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Heroin Anhedonia in opiate addictions?

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BrittaniBrown

Greenlighter
Joined
Sep 17, 2011
Messages
7
Definition: In psychology and psychiatry, anhedonia is defined as the inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable. Researchers theorize that anhedonia may result from the breakdown in the brain's reward system, involving the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Now, i've heard that methamphetamine addicts have a very hard time with this and their brains are severely affected. Don't know if it's BS or not, but a speaker at a treatment center I went to once said that the first time someone uses meth, that is the 'happiest they will ever be' in terms of brain chemistry and what not.

My question is, in opiate addictions, is there long-term, permanent damage done that could cause this long-term? I've been addicted to heroin for 6 years, tried many times to get clean, sometimes I wonder if my brain just won't work right anymore. Obviously it takes time to get your body/brain chemistry back to normal, but are there PERMANENT, LONG-TERM effects? Seems like this could be the reason so many addicts have a hard time recovering. Because they are unable to experience pleasure like normal people do...which is a very depressing though.

Your thoughts are appreciated.
 
With opiate addiction, I do not believe the anhedonia from using and withdrawal is PERMANENT.. It just takes time to re-learn the ways of the brain before opiate addiction. It doesn't happen overnight, which is why many people relapse. They get impatient, and figure, "fuck it, I'll never be happy if I am not high!" which is not true. If attempting to get clean, it is imperative to help your brain along with its natural endorphin production, so you CAN be happy doing the old things you used to love. It is a long hard road, but if you are dedicated it is DEFINITELY possible. Exercise, sex, and doing the old hobbies you used to enjoy will all help jump start your brain's natural endorphin production.

I look at it this way - I didn't end up a strung out heroin junky in one day, so I certainly can't expect to undo it in one day. Is it hard? Yes. Is it impossible? Certainly not.
 
^ this. Opiates, unlike stimulants, are not toxic. So it's just a matter of allowing your receptor count to get back to normal and of learning how to live like a human being again. Tough as shit but not impossible by any means.
 
^^that is true but what if normal receptors or pleasure do not rebound to their normal level prior to drug use??thats the big question and one that i still think about...many former drug users complain that life doesnt seem as enjoyable sober as it was once they found drugs..is this because they are depressed or need to be high to escape their problems or is it because their natural 'feel good' chemicals never returned to normal??impossible to say..

i will say this, i have always suffered from anhedonia , it was mild before i took drugs...drugs cured this problem for me...i detoxed from methadone and i went thru a year and a half at least where i didnt enjoy anything...i refer to this as the 'zombie' time of my llife..even exercise could barely make me feel better..5-6 years away from opiates i admit i still have a problem with anhedonia..life just seems more boring now but that isnt to say i cant enjoy anything, it just seems to take much more stimulus than it did before..bottom line i have a hard time enjoying the little things in life...

opiates arent toxic but they definitely interfere with the pleasure centers in ones brain, hence the long term anhedonia that many users complain about..then again, maybe we all were slightly anhedonic to begin with, thats why we seeked out drugs in the first place?
 
Because when it comes to to opiate addiction, if you do not fix the root problems you'll just be sober and miserable. It is imperative to fix the underlying psychological issues at hand in order to BE able to live a normal, productive life without opiates. I was just discussing this problem with my Mom, actually. Telling her sure, i can be clean and sober, but if my anxiety/depression/bi-polar/PTSD goes untreated i'll just be sober and miserable waiting for relapse. When it comes to opipate dependence, these receptors CAN be fixed. It just takes time, and you must invest that time in order to gain positive results.
 
I have been having these kinds of feelings for many years. Especially the past couple weeks at night I have been so miserable that I have to go out and cop to get any enjoyment out of life. I have had clean time but have not been completely clean/sober since I was 14 (I am 26 now). Even when I am clean things just dont feel the same as they used to.
 
brokedown palace-ehh its hard to say...i think many addicts will claim they never felt good until they started using drugs...so for these folks to say it will just take time for them to feel normal or good again is false...its quite hard if not impossible to say what causes the malaise and dysphoria many addicts feel, so to cure that is even harder..no simple solution at all..
 
well i didnt feel good before drugs but i certainly felt a lot better than i do now. so if i could just get back to how i was, id be very happy with that at this point.
 
You have to take of extended periods to get your brain chemistry sorted out. I don't want to use the phrase "back to normal" since the brain is constantly adapting, but you will not remain in the opiate "munted" phase forever.

The type of pleasure that opiates bring is different from true happiness. I'd go as far as to say that opiates prevent true happiness as they make you content in whatever your current state is. Getting past opiate use involves getting back your drive to improve your life and seek true happiness instead of artificial opiate happiness.
 
we really dont know the answers.. .My personally opinion after heavy opiate addiction the bran may never return to normal...

Depressing i know...
 
After my 2 year Oxy binge, I was clean for 2 weeks and the anhedonia was absolutely slaughtering me. I was miserable with everything. I was crying daily, several times a day, often for no reason other than how miserable I was.

It ultimately made me relapse and I'm back on Oxy, as if nothing was ever wrong.

It's such a vicious cycle, but man, fake happiness or not, I'm damn fuckin happy on Oxy.

At this point, I truly wonder if I can ever feel "normal" happiness again. Even though two weeks clean was no where near long enough to get through the PAWS, I felt like the world was ending and I was worthless. And now, I feel like superman again.

And the drug dance continues...
 
Heyy I can super relate to this I am stuck at my dads house being a clean machine and its been about 4 weeks of super sobriety and the first week i slept all day and just watched tv to let tommorow come I didnt feel like doing shit. second week I started applying for jobs so i could get back home sooner and 3rd week started to feel a little better and actually a little manic. I would just giggle at nothing.

I now am able to be social(is this a problem for anyone else while being sober) and have been smoking more cigarettes which I think is because of my endorphine levels returning slowly to normal it takes time.

I never feel as good as when high and opiates make me energetic and feel like doing anything and everything but I do wonder if you can leave the opiate world unscarred. I dont wanna do a sobriety experiment but will report till I figure this new place out
 
^^sadly i dont think you can abuse drugs like opiates, ghb, cocaine for years on end and then come out thinking you will be back to normal...once your brain has been pounded with those huge amounts of pleasure chemicals, i think your brain is going to remember that...

feeling energize and motivated is what makes drugs so appealing to me..i find myself now having to force myself to do things when sober..i dont like that...with drugs hitting the reward center like they do, it makes everything enjoyable so when you get sober many things lose their zap...

burn out-true, i feel the same way...its almost like once u get on drugs there is no turning back, you might as well stay on them....man that sounds terrible..lol..
 
i don't think the depression like symptoms are permanent but it may take years to feel "normal" again
 
^problem is, not feeling 'normal' or right will cause you to feel depressed especially if you have been clean a year or longer...you will start to think 'damn i got clean just to feel like this!?!?!?!'
 
I'm bringing this thread back alive because this is killing me. I had almost a year clean, relapsed about 3 months ago. Am clean again for about a week.. but still dealt with anhedonia when i had a year clean. I was a user that abused all types of drugs, not just opiates. I will say that my use is fairly low compared to others.. i could get by with .2 of heroin a day.. literally.

Anyways i don't know what to do, i feel like my VTA .. dopamine system is completely fucked. I just got $300 new head phones, something to really be happy about and enjoy. When they arrived i experienced minor pleasure... kind of like cool new head phones..
Next morning i woke up and saw them... again MINOR pleasure for a few seconds.

When i was a kid or teen, i remember getting something new and waking up in the morning with A HEROIN HIGH almost.. just ecstatic and laying in bed feeling awesome about my new item.. and enjoying it for days.

The reason i bring this example is because it kind of maps out the way my natural pleasure response works... or yours as well. Do you guys who have a lot of clean time enjoy things again or is life just... manageable?
 
^^sadly no one here can give you an answer on this..no expert can give you a definite answer on this..

i know when i got clean fro methadone, i went about 16-18 months completely drug free, not even using caffeine and my anhedonia was still very strong!i was basically a zombie.my doctors wanted to prescribe anti-depressants which i honestly think would have made things worse..
 
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