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Drug rotation to avoid addiction?

AcidRain

Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 5, 2006
Messages
1,463
Location
Australia
I kinda do this with weed, alcohol & codeine..

Used to hop from one to the other - like ~2 weeks then switch, although lately its been all codeine/alcohol cos i've not been able to get any weed - totally fucked up my rotation system and now i think im addicted to codeine .. although I reckon some nice weed would keep my mind off it long enough to get off it.

Does anyone do this and find its an effective way to avoid getting addicted to one substance?

Or did anyone start off doing this then just end up using all the substances all the time?

Just interested to hear opinions / experiences on this.

I do realise that in essence you're still addicted to 'getting high'. . but thats a bit different to actually having physical withdrawals and stuff.
 
Last edited:
AcidRain said:
Does anyone do this and find its an effective way to avoid getting addicted to one substance?

Or did anyone start off doing this then just end up using all the substances all the time?

In the beginning (years ago), I was playing with Benzos and Opiates. And I would never use one more than 3 days in a row, so I would always avoid addiction.
It worked during 3 months.

And then I ended up addicted to benzos and opiates.....

Sometimes I feel there are drugs you cannot play with, you cannot fool them.
If you start playing with them (rotating for exemple), at the end, it's their addictive power that wins, and you get addicted.
 
it's an interesting idea but i've never tried it. i thought about what if say a person were to take alcohol on sundays, opiates on mondays, then amphetamines on tuesdays, benzos on wednesdays, marijuana on thursdays, a miscelaneas drug on fridays (like mdma, shrooms, dxm, etc) and then marijuana again on saturdays (marijuana gets 2 days a week because its less physically addictive than the others) it would seem to me that one could avoid physical dependence. of course you would still become psychologically addicted and the danger would be that after a while you would say "screw this schedule, i'm not in the mood for just alcohol tonight, i want to mix it with some cocaine or "man, smoking one bowl of weed on a non scheduled weed day won't hurt anything, etc". i mean when you have all those different drugs at your disposal and you use them all regularly it would be very hard to resist just taking them all the time.

in other words it could end up just like those people who tell themselves they are only going to use opiates on the weekends but somehow they end up using them a little more often than that and then a year or two later they are daily users.
 
burn out said:
it's an interesting idea but i've never tried it. i thought about what if say a person were to take alcohol on sundays, opiates on mondays, then amphetamines on tuesdays, benzos on wednesdays, marijuana on thursdays, a miscelaneas drug on fridays (like mdma, shrooms, dxm, etc) and then marijuana again on saturdays (marijuana gets 2 days a week because its less physically addictive than the others) it would seem to me that one could avoid physical dependence.

That would be great, but as you said, there still be psychological addiction, and to do such a thing, you have to carry many doses of Opiates, benzos, weed, mdma, amphetamines, alcohol, etc....if you want to take one of them everyday. With such a stash, you have to be really strong mentally to resist taking a little more.....

(or you have enough connections and money, and decide to go buy everyday the drug you're going to take this day....)
 
I used to do this in a way....With the exception of benzos which were around no matter what crowd of people, or what doctor i was around. Fuck i had klonopin in jail and xanax in rehab.

Like i'd binge on amphetamines for awhile, then switch over to opioids, then to alcohol, then to psychedelics, then back to amps. This worked right up until i decided it was better to buy opioids almost everyday......then it went to everyday. Now i just chip at them.

I think if you're crossing over you DOC in there, eventually ( if you don't have an iron will that is ) you'll start using it more frequently then planned.
 
burn out said:
it's an interesting idea but i've never tried it. i thought about what if say a person were to take alcohol on sundays, opiates on mondays, then amphetamines on tuesdays, benzos on wednesdays, marijuana on thursdays, a miscelaneas drug on fridays (like mdma, shrooms, dxm, etc) and then marijuana again on saturdays (marijuana gets 2 days a week because its less physically addictive than the others) it would seem to me that one could avoid physical dependence. of course you would still become psychologically addicted and the danger would be that after a while you would say "screw this schedule, i'm not in the mood for just alcohol tonight, i want to mix it with some cocaine or "man, smoking one bowl of weed on a non scheduled weed day won't hurt anything, etc". i mean when you have all those different drugs at your disposal and you use them all regularly it would be very hard to resist just taking them all the time.

in other words it could end up just like those people who tell themselves they are only going to use opiates on the weekends but somehow they end up using them a little more often than that and then a year or two later they are daily users.
true, but you could make it more flexible

ie: for each class of drug, you can use it up to two times in a week, doesnt matter which days. this would avoid tolerance and avoid the problem of 'i dont feel like this tonight, id rather have this, screw the schedule'

the schedule would also have to be personally tailored depending on what drugs you like and how often you want to do them. eg my 'schedule' would be opiates 1 to 3 times a week, weed 1 to 3 times a week, psychedelics once a month (with the periodic but infrequent over-indulgence, of course:p)
 
this is definitely possible. I used to rotate between many during any given couple for weeks, just to avoid addiction/complications. I will admit, its not exactly easy if you happened to have a DOC or just like one substance a lot more than the others. At this time in my life i happened to be very experimental, basically just content with putting any psychoactive substance in my system...now i stick to just a few. Works for some not for others
 
qwe said:
definitions of addiction aside,

its withdrawal can be unpleasant

the OP is talking about avoiding withdrawal

Weed's withdrawal can be unpleasant, but I've found with benzos, opiates, or any other substitution, that weed itself doesn't have a bad withdrawal. Weed is likely to give you anxiety and much worse withdrawal if you go cold turkey and don't take any other drugs when you stop smoking in my experience.
 
nice replies thanks!

to continue off on a tangent for a moment....

The worst thing i found with weed withdrawals when I used to smoke everyday was the fucked up dreams I would have for ~a week after.
 
Physical vs Psycologiacl Addiction

They both suck. I statred on benzos and opiates, went through the withdrawl.
Then I was on coke (you become its bitch, but no physical addiction and speed
well, its both. What the fuck is left?
 
I usually like doing uppers in the summer and downers during winter, except benzos I do those year around.

Not really addicted to any one substance though, except the benzos, which is for my social anxiety.
 
yiggy said:
weed is not addicting.


sure it is, i used to be so addicted to weed i couldn't even eat if i didn't have it. however, the reason i said weed is less physically addictive than other drugs is because the withdrawal doesn't cause seizures or anything life threatening and it's not so bad you can't get out of bed like i've heard people describe opiate withdrawal. it's still pretty unplesant though.
 
I don't avoid addiction, but i avoid tolerance increases by alternating opiates, one week on one, alternate between hydromorphone, fent, H, and pods - but lately I've been kind of done with pods, so more H=D
 
Weed has the potential to be addictive. Everyones different. Its weird. I have to take a drug test for probation in a month and I have been smoking for a couple months, and right now, it sucks! I am drinking beer and have a diazepam script so Ill be fine. Keep in mind I went through bad bad oxycontin/heroin/opiate withdrawals and Im on suboxone. Ive been through baaaaaaaaaaaad fuking withdrawals. But mentally, weed can be a bitch to just stop, especially if you smoke every day. But this could be debated forever.
I think you could work a schedule out to not become physicaly addicted, but no doubt obviously mentally you are a fucking drug addict if you need to make a schedule to work out your drug intake. I accept im a drug addict. Im off the hard shit. Im physically addicted to benzos and suboxone....mentally addicted to weed, and alcohol. But life isnt bad because I have legal acces to both drugs and can take them for as long as I want. Of course, I dont plan on being on either for a long time, but for now. Its all good. I think the using one drug this day and the other another day would work for a while, I used to do it, but I ended up saying fuck it and fell into my DOC, a horrible opiate addiction filled with crime and pain. Just my two cents..,.
 
burn out said:
i thought about what if say a person were to take alcohol on sundays, opiates on mondays, then amphetamines on tuesdays, benzos on wednesdays, marijuana on thursdays, a miscelaneas drug on fridays (like mdma, shrooms, dxm, etc) and then marijuana again on saturdays (marijuana gets 2 days a week because its less physically addictive than the others) it would seem to me that one could avoid physical dependence.

lol this has to be one of the more hilarous things i've ever read on bluelight
 
I've often pondered this option myself, considering how much I need my Klonopin for Panic Disorder/GAD (and motivation, shit, I've even enrolled in school since being put back on my meds). Always nervous about dependance, although I seem to end up running out 2-3 weeks after I get my script, which keeps me a permanant state of non dependance (has worked for years, first with my diazepam, now with k-pins). I had always wondered if their were an alternative medication (just to get me through my stressful workday) that I can take when I'm taking that 2 weeks off for the benzos (I'm really not into the idea of being addicted to the green little miracles). Any suggestions?
 
It seems some drugs can be more addictive when administered on intermittent reinforcement schedules - namely amphetamine and cocaine (I have a feeling this also applies to a lesser extent to opiates - especially those that get energetic/ jittery.)

Sounds like this may be a kindled phenomenon.

I wouldn't worry too much about the others.

#1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6709670&dopt=Abstract

#2
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/01664328/2002/00000128/00000002/art00321
 
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