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-When you were in the grip of full-blown crack addiction, what proportion of your average day & night were spent smoking crack or being high on crack?
-Did the comedowns and crashes just get worse & worse or did you adjust to them? Did you have any benzos/zopiclone/beers or anything to take the edge off of it?
-How long did your period of crack addiction last & what made you keep going?
And finally, though not a question, I'd love to hear about your OD. Thanks for responding, it's just the only people I know who are addicted to crack use speedballs, which obviously I can understand a lot easier.
Sorry for the delay in answering, seems I forgot to revisit this thread. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.
- 1st I think I might have given the wrong impression. I've first tasted freebase at a friend house and wasn't really impressed by it. I've tried it a few time when offered for the "why the fuck not" but never really got into it. Then one time he scored crack instead and with that same bored, nothing better to do attitude, I tried it and loved it instantly. However I don't think I ever was a crack addict altho maybe you are right and it is all in the head.
In any case I would do it every two or three weeks. When I would have lots of money and felt like it. But it never been a daily thing. However I would binged like crazy. And everything people said about chasing that first high is so true. In any case it was a very occasionnal thing. As for the session I would smoke about 4 - 5 grams in about 3 to 4 hours. I was young and that is probably what have saved me because retrospectively, I think with no tolerance and smoking a quarter gram rock in one toke was risky.
Also, crack is a very antisocial drug. I would be real high for about 3 minutes, then having this aftereffect glow for maybe 10 to 20 minutes and then I'll have another rock. I hated doing it with other people. You feel like enjoying the high for yourself, not speaking, and when others are smoking all you can think of is when will the pipe be back in your hand.
- I've never used crack whitout having a few beers. I wish I would have known about/had benzos at the time but I did not. Crashing was hard. I never really got used to it because I haven't done it that much time. I might have smoked crack around 20 to 40 times. Not more. I eventually end up ODing (which I'll get back to as you asked) and stopped.
- It went on for a few months (Maybe 3 to 6 months, not exactly sure). I kept at it because the high was unique and very satisfying (altho really short lived). Somehow crack always was to me some sort of downer. I would be relaxed and my brain exploded with pleasure. I am diagnose with ADD so maybe it kind of medicated me but I also think ADD or not, it is the general concensus that crack paradoxally relaxes. Anxiety goes away, in the few minutes after use you get lots of pleasure sensation and the aftereffect was some kind of very relaxed states like you might get after you ran a marathon and you just crash on your couch soaking in endorphins. I kept doing it for the simple fact that I loved that state and nothing, not even coke, would come close to it. Maybe it is the same for everyone or maybe it was the amount I did, but it was extremely pleasurable and unique.
Finally my two ODs. The first time I was alone home and bought for 800$ worth. I smoked and smoked and smoked for a few hours until there were no more. Then I realised I was sweating a lot, my hands were cold, I was tachycarding like hell and my lips were blue. I was stupid enough to not call the emergencies, or anyone else actually, and waited until it calmed down which it did after a few hours. I do think it has been a close one and could have died.
After this I stopped doing crack. There were no withdrawal of any sorts and was so afraid since then that it was enough for me. Then a few months later, I was walking downtown with a girl with whom I indulged crack a few times and a dealer just recognize me, pass by and gives me a rock, he know I'll smoke it and I will want more. He probably wondered why he did not see me in a while.
So me and my friend debate about what to do and being young and stupid, we end up thinking : fuck it let's do this. So I bought a can of softdrink to make an improvised pipe, go in an alley and we split that rock together. Then we go on and buy another shitload and go to her house. Smoked and smoked and smoked, same story again, tachycardia, bluelips, all this shit. So we get a cab and get me to the hospital and all the while I am there being treated she goes back and forth outside to finish the stash.
Never touched it since. But I remember a few years after that, when that movie came out (I think it was Cartel) with Michael Douglas, there was this scene where his daughter get to smoke crack and they did such a good job at depicting it that I remember craving for it badly in the theater for the whole movie after that point and a few days afterward.
I hope I answered your questions, feel free to ask for more information.