Opiate Life - Stage 1 (The Honeymoon Period)

[BlondieUK]

Danger, excitement, forbidden fruit. That feeling of stepping onto the scariest, most thrilling and beautiful roller coaster of your life. The sensation of the drug itself is secondary, you feel like you've joined a secret club, an elite group of rockstars, writers, thinkers, painters and poets. You tell no-one, at the same time wanting everyone to know you've tried it, you've done it, and you know what? It's OK.


You don't see the big deal, it doesn't overwhelm you, you're not about to mug a granny for your next fix instantly you realise that whatever you thought you thought you knew before is wrong - and so is everyone else.


You sneer at drug campaigns and laugh as the television shows you yet another story of a junkie on the streets of London, of addicts selling themselves, of what is, in your eyes, nothing but pure propaganda.


Inside knowledge, you know what the rest of the world doesn't. It feels good, it fills you with comfort, sneaking off to get your fix while no-one around you has a clue - oh, you're so much smarter than the rest.



Every hit is tinted with gold, nothing bothers you, and any time anything threatens to burst your bubble? There it is, a warm blanket for your soul when the nights are cold..

 

[BlondieUK]

Withdrawal & Scoring in Layman

So you're in withdrawal, why not take this chance to kick the habit?

Because as bad as it gets when you're out, it's even better when you're in.

You're strung out, no girlfriend, from the outside looking in you're a shell, an egg that's been cracked with the life slowly leaking out. But we don't do this to ourselves for nothing.

You have your ritual, the phone calls, begging, borrowing, stealing, crying, laughing, anything else you can do to get the cash together.


So you've made your calls, waited a few hours, seriously considered quitting for the 286787482nd time etc


But now, it's in your hand! A little bag full of magic, of broken dreams and lost innocence. Clenched in your fist is the greatest false hope in the world.

To put this in a way that a "straight" person could understand;
Imagine you've been caught up in some kind of devastating disaster and survived, barely. You walk for days, every step sending bolts of pain through your entire body. You're drenched in sweat with nothing to drink, your tongue is cracked with dehydration, your stomach cramped with hunger, you're in agony.
What's that? You strain your ears, knowing that for the last couple of days you've both seen and heard things that aren't there, but this, this is what you think it is, this is a rescue helicopter. You manage to signal the incoming rescue team and finally you're picked up and on your way to salvation.
You're taken to the nearest hospital and injected with the finest painkillers known to man. A beautiful young nurse (seriously, she'll be the best looking thing on two legs when you notice that she's..) carrying an ice cold 6-pack, steak, fries and a complimentary "massage". You've gone from the throes of agony and utter almost utter loss of hope, to a level of comfort, relaxation and pleasure that's just too good not to experience again. And again.

 

[Bambooshoot]

Is this you looking back at your attitude in retrospect? Is this the stage you are currently at? If it is you need to take serious look at yourself. None of those beggars, prostitutes, hustlers tried heroin once and the next morning woke up beg , steal and borrowing. I'm fact it probably took years. So although you may feel elite now because you are without physical addiction don't think you are immune no one is. This attitude is so dangerous and reckless unfortunately it's normally the kind that cannot be spoken out of. I'm hoping you are at stage 5ish, recovery, looking back in your old mentality.

 

[Halif]

I like the part of OPs post about looking at the anti drug propaganda and feeling smug because they realise what they were taught was not the whole picture.

That's the problem with trying to 'scare people straight' by portraying opiates (especially heroin) as a kind of event horizon into hell in which even getting too near to the drug can tempt a person to try it just once and be forever sucked in to pit of no return.

Potent opiates deserve to be respected and even feared a little, because they can and absolutely do in some cases ruin people and leave them a hollow shadow of what they were. Many never make it back from full blown dependency.

But the scare campaigns over-simplify things so much. There's no attempt to understand how addiction and dependency occur. But it's a process and it can take months or years for it to get out of hand. Dabbling with pain pills and codeine extractions. Snorting a bit of H now and then. Realising that IV is the cheaper and more efficient option. This can take place over years for some.

I think creating a narrative of the stages as started by BlondieUK here is a great idea and way to tell the story in its full complexity. And perhaps to even focus a bit on the thing that so often gets pushed to the wayside: Why do people seek out opiates and continue to use them even when they can see their life taking a turn for the worse? Perhaps if we understand the root causes better, future generations could be educated in a way that would allow them to see the full picture and not just scare tactics.

 

[Bambooshoot]

What is the purpose of your posts here? This is a harm reduction I feel like you are glorifying heroin use in both this and your last thread posted. People might be teetering on the edge doing research, your post could be the final push they need. This sub forum is for asking questions on how to use while causing the least damage possible. If you have a question could you edit your OP and make it clearer .

 

[BlondieUK]

Sorry it was just meant for non-users to read and understand the mechanisms behind addiction, I meant the total opposite of glorification but if anyone else takes that view then I'll delete/remove.

 

[T. Calderone]

This is bordering on drug glorification so I'm going to close both. PM if you have any questions.