As I have been in a bit of a funk recently, I was reading this thread last night for some inspiration, when lo and behold, I stumbled across my own post #
374 in which I claimed that I would eventually come back and share my own story. Fate is not without a sense of humor it seems.
Brief Background
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what led to you using drugs.
I grew up the eldest child of two immigrants who eloped to America and basically gave up everything they had in the hopes that they would be able to provide their children the best life possible. Looking at my current state of affairs, that is, typing from a MacBook Pro in an air-conditioned suburban home in an affluent area of Southern California, they did provide that....although there were some caveats to that trade which I will get into later.
Even as a young child, I think I had a very addictive personality. I would watch cartoons for hours on end, which would eventually lead my mom to banning television watching outside of certain hours. Eventually, cartoons led way to video games in which I would find myself immersed in for hours. My Dad was a workaholic, barely ever home except for on weekends where he would be passed out on the couch, exhausted no doubt from his endless work week.
Maybe at that young age, even though I couldn't really understand it at a surface level, there was something imbalanced in my "at home" life which made me desire to escape through television and games. Well, this imbalance grew to epic proportions as my parents basically divorced when I was in high school and my father moved out. Though they are still legally married, it was at this point when I was a teen that my family became broken.
I started hanging out with the kids from the neighborhood, mostly caucasians who liked to cause trouble in a "Jackass" type of way, mostly harmless. One day they discovered some pot, which I was too afraid to smoke, but I saw the comical effect it had on them and their senses and found it amusing. It wasn't until one of my high school friends introduced me to weed that I got high for the first time.
It was basically like that scene from "Half-Baked" where they go to the convenience store. I remember we wanted to go play Counter-Strike so we called one of our friend's moms to give us a ride to the local PC cafe. I cannot believe that she did not know we were under the influence of drugs. Maybe she did and was too scared to do anything, I dunno. I was a pretty good FPS player back then as I spent basically all my waking hours playing games, but I was reduced to the skill level of a novice with no motor skills under the influence of marijuana. Although I played horribly, it was fun. The whole experience felt like it lasted half a day. Being stoned was like being transported to a different world for a few hours, nothing like it is now.
Towards my senior year in high school, I began hanging out with other students who were more interested in getting stoned then in academics and we had a great time. We would ditch class, hotbox our cars and let out gigantic clouds of smoke with total disregard for whoever might witness the act. In retrospect this was idiotic and I am thankful we didn't get in trouble.
I was basically stoned through my entire college career except for a few brief periods in which what I called divine intervention led me to sobriety. It was when I discovered opiates after that college that I really got into trouble.
I had my wisdom teeth removed via surgery and was prescribed vicodin for pain management. I remember watching "Transformers" at home under the influence of hydrocodone and I loved that feeling. They denied my refill and I started searching for prescription pain meds through other sources. I got heavily into Norcos and Adderall. Back then before I even knew the dangers of speedballing I would do it regularly. Thinking back to how insanely good I would feel speedballing off those meds makes me shudder.....and of course, as an addict, I also look back longingly on those times, only thinking about how good it felt.
Eventually I was introduced to oxycodone. My friend showed me how to smoke them off of aluminum foil, and that basically became my life for about six months. I spent every day thinking about how many oxy 30s I had left, and if I was running out, how I had to make arrangements to get more. I would hide out in my garage, behind my car, and just get high. I sometimes think back to how peaceful it was, in the garage by myself, just me and the drugs, and a part of me yearns for that. The world becomes so simple when your sucked in by drugs. Your entire focus revolves around getting the drug and using the drug in a way that all the stresses of the outside world just cease to exist.
Substance(s)
What substances were/are you abusing.
I have been addicted to marijuana since about my senior year of high school. I am no longer a daily smoker, but I do pick up every once in a while. I am also no longer a daily opiate user, but I find myself relapsing about once a month with oxycodone. I think I basically do it about once a month because I feel like I can go on a two or three day run without really getting serious withdrawals when I run out. I always feel pretty shitty for about a week after the run is over, and I always lament that week of my life wasted.
I will basically abuse whatever I can get my hands on if it comes my way. Thankfully I survived my honeymoon phase with MDMA, so I have reduced consumption of that and MDA to only once or twice a year. I especially love dissociatives, particularly MXE, but its pretty hard to source them locally, and I know I should stay away from them so I don't really do those anymore. But if I had them, I would be doing them all day.
I am currently on 2CB, and have been for the past two days. 2CB isn't something that someone would typically abuse, but I find myself doing so if nothing else but to escape from the boredom and monotony of everyday existence.
Duration of Addiction/Dependence
How long were you addicted or dependent on the drugs that you were consuming?
I would say that I still am addicted to opiates and marijuana, although just not as a daily user.
I was a daily marijuana smoker for about 3-4 years, and a daily opiate user for about a year.
Adverse Effects
How did drugs negatively impact your life. Feel free to discuss IV complications and/or overdoses.
I don't even really want to write anything in this section. If that's any indication to what kind of adverse effects drugs have had on my life, well, there you go. Fortunately I have never been to jail or rehab. But I have permanently damaged my relationship with my sister and caused lots of undue stress on my mother which I feel terribly about.
I think everyone knows that marijuana tends to make you very lazy and complacent. I get down on myself a lot because I feel there like is so much I should have done with my life that I didn't do because I was too stoned to care. Add to that the stigma in our society surrounding addicts and you have a recipe for low self-esteem which is hard to overcome. If you don't have high self-esteem, it will be very difficult to accomplish anything in life.
Once you discover the euphoria of drugs, and opiates in particular, its pretty hard to get excited about anything else in life. Things that seem really exciting to other people will seem boring by comparison to you because your brain has experienced things that ordinary people will never understand. It's truly terrifying to think about the capacity that drugs have to hijack your brain's reward pathways.
I believe I may have had a psychotic mental breakdown on GHB/MXP, but other than that I don't believe I've ever had a real overdose.
Warnings and Advice
Do you have any advice or warnings that you would like to share to those suffering from addiction or are playing with fire?
It's tough being an addict but there are lots of avenues for help out there if you are just willing to reach out. There are many people who have battled back from the deepest pits of despair and lived to tell the tale who are willing to help, but if you want to be left alone, no one will really pay you any mind. They will respect your decision to stay isolated, that is your choice, but if you just reach out a little bit and say, "Hey, I need some professional help," there are so many people who want to lend their time to help you.
Miscellaneous
Discuss anything that wasn't addressed above.
