I’m a junkie

[Hotncold]

Had a family member say that I’ve become a junkie, didn’t think much of it at first but now it’s been in my mind a lot. And that’s because it’s true. I’m now a 4 year heroin addict, started to IV this year and now have shot pretty much every common drug that can be shot.

In this 4 years I’ve made little progress in real life. All my friends (which I don’t have many) are drug addicts and will sometimes just disappear for a while.

I’ve become something that I never thought I would become. I think it really is time to get clean and start living life. Just got on bupe and it’s painful to look at all the time and money I’ve wasted on drugs and specifically heroin.

But part of me still just wants one more shot. But on bupe, the cravings aren’t that bad and I can resist for the time being.

 

[swilow]

You'll get to the point where you can say you "were once" a junky. Just hold firm. Bupe will help immensely. It's basically saved my life tbh. I was a terrible opioid fiend for a decade or so, now I'm a normal guy who works as a librarian, lifts weights, makes music and takes psychedelics. It's possible to change if you decide you want to and even if you don't.

Beyond that, these labels don't help us at all. It does suck to look back on a life or a small segment of it and just see vapours and ash but it's often that sort of regretful self loathing that makes the next shot so appealing. I say fuck it. What's done is done. What comes next is all you get to choose now.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Guess what, you don't have to stay one. You can get to a point where you're abstinent, be fully content in abstinence and NOT feel like you're depriving yourself of anything. You can even get to a point where you use in moderation and NOT be constantly resisting urges to be doing it everyday.

In other words it is possible to entirely change your relationship to the drug, and the perceived level of 'need' you currently feel absolutely doesn't have to be where you're stuck at forever. The desire for a particular drug is something your mind constructs piece by piece from experience, anticipation and associations. It can be likewise de-constructed.

 

[Lil'LinaptkSix]

I'm a junkie, too.
The only way I find to keep the upper hand in this is to exercise my right to when/where I do my do.
Not condoning anything but it can help to not look back or forward too much and stay in the present as much as possible. This I can say is effective in my own experience but of course your milage may vary.
Just don't beat yaself to death over it or let it lead to a more bitter end... keep moving.
Being a junkie does not define you, me or anyone else I can think of. Only a very small part of who we are. Let the light shine for a while on another facet of your personality...?
Love ya,
J

 

[west.heidelberg]

Mate you got to the important part near the end there. You’re on bupe now, the cravings aren’t as bad. The ORT is there to give you time and space. Each day you haven’t had a shot is a step forward. Just over a year ago I got on the buvidal and I felt more or less where you did. Where I am now its totally different, it gets better.

 

[AlsoTapered]

It does sound like the needle is the thing - the drug in the works doesn't seem so important to you.

It IS a recognised psychological issue.

There are CBT specialists.

But is methadone not an option? They never seem to give enough. 90-95mg is recognized as the most effective because even if you IV, it reduces the rush hugely.

I don't know where people get the money. I drank a 4-pack of Brewdog (£4) because it's Saturday night but the truth is that it's all I can afford.

 

[SpiralusSancti]

There’s a saying, once a junkie always a junkie. And sadly, or not, it kinda is like that. Even people who get clean usually remain junkies at least in minds of people who knew them like that. That is one of reasons why so many that are successful in stopping, tho I don’t find that really a big success in those cases, go to some opposite extreme. As in blaming drugs for everything and finding them intrinsically evil and pushing that to even very responsible users. Or becoming religious fanatics etc.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

usually remain junkies at least in minds of people who knew them like that.

And this is a regular problem. That's also why pushing this narrative of 'once a junkie always a junkie' is so damaging.

One, because users themselves buy it, and far too many people who could have gotten over their issues with the right encouragement end up continously struggling, as they are taught to believe that TRULY leaving that 'addict mindset' behind them isn't even a possibility.
Second, because the general public buys it.
You can have stopped a decade ago and not feel the slightest temptation to resume your habit, but nobody else will believe you. To them you're a ticking time bomb and forever untrustworthy.
I've personally interviewed more than one individual for my research who described situations where they started using again despite no particular pressing urge to do so, for no other reason than 'nobody believes that I' m not doing it, everyone's constantly at me about it and checking up on whether I'm doing it, so I might as well be doing it, what's the difference. It's how they think of me anyways '.

blaming drugs for everything and finding them intrinsically evil and pushing that to even very responsible users.

Oh hell, those ' reformed ' characters who become abstinence zealots and preach that like a religion. I find those people insufferable. They're also usually 12-step indoctrinates, which figures. People have a tendency to come away from that with a weird inferiority and superiority complex combined.
You're taught that you must despise yourself for being a 'fundamentally flawed, broken, weak, selfish' etc etc piece of shit druggie, so NOW you need to devote yourself to the secular version of repentance which is total abstinence, and the harder you make it for yourself the more 'proud of your struggle' you're in turn taught to be. It's a fucked-up ideology.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

Guess what, you don't have to stay one. You can get to a point where you're abstinent, be fully content in abstinence and NOT feel like you're depriving yourself of anything. You can even get to a point where you use in moderation and NOT be constantly resisting urges to be doing it everyday.

In other words it is possible to entirely change your relationship to the drug, and the perceived level of 'need' you currently feel absolutely doesn't have to be where you're stuck at forever. The desire for a particular drug is something your mind constructs piece by piece from experience, anticipation and associations. It can be likewise de-constructed.

Yes, it IS possible, but fuckin hard. I was a junkie for 20 years, now clean(ish) for over ten years. Just the thought of smoking brown knocks me sick these days, but I still like a little dabble with codeine and poppy pods.


That 'itch' will be present for the rest of your life and i believe that total abstinence is quite unrealistic to the addict brain, and not entirely necessary.

Have a treat. Scratch that itch. But do it in a way that is sustainable.


And try not to substitute with booze, benzos, barbiturates or any other CNS depressants.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Yes, it IS possible, but fuckin hard.

That is true for a lot of people, but by no means everyone. I've seen people change their habit from one day to the next and never look back. It depends on the individual personality, circumstances and what you see as a strong enough incentive.

That 'itch' will be present for the rest of your life

Again, that's by no means a given. I could cite many instances both from official studies as well as among my personal acquaintances.

and i believe that total abstinence is quite unrealistic to the addict brain, and not entirely necessary.

It's unrealistic so long as you still think like an addict, yes. What I'm saying is people can, do and have got out of that mindset.

But abstinence is also not necessary in most cases.
I hate this false dichotomy that's always being pushed where it's a black-and-white choice between 100% abstinence not just from whatever substance you had a problem with, but EVERYTHING, or else you'll just be recklessly using to excess and end up dead.

Statistically the majority of all people who ever fit the criteria for alcohol or drug 'addiction', but now no longer do, are NOT abstinent. Instead they become moderate drinkers / users. Some switch to a less hazardous substance. And yet moderation or any adjustment to the way you use isn't even mentioned as a possibility in most of the prevalent therapy culture. They just dogmatically assume and outright tell you that it's impossible, despite reality not matching up.

Have a treat. Scratch that itch. But do it in a way that is sustainable.

Definitely. That's the route I went because I was ready for my life to stop being a shit-show, and I knew how much good stuff I was missing out on by this single-minded focus on acquiring sufficient quantities of smack. On the other hand I still had a taste for it. A balance needed to be found.

That said, just as a random example, I know a guy who was 17 yrs on the needle, and now you could surround him with a bunch of people shooting up, and it'd leave him completely cold. He doesn't feel like he's "got any more itch left to scratch" (direct quote).

And that's not a unicorn outlier. There's plenty of people like him who for one reason or another are just DONE with it, the way you can be done with a relationship that once was all-consuming but you've simply moved on from. The reason you don't hear of such people often and it seems like far more of a rarity than it is, is because they tend not to hang around say, forums like this, because they no longer spend any thought on the matter or socialize in drug-using circles.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

That said, just as a random example, I know a guy who was 17 yrs on the needle, and now you could surround him with a bunch of people shooting up, and it'd leave him completely cold. He doesn't feel like he's "got any more itch left to scratch" (direct quote).

That's where I am at the moment. I could be in a room full of people shooting up and tooting off the foil, and I'd be like "is anyone skinning up or what?".

Hard opiates just don't interest me anymore. But a cheeky dabble now and again with softer stuff seems reasonable to me.

 

[AlsoTapered]

I've never bought H but occasionally I've been offered a free toot. So last year a friend who was using 2g/day basically put a £10 bag onto foil, melted it to a beetle and gave it to me. I smoked a tiny bit and handed it back. I told a white lie that I had a virus and the nausea put me off.

But the truth is that I just thought 'I have problems and this will only make things worse'.

The smell, the taste, the atmosphere in a room full of people all gouched out. It's just depressing.

I'm 52 and every year for decades someone I know or knew dies. I looked around and realized that it was almost certain that it would be the last time I ever saw some of them.

5 months later one died. Ig he only had coated foil, he would use it so it screwed his lungs. He died on a stretcher in a corridor outside the respiratory ward where he had been for 3 days. Nobody knows when he died - somewhere between 10PM and 6AM... alone.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

I've never bought H but occasionally I've been offered a free toot. So last year a friend who was using 2g/day basically put a £10 bag onto foil, melted it to a beetle and gave it to me. I smoked a tiny bit and handed it back. I told a white lie that I had a virus and the nausea put me off.

But the truth is that I just thought 'I have problems and this will only make things worse'.

The smell, the taste, the atmosphere in a room full of people all gouched out. It's just depressing.

I'm 52 and every year for decades someone I know or knew dies. I looked around and realized that it was almost certain that it would be the last time I ever saw some of them.

5 months later one died. Ig he only had coated foil, he would use it so it screwed his lungs. He died on a stretcher in a corridor outside the respiratory ward where he had been for 3 days. Nobody knows when he died - somewhere between 10PM and 6AM... alone.

Much to my shame, I've introduced many people over the years to the way of the dragon.

What really surprised me was how many of them took an instant dislike to it. To me, it was the ultimate experience. But obviously not for well adjusted folk.

You either love it or hate it. I just feel so sorry for those that loved it. That's a burden I have to bear forever.

 

[AlsoTapered]

The very first time I tried H a tiny bit was enough. My mind was instantly saying 'well a £10 bag would last 3-4 days so you can afford it' and I had to catch myself and ask 'so why does Selene need a full £10 bag and Martin needs a gram?

That was 27 or 28 years ago,

I figured that the billionaire addicts REALLY had no problems.... then Eva Rausling died, More recently Peaches Geldoff died.

I still don't understand why these people didn't use BUPA to get into HAT.

 

[Pissed_and_messed]

It does sound like the needle is the thing - the drug in the works doesn't seem so important to you.

It IS a recognised psychological issue.

There are CBT specialists.

But is methadone not an option? They never seem to give enough. 90-95mg is recognized as the most effective because even if you IV, it reduces the rush hugely.

I don't know where people get the money. I drank a 4-pack of Brewdog (£4) because it's Saturday night but the truth is that it's all I can afford.

my now deceased friend described needle addiction like I'd describe my personal body-focused repetitive behaviour. It was surprising. It was clearly about control, success and relief.

 

[AlsoTapered]

my now deceased friend described needle addiction like I'd describe my personal body-focused repetitive behaviour. It was surprising. It was clearly about control, success and relief.

In the film 'Trainspotting' their is a Renton monologue in which he lists all of the drugs he had injected. It's a rare nod to the fact that the book was written in 1993 and was actually about a group of addicts the author knew in the mid 1980s.

Heminevrin was rare in the 1980s but totally unavailable in the 1990s in spite of still technically being availble according to the BNF.

For those who don't know, they were nicknamed 'duckeggs' because theywere (quite large) grey capsule and contained 192mg of 'clomethiazole freebase in an oily suspension'. IV users have to be quick as the stuff melts plastic. He also mentions cyclizine which were Valoid travel-sickness tablets. People used them to estimate the effects of IV Diconal.

I have looked and looked but cyclizine interacts with the 3,3-diphenyl heptanone class of opioid which in the UK is dipipanone & methadone. I don't know why, But when 'Mother Superior' ends up begging, he still goes on about how oral methadone + IV cyclizine still gives a unique rush.

 

[AlsoTapered]

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1360-0443.1989.tb00766.x

https://www.bapen.org.uk/pdfs/bifa/use-of-cyclizine-in-patients-receiving-pn-draft.pdf

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0036933013508039

So - links to people on oral methadone IVing cyclizine and examples of patients who were being tube-fed becoming addicted to cyclizine without methadone.

I've talked to people who compulsively injected other first-generation antihistamines and even they couldn't explain why.

I guess some people are addicted to the needle more than the drug itself.

 

[SpiralusSancti]

I guess some people are addicted to the needle more than the drug itself.

There are definitely many of those. You too probably heard of or met people injecting booze and other stuff that really doesn’t make sense via that route. My ex told me how she injected fucking dizepam pills during one WD cuz well that was all she had. Like a lot of people she run out of her veins in her late twenties and I’m not totally confident she still wouldn’t I.V. something from time to time if finding a vein wouldn’t be next to impossible for her. When I saw her trying to inject some methadone powder it really gave me a good perception of how needle-mania looks. I also have a friend who ruined her veins with bupe, big doses too, but she herself said it doesn’t have any rush or real benefits but it’s her fixation on needles. Another ex when I told her we should just eat MDxx insisted on I.V. cuz I quote her – “it’s fun”. And she ain’t really wrong if we’re gona be honest. O yeah, not to mention quite big chunk of H users who find anything but I.V. use a waste, what’s really reason they think so is need-mania they developed.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Hard opiates just don't interest me anymore

This needs to be said more often and louder. You can just LOSE INTEREST in a drug. It happens surprisingly (or rather not so surprisingly) often.

For a lot of people quitting isn't this epic struggle, it's just a mundane gradual loss of interest. If I had a pound for every user I spoke to who told me something along the lines of, 'well I used to do a shit ton of cocaine but after awhile I just had enough of it' my bank account would be looking A LOT healthier.

Yet 90% of all rehabs prescribe to this idea that once you've reached a certain level of desire for drug use, you'll ALWAYS and forever be stuck that same way. In other words they do fuck all to 'rehabilitate' you in any real sense. You just learn how to be this fragile, 'triggered' by anything and everything, permanent victim of your own behaviour, and how you must never trust your own judgement again, and you need to be wrapped in cotton wool for the rest of your life because substances can allegedly 'control' you.
It's like what's being practiced is the direct opposite of what's actually helpful.

(yep I've been through the system. can you tell )

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Much to my shame, I've introduced many people over the years to the way of the dragon.

Like I've told you before, drop the personal blame. Those who are after it will find it with or without your 'help'.

Case in point, my late and much - lamented best mate was the guy who shot me up for the first time and facilitated that 'threshold' experience.
I'd also been begging him for a taste for ages and had he continued to virtuously refuse, I'd have 100 % gotten it elsewhere. Everybody else blamed him for my descent into addiction. I only ever blamed myself.

What really surprised me was how many of them took an instant dislike to it.

This is in fact more common than to be instantly infatuated.

To me, it was the ultimate experience. But obviously not for well adjusted folk.

It was for me as well. It doesn't however necessarily have anything at all to do with being well or ill - adjusted. When I first tried it and instantly loved it, my life was FINE. I was fine.

OBVIOUSLY when you have problems, and something agrees with you on first try that appears to take all those problems away.... THEN you got a REAL problem.

You either love it or hate it.

That goes for every other substance too. It's a very individual interplay between the drug's chemistry and your brain chemistry that determines whether or not it's gonna 'do it' for you.

I just feel so sorry for those that loved it.

Talk to users like me or DeathIndustrial88 who found it to be a life-saver from suicidal depression. Any drug can have its beneficial side. Even if it's just temporary enjoyment ; who wants to knock THAT given how much pain the human condition entails -?

That's a burden I have to bear forever.

It isn't yours to bear. All you did at most was conveniently open a door that would have been crowbarred and kicked down eventually in any case.

NONE OF US ARE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF ANOTHER.