• BASIC DRUG
    DISCUSSION
    Welcome to Bluelight!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Benzo Chart Opioids Chart
    Drug Terms Need Help??
    Drugs 101 Brain & Addiction
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums
  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Avoiding dependence or addiction by switching drugs all the time?

Status
Not open for further replies.
lowbie said:
There is a word made for this sort of cycles

Mixing your drugs or even replacing drugs for others is the whole definition of a narcomaniac. Narcomania and drug addiction go hand in hand

Best is not to have patterns and have a few days off in the week no matter how benign some of these drugs are. Just take them when you need them.
Click to expand...

Narcomania: there are definite times when that word would apply to me, and perhaps a lot of the bluelighter community from what I've seen thusfar. Wouldn't you say taking stuff when you need it is also a pattern? For me, that has resulted in the worst kind of pattern (addiction). I sometimes say that people should experience all these drugs when they least need it so they know the effect but don't feel a need to have it all the time. I've used MDMA and psychedelics effectively in this manner.

Anyways, to improve upon the original idea, the goal would be to shuffle the 30 drugs every month in an intelligent way so there's no dependence on particular dates. Right now I'd be able to access 5/10 drugs at any given time, so that really gives me 5 days out of 30.

I'm not so much a narcomaniac now but going there perhaps with questions like the above. I'm naturally hypomanic and I enjoy it when I'm superproductive but then I feel a need to slow down and I could do it naturally before but now I feel there's too much momentum and chemicals have helped I think avoid more serious bipolar episodes (mania or just breakdowns). Maintenance treatment (like lithium) is too constant. There's a lot of value to hypomania, and I've been super successful in life because of it, so I don't want to give up that edge. But it's not sustainable 365 days. I don't get naturally depressed, so I tend to use depressants and ones that cause euphoria are a bonus. I am always trying to find low/non toxic, nonaddictive depressants and euphorics (alcohol is definitely not it though it's effective but I am addicted to alcohol, i.e., can't stop once I start so I never start).

Thinking about it, right now my life is like I need something to hold me in the stable so to speak and then when I left go (i.e., let my natural chemicals take over) I burst into a rush of productivity which is great for everyone and then I go back and cycle like this. It works for now. The "stable" in my case is just "normal" life, playing with my kids, family, paying bills, etc. but that's a slowed down nonfocussed version of me.

Gabapentin right now is my magic drug but it lasts only 2-3 days and then I've to stop > 10 days. It's self regulating but it does a lot of good things that I can't even explain (it invokes an MDMA like feeling in me). It's also good for my opiate taper (but again it doesn't last so it's good on the days it works and helps me reach a lower steady state on my fentanyl patch).
 
mgrady3 said:
an occasional dose of ketamine would have a good reset effect.
not something I'd do every week, but if you are doing drugs each day of every month then an occasional dose of K could be beneficial. Not a binge dose just enough to reset your psyche.

regardless, I think there's bigger problems here. You may not be addicted to one particular drug, but you end up addicted to being on drugs, regardless of their stature. You lose the feeling of what sober means
Click to expand...

That's a good point. So you can think about this in terms of states rather than the drug itself. So doing a chemical substance 24/7 for 365 days will cause a loss of the sober state. So perhaps it's worth doing something like this every other month or every few months and not even daily since we have only 10 substances. That's kind of what people end up doing who are not really addicted but like to use drugs recreationally I suppose.

Right now we have days 1-10 of some prescription drug and days 20-30 the sober state (and this can be randomised as needed per person). So for a person with a regular 9-5 job, this might be good enough to do on weekends (I also learnt the phrase "weekend warrior" here).

Thanks for all your responses and the ones attesting firmly to the rise of polydrug addiction. I was naive about that.
 
DavidStayzFadedd said:
Hey i have a serious question about tramadol and oxycodone. ok i have a screw through my hip and femur bone so i have chronic pain. ive been on tons of diff. pain meds after my surgery. but then stopped for a bit. anyways i was prescribed 120 tramadol 50 mgs and told to take as needed for hip pain. taking three of them actually made me feel a bit high and itchy but didnt help with pain so next time we got my dr to prescribe oxycodone 5 mg pills. they gave me 40 a month at first. taking 2 -3 pills a day really helped my pain so sumtimes i would run out a little early. so my mom suggested to the doctor we go up on the amount of pils. the dr was being ivestigated by the dea and got mad at me and refused to right anymore oxy after i had been on it for 6 months. so i asked her for atleast sum tramadol and she gave me them.. the tramadol didnt work so good so i ussually had to take 4 - 8 and i always ran out early. but next time the dr upped my dose to 4 tramadols 50 mg each day. i started taking like 8 a day cuz that was what helped the pain. at first it made me high but it went away very fast after a few days of taking 8 a day.sumtimes it would make me throw up. anyways i continued taking 4-8 tramadols every day for 5 months. when i had no tramadol i would buy oxy off tha street, sumtimes tar to smoke, (rarely), and ussually i had a supply of 4 mg dilaudids which i took or snorted. when i didnt hav anything else sumtimes i took 10 mg methadone pills or went to the er to get a script for 30-50 percocet. it took about 6 percs to get me a little high. running out of tramadol and having nothing else was hell, it made me sick the tramadol has a very weird withdrawl. anyways on tha 5th month after they took away my oxy, i finally got to see a new dr. she gave me 90 of my old oxycodone 5 mgs. anyway in the past few days before i saw the dr i had been taking about 12 tramadols a day. now im off tramadol but i have to take 10 oxycodone 5 mg to even get the same effect as 12 tramadol? is that normal? does tramadol inccrease your opiate tolerance to oxycodone as well?
Click to expand...

I'd say they're cross tolerant to about the level you're describing, 5mg oxycodone = 50mg tramadol.

Tramadol is good but I'd stick to levels below 400mg, since they likely will cause seizures at the threshold (and even otherwise, if you're epileptic).
 
I was addicted to getting fucked up. I was definitely a poly-drug user. EVERYDAY I had to be fucked up, whatever it was. I was a downer person who got K'd (ketamine) out a lot but if I didn't have any of that than I'd use anything else, regardless if it was a stimulant, psychedelic, opiate or hallucinogenic. If I didn't have any of that I would drink alcohol like a fish. I did this for a few years. When I finally got out of the haze I developed an addiction to heroin. Good job Jordan Francoeur!
 
There are only a finite number of receptor systems you can fiddle with in your head. Less than a dozen of them actually produce "fun" or desirable effects and the large majority of those systems have problems with dependence. There's no way you could fill a month full of constant drug use and not have *some* cross tolerance at the end (and you'd feel like hell).

Off the top of my head, here's a list of the receptor systems seen in psychedelic and recreational drug use-

GABA (GHB, Alcohol, barbs, benzos, etc)
Nicotinic ACh (nicotine)
Muscarinic ACh (muscimol)
5-HT (LSD, 2C series, psilocin, dmt)
Dopamine (cocaine, amphetamines, antipsychotics if you're brave)
Norepinephrine (Strattera)
Adrenergic system (Yohimbine/Clonidine/some stimulants)
Cannabinoid system (THC, JWH)
NMDA system (Ket, DXM, PCP)
Sigma receptor (DXM, DMT, cocaine)
AMPA system (racetams)
Mu and delta opis (morphine, oxycodone)
Kappa opioid (salvinorin)
Fat soluble inhalants (Ether, halogenated ethers)
Drugs with mixed/unknown actions (Calea, nitrous, some entheobotanicals, many street and pharma drugs)

There's not really that many to choose from once you get down to it. A serious polydrug addiction would emerge pretty quickly even switching around these categories of drugs every day. This seems like an unfeasible and unhealthy idea to me...
 
I do understand the logic, and would agree that by moving drug classes around you could avoid addiction, however, I'd smoked the weed w/ everything. Though if you can switch drugs everyday, and afford it so you don't get addicted, you can just take days off, and tolerance breaks



sekio said:
There are only a finite number of receptor systems you can fiddle with in your head. Less than a dozen of them actually produce "fun" or desirable effects and the large majority of those systems have problems with dependence. There's no way you could fill a month full of constant drug use and not have *some* cross tolerance at the end (and you'd feel like hell).

Off the top of my head, here's a list of the receptor systems seen in psychedelic and recreational drug use-

GABA (GHB, Alcohol, barbs, benzos, etc)
Nicotinic ACh (nicotine)
Muscarinic ACh (muscimol)
5-HT (LSD, 2C series, psilocin, dmt)
Dopamine (cocaine, amphetamines, antipsychotics if you're brave)
Norepinephrine (Strattera)
Adrenergic system (Yohimbine/Clonidine/some stimulants)
Cannabinoid system (THC, JWH)
NMDA system (Ket, DXM, PCP)
Sigma receptor (DXM, DMT, cocaine)
AMPA system (racetams)
Mu and delta opis (morphine, oxycodone)
Kappa opioid (salvinorin)
Fat soluble inhalants (Ether, halogenated ethers)
Drugs with mixed/unknown actions (Calea, nitrous, some entheobotanicals, many street and pharma drugs)

There's not really that many to choose from once you get down to it. A serious polydrug addiction would emerge pretty quickly even switching around these categories of drugs every day. This seems like an unfeasible and unhealthy idea to me...
Click to expand...

its cool that you listed that, but antipsychotics decrease dopamine, not really fun, but eh.
 
Last edited:
sekio said:
There are only a finite number of receptor systems you can fiddle with in your head. Less than a dozen of them actually produce "fun" or desirable effects and the large majority of those systems have problems with dependence. There's no way you could fill a month full of constant drug use and not have *some* cross tolerance at the end (and you'd feel like hell).

Off the top of my head, here's a list of the receptor systems seen in psychedelic and recreational drug use-

GABA (GHB, Alcohol, barbs, benzos, etc)
Nicotinic ACh (nicotine)
Muscarinic ACh (muscimol)
5-HT (LSD, 2C series, psilocin, dmt)
Dopamine (cocaine, amphetamines, antipsychotics if you're brave)
Norepinephrine (Strattera)
Adrenergic system (Yohimbine/Clonidine/some stimulants)
Cannabinoid system (THC, JWH)
NMDA system (Ket, DXM, PCP)
Sigma receptor (DXM, DMT, cocaine)
AMPA system (racetams)
Mu and delta opis (morphine, oxycodone)
Kappa opioid (salvinorin)
Fat soluble inhalants (Ether, halogenated ethers)
Drugs with mixed/unknown actions (Calea, nitrous, some entheobotanicals, many street and pharma drugs)

There's not really that many to choose from once you get down to it. A serious polydrug addiction would emerge pretty quickly even switching around these categories of drugs every day. This seems like an unfeasible and unhealthy idea to me...
Click to expand...

This thread is going better than I thought it would. I'm glad we're getting to the molecular roots of the issue. I think it's a little complicated than just a single receptor system, since many of the popular drugs probably work on more than one (alcohol for example) and I think we severely underestimate individual moderate/low affinities that are collectively high in drug binding given reductionistic ways of thinking. So more combinations are possible since some compounds interaction with 2 or more receptor systems leading to weirder effects.

So let's say we've established that doing it 365 days is a bad idea for most people what would be a good spread of experiences? I love travelling but due to the way airflights are done these days, and the toll it takes, I restrict it to 1-2 international trips a year. These trips are equivalent of a drug high for me.

So should we tickle these systems once, a few times, what? Actually I have an "experiences" file where I list all the substances I've tried and I say how often one can be tried on a scale of 0-9 (0 is any/daily use, 1-3 means once a week is okay, 4-6 means once a month, and 9 means no use is okay and 8 means once in a lifetime), along with doses, etc. So no we can say (guess) how often is it reasonable to tickle these receptors in a lifetime?

Regarding the physical vs. psychological, some people claim that the it's the only the physical thing that matters, and the rest is all mind over matter. These people I've seen abuse stuff now and then in a manner that seems addictive but are able to walk away for months/years (forever if desired?). I'm not going to claim I'm one of these people (I'm not at least for one substance/receptor) but I believe such people exist though claims of such traits are probably overstated than the actual number of people that can do it
 
either way, i see bad consequences that could occur when trying this method....
 
I have thought about something on these lines. In fact, I came up with the idea of using google calendar (or any calendar really) to design a drug schedule. You could write up a six month plan for instance, rotating drugs and including lots of time off also (I think that's essential) and then as long as you stuck to the schedule, you would never have any problems with withdrawal or even tolerance. Of course, you would still probably have cravings and psychological addiction but at least you wouldn't suffer from most of the other problems that go along with drug use.

Sticking to the schedule would be difficult, but I do think that having it all planned out and in writing, plus the excitement of trying to make it work, might make it easier. It would also help you spot addiction sooner, as you could make a rule that you must stick to the schedule no matter what or you can't use at all.

I know that schedules are famous for failing, but has anyone tried actually writing it out and rotating drugs?
 
I'm living proof that it really doesn't work. I just ended up getting hooked on ALL drugs. Having an addiction to drugs in general is sort of worse than having an addiction to one specific drug. Its very hard to stick to a calender. Listen, if you really enjoy one of those drugs that you stumble upon it becomes hard to just wait another week or so to take it, you just take it anyway.

Eventually once you've gone around your rotation a few times you choose your best hitter and that's who you want hitting all the time.
 
I didn't read the entire thread so my apologies if this has been brought up before, but even if you were to take non-cross tolerance drugs so that you would not develop a physical addiction, it's very likely you will develop a psychological addiction to altering your state of mind in general, thus I would not recommend it.
 
I'm kind of here now, meaning I seem to have a psychological addition to an altered state which can be produced by gabapentin, fentanyl, oxymorphone, and marijuana. If I was going to choose the "best hitter", I'd chose marijuana---I really have started to like it and it's my first time eating brownies on a daily basis. I did manage to stop using my fentanyl but I still use weed when I can (every day, 1-2 cookies; this is from a prescription). So I think I'm in a better state now (dependent on weed instead of on fentanyl) but now I need to figure out how to stop using the weed. I guess some travelling would help... gI still have pain to deal with.

So my current status is "dependent on brownies", totally veg out when consuming them, and then use gabapentin intermittently to get stuff done. When I am on gabapentin, I'm highly functional. I wasn't like this initially so it's a learnt behaviour. I wonder if that can happen with the cookies, that I'd develop enough tolerance to be functional. But I still think it's all about the fentanyl (reduced 75% in two months) and the weed and gabapentin are helping me deal with PAWS created from the missing fentanyl in my system for a whole year. Right now, without an altered state, I'd feel miserable and I'm guessing that's fentanyl PAWS (and I might even be having some acute WD---fentanyl is weird).

TheAetherealMeadow said:
I didn't read the entire thread so my apologies if this has been brought up before, but even if you were to take non-cross tolerance drugs so that you would not develop a physical addiction, it's very likely you will develop a psychological addiction to altering your state of mind in general, thus I would not recommend it.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I would do more breaks than just simply switching up.

Two things to always be considered:

1.) Most of the major drug groups affect the same receptors in different strengths and ways.
2.) A couple of days may not be enough time to recuperate before you attack the same receptors again.

If you look at your list closely, you do have a fair amount of GABAergic drugs listed, some only a day apart. Next you have a seizure heightening drug lined up next to a seizure lowering drug.

Your threshold is going to be fluctuating too much if you ask me.
 
bluedom said:
Fantastic. I've yet to even try days 8-10. I didn't think about order too much but you have an interesting up down/order. That's probably a good idea to maintain some semblance of "balance". We could even start adding dosages for different levels of experience, and come up with crazy months vs. more balanced months or something in between (and of course for days too). If a person were just doing this once a month, what dose would they need to (1) get high and feel good but still function; (2) get high and feel good and party but still in control and (3) get high and feel good and perhaps feel bad or awesome. It probably varies person to person but could you assume if one was doing these once a month, they're effectively naive? I know I can say for items 1-7.

This is great, I hope we can fill up a whole month.
Click to expand...


No offence...But wouldn't this just fit the definition of a polyuser, ie no less an addict just not addicted to the one drug / high?
 
lowbie said:
There is a word made for this sort of cycles

Mixing your drugs or even replacing drugs for others is the whole definition of a narcomaniac. Narcomania and drug addiction go hand in hand

Best is not to have patterns and have a few days off in the week no matter how benign some of these drugs are. Just take them when you need them.
Click to expand...

Brilliant!

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/narcomania

I just learnt a new word...when I saw it, I thought "he/she's making that up!"...

Alarmingly close to "necromaniac" in the Google search though.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top