the great debate: Is responsible, controlled, "successful" opiate use EVER possible?

[deaf eye]

the dutchies i have met , will call you a junky if you are dependent on any substance alc weed, e's k coke, it just aint for opiate addicts over there in the netherlands

 

[dokomo]

I consider myself a responsible opiate user. Physically dependent? Yes. Addicted. Hardly.

I have used semi-daily for 2 years now without increasing the dose whatsoever. I might use once in the evenings or every 2 or 3 days as a way to unwind, but do not fixate on opiates or look forward to my next "high". I maintain a full-time job, pay rent on time, have an active social life and use opiates as a way to help overcome social anxiety and depression, which no other substance--prescription or otherwise--has been able to do.

I would never go out and try to score H because I ran out of poppy tea. I haven't spent much time or money on my habit and no one around me has voiced concern about any negative changes in my mood/behavior since starting opiates. I don't go out and get beligerant like so many of the "social drinkers" I know, nor do I engage in high-risk activities like unprotected sex or driving under the influence. As strange as it sounds, I often wonder what my life would've been like had I discovered opiates sooner, as they've given me nothing but positive effects.

I also understand that stories like mine are the exception, not the rule. I feel that different opiates and methods of administration carry different risks and would discourage anyone from thinking they could maintain a habit responsibly. Opiates are a powerful drug that demand the utmost respect and caution from users. Anyone who can't handle moderation should stay far, far away from them...unfortunately, those are usually the people opiates attract.

I'm not judging you man, but just logically speaking, I think you may not be being honest with yourself. You say that you're using it to treat social anxiety and depression, which I understand, but then you say that you don't look forward to the next time you use? Which would essentially be the next time you're anxiety/depression free? That does not make sense.

Just curiously asking, how can you have an active social life using opioids to fight social anxiety without "driving under the influence" as you said? You could be using public transportation or something for all I know, I was just wondering if you'd thought about that.

 

[Ninae]

They do indeed exist. The length of responsible use varies. Might be weeks, might be months, might be years, might be decades, but eventually the responsibility goes out the window. I was a functioning addict for years. I had it all. Money. Entourage of girls. Shredded body. Nice car. I was living the life.

That's what my boyfriend is like and he has little attraction to drugs. I can give him a great opiate, and he enjoys it, but won't feel any need to do it again. While I am so weak for opiates and addiction-prone. But he's more like he likes to be high on life and then booze is his drug of choice to enhance it. I can't understand people who can just take or leave opiates like that. Maybe also difference in body chemistry to account for it.

 

[skruup]

Fuck off. If you aint got nothing better to do than come on a drug website to talk shit about drug users, you the one with the issues. Good riddance.

 

[HYDRO_CHRONIC]

before i read everything ,i used 2-3-4 days in a row for 6 years before getting physically addicted would stop for a few days then start ,somtime i went a week two weeks without this was vicoden ,oxycodone,now i was 15 when i first felt an opiate buzz ....and could go without thinking about it on the days i didnt use at all

when longer half life pills came into play mainly methadone i was addicted,well there was one week i was off work and got a bunch of oxy-20's fronted to me and i usually used once a day at the end of the night before bed,this was 90% of the time ,but i dunno guess the mental aspect caught up with me and i binged hard as hell...now i managed to keep my tolerance pretty low considering,40 mg would floor my ass(oxy)

...from then on out i have been physically addicted

 

[DexysMidnightRuner]

I know a kid, who has been using opiates for three years, well before all my other friends who have gone down that path. He still has yet to actually badly withdrawal. I mean yeah hes gotten some slight withdrawal, but that was around the time everyone else became heroin addicts so he was bound to do more, but to have actually ever kicked the habit, no. The way he does it? he uses for like a few days her and there or a few weeks for a bit, but then he takes a break for a few weeks or days or what not and gets his priorities straightened out. I mean hes actually getting out of community college in two years, how often does that really happen? so the best way to use and enjoy as opposed to use and destroy is to take breaks in between and focus on life, then come back to the drugs.

 

[unsettled]

When I started using Poppy Tea and then just Poppy Grounds swallowed with grapefruit juice I quit drinking and almost all other recreational drugs, everyone who knew me well commented on how much better I looked and I immediately began to get more work and overall my day to day quality of life improved. I attribute this mainly to the availability of this opiate and the fact that I only use it once or twice a day and rarely to get high, mainly to lift my mood.

Am I addicted, yes. However it's the most affordable drug habit I've ever had, I've been using it daily for over a year, before that it was off and on for a couple years. Whenever I got involved with opiates in pill form I always went broke real quick, also tended to mix them with other drugs more often. Alcohol and Speed took me down much harder and quicker than anything else I've ever tried. I believe it's the availability and long half life of pods that has allowed me to lead a more responsible life than with any other drug. I also keep my dose low and for some reason I get a pretty consistent effect from it. I also always keep a back up stash of subs for when I have to travel. I'm not ready to quit yet, so time will tell. I'm well aware of the slippery slope that are opiates and do not in any way think I'm out of danger's way, I know how easy it is to slip.

 

[McFly]

Personally, no i cant. If i have access to dope or pills then i'll use them till they're gone or just keep scoring. But even at the my of worst addiction i wasnt in real danger of getting sacked from my job, i could perform it almost as good as i can now, so in that sense i guess i was functional, but not responsible.

 

[Khadijah]

At this point in time, I think I'm a responsible user. I've been insulfating various prescription opiods for about a year now and my trick is mixing it up. I can rarely get perscriptions for things, so it's just a matter of what I can get around town. I can make 1 percocet 10 last a whole day just by chopping and snorting lines every few hours or so. "

Yo, I hope I aint the first person to point out to you that doing this is absolutely fuckin retarded. Do you realize that the amount of actual oxycodone, the active drug, in a percocet, is maybe 10% of the pill contents? After doin a little research, i found that "the weight of an oxycodone pill containing 10 mg of oxycodone is approximately 135 mg, with oxycodone accounting for 7.4 percent of the total weight".

So....When you sniff a Percocet 10, You are snorting 93% USELESS, INACTIVE POWDER.

Dont snort Percocet, Percodan, Vicodin, etc. These pills all made up of a MAJORITY of Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and binders and fillers. When you crush up a 10mg Perc, and make it into little lines thru out the day, the amount of the active drug that you getting into your body is so small that any high you would be getting is almost definatly a placebo effect. Even if you sniffed the ENTIRE pill at once, you still wouldnt be doin nothin but cloggin up your sinuses with a bunch of garbage ass powder that dont even have no effects.

If you want to sniff Oxycodone, then get yourself some Oxys, do yourself a favor, seriously. If you all about making one pill last a long time, then get some oxy 20's or 40's, cut them into pieces and sniff THOSE thru out the day. If you take a 20mg OC and cut it into 4, and you save 2 pieces for tomorrow, and sniff 1/4 of the pill in the morning and 1/4 in the afternoon, you just did two 5mg doses, spread out over the day, same shit that you BASICALLY , KINDA did with the perc 10, but without all the bullshit unnecessary crap goin up your nose.

Seriously, just dont sniff percocet, vicodin, or any opiate pill containing Acetaminophen/APAP, etc. UNLESS the pill is straight up opiate without any type of other shit added aside from the binders necessary to make the pill stick together, you should NOT be sniffin that shit. You can always grind up a Percocet and swallow the POWDER, which is gonna be just as effective as sniffin lines over the course of the day.

Becuz there is so much inactive powder in the lines you are sniffing, it is blocking the actual oxycodone from gettin absorbed in your nasal membranes. That means that very little of the actual drug is gettin into your blood stream. If you just eat the damn pill you will feel it MUCH more, and get alot more out of it, i can promise u that word bond, becuz the way u are doing ur shit right now is just about the most wasteful thing you could be doin other than throwin them into a fire and tryna get high on the fumes 8) (Dont do that, by the way, its a joke, and it aint gonna get you high. )

You are in the right place to learn about drug education yo, bluelight is the spot for people like you who got alot to learn but seem to be interested in learning it. Real talk, aint nothin wrong with bein new to all this and not knowin the best way to do it, but now that u here there aint no excuse to keep doin silly shit like snortin percocet, cuz now as of readin this post, you know better. Hope u stick around and get yo'ass schooled on the best smartest and safest way to use your drugs, cuz youll get a whole lot more outta them when you understand the ways they work , and the most important thing is to BE SAFE AND BE KNOWLEDGABLE ABOUT THE DRUGS U USING!!

 

[-Guido-]

I know a kid, who has been using opiates for three years, well before all my other friends who have gone down that path. He still has yet to actually badly withdrawal. I mean yeah hes gotten some slight withdrawal, but that was around the time everyone else became heroin addicts so he was bound to do more, but to have actually ever kicked the habit, no. The way he does it? he uses for like a few days her and there or a few weeks for a bit, but then he takes a break for a few weeks or days or what not and gets his priorities straightened out. I mean hes actually getting out of community college in two years, how often does that really happen? so the best way to use and enjoy as opposed to use and destroy is to take breaks in between and focus on life, then come back to the drugs.

Withdrawal is a result of being addicted to a substance.

 

[ikkyu]

Kratom is supposedly very easy to use responsibly.

This has been my experience. I'm not all that attracted to "true" opiates, but I enjoy kratom very much and have no problem using it regularly. Typically I use daily for a week, then take the next week off, then go back to using it, and so on and so forth. I haven't noticed much in the way of withdrawals except sometimes for insomnia the first night or two without it, but melatonin helps with this.

 

[queenbee1127]

In my experience, no. Absolutely not.

Of course no one actually believes that, they all think that they are somehow the only person who can control their habit and keep it recreational.

The number of people I have lost in my life to opiate addiction is incredibly sad

 

[unsettled]

I think part of the problem is that even when someone can use opiates responsibly, they (the opiates) inevitably take center stage in your life to some extent. So even if you're able to maintain a habit and take care of all your responsibilities they're still going to effect your relationships and your life in general in a way that may be negative and not completely obvious to you until you've quit.

 

[Kenaz]

I've tried to keep my opiate usage responsible, and so far have done a reasonably good job of it. (It helps that I didn't start using opiates on a regular basis until I was over 40: if I had discovered a reliable supply of painkillers in my dissolute youth I would be dead by now...). I won't say that I'll never become an addict, but I will say that I take steps to avoid that like

* take what I need to get feeling nice and STOP. I will grant you that this is easier said than done. Once I'm coming up on 5mg of oxymorphone or 20mg of oxycodone, there's a definite tendency to think "you know, just a little bit more would make this a really sweet nod..." But the trick (for me) is to wait it out for a few minutes until the full high is in effect. Generally I'll get to feeling "you know, this is all I need."

* try to keep usage occasional. This is also easier said than done: I've tried not to get into the weekend warrior syndrome where I spend two days opiated and five days wishing I could get opiated. I know that down that way lies a daily habit, and so I try to take breaks and use no more than a couple times a month. But it is definitely tempting to relax from a hard day with a little bit of bliss... and let's face it, you can almost always find an excuse for getting high.

In a little over two years of usage, I can still get high off 5mg of oxymorphone or 20 of oxycodone. (Never did much with fentanyl as I don't care for the high, and I'm far too middle-aged and white to be wandering around the hood looking for H... even here in the Dirty Jerz). But I will admit that once upon a time 5mg of Opana would knock me on my ass, and now it's what I take to get feeling warm and fuzzy. So even with all that I have developed a bit of a tolerance.

Short answer: if you are VERY careful and very respectful of the substance, you can avoid opiate addiction for a while. But as soon as you start thinking you've got nothing to worry about, it's likely to turn around and bite you in the ass.

 

[DoseYouAll]

Of course there are responsible users, I am one but it did take some mistakes to learn it. I finally realized that I must be responsible with it, or it will keep fucking up my life. After WDing from fentanyl, methadone, fent+methadone, and oxycontin over the years I learned to not get in over my head. That methadone + fentanyl detox was insane. . .I thought I was a civil war soldier recuperating in a hospital somewhere, terrible hallucinations. After getting burned a few times I am a lot more careful now, my friend was confused I actually stopped buying oxy when I said I was done.

 

[Khadijah]

the great debate: Is responsible, controlled, "successful" opiate use EVER possible?

This is a subject that lots of people got some real strong opinions on. We all got our ideas about if this is possible or not...about whether you can use without becoming addicted and how to do it if you can. There is many, many different ideas about this, much more complex than just "yes' or "no."

this thread is to talk about your feelings on this subject and let us know if you think that it is possible to use opiates in a responsible controlled way, and the exceptions to your theory if there is any.

So, here is the survey. (by the way, i have it formatted so that if you quote this OP, the questions will appear in bold and your answers you can just type in there and theyll show up normal. the formatting is done for you already so you can just hit quote and fill in your answers, just delete the tags that says and you can fill it out without having to copy and paste the questions youself.)

1. Do you think that it is possible to use opiates responsibly in moderation in a controlled way short-term without it turning into addiction? how about long-term?

2. A lot of people believe that regardless of how successful it is for you right now, just give it time. That eventually, inevitably, someday down the road, you WILL end up addicted, even if you are in control for 3 years that someday it will eventually get you. Do you agree with this or not?

3. Many people say that the only people who think they can control their use are simply too new to opiates to have learned the truth yet. But how about a person who HAS been addicted and has lots of experience with opiate addiction, and then gets clean and decides to use again occasionally? Can an ADDICT ever use again responsibly?

4. If you think that it is possible to be successful at avoiding addiction, which things do you think need to be in place for it to work? wat things does the person have to do in order for it to be possible?

5. and last , are your opinions rock solid on this, or do you believe that there can always be exceptions to the rule? tell us about any exceptions you have known, or if you have been one yourself.

Those are just a few q's to get yall started. Theres obviously a lot to talk about on this subject and im lookin forward to hearin yalls point of views on it.

Also just a warning: PLEASE avoid using condescending, disrespectful attitudes towards people. Many times, people feel that they know the only "right" answer to questions like this, and make very wide , blanket statements like "anybody who thinks they can use responsibly is WRONG, and is an idiot! Have fun lying to yourself, suckers! I am clean and sober so come to me crying when you eventually end up addicted and i will say i told you so!" and shit like that. Please make a serious effort to express your ideas without bein disrespectful to others. Its OK to have strong opinions and state them, just dont let this topic bring out your inner know-it-all arrogant douche about it like it tends to. You might just KNOW you are right, and KNOW that anyone who disagrees is just wrong, but share your opinion without acting like that, please.

 

[TheAzo]

It clearly is possible to use opiates responsibly - we must recognize this as fact, otherwise everyone who ever took a few vikes to catch a buzz would end up an addict. This is obviously an absurd extreme (almost everyone i know has tried vikes to get high at some point, and none of them are addicts now - some of them even really liked them, but none of them went farther than occasional vikes)

I enjoy buprenorphine occasionally, or even poppy tea, but i've never really found that they have much of a pull for me (for a while i was trying to figure out what the big deal was with them - concluding that i'm just not an opiate person). I rarely think about them - I can understand how that feeling could be really compelling for some, though.

Benzos and soma are the ones i worry about getting hooked on...

 

[SirTophamHat]

What is the difference between options #2 & #4?

 

[TheAzo]

What is the difference between options #2 & #4?

I was interpreting it 2 as "Yes, it can be done for most people, assuming they use due caution" and 4 as "No, except for a small minority.

 

[jam uh weezy]

i'm not a fan of alcohol, at all, so usually when i got out to a club or party i eat some pharm-opiates. i like the increased sociability, feel-good, and still in self control without the intoxicating, fucked up, blacked-out-not-knowing-what i'm doing feeling that alcohol brings.

i've been doing this for quite some time....sometimes taking them 3 times a week(at the very most) or sometimes going months wihtout. i never experience withdrawal symptoms or crave them. at high doses, i do get a sort of hangover feeling.

i think it's possible to responsibly use, or abuse any substance. the key is understanding that if you do abuse it, that feeling you like so much will be gone and turn into a destructive force in your life, rather than a fun an positive one.