Your brain is physically changed the first time you use heroin. There's no going back to normal. There was the person who you were before heroin and the person who you are after using heroin. If you manage to quit heroin, ten years after kicking your heroin habit, you're still thinking about heroin. Twenty years later, you're still thinking about heroin. You never stop thinking about heroin until you die. Every painful event in your life triggers the impulse to reach for the heroin, just as you did the first time. You get to collect sobriety tokens and tell strangers how you've been living life on the straight and narrow. The only redemption you may find is by helping other people cope with addiction. Heroin addiction isn't overcome. You learn how to live with it.
I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
161–170 of 692 posts
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#162This is not a particularly hard hitting interview. I wish the interviewer pushed back more against Dr. Hart. E.g. do some digging on who funds his research. Push back against minimizing the opioid crisis.
A lot of these questions are real softballs.
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Opioids are insanely and ~~instantly~~ quickly addictive. I accidentally became addicted after knee surgery. When the pain subsided, I stopped taking them, and within a day I found myself curled up in a ball and wanting to rip my own skin off. It's really true when addicts describe it as "being uncomfortable in your own skin". The moment I realized I was experiencing withdrawal, I flushed the meds down the toilet and…
> Opioids are insanely and instantly addictive. This is the kind of FUD that TFA is specifically addressing. Namely, that this is not always a true statement. Of course, for many people, it is, which is why people make such sweeping (and incorrect) statements. Your warning is valid, your claimed facts are not.
Two things I don't like FUD around: My Linux and my heroin.
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#164> One of the major reasons people can’t overcome it is because we’re not very good at treating addiction in this country. I am often wondering about how addiction "feels". I don't consider myself being addicted to anything, and always wonder how an addiction actually manifests itself. Is it a pain? Is it comparable to being extremely hungry or thirsty? Slightly related: a few years ago, I overheard a conversation bet…
> Is it comparable to being extremely hungry or thirsty
Not for me. I used to be a smoker and alcoholic.
For smoking, I just felt uneasy without it, like idk when you're anxiously waiting for something important.
That's the physical dependence and was only the first two weeks and relatively easy to overcome. I got dizzy and other withdrawal symptoms but you can fight through that for a couple of weeks. The other part is the ritual to it. E.g. like most people probably brush their teeth once a day, smoking after eating is just something you do, give in once and you're back to physical dependence.
Alcohol was different for me. Self medication. Once i solved the issues i was medicating (insomnia and stress) i... just stopped drinking and never missed it. The biggest adjustment here was getting used to not being drunk and figuring out what to do with all the time i had now.
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#165This sounds like dangerous clickbait. It's entirely expected that someone whose job it is to study the effect of drugs would have a much better understanding of how to not become addicted His assertion the 70% of all drug users including alcohol and prescription users aren't addicted if anything seems extremely low to me. I'd say the vast majority of my friends drink alcohol and are more than likely on prescription d…
While I do agree with your underlying point that it's likely less common drugs are dangerous, I just want to say that a lot of alcohol addiction and abuse is often completely hidden in plain sight, due to social and cultural acceptance and the way it's portrayed in media.
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Opioids are insanely and ~~instantly~~ quickly addictive. I accidentally became addicted after knee surgery. When the pain subsided, I stopped taking them, and within a day I found myself curled up in a ball and wanting to rip my own skin off. It's really true when addicts describe it as "being uncomfortable in your own skin". The moment I realized I was experiencing withdrawal, I flushed the meds down the toilet and…
> Opioids are insanely and instantly addictive. I accidentally became addicted after knee surgery. Is that true generally, or just for a subset of people who have some predisposition to addiction? While it could just be Purdue Pharma propaganda, I vaguely recall hearing that the "instant addiction" was a myth. However, people like you have experiences like yours, so there must be some truth to the "instant addiction"…
Yeah it’s a total myth. Not sure why you’re being downvoted. My wife and I kept a bottle of oxy in our bathroom for a few years, taking it only occasionally. No one got addicted because neither of us wanted to keep taking it.
A prerequisite for addiction is that one must believe the drug makes them feel “normal” or functional in some way. “I can’t live with this pain - I need it.”
If instead you as a user go into the drug experience with the mindset that you are entering a temporary state, one that is reserved for special occasions, you’re far less likely to become addicted.
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#167How many of you want to decriminalize drug use? Be honest –– raise your hand.
Now, how do you square that with almost everyone here universally claiming that these words are dangerous?
> The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#168Man, I read this as someone who tried to use opioids and I just couldn't chip. It spiraled into full blown physical dependence. I guess i'm the type with an underlying psychiatric illness which drove my usage and denial. That there exists people like this person who can chip (controlled use of opiates) always intrigues me -- as this drug was the ultimate pathway to euphoria and thus I became the mouse hitting the but…
As a teen I made opium from poppies around the neighbourhood. After smoking it once I threw the rest out. The intensity of how perfect it felt was alarming. I remember within minutes thinking I'll become addicted to it if I don't get rid of it. Despite that being a scary prospect, I kept feeling great the entire time. It really beats any bad feeling out of you. Incredibly creepy.
I was a dumb teenager (I'm still not very smart) but I'm grateful I had the intuition to realize how dangerous it was. The only way I can describe it was that I felt the pleasure overwhelming my ability to reason, and that felt very disabling.
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#169This sounds like dangerous clickbait. It's entirely expected that someone whose job it is to study the effect of drugs would have a much better understanding of how to not become addicted His assertion the 70% of all drug users including alcohol and prescription users aren't addicted if anything seems extremely low to me. I'd say the vast majority of my friends drink alcohol and are more than likely on prescription d…
> His assertion the 70% of all drug users including alcohol and prescription users aren't addicted if anything seems extremely low to me. I'd say the vast majority of my friends drink alcohol and are more than likely on prescription drugs but I don't think any of them are addicts
Actually, I'm not sure. 30% of alcohol drinkers being addicted might be roughly right (though surprising to me as well).
In the US, 50% of Americans hardly drink at all (under 0.15 drinks/week). But 10% of Americans drink a staggering 75 drinks a week, or over ten drinks a day every day (where a drink is a can of beer, glass of wine, or equivalent). [1]
Of course you can't determine from that alone whether those people are clinically addicted, but it sound reasonable to me that most are. Further, probably some proportion of people in the other groups are also addicted, but not drinking nearly as much.
So that's 10%, and only 50% of Americans are drinking at all, so that's 20% of drinkers are drinking 10+ drinks a day, and some unknown proportion have alcohol problems while drinking less.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think...
Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem
#170I've done heroin a handful of times and enjoyed it. The last time I did it was laced with fentanyl and I nearly died. I don't agree with everything in this article but I've lost so many friends to laced heroin, and they were addicted and I really believe they would have somewhat normal lives after their addiction. The demonization and misinformation surrounding the drug is staggering, I wish we treated it more like alcoholism, for a lot of people it's not instant addiction, but for some one sip or snort and they're on an isolating and destructive path that could kill them. People don't have a way of knowing the equivalent of one shot of alcohol in heroin because it's illegal. There is no way for most people to consistently and rationally use it and most people have no interest in doing so. But for the minority who are going to throw caution to the wind (which at one point in my life included me) I strongly believe we should remove as much risk as possible