For You: Start Here

Practical resources for the person in recovery, treatment, work protections, mutual aid, and sober living. Meets you wherever you are.

Wherever you are in this, thinking about quitting, day 2 and miserable, day 200 and stable, just relapsed, ambivalent, terrified, somewhere in between all of those, you’re in the right place.

This section is the practical-resources version. The rest of this site covers what’s happening biochemically, how to get through acute withdrawal, MAT options, and post-acute recovery. This section covers the other infrastructure: how treatment works, what your job legally has to do for you, where to find free peer support, and where to live if your current situation isn’t working.

A note before you go any further

Ambivalence is normal. Wanting to quit and not wanting to quit at the same time is the single most common state of mind for people thinking about coming off opioid-class dependence. It’s where almost everyone starts, not a sign you can’t do it.

You don’t have to be “ready” to use this section. Reading is not committing. Looking up what treatment costs is not signing up for treatment. Knowing your job protections is not telling your boss. Browsing meeting times is not promising to attend. None of this binds you to anything.

This is not a script. Different people land in different combinations of treatment, MAT, mutual aid, and self-management. None of those paths is “the right one” in general; the right one is the one you’ll use.

Section overview

  • At-Home Treatment: the path this site is built around: the four community-validated approaches (cold turkey with helper meds, leaf taper, Suboxone, SR-17), the tools to have on hand, and when at-home isn’t the right fit.
  • Tapering Off 7-OH: what direct dose-tapering of concentrated 7-OH looks like, the lower-dose plateau where most self-managed tapers stall, and the jump-off endpoint.
  • Rehabilitation Centers: detox, residential, PHP, IOP, and outpatient, plus how insurance parity works under MHPAEA, free and low-cost options, and what to expect when you call.
  • FMLA, ADA & Your Job: federal job-protected leave for your own treatment, ADA recovery protections, what HR sees, and EAPs.
  • MAT & Your Professional License: what to check first if you hold a CDL, FAA medical, law-enforcement position, armed-security license, healthcare license, or other regulated credential before starting MAT.
  • Mutual Aid & Recovery Groups: Kratom Anonymous (the most directly applicable for our community), NA, HA, SMART, Refuge Recovery, Recovery Dharma, The Phoenix, and others.
  • Sober Living Homes: what sober living is, the NARR quality levels, how to spot the predatory ones, and how Oxford House differs.

On MAT specifically

This site has substantial MAT content already. If medication-assisted treatment is something you’re considering or already on, that’s the place to start, not this section:

The community’s experience with 7-OH and kratom synthetics specifically often differs from the standard clinical playbook (lower starting doses for bupe, attention to the long-acting synthetics, the polysubstance picture). Those pages are worth reading even if you’ve already been through general addiction-medicine guidance.

The community

You’re not the first person to be where you are. Real-time conversation often helps more than reference material:

  • Discord: discord.gg/quitting7oh, active, real-time, includes a #sos channel for the hardest moments.
  • Subreddit: r/quitting7oh, slower, searchable, good for reading how others handled what you’re going through.
  • See Community for which to use when.

If you’re in crisis right now

If you’re in active withdrawal and looking for what to do right now, the Withdrawal Help page is the more relevant starting point than this section.

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