Heroin/Opiates : The #1 outsider question: Why?

Odiodo

Greenlighter
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Jun 30, 2009
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My friend just had the experience of having to call 911 for a boy with cotton fever at her apt. Now I am motivated to find out more about heroin addiction. Here is the big question I think all outsiders ask: Why? Why sign oneself up for this kind of pain? Isn't life hard enough?

I just finished ten years of premenopausal migraine hell. I am so thankful to be menopausal and finished with all that pain. I almost feel as though I've been robbed of ten years of my life. I had to use hydrocodone during those years, and I am so incredibly glad to be free of that nasty stuff, as well. I hated it--it didn't so much take pain away, as spread it out over more days at a lower level.

My neurologist says I have scars all through my brain from the migraines. This makes me really sad. He says I may now end up with Multiple Sclerosis. But this experience was given to me--I didn't go out and get this damage on purpose.

I just want to understand what would make someone intentionally throw themselves into the kind of pain and damage that I was forced to accept against my will. From everything I've read here, heroin addiction gives far more pain and sickness than it takes away.

We've all got some kind of pain. Why sign up for extra? I'm hoping for some insight from an insider to help me understand this.
 
Sometimes you hurt so much you'll do anything, including accept more pain down the line, for a little temporary relief.

Shortsightedness is the rule in drug addiction.
 
When I started using heroin, I was casually snorting it with friends, maybe like 6-12 times a year. This went on for like 5 years without becoming anymore serious than going to the city several times a year with friends and getting high..

Then in 2006 my best friend I used with started shooting up, I watched him do it, didn't think it was a big deal, so in the summer of 06' I let him shoot me up for the 1st time, it felt great, I thought "why do people make such a big deal about heroin? It feels great is cheap, etc" I had no idea what wd's really felt like..

so I continued shooting up, several times a week now, till I went about 6-7 weeks straight without a break really, then I ran out of cash one day, in the fall or so of 06' and I expierenced withdrawl for the 1st time.. I tried to quit half-heartedly but the thing was by then most of my friends were using it too, and my friends and aqquantices that didn't feel away, so I isolated myself into a clique of friends that used almost everyday, and it just became the norm, you use, you feel good, you don't you feel like shit..

Idk if I had witnessed firsthand how much the withdrawls suck and how much trouble it causes with money, relationships, friends straight up dying, all the bullshit that comes with it after some time, I probobly wouldn't have started using.. Its funny I honestly remember thinking to myself "Why does everyone make such a big deal about heroin? this shit is great"

fucken lol at my own ignorance..
 
Moving HOMELESS -> TDS -> OD


TDS ought to offer some similar thoughts on 'why?' from a "wish I hadn't" perspective and OD can give you answers from a "why I still do" perspective.


OD Mods, if you feel it doesn't fit, please just push back to TDS. Thanks.
 
They (being school, media, gov't, parents, conventional wisdom, etc) lie about the dangers of pot, the dangers of hallucinogens, the dangers of the occasional drink. So a headstrong youth who has been lied to about other drugs (and basically everything else in western society, for that matter) by all traditional "authority figures" has ample reason to doubt them when they preach the perils of heroin.

And it feels so damn good, what could possibly go wrong?

Sometimes you hurt so much you'll do anything, including accept more pain down the line, for a little temporary relief.

and this.

Thats where I'm at these days. I've been on this ride before. I know that it doesn't end well. But when life seems pointless and painful anyway and you've got this method of alleviating some of the pain, maybe even getting some pleasure out of the bargain, now, today, well...
 
Why do I do heroin? because it feels good. Like in trainspotting it said : if it didn't feel good we wouldn't do it! At times all the bad shit junkies live through is worth getting high for. It's hard to explain unless you've lived the junkie life.
 
Moving HOMELESS -> TDS -> OD


TDS ought to offer some similar thoughts on 'why?' from a "wish I hadn't" perspective and OD can give you answers from a "why I still do" perspective.


OD Mods, if you feel it doesn't fit, please just push back to TDS. Thanks.

this will probably get a better response in TDS. i edited the title to make it clearer
 
I'll tell you why I started...I started as a emotional crutch because my "best friend" who was a woman I use to ohave sex with, I fell in love with..didnt love me back. Everytime I wanted a kiss, a hug, even just to ohear "i love you" i did a oc. A year and a half later I no longer talk too her and I am up too a bundle a day for the last 9 months. Opiods are a pain killer...so I guess it makes sense tht people who are in emotional pain use thme as well.
 
Odiodo, I'm willing to bet you have or have had an area of your life where you didn't delay gratification and accepted short term gains over a more logical, better long term approach to things. Drugs are more than expedient, they are pretty much immediate. I think that is the primary answer in many cases.

Our understanding of your pre-menopausal migraines is not complete without having experienced it, other peoples day to day experiences are not completely understandable as well.
We've all got some kind of pain. Why sign up for extra?
We can say the same about many people who signed up for unworkable loans, went for get rich quick schemes, got taken in by quacks offering "sure cures", didn't go to college to go on adventures, etc One could boil your question down to "Why don't people always do the smart thing with the long term in mind?" We are human and sometimes we go for the biggest gains in the immediate present rather than the less tangible future.
 
No one becomes an addict because they want to. It's a consequence of using.

No one can give you the real answer, because how smack makes you feel is beyond words. Heroin is divine.
 
sometimes people dont think of it like you put it....first time users dont go "hey im gunna try heroin and end up being addicted for a major portion of life" you know? some dont think much of it. some can do it once every couple weeks and be fine. some cpl timees a week. some once a year....but al in all it gets the majority of people addicted....just one time to many can suck you rite in and youd never know it...and there are peolpe looking for ways to escape reality...for depression etc, and then theres people looking for a new high.....there are many many many ways to look at it....
 
Simple answer - It just.feels.so.good.

Somewhat less simple answer -

I have to chime in with all the people saying you don't 'sign up' for addiction.
I do it because the way it makes me feel really is beyond words. End of story for me. It's the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced, and nothing else even comes close. I can't imagine anything feeling better.
People are chasing that feeling, and during that chasing we become addicts.

And, nobody truly knows what addiction's like until you experience it. So we go into these things knowing that bad shit is probably coming, but that's all. It's bad in the abstract, and what you have here and now is this hands-down unbeatable experience.

Also, for some people, even if you know firsthand what's coming- the effect you get from heroin feels like it's worth throwing yourself away for. You don't care so much about anything else anymore. The feeling can be that good.
 
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Its all about the nod. No way to explain how it feels. Hell I can't even remember how it feels anymore, its been so long. But I'm still using to try and get back there again.
 
Never had heroin but ive had most every other opiate.

Why you ask well you would have to have that warm opiate euphoria to know why you would do it. It gives you something anything when you have nothing. I was a recreational user of opiates for about 5 years before i developed any kind of addiction at all and that was only a mild addiction after 3 months straight of heavy oxycodone use. Even then it wasent so bad.

For me there was a void in my life that had always been there but got bigger over the course of a year or 2. Chronic pain and massive bipolar mood swings created the perfect enviornment for me abusing my various opiate scripts.

I had noone nothing but i had opiates. Atleast i knew my morphine addiction needed me when noone else did.
 
I beleive addicts go into using heroin with he mindset of "Ill never let that happen to me, Im too strong" not realizing how strong the drug really is. Before you know it youve crossed that line and theres no going back. Very few go into it with the intensions of becoming a junkie.

Before you know it you dont know which way is up, and your life has been completely taken over by powder.


I thank God today for a year and a half clean!
 
I beleive addicts go into using heroin with he mindset of "Ill never let that happen to me, Im too strong" not realizing how strong the drug really is. Before you know it youve crossed that line and theres no going back. Very few go into it with the intensions of becoming a junkie.

Before you know it you dont know which way is up, and your life has been completely taken over by powder.


I thank God today for a year and a half clean!

I was never so delusional so thats a pretty blanket statement. I knew it would happen to me and i was surprised it took so long.
 
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