Getting off Suboxone.. And is addiction a choice or not??

I believe, that for me... My addiction is both, a choice and partly a disease too. I chose to STOP one day and face up to my disease. I knew it wasn't right. I knew I needed help to stop. I wanted to make the choices needed to stop. I absolutely believe we have to choose to start our recoveries. You can have all the Suboxone, therapy, best rehabs, AA, NA, all of that stuff, available to someone who needs it but until they CHOOSE to face their disease and take steps to make themselves better, nothing will happen. I believe that some of us have the disease of addiction and also that we have the choice to do something about it. I know that I am the kind of person who can't have "just one". Can't have just one pill, can't have just one drink, etc. So I have made the choice to not do the things I used to. I made the choice to stop smoking cigarettes. I made the choice to eat healthier and to take vitamins. I make choices everyday that keep me far away from old habits, places, people and things. You can call addiction a disease, I think it is, in its own form, but it is a disease that you have to choose to get a grip on. I know people close to me who havr this "disease" and still haven't made the choice to stop and get help. It kills me to see that. I'm still in the middle of learning about and figuring out this whole addiction thing myself. I'm not entirely sure of everything just yet but I do know that I am glad I made the choice to fight it, and to stop doing what Is to do.

Having the disease of addiction and being susceptible to addiction is not a choice. Being in active addiction, feeding your addiction is absolutely a choice.

I agree with you completely man! We all have choices and the choices we make determine the outcome of how we live our lives. Man I just wanted to let you know that your videos really help me a lot. I have been on suboxone for about 6 years now. I started with two 8mg strips a day not knowing anything about it except the bullshit doctors tell you. After 2 years of being on that I tapered down from two 8 mg a day to 1.5 8mg a day for a year. After that I got down to 1.25 8 mg strips a day for 2 years I was afraid of dropping down from that until about a year ago I finally dropped to 1 8mg a day and now I'm actually taking 3/4 of that a day and I'm ready to kick this shit man I just notice when I try taking less than that I feel tired and do not have interest in anything. I know the biggest part is that I know I'm afraid of what I may feel like when I drop from the 3/4 dose. I'm a single father raising a 6 year old little girl. Ive always had the fear that I won't be able to function normally without my suboxone until now after watching your videos! Keep spreading the word brother and keep the videos going because I look forward to hearing from you!

camel cowboy I'm dying over here. glad I found you on here, your videos are very inspiring. I think all the haters have never been in our shoes, because you really may mean well or think you understand, but unless you've been through it you really just don't know nothing about it. I had a long list of health problems stemming from 7 years ago, I lost a baby and never really had time to grieve over it, then my daughter was born premature at 29 weeks and I had severe preeclampsia, was in the hospital for 6 months of the pregnancy, should have died, my daughter should have died, every doctor said so. from being bedridden all that time, my hips dislocated and I ended up with my right leg being one inch shorter than my left which really screwed up my back, and because I was in kidney failure and heart failure due to the preeclampsia, none of it would heal, my C-section wasn't healing either. so long story short, I was going to physical therapy for over a year to get my hips and back somewhat back to normal, and knew nothing about pain meds, just knew I was in a LOT of pain, and my doctor said I needed it, so I took them as directed, that was all it took! a year and a half into it all, I was like what am I doing??!! I was 27 back then and on morphine and fentanyl patches, not abusing them in any way, and I legit had horrible pain, but I knew that i'm a strong person and didn't want to be dependant on pills to get out of bed every damn day, so I thought I would just quit. yeah, you can imagine how that went. I was taking as directed for legitimate pain, and even still, the physical dependence I had, omg, I wanted to die from the withdrawals. didn't mention either but during all this I was with an ex-husband who was extremely abusive and my whole life was a nightmare, all I knew is I couldn't handle being sick and I couldn't stop without being deathly ill, so then began the subs. been tapering and really decided a few months ago that I do not want to be on this crap anymore, I realized the same as you, if it's up to my doctors i'll be on it the rest of my life. they're just out to take my $, money that I frankly don't have because now i'm raising two kids on my own, so at least now i'm in a good place mentally, kids and I are happy and healed from all that hell we went through, and this is the last thing I need to put behind me and leave my 20's in the past. i'm 31 now, way smarter, less trusting of just taking a medicine because "doctor knows best", and since ive been through the same first-hand, I 100% agree with everything you've said in your videos. even though addiction runs in my family, and I probably do carry that genetic predisposition the doctors so love to talk about, I CHOSE to take the "medicine" that I now think of as poison, and I CHOSE, because of fear if I'm being honest, to get complacent with it because it was easier. But now my choices are different, i'm choosing to be done with this, I don't want to do it anymore. I want the "normal" life I see others living, the one you have now (I know you know what I mean by seeing other people with a "normal" life, lol) and basically I just want to be in control of my life... finally. So thanks for your videos, they do help a lot. Just to have as a reminder on days where I'm not feeling quite as motivated, because some days it would be easier to fall back to complacency, but I can't. Your videos have made me hopeful that I can do this. Ignore the hate, its coming from a place of ignorance, or they're just taking what you're saying and twisting it to fit their view. Thank you, you have helped one person- me, and i'm sure many more <3

Thank you for this.

I loved your video it in spired me you've got me thinking a lot about choices because like the story of an injury or falling off the roof and they get pain medications and then they turn into an addict they didn't choose to fall off the roof but they did choose two keep taking the medicine when they knew they didn't need it anymore is that what you're trying to say like if I broke my arm I needed pain meds I took the pain meds but I knew that my arm didn't hurt anymore but I didn't let my doctor know that and so I just kept saying it was hurting I don't want to take suboxone anymore I've tried to taper try to tape or try to taper and I always ended up back at 8 milligrams and so now I'm looking into kratom I don't know what I'm going to do I just don't know thank you for sharing your video I really liked it a lot

Im sober & i be painting murals. So its def not a mural issue

Damn right it's a choice !!! I just had back surgery and I was filleted like a fish I have chronic pain and I choose to live with the pain ( which by the way is do-able ) versus choosing to be addicted to any kind of pain medication let alone Suboxone I thought I was doing the right thing by getting on Suboxone this has been a living nightmare I am 100% on board with the taper method *FINGERS CROSSED *

Glad you found my comment interesting. Angel Luis is my real name I assure you not sure what there is to make fun of.

I understand where you’re coming from, but I have to push back a bit, because it’s so much more complex than you’re making it out to be. This is how I see it. Firstly, morals are cultural and subjective; animals in the wild kill for food, it’s dog eat dog because there is no culture, it’s the way of nature. Human consciousness and culture is what’s birthed the idea of a moral compass, which many of us have based on where we come from. Having the disease of addiction is not a moral issue - because it’s, in part, a genetic issue and based on environmental circumstances. Morally, most of us agree that just because someone was born in a certain place and time with a genetic disposition, that doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. I have to assume this is what we all mean when we say “having addiction is not morally evil” so I think you’re jumping the gun in a way for no reason other than to make a bold claim. Big HOWEVER, the behaviors that come along with addiction CAN be very morally wrong. When addicts lie, steal, and hurt, that is morally wrong. But like you said, many of them become morally impaired - why? Because while in withdrawal, the brain is severely impaired, your choices become very very impaired considering the brain is in starvation mode. If you look at an addict brain compared to a starving hungry person, it’s the same pattern. Also, addiction itself is not a choice, to have the disease of addiction, you generally have very little control over that. You DO have control over your actions, though, this is why our justice system is finally beginning to lean in the direction of “possession isn’t a crime, but robbing someone for money for the possession is a crime” or “using a substance isn’t a crime, but using a substance around kids IS a crime” for years the war on drugs and the pharmaceutical industries were making addicts out of countless people and putting them in the prison system for profit. Having addiction isn’t a choice, but there are a few bad but easy choices that create a terrible drug habit, and it can take a thousand difficult but good decisions to counteract those few bad choices that got us into addiction to begin with. This is why people say it’s not a moral issue, because we’re talking about very mentally sick people - this is also why one of the foundational steps in recovery is making amends for your wrongdoings. Because bad decisions and a broken moral compass is frequently built into addiction, like you said, so why guilt yourself every day of your life for things you did when you were mentally sick when you can try to make amends with the victims of your addiction. Obviously one should remind themselves of why being an addict was horrible, but living in a guilt trip can also be dangerous. Overall I think the entire conversation is nuanced and interesting, but we saw how poorly the war on drugs worked, and a lot of the thinking behind it was “drugs are bad, addicts are bad, lock em up” but thankfully the medical discussion over addiction has changed and become less stigmatized. Yes addicts do bad things and make bad choices, but there are enough countless addicts out there (especially since opioids became so easily accessible) for us to say “okay maybe there’s more to it than - these people just made bad decisions” it’s something that can wrap its arms around many many people, in spite of their morals up front. And I’ll be transparent, I was able to get my shit together by getting on Suboxone within two years of my pill addiction, and thankfully never did much to hurt anyone. My actions almost entirely only screwed up my own life. Yet, I have a lot of empathy for the other much more severe addicts out there, because I understand they tended to grow up in gross environments harboring horrible traumas who didnt have the education or information to get out when I did. And hey, I get where you’re coming from. I understand that we should take account of ourselves and be in control of our actions and be able to heal ourselves of addiction. I completely on board with addicts having agency and finding a way out - I just think it’s more complicated than “addicts are bad people because they’re bad people and when they get better they aren’t bad people but they used to be so I guess they should feel bad about it so they don’t go back to it again” Just my opinions, though, I appreciate anyone willing to talk about it openly. I plan on having a channel one day on addiction myself, and I think it should be talked about by more recovered addicts rather than all these lame ignorant doctors making informational videos about Suboxone and how great it is lol and why “half of people on Suboxone will have to stay on it their whole lives” which I call bullshit on.

You DO have morals even as an addict, they are just masked by the drug of choice. You ARE 100 percent wrong in your thinking of addiction.. You should continue your education on addiction to learn what it is...Addiction is a brain disorder. Please read Nicole's comment and allergy analogy.. it explains everything I want to say as well.