• Select Your Topic Then Scroll Down
    Alcohol Bupe Benzos
    Cocaine Heroin Opioids
    RCs Stimulants Misc
    Harm Reduction All Topics Gabapentinoids
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums

Heroin How do you enjoy "normal" life again?

I dabbled with heroin for about 3 years, one day after I'd changed a couple of little things in my life (like my taste in music), I met up with some friends that were using and I had that one last shot..

And I hated it, it was boring. I haven't touched it since, and that was 5 years ago.

Although I'm one of the minority, it does happen.
 
I have to say that I tried smoking H with a "friend" and I loved it right away. I was expecting some feeling or something to happen to me and I didn't even realize I was high until I kept smoking it. Well after using it for a few days I found out a person I was working with was smoking it too. I had known this person for 5 years and had no idea they were using. Soon I got greedy and made sure I had my own dealer. I could hook up with H in about 10 minutes and actually got to know my dealer intimately. Within two months I was smoking it at work, during the day at night. And then my favorite thing in the entire world was waking up and smoking for about two hours before I even started my day. I ended up spending anywhere from $900-$1200 a month on my habit smoking about 1 and 1/2 of a grahams a day. Then my cousin said she wanted to take me out of the country so I knew I had to stop but I could not. I tried dividing it in small amounts and ended up using. Finally about three days before I left the country I was able to get some clonidine, Percocet's and klonipin along with some loperamide and made up my own cocktail and I was able to get off it with no withdrawals at all. I would do this once in a while and it worked just fine for me for about a week and then I would crave the H like crazy. Like I said the cocktail worked great for me I never had any whithdrawls at all (I did alot of research) it was the cravings I could not control and would set me back up because I felt like nothing was fun or interesting for me. I stopped doing all the things I loved to do. The only thing I wanted to do was wake up and smoke just sitting in my bed all day smoking and watching the ID channel. When I lost the temporary job I started taking out payday loans and going to the pawn shop. I also noticed that both of the people mentioned above were homeless and had no job. This is all within 8 months of us using and the only reason I had a home is because my landlord agreed to work with me on back rent and I have a strong work ethic no matter what I have 2 or 3 jobs to keep myself afloat. My point is this, I finally decided that I wanted to quit and needed help. I am now going to the methadone clinic and my cravings are gone. Its been 4 months and I just now feeling like myself again. I am slowly doing the activities I used to enjoy. I don't know what happened to my co-worker but my other "friend" has been to a couple of rehabs so really there is no way out but to take your time, love yourself stay away from users and be kind and gentle to yourself and others everyday because you will come back to yourself. Get some time under your belt. Work has really helped me keeping busy and a hobby as mentioned above. Explore some new behaviors and meet some new people. I hope this is helpful. Keep busy and distract yourself from your thoughts about nothing is fun or normal. I would also like to hear from other peeps too.
 
I wanted to respond to the anti-depressant dilemma. I have been on many throughout my lifetime and research is important. For example, Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors, (SSRI's) have been very popular for the last couple of decades and I have been on many of these to include; Prozac, Celexa, Paxil, Effexor, and others. These drugs are/were developed to be used for only a few years. However, we are just now understanding what the long term affects of these drugs are. You cannot just quit taking them, you must taper off them slowly. I would also recommend that you seek out a psychiatrist when taking any kind of psychiatric drug. You would not go to a physiatrist for a broken leg right? Anyway, I quit taking these drugs because I would end up gaining like 80 pounds, and being lethargic so I did a lot of research and decided to take wellbutrin and I will tell you that I lost the weight I had gained over the years of taking the SSRI's. My sex drive came back and I don't smoke as many cigarettes as I used to. Sometimes I go weeks without the ciggs. So just be careful do the research and go to a shrink for that stuff. What are you taking BTW?
 
I've been self-medicating for a long time and I'm pretty (really) scared about going sober. I've tried so many anti-depressants and none have worked.
 
This is the severe boredom stage swim went thru! Nothing is ever gonna b fun anymore without
The opioids lifting swims spirits to ridiculous highs! only swim got sick of the money wasted, swim also despised the pill hunt that follows every afternoon cause w/ds are the devil. Let's not forget the pharm game that swim knows is the new epedemic!
It took swim months to rebuild his natural endorphins and remember as a kid swim did not need opiates!!!!!
 
@OP (the person who started this thread)...

you can do this! i am not going to lie to you, sober life is not all fucking giggles and rainbows, it is kind of....welll... a grind .... there are going to be more hard times than bad times, but after those days pass, you will realize that some of the days that you thought were so bad, were actually pretty good days. it feels so good on a whole other level compared to drugs to feel the satisfaction of getting through hard times on your own. you will feel sooo much better about yourself, your whole life will turn around i promise! it will not seem like it from the inside looking out, meaning when you try to examine your sober life, you might feel discouraged and dock yourself for not getting far. but i PROMISE you, the other people around you will notice the difference and you have to trust that you really are an amazing person.

remember, it is not about how many times you fall down, but about how many times you get back up. if you make a mistake in sober life, even one not dealing in drugs, you must chose the warriors path and continue to face your fears. what i find about fears is that usually i make them out to be a lot worse than what they turn out to be. i will give you a really good analogy that has helped me in hard times when i face a problem and i question my self confidence and my self..

lets say you have a house, with a gardening shed outside in the back yard. it is mid-day in late july, and it is a hot and humid day in Georgia. the vibrantly shinning sun warms you to the core. and a slight, brisk breeze adds a note of perfection to the day. the day has been nothing but a pleasure for you, relaxing without a care in the world to be tended to as you sip on a home-made glass of chilled lemonade under the shade of your covered deck. enjoying the icy cold beverage, it quenches your thirst, moistens your parched throat, and cools you down. you look out across the breath-taking, well-planned, and well-kept landscape you call your backyard, embracing all its beauty. you allow yourself to feel proud for all the hard work you dedicated to tirelessly trimming tenable, dark green grass, planting massive, strong and leafy trees of green ash and american beech, tending bright, colored flowers of purple, blue, and yellow, sculpting eloquent fountains of angels and demons, and building the ornate, detailed patio you sit under . "What a perfect day! How grateful i am to experience life and all its beauties unadulterated," you think to yourself. then you notice that the clouds are shifting above thus blocking the harshness of the suns rays. being a native of the southeast, you know that these clouds are not as ambivalent as they seem to be, and that they mean that an afternoon thunderstorm is approaching. you decide to take advantage of the passing placidity of the clouds overhead and the cooling shade they bring to do some gardening before the storm hits. after lacing up the gardening boots and equipping the rest of your REI gardening gear you recently bought from the extra money you have from not using dope, you hop off your sheltered deck with confidence, and you enthusiastically open the door to the shed. before you have a chance to turn on the lights and get some bearing of your surroundings, you see a GIANT snake inside right at your feet!! so you scream and shout at the top of your lungs, your heart beats rapidly and you think you are about to die. all of the sudden the day has turned sour, and your mind begins to race with illogical thoughts.

"should i kill it, but how? what if i get bitten and go to the hosptial and possibly die? what about the pain i will have to endure? how will i make it through? or should i decide to run? but what about the next time i want to garden? how will i do it with a snake in there? how will i tend to my garden i worked so hard on if i cant get to my tools inside the shed? did i just waste all the time working on my garden for nothing? ahhh, whats the point anyways? i cant kill the snake because i am such a good for nothing coward!! there is no point anymore in my trying to keep my garden. even though i thoroughly enjoy gardening and working in the backyard and it brings me great joy unlike the joy drugs have ever brought me, i cannot face the snake because i am fat and stupid and slow. i am so dumb for even trying to keep a backyard like this. i am such a loser. what am i going to do with my time now? i might aswell go back to using drugs and living on the street!!!"

as soon as the situation begins, it ends. the sun breaks through the clouds and shines light into your shed. you realize that this snake was actually just a coiled up hose! "how silly!" you exclaim to yourself. after your heart resides to a nonchalant pace, your breathing returns to norm, and you gather your wits about you, you understand that the fears you created in your head were nothing more than incredulous thoughts and preconceived beliefs. nothing more, nothing less.


i find most of the problems that i face in my life are like this, yet some are dire as they seem. however, 95% of fears and problems i THINK i have are nothing more than a coiled up hose in the gardening shed.

never give up on yourself my friend, more people are looking out for you than you know. the TRUE YOU, not your ego, just wants to be loved, loving myself means to me just accepting the way i am, the way things are. i dont have to particularly like them per se, but just because i dont favor an outcome of a situation, or i dont favor traits that i have, or things i did, or said, or have resentments to what other people did or said to me, does not mean i cannot accept them for what they are. things are never just black and white, never either just good or just bad. you cant have good without the bad, and that is what i believe the epitome of sobriety to be. come as you are, love yourself, and let live!!

. so i will leave you with this quote from a song of a band i like, "We should learn to love ourselves before it is made illegal"



I have the same problem! I started using what started with prescription opiates like oxycodone, hydromorphone, Demerol, hydrocodone and ending up 2-3yrs later with the smoking 10 points (1g) east coast heroin/day or 10mg fentanyl the Duragesic brand which is now banned or very rarely prescribed. Unlike any other form of pharmaceutical fentanyl, Duragesic patches were *made* for smoking/shooting, literally one would push all this magic gel down to the bottom corner of the patch and cut one end of the topof this square looking patch of gooey gel. A small, tiny, match head sized amount placed on foil and used via chasing the dragon resulting in an instant powerful rush from the tip of ones toes to the top of ones head, with a feeling on your belly/stomach as if you are in the ocean or in the water and there are big waves splashing against your chest, massaging your every single cell in the body.

Even IV H users told me that even the rush from iv H is very close to the rush from smoking Duragesic type fentanyl, I've smoked other types like mylan fentanyl and its nowhere close to the rush achieved via Duragesic. After that I stopped and relapsed on poppy pods (80+ big sized 3x-4x day) when they were everywhere ebay & amazon included during which time I got ahold of a heroin connection for $30 a point/100mg or $230-$240/g, also another source had just about the same dope maybe *slightly* weaker than the first connection but almost undistinguishable for $150-4160/g and $20/point. I always either smoked 90%+ or snorted 10%+, never needles, usually smoking via chasing the dragon. First time I got 1 point it lasted me 3 days of being high nonstop from waking in the morning to going to sleep. Shortly it became 1 point per day and I *loved* the smell & taste of burning dope (still do), to me it smells what I imagine opium to smell like, a sweet flowery aroma that is very difficult to forget once you've had it or if you use a hollowed out pen/marker like I used to for inhaling but on the inside where the resin accumulates is very powerfully smelling and if scraped the resin is 3x-4x stronger mg/mg than normal dope.

Used to enjoy playing guitar, walking through nature, doing things of a psychedelic nature to connect with nature...not anymore I can't even work for my dads good paying job all I have to do is deal with the customer service and I can make very good money up to $200/day just sitting answering emails from my home, even that I don't have the motivation to do anymore. If I work I use everything I make, spend everything I make on drugs, if I don't work its the same thing just better that I don't have the money all the time forcing me to go on MMT at times.



hey no one cares how much fentanyl you smoke . and there are no price discussions. i am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are really high which is causing you to be extremely self-centered. your whole post is about how good the high is, this guy/girl is trying to get off heroin and does not need your graphic description of the opiate high thank you very much
 
^ awesome metaphor laCster and an all around genuine and beautiful message! much love
 
the anhedonia that comes from kicking opiates is the wort i have ever felt and it lingers for a long time, sometimes forever...ive been clean from opiates for over 7-8 years and still suffer from the general malaise/boredom.. like some have said it is a life sentence for many people..
 
remember, it is not about how many times you fall down, but about how many times you get back up.

i find most of the problems that i face in my life are like this, yet some are dire as they seem. however, 95% of fears and problems i THINK i have are nothing more than a coiled up hose in the gardening shed.

What a beautiful metaphor, I can definitely relate, I usually just need to step back and get some perspective.
As for enjoying normal life, I have such a problem with it too. I recently had almost five months completely clean off a 2-3g/day iv heroin habit, and I fell off. Fucked around for the last two months, and just decided to go back on subs. I have been chipping, going back and forth for the last two weeks. I do not want to use anymore! So I have decided to employ some of the things that worked for me during my clean time. Remember I am in no way saying this will work for everyone but this is what worked for me:
Number one is music. Music has a profound effect on me. Like Bob Marley said, "one good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain" and he was right. Find something you like, explore new options and Go See Live Music!
Another thing that seriously helped me is spirituality. I personally found a church that I like that has amazing music and really makes me feel a connection to God. I don't necessarily promote organized religion, but spirituality is a whole different thing. Meditation can help so much just in itself.
This ties into networking, whether it is through a church, or meetings (which I go to but dont really like much) I go to them because I need to be social and want to build a network of friends who are sober and can be there for me. There are organizations that are not 12 step, like recovery centers you can go to as well, but making new friends was essential to my sobriety.
Exercise in the form of working and just keeping busy by walking helps a lot too. I seriously would go down to the free breakfasts that then salvation army gives out in the mornings when I had nothing to do. Go to the library, look for free workshops or classes. I went to free resume building classes for lack of something to do. I found out I could get an discount to get into the art museum for very cheap. I just recently found free harmonica lessons, above all Stay Busy!! Get the heck out of your own head and your own way!
Sorry if this was super long, I hope it helped someone!
 
I'm still in limbo about what to do.. I've been on and off for 15 years now and I've only been using again for about 6 months but it feels like years. Maybe this move is what I needed yet without I still fill a void in my life. It also makes things harder when your wife is a user also. We both want sobriety but just can't get there... Ahhhhhh the delima..
 
Had to go away for three weeks to get it out of the system but seven years later and still think of it as my old best friend. It will always be there, just have to distract the mind. Smoke mj.
 
hello all folks just pm me with hi

I need someone to talk too about anything related to h or oc in terms of advice, i really need some advice im also thinking bout it right now. im desperate for help
 
There's been a lot of research showing that lab animals in a "stimulus-rich" environment do much better in recovery than animals in a boring environment. Probably sounds obvious, but it helps as a reminder that there's a scientific basis for the "get out and do something" spiel that everyone always says.

Even if you don't feel like it--and of course you don't feel like it--there's nothing better than being busy.

I've never been there myself, though, so I can't really help beyond that.
 
im on the same track right now too...fuck opiates it almost killed me...as a girl I like to get on my xbox and play far cry
 
hello all folks just pm me with hi

I need someone to talk too about anything related to h or oc in terms of advice, i really need some advice im also thinking bout it right now. im desperate for help

u should go to an NA meeting..
 
Top