I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem • Hacker News Board

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#401

Post by batmansmk » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #384

nimbius wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree. Carl is a white collar professor. The worst thing that can happen if his drug indulgence becomes a problem is he knocks over the water cooler or loses his job. I work a blue collar job servicing heavy diesel engines. Casual hard drug users are aggravatingly cavalier to work alongside. They forget important things constantly. They show up late and lose things often. You'll spend all day repeating things t…

>> Carl is a white collar professor. The worst thing that can happen if his drug indulgence becomes a problem is he knocks over the water cooler or loses his job. No. The worst that can happen to him is that he is pulled over by a cop in the parking lot. Gets charged with possession of heroin. Goes to jail for a couple nights, then looses his job/pension/car/house/wife/kids (in whatever order) and winds up on the str…

One dude left his 3 and 5 yo kids in his locked car for a full hot afternoon with no water while using in the heroin den in my appartment complex in San Francisco. He was not a bad guy, just a totally confused person. When we told him what could have happened, he realized his mistake. We never saw him again.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#402

Post by tanseydavid » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #352

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're an outlier. The vast majority of people who smoke opium or experience euphoria from taking medical grade heroin will obtain the urge to do it more.

See, this is saying something else entirely. Also, do you have a source for this? Would I do opium again? Sure. It was fun. Would I do medical grade heroin or morphine again, under controlled circumstances with a nursing staff dosing me? Yeah. It was fun. Did I have some weird urge to go out and do it frequently? Nope. But to be fair, lots of folks drink on more than one occasion as well. They get high more than once…

>> This isn't addiction, nor is it anything uncontrollable in general.

With as much respect as I can offer I think you should consider the following notion, which in my personal experience is an actual fact:

"Until and unless you have been an addict you truly cannot understand the experience. And subsequently you are not able to point out what is and is not addiction."

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#403

Post by dmitryminkovsky » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #168

rmac wrote: post #5

Man, 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…

When I was 17 I had a bad cough and my mom gave me what turned out to be too much codeine cough syrup. An hour later I realized my cough was gone but I had spent all that time staring at my Windows ME desktop, in some sort of euphoric daze, repeatedly selecting and deselecting all the icons. For an hour! It was really, really creepy and deeply unsettling. And this was codeine, a "mild" opiate! Have aggressively stayed away from opioids ever since then.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#404

Post by shmageggy » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

cirgue wrote: post #366

ordu wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only responsible and healthy individuals should self-use drugs, generally speaking. The funny thing I've been reading the article and the tone of it reminded me of heroin addicts who was not hit by their addiction heavily yet. I mean, Carl Hart thinks he is a responsible user, that he have an ability to decide for himself. It doesn't seem so for me. It is hard to tell, having as a data only one interview with him.…

> The funny thing I've been reading the article and the tone of it reminded me of heroin addicts who was not hit by their addiction heavily yet. Having known someone who was a responsible, highly educated adult with a fantastic career who died of a heroin overdose, this whole article sounded eerily familiar.

Do you know whether this person's overdose was due to an escalating addiction or due to mixing with other substances or impurities? That's the distinction the article is trying to make

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#405

Post by wellthisisgreat » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

Grustaf wrote: post #204

nimbius wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree. Carl is a white collar professor. The worst thing that can happen if his drug indulgence becomes a problem is he knocks over the water cooler or loses his job. I work a blue collar job servicing heavy diesel engines. Casual hard drug users are aggravatingly cavalier to work alongside. They forget important things constantly. They show up late and lose things often. You'll spend all day repeating things t…

Well, how many people will see this headline and rush off to a back alley to buy a shot of heroin from some junkie?

people who are familiar with less dangerous drugs may easily become more inclined to try heroin after reading this

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#406

Post by Natsu » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

fbelzile wrote: post #394

mfer wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many places there are safety issues to deal with. You have to be proactive to avoid an incident. Here's a non-drug related one. In many places road construction companies will disallow workers from wearing headphones. This is because of the heavy machinery and you need to hear the beeps of a machine backing up. Drivers of those do not have good sight around the machinery and large trailers. Headphones on can mean…

In this case, the grounds for dismissal are for wearing headphones during working hours. Drug test results can be positive for things done outside of working hours.

Drugs still affect people during working hours even if used off-duty.

I had to mummify a guy's hand because it was sliced open by glass, once. They were airlifted to the hospital because the bleeding couldn't be controlled.

Another guy was doing something unsafe with his forklift, probably because he was in a hurry, right before Christmas, it rolled over on him and he died.

That's why we couldn't keep people who were careless for any reason around. People could, and did, die for a moment of carelessness.

You're asking for more of this kind of story.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#407

Post by tanseydavid » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

fingerlocks wrote: post #166

ardy42 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>> A prerequisite for addiction is that one must believe the drug makes them feel “normal” or functional in some way.

Where did come up with this? This is not accurate.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#408

Post by tanseydavid » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #382

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You grew up in a neighborhood full of opium poppies?

He lives next to next to the Land of Oz.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#409

Post by Natsu » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #301

jboog wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You genuinely believe that there is no large group of people curious about trying a drug that supposedly offers the most euphoric feeling imaginable "better than sex" as many have claimed? What if people tell them it's not addictive? And now it's not illegal?

Why would illegal stop them from trying heroin if someone thought it better than sex? What illegal does is make it far more likely to die from using heroin.

> Why would illegal stop them from trying heroin if someone thought it better than sex?

Lack of access (or not knowing how to access it) comes to mind, among many other reasons.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#410

Post by Bodell » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #179

joemazerino wrote: post #117

This is legitimately dangerous reporting. Heroin is ranked in the top 3 of addictive chemicals and all this article reports about is this anecdotal nonsense. I've too many friends to Heroin to know the reality of the drug.

Fully agree. Carl is a white collar professor. The worst thing that can happen if his drug indulgence becomes a problem is he knocks over the water cooler or loses his job. I work a blue collar job servicing heavy diesel engines. Casual hard drug users are aggravatingly cavalier to work alongside. They forget important things constantly. They show up late and lose things often. You'll spend all day repeating things t…

I want to agree with what your saying but with a caveat.

Years ago I was an office manager at a battery supply warehouse (car batteries not AA’s). We had an employee that had started working for us for about 6 months when it became vary apparent that he had a drug problem. Because his brother also worked there we knew that he had suffered a major car accident, was in crippling debt from the medical bills, and developed a pain pill habit as a result. He was only 19 at the time.

The issues that involved the work place were things like being consistently late, taking 2-3 hour lunch breaks and coming back high. So high, that he could not perform basic job tasks like counting a pallet of battery cores. My biggest concern was that he was licensed to use our fork lifts and so I had our warehouse manager do his best to keep him off the forklifts.

At this point I recommended to my boss that we fire him for the repeated offenses, as well as recommend that he seek drug consoling. I felt bad for him. He had a problem. He needed help. But he did not need to be working at that job for his and others safety. My boss and my boss’ boss, on the other hand, decided it was best to send to him to a “random” drug test, so that when the fired him they could do so with indisputable cause. This did not work, he disappeared for many hours, despite the drug testing facility being just down the street, and the results came back clean. I know that people have many ways of faking drug tests. I suggested again that he be fired for the offenses and not the drug test. Again my bosses disagreed and sent him to two more “random” tests each week after that.

The employee in question got wise to this. He knew what they were trying to do. So he went to a therapist and got a declaration of temporary disability. My company then had to pay him his full wages for 6 months with out him needed to come to work.

And I sat back and laughed at my bosses, as the unemployment claim would have be nominal by comparison.

edit: not sure why this would be down-voted. It is just a real story, relevant to the thread. I was only suggested that waiting for test results when possible danger lurks was not the right course of action. i forgot to add the employee did come back after his psychological disability ran out. And of course they sent him to take a drug test again. He failed that one and was fired.