Addiction

zhao said:

hey, back off.

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whys that ? she invited serious questions and seemed happy to talk. Then says goodbye, deletes her account, comes back in a flash and ignores my serious questions. I'm not looking for beef eh...just wondering what gives ?

I didn't delete my account--I tried to change my email address on the old one and then it froze up.

I didn't mean to ignore you, was just trying to avoid being accused of lying anymore. But to answer your question, since you seem sincere (and really this is as far as I want to go): I didn't admit to myself that I was addicted until I'd been using for about 8 months to a year. But I started noticing mild withdrawal coming on after about 3 months...I could still go a couple of days in between uses until I hit 6 months.

See, I had used morphine tabs and the dissolves-in-water methadone off and on all through undergrad, but only rarely because it was hard to find. I was also a regular user (4 days a week, easily) of cocaine and amphetamines (and everythiing else you can think of) but had always been able to keep my life in order while using them.

Then I moved to the innercity and heroin was everywhere. Because I'd never developed an addiction from the pills in college, I figured "as long as I don't do this too many days in a row, I'll be fine"...

The first few times were pretty bad, it was too strong. I just threw up and felt sick. But then suddenly it started working, and working really well. Full body-mind euphoria. So I'd do it a few nights every week, or try to limit it to weekends. But soon, without even noticing, I was doing it everyday. And if I stopped for a day, I'd go into withdrawal. I was in denial about all of it until I had to go home for Christmas and didn't bring enough and had to go the ER to get methadone.

For the first couple of years, a few bags a day--using only at night after work--was enough to keep me from getting sick. But the dose kept escalating as I built a tolerance. By my fourth year--after trying to get clean unsuccessfully several times--I needed to shoot three bags just to get out of bed. I did at least a bundle a day, everyday.

So this is a good illustration of how addiction works-- I didn't want to continue talking about it, but I can't resist. Right now I'm gritting my teeth and trying to do deep breathing because I'm craving a nice warm itch REALLY BAD. A drug craving is stronger than wanting food or sex or anything else. And I'm already on maintenance opiates that are supposed to block my cravings, but they don't! Addiction is a very, very, extremely powerful thing. Just say no!

To your other question--I do think there's a curve, if not "gateway drugs"...

Some drugs, like marijuana and other hallucinogens, have very little addictive potential. Which doesn't mean that it's impossible to get addicted (you can potentially get addicted to any mind-altering substance), but the chemical structure of these drugs doesn't tend to cause addiction in most people.

Hard drugs, however, are a totally different story. There is really no way to responsibly use stimulants or opiates without a prescription. In fact, I've learned through my outpatient treatment that I was a cocaine addict for 6 years before I even tried heroin. I had no idea! I would've denied that to the hilt back then.

When I got clean and started to look at my life objectively, I could see a pattern of escalating use starting at age 16. After 6 years of burning out on uppers, I think heroin was so appealing because it chilled me out, and helped me to sleep (I've been an insomniac my entire life). Too bad it destroyed my life in every other conceivable way.

That said, I'm really grateful for the fact that I still have a chance at a life, and for all of the things I do have. Some aren't so lucky. I'm going back to school in the fall and things are slowly getting easier.

i do sincerely wish you all the best nomad and appreciate your frank replies. I'm someone who smokes weed and drinks occassionally and to be honest i cant even handle that. I've passed out in so many places from that, that the thought of doing anything harder scares the shit out of me. I tried acid once, it made me aggro, i tried meth once, it put me to sleep and then i woke up jittery. i tried rohypnol and woke up naked next to a friend of my cousins... it wasnt pretty and i cant remember anything about it. Havent had an ecstasy buzz yet, I dont think i could bring myself to inject and as for cocaine, i dont even know if you can get it in NZ.

i used to stay at my cousins who dealt in hard drugs and couldnt believe some of the people who used to wander thru or what they used to do to get it. Hopefully i've scared my kids by saying we, as polynesians, are metabolically destined to not be able to handle drugs

mistadubalina said:

i do sincerely wish you all the best nomad and appreciate your frank replies. I'm someone who smokes weed and drinks occassionally and to be honest i cant even handle that. I've passed out in so many places from that, that the thought of doing anything harder scares the shit out of me. I tried acid once, it made me aggro, i tried meth once, it put me to sleep and then i woke up jittery. i tried rohypnol and woke up naked next to a friend of my cousins... it wasnt pretty and i cant remember anything about it. Havent had an ecstasy buzz yet, I dont think i could bring myself to inject and as for cocaine, i dont even know if you can get it in NZ.

i used to stay at my cousins who dealt in hard drugs and couldnt believe some of the people who used to wander thru or what they used to do to get it. Hopefully i've scared my kids by saying we, as polynesians, are metabolically destined to not be able to handle drugs

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Thanks, Mista! So you're from NZ, that's cool, I've always wanted to visit...

It sounds like you're already good at drawing clear boundaries between what's good for you and what isn't...I think you're doing well with drugs! Don't lose that fear of hard stuff.

The best thing to do for kids, I think, (though I don't have em) is to make sure they develop lots of good habits and hobbies from a young age, so they aren't as tempted to sit around getting high. The rest is up to them!

swears said:

I have an oral fixation that drives people crazy. I spend all day sucking or chewing half the contents of our stationary cupboard at work, sometimes actually ordering stuff that looks good to mangle in my mouth. I went through one of those plastic casio digital watches every month as a teenager by taking it off and chewing the strap until it was a lumpy mess. I go through three packets of "Airwaves" gum every day. It always feels like there's something else I need to cram into my mouth, it's so satisfying.

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My parents are like this with gum and candies. I always thought it was because they'd quit smoking and so they needed to always have something in their mouths...

Actually, at work I used to absent-mindedly chew pens and pen caps, which is pretty gross if you think about work pens...

baboon2004 said:

Best of luck with that.

I guess the fact that you didn't realise for those years you were a cocaine addict is simply because you could carry on with normal life in some shape or form?

As to weed - as I understand it, no physical addiction, but it and acid have exacerbated schizophrenic (using the word non-medically) tendencies in more people than I care to think about.

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Thanks. I'm not trying to be dramatic or anything about it, honestly, but if people can learn from my mistakes then I think it's worth sharing. I think a real, not-media hysterical view of how addiction works is desperately needed.

And yeah, my parents have tons of stories about their friends who went off the deep end with hallucinogens. For coke and heroin being so easy to get in the U.S., LSD is actually relatively hard to come by and expensive. Slightly less so on the west coast, I've heard...

nomadthethird said:

Thanks, Mista! So you're from NZ, that's cool, I've always wanted to visit...

It sounds like you're already good at drawing clear boundaries between what's good for you and what isn't...I think you're doing well with drugs! Don't lose that fear of hard stuff.

The best thing to do for kids, I think, (though I don't have em) is to make sure they develop lots of good habits and hobbies from a young age, so they aren't as tempted to sit around getting high. The rest is up to them!

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if you ever visited you probably wouldnt want to leave. we're so naively infectious eh

and i dont know about drawing boundaries between whats good for me or not. Its like "I" dont have control and run on instinct but its when i override them i get into trouble.

as for the kids. we have family porn nights

new zealand is the best country out.

^^^yeah once we fully assimilate the colonials we'll be runnin tings proper...

haha, best of luck with that

heh...2 more generations i reckon and they'll be fully polynized

i have a friend from Wellington (lower hutt or upper hutt or something?) though i think she lives in auckland now, she complained to me a few times about how crazily expensive pills/mdma is out there (especially when comparing it to the sort of '3 pills for a tenner' deals you get in the UK). I can't exactly remember what she said the price was out there, i think it was like $25-30 for one pill or something. so I imagine it's pretty tough to develop an ecstacy problem in NZ unless you're pretty flush (not that it's addictive like heroin or something anyway)... always wanted to go to NZ though, seems like such a wicked and beautiful place.

anyway all the best nomad, i hope things work out for you. can't remember if i asked already but have you read Infinite Jest by david foster wallace? it's really great, and it explores loads of the things you've talked about here re: addiction...

yeah but you can get blue meanies live from the soil so who needs the pills. the scarcity of pils and heroin and coke are one of the best things about the place. shame about the meth but theres always something.

dubalina, you used to post here under a different name i swear

luka said:

the scarcity of pils and heroin and coke are one of the best things about the place.

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yeah i don't doubt that, i'm not a regular taker of class a's anyway and neither is my nz friend, i'm kind of in the same boat as dubalina, like a bit of weed and booze and that'll do me.

BareBones said:

i have a friend from Wellington (lower hutt or upper hutt or something?) though i think she lives in auckland now, she complained to me a few times about how crazily expensive pills/mdma is out there (especially when comparing it to the sort of '3 pills for a tenner' deals you get in the UK). I can't exactly remember what she said the price was out there, i think it was like $25-30 for one pill or something. so I imagine it's pretty tough to develop an ecstacy problem in NZ unless you're pretty flush (not that it's addictive like heroin or something anyway)... always wanted to go to NZ though, seems like such a wicked and beautiful place.

anyway all the best nomad, i hope things work out for you. can't remember if i asked already but have you read Infinite Jest by david foster wallace? it's really great, and it explores loads of the things you've talked about here re: addiction...

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And it was NZ that popularized BZP as a replacement for (rip-off) pills and (addictive) meth. But fucking hell, is that stuff ever harsh on the old bod...got banned here a year or two ago, may have been banned in NZ as well I think.

baboon2004 said:

a boyfriend of a close friend of mine had apparently slept with over 1000 people, which blew my head off (no double meaning at all intended) when my friend told me. Now THAT'S self-destructive behaviour...

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but it's not really that many people though, is it? It's only kinda one every day for three years.

My favourite story was an old mate who was asked at a new GU how many people he'd slept with and he pointed at the phone book and went 'start at A'.