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Heroin How long does it take to get physically addicted to heroin?

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Captaindammit

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 24, 2005
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I've been smoking on and off every other day the past 3 weeks. There will be days where I smoke every day a few times throughout the day, but there have been days where I haven't smoked at all. The last 3 days I've smoked throughout the day.

I'm just wondering how long it would take someone to get addicted at this rate? (I'm taking a couple days off now) Can I keep getting high if I take breaks like this and not get addicted?


My buddy who is a former addict told me I'd have to smoke daily for about 2 weeks before I got any withdrawals.
 
It's been known that people get addicted to heroin after just a couple times using the substance.

I don't mess around with heroin- it will literally take your soul, steal your personality, and leave you in the most brutal place known to man.

Also, about time you think your starting to get addicted, it will be way too late.

Eventually, you will become a slave to heroin if you continue to use it the way you have been.

If you play with fire, you will eventually get burned.
 
People have really gone through withdrawals after using it twice? I find that hard to believe.


And yeah. I know its dangerous.
 
It took me 8 years....before I admitted it ;)


Seriously though, you could be mentally all about it one time. You could do it once and think to yourself "life on this is better than not, I should work on that." It happens. Physically you'd "feel" light symptoms after 3 days use. Same thing if you got drunk 3 days, really. You'd kind of feel like shit.
 
People have really gone through withdrawals after using it twice? I find that hard to believe.


And yeah. I know its dangerous.

Ok, ask yourself this.... If I took your drug (heroin) away from you, and made it so you couldn't smoke any more regardless of anything....Ask yourself if you will flip out and crave the drug like a mofo, or will you be cool about it and not care?

I'm thinking your gunna be pretty pissed off, and craving the drug like a bitch!

chances are... Your already addicted to it and just dont know it yet because you have the option of getting more, or you have some .... Just wait until its not available.... Then your going to look like this ------> :!
 
you are already addicted dude.. especially if youve been smoking it. if you stop right now you will go into withdrawal within the next 48 hours, probably much sooner though.
 
Ok, ask yourself this.... If I took your drug (heroin) away from you, and made it so you couldn't smoke any more regardless of anything....Ask yourself if you will flip out and crave the drug like a mofo, or will you be cool about it and not care?

I'm thinking your gunna be pretty pissed off, and craving the drug like a bitch!

chances are... Your already addicted to it and just dont know it yet because you have the option of getting more, or you have some .... Just wait until its not available.... Then your going to look like this ------> :!

I was given 2 grams for free by my friend. I've already been addicted to meth years ago and stomped that craving/need to the curb. I understand addiction. I don't like heroin enough to get into it. I've played with it years ago and even had a hookup then and never spent a dime on it. I don't even have a hookup now so I'm not worried about it. Life isn't better on it. It's just something for me and a homie to do instead of drink and smoke weed or trip when we kick it.

I get where you're coming from, but I didn't start this thread looking for a lecture. There are plenty of those posts around here I can read if I wanted one. Thanks :)


you are already addicted dude.. especially if youve been smoking it. if you stop right now you will go into withdrawal within the next 48 hours, probably much sooner though.

Alright I'll take a 3 day break and see what happens. I don't feel anything negative yet (day 1, going on 2)
 
You need to define addicted better OP.

Tolerance is your body needing more of a drug to achieve the same effects.
Dependence is your body needing the drug to feel normal and cessation of administration will lead to withdrawal.

Addiction can carry several definitions and the physiological and psychological effects for all of these are quite intertwined. A person may only drink on weekends but spend all week thinking about that first brew Friday night and working for the weekend and consider themselves addicted. Then again another person might require 100mg of oxycodone a day to help with pain for the rest of their life and not consider themselves addicted.

edit:
Here is a thread on the neurological aspect.
The Basic Biology of Drug Addiction
 
You need to define addicted better OP.

Tolerance is your body needing more of a drug to achieve the same effects.
Dependence is your body needing the drug to feel normal and cessation of administration will lead to withdrawal.

Addiction can carry several definitions and the physiological and psychological effects for all of these are quite intertwined. A person may only drink on weekends but spend all week thinking about that first brew friday night and working for the weekend and consider themselves addicted. Then again another person might require 100mg of oxycodone a day to help with pain for the rest of their life and not consider themselves addicted.


My apologies, what I meant was what is the bare minimum you'd have to do and for how long/often until you go through withdrawals.
 
I'm just wondering how long it would take someone to get addicted at this rate? (I'm taking a couple days off now) Can I keep getting high if I take breaks like this and not get addicted?


My buddy who is a former addict told me I'd have to smoke daily for about 2 weeks before I got any withdrawals.

I think this is all dependent on what your qualifying 'addiction' as. If you're considering addiction to be the presence of withdrawal symptoms (addiction is a lot more than just that) then it's possible to use heroin everyday for around 3-4 weeks without getting any major withdrawal symptoms.

Now if you look at addiction as what it really is, than I would say your already starting to show signs of an addiction. By doing things like:

• Rationalizing
"...but there have been days where I haven't smoked at all."

• Denial
"My buddy who is a former addict..."

• Attempting to control use
"(I'm taking a couple days off now)"

The above (with exception of the third one) don't really fall into any of the seven criteria for substance dependence but they sound like addict behaviors to me.

Honestly, I think I know where you're at as far as using goes. You'd be better off just swearing it off for good right now (we are talking dope here), as the road you tread has been walked many times before. Trust me, and the other guys you'll hear from on here. The path of heroin addiction is short, and the beautiful scenery is gone before you realize you never really had a chance to take it in.

Granted before heroin got me, I would have done exactly what you've done. I would have made a post on BL asking about withdrawals. I would have felt better if someone would only validate what I heard from that old addict. I'm not trying to get under your skin man, I could be wrong, but years of experience tells me otherwise. Stay safe.

EDIT: amapola beat me to the punch.
 
If your brain is already "broken in" from opiates you can develop a habit much quicker than your first time ever using them.

It takes me a matter of days before I develop wds. The first time however it was not like that, I was able to fuck around for what seemed like months randomly taking days off at a time before wds happened. So its relative to more than one thing. But if you're worried about wds, and currently taking opiates, you're already in a way in a bad spot. Even if you're not getting wds yet, you're likely to just keep pushing the envelope untill you DO get wds. And once you cross that line thats when so many people wind up saying "fuck it".

So keep an eye on that whole dynamic by itself.
I'd cut use down drastically to like twice every 2 weeks or so and if you can't do that you're essentially going to get addicted at some point likely anyway. It really does sneak up on you the one single time you decide to say "fuck it". And its real easy to make a mistake like that especially for a cocky bastard like myself.

G/luck either way. Wds definitely are not fun at all.
 
My apologies, what I meant was what is the bare minimum you'd have to do and for how long/often until you go through withdrawals.
It differs for everyone and one could argue that there is no minimum amount but you technically go through withdrawal even after one dose it is just so mild that you don't notice. A more apt question might be "What is the maximum habit one could maintain without experiencing notably unpleasant withdrawal symptoms?" Although more accurate you can now clearly see the issue with how personal a question this is.

There are however a number of rules of thumb people recommend to not develop any dependence and minimize increases in tolerance. I can't recall any off the top of my head now though and will just say the less the better. See how you feel after a few days off now, and if/when you start back up try and make a schedule you keep to. Unfortunately a lot of people try and make a schedule and fail to stick to it.
 
heroinhelper.com gives a schedule:

You may use for an eight hour period in every seventy-two hour period.

There is no breaking up of the eight hour period. You can't split it up into two four hour periods, for example. Also, you can't use for eight hours at the end of one period and another eight hours at the beginning of the next. This means that after you use (for a maximum of 8 hours), you must stay clean for the 64 hours that follow it.

http://www.heroinhelper.com/user/misc/chipper_tips.shtml
 
Wow, its crazy how much captaindammits story sounds like mine, exept for the fact that I started snorting instead of smoking. I started off using very rarely, maybe once a week or two, then days just kept sneaking their way in. I told myself this stuff isn't that great, its a backup if I run out of weed and I'll just keep it around to sell. Let's just say from that point it only took me 4 years to completely ruin my life and I consider myself to be a rather aware person, I just ignored all the signs because my ego is too strong to admit defeat to something.

All it took for me to go down the toilet was a rough spot in my relationship, a ball of dope, and my first noticable withdrawls (I guess I'll factor in one of my good friends at the time that shot the stuff too, but at that time I was ready to try it anyway). I didnt even know what was happening to me, you may actually have experienced them and blamed it on something else. One other thing, smoking is about the least potent route of administration, so I would think tolerance would raise even quicker. If you wonder if what you are doing is a problem, it is, don't doubt the only person you can trust, yourself.

The only reason I'm clean right now is because I got myself in a legal jam amongst many others and I know I need to fix some things and dope will get in the way. I miss it everyday like a woman or something even though I know how far down its taken me, its sick. This is coming from someone that has done a great deal of coke, crack, crank, ecstasy, acid, scripts of all kinds, pretty much every drug on that planet, and I've never had a habit I couldn't break until heroin. Its just not worth it, it may have been fun, but now I forever hold that fun on a pedestal, unconciously raising it above anything else. Its physically, emotionally, and spirititually draining on an unconcievable level.
 
From a personal perspective I think it takes about two or three weeks to develop a heroin addiction if you're opiate naive. If you've had a habit before it can re-develop in as little as two days. OP, if you have the slightest suspicion you may be developing a habit (be honest with yourself) please withdraw now.It won't be as bad now as in a few weeks,months or years time. I'm not saying never use H again, but you need to discover your personal limits with the drug
 
i had been using on and off for 13 years just taking it now and then with no addiction

then i went a week of smoking and decided i should stop there before i got addicted .... well too late because within that week i was hooked and within a few hours of not having anything i started feeling awful and realized what was wrong


Stupidly i went a bought more and made things worse for my self in the long run because if i had stopped there the withdrawals wouldn't of been near as bad as the times i had to go cold turkey several months down the line

Now that i am an addict even though i dont use all the time it takes me a matter of days to feel the need again , if i smoked heroin from friday to sunday i would feel awful by the time i went back to work on monday so it has made a huge difference on me that way (i am now on methadone so its not as bad)

The thing is i dont know for sure what day it was that i got my self addicted in that week, just because i realized it when i stopped it could of been earlier but because i had been using i never felt anything wrong with me so it could been just a few days that it happened over

While i had been dabbling over the 13 years the most i had smoked for was 2 days at a time and i was fine so i would say when i did get hooked it was between the 3rd and 7 or 8th day that it must have taken hold of me, it was crazy how quickly it happened
 
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Im sure your quesiton was answered above, buy why are u smoking it? *unless its tar*. Snorting it is much better results, and doesnt waste any
 
Im sure your quesiton was answered above, buy why are u smoking it? *unless its tar*. Snorting it is much better results, and doesnt waste any

it is tar

and needles aren't my thing. I enjoy the smoking process. Shooting up is just like "its done" once its done. Smoking you can do socially and isn't all done in one hit.

I would like to try powder H some day just to snort it. Tried snorting this tar once and its just not for me lol.
 
Okay I think this is covered enough in that it is different for everyone and though there are rules of thumb you just have to figure out what works for you and what withdrawal you are willing to go through to get high. I'm going to close this now but feel free to PM me if you have any questions or concerns.
 
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