subs just dont work like they used to anymore

[Guts]

The only difference is methadone has a long half life and, because it does, it builds up in your system. This makes switching without getting PWD a challenge. Most recommend tapering down to 30 mgs before even trying.

[Roman Totale]

I thought the reason they basically want you to taper down to 30mg of methadone is because bupe really can't "hold" someone above that level, maintenance-wise.  Like, you are going to feel shitty for a while transitioning from 80mg of methadone to any amount of bupe because no amount of bupe is really capable of saturating the mu-opioid receptors above a certain equivalent level of methadone -- a pretty low level, as you said, like 30mg.

Of course I know about the long half-life of methadone, and I've never done it personally so anyone feel free to correct me; but I thought that as long as you let yourself get into decently bad W/Ds (up to a sufficient number of points on that scale the use to measure opiate withdrawal, lol), you are not going to go into precipitated withdrawal.  Though it'll obviously take longer for that real W/D to set in with methadone that with dope or oxy or something. 

But I would think that after a few days of feeling awful after your last sip of methadone at whatever dose (though hopefully you could at least do a rapid taper if nothing else), you'd be able to get on bupe without PWD, at least/

[Guts]

I think that's part of it, but I think it's also because the shit lingers. If you're taking 120 mgs a day, after 2 weeks, you have 240 mgs in your body after your morning dose... considering a 24 hour half life. I don't know how quickly that all flushes out when you stop but I know a lot of people, on heavy doses, don't even begin to really start feeling WD until day 2 or 3. With methadone, being in light withdrawal is probably not good enough to induce with sub. I think tapering to 30 mgs ensures (well not 100% but yeah) that you can induce after 3 days of stopping your methadone... I doubt you'd be able to do that on 120 mgs. It just shortens the agony a bit and makes the guessing game a little easier.

[nikita70]

Not to be a cheerleader, but I'm sure you can handle the switch over to bupe, especially if you've still got some benzos at your disposal, and especially if it doesn't feel like a despairing situation. 

You just have to accept feeling like total shit before you "induct" onto the bupe (to avoid PWD), and then feeling somewhat shitty for a while until your "system" readjusts. 

There's nothing inherently special about methadone, right?  It's just a strong synthetic narcotic.  People go from dope habits, oxycodone habits, hydromorphone habits, other synthetic narcotic habits, etc. onto bupe, and at least some of them manage fine. 

Even though it isn't going to feel the same, or as normalizing, as methadone, it is at least survivable.  And to survive is all we can really hope for, isn't it?

Oh, and the saying "less is more" is definitely true of bupe, but it's not the case when you are first getting on it -- you'll probably need a decent dose to get started, but then you can ideally get down quickly below the threshold (2mg?) where the prodrug, norbuprenorphine, starts to take over and act as a full-agonist.

@Roman Totale
thanks for tryin' to lift my spirits a little.

STARTING TO GET HIGH-ENDING UP TO JUST SURVIVE, EH?
Damn, you're obviously right in what you said about "surviving is all we can hope for", though I wish you weren't. Right even if there's some sad sort of truth/wisedom with some dark note build in.

This is ironically-I was sooo much "alerted", so to say, for a long time, still keeping in mind this unstable, erratic and in many ways unpredictable and wayward nature of Polish MMProgrames (or rather of the docs they run them).
I have seen enough "failures" and real tragedies induced by the lightheartendness or cruelty or just ignorance to be alerted permanently, I learned how to move on the thin ice, not to awaken the beast.
And it seemed to be working perfectly until the day it... just didn't work anymore/just stopped to work. Well, toys tend to go bad, especially if they're drugs and there's so called "human factor" involved.

Anyway, the last Winter something has changed. I got lightheartly. I think I started to feel just "intouchable"/inviolable as it has been working to me for so long.
I let myself, indulged, started tipping. Buying extras from this and that one. Abandoned all ideas to get off or at least tapering, whenever.
I think I must have been kinda "nestled" in my methadone and wallowing in it, so far I even seemed to forget about all Murphy's Rules.
 
I have been like "methadone is something NATURAL GIVEN, ONCE AND FOREVER, WHAT CAN'T BE TAKEN AWAY.
Very sneaky/dangerous mindframe, if you're living in a country like this.

Ooops, that's what I am-sorry for my usual rambling.

For some unknown reasons, my experience of switching for a bupe drastically differs from what you, guys, have reported.
I never ever experienced any PWD as I switched, even if it took barely 24hours to be off of my methadone-easy to guess that I still felt pretty comfortable as I put my first bupe under my tongue-resignedly "opening" myself for a "storm of receptors", looking forward inevitable disaster.
I was positively something really awful is going to happen pretty soon, and within next 10 minutes my body is gonna find in an storm center.
But nothing like this has happened.
I felt something very gentle "rearranging" inside of me, so I recoiled out of panic "that's wd coming up" but in next 15 minutes I was high, instead!
It was so far incredible that I was "searching"/"scanning" my body for traces of WD, still with some sort of disbelief as nothing bad happened.

First 3 days were like walking through the park and I was able to get high on such minimal doses as 0.8mg. OK, maybe call it "high" is a little bit too much, but this "trace" was still able to fix me pretty decent.
Then (between day 4-10) my need/demand seemed to increase, as if my body started finally get rid of its methadone stash.
I experienced some sort of mild discomfort, more psychological than any else.
I've been craving, got alternately paranoid or nostalgic, reflective/insightful more than I used to be.
It tasted exteremely strange-I felt myself empty (as if some crucial factor of myself got taken away from me), but symultanously light and strong focused/concentated. My deaden senses seemed to regain their sharpness.

Generally it felt as if I had jumped from being stoned, straight into sobriety, without to experience any acute sensations.
Maybe the point is I was on relatively low dose this time-only 15mgs, so it felt like "opiate' assisted semi-detox", more than transition to agonist/antagonist' procedure, so to say. I mean the dose must have been so trace that it didn't even "interfere" with the anti-agonist' features of bupe. 

What you said is exactly the same headspace/mindset I would like to "instill" myself, but since I'm forced to do it somehow doesn't work (or works very little). You know, it's one thing to take even the most ridiculous challenge ever, but getting forced to something what you consider to be "opus contra naturam" is completely else, isn't it?
I'm kinda stubborn/wrongheaded person and it's really hard to me to make my mind up to being treat like this.

Sometimes I think I'm more concerned about this shrink is probably going to just go away with this shit (and as you can easily guess, I'm not an isolated case, there's much more people hurt by this guy), than seriously afraid of what will happen.

I find myself fantasing about what namely does the shrink deserves to be done to him. And how the slowly "initiation" into opiates and benzos, being introduced to them as forcefully as he did it to me could eventually change his dirty obstinate mindframe and "reaarange" it, so he'd beg to let him getting high.
How he'd turn his mind from the War On Drugs' wavelenght onto the most zealous Harm Reduction' advocacy.

Damn it, this shit makes me fanatical bitch, too.

Thank you for being so kind and helpful, guys.