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Harm Reduction ⫸Personal Accounts of Addiction: What's YOUR Story?⫷

Growing up I was molested for years, 12 to be exact. I don't blame my using on this but it plays a big part of why I never really gave two shits about myself to care if I destroyed myself or not.
My drinking began around age 9. Mainly cause it was handed to me on purpose at first. Then later it helped me stay numb. I smoked my first joint at age twelve. And my drinking got worse. Weed became a daily. Liquor was a must. By the time I was 13 I was using meth on a daily. Experimented with many others. By 16 I was pregnant. I sobered up for two years. Started drinking the day my daughters father passed. So I took off to the military(just drank more) come back. Within a year had another kid was arrested 3x on owi. And was sent to a recovery home. Did good for a few years. 2011 got hurt at work... Tab here or there turned real quick into a full blown opana addiction. When they went off the market I tried heroin... Didn't help with my withdrawals. So I turned to IV. I took my kids to my mom and told her I was no longer suitable to take care of them any more. In the process I met a man. Who turned me in to probation to pay for his own drug habit. After a 9 month clean out thanks to county jail. I made it a total of 1/2 hour before I relapsed. And that leads me to today...stable! Not quite sober,double life I lead. It's an everyday struggle.

Current main addictions
Heroin/meth

Last sobriety(forced) 9months
Most recent relapse 8 months and counting.
Addicted to
meth 15yr
Opiates bout 3yr
IVing 1yr

Adverse Effects
Skin issues, borderline personality disorder, ticks, bruises trax, weight loss, teeth, extreme moodswings many more!

How did drugs negatively impact my life?
Well lost relationships with friends or family's...jail time,felonies, job issues. Have to watch the trax when they get bad cant go to school functions or friends houses. OD multiple times,one on purposes. Watched my brother flat line three times in one night due to my carelessness(he still alive and kickin), saved him a few more times on my own(I blame his addiction on me) lost many friends due to same habit, 5 in the last 6months including my cousin. I wake up everyday to get high...everything is on hold till I get mine! And its hardwork...bad work. Rob your momma type work. Cause it gets that bad and worse! Is today gonna be the day there isn't someone there when I need it. Is this gonna be THE shot. Sometimes I hope it is....life would be easier...but I struggle threw and fight and battle with myself guess its got me this far huh?

Warnings and Advice
NEVER TRIED AN OPIATE KEEP IT THAT WAY!!!!!
 
^Welcome to Bluelight KryztalSparks

Thank you for your contribution, I personally could relate quite a bit to your post and I am really happy that you found Bluelight. I hope you're here to stay. There is hope, never give up hope. I would urge you to try to give up the needle, it is the fast lane on the highway to hell.... Please take advantage of our decades of information in our database to learn how to properly use the needle if you insist on continuing to abuse your drugs of choice through it, I know first hand just how fast methamphetamine and heroin, the ultimate speedball, eats away at your soul until you're looking in the mirror and have no recognition of the person looking back at you... Please get some help, begin by becoming thoroughly informed with what you're doing to your body, mind, and soul. I know you know that actions have consequences, but you've only been slamming for a year, that is the scariest part of your post to me. It changes EVERYTHING.


There is hope, never give up... <3
 
Brief Background

I'm a 33 year old single mam n student. Live in the UK. Had a
L5/S1 disc herniatedwas very physically active, worked out 6 days a week. Got prescribed a specific medication n it went from there.

Substance(s)

Codeine 700-800 daily at height of addiction. I am now on 8 suboxone was also taking huge amounts of ibroprufen and paracetamol so suboxone also acts as harm reduction.

Duration of Addictions

18 months

Adverse Affects

Lost £4,600 in savings n owe £3000 to credit cards, ODd a few times, lost a lot of friends almost lost family my personality changed.

Warnings and advice

When using prescription medication be careful. I was aware that codeine was addictive but stuff was going on in my life n codeine numbed the pain. If you feel like you may have depression, anger or whatever n you are relying on a drug too often for comfort please seek help before it's too late.
 
Brief Background

I suppose it was something I was always curious about starting at age 10. Just watching parents and their friends drinking and having such a good time piqued my interest. Also listening to musicians who glamorized drugs and alcohol. I finally started tapping into my parents alcohol. Wine boxes were the best! This was by age 13.

At age 14, I started hanging out with a friend whose parents let us drink as long as we stayed indoors. I was a loner at school, and really quiet, but alcohol unlocked something in me and I turned into superman when I drank. I met a lot of friends and started sneaking out to go to parties, or the beach. This led to trying weed, which I smoked along with the drinking throughout high school. I really made an effort to keep this to the weekends only. I was heavily into sports and didn't want to affect my performance. By my senior year, I had only tried booze, weed, and acid.

In college, I would pretty much drink all the time. I was also really hooked on mini thins, which a trainer at my gym introduced me to. The town I was in had really good weed and beer, so I continued on that, dropped out for a year, but finally went back and graduated. I started working in the restaurant business and had an unlimited supply of free beer, and solid weed connections. I felt like I was in control at this point. I was preparing to go to graduate school, when things really changed.

My fiancé was diagnosed with a terminal disease, and I stopped everything for about a year. This is about when I started really abusing drugs. I took my first hydro around this time and it was a wonderful escape from reality. This let to about 5 years of heavy drinking, smoking, and pill popping. I must have been treating the depression of the inevitable. I would get blasted every night just so I could fall asleep. I worked full time to pay the medical bill, but if felt myself slipping. There were a couple of years where she was in remission, and I drank even more to celebrate.

She ended up passing away, 5 or 6 years later. I quit drinking for about a year, but got into the pills pretty heavily. Eventually, I found that drinking while taking hydro and Xanax was a great combination. I had a mountain of morphine, hydrocodone, and benzos and used them every day for the next five years. Eventually I was up to 24 beers, vodka, and pills every day. My shrink kept upping my Xanax, and I eventually started blacking out almost every night.

Now, I'm totally off alcohol, and have been battling an endless cycle of pills. I'm trying to get off of everything but it's not easy. The past 2 years, I have been taking over 30-40 tramadol a day. I'm now trapped by my vices. I hurt my back, and have been prescribed tramadol and mostly hydrocodone. I usually take my months supply of Norco in a week, then take tramadol for a week or 2, then suffer withdrawals until my next monthly pain management appointment. I recently started taking Kratom to get through the week or so that I have nothing else.


Drugs abused
Alcohol, strong weed, acid, shrooms, nitrous, Xanax, klonopin, kratom, codeine, dxm, lyrica(fun stuff!), morphine, oxy, hydro and now kratom. I probably left out a few.

Duration of Addiction/Dependence

It's been a roller coaster. There's been a few years sobriety, but about 15 years total

Adverse Effects

Jobs lost, loss of sex drive, agoraphobia, weight loss/gain, gout, memory problems, stealing pills from family and friends, mania, spending way too much money. Genuine laziness. Horrible withdrawals. Suicidal thoughts.

Warnings and Advice

Stop! It's a long road which can only lead to no good. I'm tapering everything and looking into suboxone if I fail. This past year is the first time I have been trying to clean up. There's about 10 years that I lost and can't get back.

Miscellaneous

I've found that exercising has been helpful for me. My sober years were spent in the gym. It gets you feeling healthy and takes the mind off drugs.
 
Brief Background

I started doing drugs in middle school when I hurt my back in cheerleading and was given pain killers, cancer in my family led me to morphine, starting buying and selling oxy and morphine, then once I found it heroin/dilaudid/roxy.
Substance(s)
everything really, I just love doing drugs. the only things I have not done that i know about are meth, crack, crocodil, and dxm.
What substances were/are you abusing.
Opiates, but I have done all sorts of drugs since I was pretty young. A lot of using but just addiction with opiates and bouts with alcohol.
Duration of Addiction/Dependence
i have been addicted to opiates since i was 15 or 16 with a 4 year period of general misuse before... i am 24.

Adverse Effects
its a full time job
How did drugs negatively impact your life. Feel free to discuss IV complications and/or overdoses.
the way people look at you changes, my family worries, scaring and tracks suck, nerve damage in my hands and feet is painful, i have had a needle that broke off removed once, i was in a long term abusive relationship that was very tied to him helping me shoot up/get drugs, jail, criminal background
Warnings and Advice
be independent, use clean needles, don't shoot up in cars or places to get easily caught where you cannot get rid of stuff, dont ever start using opiates, learn how to shoot yourself with water, be clean! abcesses are TERRIBLE, beware of nerve damage which is easy to do on your hands and feet, be careful and test to see how strong every time... be careful about who you tell about your addiction... its not worth getting hurt or losing someone.. everyone cant be understanding stick with your close friends.
Do you have any advice or warnings that you would like to share to those suffering from addiction or are playing with fire?
everything above
 
Brief Background

Hey everybody. My name is Nathan and I am 43 and live in Virginia. Grew up alright no real traumatic events that caused me to try to dull emotional or physical pain. I drank first at the age of 16 and didn't really have a problem with alcohol. I could drink my ass off at parties but always could put it down. Smoked weed at 17 and graduated to LSD and mushrooms at 18. I used to follow the Grateful Dead around the country and drank, smoked and tripped my balls off when on tour but when I wasn't I always worked and could pay the rent. I would drink, and smoke on a regular basis but nothing remarkable to where I saw it as a problem. In 1990 a friend introduced me to heroin and i was like "hello lover". For about 3 weeks I sniffed hi test dope from DC about 3 days a week but was scared I would develop a issue so I stopped. Since that time I have tried several drugs since then and always preferred opiates to stimulants. Chased a girl to
Mi in '94 and drank mostly out of boredom. Moved back to Va in '97 and didn't get I to a relationship until 2002 with a girl I had met a few years prior named Caroline. That's where shit got sideways for me. She had a horrible heroin addiction since she was 16 (when I got together with her she was 23) she had been off heroin by moving away where she could get clean and for a few years did so. When she got back to Va she got right back in to it. She was homeless when I got to her, stealing, prostituting and overdosing at least twice a week for a few weeks. I watched this happen from afar her family turned their back in her no friends and had one foot in the grave. To me it was like watching a puppy try to cross a 16 lane highway. Couldn't let it happen. I took her in and we hooked up got her in a methadone program and she stopped using heroin. Over the years she fought crack, benzo and alcohol addiction. We were so codependent in each other it was fucked. She was always extreme with her addictions. Banging crack, her Xanax perscription (1mg x 60) would be gone in a few days as well as her ambien script. I begged her to get help and she never would things would always calm down enough to "seem" alright. We got married in 2004. Things coasted along and she was tapering off her methadone and the doctor at the clinic fucked up and left her to freefall from 30mg methadone a day and somehow managed to get with a suboxone dr and was on a 16 mg a day script until summer of 2011 she always had serous mental problems but i refused to give up or turn my back on her. In 2006 a friend of mine turned me back in to heroin and developed what I would consider a mini habit that lasted several months after I decided to quit because it was fucking up my cash. I snuck some of her subs to get past the withdrawls and somehow managed to do it right tapering down because I don't recall being too terribly uncomfortable. Stopped the subs after a month or so. 2011 I lost my job I had for 13 years and lost health insurance for both of us. We were a wreck and she kept screwing up so her doctor pulled her script and she had to freefall off a 16mg day suboxone script. We were broke and homeless after she lost her job prior to losing her script. She was in horrible horrible shape from the withdrawls and I begged her parents to help her the agreed and paid for a rapid detox using phenobarbital for a 3 day treatment. After that she relapsed with major alcoholism and heroin addiction. It was the worst nightmare for me as she spiraled out of control. You might be saying now "Nate, when are you going to get on about your addiction?" Getting close my friends. I am on a iPhone doing this so typing is screwed or I would literally be going into a lot more depth about how it affected me watching a loved ones addictions tearing them apart but enabling them without thinking of the horrible consequences. She got so bad last summer that she was disappearing for days and i would have to go and rescue her. She ended up starting to prostitute herself for heroin and by summer of '12 I told her that fuck that, if she was going to get high then she would have to do it with me. So we started using together and she showed me how to iv dope. Last December I came home and found her dead of a overdose. She ate roughly 35 mg of Xanax and did a few 1/10's of heroin and was gone. I cannot describe to you guys how bad this fucked me up. I have been getting high as hell every day since living at my parents and barely keeping a job to fund my habit. Recently I got ahold of about 30 4mg suboxone films and am just pretty much doing the white knuckle sobriety thing. I was prior half assed trying to stop by shooting 4mgs of bupenorphene and still getting high. I am pretty much doing this with the suboxone now too. I really am trying but it's so fucking hard. Horrible thing is my parents don't know I am a heroin addict. I never imagined turning into a junkie and after more than a year of addiction I am so worn out, most of my veins in my arms and hands are shot, I've never had to do too much shady shit to get my dope because I cashed out some stocks and that including the job kept me from robbing and stealing. All that money is most gone now. Was up to about a gram a day habit. I don't want to turn to stealing from anyone or hurting my parents. They have a inkling of what's going
on with me but I won't come clean until I have a solid plan to get straight and stay that way. I have been depressed for years. Dealing with Caroline for 10 years took more out of me than I realized and left me horribly depressed. I was diagnosed eaier this year with accute depressive disorder and am unmedicated for it. I will fill in more details but i am tired now and need to sleep. So worn out so sad still, I can't get over the fact still she's gone. I feel like it's my fault. I didn't help her enough, can't stop thinking about it and it feels like it's killing me. I need to stop. I want my life back I get high to drift away so I don't feel. I am trying or at least trying to think about trying.



Substances used

Main downfall, heroin addiction. Alcohol, pot, cocaine, meth, LSD, MDMA, ketamine, many diffrent opiate based pharmacuticals, buphenorphene, suboxone,crack. Nothing took me away like heroin though.

Duration of Addiction/

A little more than a year with my heroin addiction but despartely trying to work on a solid recovery plan. I had forgotten to mention that for several months before she got her suboxone script pulled I was taking what she didn't use. Some times in a month she wouldn't take 16 mg a day but usually I was taking the excess every day or other day so when she for the script pulled we both had to detox off of subs. That was horrible for me but way worse for her, I forgot to mention that in the overview because I swung too much about talking about her and what led up to me suddenly deciding to start banging heroin after almost 6 years clean. Pretty damn stupid of me to take suboxone for no real reason. I am a dumbass on that decision. Was just hooked so could keep going without withdrawing off of it.

Adverse Effects

Physical issues ( I have Crohn's disease that goes untreated) possible hep c. Haven't been tested but have out myself at risk. Major depression and messed up my vascular system for sure by iv use of pills and heroin. I just want to get better.

Warnings and Advice

Sounds stupid but stay away from needles and iv use. Get help, don't be scared to ask if you develop a problem. The damage you can do can be irreparable. People in your life do love you and never ever take it for granted


Miscellaneous

I would like to go into more details about my take on addiction and how it has affected me as I consider myself a "late bloomer" I will edit this if needed but am so worn out by typing all this on a cell phone. I want to get better, I want to feel again. I want to learn how to shed unfounded feelings of guilt and regret. I want to understand how to control my depression better as it gets so bad I only get out of bed to cop. The last 11 years of my life have been a nightmare that I am ready to wake up from before I lose it all. I really appreciate anyone taking the time to read my ramblings ;P
 
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BREIF BACKROUND_
I starting smoking weed in highschool. had a really bad boyfriend in highschool whom introduced me to crack and coke. by the time I was 17 I was smoking weed every day and occasially smoking crack. after I graduated high school is when shit really hit the fan. I had a boyfriend that sold coke but didn't use but I did use it all the time. we eventually broke up because of my drug use (I believe) but the next relationship I was in was even worse. I can honestly say that Opiates were my downfall. I always loved getting high but once opiates were introduced into my life I had like that 6 months of pure bliss when u first start using opiates before everything in your life changes and goes straight to hell. Long story short became an opiate addict lost a few jobs and trust of family and friends got on methadone for like 5 years and then suboxone and the subutex and the troubles started up again when I got switched to subutex.

Substances_

weed, crack, coke, lsd (Not really into halluciunigenics) oxys hydro morphine methadone BUPE benzos (there is more but this were my main digs)

Duration of Addiction/dependence_

since I was a teenager and still going at the ripe age of 31

Adverse Affects_

I could go on and on about this section. mostly about losing trust which might not sound like much but is when u are trying to gain it back. I regret ever taking that first oxy put it that way.. the ways it has fucked up my mind and life are irreversible

warnings and advice_

I don't know I mean addiction will sneek up on you without u even knowing it until you are too deep into it with no end in sight. I would say just try and use recreationally but that's what I THOUGHT I was doing and look where it ended me up. I do not believe that there is a safe way to use drugs until u are already and addict and its too late for you because by that point you already know what everything does to your body

MISC_

I am now taking and abusing subutex but I can say I am happy for the most part with my life. I am married to a great guy with a beautiful daughter so I just take it day by day and don't overthink it. There is a lot more to my story so maybe I will add more at a later date :)
 
sal barley ...what a story...wow I am so sorry for your loss. sounds like u have been to hell and back.. hope things get better for u. there was a period where I too was shooting dope living with my parents and they didn't know, I think they suspected. take care man and you can pm me anytime :)
 
Hey everyone, I don't know if I have ever posted on Bluelight, but I have been reading the site for about six months now and feel like I can contribute my story.

Brief Background

I grew up in a very nice family, and had no trauma or particularly bad experiences in my childhood. I have always been extremely inattentive, which led to some problems in grade school, but those mostly went away when I entered the 7th grade. Once in highschool (my highschool was 7-12) I became extremely OCD about hurting other people; I would wash my hands till they bled making sure that I wasn't "contaminated", I would compulsively pray these long and elaborate prayers to protect others, I would compulsively recheck locked doors over and over again, that kind of stuff. That also faded away as I got older. I was also bullied pretty extensively in 7th grade. By the time I entered 9th grade, a lot of the OCD had faded away and I finally made some friends and really began to enjoy life. I went to a private highschool that had an extremely rigorous curriculum that stressed me out occasionally, but in general life was great! I had my cigarette at 15, first drink and toke at 16, and those substances were all I touched until college. My friends and I would sporadically smoke pot and drink, but it was by no means the center of our youthful lives. We just didn't really get into it.

College is where stuff began to get serious. I went out of state for school, but started seeing this girl back in my hometown. She was a beautiful trainwreck, really into drugs and music and all these things I had never experienced while at a private school. I became fascinated with the idea of the tortured artist, and began my slow descent. I had always enjoyed drinking, and in college it was accepted behavior to get drunk whenever you wanted to. I found some great friends who were also into getting drunk, and we had a blast. Going to parties, drinking in our dorm rooms, drinking in class...it was all fun and games back then. I experienced my first alcoholic blackout (something I had always been terrified by) my 2nd semester of school but nothing bad happened and all my friends experienced blackouts once in a while, so it deter me. My "girlfriend" (she didn't consider us an exclusive couple, although I did) would occasionally visit, or I would visit her, and we always had a good time. Exchanging kisses, proclaiming our love...she was my first true love and I fell head over heels. That summer, her and I hooked up with some wild older kids who ran in the festival circuit. These guys would spend their days traveling all over the country selling drugs at festivals to buy what they needed. So we would go to events, and eat rolls, mushrooms, acid, benzos, stimulants...and of course drinking the entire time. Our relationship slowly began to unravel, because I wanted her to be mine and mine alone, while she began to feel stifled. The rampant drug use didn't help. By the end of the summer I was depressed and drinking too much whenever I went out. My relationship ended on a rather bad note, and I shipped back out to school.

My sophomore year of college was the high point of my drinking career. With memories of the summer and love in my mind, I entered Fall cold and alone. My interest in drugs plummeted as alcohol became my new love. I was drinking most nights of the week, mostly with other people. There was never a shortage of people to drink with since most of my friends were in bad places just like me. Blackouts became a regular occurrence, as well as pissing or vomiting everywhere when I would get hammered. But I was still optimistic, and still in love with the idea of the tortured artist, so my lifestyle suited me perfectly. Towards the end of that semester I made my first honest attempt to cut down on my drinking. One of my roommates smoked all day, every day, and so I would smoke with him and then get so introspective...and hate myself for my alcohol consumption. The next semester I studied abroad in Spain, which was a blast since everyone there drank just as much as I did or more! All the exchange students I was with, at least. When I came back to the US for the summer I promptly was arrested for DUI after blowing a .18 at 9am on July 5th. I had been drinking the night before with my friends in the city, blacked out, then woken up at 8am to drop my buddy off at work. I drove back to my house with no problems (30 min freeway drive) and then decided to get McDonalds. I got pulled over for speeding 5 miles over and received my ticket before the cop asked if I had been drinking. I passed the sobriety test but failed the breathalyzer miserably. The rest of the summer is a depressed blur. I stopped drinking and started working overnights and smoking pot, almost suicidally depressed over my arrest. I then left for Argentina for my 2nd semester abroad.

Argentina was a mess. I was genuinely suicidal, drinking every other week or so (always binging for a few days at a time) and fucking up in general. I almost got kicked out of the program. Managed to finish with decent grades and headed back home. I started my 2nd semester of my Junior year and made it 3 months before landing in the hospital with a BAC of .41, in addition to way too much Klonopin (legally prescribed). So I finished my semester remotely, from my parents house, and went to treatment shortly after that.

I genuinely wanted to get sober, so treatment was more like a vacation. I diligently went to 3+ AA meetings a week for the following year while taking a break from school. After a year of sobriety, I decided that I didn't want to do the whole abstinence thing and was completely jaded with AA. I was also more lonely than ever before. Even fake drinking buddies are better than no one. So I began to smoke pot again, in addition to random parties involving other drugs, but never alcohol. Now I am prescribed Vyvanse, smoke pot, and generally have a pretty good time with life. I live in the heart of a party neighborhood right next to campus, so all I see all weekend are drunk people doing stupid things. Rather than triggering me, this has made me despise alcohol even more. The Vyvanse also helps a lot. Although I don't want to be taking meds or smoking pot my whole life, I'm comfortable enough with doing it right now, in my last year of college, since it's manageable and doesn't appear to be leading me back into active addiction. I've chosen to live life always slightly disappointed in myself, but I'm happy for the most part, sober or not.

It's a risky game I'm playing right now, fooling around with drugs like this. I don't recommend it.

Substance(s)

ALCOHOL. I abused other drugs, no doubt about it, but never to the point that it seriously interfered with my normal life. Alcohol was, is, and always will be my downfall.

Duration of Addiction/Dependence

Things got serious when I was 19, and I entered rehab 3 months after my 21st birthday. But addiction is supposed to be for life, so I guess the duration depends on how long I live.

Adverse Effects

Although I have a DUI and ended up in the hospital once, most of the adverse effects were mental. Drugs drove me to the point of suicide, and I know that my deteriorating mental state wrecked havoc on my parents' lives. They never knew what I was up to, who I was with, etc, etc. More than once they had to see me so drunk that I couldn't even speak.

I actually can't even express the mental anguish that alcohol brought upon me. Those who have been there, know. Towards the end I wasn't even drinking often, maybe every other week or so, but I was so fucked in the head that living was misery.

Warnings and Advice

Be very careful with what you wish for. The mental addiction of that "glamorous" lifestyle is extremely strong. Even after becoming friends with people who gave up everything for heroin, I'm still inexorably drawn towards that lifestyle...it just seems so exciting...AND I ALREADY KNOW THAT IT'S A TERRIBLE LIFE BECAUSE I'VE ALREADY LIVED IT. I would also recommend that people who have addictions just get completely clean. I'm not ecstatic about my current drug use, but like I said, I'm willing to be a little unhappy with myself in order to have the occasion great time.

Miscellaneous

Be responsible! It's very easy to catch the bug of addiction in the US, from doctors prescribing drugs like candy (especially benzos, as I found out the hard way) to society freely accepting, even encouraging, excessive alcohol consumption. That being said, only you can know if you have a problem. I knew I had a problem almost immediately, but it took me two years to admit to it and find a solution.

In addition to chemical addictions, almost everyone I know has some kind of addiction, whether it's work (my father), exercise, sex (I have multiple friends who have thrown away bright futures for sex and unhealthy relationships) or even AA. I met people in AA who were so into the program that it consumed them. Which I suppose is better than a raging heroin addiction! Pick and Choose carefully!

Thanks for reading.
 
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Personal Account of Addiction

Brief Background

I got interested in drugs when I was 14, I'd heard somewhere that LSD made you feel like Jesus. So I began asking around in my school: do you have any LSD? I didn't find any LSD but I found a couple of class mates who had weed. We started smoking after school and in the weekends, I immediatly loved it. I came from a broken home and never had many friends. Mostly I just stayed in bed reading.
A week or so after my first joint, 2 friends and I bought a bottle of gin and finished it in the afternoon. It was the first time I drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes. After that I started drinking and smoking cigarettes and weed every time I had the opportunity. We also experimented with shrooms. Then when I was 16 I started doing xtc, mostly in the weekends but sometimes during class or in the evening.
When I went to college I did a little cocaine but my friends used it heavily (they had more money than I did). I dropped out of college when I was 21 and started working for the government. At this time I only used cannabis, not that much but I used it every day, also during my lunch breaks. Then when I was 26 my mother died, I hadn't seen my father in over 20 years. I quit my job with the government and did some irregular work now and then. During this time I was pretty depressed and stayed in bed a lot but I didn't use a lot of cannabis 'cause I was low on money.
Then when I was 28 I found a regular job again in a hospital and started dating a lot of girls, which was new for me. I had money and started smoking more and more cannabis which I got from a coffee shop in Holland. But I felt pretty good and found a nice girlfriend, we were a couple for 2 years.
By that time I was 30 and that's when things got out of hand. As you will read below.

Substance(s)

Cannabis, cocaine, alcohol

Duration of Addiction/Dependence

So I was 30 years old and at the time living with my brother in a house we inherited from our mother. I was making plans to live with my girlfriend and I sold my half of the house to my brother, planning to use the money to buy a house for me and my girlfriend. But one month after I got the money my girlfriend left me. This made me depressed again and I quit my job, again. Besides being depressed I also felt a lot of anger and hate. I rented a little place and paid for everything with my inheritance. I smoked a lot of cannabis, about 50 euro each day. Also I started drinking heavily but mostly only in the afternoon. Then one day I met this guy who sold cocaine. I started buying from him, almost every day. Then I don't know what happened but I went crazy. I started going to hookers, sometimes 4 hookers in one day. Some days I spent 1500 euro on hookers, hash, cocaine and wine/champagne. I did this for a year, until all my money was spent.

Adverse Effects

I spent 100.000 euro in one year on drugs, drink and hookers. I am now 31, completely broke, not able to pay the rent and working in a school cleaning toilets. My former high school where I started doing drugs in the first place. I should save my money to pay the rent but I still buy a little weed and coke once in a while.

Warnings and Advice

Don't spend it all in one place.
 
Brief Background

As a kid growing up I had an extremely physically and mentally abusive alcoholic father and a mom who was my protector and whom i viewed at the time as my guardian angel. She promised me and my sisters that she was gonna get us all away from my dad but one day when I was 6 she left without us and it utterly destroyed me mentally like I had lost all hope. I attempted my first suicide at 9. I spent the next few years acting out in any way I knew how until at 11 a school councelor said I had ADD because that's how they explained acting out back then and put me on aderol. Naturally since I didn't have ADD it got me high and I loved it. I wanted more tho. Soon I started trading my paddies for pot. Then I started selling pot. Then I got into psychedelics, then coke. Since my dad spent every penny he had on alcohol I grew up most of the time lacking bare necessities so from an early age i was desparateto work. At 15 I got permission from school and work as a dishwasher in a restaurant. It turned out restaurants and drugs went together like Steak and bernaise. Before long I was selling pot to half the staff. One day one of the servers was low on cash and asked if I would trade for an OC80 and I said sure how do I do it? If u don't wanna waste it u bang it he said. Fuck it I was game I never even tried snorting. He took me to the bathroom and showed me how to fix it up and shot me up. I knew at that moment every other drug I eve tried was just a stop on the road to this moment. All at once the rage and pain I had held onto since my mom abandoned us went away. I closed my eyes and leaned back on that dirty employee toilet as the rush took me away to the place I always imagined.

Within weeks I was shooting up h daily. By my 17th birthday I was a fullblown junky. In the next 10 years dope ravaged my life like a hurricane.

Substance(s)

God Idk where to begin. The only drug I haven't tried is Pcp. Heroin crack and pot are my staples but mainly heroin. Something about heroin called me from an early age. All my childhood idols were junkies from kurt cobain to layne staley brad nowell hunter thompson u name it i just had a thing for junk before i ever tried it. I have an extreme needle fetish so if its bangable ive banged it. I think my needle use has a lot to do with self mutilation. I'm fucked in the head as u can see.

Duration of Addiction/Dependence

About 10 yrs as a junky. I'm now 18 months on suboxone.

Adverse Effects

2 overdoses. One of them paramedics told me it was a matter of seconds between death/brain damage and being here stil I had an out of body experience where I literally experienced my soul leave my body. More arrests than I can count. Every good vein is collapsed and scarred. Ive seen countless friends and lovers die to this addiction. I have been homeless. Ive been so low that ive attempted suicide by overdose.

Warnings and Advice

I know a lot of addicts have suffered childhood trauma like me. I know that at first the drugs seem to make that hurt go away but really ur just barying it deeper and deeper. Heroin isn't glamorous it means desolation and death. The isolation of everyone from everyone else. If u are dealing with issues anything like I was at that age it gets better I promise u but not if u go down the road I did. Don't blame your problems on anyone but yourself cause u make ur own decisions in life and only u can make ur life better. It took me unimaginable suffering to learn these things the hard way. I know that most people will prob have to learn things the hard way too but pls listen and think about it. If I could go back and change just one thing that happened in my life it wouldn't be my mom leaving it would be that first time I tried opiates.
 
Im not going to lie, half the posts on this page brought tears to my eyes, many empathetic, many sympathetic ones.

Rest in Peace Caroline... Oh my God that post broke me down. I beg of you to seek safe haven in our subforum, The Dark Side, where a far more qualified team of staff and regulars can offer you the support you need, deserve, and won't be charged a dime for. I can't believe you typed that up on an iPhone, I would have been sobbing onto the touchscreen. It's crazy that some people just still don't get it, I really hope that they read this thread and see just how glorious and fun and games drug abuse is. I'm sure that walking in to find your significant other deceased would be the end of me, there's not a chance I could continue my life after what you went through. But I am weak, so fucking weak. And I just lost the love of MY life, she isn't deceased (yet) but I'm dead to her to quote her exactly, and the entire year 2013 has been a downward spiral for me, until she said FUCK THIS SHIT and walked out on me, and never looked back.

I'm a chronic pain patient who legitimately needs opioids to function but goddammit not a minute goes by where I don't find myself asking myself
WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T I TRY HARDER. This is my life now? Waking up alone (on the 1 or 2 days out of the week that I am able to sleep or eat) in the "morning" (I have no fixed sleep schedule so morning can be 9pm for me) The one that got away, or ran away rather.

Ran away from what? From the monster that I have become after over a decade of hardcore drug abuse. I still wake up every morning and turn to hug her, to wake up to this same fucked up reality that is the life I created for myself, the consequences of putting narcotics before everyone and everything that has ever mattered to me.

Every meaningful relationship, the relationship with my soul mate, that was going to be the one I settled down and try to have a family. She left, and with her, in addition to a priceless amount of material possessions that mean nothing to me without someone to share them with, and my hope. I am just now recovering from the consequences of her leaving: My immediate relapse to the needle, daily serious suicide attempts, dreaming of never waking up and then waking up, alone, going to be homeless soon if I don't time everything perfectly. I can't work regularly on account of my chronic pain, I was recently hospitalized for not eating.

If I wanted to escape opioid addiction altogether I'd need not only a time machine but a machine that changes one's fate. So I wouldn't even go back as far as to my first experiences with opioid addiction because that would mean starting over life as an adolescent, but I would go back to a particular date this year that Im not going to specify, and I would make one seemingly simple fucking choice.

This one choice would have meant the difference between where I am today, and where I could be, I'm barely now starting to keep track of the date/month/time again, and I do NOT mean to compare pain, I know that death is final, but my breakup is as good as me dying.

One of my biggest regrets? Not showing her this thread. Not knowing what to do when my pills began to mysteriously disappear before I woke up, not knowing how to help the person I would take a full extended clip for, and of course, for not saying THIS HAS TO STOP WE CANT KEEP LIVING LIKE THIS when it actually could have made a difference.

Clearly, I am not even close to being "over" this relationship, if I said I didn't hate myself for her relapsing I'd be lying and dying. First, on alcohol, methamphetamine, and pharmaceuticals, you name it, we had it, and now, she's doing them all without me, fucking other guys, and I say this not out of jealousy in the slightest as I fucking despise the misery and emotional pain that follows drug abuse like it's shadow, but I say this out of the mortal fear I live in of getting a phone call from her family one day saying that she is dead and that it's all my fault. I'm sorry I need a fucking cigarette.

Oh yeah, and I've relapsed on cancer sticks, smoking more than I ever have in my life. I think that part of this is the suicidal part of me refusing to stop self-harming in some way or another. I don't feel like I will ever forgive myself let alone forget what was, and what could have been, if not for my choice to not even TRY to seek treatment when it would have mattered. I'm sorry, I just can't properly finish this post. Oh and what do you know, iTunes begins to play Hurt by Johnny Cash. How seemingly perfect, the song I played on repeat for weeks at a time as I desperately and frantically tried to end my life using more and more intense methods that I find inappropriate to mention just because of how fucking sick in the head one must be to hurt themselves in the ways I did, and do.
 
Brief Background
been expermenting with rc's for about 6 years and probly tried every street drug know to man for the experince
Substance(s)

a-pvp.

seven months

at least a gram a day free based off tin foil

Adverse Effects

major wheight loss!!! loss of two teeth got cancer from my lyphnode being so huge. lost all respect from my family.

Warnings and Advice

this drug is the most complusive drug i ever came across the only drug i only ever had a problem and extended use for more then a month please stay away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Discuss anything that wasn't addressed above.
 
Brief Background

Well, my early years were not too bad I suppose considering my dads a HA and mum and dad always had parties where drugs were used a lot. I was quite sporty , captained the county at rugby at most levels to under 18s.. Did smoke pot from about 13 on and off, nick it off dad or going out for spliff drives with older people. Took some lsd around this time also , then in 88 started going to the early raves and boshing speed and doves , the pills were seriously strong then and id be dancing all night and still off my tits at 6-7 oclock in morning... so on the days I had to go to work I started doing what some of the other guys were doing and chasing a few lines and dropping a few eggs.. couple of hours rest and semi ok for work.. didn't take too long to get a taste for it.. I remember being at a friends house who was about 10 years older when I was 16 maybe just 17 and someone come round who had robbed a dda cabinet from a chemist, they seemed to know what they were doing and were banging up small amounts of what was called peach palfium, a serious opiate.. I was given half a tab for a fiver and cooked it up, my god, I don't think I have had the same rush since.. nearly od'd but was looked after enough I suppose.. anyway since then I have often done the massive raves , not quite as much as in the day but enough to go and bosh as many drugs as possible.. one glastonbury sticks in my mind where I did about 180 jack n jills over a week grammes of coke and ket, loads of black mics and anything else I could get my grubby hands on, mescalin , etc.. I have had loads of heroin addictions over the years.. I even did it just once a week for about 6 years and boasted of my control of the beast.. but then something shit happens and you caine it for a few days and its curtains again.. used to do clucks raw just for fucking torture myself , I even worked full time through a bad one.. it gets harder though the more times you do it.. I used to think people who asked for help were lame and used to think them fucking weak going in to pick there meds up daily.. I have worked pretty much my whole life.
now I suppose my last 4 or 5 habits have been harder and at the age of 28 got my first script.. subutex, stuck to it straight away and came off fair easy.. problem is im a fucking monster.. and just love to press that red button for abuzz and fuck things up just for something to do in a detatched form of sense. now in late 30s just off another bender , still relatively healthy on a small dose of sub (4 mil) and still a massive pain in the arse.

Substance(s)

Probably easier to name the substances I haven't abused.. but hey, lets try.. smoked weed every night bar a few over the last 25 years.. a speed habit in my late teens, probably 10 heroin habits that lasted different durations of time. extacy non dependence but hammered them on and off for 20 odd years. abused all sorts of other stuff but tried t steer clear of prescription stuff after getting a taste for the old temazi eggs in early 90s.. bad withdrawals off that shit, worse than people think

Duration of Addiction/Dependence

probably been addicted to weed for over 20 years.. I never thought I was addicted but when I don't have it I can be a cunt . more psychological I think but my longest habit nevertheless.
I have also spent around 12 out of the last 23 years on some form of heroin addiction.

Adverse Effects

Drugs fuck up your life at some point have no doubt.. I thought I was different and held it together (mostly)for many years.. as long as I was working earning coin and able to do what I wanted when I wanted no one could tell me what the fuck to do.. I didn't listen to anyone. I always knew better than them.. I probably did some of the time, but when you have an addictive personality like me, no matter what the IQ , you gonna fall on your face sometimes.. maybe you a bit of a masochist like me and don't give a fuck about falling flat on your face, and that thecoming back up smelling of roses is sweeter than the fall... its true, it can be , but this body isn't immortal like you think.. I have died a couple of times.. first one at 18 , came to in an ambulance with all the staff panicking pumpin my chest and solutions in my arms and shit.. I felt absolutely fine ripped the shit out of me and forced my selfish way out of the ambulance.. another time came too after dying and turning blue in a flat , came too after being dragged out and being thrown down three flights of stairs.. so its not a glam ting.. am lucky, my bodies still okish , arms look a bit like a train wreck, lost loads of veins but feel decent for what have done to myself.. dozens of friends and associates are not though, ive buried more mates than id like to count.

Warnings and Advice

I once got advice that I wish I had listened to, as people like me don't ever listen to advice... advice is gay as fuck isn't it?
this guy was an old hippie who had been round the block.. a 5 ft tall dude who used be security in a brothel lol.. he said , " take whatever drug you want as long as u enjoy it, don't take heroin or downers". maybe not great advice, but with years of caining uppers too, I never once had an issue with taking them.. Heroin is too nice.. I love the stuff and hate it.. if id of got beaten to with in an inch of my life and told not to take it at the beginning it might of done me good.

Miscellaneous

I sold drugs as well to get my cash as well as working.. was selling acid speed and pills at 16, was involved in couriering shit as well ( don't worry mods , I got caught and done jail for it)
am not dumb though and you shouldn't be.. once you been done for selling shit... stop doing it or you will be sitting on a 5 or 7 or longer.. don't sell chat either, unless your a cunt.

Thanks for reading my shit.
Jack
 
I was a pretty bright, but ADD ridden guy, who was smart enough to still pass high school by having the record for no-shows at school that year. College was a slap in the face to me, no longer could I breeze through life irresponsibly. I was doing lsd, shrooms, and smoking weed/oil sparsely and was the first person I know to get the internet. So before trying stuff, I had read long and hard about them on Erowid, usenet and some other sites like lycaeum and others I forget. I had no interest in painkillers and it wasn't very popular at all in my hometown to do opiates. I was scripted some empracets 30mg for an injury to my tailbone by falling down from my skateboard but that was it, I tried the CWE tactic even though it wasn't needed on empracets, heh.

Then sometimes later just during when I was getting a hang of college and collecting good grades I was given a blotter from a person different from ALL the other hits I had in my life. Turned out to be DOB (it was some years before DOC,DOI showed up, and the info I gathered later made me know it was DOB with a bit of PCP thrown in on those particular card symbols blotter (I had a square, there were hearts, spades etc.). Hell's were known to cut their liquid lsd with liquid pcp for a small period of time, I don't think the pcp mattered much, even if i ate 1-2mg of it on the blotter, it is surely not that that made me lose my shit for 30 hours. The whole time spent alone, trying to reach friends who were all unavailable. When I started to come down a little (26 hours later) I was at my friend's house and felt my head sort of spasms and I felt something wrong with me. I can't prove what it is but I felt dumber for a couple years. A lot of physical exercise, both weights and cardio for a whole year intensely repaired more than I could expect.

But then an injury I had done to myself at my 18 years old birthday at a hardcore punk (some guy was windmilling in a circle pit, I was tired and trying to get out of the circle pit, but that guy hit me with his fist (by accident ofc) straight on my left jawbone. 3/4 into my BS in college I start having incredible pains there, exacerbated by the Ritalin I got for myself for maybe 3 months max, it made the jaw pain worse. It took a very long time to realize what was going on with me. I met a Maxilliofacial specialist dentist who told me my left jaw had tmj disorder and that he would refer me to a neurologist because some facial nerves were probably damaged from that accident. It is strange how it took about 5 years to show up as a terrible problem..at first I was knocked and almost fell but didn't and then felt alright, except for my bite feeling off at the mcdonalds afterward and a little piece of a tooth coming out of my mouth.e

So enters the benzos due to my life failing due to this extremely painful condition, I already had issues with ocular migraines and tubular dysfunction usually on the same damn side I got hurt. First it was just .25mg xanax twice a day. I took that for 4 weeks and I felt better, finishing a semester, only had 2 to go and I was done. I was scripted Temazepam 30mg/60mg at night for sporadic insomnia caused by muscle tightness/spasms in my jaw. My maxillofacial, last time I met him scripted me Empracet 30's in a rather large quantity because the naproxen wasn't doing shit, I needed something for crisis situations, he wrote me the script not too happily, i didnt mention anything special other than "isn't there something I could use when I get pain flares and I am in no mood/no time/important things happening that I couldn't cancel etc. Been almost 7 years I take benzos daily...I don't need them anymore mentally but my body says otherwise..

So I get a script for 3 refills of 60 Empracet 30's (30mg codeine/300mg apap). I'm a great codeine metaboliser, and I would never just take 30-60mg, it wasn't enough, I needed around 180mg to kill the pain. So no problem, it's what I took. Fast-forward years later, I am still not addicted to opiates but def know them and would take any chance of getting some if a doctor would allow it.

Somehow the pain started to be a lot less bad suddenly, maybe that mouth guard made for wearing at night the dentist made me did something, I doubt it, and the neurologist is all but useless, topamax made me feel retarded and triptans do nothing. Once he scripted me 12 oxycodans (canadian generic percodans, the brand name doesn't even exist anymore here I think) but that was it. Still not asking for anything. I start to get into freebasing cocaine right off the bat, somebody I knew had a 3.5g of awesome quality fishscale he was turning himself into freebase to smoke. DAT EUPHORIA. I get his contact's number and we meet just once, cos he uses delivery guys, he trusts me, for 6 months he made a fortune off my ass and many others but with cocaine of that quality, turning into totally uncut and almost not losing any weight (1g would turn into 0.8 of freebase), I used that thing, it made me forget about the pain since the euphoria was so fucking massive. Suddenly I start to be unable to get where I want, unless if I smoke a whole gram in 20 minutes. I fail a freebasing session cos I was drunk, it made me feel awful for wasting all that money on coke and never did it again. That was 4 years ago.

Soon after that, doctors script me Supeudol (like roxies, from sandoz in canada) but with no refills everytime I visit the ER, GP scripts me more empracets which I turn into 400mg drinks of codeine. A friend calls me because he knows that his friend, let's call him Narco, that's his nickname, for real. He went and got "his script himself" my friend tells me on the phone. I go to the place which is 3 hours away from home. Every single narcotic under the sun is available in large to medium quantity, I buy tons of Dilaudid 8's, M-Eslons 60's, Statex 10mg's like a big bag of M&M's, Codeine-Contins 200mg, Talwins, some Adderall XR (which I had never saw in Canada, its rarely dispensed ,at least around here, Cesamets, Atasols (60mg codeine/apap/caffeine), Hycodans....you get it I think.

Then the Dilaudid 8's....when I first shot a mix of that and Statex (morphine IR), I got into big trouble later on. That was 3 years and a half ago. Now I just got the sticker of drug abuser removed from my files (suboxone clinic does not even piss test me anymore). Cos at first with Methadone, I finally got what I wanted, freedom from that physical pain ruining my life since almost a decade, something doctors could have prevented, by not being douches who scripts opiates when they feel like it with no refills who won't necessarily write you a script next time you see them....being played with like a puppet like this ended up with me seeking opiates at all costs cos they got me to taste the freedom from pain I deserved as a human being. I was HAPPY to get on Methadone at first....I only switched to suboxone because methadone caused many problems in my endocrine system. But I am now getting referred to a pain clinic by the sub/methadone clinic since I have shown I am able to use opiates responsibly.

Did I have to go through all this? No. I take responsibility of shooting up. Which was a bad idea, but with Dilaudid it is so hard to just eat it thinking of what it would do if shot. Also I am one to get addicted to the ritual of it all, I should have known, I enjoyed freebasing my cocaine almost as much as I did enjoying its effects. But for the rest, I lay the blame on our opiate-fearing society for a load of wasted time taken away from my life.

Short list of addiction in order and time . Thanks to the mod who allowed this to stay, when the Bluelight domain change happened it was impossible to edit previous posts, clicking post while in the edit box did nothing.

2000-2009 : Marijuana, all day, every day, preferably hash or hash oil, or joints with paper covered in hash oil etc.
2001-2003 : DXM, PCP, LSD every other weekend, I was one weird ass person during this period ;) Was sold DOB blotter, quit college and became a shut in for a year and a half (I didn't know they were DOB at the time, I know they were later when the guys selling them got arrested and shown on local news. The continuous weed smoking even if I didn't like it so much anymore was such a habit and all my friends toked so I started to fake not having panic attacks and HPPD in front of them, it almost became an art.
2003-2006 MDMA and Methbombs + chicks + partying, at first the meth and the mdma killed my anxiety it was wonderful, I've made a lot of attractive female friends during those days, I worked, I went back to college and I moved stuff....I always had wads of cash in my wallet...good times but I was still feeling extremely panicky sometimes, especially from weed smoked very late at night after having too many methbombs, snorted or otherwise. Still had LSD here and there, good LSD made me so happy and dreamy, always from the same source, no more other sources after the DOB guys.
2007-2013 : Move to other city where I don't know anybody to continue college, slowed down consumption of cannabis a lot. Found a guy who had some "mescaline" (pcp around these parts, people know it), had it in pure too but didn't sell it "pure" (20% putty) much, had to trust the other person to do so, little 15 year olds can easily end up in the ER if they handle that stuff which came on tinfoil that was folded over and over with the ball of half-liquid half-solid pcp in the middle). It made me not care about my loneliness in that city, even managed to finally smoke some pcp in controlled doses unlike americans, rolled a joint and took a butter knife and used that stuff to cover said joint, it would taste that nice weird chemical taste pcp has. Much more fun than doing it the most common way here (mescaline which is that stuff cut with lactose, to snort, but that's such a profit inducer...). Source runs dry, lose contact, he goes to jail, fuck.
Visit doctors and psychiatrists for help while stuck in this huge city where I don't know anybody : been scripted xanax 0.25mg 4 times a day with a paxil 10mg in the middle of a semester, actually helped, passed all my courses. Paxil was raised to 20mg a day, all hell broke lose, lost girlfriend I had made, lost the way to live in that apartment (really needed a roommate at least and I had a week or so to find somebody to split the bill with, called the owner, he nicely said I'm sorry for you and broke our bail no problem. I break down, as my painful condition I didn't mention in this overview, I carried a jaw/jaw articulation/nerve issue for years before it became a problem, I actually think sometimes the 12h perma-smileI got on LSD or AMT made it worse lol. Well he scripted me topamax and rivotril (clonazepam) (neurologist) after I go back to my hometown being done with my BSc. Had a modest clonazepam script of 0.5mg twice a day and the topamax I actually didn't mind, first psychiatric medication I actually enjoyed the effects of even if it made me feel a bit dumb like almost everyone who's been on it has said. I didn't know whether to go do my Master's yet (I didn't until late last year), the loneliness was fucking shit up and I started to drink a 12 pack with my clonazepam everyday for a year, but I stayed thin because of the topamax.


2008 : I buy my last LSD blotter sheet from that contact I had for most of the decade when I visit back home. I'm so sad his cell phone suddenly stopped working, I knew he would stop dealing eventually when he finished his construction classes, didn't have the courtesy..well no fuck it, he probably had over 300 customers on that cell phone. I keep the doses for as long as I can, for when I need peace and quiet, listening to music and play guitar. At that point it was impossible for me to bad trip from real 'cid, it was just a fun, nerve healing ride. Not an addiction, because duh.

Then, I was able to quit drinking that 12 pack a day when my clonazepam dose was raised by a psychiatrist to a whoppin 3mg a day, had no desire to drink, or do anything or care about anything for 3-4 years after seeing him in late 2008 as I was seeing the economic crisis take hold thinking that was it, the system has failed. Tapered the benzos when I got tired of not caring about my mom, brother and dad, ignoring them at all costs. Now only take 20mg of valium a day and 1mg of xanax prn (get 15 a month) for when I feel like the goddamn F-18's in the sky drive me mad (they were doing drills in eastern canada from the AFB in my city to Labrador and it was just, fuckin hell to endure all of fucking NATO use our skies.

Now since early 2014 I continue my education even if in my 30's part time, I can't do full time yet, the picture of my mental image is clearer in the original message.
 
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Standard spiral with ops, bizarre relationship with everything else. I started with ops when I first moved to the UK at 17—codeine was readily available OTC everywhere and I do in fact suffer from crippling migraines, so the pharmacist recommended Nurofen Plus. I took two or three times the recommended dose and it felt so warm and euphoric that the rest is history (funny, because these days I could CWE two 30 packs of Solpadeine Max—probably around 700mg codeine in an average yield; likely more—and barely feel a thing). I of course swore it would never go beyond codeine. A few months later, I got my wisdom teeth out and shattered a few bones in my hand around the same time, and with a taste for ops already, just ended up in heaven with the painkillers I was prescribed (perc 7.5s w phenergan)

From there I just became obsessed, knowing already that codeine was one of the weaker ops, and I was downright ecstatic when I finally got my hands on some more vics and percs (7.5s & 10/325s, respectively), and boy, when those hit it was 100x better than an orgasm. So I started stealing them; a family member is prescribed 90 perc 10s a month and hardly touches the things. My tolerance was starting to skyrocket, although my wallet didn't suffer since they were free.

I get back to London where finding affordable prescription opiates is like looking for a unicorn/bigfoot hybrid, but skag is readily available...and a LOT cheaper than a pill habit. So I started picking up #3 (base) and smoking it on a foilie; I never was (and never will be) quite brave or reckless enough to shoot. My life is fucked enough as it is.

So I spent a few years smoking 0.5-1g/day of brown. I am also prescribed Xanax (in the US) and Valium (in the UK) so that's always good for a nod as well. And of course, anytime I could get ahold of that government grade shit (OC or opana for the most part) I was all over it. Just crushed & parachuted the OC; railed the OM, although the new ERs have made that increasingly difficult (though I have found a [rather time-consuming] way to bypass/destruct the wax matrix).

At my worst, and I'll give it in terms of OC so we can all relate, I was smoking, railing or eating about 150mg a day. When I would be out of my usual poison, I'd just pop to the corner pharmacy who inexplicably was always happy to sell me 15/5 pure codeine cough syrup, just to keep from getting sick.

These days I'm managing ok. Still dependent but I rarely get high; I've just been putting off withdrawals for about 8 months now. No H, no scripts, nothing. Just enough OTC codeine products to stave off sickness, and my alprazolam and diazepam (which I hate; both wreak havoc on my memory) when it gets particularly bad or I can't sleep.

What's funny, though, is that despite my best efforts to get hooked on other shit, ops is the only one I can get dependent on. I'm prescribed benzos but don't use them at all recreationally or very often to quell panic, so I've never been hooked. I've tried my best with alcohol, but even if I go on a multi-day (usually 3 max) bender, I just end up getting bored and don't drink at all for a few weeks. Tried smoking because I like the flavor of regular camel filters, but again, I'll feel like smoking for a day, chain half a pack and then get bored and not finish the pack for literally months. I smoke weed when I can get it, but I find it a pretty unremarkable high.

I only use stimmies out with friends when I don't want to ruin everything by falling asleep at the table (I am notorious for falling asleep after a few drinks). The only one I'll do on my own is addy/Ritalin and even then only because I am a postgraduate doctoral candidate who works full time as well, with a FUCKLOAD on my plate, and sometimes I just need to be up and at it for a few days at a time. Still though, never formed a habit or even a taste for it for any illegitimate reason.

In all, though, I think this speaks volumes about the danger of opiates as a whole. Even the best of us, with no proclivity toward addiction, get overwhelmed and wrapped up in them. Stay safe, guys. I never would have touched that codeine if I could go back. But my life changed permanently the second that warmth kicked in. Because even when I'm clean, I doubt it'll ever leave the back of my mind.
 
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I really take stock of your last post. I can't really read for love nor money; but your post is nice and easy to scroll through.
Teeth seem to be the first sign that something is wrong. I remember when my sister got her wisdom teeth out; not on the NHS but through a private doctor. She almost died from the procedure, and looked from a good looking girl to popeye just from taking out two wisdom teeth.
The problem with Codeine in the Uk is that it's mixed with other substances so that people will think twice before taking more.
They are slow release, and mixed with other garbage that will do damage to the liver.
My mum has a large accumulation of the aforementioned drugs for gout and arthritis. For pain relief they never worked in her case.
Opiates are a nightmare to come off from. I've seen sooo many friends with not being able to sleep, legs that won't move, the shakes and shivers.
I don't really know from experience personally, apart from a time being IV'd morphine after 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns.
You have every reason to go into treatment without feeling any guilt; it wasn't your fault.
Just please don't get on methadone, it'll make things much much worse. It's a story to be heard over and over; in the UK especially
Try NA, CA or AA meetings.
Best of luck
 
About me:
I was an athlete my whole life, I loved working out and I had a promising career as a swimmer, even had an ex Olympic silver medalist training me. Had a shoulder Injury from a car accident my senior year of high-school, ended that real quick. Had some bad burns on my body and was prescribed OC 20s for pain. Didn't take them until one of my friends discovered I had them, smoked my first Oxy and the rest is history.

Substance:
OC (oxycontins), black tar

Duration:
4years, 3-5 80 OCs a day switched to tar (1g a day) when OCs because scares as OPs took over. Been clean for 3.5years

Adverse effects:
I was always really good at hiding my addiction, no one knew about it and 90% of my friends and family still don't know about it and they will never know about it. Anyways it started with the 20s I was prescribed for my burns. Smoked 1/2 to 1 a day. I had 2 months of refills, then when I started running low on my last refill I decided to start selling them, by now I needed an 80 a day. I ended up finding a great connect and was able to sell them for about 20 less than every one else. Things went great for a year. I had money, all the Oxys I could smoke and I bought a lot of cool stuff, I had moved out on my own living it up. Out of nowhere my connect got pinched, with out his low prices I decided to quit selling. I quit the 1st using 2 8mg suboxone over the period of a week. Didn't feel any withdrawal, this made me feel invincible. Started scrounging around for money during this time for my habit and rent, sold a lot of my stuff used up most of my cash started having to do shady things to get $ I decided to quit again and move to Canada to work for a construction company owned by my family. First 3 months was going good then I ended up meeting another OC connect in Canada, and they were cheap, using the low price and the exchange rate between American and Canadian dollars I started selling them again. Got re addicted, then the OPs came about ruining everything, forcing me to switch to tar, I ended up getting a DUI in Canada got booted out for a year, no job, no money and a horrible addiction, out of desperation I joined the army.


Warnings and advice:
I consider my self probably the luckiest person on earth, with a clean record and the fact that no one ever knew about my addiction even though I probably robbed thousands from people I knew. Also the fact that I didn't die in Basic Training is a miracle as I was withdrawing, lucky every body else was puking and sweating and falling over just as much as I was. My 1st physical fitness test I scored a 43/300 the lowest score ever seen by the drill sergeants. After about 10 days though and the constant exercising made me feel awesome my final physical fitness test I scores a 315/300. I got extremely lucky I got stationed in Germany and after a year clean I ended getting an email from a friend saying he had a few of the old OCs left over and like a fiend I dropped a leave packet, spent 1200 Euro on a flight back home just to do those 3 80s that was my last time using, if it weren't for that I would have 4.5yrs clean. After coming back from leave I survived a year in Iraq as a M2 gunner, came back to Germany so like I said I'm super lucky. But most people don't get out of the trap, I thought I was unstoppable because it was so easy for me to take subs and get clean, but eventually they stopped working as well as they did in the beginning, there is no such thing as doing opiates as a weekend thing, ever, my fellow soldiers always like hearing the stories of the fucked up shit I did to get high and I always tell them If I even see them doing opiates I would punch them in the mouth. Do what ever it takes to stop once your hooked weather is rehab, moving or doing something as crazy as joining the military it's worth it to be free, even though you'll never be truly free so just don't start in the 1st place.

Misc:
Some advice on quitting opiates, suboxones work the best, but the problem is you have to endure 5-10 hours of being sick before you can take it. I used a trick to make it the 1st day. I would either take gabapentin until 28 hours after my last dose or take clonidine until 28hrs after my last dose. These meds kept 75% of the WD symptoms away, and 28hrs after my last dose of opiates I would take 1mg of suboxone every hr until I felt completely normal. I found doing it this way allowed me to start off with less suboxone which allowed for a faster taper and less chance of getting hooked on subs. Usually I would need 3-4mg of sub the 1st day, 2mg the 2nd-4th days, 1mg 5th-7th day, .5mg 8-9th day .25mg 10th-11th day skip a day then .25 again, skip 2 days then .125 then jump off. This method worked like a charm until about the 8th time. It's true what they say each time you quit and relapse the hardest it is to quit again. Exercise makes a huge difference, even if it just means walking around the block. Also I am not a doctor in anyway so take this taper plan with some logic and a grain of salt. If anyone needs advice on tapering just let me know.
 
Brief Background

Mid twenties, college graduate, and opiate addict for 2 1/2 years.

Substance(s)

Drugs such as marijuana, MDMA, Shrooms, Cocaine, opiates (the last 2 1/2 years)

Duration of Addiction/Dependence

Depedant on opiates for 2 1/2 years, life since the first day of use has gone from the happiest time of my life to the ultimate low of my life (present my rock bottom)

Adverse Effects

Finacially spent 30,000+ dollars, emptied my bank account, physically feel depressed, and have gone through withdrawl ON SEPERATE occasions 50+ times, each one just as bad as the last.

Warnings and Advice

From my experience being a young twenty something year old, we all want to experiment with drugs, I started at the end of college trying opiates, they gave me energy made me feel good (the devil inside your head), your brain tells you just one more time in the begging before the withdrawl starts and when you cross the line are are physically depedant you will understand what addiction really is like. I come from A VERY GOOD family, white suburbia, believe it or not, DO NOT FEEL GUILTY, this epidemic has effected parents, friends, and just about every race, gender, and social status that I have seen. The hardest part for me was SWALLOING MY PRIDE, I was such a determined person before opiates, it is literally like a cancer, it starts off slow and then spreads. My warning is if you are experimenting with opiates and you are just starting out, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP NOW. If I had one wish in life at this moment, and I sware on anything, that wish would not be for a billion dollars, or to bring back a deceased love one, or anything like that. IT WOULD 100% be that, "I wish I never tried opiates in my life." I dont care if your prescribed 800mg OC a day, you will change as a person, for the worst, this drug is the DEVIL it brings you to hell, and shackles you when you get there.

Miscellaneous

I will repeat what I said before, SWALLOW your pride, no one grew up saying "I will never become a junkie, addict, alcoholic, whatever it may be. We wake up one day and it happens, if you want to sit on your couch, bed, chair, and feel sorry for yourself then bare down because your life will be worse then you could have ever imagined, on the other side if you want change, with this disease, you literally with every ounce of strength, mentally, physically, emotionally, that you have ever put in to anything fight for YOUR LIFE AND GET OUT OF THIS CYCLE IN HELL. Your brain is lying to you, it wants to feel normal, but opiates are a false sense of normal, it is fake, it is false, its a flat out LIE. I understand trying to fight your brain literally telling you that if you dont use you will die, but when that CRAVING sets in, stop for a second and remind yourself how you were before using, you never had that thought, and it will go away when you stay clean. TRUST ME, NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN if your addicted. You will have cravings for the rest of your life, (nowhere near as severe as when you were using) but your brain is so powerful that even the site, sound, or image in your mind of using will make you think "Just one more time." There is no more "one more time," its over, accept it, move forward, ask for help if you cant get clean, life sober is beautiful. I've lost BESTFRIENDS at 20 years of age and been to their funerals and see their families, parents, siblings, grandparents having to bury their son/daughter and let me tell you THERE IS NOTHING WORSE THAN THAT, you will snap out of this depression, you will feel better, you will be sucessful in whatever you want to do, JUST FOCUS ON STAYING CLEAN and if you can do that your life will turn around that day.

10 days clean your energy will start to return
20 days clean the depression will lift and you will start to smile normally
30 days clean your sleep patterns will return to normal
60 days clean your PAWS symptoms will subside if you stay healthy and exercise

IF YOU HAVE AN ADDICTED PERSONALITY then get addicted to the gym/exercise, not only will you recieve the natural dopamine high, but your body will transform and your confidence will SKY ROCKET
If you do not like lifting weights start out walking and eventually work in to running, biking, the term 'runners high' is a term for a reason, it produces natural dopamine and you will FEEL GREAT, not the fake high of opiates but the natural high of life. God bless you all and anyone going through withdrawls or is trapped and addicted then please know that the person you once were is literally still there, you will be stronger mentally when you decide to give birth to the new you, if you beat addiction then you should feel blessed, because I know many bestfriends who have died trying. It literally is life or death, if you dont believe me close your eyes and picture your own funeral, picture your parents, siblings, crying themselves to sleep everynight because they feel guilty that they didnt know, or wanted to help but couldnt. ASK FOR HELP YOUR PARENTS/FAMILY loves you. Once I told my family and they helped me get through it you will understand what Im talking about. I know the most shameful thing on Earth is telling your family that you are addicted. You feel weak, its all your fault, you let a drug beat you, you let life beat you, these are all false senses of security, millions of people of every age, race, religion, social status has been addicted to opiates, DO NOT FEEL ASAHMED, SWALLOW YOUR PRIDE, tell your family, even if you dont want to go to rehab, tell them you want to detox at home, I know how it feels to be withdrawing at home when your family thinks your just sick, ITS THE WORST, when I detoxed at home and my family knew, it was 10000x eaiser, and you will get through this, you will get through this, you will get through this. God Bless You All.
 
amph and liquor

Brief Background

Welp, I come from the typical broken, abusive and dysfunctional home. My mom used Klonopin and anti-depressants, dad had a degenerative neural disorder and dementia-related psychosis and left when I was a boy etc etc. I was first introduced to speed, when my mom got me a prescription for this wonderful drug. I began using "street" drugs (not inhalants, alcohol, prescription etc) when I was 11 and was involved in crime since I can remember.

Substance(s)

Everything from weed to inhalants to amphetamine to DXM to coke.

Duration of Addiction/Dependence

I've been addicted to speed since I was six physically and recreational since I was 13-14 and alcohol since I was 13-14

Adverse Effects

Almost died a bunch of times. Made me underweight. Made me a fuckin' crazy man.

Warnings and Advice

Don't ever let your fucking kids live in a bad atmosphere.

Miscellaneous

My dad bleeds from his dick.

 
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