so how did it all start for YOU?

[emingos]

istarted smoking weed at 14-15 and tried amphetamins at 17 once then it was first at my 20's i started doing uppers and a little other drugs, really a poly drug user and when i discovered benzo's and depressants (opiates)

i was in love, first i was only using it to crash after stimulents but soon it was also to just relax a little and then when your bored and then your doing it all the time without you even realized it before it was to late...

you knew how addictive these drugs was before i got into im, i researched alot before trying anything new (hr!) and knew how not to do.. anyway i did it without even realising it.

well i quit benzo's some years ago and went a long time without now i use them some times as prescribed, and a rare occasion also use them to relax and sleep, course i have the worst insomnia ever

im now 27 years and started on 2mg subuxone for my addiction and tapering, my mom know all and have controll of all my money so i dont really crave that much becourse theres simple no way i can get any so that actully helped with the cravings alot i think then i dont have to think "i could just go there and get some" becourse im both on subs and have no money so why even bother thinking about it ?

im really positive about this, i have deleted dealers numbers, distanced myself from the dope scene friends, and have taken contact with my old non using friends and have done a lot of activities and! started a new job in health care(food deleveri to disabled and elder people) so i have been getting so much better both psychologic and physich my anxiety and depression is gone a lot (i do still use benzo's some times as needed tho) but ive been doing alot of new things non medicated to learn and cope with it the real way instead of needing a drug and its gone really well.

im 27(28 in a month) years old fuckup if ever i can do this it its now, i need to get on with my life... and get a good life down for my self. i cant do the hole dope thing anymore then i would end up dead.

well sorry for the rambling, i just never really told anyone.. how it started.. (and excuse my english, its my second langue, and a bit stoned hehe)

and for a site note: ive been clean a little over 3 months froms heroin only using 2mg sub a day had one relapse tho! and havent told my mom, but im really sad i did it , not woth some hours of fun for a life in pain.. so im fighting on.

and good luck with all fellow addiction fighters, keep on fight, its a struggle but only gets better - thats a promise

 

[Tuskface]

I grew up in a very small, backwards, southern US town... I matured really fast, physically and mentally... this put me in a very awkward place socially in school (example, I was 6 feet tall and 180 pounds at 10 years old and was spending about half of the school day in the "gifted and talented" or advanced classroom... my elementary wouldn't skip kids grades, they just rounded up the few "exceptional" students in one room with one batshit crazy teacher). My mother was a religious nut, had my brother and I attending a couple of different churches when we were young that were borderline cult-ish... the super strict, religious, no-thinking type lifestyle that she tried to impose clashed with my natural inclinations to rebel against authority... I couldn't have conversations with kids my own age because they wanted to talk about pop culture or GI Joes and I wanted to discuss Tolkien, Voltaire, or Nietzche.

So I was always an outsider, a loner, and spent most of my time reading, thinking, or playing music. My love of music--and the culture that surrounds rock n roll, especially in the mind of a 8-12 year old-- put me in a place in my own head where I really wanted to expand my consciousness. I knew from a young, young age that the DARE/propaganda preached by the school was bullshit. I was reading erowid trip reports and educating myself on drugs when I was 9 and 10 years old. I was always curious. Psychedelics sounded so incredibly amazing. I can listen to music and see a slideshow of colors that coincide with my favorite tunes? Sign me up.

I smoked pot just because it was the first thing available when I was 11/12, but when I was told by an older cousin (who toured with the Grateful Dead and Phish in the early/mid 90s and was the stereotypical hippie deadhead sort) that she could get me both acid and mushrooms, I was ecstatic! I had already read a lot of the psychedelic cannon (Castenada, Leary, McKenna, Tibetan Book of the Dead, etc) as well as lots of trip reports and articles on erowid. I took an eighth of cubensis and blissed out to Live at Filmore East, A Live One, Without a Net, and Slip, Stitch and Pass. I plucked around on my own guitar and thought myself Duane Allman re-incarnate. It was amazing. I stuck with psychedelics primarily throughout middle school and the first part of high school. I tripped a LOT from 12-17. I learned so much about myself, the world, people, psychology, sociology from my jaunts through inner space. I would not trade these experiences for anything. They helped me in so many ways; I don't know if I'd be alive today were it not for the positive effects of the psychedelic experiences of my youth. It helped me to put a lot of things into perspective and to become less depressed in general.

I always knew that I wanted to try all drugs for myself, at least once, because the unexamined/unexplored life is not worth living. A girl that I quasi-dated at 16 introduced me to cocaine. It was my first "addiction" but eventually we got tired of each other and after she was out of the picture, I didn't have that much trouble giving up the blow. "That's all addiction is?" I thought to myself. "The psychological withdrawals lasted maybe a week, but it wasn't really THAT bad. Phaw! I'm invincible!"

I loved getting fucked up in high school, don't get me wrong. Ketamine, Kind Buds, benzos, and OCs were all part of my average week my sophomore, junior, senior years, but i maintained a 4.0 GPA, excelled in both music and theatre. I really thought that the whole "drugs and addiction are bad, mkay" was so much overblown bullshit. Sure, some people couldn't handle their drugs, but I was obviously above all that.

Fast forward a couple of years, I'm off at college, but playing music professionally rather than going to class. The drummer starts dabbling with heroin. I'd always wanted to try that... it was love at first spike. I was able to maintain more quite some time; it was easy to divert lots of grant money for school towards my new love, plus I was making $100-$400/night up to five nights a week playing music... the drummer and I, plus several of the girls the band's "entourage" all got pretty good habits going.

That was 2001. Its been 10 years since I first shot a bag of dope. It was like I finally realized what I wanted out of life... to play music, then to go home and get high... eventually, getting high won out over everything else... I've spent as much as 12 months without using opiates, but the whole time I was fantasizing about getting high... it was more of a lack of availability than any real "turning a new leaf" on my part. At this point, I'm not physically addicted because I can't afford a daily habit like I once could. But the best day of the week is payday, no doubt. Life without opiates is just not a life I want to live.

 

[8L4YN3]

Alcohol at 13.
cannabis + codeine at 14.
oxycodone + morphine at 15
lsd + mdma+ methamp+various opiates at 16
IV morphine + various benzos at 17
IV heroin at 18

Bit of a blur from here until methadone at 21.
22 is IV methadone + methylphenidate mainly.

I really cant pin point a particular time when i realised i was a career drug addict..

 

[S.M.F.G]

My love affair with mind altering substances began @ about 11-12 yo, ciggys and weed, My mother also would give me Temazepam and or Valium to get me to sleep on the odd occasion and was onto what those did pretty early, along with the painkillers id nick, By the time i was 15 i had shot speed and my facination with substances grew stronger. This lead me thru my teens into my late 20's with psycadelics, op8s, and some RC's. Now im nearing 30 im still a weed smoker, been sober (off alchohol) for only a week and RX'd Zanax @ a massive dose, along with trycilics to get me thru the day. My facination has not diminished, I akin it to a marrage, but am these days better able to manage things but still find it hard to say no if anythings about on offer (which is rarley these days). Kept it short and sweet theres a bunch of shit about my childhood thats unresolved but il not go into that although i think its a big part of why i started taking substances, just the general upheaval i went thru as a child ontop of the facination i had made me a highly addictive personality.

 

[headfuck123]

ever since i can remember, i always had older friends rather than ones of my own age. when i was roughly 7 or 8 my friend used to give me cigarettes and eventually let me try cannabis when i was around 8 or 9. I cant remember how i reacted to my first toke but all i know is I have had a fasination with drugs from early childhood. I dont know what exactly my influences were but im sure the people i hung around with made a huge impact on what i did.

two years later, i have new friends, i havent been doing drugs but i still smoke cigarettes. So when i join the new school i am automaticly adopted into the bad kids group who smoke, etc. few months into school I was offered some carmelo hash from the dam. (i couldnt remeber the high from grass so i thought why not) i got home and smoked the whole lump in one spliff to find myself in a crazy paranoid mess in my bedroom for hours.

that scared me away for about a month but i was straight back for more and i started getting really into grass but swore i wouldnt take any other drugs (haha i genually believed myself.)
within a year i had tried Ecstasy (and loved it). i was binge drinking most weekends (still am), i was trying coke (didnt interest me) and a few years later i was in the same rutine. I only took weed and alcohol but sometimes took ecstasy.

my worst time with addiction would have to be with Mephedrone. Because i was young and it was cheap and legal and gave me an unbeivable high, i abused it. i went on binges for days and fucked myself up from it but i havent touched it in months and dont plan to!