Kratom as a Treatment Supplement But Not a Cure

In this writing I explore the use of Kratom as a supplement to recovery from opiate withdrawal and addiction. Kratom in itself is not a cure. It cannot instantly cause an addict to choose to never again use opiates. However it is a powerful crutch or option that most opiate addicts and their families are generally not aware of. With my recent experiences with the plant I feel like if there was more education on this natural choice, there could be more hope for those that are desperately trying to get their lives back into order, and for the families that would do anything to support their loved ones efforts to get back on track. For those people, I suspect the education in this article will be a godsend.

What is Kratom? What is its Effect on the Opiate Addicted Brain

Mitragyna speciosa, also known as ketum or kratom,[2] is a tropical deciduous and evergreen tree in the coffee family (Rubiaceae) native to Southeast Asia in the Indochina and Malaysia phytochoria (botanical regions). M. speciosa is indigenous to Thailand where it has been used in traditional medicine.[3]~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragyna_speciosa

I previously wrote about Kratom here althought I have more insight and experience on the subject since then. Kratom is a plant from Malaysia that is generally taken as a tea. It is NOT an opioid, and for example, someone taking the plant consistently will NOT fail an opioid urine test. However, in regard to opiate addiction and especially withdrawal, the properties of Kratom are extremely beneficial:

Kratom behaves as a μ-opioid receptor agonist like morphine[5] and is used in the management of chronic pain, as well as recreationally.[6] Kratom use is not detected by typical drug screening tests, but its metabolites can be detected by more specialized testing.[7][8]

Kratom behaves as a μ-opioid receptor agonist, similar to opiates like morphine, although its effects differ significantly from those of opiates.[5] Kratom does not appear to have significant adverse effects, and in particular appears not to cause the hypoventilation typical of other opioids.[5]~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragyna_speciosa

Kratom binds to the opioid receptors in the same way that the body needs when it craves opioids in withdrawal or recovery. If the proper strain is chosen, and good quality Kratom is used, the effects are dramatic in regard to alleviate the painful and uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms as well as the psychological discomfort. Often these symptoms are stated by addicts as the number one reason for not going into detox and trying to quit.

Here is an excerpt from a VERY informative and useful website on heroin withdrawal:

How Kratom works

Kratom contains over 25 alkaloids (a group of naturally occurring chemical compounds) including 7-hydroxymitragynine, 9-Hydroxycorynantheidine and Mitragynine which is believed to be responsible for most of kratoms’ effects. Mitragynine is an opioid agonist, which means that it has an attraction towards the opioid receptors in the brain. And these opioid receptors are able to influence your mood, pain levels and anxiety levels as well.

Mitragynine binds to these receptors and helps to improve your mood while also giving the user a pleasant feeling of euphoria just like heroin does, although kratom will not give you the same high as heroin. The difference between kratom and opiates is that kratom prefers delta opioid receptors first while heroin and other opiate drugs bind to mu opioid receptors.

At higher doses however, kratom increasingly stimulates mu opioid receptors in the brain. And this is most likely why kratom has a stimulating effect at lower doses and a narcotic effect at higher doses. This may also be the reason why kratom is not as addictive as heroin and other opiate drugs are, although kratom can become mildly addictive as well after continual daily usage.

When a person stops using heroin and is using the kratom to come off of the heroin, the withdrawals from the heroin are minimized and moderated by the binding of Mitragynine to the delta opioid receptors, thus making withdrawals from the heroin much easier to deal with. Not only can Kratom help people to come off of heroin, but it can also help users to come off of suboxone, methadone, and oxycontin as well.~http://www.howtoquitheroin.com/How_to_Quit_Heroin_with_Kratom.html

In researching on how to best support my friend, I have found the most beneficial websites to be forums, where you can read honest accounts from addicts in real time. There is a plethora of dialogues on these forums about how Kratom is a life changing addition to their lifestyles.

Cheap, Legal, Safe

In a certain sense heroin is a relatively cheap drug, however heroin ADDICTION is extremely costly. I figure a maintenance program at a manageable level might be around $40 a day, where as users often skyrocket this cost trying to keep up with their tolerance which increases dramatically over a relatively short period of time (perhaps to upwards of a few hundred dollars a day).

Kratom on the other hand costs about $100 to $200 dollars for about 300g, and a typical dose for an opiate addict would be about 10-20g’s. For a full blown addict they might take this dose every few hours, and for an addict using Kratom to quit and withdrawal from heroin this amount would decrease daily.

Maintenance doses for Kratom to stave off cravings would be between 5 to 10 grams 1 to 3 times daily.

Kratom is usually found to be legal in most countries. In Canada there is a legal loophole provided it is sold “not for human consumption” (quite unfortunate we deal with it this way since it is quite the miracle plant).

You cannot overdose on Kratom, rather the body will simply vomit or expel what it doesn’t want so there is no fatal risk for ingesting the plant. For the strain specifically associated with opiate addiction it doesn’t even come with a “high”. There is a slight euphoric feeling, only more so with specific strains that target euphoria. The most a strong dose really does is put the person to sleep for a nice comfortable rest.

Lastly and most importantly Kratom is NOT addictive. It’s true you have mild withdrawal symptoms when Kratom is taken over time, but it can easily be tapered (not like heroin). Kratom is not psychologically or physically addictive like heroin is, and so it's quite safe relatively for this and the other reasons stated above.

Kratom Taken in Different Forms

We (me and my friend) have found a few different ways to ingest Kratom the easiest of which seems to be simply mixing it with water. This site Sage Wisdom offers some good suggestions. I also found some capsules in my hometown (veggie capsules for my vegetarian friend!) which were quite easy to load up. I just put the Kratom into a bowl and loaded each half of the capsule before closing it. I could only find small capsules and so it takes about 20 to have a dose of 20 grams, but with bigger capsules I think a large dose could fit in 5 or so capsules which seems convenient.

We initially tried tea, which is also simple and convenient, just adding hot water and letting the powder steep. Sometimes I would do this and then add some ice to bring the tea to a temperature that was easy to drink.

Kratom can be stored in the fridge with no problems for at least 5 days, and testimonials from other users suggest that it doesn’t lose its potency over this time.

My Experience with Kratom: I Took “Too Much, Too Much”

I tried Kratom myself. I am not an opiate addict, but I wanted to make sure I understood what I was giving to my friend. I tried 10 grams at first which is a standard dose that should eventually knock me down for a nice nap. If you take less than a strong dose the particular Kratom strain I bought (Red Tai), apparently gives you a burst of energy. I remember this burst, as I started to jump on my social media accounts wanting to tell the world of everything I knew. Shortly after I decided the Kratom wasn’t working and I took more than a double dose total to make sure. The funny thing about this is I subsequently read that some people do this, feel they haven’t taken enough and they end up taking “too much, too much”

I DID in fact take too much, and shortly after I passed out, quite hard, until morning. I skipped any of the euphoria stage. I awoke abruptly with clear knowledge I was going to vomit, and didn’t even make it to the bathroom for my first “go”. It was the leaves, I could taste them coming, and I could feel them like chalk or charcoal in my stomach. I knew I wasn’t going to stop until they were all gone.

It wasn’t very “violent” but I felt like an addict on their first withdrawal, which of course is silly since Kratom isn’t an opiate. The Kratom didn’t taste to good going down either, although my friend doesn’t mind it whatsoever. It’s not terrible, just tea leaves.

My Friends' First Use

I had learned of my friends addiction basically accidently when she called me to help her cash her cheque which she was obviously desperate to do since she had previously hid her addiction and slide (quite well). I can’t help but feel something in her was reaching out as well because she KNEW that I would try to help her get out of her lifestyle once she let me into the truth of it.

Weeks later I had caught up to her, mostly by talking with her brother for many days, letting him know to contact me if he heard from her, and specifically to tell her I HAD Kratom. She was at his place for the night, and absolutely fiending to get high. Her brother wasn’t too happy at this point with me getting involved because I was being quite pushy lately (looking for information her family didn’t want to give me), but he could no longer handle her as she was losing control fast.

“Come over and please bring the Kratom”

They were both basically asking simultaneously.

I ran up to see what was going on and found her making phone calls while begging her brother to call their mom to lie to her about needing money. When I came in she was asking me for money promising to pay me the next day-she wasn’t even convincing herself of the obvious lie.

Sadly, she was calling a cab driver, asking for a hook-up, but with no money to offer back. She’s a smart girl, super smart, and has all the phone numbers locked up in her head and so she can’t delete them if she tried.

I quickly made some tea and had her drink it and tried to redirect her thoughts as I knew it takes from 30 to 60 minutes to feel the effects. For that time period things were getting out of control. I could feel the energy in the apartment rising, as I hadn’t remembered that with low doses Kratom causes you to feel a burst of energy. I could feel the aura’s heating up between the three of us, and her brother was getting quite annoyed with me being there.

I lost heart in that moment, she was getting worse and I thought to myself, “This stuff doesn’t work, now she has NO hope otherwise”.

But then change came.

Me and her brother were starting to get heated, I was trying to re-direct him by getting him to document the change on video, and unbeknownst to us, in the background, she put her hoodie up and laid down.

The energy in the room calmed down, and the change was dramatic.

She said “I can feel it tingling in my brain.” And I instantly KNEW this was the Kratom binding to the opiate receptors.

“I’m just going to lie down for a bit ok?” Ya you do that girl I thought. And there it was, she CHOSE to sleep over getting high. An hour or so later she asked for some more. She had been quite deeply addicted, using an incredible amount of heroin, and so the typical doses of Kratom she needed would be more than the average addict. But it clearly worked to bring her thinking back into order.

Her brother asked me to leave soon after, which I had to abide to. She begged me not to but it didn’t matter. I had her option, and I was quite confident over time she would adhere to it and it would eventually save her.

I should say I got an overwhelming sense from her sentiments at that time that her mind grew plasticity in that moment. She seemed able to think clearly as her brain came into order, and it seemed to me that this is exactly what an addict needs in order to bring about change in their own lives.

Ongoing Effects of Kratom on my Friend

I let her know I will ALWAYS have Kratom on hand, and that she could always seek me out for it if she was in a bind. Heroin is FAR more powerful than Kratom, and so I knew then and still know that she won’t immediately substitute heroine for Kratom. But I also know that heroin addicts DO recover sometimes and eventually, and it is in that period of pre-recovery that I suspect that she would be able to begin to choose to use Kratom as a crutch and a treatment.

It was nearly a year later I ran into her again, helped her do some shopping, used my ID to get her cigarettes (she doesn’t have ID anymore), and brought her back to my place for some Kratom. She was happy to take it, and although when I first hung out with her that day she was all over the place, walking around with the posture and gait of a clear “working girl”, it was only a half hour later she straightened up mentally and physically and thanked me for bringing her into order. She became incredibly clear headed and was able to hold a proper conversation.

She told me she had been up for days, and I let her fall asleep safely and alone in my bed, and I had the most comfortable sleep I had had in many months on my couch.

It’s true though, she knew she would be sick in the morning from not using, and neither of us tried to use Kratom to hold her against getting back to her home where she knew she could use and had drugs waiting for her from the guy she was staying with (this would be the second time she chose to rest instead of go get high, at least for the night).

But I knew I had opened her eyes to a possibility, a choice, something that could give her hope.

Since then, over the last few months, she has taken Kratom lots, often asking if it's ok if she takes some which was strange that she would feel it's something she needs permission for. I would always make it for her, to keep her comfortable, like a medicine, and lately I have been getting her to do it so she strengthens her own neural pathways of ‘choice’.

She is always amazed with how it makes her feel, and helps bring her thinking into order. She is lucky the Kratom sits well with her stomach and affects her in a very favorable way. I think it will take some time before she truly has the logical realization that she can use it to get her life together but she sure appreciates having it around.

It’s true also that she sometimes has an aversion to taking it. Sometimes I’m a little too pushy on her about it as she always resists having people tell her what to do (who doesn’t), but I think more to the point her brain’s need to get high sometimes resists alternatives that might stop her from getting high. I suspect this is a symptom of being an addict caught deep in their addiction, but nonetheless we spent enough time growing a new culture of using Kratom that MUST have started to create some new neural pathways in regard to choice.

No Reid Vein!?

I found my desired company for buying Kratom from the Reddit forums on the subject which is Terra Botanicals (remember NOT for human consumption!) I want to plug this company in this article for a specific reason. After some emails with them I found that Red Kali is their specific strain for opiate addiction, however the last time I went to order my batch they were “sold out”. I was a little distraught since the price is good, the shipping was prompt (3 business days across the country), and the quality was clearly good. I emailed to ask if they were getting more soon or if should order from another company for the time being (my friend was going into detox soon and getting ready for treatment and I wanted her to have this option throughout).

I didn’t get any replies by email and I decided to send one last email before I ordered from another business since time was of the essence. I got a prompt reply from the owner explaining that if I allude to the fact that the Kratom is for human consumption they would be unable to reply since ‘big brother’ had already been breathing down their neck (again, wtf is wrong with our governments/society!?). He ask me to call him so I did.

It turns out the specific batch of Red Kali he got was not up to par, and so he didn’t want to sell it. This was actually music to my ears! I cannot myself test the Kratom because I don’t have the opiate based cravings that a real addict would have. I always worried that I might get some Kratom that is effectively useless and this could be disastrous in a time when I could otherwise really provide real help for my friend.

Days later the Red Kali order form was re-instated and I got the order within days again. We have nearly gone through this batch and it seems easily as strong as the first order which helped so much.

My friend later pointed out he is probably a past addict himself, or that he at least has addicts testing his product, and good feedback. I think this is probably likely and she reminded me that addicts are the ones that know best!

Kratom and Methadose

There was a point recently however where I almost called back to ask if this batch wasn’t little weaker than previous. But it couldn’t have been, because it WAS working to some extent, yet I found us using more and more, and pretty high doses at that. It wasn’t working QUITE as strong as the first time, and with all the research I have done I had to feel this was a little unexpected. Then I remembered about her methadose (juice form of methadone). Methadose also binds to the opiate receptors, which subsequently blocks out the effects of heroine enough to train the user to not want to get high because the effects are no longer as euphoric. I realized there is no reason this would not have a similar effect on the Kratom, and I instantly realized that since she was definitely finding solace in the tea that it WAS quite strong given this fact.

I'll also add here that with all my research and specifically traversing the addiction/drugs forms online, I couldn't find a single shred of information that suggest that mixing Kratom with methadose, heroin, or any drugs had any negative side effects. For all I could find Kratom is completely safe in this manner.

Will She Recover with Kratom?

Time will tell, but it seems likely. Never did I believe that Kratom was going to be a miracle cure. But given where she was and how hopeless it seemed for her and her family, it seems that Kratom is the god send I first thought it to be. Kratom is less useful when an addict is in full blown addiction, but it seems like it is the perfect bridge for some one in clear PRE-recovery like my friend. Withdrawal and relapse that lead to withdrawal are difficult not only physically but also psychologically. Kratom perfectly attends to this. That we don’t use it in our detox and recovery programs I will never understand, and every doctor, pharmacist and councilor of my friend we have come across (she asks me to attend all her meetings) have never even heard of it.

I sometimes think about opening a business or getting the local marijuana dispensaries to sell Kratom. I myself would like to know I could get it for my friend within a day (although 3 days is perfectly fine for now). I think the only argument verse this product which might be that heroin addicts, unable to get their fix of heroin, might start breaking into Kratom vendors as a substitute. Of course such an event would be the 3rd time in this article that an opiate addict chose Kratom over getting high and I can’t really see a problem with this creation of a new neural logical cycle ;p