Anyone suffered this cross-addiction?

I've heard it can happen, and seen it happen myself with people weening off methadone. There's something about the fact that you drink methadone and its calmative effects kick in a similar way to alcohol. When their taper starts getting tough, they start to boost the feelings of their remaining methadone with alcohol. Only to find themselves a year later in detox with bad DT's.

What about with suboxone? Anyone on suboxone find you're drinking more, or using alcohol to control your feelings? I"m interested to know.

T

I've actually found that I drink significantly less since I've been on suboxone. I don't drink often - haven't had once since May I think - and when I do drink, I only have one or two drinks. Others have mentioned this phenomenon while on sub, too.

I would think that it's very possible for people who've quit using their DOC to turn to alcohol to go back to numbing. I know in the beginning of my sub treatment I was actually worried about that happening. I thought, "well geez, all that's left for me is alcohol, what if I go crazy with that, too?" But it's ended up OK for me.

I think it really depends on the person and if their drug use helped to self-medicate or numb feelings intentionally. If so and they don't start dealing with those things, like in therapy, then the need to push those feelings back down might become strong. It's why I believe therapy is so important in recovery. Of course not everyone uses drugs to self-medicate, but I know I did, so I'm really speaking from my own experience. It doesn't necessarily generalize to all other addicts, of course.

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-As I have grown older, I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.

-I'm only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand.

Yup, it happens.
I've never liked alcohol, I didn't drink at all during active addiction and only drank on rare occasions (like a glass of champagne on the New Years eve or some wine in a restaurant with my dinner) when I was "clean", but now I'm starting to like it for some reason. Now I'm not drinking to get drunk, (yet), just as a "flavor enhancement" with food, and not every day, not every week even, but it bothers me that I actually enjoy it. Now, catch 22 here is, that if I start monitoring my drinking and count how many drinks I have, I'll start obsessing about it, and knowing myself, I'll end up doing exactly what i told myself not to (that same thing happens with dieting, as you probably know). But if I just let go, I have no idea how soon I'll start "self-medicating" with booze when I'm alone.

There's no way out. No way out I tell ya! Cheers.

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"If I knew it was harmless, I would have killed it myself." (c)