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Wolf of Wall Street (actually concerns the novel, but no book section) NO W/D???

R

RTrain

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 4, 2012
Messages
1,935
So, I recently read the Wolf of Wall Street. Before he goes to rehab, he claims to be ingesting a holy hell of a lot of drugs. Mainly he is on Coke and Quaaludes. But, he also claims to, on a daily basis, take large amounts of xanax, valium, morphine, klonopin and a few other ssubsstances that cause physical dependence. Let me just put down what, at one point, he claims he was taking in a single day:

- 20 quaaludes
- 90 mg morphine
- 20 mg oxycodone
- 12 somas(350 mg?)
- 6 mg xanax
- 20 mg klonopin
- 30 mg ambien
- 80 mg valium
- pint of scotch
- 1-2 g of coke

Now that is apparently what he was taking when he was rehabbing a spinal fusion and it was never mentioned how long that was his regimimen(I inferred prob several months, at least 1 month). But, afterwards he became a huge coke head(which led him to rehab after he had cocaine induced paranoia and psychosis). Though, he always claimed to need the large amount of xanax and valium, at he very least, to balance the insane amount of coke he was doing. He even mentions - less than 2 days before he ended up in detox for attempting suicide by morphine pills - that upon landing in FL, he consumed massive amounts of quaalude and xanax and valium to balance himself for the landing of the place(b/c he was super coked up at he time). So he's taking a lot of benzos benzos, along with still taking around 20 qualuudes/day, which at that time were all bootlegs, so mixed with other tranquilizers anyway(from my understanding valium was the most commonly used).

Then, after he loses his shit and gets arrested and is sent down to a detox in Florida, there is barely any mention of w/d. He seems emotionally distraught about his cocaine psychosis and doing dumb shit because of it, but he seems to suffer no w/d. In a span of less than 3 days, he is arrested from his home on Long Island NY(or maybe it was his Hamptons home), quickly bailed out, sent to a detox in FL and released from the detox to a Rehab. Upon getting to rehab he seems to be fine, by all means he is practically chipper except being stuck in a rehab for 4 weeks and being in on the mend with his wife.

I just seem baffled that someone could consume massive quantities of benzos and then, in a matter of a few days, really have no ill effects. I understand cocaine physical w/d is rather tolerable compared to w/d from opiates and idk about the w/d syndrome from abruptly stopping use of a large quantity of quaaludes. But, its just hard to believe he could be feeling sharp and all energetic several days after the drug habit he had abruptly stopped.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Think he is way over exaggerating his drug use for the story? Think he claimed to not get w/d to sound stronger than a normal person(he seems to have a little man syndrome, might want to play himself off as being so "mind-over-matter" that he is unaffected by withdrawal)? Or could he just have some innate ability to not suffer w/d from benzos and other physically addictive drugs?
 
I hate to answer with no answer, but you never know. He had the money and resources but the only way to know for sure I guess would be to have known him.
(I do agree seems like enough to kill a horse twice)
 
Well there really is no answer, just opinion. I don't doubt the amount he was doing. Especially when considering his wealth, you have to think he could do as much of whatever he pleased and tolerances grow quite fast. But, to just go from a constantly drugged out state, to feeling pretty much fine in in 72 hours(that's how long it basically would seem to be from his stopping to entering a rehab) seems absurd. Also, those 72 hours prior don't seem to be mentioned as harsh or debilitating.

The one thing that I don't get is how he's taking large amounts of benzos(and I guess the quaaludes, I assume they'd cause some sort of w/d), which he insisted he needed to balance out his massive coke habit. Eh, who knows? BTW, that list is just the one example in the book where states what he was taking daily. But, that was post a spinal surgery and most those things were not things he would've used for recreational purposes. When he ceased use it seemed most coke, ludes and benzos. The coke and ludes were mentioned as large amounts taken daily. But, hard to say what type of benzo intake he had, except from that list above(which showed he at some point was using a large amount daily) and also a few times he'd mention something in the book like 'immediately popped 5 mg of xanax b/c I needed to calm down from the coke' or 'needed to relax at that moment, so swallowed a bunch of valium and xanax'.

btw - sorry didn't notice the Words Forum, I guess this is about a piece of literature so it would go there...but they did make a movie about it, so whatever. Well, its here, move it if you want, maybe get more responses?
 
Well it's a true story so you could possibly find more into by doing a google search. Maybe they just left that out of the movie / book as I guess the focus of his downfall was what happens when money and power go to your head in a major way, and drugs were just one (large) part of that..... By the sounds of if, the book goes into more detail about rehab and stuff than the movie does. I doubt he over exaggerated his drug use with that much money, id do the same....but no way would I be able to come off all that without being bedridden for half a year! It's already a very long (movie, I haven't read the book.)

Interestingly, Jordan Belfort was working for a face to face training company right next to my kids dance school at which we practically live until a month or 2 ago (he's now building businesses in Australia.). We got a lot of his old stationery and books they threw out into the skip bin. I could have gone asked him about his withdrawal experiences lol.
 
Actually haven't watched the movie but I can tell from scenes and some of the actors that it follows the main story line pretty well. The only 2 major things I would say the movie changes are his 2nd in charge, who is played by Jonah Hill in the movie. By all means Jonah Hill was a very poor depiction of the guy (who's actual name is Danny Porush), idk how Hill plays the role, but going by looks and acting style, I would guess they deviated from the persona of the man he is often described as "loosely based upon". Also, apparently they toned down Belfort's drug use, if the amounts he says he was doing were true.

Again, didn't see movie so those are just speculations and secondary info. I want to watch the movie now, but debating if I should read his other book first. There's a second one called 'Catching the Wolf of Wall Street'. It actually is gets better rating than the first so I'm thinking about it, I think some of the movie is based off the 2nd book, but not a whole lot of it. He's a pretty damn entertaining writer, so I prob will read the 2nd book. He kind of lifted his style off Tom Wolfe but atleast admits he read Bonfire of the Vanities and decided to write in that fashion(in an somewhat recent interview, not in the actual book).

Ha, well too bad he's gone, that would've been interesting to ask him about. He hoes mention withdrawal, and kind of alludes to it during his 2 days in the detox he was at in FL. but by his 3rd day clean, he was out of the detox and into a fancy rehab designed just for drug addicted doctors and nurses. Obv his money helped get him in there. Right when he walked in there he pretty much claimed to feel great, not even having any desire to use. Still, even in the detox he's hardly complaining about any w/d, for the most part he is just depressed because of how fucked up he let his life get.

I can only make one possibly logical explanation to him not withdrawing. That would be how he was basically in a state of cocaine induced psychosis for at least a month prior to his detox. Wrote that he slept like several hours a week, ate nothing but Froot Loops, watched TV and became extremely paranoid of mostly everyone. So even though he was taking loads of quaaludes and benzos to keep himself somewhat sane during that whole time, it was almost like a balancing effect was there and stopping use of the coke and downers at same time kind of just sent him back to a state of homeostasis. Idk if you get what I mean, but that's best I can do to describe what I'm getting at. Seems like a pipe dream, but is theoretically plausible. If you are so wired on coke to the point of psychosis that you NEED downers, then you take away that stimulant, your body might not feel dependent on the downers because of the intense stimulation it was under.
 
Mmmmmm yeah 2 days off all of that .... Doesn't seem at all possible to be even coherent let alone feeling great. Maybe he had his own stash in there ;). Who knows?? But I didn't feel great after 14 years totally clean and sober and have just relapsed on heroin after 18....wish I could feel great after 2 days...and your theory could be right, if he had the right meds and yes what you say makes sense.

Yeah wish I could have asked him! But I actually didn't know what he looked like until I googled. He's on the Gold Coast now apparently.
 
It seems that, though the book maintains a fatual account of the crazy icidets that occured in his life. I.E. - Almost dyig on his yacht and beig rescued by the Italian Navy SpecOps, a luded drive i his car where he hit everything about every parked car to the street thru the mile of road he travelled, tryig to lad his helicopter while luded out and managing to do it(just was a really rough descent). But, I think there is a lot of the day to day living that just isn't as over-the-top as he makes it.

He has a bit of a complex that makes him want not want to be portrayed as weak. So its also possible that he was very sick for a while, from withdrawals, he decided he would't include that because it was a time where he felt so emasculated from is state of being, that he wouldn't admit to all of it. Or, it just sounded a lot cooler to go froma person popping tons of ludes, benzos and snortig tons of coke to going ocmpletely sober, that it made the book seem cool. His experience of 1 month in rehab is like staying at low scale country club where he just played tennis and worked out. That may have seemed a to be a lot better way to describe his rehab his than laying in bed the majority of the time. Could also have done a long, drawn draw out valium taper. Again, to good detox/rehab story involves a safe taper, they al involved going cold turkey. So maybe that's how he chose to depict his experience.
 
You're probably right. I'm kicking myself I had the chance to go talk to him every day for the months I knew he was next door but I didn't, and now he's gone (leaving us a lot more parking space ;) )
 
That would've been interesting. From reading the book, it seems he is a very amicable guy who wouldn't be angry if you inquired about such things as his drug use and the w/d experience.

One thing I actually find odd now, thinking about the book's depictio of detox and rehab as a pretty tolerable experience
 
I'm going to have to read the book now to see how it compares to the movie. I know you're supposed to do it the other way around - but I didn't even know it was a book when I watched it lol plus movie is easier ;)

Yeah - he does, I still would have made someone come with me haha.
 
its an entertaining book, he's a pretty good writer for someone who "allegedly" just decided to write a autobiographical book. One thing surprising is you will notice almost all the names in the book are the actual people, while only Jordan Belfort's name was used in the movie, everyone else was a fictional character based off real life. You'll notice right away when he introduces his vice president(I think that was his title) of the brokerage company. The guy, Danny Porush, you would never of thought of as being portrayed by Jonah Hill. Aside from both are Jewish and they emphasize his 'ridiculous smile' & bleached white teeth. Its like they did everything they could to make them look alike, but the guy Porush was in shape, handsome, and got more ass than a toilet seat(this is all mentioned in about 1 page when he is first introduced). Not sure if they have Hill's character sleeping with every female in the firm's office (the book claimed Porush was close to accomplishing that feat), but I guess I should watcht the movie....
 
AnythingEverything said:
I'm going to have to read the book now to see how it compares to the movie. I know you're supposed to do it the other way around - but I didn't even know it was a book when I watched it lol plus movie is easier ;)

Yeah - he does, I still would have made someone come with me haha.
Click to expand...

Okay, I managed to catch like the first 30 minutes of the movie(its damn long and stopped watching it that night because I knew I'd never get thru more than another horu and probably not remember much of it anyway).

I will note 1 clear inaccuracy that, if the writers for the movie's script had read the book and taken note of Belfort's drug use and opinion on drugs, they would relaize the compeltely contradicted him in the movie with one of his opinions. This is strictly about morphine, in which in the movie, while rolling off the insane amount of drugs he claims to have taken on a daily basis, he says something like "I also take 100 mg of morphine a day...why? because it feel fucking awesome". Now, he had a surgery done in book and awoke on a morphine drip with one of those buttons where you can control the amount yourself(not sure how that works, must only be so much in there or some way in which they prevent ODs from some idiot who would just keep hitting the button). It also might've been a dilaudid drip, I can't remember for sure. I do know this, he was pissed to be stuck in the hospital and the only drug was the opiate he had, which his opinion i'll paraphrase as "I was stuck in a hospital bed and all I could get was a shitty morphine high", so it would seem he wasn't too big a fan of opiates. He mentions using them but it seems he only actually used them in the prescribed doses for pain relief. He believe he goes on to say something about getting his buddy to bring him some Quaaludes and coke and he rolls himself into the bathroom connnected to a hostpial IV stand, then rails some coke in the hospital bathroom.

I'll check the book b/c I can't remember exactly how that whole scenario went down and what he said, but it was clear he was not appeased with the opiate high he was being given, which was made to seem like a large enough dose to satiate most druggies. But, he also loved the 'ludes and said they were the only thing that relieved his pain completely and he always needed the coke to eve himself out(he also obviously enjoyed the high from cocaine quite a lot)
 
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