmacists, psychiatrists, addicts for two reasons: firstly, this needs the same exposure as alcohol awareness. Although we don't go out to pill pubs and socialise, no-one questions anyone about popping a pill - easily excused by any number of resonable excuses - even selling it to our partners. But secondly, it's a killer. Apart from costing us an absolute fortune, it costs the NHS an absolute fortune, and worse, I am in no way a conspiricay theorist but when I voiced an opinion that codeine phospate just does not work, what exactly is in nurofen plus? It says ibuprofen and codeine phosphate, so, if that's the case, by just taking prescribed codeine phosphate should make one feel exactly the sameas taking nurofen plus minus the horrible belly feeling of ingesting quantites of ibuprofen.

Also, it is recommended by the makers that we should take no more than 6 per day for a max of 3 days. That's 18. So why on earth do they sell boxes of 32?

As far as getting off the stuff goes, for me, taper does not work. Cold turkey does not work. The only thing that is working (very well) is buprenorphine. Yes, it is an opiate. Yes it is addictive. Very yes, it takes every single thought of chemists and codeine away without blowing your face off in the process. Plus, it iws managed at YOUR rate. You dictate the terms of taper. I know I just said taper doesn't work for me, but this is different. I'm now down to 4mg from 6mg, coming off at  400 microgrammes (o.4mg) every 2 weeks. Because of it's very long half life, when my daily dose is very small, I will be reducing to virtually nothing.

I was admitted to hospital two weeks ago after an 88 N+ binge - a computer error reduced my buprenorphine by 1mg, so be careful with it - it is slow releasing and powerful, but it will get you off codeine. Remember well though, this works for me, and the last thing I want to do is preach - though, I was given a thorough MOT and a clean bill of health after slamming these b'stards for 3 years. Indeed a wake up call.

All the best,

Rich