Suboxone Forum

About a year ago I started up a forum for people taking Suboxone;  after an initial flurry of activity, things died down quite a bit and I assumed that the site was ‘dead’.  The last time I checked in, there were about 90 registered users;  not a bad number, but there had not been many recent posts.  I just checked the place out, and was excited to see that the place has had a resurrection;  there are over 300 registered users, and a number of active threads.
My reason for starting the forum was to make a place where people could discuss Suboxone openly without getting ‘flamed’ by the Suboxone-haters that have taken over many of the other message boards that deal with addiction.  I ask that people who want to debate the nature of being ‘clean’ do so somewhere else; the forum is for people who have made the decision to take Suboxone and who are not looking for a debate.
You may notice that I haven’t posted as much lately;  I am taking the advice that I often give others and trying to carve out some downtime.  I also needed a break from the anger–   you would not believe some of the messages that I get from people who for some reason have nothing better to do than criticize the medical choices made by others.  In order to save time on a Saturday night, I will paste the message that I posted on the forum a little while ago, so that you get an idea for my feelings about the place.  I would also like to invite all of you to stop by, register, and take advantage of the collective wisdom of others who are also living with opiate dependence.
My message:
Wow!  I haven’t been around for a long time–  at least six months– and the last time I was here I thought that the place was dead.  Now I see that there are over 300 people registered– that’s excellent!
I want to thank Free Forums for the… well, for the ‘free forum’.  For users of the forum, I would like this to be a place where you can talk freely about Suboxone without getting ‘flamed’ by the ‘Suboxone haters’ that are such a presence on other boards.  If anyone is aware of that kind of activity, please send me a note to let me know so I can ban the person– not because I am against ‘free speech’, but because there are already plenty of places for that nonsense, and this is intended as a refuge from that discussion.  This forum is for people who have made the decision to take Suboxone;  feel free to discuss your reservations, but they should be discussed in the ‘first person’, as in ‘I worry about my use of Suboxone because….’.  The things I consider harassing are the ‘YOU should’ comments.  All of us opiate addicts have enough shame to get over without having more heaped on us by other addicts!
My view of addiction and of Suboxone is that opiate dependence is a medical illness, and Suboxone is the first of a new generation of medication that effectively treats that illness.  None of us asked to be opiate addicts;  we became addicted through appropriate use, through a bit of experimentation, or through efforts to treat our own anxiety or mood symptoms.  Those early uses of opiates were mistakes on our parts, but we have already paid for our mistakes through the misery brought on our lives from addiction.  At this point, I recommend letting go of the shame, and treating your addiction into remission through whatever works for you.  I see little value in going through repeated bouts of misery and physical sickness in order to prove that we can be ‘Suboxone-free’.  If Suboxone works for you, I recommend sticking with it… and telling the people who get on your case to ‘bugger off’!
Just my opinion, of course.
Thanks, all of you, for keeping this forum alive.  As an FYI, I am not charged for the forum beyond paying for the domain name, and the advertising on the site is not placed by me, and does not benefit me in any way.  My practice is closed to new Suboxone patients.  I say all this to ward off the comments that I sometimes get– that I am motivated by greed to keep people on Suboxone.  Oh– and I don’t get paid anything by the company that makes the drug either.  I just get sick of seeing people die from opiate addiction, and for now, for many people, Suboxone is the best option out there.
SuboxForum.com
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