Cocaine Fiending for Cocaine: IV vs Smoke

[cowboycurtis]

What makes you fiend more? Freebasing or shooting coke?

For me, even though I have a heavy needle fixation from a decade-long heroin addiction, I find that I jones more when I smoke crack and tend to re-dose more often than when I have a shooting session. Maybe it's because I consciously fight re-dosing when shooting so as not to poke myself so many times. Maybe it's because those shooting sessions often involved occasional speedballs. I don't know. I've also seen people wig out after smoking coke in ways I've never seen IV users get to. Not that it doesn't get crazy with IV too, it's just that it's such a different drug depending on the ROA, more so than other drugs. I definitely prefer IV, but I certainly wouldn't turn down a pipe. I'm curious as to the opinions of other BLers who have extensive experience with both.

I've also heard that cocaine actually crosses the BBB faster when smoked than when IV'd. Not sure how that's possible considering it's already in your bloodstream when you shoot it. Maybe I'm overlooking some part of the pharmacological process.

 

[Deru]

Inhalation bypasses the right side of the heart as it’s absorbed into the lungs and starts in the pulmonary venous system, so reaches the brain faster than intravenous, but only by a few seconds and is limited by how much you can inhale at once and lower bioavailabiliary.

With that said, IV cocaine, it’s not even in the same realm as inhalation route of administration.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I spent 30 years on and off IV’ing stimulants including coke. In all that time I tried another ROA maybe half a dozen times.

Then when my veins packed it in I finally tried smoking and found I actually preferred it. I doubt I’d ever shoot up again.

I wish I’d learned the lesson a few decades ago!

 

[TheInvisibleStoner]

Can't say I have ever IV coke. I will never forget the time I met some random kid copping dope. We went back to my place and I said....oh...I have some coke if you want some. Had like a 30 bag or so. Kid shot the whole thing. I woke up and my apartment was 100% cleaned. lol. Kid was still tweaked in the morning and thought we were going to get dope. I was like no dude...I have to go to work.

But sniffing coke turns me into a fiend. Smoking crack does not. For example $20 of coke, or $20 of crack. The rocks I would smoke up in 5 minutes and be done. The 20 bag of coke, would be sniffing over the course of a couple of hours. Then fiend until I finally slept somehow.

 

[Deru]

Yeah, IV cocaine is the type of friending where you put 5 mg too much into your shot, your heart rate shoots to 220 bpm, your hearing goes out, as you start to tell someone to call 911, your vision goes out, you seizure, wake up with a bloody nose, and then start preparing your next shot. Now it’s minus 3 mg, because we want to reach that point in the spectrum where the hearing starts to go. Whoops, syringe pushed halfway in, too much, too late. Hearings gone again, but I can still see, okay, prepare next shot unable to hear a fucking thing, but damn do I feel good, need to keep this going. One shot turns into 16 hours in the bathroom, blood everywhere, a half gram wasted in missed shots and coagulated in syringes, and then if there’s no more money, then you start breaking open the solidifed coagulated mess and filtering it for more shots. And then when that’s gone, it’s beg, lie, steal, cheat, to get more.

Wake up from an overdose? Get that next shot ready ASAP.

That pocket in your arm from a missed shot? Fuck it, suck it up and reinject it.

I used orange juice once to break crack down in a hospital room prior to my third open heart surgery and injected that straight into my PICC line. Instant fungal and bacteria blood infections, 105 degree fever, my sweat would have made someone vomit.

I could go on and on... it’s pure insanity.

I can’t say smoking crack, and I smoked it daily for two years, has ever brought me anywhere near that level of fiending.

 

[TheInvisibleStoner]

Never thought about that part. You would be sticking a needle in you a LOT with coke. Those stories sound scary as hell.

 

[cowboycurtis]

I guess for me I just can't sit there and do shot after shot. I mean, I'll do like maybe 3 shots in an hour max during a binge, but I won't continue that for very long, even if I have a large supply. I've never had a session where I wasn't also doing heroin though, so maybe that makes a difference. I definitely understand that behavior and I've been there, but I never made back-to-back coke shots a real habit. Not trying to say I have any level of self control. That just wasn't my thing. With crack, like stoner said, I will smoke it until it's gone.

It almost seems like it's the needle that keeps me from re-dosing too often, which is unusual considering my fascination with needles.

 

[Deru]

I guess for me I just can't sit there and do shot after shot

From my first IV of cocaine to shooting it into my PICC line before my third open heart surgery, I wasn't able to stop once. Even by the second day, both of my arms were full of lumps and bruises from misses trying to reinject so quick while my hand shook insanely bad and the vasoconstriction made it impossible for even a steady hand. This is where smoking it can never compare, because if your throat and lungs were inaccessible, you'd have bigger problems to worry about. I've never had a drug so rapidly steal my soul and the ensuing rapid destruction and collapse of my entire life I spent over a decade building. I've heard so many stories of people who fell so far due to addiction, and I could never understand ... unfortunately, I found out.

I do find it interesting how vastly different cocaine affects everyone so differently, especially between route of adminstration.

To me, it's like three separate drugs going from IV to smoking to sniffing it.

I'd even put the fiending for sniffing above smoking, with IV so far above both it's the clear winner of being the most destructive way of using cocaine, for me.

 

[G_Chem]

I’ve always felt it’s due to the pyrolysis byproduct formed when crack is smoked. I’ve found less fiend/problems the few times I tried in a glass bulb to negate this.

I also think it’s this byproduct which gives crack it’s unique extra paranoia.

-GC

 

[mtu mwendawazimu]

Well, for me i never felt the urge to redose IV coke for at least ten minutes.

With crack, after i exhale id be thinking of my next hit.

So i pick smoking as more fiendy. Plus, pushing the pipe, etc.

 

[cowboycurtis]

From my first IV of cocaine to shooting it into my PICC line before my third open heart surgery, I wasn't able to stop once. Even by the second day, both of my arms were full of lumps and bruises from misses trying to reinject so quick while my hand shook insanely bad and the vasoconstriction made it impossible for even a steady hand. This is where smoking it can never compare, because if your throat and lungs were inaccessible, you'd have bigger problems to worry about. I've never had a drug so rapidly steal my soul and the ensuing rapid destruction and collapse of my entire life I spent over a decade building. I've heard so many stories of people who fell so far due to addiction, and I could never understand ... unfortunately, I found out.

I do find it interesting how vastly different cocaine affects everyone so differently, especially between route of adminstration.

To me, it's like three separate drugs going from IV to smoking to sniffing it.

I'd even put the fiending for sniffing above smoking, with IV so far above both it's the clear winner of being the most destructive way of using cocaine, for me.

^I definitely agree that it's the most destructive way to use just about anything, and of course it's gonna affect everyone differently. Like you said, I also find the effects of cocaine to vary significantly more than other drugs depending on the ROA. For me I just find that I'm thinking about the next hit quicker when smoking than when shooting like madness said.

Well, for me i never felt the urge to redose IV coke for at least ten minutes.

With crack, after i exhale id be thinking of my next hit.

So i pick smoking as more fiendy. Plus, pushing the pipe, etc.

 

[Deru]

For me I just find that I'm thinking about the next hit quicker when smoking than when shooting like madness said.

I'm curious, because I feel like my brain is severely broken that I can't make these associations everyone is talking about, was it part of the addiction to the pipe and smoking ritual, itself?

Did smoking crack make you stimulated, euphoric, uncomfortable, paranoid, relaxed, calm, all, none or some of the above?

Smoking crack to me was either relaxed and calm euphoria, with literally no desire to immediately keep smoking. Or, uncomfortable tachycardia with slight to moderate paranoia -- not so much about people following me or a cop or FBI behind me, never really understood that thought process -- no one, and I mean no one, cared about Deru smoking crack to go those insane lengths -- but more so paranoia like my heart valve was going to fail or in general about health, maybe more accurately defined as anxiety.

 

[mtu mwendawazimu]

It's hard to put into words but euphoric and almost jittery ADHD thinking.

With IV i was more focused.

 

[cowboycurtis]

^I'd have to second that. Although I was chasing the same rush, it felt like I couldn't focus on anything other than hitting the pipe and something about the act of smoking made it that much easier to take the next hit. Satisfying that oral fixation partly I suppose.

 

[RedRum OG]

I am one of those people who enjoyed the act of shooting deeply from heroin habits. There are few moments like the one when you finally register after digging for an eternity, get that red explosion in the rig, and slam it as fast as you safely can

Its creepy and sick but theres nothing like it. There is not one molecule in my body that gets turned on by coke anymore, but my subconscious still has a thing for needles. I dream about struggling to get shots off regularly. I never get the register. It haunts me in a way it shouldn't, many years after I desperately needed what was in a rig.

 

[cowboycurtis]

I am one of those people who enjoyed the act of shooting deeply from heroin habits. There are few moments like the one when you finally register after digging for an eternity, get that red explosion in the rig, and slam it as fast as you safely can

Its creepy and sick but theres nothing like it. There is not one molecule in my body that gets turned on by coke anymore, but my subconscious still has a thing for needles. I dream about struggling to get shots off regularly. I never get the register. It haunts me in a way it shouldn't, many years after I desperately needed what was in a rig.

Fuck me that shit got me. #triggered
It does seem kind of sick when you take a step back from it, but I understand it so so well.

 

[morphonorconic]

Yeah, IV cocaine is the type of friending where you put 5 mg too much into your shot, your heart rate shoots to 220 bpm, your hearing goes out, as you start to tell someone to call 911, your vision goes out, you seizure, wake up with a bloody nose, and then start preparing your next shot. Now it’s minus 3 mg, because we want to reach that point in the spectrum where the hearing starts to go. Whoops, syringe pushed halfway in, too much, too late. Hearings gone again, but I can still see, okay, prepare next shot unable to hear a fucking thing, but damn do I feel good, need to keep this going. One shot turns into 16 hours in the bathroom, blood everywhere, a half gram wasted in missed shots and coagulated in syringes, and then if there’s no more money, then you start breaking open the solidifed coagulated mess and filtering it for more shots. And then when that’s gone, it’s beg, lie, steal, cheat, to get more.

This is awesome. Ughh, yeah I might miss 1/100 shots of dope or whatever opioid, but for some reason I miss like ~40% of cocaine shots. Even if it's the first one and there's no dehydration or vasoconstriction yet. I get ludicrously pissed off and melodramatic too when it happens. And the next day all your muscles are in agony from standing hunched over the bathroom sink for four hours instead of four minutes. Because instead of doing a shot then enjoying yourself doing something cool, and being in and out the way you imagined, you've spent the entire time under bright revealing lights trying to not look yourself in the eyes while using the mirror for vein finding purposes only.

I had a couple buddies when I lived in South Carolina who had a connect for the best stuff I've ever had. They did coke like they were taking the LSAT or the MCAT. They'd come over and we'd hang out and shoot the shit, and "shoot the shit" until late. My friend/roommate and I would go to bed. I'd wake up nine hours later and come downstairs, and there they'd be side by side still lurched over the coffee table, with the same "bro, you gotta try it!" 3/4 full bottle of warm beer they'd convinced me to buy pushed beyond reach by their stereotype-worthy messes. They'd be not speaking either, just keeping their heads on their work which at that point was doing rinse after cotton rinse waiting for M and me to wake up and hope we'd buy more when we went out to cop our dope for the day. These two managed to never have a dollar between them, and when you asked about it, they were always "saving" their "last shot" of dope, and had "barely any" coke that they "had to sell" as they'd sit in front of you firing shot after shot with maybe five seconds between pushing the plunger and starting to fix another.

Crack is way more fiendish for me. I'll rip the pipe and go on a journey, then five minutes later say "fuck it, I've held off long enough," and rip it again. And sometimes I'll get super depressed after scraping the stem to near mint condition, finally accepting it's over. Or deciding it's not over and going to get more. But after a while or a certain amount of either I get tired of it and stop even when there's an unlimited free supply.

 

[Fuckcracksostupid]

Im the opposite I can wait 30 min all day but can’t seem to be able to stop. I’ve been doing better then before but I’ll get a couple weeks then fuck up then get another couple weeks.