First person account of overcoming Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS)
Summary and Analysis…
This story, posted on the Bluelight website gives a first-person account of an individual who withdrew from long-term opioid use, apparently without the use of replacement opioids.
Bluelight presents itself as a site dedicated to “helping drug users help themselves” with a stated, overarching philosophy to: “Meet people where they are and encourage open dialogue that empowers the individual to be the primary agent of her own physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.”
Excerpted from BlueLight Blog
“I used crazy amount of years.. 21 years with a year and a quarter off during that time.. as far as opiates where concerned I was a junkie for over a decade.. about twelve years..
Yes, I had withdraw pains or phantom pains that persisted but got a TINY TINY bit better everyday, of course some days were better than others, but it got significantly better and now is gone. That took a long time, funny how get n clean isn’t like in the movies, rite three days of hell and then your all better and sparkly, yeah, the reality of it is that it takes a little time.. I finally just said, you know what most of this pain is not real and the other pain doesn’t come from something that i will hurt if I begin to get active.. so I began to exercise slowly, don’t get me wrong this hurt, but I always felt better afterward, NEVER WORSE, it helped with the depression and helped me sleep.. oh that’s one i forgot to mention, If you can get yourself on a very strict sleep schedule and go to bed and get up at the same time, proper sleep does wonders to naturally stabilize brain chemistry and elevate symptoms of PAWS.. It does get so much better and the more effort you put in the faster and better it gets.. Again anything I can do, I’ve been there and this helps me …