Opioids Heroin-How Long before it became a problem?

[belfort]

when you started using heroin, how long did it take you to notice that this was going to be a big problem in your life?2 weeks, 6 months, a few years?

for me, i started snorting it on the weekends, wasnt much of a problem for a few months but i started to notice that on mondays and tuesdays i would feel shitty, lethargic, couldnt sleep very well but i could still work and get by...i noticed my mind would be focused quite strongly on friday on getting dope though more and more lol..money wise it wasnt bad..this kept up until eventually i was snorting it every day, this was about 5-6 months in...again i could keep up with this habit but it started to cost so i did the smart thing, i started to shoot it...much more bang for my buck, for about the first month or so then i started to realize i had a major problem on my hands..my life revolved around the stuff, and it was getting very expensive but i kept telling myself i would quit lol..i was shooting several grams a day and my savings was gone and i was squeaking by, major habit, bad news..i was either high and nodding/sleeping or dopesick at the end...so for a middle class kid with money in the bank, heroin started to become a big problem around the 7-8th month mark..i really dont know how people sustain habits for years unless they are on subuxone or methadone..

how did it go with you?

 

[The Doc.]

I knew the first time I took a perocet and the narcotic hit my blood stream that I was in a world of shit. It felt so good I knew I was gonna chase the high forever it was like I found my long lost friend I felt like superman. From there I started a decade long journey of heroin/pharmaceutical addicton.
I was 14 when i started percs and oxys after I was addicted to cocaine and needed something to mellow me out at night. Soon after i tried it i started doing em everyday so dependacy came fast. I did cocaine and oxys for 4 years without it being too bad of a problem I was addicted I needed them but I was okay doing mabye 80 mg oxy a day and coke 3-4 tines a week. Not too expensive.
Then I hurt my leg at work and got oxycodone prescribed to me and I got worse than ever doing 500 mgs a day. Then I got cut off after I was hospitalised from acetaminophen poisoning from all the pills i was taking. When the oxy neos came out I turned to selling and doing heroin. I started smoking 2 grams minimum a day on foil and was so hooked I couldn't get out of bed without it. Then I met a guy in detox who sold dope and he was the big time supplier of cocaine and heroin where I live dealing in kilos that he got imported from somewhere overseas from his family somewhere in Asia. He got the purest China white I've ever seen it was hardly cut sooooo nice.

We both started doing tons of dope and coke as everyday we had kilos in front of us my buddy was shooting a gram of dope along with a couple points of yay 5-6 tines a day something I never though was possible till I seen it with MY own eyes. I was quickly catching up slamming a half gram 3 times a day, burning about a half ball on foil throughout the day and doing a half g of coke or so everyday depending what I'm doing. Every morning I used to watch the sun rise slumped over on my couch and do it all over again it was a horrible way to live. I always thought I function so why should I stop I always thought since i never beg my family for money and I work for my drugs I am fine. But I just got so sick of being such a junky it was embarrassing and all I had to show were veins that were all black with track marks all over. Somebody told me yes I know you function you come home make your meals and support your family keep a roof over ryour moms head but are you really happy? Is that all you want is to function? I realised I had been lonely I had no girlfriend and had alienated so many people out of my life cause dope was my pride and joy. I knew for a young man like me I should have my whole life ahead of me with dreams for the future but all I ever pictured was a dark future where I don't live past 30 if I continued down the path I was on.
I was 22 with a burnt out liver and my whole body was going septic from IV drug use something had to change. I tried detox about 5 times already with no luck I tried kicking it at hone too which was retarded I had a kilo in front of me and I had to try not to do it ha I got probably 4 days before I told my buddy to shoot me up in the neck I was too sick just laying on the floor fucked basically. I ended up in the psyc ward twice coming off opiates. It was fucked with all the crazy people there my mom thought I was gonna kill myself so she brought me there once and another time the detox brought me there both times were not pleasant.

I did this for 4 years before I had enough I went to detox where they started me on buprenorphine, set me up with local methadone clinic for when i got out and i they put me on suboxone which I'm currently on. I started injecting the suboxone tablets (2-4mgs a day) cause I was addicted to the needle they give you a good buzz but not worth the damage done to your veins its the same feeling if your snort it or put it under the tounge just take longer to kick in. I'm doing good now on 2 mgs of suboxone I stopped I.V.ing the bupe now too I just take them under the tounge now so I no longer use needle haven't in a bit here don't plan on doing it again.

 

[h3lp]

I first experimented with heroin quite some time ago but didn't use again for a long while. When I started using harder drugs later around my 18th birthday I developed a strong affinity for cocaine. The first time I did a line in the bathroom after work I knew I was going to have a love relationship with pure white powder. Recently (about a year ago or so) I got my hands on some purple gunpowder heroin. I smoked my whole stash which was about a half gram or so in the same day/evening. I liked it needless to say but after being dope sick the next day I didn't want to try bones for a long while.

I speedballed a few months ago off the same connection and then started shooting morphine again regularly to deal with my anemia. I use both H and liquid morphine frequently but I have to admit my obsession does not lie with opiates but more with cocaine. I suppose its a neurochemical balance issue or possibly hereditary however I do find myself using to extents that I am not comfortable with. However am usually able to reduce usage at least for a period of time.

 

[Shambles]

i really dont know how people sustain habits for years

Theft mostly. And low-level sustenance dealing. That and having a saleable skill (not prostitution in my case but that would count and probably isn't so very different... well it is but maybe not in spirit). At least that was the case for me and pretty much everybody I knew when I was doing the junky thing (which I did for a little over a decade so is definitely doable even without a penny in the bank, no job (most of the time) and very few possessions cos they get sold off pretty early on). Managed to fund a crack habit on the side too. Go me.

If people are addicted they often find themselves doing things they never would've imagined they would or could ever do. I know I certainly did and don't know of anybody who didn't personally. I know this isn't the case for everybody necessarily but it is for a large proportion sooner or later. Addictions are expensive. In more ways than one but the money side is no small matter. Can anybody afford to be smoking a grand's worth of crack a day and enough gear to keep them ticking over in between through legitimate means? I doubt it unless you happen to have many a million put by.

I really don't remember how long it took to go from use to addiction cos that wasn't really how it was for me. I was kinda self-destructive and rather nihilistic and when put in a really bad situation (lost my job, was made to quit college and lost my home all within the space of a week and found myself trying to sleep on a park bench in the pissing rain and freezing cold midwinter at some point in my late teens) I took the opportunity to do what I think I wanted to do which was to become an addict. Also wanted to keep warm which was the reason I gave myself at the time (quite legitimately in many ways - really was bastard cold and had few options I could see at the time). As such I'd say I was an addict before I ever took heroin. But as it actually happened I went from the odd bag now and then to one a night (warmth) to four per day within a fortnight and nothing much changed beyond the ebbs and flows all addicts know of until I quite 12 years later.

 

[RodJonse]

Never used heroin. Hydromorphone. One time, over a year ago, IV'd. Have not done it since. That was the peak of when I was being reckless with opiates.

Dabbled in pills because I was one of many who had pain problems (neck, upper back, pinched nerve) but in the process realized that they can be so easily abused. About three months in I wanted to keep pursuing trying to get pills. They were all prescribed to me, and they were all being used for a legitimate medical purpose, but again like many others they would be used in excess sometimes. First it was 1.5x the It started slowly. Took about eight months, when (shortly after the Hydromorphone) I came to a situation where I actually debated in my head taking someone else I know's pills. That was when I truly realized it could potentially be a huge problem if I didn't do anything. I dropped back to what I took normally and it was slightly depressing. I didn't want anything to do pills anymore. Eventually I switched to Kratom and got off pills. Began lowering the amount of Kratom I take down to a strictly medicinal dose. I no longer feel that there's a problem any more, thankfully. Could have been much, much worse.

Regardless of how bad it is for a person, that nihilism thing Shambles mentioned ALWAYS seems to be true. An opiate addict could sit in a chair, feeling like their life is over, listening to The Downward Spiral, get an email stating that their cousin died or something, accidentally spill a drink on the carpet and the though that would be at the top of the list in their mind would still be "time for more".

 

[Shambles]

... get an email stating that their cousin died or something...

Being so hard for my parents to find or get hold of necessitating they send the police to find me to inform me one of my younger brothers had committed suicide (no drug involvement) was actually one of the big factors in my decision to quit. I think it helped snap me out of my somewhat self-indulgent ways of thinking and made the pain of others far more real to me. My own grumblings seems rather insignificant in comparison. After all, I chose to escape into hedonism (to an extent) and analgesia and never did actually make any serious attempts on my own life whereas my lil brother chose to escape using the most painful method he could think of. Made me gain a lil perspective perhaps. Also made the whole death thing very real rather than an abstract thing which sounded good when in melodramatic mode. The reality really wasn't so good.

Of course my immediate reaction was still to score, but it did set a time limit for me. I had been thinking long and hard about my life and I really couldn't continue with what I had been doing after that.

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

It took me a couple years to really realize I had a problem and for bad shit to start really happening, which is why I always shake my head when I hear people say how they're all good and proved everyone wrong because they've been using heroin for a few months or a year, and aren't junkies. Lots of people can pull it off for a while in the beginning.

 

[RodJonse]

That was mainly the thing. You'd think your mentality and all your drive would switch if something horrible comes up, immediately, but a lot of people don't have that. Now, if it's someone who realizes it has to stop but obviously recognizes physical dependency, that's one thing. It's the people that keep going at it for the high, those are the sad cases. Then there's people where that sort of thing you described does actually "set a time limit", like you said. I wish I could say it was the majority, but looking at everyone I've known...I just can't.

On the opposite, a drug is what made me recognize the pain of others. It wasn't MDMA or weed or anything that people generally state when they talk about that sort of thing. Out of all things, it was Ambien.

Ambien gave me true empathy. Still amazes me to this day.

Probably has something to do with its similarity in terms of effects to Muscimol, the psychoactive in the Amanita Muscaria mushrooms. I haven't had Muscimol for sure so I cannot say, though that's the closest reasoning I can find, by word of mouth from people who have compared the two. That or perhaps it was simply just because it was the first drug I took that put me into such a euphoric state my ego died so hard that it took days to come back. I find it pretty peculiar.

To this day, those z-drugs remain the most difficult thing I've ever had to get off of, but that's another story.

 

[lolwhatzdrugs]

Instantly. Apathy prevailed.

 

[deidara]

For the first month of using h it was only on the weekends, but then I was forced to go to rehab right after high school graduation. But I actually bought in to some of the shit and ended up staying clean for 3 years because I already knew I was a junkie by how I felt inside. I relapsed after 3 years and immediately started using every day. I had $10,000 saved up and it took me about 6 months to go through that (I was working and stealing too) I used for about a year and a half, most of that time was spent waiting in a parking lot. Then finally when I realized that NA couldn't get me clean I wised up and got on subutex. Its awesome to not have to drag the dope chains but still enjoy other drugs.

 

[fizzymk]

I got started back when I was about 13 yrs old, met some friends and started smoking alot of pot, this eventually led to doing LSD, and then getting into that pretty heavily, until the effects of dropping up to 15 hits each day began to wear me down...after that summer, my brain was just fuzzy! we would drop acid every day and then smoke an extremely large amount of pot, so anyone that has combined those 2 drugs, knows how crazy things can get!!

My best friend at the time was going nuts one night, he was freaking out and could not be calmed down, and we went to his house, turned out he went into the other room, called 911, but hung up, needless to say, the cops showed up, and once they saw us, and my friend basically flipping out, there was suddenly alot of cops there, they kept asking us where the rest of the acid was, but thankfully the rest of our 5 sheets was at my girlfriends house and not with us. they let me and 2 other people go, but they had to strap him to a gurney, but he was treated at the hospital and was good by the next day.

I still remember talking to the cops and seeing little 'word bubbles' like you see in comic books, coming out of the cops mouths LOL it was funny but scary as hell too, I thought I was going to jail that night!

Eventually I went to a pain mgt doctor, but put on percocet then methadone, and still on methadone, and I actually like methadone, but I abuse my script and run out each month, but I use H after the methadone is out of my system, I usually do about half gram at once, usually smoke it on foil, this works good for me, and gets rid of the nasty methadone w/ds, but these last few months have been crazy, I have spent way too much money on it, I dipped into car payment money last month but thankfully i was able to make the money back just in time as it was due...I find myself spending money that should be going towards other things on dope though, sometimes Im even calling people asking to borrow money for some 'car repair' or some unexpected bill that came up, and get about $300. then Im texting my guy 15 minutes after cashing the check and 90% of the money is gone!!!

I realize Ive got a problem, but Ive not hit rockbottom yet, and I do not look forward to that day, I know it will come but am scared of what I will do if in a truly bad spot with no way out. Ive also been in the hospital psych ward a couple times, once for trying to commit suicide from methadone w/ds, they were sooo bad, I couldnt take it anymore! Life on opiates is no picnic!

The only way I could see this being do-able long term, is if I somehow was able to grow my own poppy plants and just use the raw opium, but Ive heard you dont get that much from each plant, and just for a personal use, you would need alot of plants, I may try growing a few though, just to see how much raw opium actually comes from a plant.

 

[lolwhatzdrugs]

To be honest, heroin started it's life as a problem when it was advertised as a non-addictive alternative to morphine.

 

[fizzymk]

To be honest, heroin started it's life as a problem when it was advertised as a non-addictive alternative to morphine.

True! Also at one time, they thought Radium was good for everything from the common cold to aching feet! LOL, its scary to look back and see how wrong they have been about shit like that.

Even scarier though is the shit they are more than likely wrong about NOW, but wont realize it until decades later!!!! I wonder what some of these things will be? I can see people joking in the future..." how did those goofy people back in 2014 not know what they were doing"? LOL

 

[lolwhatzdrugs]

I'm aware of the radium infused water tanks and so on, promising vitality. The definition of charlatanism at the time, cure-alls with whatever the hell they felt like including. (Heroin being an often included ingredient in soothing syrups).

Did you know about the shoe fitting fluoroscope?

It had an active X ray source constantly shooting through you. While the novelty of seeing your foot in a shoe - live - was interesting.

I suppose they hadn't discovered anything that high frequency (high energy) before, and therefore understood little about it's dangers.

 

[belfort]

It took me a couple years to really realize I had a problem and for bad shit to start really happening, which is why I always shake my head when I hear people say how they're all good and proved everyone wrong because they've been using heroin for a few months or a year, and aren't junkies. Lots of people can pull it off for a while in the beginning.

Anthony Kiedis of red Hot Chili Peppers was able to use heroin for a few years occasionally before he got addicted to it so its possible..i wonder if there is anyone on the face of the earth that can sustain an addiction to heroin for 5 plus years while still being functional, ie going to work every day, not being broke or nodding/dopesick all the time etc etc?i personally dont know of anyone that has been able to live a functional life on heroin after they get addicted..makes me wonder how some junkie musicians that have millions end up running into problems where they have to quit as it has been my experience that money or lack thereof is the biggest problem, most people cannot make enough to keep their habit going, then big problems come into play..but with a multi millionaire?

 

[lolwhatzdrugs]

This mirrors my experience exactly.

So damn sure we had found a way to beat the system, my epiphany was with oxycodone (by the time I used heroin I knew it was a move in the wrong direction before I made it.)

Hedonistic pleasure with this type of drug is repaid with equal or greater misery (usually greater). The fucked up thing is by the time you realize how arrogant you've been you are already stuck into a positive feedback loop of dependence.

 

[SoonAJunkie]

From what I read I understand that heroin is used by most of you for self medication and not recreation...


Ontopic,I'm using for 10 months but still not addict mainly cause I have no easy access to it...If I had access to it I would already be heavily addicted

 

[bingey]

For me the question is more when did opiates become a problem.

I guess when it brought me to the ground financially and emotionally.

 

[heyian2222]

Anthony Kiedis of red Hot Chili Peppers was able to use heroin for a few years occasionally before he got addicted to it so its possible..i wonder if there is anyone on the face of the earth that can sustain an addiction to heroin for 5 plus years while still being functional, ie going to work every day, not being broke or nodding/dopesick all the time etc etc?i personally dont know of anyone that has been able to live a functional life on heroin after they get addicted..makes me wonder how some junkie musicians that have millions end up running into problems where they have to quit as it has been my experience that money or lack thereof is the biggest problem, most people cannot make enough to keep their habit going, then big problems come into play..but with a multi millionaire?

THE LAW.....and more or less the mental disorders drug induced or pre-exhisting

 

[lolwhatzdrugs]

From what I read I understand that heroin is used by most of you for self medication and not recreation...


Ontopic,I'm using for 10 months but still not addict mainly cause I have no easy access to it...If I had access to it I would already be heavily addicted

Be careful about trying to make distinctions between physical dependence and psychological dependence. Not having withdrawals does not necessarily make you "not an addict."

I thought so too, for a time. I was wrong.