DOSE:

3 - 4 Tbsp

oral

Kratom

(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

190 lb

In the summer of 2015, my life was in emotional shambles. I had issues with my wife, my family, and ultimately with myself. For a number of years previously, I had been abusing any opiate/opioid drug I could find and scrounge and steal and buy, primarily tramadol as for a time it was much easier and cheaper to obtain than almost anything else (short of heroin, which I had only done once in my early 20s and loved it for about 30 minutes then spent the rest of the night vomiting miserably so I never did that again).

Tramadol seemed to put me on a Cloud 9 level of happiness any time I took it, and after some years I was up to almost 1200mg a day, trapped in the cycle of needing it just to function as a human being, and rarely getting actually high off of it. I knew something had to break, and I didn't want it to be me.

Summer of '15 came along, and I lost my last tramadol contact to a fed raid in San Diego. For a time I was miserable not only with horrendous withdrawals (dear Lord, the sleepless nights and sickening days) but with a nagging dread of being discovered by the raiding feds in my dealer's files, but nothing like that ever happened, I am very lucky and very glad to say. But the illness and fear of it all drove me to push through the withdrawals and rid myself of that addiction.

It almost worked. I started to feel more human after a few weeks, though I still had the restless body and brain buzzing and intense depression. I almost made it... but then a car accident left me with a broken foot and a few bottles of tramadol AND hydrocodone. I probably don't need to tell you I was right back to my old habits within a week, and trying to find another dealer for tramadol.

But around the end of July, I was out of pills once more, and dreading the sickness to come, and I began searching for tramadol withdrawal help online. And in minutes, I'd found mention of something called kratom, which seemed to be helping a lot of people get off of opiates and back to their lives. I started searching for reputable suppliers online, not sure what to expect but certainly excited that kratom was apparently quite legal! I soon found a decent price at a popular supplier (a well-known kratom seller still very much in business) and so ordered a sampler pack of caps and powders.

While running some errands later that day, I happened to see a new sign on the window of a local CBD/head shop that simply read KRATOM HERE NOW. What a coincidence! I pulled right into their lot and not 15 minutes later I returned to my car, heading home with a bag of green maeng da capsules and about 20 ounces of green maeng da powder. Yes, I had made the online order already, but that would be a week in coming; this was here NOW, and I decided that having extra wasn't going to be a bad idea at all. In fact, it would be well worth a thousand times the money I'd spent at that head shop if it lessened the severity of tramadol withdrawals. Hell, even if that's ALL it would do, it would be totally worthwhile.

I'd been off the tramadol four almost five full days at this point, shaky and aching and sick to my core... so with an empty stomach (as recommended by the kid who ran the head shop) I thought I would try the capsules first. I took five of them with a few sips of water and waited.

In about 20 to 30 minutes I began to feel... something. What was it, exactly? I wasn't sure at first -- I certainly didn't feel euphoric or high, but I felt... okay. Normal. Hell, I felt like ME. My gut wasn't cramping, my brain wasn't buzzing, my bones weren't aching, my nerves weren't twitching anymore. I felt GOOD. My body felt good, my mind felt good, everything felt a kind of good like I hadn't felt since before the first round of withdrawals. Could this stuff be working exactly how I was hoping it might?

In another 20 minutes or so, I started to feel the euphoria. It began in my legs and arms, as opiates tended to do with me before -- a sort of voluptuous heaviness that felt like being half asleep but mixed with a tingling warmth. Shortly after that, I was in a state of euphoric calm that warmed my face and relaxed my body and I suddenly realized I wanted to do some housework I'd been neglecting while in the throes of withdrawal. The energy lift I was getting from those five little caps was incredible. Everything felt incredible, and easy, and happy.

In my joy at realizing this stuff WORKED, I took two more caps, which seemed to do little but add to the body high... for hours. In all, the kratom high lasted a good 6 hours at least, from first coming on to doing chores to making and devouring dinner (I hadn't eaten anything substantial in days from withdrawals) to watching some TV then playing some piano to my finally getting to sleep. The night's rest was the best I'd had in ages. Certainly I slept like I hadn't slept in months.

The next day, I felt a tiny bit headachy for some hours after waking, and I wondered if the extra two caps had anything to do with it. But a few aspirin later and I was fine, in fact, feeling better overall than I had felt in a long time. I was upright, moving, smiling, HAPPY... and all without any more kratom euphoria or body high, just the high from getting a decent night's rest for the first time in a long time.

That evening, as I was feeling the withdrawal achiness set in again, I tried the powder, deciding to use the old "toss n' wash" method I'd read about online. I figured if this was going to be something I wanted to use -- and boy did I ever -- I'd better get used to the technique and the bitter flavor. Besides, the powder seemed to be a lot more economical than the capsules and I would probably be going the powder route most often.

Sure enough, it took some getting used to. It smelled like burnt leaves and tasted like what I might imagine to be the flavor if you singed Satan's ass hairs. But I persisted and got three mostly level tablespoons down the hatch before my gag reflex could interfere.

This time, the euphoria came right along with the body high not 30 minutes later. I mixed up some fruit juice to wash away the taste in my throat, but wasn't really caring about that taste much anyway because by this time I was damned near as high as any sane dose of white pills had ever gotten me. No, it wasn't and hasn't ever been quite like an opiate high, not as wide and intense. But this time the high was different in at least one other, far more important way -- it didn't feel *dirty.* It felt organic, clean, natural, not the kind of synthetic haze tramadol seemed to induce. It felt incredible... and I knew then I was saved from tramadol for good.

Indeed, it's been 7 years now, years without pills, years of trying different kratom strains and doses and once or twice overdoing it and feeling the high killed by the headachy nausea that comes from too much kratom... but I have never felt hungover and cruddy afterwards. I still generally use three or four heaping tablespoons with a plain water toss n' wash, followed by some nicer tasting drink like juice or even soda (though I am not much of a soda guy). I tend to use it at night, after work, to relax before bed, but sometimes in the daytime I will take some with me to use before some gathering or event where I might want to have some added joy. That's not frequent, though.

My preferred strain has been gold and Bali types. A little can go a long way... and the cost versus my pill habit isn't remotely comparable. I can get a kilo for a month in town or online, for a quarter of what I'd spent on ten days worth of tramadol... and it's legal, so no hiding or worrying. People know I use it -- family, friends, and even my managers at work know I use a legal substance when I need to focus and calm myself. No one has ever said 'boo' about it... except to praise it as one of the main things that helped me become myself again.

Kratom absolutely pulled me from the fire of opiate/opioid addiction and not only lessened and removed my withdrawals but gives me energy, euphoria and SANITY. I don't drink, smoke or do any other substance. My nightly kratom is my vice, and I will take that over all of those other things ANY day. I have referred a number of friends and family to kratom as a means of dealing with other addictions, and more often, depression. It seems to have helped all of them to some extent, a few rather dramatically, like my case.

I suppose like anything else, it is simply not for everybody. But for me? A life saver.

Exp Year: 2015-2022	ExpID: 116438
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 53
Published: Aug 7, 2022	Views: 5,373
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Kratom (203), Pharms - Tramadol (149) : Various (28), Glowing Experiences (4), Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11)