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My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

mattlakeman.org

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Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#141

Post by krater23 »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #49
aazaa wrote: post #4

> I wish I had a happier note to end this on, but honestly, my biggest takeaway from the whole experience is that maybe some puzzles just can’t be solved. We can try to attribute Jack’s problems to intrinsic biological/psychological issues (social phobia, migraines, etc.) or to environmental causes (super high rate of heroin use and OD in the community), but both sides seem fundamentally lacking in explanatory power.…

I heard a story - can't find the reference now - of a doctor who got addicts to replace their drug addiction with exercise addictions. From what I recall the program was quite successful at making the patients functional, but didn't really do much for the underlying issues - just made the addiction itself less damaging.

Makes sense. I talked about it with a friend of mine, a ex-junky. He said, all people he know from the Methadon-program are dead because they just died on alcohol. He said, they don't take Heroin because Heroin make addicted, they take Heroin because they needed 'the hammer on the head'. They switched from Heroin to a more damaging addiction. Why this should not work with less damaging addictions too?

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#142

Post by arp242 »

ioseph wrote: post #38
colinmhayes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you understand how good heroin feels. Nothing comes close, especially not Tennis or a wonderful community. I tried heroin once, and I regret it every day, because I am 100% positive that I will never again be as happy as I was that day. If I didn't have what is effectively a dream job I'm sure that I'd be a heroin addict.

That was certainly not my experience, it was an intense physical pleasure but ultimately devoid of mental depth. Having tried most drugs I really think the whole addicted after one dose is bullshit and it's far more about your social economic circumstances. It's much more tempting to seek out another hit if you have nothing better to do that day.

If I get drunk I become happy and will hug my friends and tell them how much I love and appreciate them. Others become aggressive and start picking fights with random people, or beat up their wives, girlfriends, etc. I don't especially enjoy being drunk though; it's alright once in a while, but there's loads of other activities that are on equal footing as far as I'm concerned.

I tried to smoke weed a few times. I didn't just dislike it but downright hated it every single time. I tried a few other drugs, and responses varied from "I don't really like this" to "meh, so this is it, is it?" Never tried heroin, so I can't speak to that specifically.

Point being: individual responses to drugs vary greatly. I wouldn't say I'm "immune" to becoming an addict, but it'll sure take a lot more than for some other people.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#143

Post by jimmytucson »

mmastrac wrote: post #9

Would providing free and clean heroin in safe, monitored sites be a solution? Starve the black market of clients, give people support and safety when they need it, as well as the time required to get their life back together enough to take a leap.

The problem with heroine is not that it isn’t “clean”. It’s that it consumes the person addicted to it, becomes the sole driver of every waking behavior, like food, only more important. It happens with prescription pain medication obtained legally as well, and with alcohol to a segment of the population with a particular disposition towards it. For a drug that ensnares every fourth person who uses it once, it’s hard to imagine making it more available solving the problem.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#144

Post by sneak »

wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

> The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society.

This is a false narrative. Tobacco use kills 7-8x more every day, week, and month in the USA. That's a legitimate industry, though, so that's not pushed on the news.

Opiates aren't that big an issue, they're just the one the media tells you to care about.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#145

Post by spoonjim »

Clubber wrote: post #130
wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

>It would be extraordinarily expensive I mean we spent $300 million a day for 20 years on Afghanistan, it can't be that expensive. >the Sacklers just walked with no criminal liability In fact, the media firestorm and the political response made heroin overdoses much worse because they "clamped down" on pills that at least had a dosage on it. Addicts then turned to heroin, which now has fentanyl in it.

Still many more annual overdoses of prescription pills than illegal drugs.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#146

Post by Clubber »

spoonjim wrote: post #145
Clubber wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It would be extraordinarily expensive I mean we spent $300 million a day for 20 years on Afghanistan, it can't be that expensive. >the Sacklers just walked with no criminal liability In fact, the media firestorm and the political response made heroin overdoses much worse because they "clamped down" on pills that at least had a dosage on it. Addicts then turned to heroin, which now has fentanyl in it.

Still many more annual overdoses of prescription pills than illegal drugs.

>Still many more annual overdoses of prescription pills than illegal drugs.

Not since around 2016, which is around when the panic with pills started and we started cracking down. It did put a small dent in pills but fentanyl is off the charts. We probably would have been better off, at least in terms of deaths, if we had just ignored the "opioid epidemic."

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/over...

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#147

Post by sodality2 »

robocat wrote: post #111
d136o wrote: post #54

I’ve just finished reading Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty , and I highly recommend it. An amazing multi generational history of how the Sacklers inflicted opioids on the US, made a fortune, and got away with no consequence. It was pretty interesting to read this during pandemic times, and it’s a prime example of how institutions lose legitimacy in the public’s eye. The Sacklers had the FDA…

Probably the wrong place to ask, but is there any information on the social costs for the Sacklers of their criminality? (I'm not excusing it, I'm just interested). Although they have stuffed Giga$ into their pockets, most people also care deeply about their own social status, so have the Sacklers had severe social repercussions from their peers? Some of their peers or acquaintances of their peers must have been addi…

>Some of their peers or acquaintances of their peers must have been addicted

Rich people can afford the absolute top-tier rehab (and probably can just start doing coke w/o repercussions).

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#148

Post by ufmace »

ioseph wrote: post #108
karlmdavis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to rather callously disregard the parent commenter’s lived experience. Perhaps, just maybe, not everyone is like you; it might be different for different people? Just a thought.

That was certainly not my intention, I was trying to say that the idea that these substances will make anyone a helpless addict if they try them once is misleading and completely ignores the social context around addiction.

It seems pretty clear that there's at least some level of genetic component to addiction. It seems likely that this is part of it. Some people, like you I suppose, really genuinely think it's not that big of a deal. Some people, presumably like the grandparent of this thread or the subject of the article, think it's by far the most amazing thing they'll ever experience in their life. Why's that so hard to believe?

It seems pretty likely to me that at least some people really will inevitably go down that road from one dose. Maybe not as many as the hardcore Drug Warriors would like us to think, but at least a few. It's an odd blind spot for the hardcore Libertarians - some people just aren't physically capable of coping with it, and no amount of willpower on their parts will change that.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#149

Post by sodality2 »

Multiplayer wrote: post #122
s5300 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> feels like a really dramatic description of opiates. I don’t think most anyone with a moderately stable life is at risk of addiction trying them. A few years back, perhaps close to a decade ago, there was a fairly well known reporter/journalist who said this same thing. Of course, he was cocky enough to test his presumptions & tried either some form of opiate or heroin, can't recall exactly which. He by all means h…

This took place in real time on reddit, pretty much. If not this exact case - very close to it. You can search for it.

SpontaneousH, was his name.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#150

Post by stef25 »

bamboozled wrote: post #127
stef25 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really complicated problem but one thing that just stands out to me is the role the doctors play: It's not normal to send people home with these massive prescriptions for opiates. Here in Europe doctors are very, very conservative with that stuff (and meds in general) while it seems to me that in the US if your "medical experience" even entails the slightest bit of discomfort people get all up in arms over it.…

I don't think it's a really complicated problem, other countries have tried different things that have worked. It's complicated for some people to admit the 'war on drugs' has failed maybe, but that's a different issues all together.

What's complicated is that it's not really the drugs, it's the fact that people experience their lives in such a miserable way that oblivion through opiates is a better option.

IMHO this is because of alienation, a loss of community, strong personal bonds, lack of goals.

There's a famous experiment that sums it all up perfectly - the one where animals were given an unlimited supply of cocaine and they took it until they basically starved themselves to death. But when they put the animals in a nice stimulating environment with toys and friends to play with they basically ignored the drug supply.

So yes, providing govt run shooting galleries will stop people from dying and you'll make them slightly less miserable but those people will still live lives that you wouldn't want for your children. They have an illness that needs to be cured.

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