tips for track marks

[spacejunk]

There is plenty of horrifying stuff on bluelight to dissuade people from injecting, whether it is people reporting abscesses or other other complications from IVing (some bluelight members have lost limbs from IV drug use - others have lost their lives).

Basically, the reality of IV drug use is frightening - and education serves both to keep injecting drug users safe(r), as well as educating others about the risk.
In that sense, the drug education people get through bluelight serves to do both.

Unlike anti-drug propaganda, realistic drug education doesn't try to scare people to influence them, and in the case of IVing street drugs, you really don't need to try to put frightening information across - the reality is scary enough as it is - plus, when the information is presented without an obvious anti-drug use agenda, it has a great deal more credibility than abstinence-focused drug "education"

 

[Somerandomdude]

Yeah true fair enough then ^^ just as long as we always try and persuade young naive kids who might be thinking about injecting to NOT do so

 

[Kaden_Nite]

Dude, I've always had a bit of phobia of needles, but apparently a lot of people did before they tried shooting up. I never really knew much about IV, but my time on Bluelight has taught me a lot about the complications and difficulties that can come of it and I can honestly say that if someone offered me my favourite drug intraveinously - I'd pass.

For those who do it though, there's no reason they can't be doing it as safely as possible with the right information - they can hear all the deterrents virtually anywhere else.

And yeah, when it's people asking about hard drugs and needles for the first time, people usually do try to give them information so that they might reconsider.

 

[Crankinit]

The shift to injection almost always seems to come from desperation. I've known a few odd individuals who've just dived straight into it (most of them seemed drawn to the "junkie glamour" aspect, and had spent too much time watching documentaries about Kurt Cobain and reading Scar Tissue), but for the most part, stepping up to IV use isn't a decision made lightly, it's something that people do when their tolerance climbs to the point that any other ROA is just too inefficient. I know that if cost had ceased to be a factor, I would have gladly stopped with all the stress and mess of needles and gone back to another more simple ROA.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

IV drug use is weird, though, in that a lot of people seem to find enjoyment/satisfaction in the "ritual" of injection drug use.

see also: IV buprenorphine.

Personally speaking, I first tried IV drug use because my dealer convinced me too...at first I declined but eventually gave in after he offered to give me drugs from his own personal stash for my 1st shot. A very thinly-disguised attempt to get me "really hooked" on dope so he could make more money off me 8) (in my case it didn't really work, but I've known other people who he's convinced to shoot up for the first time and have gone on to go down the proverbial shitter)

 

[Crankinit]

^ Hah, I thought that only happened in government sponsored drug awareness ads

But yeah there's definitely that connection the brain forges between the process of injecting and the sense of pleasure/reward from administering the drug. I personally never found it overwhelming, but it did lead me to doing some stupid things once or twice, like injecting suboxone and inducing precipitated withdrawal, or injecting K/MXE even though my tolerance really didn't call for it (although of course it was more cost efficient).

 

[chugs]

IV drug use is weird, though, in that a lot of people seem to find enjoyment/satisfaction in the "ritual" of injection drug use.

Personally speaking, I first tried IV drug use because my dealer convinced me too...at first I declined but eventually gave in after he offered to give me drugs from his own personal stash for my 1st shot. A very thinly-disguised attempt to get me "really hooked" on dope so he could make more money off me 8) (in my case it didn't really work, but I've known other people who he's convinced to shoot up for the first time and have gone on to go down the proverbial shitter)

This is the myth of injecting.

I find that i'm equally drawn to snorting, plugging and parachuting my drugs as I am with IV'ing. Look at the huge ritual of pot smokers and bongs. The tens of thousands of years of rituals surrounding the drinking of alcohol, the complex rituals, songs and fixation. All drugs that are addictive, some more so then others.

The lure of injecting drugs is no more or less then others.

The reason why you perceive it to be worse is because of the nature of addiction. Addiction is about pain. The alleviating pain that we're born with (due to complex exposure of stress hormones causing malfunctions in our immune system) and pain caused by physical and emotional abuse (again affecting our immune system). The vast majority of opiate IV addicts have a history of abuse and the odd rare few that don't will find that their mother was exposed to extreme stress during and soon after giving birth.

Ultimately "junkies" are people who are in a world of pain and who's pain is literally only relieved by the most effective pain killer.

It is not a high we are experiencing. It is the giddy relief and release of experiencing life without pain. And that pain is so ever present, that it changes us, how we perceive and act. Which in turn leads to poor decision making, more stress which equals more pain.

And i'm not talking about emotional pain. I'm talking about physical pain, especially physiological issues like anxiety and depression. But also stomach problems, joint and muscle issues and a host of other problems that are small, niggling and annoying but often never described or talked about by addicts or the medical community.

What doctor is going to start a research program investigating why some from aches and pains? It took me over 30 years before I even realised that it wasn't normal to have daily/hourly panic attacks.

So yeah when I see that needle my brain see instant relief. But you too would if you were in this much pain.