I was watching this documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zllQkXfrjAk& and it made me curious to why people chase after this drug. I figured r/drugs might know.
The lengths people go to get this drug amaze me. Is it the pure addiction that drives the chase? Or is it an amazing feeling?
-Thanks in advance
Posted Feb 15, 2010, 10:54 AM UTC
the thing with drugs is there is no possible way to properly explain what it is like to be on the drug. the only way to know is to do it
Well that depends on what side of the fence you stand. But realistically speaking, you speak the truth.
People compare it to orgasm. That's not quite right.
You know the warm afterglow feeling you get after great sex? Imagine that but soo much more intense. So intense that it overwhelms your mind and makes consciousness impossible.
That's the only thing I've experienced in life that it's comparable to.
lol i wouldnt say its like that... i just go for the rush and that feels like an upper that slows me down... but i also fall asleep to adderal lol
Well, there is a delicious wait between the injection and the rush, maybe 20-30 seconds of anticipation. Then you start sweating, and a feeling somewhere between nausea and orgasm grabs you. It's a bit like that feeling you get on the top of a roller coaster - then the sudden plunge. It's quite a feeling. The initial rush doesn't last very long - maybe a few minutes, but it's very intense. It is also intensified if you are a regular user and were suffering from withdrawal symptoms - sort of like an ugly cold and exhaustion. Then on top of the rush you have RELIEF, which is also very powerful.
I was a regular user for nearly 2 years in the 1990's and have been clean for 15 years now. Although I occasionally miss it, it was truly a living hell overall. Be careful, it is very addictive; I was driving 160 miles round-trip two or three times a week to score.
This is a documentary about the homeless in Vancouver, BC. It's made by a guy from UBC. Towards the end he tries crack and heroin for the first time.
http://hypebeast.com/2010/02/streets-plenty-vancouvers-downtown-homeless/
saved
The guy in that video described the comedown as little ants hatching under his skin. Is this usual? I've heard about it before, but I thought that was with detox.
Yeah thats not normal at all.
I imagine it's because opiates cause you to itch.
Here's an addict in that film talking about it.
Pretty compelling documentary.
Wow that was awesome. I can't believe that got smoked rock and shot dope. Mad props. Was this already posted on reddit somewhere?
It becomes, as William Gibson put is so eloquently, a hardwired pathology where you soon must do it to avoid atrocious suffering. Pleasure evaporates quickly as the habit takes hold and befor you know it, you are staving off illness.
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And remember that no struggle for pleasure has ever been as energetic as the struggle to get away from the pain.
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Thank you! I have never dared to mess around any stimulants or opiates as I was scared shitless but I have seen what it did to people I held dear.
I'm tempted to call this a stupid question. One which is asked by someone who just doesn't know any better. I don't mean to be insulting, it's just that I don't think a non-user, let alone a non-addict, could ever truly grasp what a fix "feels" like.
All your life, you've been told that consuming a drug at a particular dose equals an appropriate physiological response in the body i.e.; people take drugs to "feel" high. But in reality, the truth is far more complicated.
Heroin, in the words of William Burroughs, is a lifestyle. As an addict, you don't take heroin to get "high" or to "feel" good. Nor do you take heroin to merely avoid getting sick. Instead, you consume heroin to simply live. Taking a hit eventually becomes a ritual for balancing the books between periods of happiness and suffering.
So-called "normal" people spend their days doing the same thing, they just aren't as focused as your committed opiate addict is to the inherent essence of human life. Their struggle to avoid suffering and find happiness is fought on multiple fronts. They have to cope with material consumerism, family, love, work, social obligations, and the whole myriad of elements that constitute "modern life." But this is not so for a true junky. We've moved beyond struggling for happiness on multiple fronts and instead we've chosen a different and singular existential avenue.
Thus, taking a hit of heroin is like reducing life to its most base and fundamental essence. Taking a hit of heroin is a testament to the user's commitment to be of this world, while not being a functional part of it. Taking a hit is life distilled, without any of the mess that actually comes with living.
speaking of William S. Burroughs, OP should read Junky.
Naked Lunch too.
That is fairly accurate IMO
It's an amazing feeling, but the chase is primarily the addiction. I've only done it five times, in a span of 2 weeks. Great time, but I immediately stopped when I started thinking about it too much.
I have never tried it, but in the movie "Rush" someone described it as like "floating on a cloud of titties" ... I always liked the sound of that
Ive been a heavy user for 2 years, with a break in between, this was a while back, and yes, this explanation works pretty well.
I think instead of sending people to jail, we should be finding medical miracles to fully get rid of withdrawals within a matter of hours and permanently. Now that would be a proper use of funding compared to simply supporting people in prison to be raped and ruined for outside life.
How about Ibogaine?
Where does that grow hair on you?
Seriously, I don't see anything about it preventing withdrawal symptoms, which are the worst part of quitting an opiate IMO. Even Tramadol, which is as mild an opiate as they get has some of the most gnarly withdrawal symptoms I have ever experienced.
I do think it would be interesting as a part of a cure for addiction though, or administered with the drugs as a way to prevent addiction in the first place.
The most-studied therapeutic effect of ibogaine is the reduction or elimination of addiction to opioids.[1] An integral effect is the alleviation of symptoms of opioid withdrawal.
That's pretty cool and seems like a good place to start. No wonder it is a scheduled drug. It would make life easier for drug users, which is strictly against the social conservatives' code of arbitrary punishment. ...and since most authorities are so-cons...
Granted it's from fiction -
"Take the best orgasm you've ever had... multiply it by a thousand, and you're still nowhere near it." - Mark "Rent-boy" Renton
Had to down vote this. I can't disagree with the orgasm euphemism more. On paper, an orgasm and a heroin "rush" my seem similar, but IMO it really couldn't be more different. The rush of heroin feels like coming over the top of the first hill on a roller coaster, then starting the big drop. Your whole body starts to tingle and you get butterflies in your stomach. It really is almost impossible to describe it, but it is the best physical sensation that the body can have. You can't compare it to sex or orgasm because sex is a mix of physical and emotional pleasure while heroin/opiates are just physical. Any emotional pleasure you get from opiates is a facade. Its hollow, fake, meaningless. Its not true emotional pleasure - its apathy.
It sounds like a good time, yet it scares the everliving shit out of me.
Its a great time, and its hard for me to believe that people go their entire life without experiencing pure opiate bliss. The scary thing is that you can get something that is on point with heroin (no pun intended) from your doctor or on the internet. After using just about every opiate/opioid known to man, I must say that heroin does not deserve the reputation it has garnered over the years.
Chances are you have some opiates lying around your house. If you're curious, that is a good place to start. It could be anything from codeine cough syrup to t3s to Vicodin or Percocets from a surgery or broken bone.
If you go through your medicine cabinet, here are the active ingredients you want to look for:
Tramadol, Codeine, Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Hydromorphone, Oxymorphone, Methadone, Morphine.
What can be obtained over the Internet that is equivalent to heroin but isn't illegal?
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I would take some morphine over heroin any day.
Almost exactly this.
yes, I strongly agree with the roller-coaster drop sensation. it's like you rapidly ascend/descend an elevator into a warm bath or a sunny day. though, in my opinion, these effects are not so radical as to really explain the alleged addiction-potential of the drug. it seems like people have idiosyncratic responses in terms of how spectacular or desirable that effect is to then.
More like you grow to dislike living without that feeling.
I totally agree. An orgasm rush is something you get off of a nice MDMA peak. Heroin is slow and tender.
Had to down vote this. I can't disagree with the language technique you have chosen more. On paper, a euphemism and a metaphor "literary technique" my seem similar, but IMO it really couldn't be more different. The technique of a simile is like coming over the top of the first hill on a roller coaster, then starting the big drop. Your whole imagination starts to tingle and you get butterflies in your stomach. It really is not impossible to describe it, but it is one of the best literary techniques that the mind can have. You can't compare it to a metaphor because euphemisms are a mix of metaphor and innuendo. Any physical pleasure you get from euphemisms is a facade. It's hollow, fake, meaningless. It's not true physical pleasure - it's figurative.
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Tried it once. Scared the crap ou
t of you?
knockin it down, i love reddit
setting it up
Stealing for one good rush - Day in - Day out. But you never get as high as that first rush.
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I had to chuckle when you commented that needles are "way out" for you. We always think this, and more often than not, in fact the vast majority of the time, people break that barrier. Same thing happened to me and so many I know. http://imgur.com/ZyG7d This conversation reminded me of that pic, which I will post in this subreddit, I feel it's very accurate.
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it sets the "feeling-awesome" parameter to 1000%.
And some usage, the normal state of being will be continuously reduced.
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For the snorting, it really depends on the type of heroin. The only time I've tried H was up the nose. It was brown dope from NYC and I was out for twelve hours easy. Greatest half day of my life, I must say.
The best way I can explain it's effects on me is, it's like the feeling when your high on speed, and you inhale a ciggy - that feeling you have (that's lasts under a second) when it hits your lungs. Isolate that feeling, multiple it, extend it's duration and that's essentially how it makes me feel. The speed was just an example since I may have had some today already...
Is it like Vicodin but stronger?
yes, but using a syringe makes the comeup so much faster that it's a gratification of its own, and one that in the opinion of myself and most others, is better than the actual high itself.
Woohoo! Upvoted for pertinent Velvet Underground quotation.
Upvoted for finest upvoting.