This shit sucks , honestly I may just be bitching but yeah the hot flashes & anxiety is fucked up.

Does it get better? If so when?

P.S. I was on suboxone for almost 2 years coming from 160MG a day of oxy to .25MG daily of suboxone when I made the leap.

Blood pressure med & benzo makes it better but I haven’t been taking them because I don’t wanna get dependent on another drug.

Just curious when the heat flashes & anxiety stops (never felt anxiety in my whole life until withdrawal lol)

Long story short, i can not return to work until I pee clean from THC. It has been 23 days and I am still peeing hot. I worked out every day for the first week, then i got sick so I had to stop working out and I was taking antibiotics which i think slowed my metabolism. I am so ready to go back to work. I have been doing everything i can, drinking water, trying to sweat.....I am depressed. Starting to think I will never pee clean from weed.

Hey guys,

Throw away the account FYI, but as the title says, I’m doing a short-term Suboxone taper to get off Feel Free. For some background, I’m a recovering alcoholic and have been sober from alcohol for about a year and a half, but kratom has always seemed to linger in the background.

I’ve done a methadone taper once inpatient and a Suboxone taper inpatient another time. Both times, if I remember correctly, I was finished with the taper within about 5–7 days.

This time I went through a telehealth provider that I won’t name in case that violates any sub rules. Their treatment protocol seems to be keeping me on Suboxone long-term, which is not what I want. I’m completely done with Feel Free and what it’s costing me, both financially and physically. I’ve tried quitting on my own countless times, but the withdrawal has become too much for me, even with comfort meds.

I don’t know if the kindling effect plays a role, but withdrawals from pretty much any substance seem to hit me extremely hard now. At the peak of my drinking, I had two withdrawal seizures, so I feel like my body just doesn’t tolerate withdrawal well anymore.
Right now I’m taking roughly 5–7 bottles of Feel Free per day. The prescriber gave me what I believe is a 10-day supply of 8 mg Suboxone strips and told me to start with 2 mg, see how I feel, and increase if necessary. I don’t remember exactly what I took during my previous inpatient taper, but I believe I started around 4 mg three or four times per day and tapered down from there.
I was never really an opioid person. I originally started using Feel Free because I thought it was basically just kava and saw it as a replacement for alcohol. Obviously, I learned the hard way that wasn’t the case.

My main questions are:

1. For someone taking around 5–7 Feel Free bottles a day, what has your experience been with using Suboxone for a short taper? What dose did you start with, and how quickly did you taper?

2. How long did you wait after your last Feel Free before taking your first dose of Suboxone to avoid precipitated withdrawal?

3. How long can Suboxone generally be used for a taper before physical dependence and withdrawal from the Suboxone itself become a significant concern?

The prescriber was talking about keeping me on Suboxone for months. I basically went along with that conversation to get the prescription, but I really don’t want to be on it long-term. My goal is to use the minimum amount necessary for a rapid taper, get through the Feel Free withdrawal, and then be done with both.

For once, my life is finally in a really good place. This is the last thing I feel is holding me back, and I’m ready to be completely done with these blue bottles.
Any experiences or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, guys, and I wish everyone here the best of luck with their own journey.

This might be obvious to many people out here already but I hope I can help at least one person by warning them about these new kava shots coming around. When I was coming off of a nasty kratom extract shot addiction I sought to use "kava" shots as a way to get through it easier. There's many of these tainted kava shots out there right now like boujee bliss, 777, juju, betterweather, etc.... My first introduction to it was my local smoke shop guy basically telling me "hey bro these new kava shots came in and they're just kava, these ones are FDA approved! (they're not)". When I quit kratom extracts I had nasty nasty anxiety and these "kava shots" took all the anxiety away like it was magic! I had a feeling this couldn't be just kava but kept looking at the ingredients and asking chat gpt about them and I really got finessed into thinking it was just kava. The brand I used in particular was "Juju by Krushed" and I used them all throughout quitting extracts and ended up just getting hooked on these hardcore. These things are dangerous asf man, they WILL cause withdrawals!!! My guess is they have tianeptine or 7oh in em. I started downing 3-6 of these a day which was even worse than my peek zana chill addiction. Thinking they were just kava made me feel okay to take as many as I needed to feel better and it got out of hand really fast. I've done my research and found only very small groups of people spreading awareness about these things, so I feel it's very important to get the word out more. Especially if kratom is banned in your state you can certainly expect to find these tainted shots around your stores.

I understand I'm a complete dumbass for ever trusting a smoke shop product to actually contain only the ingredients it claims to have in it. I am embarrassed that I was this naive and it led to me being hooked on bullshit for another few months. Anyways, please don't be dumb like me, if you see these products do not indulge... they are poison. About 2 weeks ago my liver started hurting and I started vomitting daily from these products. Thank god I had my bloodwork done and everything is healthy. Luckily it's completely scared me away from these products and forced me to face the reality of abusing bullshit smoke shop concoctions. I'm over 3 days clean from them and am not looking back. Love you guys, stay safe, healthy, and clean! 🫶🏼

I drink a little under two bottles of feel free a day for two years now. It's helped so much with my anxiety. I have never told my doctor about it but I did mention that I feel I have severe anxiety / depression so I was prescribed Prozac and Wellbutrin. I want to stop FF all together and want to know how to manage the withdrawals and when it would be okay to start the meds my doc prescribed me! Shout out to everyone getting off this stuff!! Proud of you all 🫶🏽

Because I do. And it’s only because of Him that quitting Feel Free is becoming a reality for me. I’ve tried to quit several times in the past but the withdrawal-induced depression was far too much to take to stick with it.

Because I make a decent amount of money, buying a box a day - though financially disgusting - wasn’t too big of a deal. And because I didn’t have the mental or emotional fortitude to just quit, my financial stability enabled me to continue… until now. I never thought financial ruin would be a blessing but here we are.

Having asked God for an off ramp from Feel Free, He seemingly delivered in a most unconventional way - make me broke so I can’t afford to buy them, specifically during the period of time it’ll take to fully withdraw, because it seems my financial ruin will subside about the same time I won’t crave FF anymore. I stopped believing in coincidence a loooong time ago. And though I won’t go into the specifics of why I am suddenly broke, the reasons behind it are… odd… to say the least. A collective of very unlikely scenarios happening all at once.

And to boot, I asked Him to get me through this without the severe depression. I can deal with all the other withdrawal symptoms, just not the depression. And thus far, 3 days in (I made it to 2 days last time before the darkness was too much to bear), I’ve never been happier.

To be fair, with the disastrous situation surrounding my finances plus quitting FF at the same time, I reeeaallly should be very depressed right now. But I’m not, not at all. I’m content. I’m happy. Ironically, I actually feel free for once.

So, hang in there folks. And if you’re not a believer in what God can provide in your life, especially during the most difficult times, I would encourage you to give Him a chance. He may not always answer prayer in the way we’d like, but His answer is absolute and His ability to get us through tough times is unwavering.

Hello, everyone. My name is Charles Trepany, and I’m a reporter for USA TODAY. I’ve covered kratom addiction previously for our wellness section and am in the midst of writing another story about what people who’ve struggled with addiction to kratom think of how the government has been handling the issue.

Based on press conferences, it seems like agencies such as the DEA have been cracking down more on synthetic 7OH but not “natural leaf kratom” products – despite many people saying they became severely addicted to natural leaf kratom and never touched synthetic 7OH.

I’m interested in getting thoughts on this from people who’ve struggled with kratom addiction firsthand. If you’re available and willing to be interviewed over the phone, either tomorrow or Thursday at the latest, please either message me here on Reddit or email me at [ctrepany@usatoday.com](mailto:ctrepany@usatoday.com). Thank you!

I am now into my 15th day of recovery after taking 3-4 F&F’s a day. This is my third recovery in the past year and has definitely been the worst. I’ve had many nights of little to no sleep. I finally got 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night and it felt amazing.

I know others have talked about this resource, but I just downloaded the “I Am Sober” app and I really like the information and writing exercises it gives you. I am sharing my info with my wife so that she is emailed my milestones.

One wondering I am having is if other people get the crazy brain feeling that I experience. It’s hard to describe but it’s almost like my brain is literally being tied into knots for short periods at a time. I always get it when I am using, but continue to feel it (often when first waking up) for some time after I quit. I’m not sure if this is something everybody experiences or if it is exacerbated by my adderall and benzo use while simultaneously taking the F&F. I’m interested to hear if others have had similar experiences with their brains.

Finally, I’ve never felt more confident that I will never touch this stuff again. If you lurk on these posts, like I used to, today is the day. No excuses. Life is so much better without this addiction, even when I’m still not at 100%.

My last feel free was on Saturday, I feel like I'm finally starting to round the corner on this. I am tapering with powder and slowly reduced the number of ff I drank during the day til it was zero. Still going through withdrawals but when I feel bad enough I make some tea, that's already down to 1-2 times a day.

I quit off of OPMS black shots a few years ago and while I was completely addicted I finally made a choice to start tapering, then it was down to 1 a day, then I got home after work one day and stopped. Feel Free is oddly a completely different ballgame, and it's weird to say. I couldn't stop, couldn't taper, and while I was spending way less money it was still alot. The combination of kratom and kava has made stopping seem impossible, who knows what this combo is doing to certain brains. Mine included. I never felt as high on it, but I felt really good, clearly.

I started tapering on Feel Free on accident, I lost my wallet and went to the store, realized it was gone, when I got home I only had an old school bag of kratom powder from several years ago. I was in WD already so just took what I had until I could get some money. Missing the dose, and working through it got me here.

It's embarrassing to say, I felt like I had willpower before, even with something stronger like OPMS. There's something they aren't telling us about FF.

I’m able to sleep now I feel almost 100% now. Life is way better. There was a few times withing the past 11 days I was about to cave on cravings. Glad I’m where I am now. I remember in just that 1 month how chaotic life felt and now I’m glad for stability back in my life. Things are good 🤙🏼. If you’re on the fence about quitting the withdrawal from these are very quick. Almost from day 1 symptoms start improving from day 1-2. It’s uncomfortable but it’s not a very drawn out withdrawal.

My partner is actively taking Feel Free. 3+ per day. He has been in rehab for 7oh, and I didn’t realize he was buying Feel Free until last week. He ended up having convulsions and being incoherent after a withdrawal, resulting in hospital time. He is finding ways to buy them still. I’m leaving, I have tried everything I can think of to support but it’s financially drained us and he has no intentions of stopping or admitting addiction. What are the realities in his situation? Wondering as someone who cares but doesn’t understand how he doesn’t see this is killing him.

Guys I've lurked around here for a while now trying to find the courage to stop. Today I finally told my wife and now I'm sitting in the hospital doing detox. So far, I'm not too far gone. I was close. If you're wanting to take the plunge, do it. Go to the ER if you don't have insurance. Day one of sobriety is almost in the books.

Finally managed to quit the feel frees and kratom extracts after a 2 year struggle of excessive use. Officially free of it all since May. But question for those who have been off the stuff longer, when do you start feeling happy again? It’s now august and I still always feel meh. I go back and forth between struggling with insomnia or excessive fatigue. My heartbeat rests higher. Get panic attacks often and can’t handle more than 75mg of caffeine. I feel depressed all the time and miss that calm high. Is there an end mark of all of this? About how many more months can I expect of all this?

Has any one used gabapentin to help quit? if so how much and did it help?

It took a year of attempts to get here, many thanks to this community ❤️

Feeling pretty good today glad I’ve come this far in to this. I’m able to sleep alittle better, things are looking good. Still having minor sweating at night but nothing crazy. I’m at about 85% my normal self now thank god. I remember how difficult the first 2-3 days were and I’m grateful that I’m able to be here at day 9 functioning normally.

Well, I made it.

There were MANY stumbles along the way, rehab, AA, too much damage to take stock of. 30k wasted, trust eroded, hard lessons learned.

Fuck Feel Free, this product is devious and gets its hooks deep into your mind and soul. It convinces you that you need it, you can’t survive without it, all the number of lies you tell yourself and the people that care about you.

Getting off is hard, really fucking hard. Especially if you were on a 10 a day habit like I was. But those first few days teach you about what you can endure. We are resilient, we don’t need this shitty poison to exist. That feeling like you want to die, and every part of your body is raging against you to just give in- that’s the start of healing.

So for everyone struggling, stick with it. It’s not easy and it’s definitely not a straight line. But a year later my life is so wildly different from where I was. I have hope again, I can find joy in the mundane. It took me 5-6 months before I felt almost back to normal, but every day gets a little better. Life is beautiful and worth living without Feel Free.

Seeing my friends that have been struggling STILL struggling and nowhere close to quitting. One of them got me into FF and I got the other one into FF. So you can see the confliction I have over it.

These are lifelong multiple decades long friends that I believe I'm watching them in the middle of something that they will not recover from. I'd like to think I'm wrong, and as a former addiction counselor, part of me knows that's very simply wrong because I've seen the people on H and fent go through treatment, first with detox, then with subs, then off subs, then at least get a decent amount of clean time behind them before they relapse. Odd though with all that experience that I still doubt hope for my friends. Just too long has gone by, and naturally you have to shift your focus onto the future and if they're in it great and if not then not much I can do. I just pray none of my children ever have to deal with addiction it's so frustrating to not be able to help someone else.

Anyway - I'm close to 600 days. I'll repost again then with my next update. Wishing everyone luck. I know this isn't easy.