Psychedelics and "hard" drugs

[SKL]

There's more overlap in user base than we as a community would probably like to admit. I personally use opioids (mostly heroin, but also assorted pharmaceuticals) more than I should, sometimes to the point of being strung out, sometimes chipping, and I know a lot of other psychonauts feel similarly. Psychedelics were my first love, but somewhere along the line, I got into opiates and the harder stuff. I've explained it like this before--they're the two greatest joys in the world--on, say, an acid peak, you feel like you're one with the universe, and God has descended from heaven to be with you and in you; on dope, you can feel that "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world", but God remains UP THERE.

Or, psychedelics I take to expand my mind, opiates I take to quiet my mind. To some degree, again, probably more than I'd like to admit, I use opiates to forget some of the scarier things that psychedelics have shown me. Now, I'm strung out on dope. Kind of a counter-productive, viscous cycle. And then, psychedelics have at times helped me gain perspective about how my use of drugs has caused me problems. They've helped me immensely in what is now 8 months of sobriety from alcohol, which was a very serious problem for me. Now I'm getting in trouble with heroin. I'm weighing my options carefully. Do I try to use a psychedelic trip to set myself straight? Or what?

So what do you guys think? How many of you indulge in "hard" drugs? What's the relationship between your "hard" drug use and your psychedelic use? I'm curious to know other people's experiences.

I'm throwing up a poll, but would be interested in any comments that you might have whether or not they fit into the poll answers. I guess I'm referring primarily to opiates/heroin, in my personal experience & observations this is the most frequent overlap, but I guess coke, meth & friends could also be included.

 

[LSDreamer]

LSD was my first drug other than DXM and pot. After that I tried out ecstasy and coke. Dabbled a tiny bit in opiates. I use "hard" drugs, but psychedelics are my great love.

 

[killo]

there's nothing wrong with the occasional opiate use.

I sometimes take hydrocondone or oxy, occasionally though. I never have a tolerance and use 25-40mg hydrocondone when I do take it.

Nice buzz, but you don't wanna get addiced. That's why I will neve iv heroin.

 

[LSDreamer]

^I actually know someone who is an IV heroin chipper. Who knew?

 

[SKL]

^ I know several. I was one. It doesn't tend to last. Slippery slope, etc. But somehow, some people manage to pull it off.

 

[Youkai]

I occassionaly shoot dope and smoke hubbas(crack). have been mainlining ketamine at a rediculas rate though.

 

[IAmJacksUserName]

I first tried psychedelics roughly the same time I started dabbling with hard drugs. After awhile, I stopped with the hard drugs (I.V. morphine, mainly), and a little while later my psychedelic drug use took off.

 

[spacefacethebassace]

I got into opiates accidentally around ~14 when I took a little too much of my codeine cough syrup. It's been a love/hate relationship ever since. Psychedelic use came later on, 15 y.o and up. Tripping always gives me insight as to the root cause of my affinity for hard drugs, and I always feel guilty and try to curb my use, but it seems like LSD without the psychotherapy does little to stop the long-term potentiation effect of semi-regular opiate use.

To OP: you may want to look into harm reduction psychotherapy. There's an establishment in New York City that has been doing great things with non-abstinence based harm reduction therapy. Or maybe some ayahuasca? LSD is too much of a street drug these days and I think it has lost a bit of credibility as a tool for self-improvement because of that.

 

[B9]

I'd have to answer both 4 & 5. LSD came along about a year before heroin did waaaay back in the mists of time, but if heroin had been available to me first I would have definitely tried it.
As it was LSD came first then heroin. I used both off & on for several years, took a long break (approx 7 years) then started with LSD again. a couple of years later I picked up a fulltime habit & stopped using LSD in favour of heroin.
Fast forward ten years I take LSD again. I see (whilst tripping) what opiates are doing to my life, I resolve to stop & eventually manage that.

Where this fits in your poll I'm unsure. Four & five I would suggest - thus I didn't vote.

 

[Jamshyd]

I voted for psychedelics first, "hard" drugs later.

I assume a lot of it had to do with availability as my resources grew.

ps. I tried making a similar poll before about psychedelics and addiction, but it pissed off a lot of people.

 

[Shambles]

I'd have to answer both 4 & 5. LSD came along about a year before heroin did waaaay back in the mists of time, but if heroin had been available to me first I would have definitely tried it.
As it was LSD came first then heroin. I used both off & on for several years, took a long break (approx 7 years) then started with LSD again. a couple of years later I picked up a fulltime habit & stopped using LSD in favour of heroin.
Fast forward ten years I take LSD again. I see (whilst tripping) what opiates are doing to my life, I resolve to stop & eventually manage that.

Where this fits in your poll I'm unsure. Four & five I would suggest - thus I didn't vote.

I should have read this before voting "4" as it would more accurately reflect my situation. My first love was definitely for pysch's but once I got into heroin and crack I had little time, energy, enthusiasm or indeed money for psych's so pretty much gave up on them for a long time. However, fast forward a decade or so and I was getting pretty pissed of with the whole junky lifestyle, redkindled my love for psych's and this was the final push that I needed to clean up my act.

I still enjoy the occasional opi, but give me pyschedelia anyday .

 

[gambler2611]

Hard drugs don't interest me - the harm to your body which is associated is sufficient to disuade me from doing them. I would love to try LSD, but with no lab to try and extract ergotamine or the availability of the chemicals and it's relative sparsity round with local drug dealers (plus I don't really know any drug dealers) means it's very difficult for me to know where to start to get hold of it. Where I live it's either pot, heroin or coke, and none is particularly attractive to me.

I would make MDMA but I don't have the resources (or sufficient knowledge) to do so. Besides, I'm not that fussed. I'd rather be a buyer than a seller.

 

[jykkE]

I used LSD, mushrooms long before getting into hard drugs. A few years after first experimenting with psychedelics I got into coke and heroin, eventually IV'ing both of them. Ruined my life with my heroin addiction but still IV coke

 

[Black]

looks like i'm the only one that's chosen "i quit hard drugs after i got into psychs" up to now. i had occasionally taken opioids and speed before i discovered psychedelics. neither opioids nor speed does interest me anymore. psychedelics are just so much superior that other substances cannot compete imho. other hard drugs like cocaine and alcohol i never really liked much. the only drugs beside psychs that i do take nowadays are caffeine, nicotine and mdma.

 

[Bercilak]

Psychedelics were my first love, and for a few years I was of the opinion "psychedelics are superior to other drugs." Now I just think drugs are drugs. I greatly enjoy speed on occasion (although I avoid meth) and I also dabble in weak opiates (codeine and hydrocodone).

I suppose those aren't really "hard" drugs. Of coke, meth, and heroin, only heroin has appeal to me. I'm kind of a purity freak, so I'd probably only do heroin if I know the person who did the synth.

 

[adrian89987]

looks like i'm the only one that's chosen "i quit hard drugs after i got into psychs" up to now. i had occasionally taken opioids and speed before i discovered psychedelics. neither opioids nor speed does interest me anymore. psychedelics are just so much superior that other substances cannot compete imho. other hard drugs like cocaine and alcohol i never really liked much. the only drugs beside psychs that i do take nowadays are caffeine, nicotine and mdma.

I voted before I read all of the choices...voted for "My hard drug use came before my psychedelic use." but also "I quit using hard drugs after I got into psychs."

 

[inSaMity]

I kinda started using both around the same time. When i first started doing psychedelics it was purely recreational, i hadn't really developed enough, or explored myself enough to get really analytical until later.
But I will say that I whole-heartedly believe that mushrooms helped me get out of my addiction to methamphetamines. There was a lot of other factors coming into play, but i think that the things i realized and experianced while on mushrooms was the crux. It helped evrything else fall into the proper places for me. I just remember very distinctly having an epiphany of how wonderful things were. I felt the goodness in the world that I had shut-out for so long, and I remembered what it was to be purely okay with and fascinated by life and the world around me. I realized just how much my wife meant to me, and I began to experiance what i think was the pain i had put her through. Very heavy. It was an extremely beautiful, wonderful, saddening, sobering, humbling experiance.

 

[egor]

None of the answers is quite right for me. I tend to avoid hard drugs 95% of the time. I love to trip and smoke weed, but I gave up on things like coke a long time ago after years of abusing them. Psychedelics did play a role in my giving up "hard drugs", they kept ruining trips...

 

[swilow]

Nice poll....I kinda got into psychedelics before 'hard drugs' but I considered psychedelics (LSD) to be a hard drug when I first tried it...Hmm, more detailed response when at Uni.

 

[MattPsy]

I take psychedelics to make sense of the river of chaotic information my mind usually is.

Sometimes I just like to switch the river off though. Not much more to my "hard" drug use. By hard i'm meaning opioids only, I don't enjoy stimulant use, usually.