In Russia, Harsh Remedy for Addiction Gains Favor

At the heart of your argument then is the idea that when a drug user can't lay their hands on their drug of choice e.g. opioids, where most English-speakers would say: "Fuck it, such is life" or a French-speaker might shrug in a Gallic fashion and mutter "C'est la vie"
Click to expand...

as a junkie, that is a monumental step. It frequently takes years to be able to say this and mean it.
 
JUNKIES-WILD SENSELESS BEASTS WHO ARE GOING TO HURT THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!11111
so caging people liek animals is a proper method of fixing somebodys drug habit?
that obviously wouldn't contribute to like...depression/mental issues that would make peopel relapse right
in soviet russia
(this joke has been censored by the ministry of propaganda for containing slander and lies permanently and the creator of the joke sent to Siberia to mine salt for 10 years. move along, komrade...)
yeahiknowbadrussianjokegimmeabreak
 
dhcdavid said:
Actually I'm still decrying what YOU - a Moderator here, who should be aware that what they in particular write could well influence the thinking of some of the younger and more impressionable members of our community.

Seriously, it's good that you no longer steal to finance your habit but I'm still utterly failing to understand the spiritual value in heightening your pain threshold by suffering.

I mean, it sounds like such a tough yet noble life lesson but having suffered chronic physical pain for 2 decades, dreadful mental pain for a similar timespan and seen several very close friends die of long, drawn-out diseases which caused them untold amounts of suffering I am almost at a loss for words as to how best to respond to someone who casually writes down that there is spiritual value in heightening one's pain threshold by suffering.

If you're trying to make sense of years of kicking a particular drug-habit and how horrible it is each time then by all means ennunciate just that but please don't belittle many, many folk's genuine and inescapable sufferings by claiming that spiritual value, enlightenment or nirvana lies therein.
Click to expand...

I don't know if you recall, but we conversed some bout chronic pain management a couple years ago. At the time I was on a cocktail of pain medications and I think given where I've been and where I'm at now, I have a different vantage point on some of this.

ro4eva said:
I think what dhcdavid is trying to say is that when pain becomes something you cannot control (such as chronic pain), there is no value gained because man usually also attacks what cannot be controlled. In other words, acute opiate/opioid WD may bring days of suffering, but the value gained from having been through it countless times is the knowledge or first hand experience that it eventually subsides (the physical pain, not necessarily the psychological). However, with chronic pain, there may be no end. So any value(s) turn(s) to misery, frustration, anger, etc.
Click to expand...

This is rather profound - I have nerve damage in my leg that started when I was 19, I used opioids and lots of other medications for nearly 5 years daily, I had to leave the university I was at, quit my job, it destroyed the relationship with the girl I was living with and I was hopeless and terrified of this progressing forever. I took every dose responsibly for years and just wanted to not be in so much pain that it controlled my life. When people told me I could will the pain away, pray it away, heal it with yoga or whatever, it pissed me the fuck off.

After I lost all the things I mentioned above, when I felt up to returning to school part time, I started taking more psychology classes and then entered a program to become an addictions counselor. I started to feel more confident that I could still do something in my life and I didn't have to be defined by my limitations. These realizations changed everything for me.

I started to see more and more that I could tell myself that I was in pain and limited 24/7 or I could say fuck that, I'm going to keep going no matter what and that's what I did. So I got off the opioids and other medications and it was rough as fuck at first but I learned how to cope because I made the decision I wasn't going to spend my entire life focusing on how much pain I was in and it was sink or swim.

For me personally, spirituality doesn't factor in at all but accepting a degree of suffering as an inevitability and consciously deciding I wasn't going to let it control me by doing everything I could to ensure that showed me that suffering can be beneficial - like most things in life, it depends what you do with it or what you let it do to you. When I was terrified of the suffering and ran from it with every pill and other form of treatment, it controlled me and THAT terrified me and made me feel hopeless. When I said 'fuck it all' and brought on more suffering is when I learned to not fear it and saw that I still had enough control that I could still do something with me life.

I've been off pain medication for close to 2 years now, have completed my coursework to become an addictions counselor, I'm in pain every day of my life but I'm happier than I've been in a really long time and I wouldn't be to this point without having suffered and finally realizing how I could use that to progress forward.
 
Cane2theLeft said:
I don't know if you recall, but we conversed some bout chronic pain management a couple years ago. At the time I was on a cocktail of pain medications and I think given where I've been and where I'm at now, I have a different vantage point on some of this.



This is rather profound - I have nerve damage in my leg that started when I was 19, I used opioids and lots of other medications for nearly 5 years daily, I had to leave the university I was at, quit my job, it destroyed the relationship with the girl I was living with and I was hopeless and terrified of this progressing forever. I took every dose responsibly for years and just wanted to not be in so much pain that it controlled my life. When people told me I could will the pain away, pray it away, heal it with yoga or whatever, it pissed me the fuck off.

After I lost all the things I mentioned above, when I felt up to returning to school part time, I started taking more psychology classes and then entered a program to become an addictions counselor. I started to feel more confident that I could still do something in my life and I didn't have to be defined by my limitations. These realizations changed everything for me.

I started to see more and more that I could tell myself that I was in pain and limited 24/7 or I could say fuck that, I'm going to keep going no matter what and that's what I did. So I got off the opioids and other medications and it was rough as fuck at first but I learned how to cope because I made the decision I wasn't going to spend my entire life focusing on how much pain I was in and it was sink or swim.

For me personally, spirituality doesn't factor in at all but accepting a degree of suffering as an inevitability and consciously deciding I wasn't going to let it control me by doing everything I could to ensure that showed me that suffering can be beneficial - like most things in life, it depends what you do with it or what you let it do to you. When I was terrified of the suffering and ran from it with every pill and other form of treatment, it controlled me and THAT terrified me and made me feel hopeless. When I said 'fuck it all' and brought on more suffering is when I learned to not fear it and saw that I still had enough control that I could still do something with me life.

I've been off pain medication for close to 2 years now, have completed my coursework to become an addictions counselor, I'm in pain every day of my life but I'm happier than I've been in a really long time and I wouldn't be to this point without having suffered and finally realizing how I could use that to progress forward.
Click to expand...

Not that it compares to any type of prolonged chronic pain, but one day i was dropped at (real) wrestling practice kind of like in that wwe crap when they turn a guy upside down and then jump and slam them on the head. Despite the fact that I could hardly breath and that my side felt like it was bursting open I took about a 5 minute breather and then continued wrestling. For the rest of the season my side was in horrible pain and it was extremely sensitive. I never took any painkillers of any kind and continued the whole season in relative hell. After the season I went to a chiropractor for general reasons and while he was examining me hes stopped at one of my ribs and told me that it was definitely broken. So i went almost 4 months of intense full contact sports with broken rib just ignoring the pain. Pain is very much a mental thing. Sometimes entirely but, you know, in long term it is physical.
 
235360287471352662 said:
There is spiritual value to heightening your pain threshold by suffering.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with this.
It is not the same as saying "just do yoga and you will not notice your pain any more".
But suffering is the great teacher, the great motivator.
No one wants to suffer, but once we have begun, we are forced by life to reach deep inside and find some inner strength that we never knew about before.
This is why suffering is useful.
Without suffering, we would never look for such strength.
Because of suffering, we have no choice. We look, and we find it there.
Then, we spend the rest of our lives stronger, more confident that we can handle life, less afraid of suffering.
 
As you may or mayn't have noticed I've deleted all my former posts in this thread because I'd descended to the level of petty anger but I'll respond AGAIN.

Cane2theLeft, of course I remember chatting with you and the first months I saw your posts in OD I remember being impressed with the patience and time you took to reply to folk and how eloquent and insightful said posts were; and distinctly recall thinking "he's SO going to be OD Mod soon" and lo it came to pass! And now you're an Admin and I congrtulate you on that and on all you've achieved in the "outside" world too.

I don't doubt for a second the power of many folk in pain - if not most- (but CERTAINLY NOT ALL) to have a great deal of say in how they respond to their pain and how much they allow said pain to slow down or halt their forward/upward progree through life. Indeed, "mind over matter" is one of my most cherished sayings JUST BECAUSE of my absolute belief in its veracity.

And furthermore I do not disagree either with the Buddhist/Eastern philosophical school of learning which teaches the usefulness of suffering.

I am sceptical however about expressing the - for me - absolute and innate spiritual value of suffering or stating that "There is spiritual value to heightening your pain threshold by suffering."

In a brief Pm exchange I had with the author of this last quotation, they accurately suggested that it was really the word "spiritual" I had serious problems with, everything else is cool. I'm not a devoutly religious person by any stretch of the imagination but do believe there are certain words that should be used very carefully and reverently indeed because if those words should ever accidentally become devalued then we would be stuck the next time we needed a word of such reverence.

I do hope someone gets what I'm driving at.... although at times I love the internet, I also firmly believe that when we talk to someone the vast majority of our communications with that person are not really through our words but rather through our expressions and gesticulations. I think it's said that 70% of communication (visual) is non-verbal. And over the internet I find it so damned difficult to express nuance and subtlelty whilst simultaneously keeping my communications to fairly accepetable lengths.
 
dhcdavid said:
As you may or mayn't have noticed I've deleted all my former posts in this thread because I'd descended to the level of petty anger but I'll respond AGAIN.

Cane2theLeft, of course I remember chatting with you and the first months I saw your posts in OD I remember being impressed with the patience and time you took to reply to folk and how eloquent and insightful said posts were; and distinctly recall thinking "he's SO going to be OD Mod soon" and lo it came to pass! And now you're an Admin and I congrtulate you on that and on all you've achieved in the "outside" world too.

I don't doubt for a second the power of many folk in pain - if not most- (but CERTAINLY NOT ALL) to have a great deal of say in how they respond to their pain and how much they allow said pain to slow down or halt their forward/upward progree through life. Indeed, "mind over matter" is one of my most cherished sayings JUST BECAUSE of my absolute belief in its veracity.

And furthermore I do not disagree either with the Buddhist/Eastern philosophical school of learning which teaches the usefulness of suffering.

I am sceptical however about expressing the - for me - absolute and innate spiritual value of suffering or stating that "There is spiritual value to heightening your pain threshold by suffering."

In a brief Pm exchange I had with the author of this last quotation, they accurately suggested that it was really the word "spiritual" I had serious problems with, everything else is cool. I'm not a devoutly religious person by any stretch of the imagination but do believe there are certain words that should be used very carefully and reverently indeed because if those words should ever accidentally become devalued then we would be stuck the next time we needed a word of such reverence.

I do hope someone gets what I'm driving at.... although at times I love the internet, I also firmly believe that when we talk to someone the vast majority of our communications with that person are not really through our words but rather through our expressions and gesticulations. I think it's said that 70% of communication (visual) is non-verbal. And over the internet I find it so damned difficult to express nuance and subtlelty whilst simultaneously keeping my communications to fairly accepetable lengths.
Click to expand...

Your apology earlier was all one should have needed friend
 
like any addiction i find personally its not the discomfort of stopping but staying of it the physical discomfort is hard but for me its the mental/craving weeks months down the line is the real torture its as if i have permanently rewired my brain and just cant help relapsing all the time
 
235360287471352662 said:
no different than Western jails; possibly better, if you can get a job upon release
Click to expand...

Definitely not. Being a hardcore addict is far more difficult in ex-USSR countries than in the west. Not only is drug use (even smoking pot to some extent) is viewed as a moral failing. In the US, if you kid is caught with xanax or adderall in school or whatever, it's not really that big of a deal. In ex-USSR, using anything other than alcohol is a fucking huge deal.

Users of hard drugs are regularly ostracized and there are literally no state sponsored HR policies. Extensive corruption makes things so much worse. There was a case in one of the provincial towns where an ex-addict turned community organizer was beaten to death by the cops because he undermined their kickback scheme with the local dealer.

The only benefit of being a drug user in ex-USSR is that you can almost always bribe the cops if you get caught with drugs (not brick of H, user amounts). However, this can turn out to be very expensive. I've heard of cases where people had to give away their cars as collateral in order to buy time to get another $10K from their families.

The situation is getting better with drugs like weed, coke, MDMA, but the H scene in ex-USSR is completely fucked. A majority of IV H users are addicted with HIV and yet sharing needles is common. Social stigma and lack of a government HR policy stops people from getting tested for HIV. Even intelligent, educated young people on the top of the social ladder (people who work in financial services, auditing etc) look down upon any sort of HR. Needle exchange programs are not tolerated. As far as the socially mobile section of society is concerned, "It's you're own fucking problem and you can go fuck yourself!"

Traditional society has an even worse view of addicts...
 
The scenario that will run through these peoples minds when they get out will probably be something like this though:

A. I never ever want to go through that in my life. EVER again... I will stay clean from now on

B. I must make sure i get a decent source of money no matter what, so i can live away from family who could sign me away and also to afford my gear so i never have to face that again..
 
C. i'm exhausted in every way imaginable after the psychological environment of prison, i cannot think straight, and all i want is a shot of heroin to get my mind off of it.

D. i've been broken physically or mentally enough times that i'm no longer able to care for other people or do a lot of the things i need to do for myself. watch out, everyone.

E. i got psychosis after they forced me off of my medication (eg heroin or xanax or alcohol).
 
[QUOTEwhat the fuck?

their pharmacological ignorance is directly torturing a lot of russians, and worsening their addiction. ][/QUOTE]

waking up sick and waiting for the dopeman reinforces addiction. This torture they are forcing them to undergo is also reinforcing the craving. In Switzerland, were they have an extensive Rx heroin scheme, 1/3 of people get of Rx heroin and transition to other modalities including drug free.

Dope sick= reinforces cycle of addiction, so i think were on the same page Qwe, no?

Cane2left I've heard some people in the program say that going cold turkey was a great motivator- the memory kept them clean but I feel this is barbaric, in the same way that not treating someones chest pain who is non complaint with cardiac meds with morphine and nitroglycerin subligual to relieve that crushing pain of an MI is barabaric. Maybe there is a gentler, softer way that can serve as a bridge to total abstinence. In Switzerland, this has happened more than once. In abstinece center societies like the US and USSR, ehm, Russia, they are the rule and I feeel that prejudice and puritanicalism clouds therapeutic objectivity. Could be wrong, but since our mandate is harm reduction I feel obligated to discsuss different paradigms and methadologies. Please consider this disenting point of view (which is based in the reality of the Swiss experience.) Maybe we should learn from Qwe's experience, too.
 
Last edited:
@jspun

I'd like to point out that while there are similarities in Russia's and US's approach to drug abuse, the reasons behind such approaches are very different in both countries.

You have to remember that before the fall of the Soviet Union, drug use was largely non-existent (even weed), sure some people smoked pot, but they were on the margins of society. You also have to consider the impact of the social and economic transition from communism to state sponsored pseudo capitalism. A lot of people had their whole lives destroyed only to see a bunch of well connected bureaucrats turn into millionaires.

In the US, I'd say the current drug policy is supported by a general "give me convenience or give me death (or don't make me think)" approach and fundamentalist attitudes toward determining the causes of success (if he got himself into that position, it's his fucking problem - so let him rot in jail).

Russia is hardly a Puritan country, sexuality is expected of women and you can easily start getting hammered by the time you're 14-15. Clubs are open till 7am etc.
 
qwe said:
c. I'm exhausted in every way imaginable after the psychological environment of prison, i cannot think straight, and all i want is a shot of heroin to get my mind off of it.

D. I've been broken physically or mentally enough times that i'm no longer able to care for other people or do a lot of the things i need to do for myself. Watch out, everyone.

E. I got psychosis after they forced me off of my medication (eg heroin or xanax or alcohol).
Click to expand...

qft
 
@ leviticus- atleast the women are uninhibited. In 1991 for a short time drugs were decriminalized in Russia- this was short lived. I relaize the transition to capitalism was a disapointement but I wonder if drug abuse had its roots after Afganistan and the taste for hash and other drugs that demoralized, returning soldiers brought back. I realize that capitalism and "democracy" were a dissapointement, that people were willing to accept a meassure of reduced freedoms to keep an autocrat, persson who wants to resetablish the USSR in power. But in a country full of well educated individuals, that harm reductions principles never caught on? Methcathinone was a major drug of abuse for a while in parts of russia (an amphetamine like analogue of Kat).
 
jspun said:
@ leviticus- atleast the women are uninhibited. In 1991 for a short time drugs were decriminalized in Russia- this was short lived. I relaize the transition to capitalism was a disapointement but I wonder if drug abuse had its roots after Afganistan and the taste for hash and other drugs that demoralized, returning soldiers brought back. I realize that capitalism and "democracy" were a dissapointement, that people were willing to accept a meassure of reduced freedoms to keep an autocrat, persson who wants to resetablish the USSR in power. But in a country full of well educated individuals, that harm reductions principles never caught on? Methcathinone was a major drug of abuse for a while in parts of russia (an amphetamine like analogue of Kat).
Click to expand...

Yeah, super hot women who look after their bodies is one thing I love about Russia/Ukraine. :)

People who abused thing like methcathinone were largely on the far margins of society. A typical soviet person would not know about it. And drug use (other than alc) wasn't really tolerated by society. America had the 60s where people became open to experimentation, ex-USSR never had anything like that. Nowadays educated people are too busy thinking about their problems to care about drug users. There are so many other pressing problems that HR or the well being of addicts is not really a priority for most people in the ex-USSR.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top