Hi,
I hope everyone is doing pretty swell tonight, or this morning depending on where you call home. My name is Ben, and chicks really dig me.
Now that I got the requisite utter falsehood out of the way, let me tell you about myself in truer terms. I live in S.Maryland and work in Washington DC as a USAF Civilian Intelligence Officer. That said, you can probably imagine that when it comes to any regulatory actions which might impact the scheduling or legal availability of kratom, I'm always paying very close attention.
I began using kratom on the advice of my physician roughly 5 years ago, and aside from a brief 1½ month cessation at the end of 2016 for reasons I know need no explanation, the supplement has been a part of my daily life and routine ever since. I desperately needed something to pick up the slack left by a medication I had recently stopped taking called Tramadol. I had been taking Tramadol for approx. 7 years which was first prescribed to me by the VA for a chronic neck injury suffered while serving in active duty years earlier. When first placed on the medication, I made certain that I had no interest in being prescribed any of the opiates which I had months earlier had the displeasure of watching a close friend detox from over a grueling 10 day period of what looked to me like pure hell. The physician assured me that Tramadol was not derived from the poppy plant, thus would carry none of those dependency risks (Wait.....hold your comments until I finish.)
Made total sense to me, I agreed to give it a go, and picked up my first bottle of 30 50mg Tramadol tablets later that day. Let me say this, Tramadol worked absolutely wonderfully. I'm relatively certain that nothing will completely take away the discomfort of multiple bulging disks in the upper spine, but it was better than anything I had tried before, and I was very happy. So why would I ever come off it? Great question, thanks for asking you sexy maverick renegade, you!
For that answer, we need to fast forward roughly 5 years into the 7 year period to find the answer.It was a Thursday night and my wife and I were late getting home. She had to be up early the following morning to drive to a job interview which was about a 2½ hour drive from our house. So into the house and into bed. It wasn't until I woke up the next morning, hours after she left, that I realized that I had left my Tramadol bottle, a regular fixture in my life by then, in her car. Oh well, plenty of things worse than having to tolerate that old familiar pain I figured I'd be endurung. I won't go into everyrhing, but that day, I learned that the nice doctor, from the VA 5 years earlier, yeah the one who said not to worry about dependency? Yeah, turns out during those 5 years the nuerochemistry kids were kearnin' all sorts of new stuff.
Turns out, those silly little opiate receptors in our brains, well, they weren't as 'vanilla' as once thought. There were actually LOTS of variations, and with some of those variations, the more morally corrupt receptors with low self esteem and major daddy issues, those receptors couldn't care less if a random passing molecule was derived from some stupid poppy tree, they jus wanted to bind to anything to dull the sadness. (too far? no? cool). These receptors were more 'free thinking' and open to trying new things.
Yeah, they would bind to all sorts of whatever, and sometime they would even do so at an affinity much higher than they would have if the stranger sinful one-nighter molecule had been one of those uppity snobby poppy weed molecules! Whoops.... At that point in my life, I was had no reason to be concerned. The Tramadol worked great, and my monthly prescription of 180 50mg tablets was just enough. Oh, did I skip the part about the doctor periodically increasing the number I was given by the nice pharmacist, all without any those uncomfortable sessions where people make noises and exchange Information... I forget what they are called...OH yeah, all without discussion! Thanks doc, I hate talking and finding out stuff.
Then I was fortunate enough to find, by sheer dumb luck, one of the VERY few paths one can take to try and jump the wall if Hush into the dark scary deep world of NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE!!! I'm of course mocking myself and the community I'm now a member of, but only in an attempt to make it seem like I'm old hat and disillusioned based on lofty expectations of cloak and dagger. But the truth is, the tools, capabilities, and systems we have at our disposal is nothing short of insanely awesome and the severe level of awe, excitement, and pure job satisfaction is at the same ridiculously high level that I felt the first day I walked in. I'll get back to the story, but if anyone reading this and it piques their interest, and is at a point where you've had THE epiphany, PM me, I'll talk to ya. What is THE epiphany, you ask? Well, if you are asking that it means you have not had it, and may never have it, and that's ok. But if you do, it may or may not be a.process or a flipped switch, but you'll know. For me, I was in the industry I loved, but could NOT find a job or career track that I found fulfilling and jumped out of bed every morning excited to go to. If you think that's some sort of unrealistic pipedream, I'm pleased to inform you are in fact incorrect.
Over time I started to see what was I was missing and formulated a plan to get it BOOM! EPIPHANY!! You see, I had come to a realization about a truth associtated working at most jobs, especially in corporate America (been there), and the sad reality preventing me from finding that satisfaction I so desperately sought. I realized that regardless of what role anyone plays or position they fill, as an employee of a corporation, if you're actually honest with yourself, you'll see, that if you take the mission of the division or section they work in and/or the purpose they were hired to fill a specific role in that company, all to it's basically elements, and boil them down to their basic conceptual elements, you are going to find that in almost every single instance that you end up with the same exact depressing truth. Most people spend 5 days doing things they are usually indifferent about, but sometimes hate for one reason or another, in exchange for 2 days they have to themselves, on average a whopping 10-15 days a year of vacation time, and with every drop of effort and brainpower being used for 1 thing: To make Rich People Richer. Yes, that's what you're compensated to do, and expected to perform at the highest level possible in perpetuity, and sometimes with ever increasing expectations.
Listen, if you like your deal, and think I'm a pessimist, I promise you, I'm not. We realists are often confused with them though, so don't feel bad. You know what my mission, role, and purpose boils down to where I work? Everything I do and those on my team do is driven by a commitment to mitigate, to the greatest extent possible, those risks inherent to the operations being undertaken by the members of the US Military, so they can execute as effectively as possible with the least risk exposure possible. In even simpler terms, we help keep the American kids who volunteered for our military safe, alive, and in one peice. I will never find more job satisfaction than I do here, and actually wish everyone were as fortunate.
So that seemed off topic, but it does allow you to have a far better understanding of why I needed to get off Tramadol. Let's just say that, Mr. Security Manager tends to frown upon those who are knowing taking a medication which they are physically dependant on. It's not a total show stopper, but it wasn't a convo I was even remotely interested in having. So off the Tramadol I came, easy peasy lemon swueezy, right? HELLLL NO!
I've read forum posts from people who shamelessly admit to detoxing from every prescription opiate on the market multiple!e times, as well as a 3 year binge on street heroin (is there another type??? driveway heroin?), and while those experiences were far from enjoyable, nothing could hold the candle of pure and utter misery and hell to the experiences they were having when tried and failed to detox from Tramadol. Why in the hell they were even on it to a point if addiction baffles my mind. Let's be clear, at least for me, Tramadol didn't provide even a tinge of buzz, high, whatever, nothing!
So yeah, I'll spare you the details on the process but those crazy nuerochemistry kids also found out that along with the high affinity Tramadol had to a very specific opiate receptor, one that had no goodness associated with it, it also was a VERY potent Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI)!! SURPRISE!!! so the reason I and Mr. Harry McHeroinHabit were having such a bugger of a time with it, was because it was the equivalent to trying to come off of a 7 year high dose regiment on Percocet AND a REALLY high dose regiment on Zoloft which spanned the same 7 years, at the same time. #DontTryThatAtHomeKids
If you're currently trying to get off Tramadol without luck, PM me.
So after that god awful 25 day period of character building (yup, that long), a funny thing happened. That neck pain thing I told you about, what, 3 chapters ago? Yeah big shocker, it came backkkkk!! Yay!!! A month of that, a Come-To-Jesus meeting with my doc about being at the end of my rope and wondering if going back on the Devil's Aspirins, he told me about something which I remember sounding like "Mewuuufbhhadff". After ensuring he hadn't just Dick Clarked on me, he then clarified for me "it's commonly referred to as kratom, you need to do research because I can't prescribe it to you, and make sure to really scrutinize whichever vendors you use. There are a lot of folks using it for pain relief with really promising results, so if you think you up to it, it might be worth a go". I had no problem with that, and liked the idea that it circumvented an industry I held (still hold) a significant level of malice towards and disdain for, BigPharma! (I just burped blood as a result of seeing that word)
That's all I got, I know...you want more. Sorry!
***ETA: Please read the rules & understand that vendor talk is not allowed.***
[**CLICK HERE**](https://akakratom.com/topic/64/forum-rules) ***to read the rules. Thank You.***
Hey Eveyone
I LOVED YOUR POST!
TY!
I was in med school... from there, until now, with my digging a nd research...
I UNDERSTAND!
UNFORTUNATELY, it hasn't stopped me from asking " how can they do this.....?"
Because they can.
@ben-alabaster-foehammer-xii
Hello & Welcome to our community, Ben, that is quite an entrance, lol!!!
As I stated in my ETA, I do need you to read the rules & if you have any questions please do not hesitate to let me know, ok?
