In this article, I’m going to teach you how to use passion flower for opiate withdrawal. However, I would first like to share with you my personal experience using this fascinating herb. Several years ago, I was working as a cook in New York, and I was heavily addicted to Oxycontin. I was basically spending every penny I made that was leftover from rent on pills, and every once in awhile I wouldn’t be able to afford opiates.
In those situations, I would frantically text every person I thought might be able to loan me money. If I had money but my dealers were all out of opiates (that sucked), I would try to find someone that would sell me benzos such as Valium, Xanax, Klonopin or Ativan.
One day after work, I started going into the first phase of opiate withdrawal (minor symptoms), and nobody I knew had any opiates…or benzos!
I was freaking out, but then I remembered that my mom (she’s an herbalist) sent me a ton of herbs from California to make tea with. I looked through the box she had sent me and found a big bag of passion flower. At that point, I remembered using passion flower for anxiety and insomnia after coming off an alcohol bender in my mid-twenties. I decided I was going to use the passion flower for opiate withdrawal anxiety, and I hoped that someone would text me back saying they had Oxycontin before the day was over.
Within minutes of drinking a strong sixteen-ounce cup of passion flower tea, my anxiety was significantly reduced.
I also felt some minor mood-enhancing effects, and my uneasy stomach was calmed due to using passion flower for opiate withdrawal.
The funny part of the story:
Literally ten minutes after I drank the passion flower tea my dealer texted me to come over to his house because he had more Oxycontin for sale! I road my bike over to his house about as fast as lightning.
Note: My addiction continued, but not before experiencing the plentiful benefits of using passion flower for opiate withdrawal.
Passion Flower for Opiate Withdrawal Symptoms
Passion Flower is a beautiful flowering plant that has a long history of use among Native Americans in North America and European colonists. Throughout history as well as the present day, passion flower has been used to treat a number of health conditions. Presently there are around 14 conditions passion flower has been used for, but for the purposes of this article, I will concentrate solely on how it can help ease opiate withdrawal symptoms.
Passion flower has been shown to be helpful for:
- Insomnia
- Gastrointestinal (GI) upset due to narcotic drug withdrawal
- Opiate withdrawal
- Nervousness and excitability
- High blood pressure
- Pain relief
Note: Passion flower can effectively treat depression during opiate withdrawal.
Passion flower contains the monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors harmaline and harmine. Passion flower also contains several flavonoids that are MAO inhibitors, including apigenin, kaempferol, and quercetin. MAOs are enzymes that break down neurotransmitters and stop their messaging activity.
Thus, taking passion flower for opiate withdrawal can result in an abundance of the following mood-boosting chemicals in the brain:
- Serotonin – Makes you feel emotionally relaxed.
- Norepinephrine – Increases energy, fights fatigue, fights depression, helps the body respond to stress.
- Epinephrine – Increases energy, fights fatigue, fights depression, helps the body respond to stress.
- Dopamine – Responsible for feelings of pleasure and enjoyment in life.
Note: MAO inhibitor medications used to be commonly prescribed to treat depression. Due to their dangerous reactions with certain foods, they have been largely replaced by other types of antidepressants. Taking passion flower for opiate withdrawal depression is much safer because it can inhibit MAO enzymes without the unpleasant side effects of antidepressants.
Passion flower can also effectively treat anxiety and insomnia during opiate withdrawal.
Passion flower increases brain levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that acts as a “mental relaxant”. Anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) medications in the benzodiazepine class (Valium, Ativan, Xanax, Klonopin, Librium, etc.) work directly on the brain’s GABA receptors.
This can lead to the following effects:
- Reduces anxiety
- Muscle relaxant
- Helps one to fall and stay asleep
Note: These medications can be very beneficial for opiate withdrawal, however, due to their high potential for addiction, they should only be used for 3-4 days to ease the worst of the withdrawal symptoms. Also, I know it can be difficult to obtain benzos during opiate withdrawal. Fortunately, passion flower can be used as a natural alternative for treating anxiety and insomnia.
Passion Flower for Opiate Withdrawal Study
Clonidine is currently the most widely prescribed medication in the treatment of opiate withdrawal.
In a study from 2001, 65 opiate abusers were assigned randomly to two treatment groups:
- Clonidine tablet plus placebo group.
- Clonidine table plus passion flower extract group.
Methods:
- The fixed daily dose was 60 drops of passion flower extract.
- A maximum daily dose of 0.8 mg of clonidine could be administered in three divided doses.
- The two groups were studied for 14 days.
Results:
- Both protocols were equally effective in treating the physical symptoms of withdrawal.
- Researchers observed that the passion flower + clonidine group showed a significant superiority over clonidine alone in the management of mental symptoms.
How to Use Passion Flower for Opiate Withdrawal
There are many ways to use passion flower for opiate withdrawal, including capsules of dried herb, infusions, teas, liquid extracts, and tinctures. The study mentioned above used a total daily dose of 60 drops of passion flower extract.
The most powerful way to take an herbal extract is in alcohol, which makes it a “tincture.”
To experience opiate withdrawal symptoms relief, all you have to do is buy a small bottle of passion flower tincture, squirt some drops into water or any other liquid (taking it straight tastes bad), and consume.
To order a 1-ounce bottle of Passion Flower, click below:
Herb Pharm Passion Flower Extract>>
How to Ease the Physical Withdrawal Symptoms
Passion flower can enhance mood and effectively reduce anxiety and insomnia during opiate withdrawal, but that still does nothing for the following physical symptoms:
- Diarrhea
- Fatigue
- Sore and aching muscles and limbs
- Nausea
- Sweating
- Chills
- Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS)
An Opiate Withdrawal Supplement is specifically designed to ease both the mental and physical symptoms commonly experienced from detoxing off opiates. It contains strong concentrations of passion flower and other supplements to treat the mental.
- This product also contains a rich blend of powerful natural ingredients that may effectively reduce the physical opiate withdrawal symptoms.
- If you can afford it, I also highly recommend taking this awesome supplement, because the benefits are just too good to pass up.
Click here now to view my best home detox program.
Hi, I’m planning to detox off suboxone 2mg. after almost 6 years. I have neurontin and plan on ordering Kratom and Passion flower extract but everything at Top Extracts are out of stock. Has this been a common issue? Do you have another web site to order these. I also plan on getting the day and night calm support supplements. Your program has given me hope, even though I haven’t started yet. Thanks
Can I take Passion flower in benzo withdrawals
Hi I am also in needed to know this! I am taking Valium 2 mg and now I am reducing to 3/4 and it’s hell, no sleeping, headaches etc.. I have passion flower tablets but my doctor told me no no, you cannot take passion flower with valium to help the withdrawal side effects. I need help here guys! Does anyone know if is it possible to do this? thanks!!!!
Using the Passion Flower powder from Top Extracts, how much powder daily? Thanks
Jerry,
I’m not familiar with the many different brands that are out there. However in a study done to see the results of Clonidine + Passion Flower, patients were either given Clonidine +20 drops of Passion Flower 3x/day or they were given Clonidine + a placebo 3x/day. The results showed that for both groups the physical withdrawal symptoms were about the same, but the group that received 60 drops of passion flower extract per day showed much more improvement in the handling of the mental symptoms. I would contact the company and ask them how to calculate the dose of powder passion flower in comparison to liquid extract.
~Mary
OAS RECOVERY SPECIALIST
*Disclaimer- before starting or changing the dose of any supplement, medicine or herb, please discuss with your Dr. Follow the advice from your physician.
Thanks Mary for getting back to me. What I’m trying to get through is this plateau period. Due to back surgeries going wrong and having 3 major ones in a 6 year period and causing disability, my Dr.’s have had me on a combination of oxycodone (15 mg ) and methadone (10 mg) 6 daily. I’ve got down to 2 ea. daily, or 20 mg Methadone and 30 mg Oxycodone. I’ve been at this plateau for about 4 weeks, trying once to go lower but dropped to quickly at first and just couldn’t do it anymore. The plateau is just daily waiting for the 12 hr period to come to take the meds. My back pain is not good, but sensing the body’s need to loose the need to continue on these meds is enough for me to try to quit all together. 12 years is enough, even though it truly helps the back pain. The fusion was done wrong in the lower back causing the spine to twist, and curve over a 20 year period and standing is hard. Forcing the body to stand and acting like nothing is wrong has caused this. Getting to my question, does this plateau period get better if I do it for a while longer and make going down at 5 mg doses easier at a later period, or should a person just get it over with and withdrawal period. Thanks
Jerry,
While some think that reaching one’s “threshold” of the lower doses where going lower will only prolong withdrawal, not everyone will deal with this and none the matter because you’re not there yet. The methadone is very hard to stabilize on at the lower doses. My advice would be to work on being done with one before working on the other.
~Mary
OAS Recovery Specialist
Thanks Mary for getting back. I’ve cut down more on the methadone than the oxycodone. For example I started with 60mg of Methadone and 75mg of oxycodone, and now am on 15mg of methadone and 30 of oxy daily. I’ve been like this for over 1 month now and it’s barely getting easier. I live a disabled lifestyle and would do much better if I could keep my attention on something other than myself. I heard another expert say 10% withdrawal a month, which is 6mg a month on the methadone and 7.5mg on the oxycodone. With my doses at 8 hrs, it’s still pretty bad where you count the minutes after waking up from sleep after being without for 10 hrs. Does your body stabilize and if it does, does that 10% a month have any reliability? My problem is that because I’m taking 10mg pills, when you break them in half it isn’t a clean break, and you get more of a 6 and 4 mg each time of methadone. I was able to go from 15mg to 10 mg about 2 mo. ago, and that’s when along with the methadone drop it got very hard and has taken so long to stabilize. The first 4 hrs were fine at first, and now the first 6 are ok, but the last 2 are miserable. With the pain in my lower back, due a compressed L5 nerve root and the pain meds being gone after the first 6 hrs, the body is kicking out double doses of adrenaline, both for pain and withdrawal, so it’s like you’ve just drank 20 cups of coffee and trying to mentally control that. There’s a book out by a psychiatrist saying that the way Dr.’s are getting out of trouble for not making their patients aware of the risk here is that they legally have to treat pain, not having to worry about the consequences. This is very hard road, and if I had to do it again, I’d go to some facility where there are people to talk to about this. Alone there is no one out there that understands how hard this is. Thanks again for the reply. So quit the methadone first is what I’m hearing?
i bought passin flower extract drops but not tincture. is there a big difference?
What brand and what ratio is the extract?
Would it be dangerous to do this and take a DPLA capsule at the same time? I already take 2 vitamins religiously. I don’t want to put myself in any harm or sickness.
How many Mg of the capsule would you recommend and how many times a day?
In the study it used a tincture, but for capsules one might benefit from taking between 1-3 on an empty stomach, 3x daily.
This is a great brand:
Gaia Herbs Serenity with Passionflower Liquid Phyto-Capsules, 60 Count
Disclaimer: I am a Strategic Intervention Coach, not a doctor, so I can’t give professional advice regarding aspects of the body, only the mind. This comment is for informational use only. It’s not intended to treat, diagnose or prevent any disease. Always check with your doctor before changing your diet, trying any new supplements, medications, exercise or opiate tapering programs.
I’m tapering off of suboxone as well. I’ve been taking them for 2ish years. Would clonidine, Passion flower, DLPA, be a good combination to take on a daily?
& should I take 5-htp & phenibut both as well or one or the other and if so which one? Will one of these (5-htp or phenibut) make me feel sluggish the next morning and harder to get out of bed?
Lastly should I include GABA with everything else I’ve already mentioned?
I just want to complete a formula of what’s best to take on a daily. And what time of day should I take what? & for how long of a time span should I take it?
Any advice would be much appreciated!
Your articles are amazing and have given me the most encourage from anything else to stop being so dependent on these thanks so much for the confidence and reassurance that there’s other options to help get us through this & hope
It’s obvious that you’ve helped many of others.
Glad the articles have helped! And thanks for the feedback. If it were me, I would really like the combination of meds and supplements you mentioned for coming off Subs. I would steer clear of the phenibut as it is for the acute detox and people develop a dependence after taking it for over 3 days. 5-HTP is wonderful. GABA is great as well.
Hello wondering if we split the 60 drops like 20 drops 3 times a day total of 60 drops a day or do we do the 60 drops at once a day?
If it were me I would split them into 3 doses, morning, noon, and night.