What was it like when you first discovered you were physically addicted to opiates?

CharlesTheHammer

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I had been using Percodan and Percocet very rarely for 5 years(from '91-'95). I usually would only hook up with about 15-25 Percs per year, so I wasnt doing that much of it. Then in January '96, I had a beer buzz going, and I decided to head up to the city to find some drugs. I didnt have a clue where to go, but I figured all I had to do was find the projects, and I'd be set. So I found an area with people selling out on the corner at night, and I bought a bag of H. I got the guys phone # too.

So for the rest of '96, I did it 1-2 days a week(fri and sat). Then in mid '97, I began using it 2-3 days a week. By September of '97, I was doing it 3-4 days. But I thought that if you didnt do it every day, you couldnt get addicted.....
Well.....Thats crap!!! After about 3-4 months of doing H 3-4 days a week, the new year came around. It was January of '98. A few days later, I woke up one morning feeling like complete crap!!:p

I thought I had a really bad flu or something. My muscles had a dull ache all over, my joints were aching, I had no energy at all, I started getting super-bad diarrhea, I had some chills, a dull headache, but worse yet, I felt totally depressed. It felt like there was no joy in life at that moment. I'd suffered depression for 8 years at that point, but this was worse! I tried taking some medication, but it didnt work for some reason.......:(

But I had to go to work, so I went off to work, but I felt as if I'd aged from 30 to 70 overnight! I was dragging all day! Then at the end of the day, I felt so bad that I decided to go get a bag of 'H', cause at least it would improve my mood a bit, even though it wouldnt get rid of my "flu"....

So I got a bag and snorted half of it(I still hadnt developed a high tolerance yet), and 15 minutes later, I felt totally wonderful! I couldnt believe that the 'H' had gotten rid of my "flu".... But the next morning, I felt terrible again...:|

But then I put 2 + 2 together, and realized that I didnt have a "flu" at all, and that I must be suffering from withdraw symptoms! Sure enough, after I went and got another bag, I felt great again!

So for the next 2 years, i was a daily addict, and life just got worse and worse for me..... I lost just about everything, but I got lucky in that I never got busted for any hard drugs in my life, I was only ever convicted of pot possession. But things definitely got bad for 2 years!

So, in January of 2000, I hooked up with a Meth clinic, and got off the H. But then I had a problem with coke for 2.5 years, until I moved out of the city, away from the drugs, and I got completely clean in Sept. of '02. ;)

What was your experience........?
 
Well in 96 I ended up with a crappy disease and a wonderful old country doc hooked me up with 10mg vics and some. 100 of each every 2 weeks. I was in and out of the hospital constantly and had multiple surgeries.

In 99 he retired and a new doc took over his practice and she continued giving me the same amount of meds and she put me on a low dose fentynal patch.

Fast forward a few years and she got monitered and shazamm she wouldn't write scripts for any type narcotics and referred me to pain management. Problem was the apt was 5 weeks away. And me with horrid crappy disease and no meds. About 24 hrs later...

I began getting very ill. Hot sweaty freezing kicking blankets on and off and the pain in my lower back and legs was ridiculous. Several hpurs later there I was sitting on the toilet and puking in the trashcan. Could barely move. Shaking from head to toe and couldn't lay down because my legs wouldn't stay still.

Called my niece who came over and she said hey auntie I think you are in withdrals.......oh hell no.........why it didn't occur to me after I had kicked junk in 86 in a really brutal way is beyond me. She gave me a couple percs and badda bang badda boom I felt better. But I went ahead and finished the kick and waited till my pain dr apt.

Yeah I guess I thought that if it wasn't heroin I couldn't get sick. Well surprise surprise sick I was............
 
^ infact alot of pills have worse WD....

like opana for example....

when i first realized, i didnt care, i almost wanted to be, cause i wanted to fucking get high and nod every day...... stupid choice....
 
What was it like?
well, it fucking sucked haha.

But seriously, I knew I was addicted physically one weekend, right after getting back from a trip to houston (I was going to university at the time in Austin) that I just felt like ass all over the place. I was tired as shit, no energy, and overall just felt drained and like shit.
The w/ds weren't that bad that time honestly, a taste of things to come...
 
@shakkush
Yep you can indeed get just as messed up by the pills. I honestly didn't think you could...silly me! Lol. I've been through it several times since.

As far as opana goes - the holy grail of opiates- yep I went there with that one too. One week binge snorting em and I never snot pill-but I loved that nod- and man oh man did I ever get sick, I had been on my other meds before that but opana seriously kicked my ass.

the opana was strictly for recreational use. When my pain dr went to switch me too it a few weeks ago my first thpught was YES and then I came to my senses as I knew I would not stay in compliance and would straight up abuse it. Lol. I said no let's leave things as they are.

Would rather stay on fairly low doses of what I'm on which still causes withdrawl then to totay fuck up with opana. Lol. That shit is soo good but purely evil.
 
i said to myself "so this is withdrawing." i knew i was mentally addicted before, but once it got physical, i mean i didn't know what else i thought so i just kept using.
 
I had been drinking poppy pod tea nightly for a couple months, one night I didn't drink any tea, I wasn't really mentally addicted at that point I guess because I had been using nightly but it was basically just because I had a big box of pods in my closet...

Anyway I went to sleep... I kept waking up because my nose kept running, then I felt too hot, then too cold, then my legs started to ache, then I started sweating, it took me about an hour to put 2 and 2 together. I immediately took a couple pods and ground them up and put them in some boiling water, let it sit for ten minutes and then drank as much of the tea as I could, I felt better almost immediately and was euphoric within a half hour. Then I went back to sleep.

I realized I was dependent but had no idea of the monster that was coming. I actually ran out of pods a couple days later and completely kicked but while I was in withdrawal I had ordered more pods, so right about the time I was feeling normal again the new pods arrived. I told myself I wasn't going to let that happen again..... but it happened again and again and again....etc...

I realized I was fucked but it's like that old saying, with Opiates you either have no problems or one big one.
 
bypass all and just respond also by sayin ya it just sucked big time.
went on a trip to ontario without my pain meds figured id be okay.
I was sick the whole time till i grabbed some t1s and ate like half the bottle ...
 
I kind of prefer physical to psychological withdrawal/addiction. I knew when I started messing with pods, which are both cheap and readily available, that I was flirting with addiction but just accepted it as one of the drawbacks of opiate use.

First time w/d'ing was pretty miserable: cold sweats, extreme fatigue, nightmares, runny nose, mild diarrhea and body pain for 5 straight days until I dosed again. I could feel it slowly fading, but didn't really wanna find out how long I would've felt like that. The strange part is that I didn't crave pods or become preoccupied with them the way I do other drugs, namely hydrocodone and propylhexedrine (and caffeine to a lesser extent). When quitting those after extended use, it's like my mood is fucked and all I can do is think about using but not so with pods.

First withdrawal was about 2 years ago, which was about 2-3 months into my "addiction".
 
i remember haveing a couple bad WD and the last thing i wanted was more drugs i was sickend by the thought of them. i just wanted to feel better,i almsot had to force the drugs down to get back to normal after a long sleep and a couple days back on pills..
 
First time it happened to me was when I started using poppy pods more than once or twice a week (started slipping and using 2 or 3 days in a row). After a few weeks of that, I decided to give it a rest for a few days because I was going through my supply too quickly.

The first day without any I was fine, but the next day about halfway through I started getting this weird lower back pain that I attributed to the fact that I was constantly running around school trying to get work done. An hour or so after that symptom came the chills and sweats, followed by achy legs a couple hours after that. I was certain I had come down with the flu or a bad cold so I took a bunch of ibuprofen to no avail. Mom thought the same so she gave me some antibiotics I had leftover from being sick before.

The next day it was even worse and for whatever reason it dawned on me...no shit sherlock, you're withdrawaling. Made myself a fat cup of pod tea and bam, everything was hunky dory again.

If I had only had the common sense to stop there I could have saved myself the trouble of getting hooked on the needle a few short months later...but you know what they say about hindsight 8) But here I am almost 3 years later and I haven't been dependant on opiates (or anything other than coffee for that matter) in almost 18 months now.

But yeah, that first time it dawns on you that the claws have sunk in, it's a shitty feeling alright. We all try so hard to avoid it and when it happens it shatters that ridiculous notion you had in your head that you were somehow unique and better than everyone else that gets hooked.
 
It's interesting that so many people don't realize the threat of WD's until they are surprised by it first hand. The same thing happened to me with poppy pod tea. One night after abstaining for it for a few days I was hit with terrible withdrawals. Because of its long half-life I got by taking it 3x a week w/ no withdrawals. So when they hit after a few days I was shocked. Didn't realize my habit was that serious.

And then I slowly moved up and up the ladder and the idea of WD's became distant as I was constantly satiated with stronger and stronger opiates. I think subconsciously a lot of addicts can put WD's out of their mind for a long time, until their tolerance gets so high or their supply gets cut off and they are forced to deal with it. At least that was the case with me.
 
When I realized I was dependent upon opiates, it was very scary.

I quit them soon after: sitting around in withdrawal waiting for my OC hookup to call me back got really old really fast. I just didn't have the stomach for opiate addiction, honestly-- the high wasn't worth it for me.

Withdrawal sucked sooo bad, but it was do-able and I got over it. It isn't as scary as it seems when you're still using.
 
hmmm. I cant really recall truthfully. I do remember getting flu like symptoms and wondering why I instantly felt better soon as I would do dope. I was young when I first started using dope and of course nobody told me I would be getting sick if I stopped using dope. The first time I did h it was referred to as china white, I was 15 and I had no idea it was actually heroin. Its hard to believe 19 years later I would still be having dreams about it.

I also remember vowing to myself that I will never get sick, what that entailed was just constant everyday use. In the back of my head I still miss those days. Why? I don't know. Probably the simplicity of life than, all I needed to do was go pick up my heroin, get high, rinse and repeat. Last night I had crazy dreams about copping. I scored 3 different times the last time me and 2 friends rode motorcycles to go cop and I canceled a flight to Miami in order to score. Strange.

peace.
seedless
 
What was it like?

Shiiiit. Good question. It was like being slapped with reality. I was in my 2nd year of university. And it was fucking terrible. I'd be sitting there in class, nose running, legs hurting, back hurting. And one thought in my head was "who else is like this in this class?" Whenever I'd go into withdrawal, which was like weekly, I just wouldn't go to class. Getting out of bed was the hardest thing to do. The only time I got up was to get massively stoned or to eat/drink...and go to the bathroom. On the days where it was absolutely necessary for me to go to class, I'd have to take about 2000mg of APAP (to slightly reduce the pain of walking to campus) and Immodium (so i wouldnt shit my pants in class - when i didn't take it id literally bolt out of class to the bathroom).

Thank god I'm not addicted anymore. BTW for anyone curious, during my peak use I was on about 160mg a day, but I could never afford to go more than 2 weeks like that. Tapering was not possible. I had the complete junkie mind state. I'd grad an 80 and plan to make it last 4 days with a taper. And within 5 hours that 80 was gone.
 
In the back of my head I still miss those days. Why? I don't know. Probably the simplicity of life than, all I needed to do was go pick up my heroin, get high, rinse and repeat.

The has come up for me lately with several people I used to raise hell with lamenting the passing of "the good old days". In truth, while we had a lot of good moments we also had a lot of days that began and ended badly - for some reason they don't recollect those days and the ugliness of many of them.
 
when i first realized, i didnt care, i almost wanted to be, cause i wanted to fucking get high and nod every day...... stupid choice....

^yeah. By the time I was physically addicted I didn't care. It was like opiates cured ALL my other problems, so finding $20-50 a day for heroin seemed like a small price to pay for that blissful nod and peace of mind. I felt like a suave cool mother fucker when I was first using opiates, I was uninhibited, witty and fun. (It didn't last)

Fast forward nearly 8 years and I'm just now dealing with the problems I put off back them.

I gotta agree with Lolie too. Like I look back on the simplicity of being a junkie with fondness. Nothing like the get well shot as I was enjoying the thrill of leaving the hood...somehow the back stabbing, scams, lies and general fucking over of everyone who got in my way doesn't find its way into my mind when I think about those years. Fuckin weird.
 
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I was 19 when I first realized I was addicted. First time I WD'd I though I had the 24 flu, then I realized what was up a few days later.

Then I had an on and off affair for about 8 years. Hopefully it is now over. Opiates turn on you very quickly, frankly before you even realize it.

Your brain will try to rationalize and you will fall for it. Frankly I feel like I am waking up from a nightmare right now. I had no idea how fucked up I was, I knew I was bad but it took me a few days clean to realize that I was way worse then I thought. (I have 23 days clean off of everything and am in a program right now).

No drug is worth the pain I caused myself and my loved ones. All I can do now is try to go forward being the person I was supposed to be. Addiction robs you of so much that words cannot express it.
 
What is APAP? 160mg of what? 80mg of what?

What was it like?

Shiiiit. Good question. It was like being slapped with reality. I was in my 2nd year of university. And it was fucking terrible. I'd be sitting there in class, nose running, legs hurting, back hurting. And one thought in my head was "who else is like this in this class?" Whenever I'd go into withdrawal, which was like weekly, I just wouldn't go to class. Getting out of bed was the hardest thing to do. The only time I got up was to get massively stoned or to eat/drink...and go to the bathroom. On the days where it was absolutely necessary for me to go to class, I'd have to take about 2000mg of APAP (to slightly reduce the pain of walking to campus) and Immodium (so i wouldnt shit my pants in class - when i didn't take it id literally bolt out of class to the bathroom).

Thank god I'm not addicted anymore. BTW for anyone curious, during my peak use I was on about 160mg a day, but I could never afford to go more than 2 weeks like that. Tapering was not possible. I had the complete junkie mind state. I'd grad an 80 and plan to make it last 4 days with a taper. And within 5 hours that 80 was gone.

You said you would take 2000mg of APAP.....What is that?

Also, you said you were on 160mg per day....160mg per day of what?

You said you try to make 80mg last 4 days......80mg of what?
 
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