Alot of us find, and I'll speak for myself, that we had mood or affect disorders. Many of us have tried conventional antidepressants but found that opiates were the only class of drugs that provided relief and improved our overall ability to function.
This is so so true Jspun! Most of my friends on this thread know that i had a very troubled childhood, & as i got older i found the past harder & harder to deal with. Years ago my GP put me on all sorts of Antidepressants, but nothing worked! I used to drink alcohol to try make myself feel better, but it always made me feel much MUCH worse!
So i stopped drinking & i stopped asking my Doctor for help, i went off & found heroin & for the first time in my life my mind was at peace. I stayed like this for years, but its never easy to support a heroin addiction. The quality of heroin varies, & heroin is not always available (drought!) & as my habit got bigger it got very expensive.
My Doctor was amazed when i told him my story, he hadn't seen me in years until recently when i was transferred from my methadone clinic to his surgery. He said that he never thought in a million years that i would become a heroin addict. I know my Doctor for nearly 30 years, i brought my children to him when they were small. He knows me very well.
I explained to my Doctor that i only ever smoked heroin, i explained how my depression totally disappeared, i told him i wasn't afraid to go outdoors any-more & i was the happiest i'd ever been. I told him how i still had a full time job & i still had a normal life, i explain to him how heroin had helped me. Then i told him how i had to stop using heroin during the drought & how depressed i became & i told him how i stopped eating when i didn't have heroin, how i lost 2 stone in weight!
He couldn't say that he thought heroin had been a good thing for me, but he was very interested to hear my story. He knew what a broken state i'd been in before i used heroin. Its a funny old world, of course there are loads of bad things about heroin, but there are good things too! The worst thing in the heroin that i buy is the crap that the dealers cut it with!
I am so looking forward to having a smoke this weekend coz i know it will lift my spirits! It will give me an apatite & i will eat well this weekend! Also my recurring nightmares
that i have been having every night since i was a child will stop once i've had a smoke of gear, its such a great relief to me! Although i do admit that i dread when all the gear is gone in a few days, even though i'm on methadone the come down will still be bad!
Its all ups & downs, swings & roundabouts.........