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

m.nautil.us

451–460 of 692 posts

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

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Dunno about you, but I have never bought drugs from a junkie, but, of course, through dealers, who - in my experience, more often than not - do not actually use many of the substances they sell.

I haven’t actually bought or even used any illegal drugs at all, my point was just that I don’t think a lot of people will be inspired by an article like this to try heroin, unless they were already considering it.

Most people that fall into heavy addiction are probably driven there more by chaotic circumstances than intellectual considerations.

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

#452

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…

Not defending drug use at work, but if you're to be fired it should be for the performance related issues you mentioned caused by the drug, not because of the drug itself. Edit for more context: Depending on the drug, substances consumed outside of working hours would still show up in a drug test. Firing someone for something they do outside of work shouldn't be acceptable. If you can prove they consumed drugs that w…

This is really going overboard personal freedom. It reminds me of arguments like Clinton's "what is, is". No, having heroin addicts at work is not OK even if they perform well because it's very clear that they will not perform well very soon and you don't need to wait for that as an employer.

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

#453
post #200

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It is not myth. Some people get instantly addicted to heroin, others can continue using casually for years. We dont really know what exactly is different, but it cant be psychological only. The withdrawal symptoms are physical, not just how you feel emotionally.

It's a myth. My cousin is a social worker, dealing with addicts. I've done heroin myself. I know heroin addicts, though not as many as he does. We both agree: almost all addicts have a backdrop of broken families, poverty, unemployment, some kind of trauma or just a general lack of opportunities in life. Heroin makes all that go away... for a while. How could they NOT become addicted? The myth is about shifting blame…

That is not mutually exclusive. Every single person living in 2020 knows dangers of heroin addiction. It is not starter drug happy person will try these days. You have to be seld destructive to even try.

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

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we equating alcohol with heroin?

Shouldn't we? Alcohol ruins more lives and causes more injuries and damage than heroin.

Just because it's used by a vast number of people. Getting rational, for every 100 alcohol and 100 heroin users who do you think is in better health shape?

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

#455
post #152

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Black market incentivises dealers doing things like mixing fentanyl into heroin in order to make it vastly more profitable (fentanyl is cheap and incredibly potent), with the side effect of increasing its deadliness massively. Users often mix heroin with benzos and/or alcohol which increases the level of risk enormously. The vast majority of overdoses are caused by mixing CNS depressants in with heroin, not by heroin…

Are there benefits in using heroin?

What would you characterize as a benefit? Medical, certainly. Recreationally, certainly (it feels good). Socially, I imagine so for some people and some doses.

Here's a reddit famous account from someone claiming to be an opiate addict that some find enlightening/haunting: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/wnj2d/iama_heroin_add...

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

#456
Addiction engenders unresolved trauma. Can be drugs, shopping, sex, internet, or anything that gives you a temporary sense of relief from a deep underlying pain that usually forms in childhood.

Check out the work of Gabor Mate. It's silly how simple it is. It's silly how misunderstood it is.

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

#457
post #406

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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…

I have a solution to prevent this, which doesn't prejudice Mike for having a bit of weed 2 weeks ago camping. Also it will filter out those unfit to work from legal medication, or tiredness.

Make workers do a 30 second ability test before going on shift. Design the test to measure reaction speed, short term memory, etc.

[follow up thought] - Test must be immune to practice/muscle memory. Don't want a drunk passing the test through familiarity, then performing shit on the job.

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

#458

The fascinating thing about this stuff is that you can have outlier people. For instance, tobacco is supposed to be highly addictive. Well, I picked up smoking from a girlfriend in college and we used to smoke all the time. Like ten cigs a day for a year and a half. Real bad, right? Well, one day, I decided "Meh. I'll just stop" and I did. Not because of any reason. I just chose not to. Now cigarettes are way addicti…

Same here, stopping to smoke was really easy but my candy addiction is real hard. It's like day and night for me. I struggle and have been struggling in not eating candy for years (or at least a lot less) but I have failed each time. I think different substances are differently addictive to people.

Likewise, I found it impossible to quit sugar. Fruits especially still ruin me. I'll eat any amount of fruit you place before me.

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

#459

The fascinating thing about this stuff is that you can have outlier people. For instance, tobacco is supposed to be highly addictive. Well, I picked up smoking from a girlfriend in college and we used to smoke all the time. Like ten cigs a day for a year and a half. Real bad, right? Well, one day, I decided "Meh. I'll just stop" and I did. Not because of any reason. I just chose not to. Now cigarettes are way addicti…

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

#460

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…

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 staye…

Ever taken codeine again? You may have a genetic variant of CYP2d6 that makes codeine, in particular, hit you hard. It's not an effect common across opioids.
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