Hello All,
I just read another news article about someone getting arrested for buying vicodin and percocets for recreational drug use. Can someone please explain how people get high from these pain killers? The reason I ask is that I have been on both (not at the same time, but have used both for breakthrough pain) and I have never gotten a buzz or high from their use. In fact, even on the morphine I have never felt anything close to a buzz or high. If I didn’t feel the pain subsiding I wouldn’t even have known that I had taken anything.
How many of these pills do they have to swallow in order to get a buzz? Of course they can’t be taking too many or their livers would shut down due to the high content of acetaminophen. Not looking to try to get high, just trying to understand what is the motivation behind it.
I have an addictive personality. I was given vicoden after my ovary burst. I got hooked for awhile.
The only thing that unhooked me was the constipation. I couldn’t solve that problem and it was unbearable.
To your question. One pill works for awhile. I do need higher dosages and more frequency. The buzz is hard to describe. Just relaxed. Not worried about things. A quiet mind.
Also, very frequently people don’t just down whole bottles of pills. They crush them and snort them, which gives you a higher concentration of the pain killer than is intended by the manufacturer and you get it all at once and you get it almost instantly.
That will make for a bad ass high much moreso than swallowing 10 of the damn things at once.
You are taking it for pain, you expect to feel pain relief from it. If you were to take the medication when you were pain-free, it may have a very different effect on you.
(To the OP): Are you saying vicodin/morphine/etc. doesn’t give you a relaxed, pain-free feeling? Or are you wondering why people would get addicted if it doesn’t give a ‘high’ like from marijuana or cocaine? If the former, then maybe those drugs don’t affect you that much - it seems to me that almost everyone I’ve known on a long-term drug regimen that includes painkillers will have some that work better for them than others. If the latter, then it’s more of what not what you’d expect said, I’d guess. They aren’t doing it to get ‘high’ but to feel good in a sedated way. Opium has been a popular drug to abuse for quite a long time, so it’s not just a “let’s try this new drug and see if it’s like the others” thing.
One thing you have to understand is that most people, when taking it for pain, take one or two. When you’re taking it for fun, you take more then that. In college, my friends and I, after some experimenting, found that for Vicodin or Tylenol 3, a good recreational dose was 5 pills (or 3 Percocets). I wasn’t a drinker, but a lot of them would add a beer into the mix as well (slowly and carefully).
If you’re hooked on them, you have to take more and more everyday. I found very quickly, that if I took 3 today and got a good buzz, I’d have to take 4 tomorrow to get maybe half the buzz. I’d imagine most hardcore addicts, the ones that end up getting really sick or winding up in rehab are probably taking 30+ over the course of a day, everyday…as opposed to 1-2 every 6 hours.
Also, if you are taking 1-2 every 6 hours for more then a day or two, you’re tolerance is going to build up very quickly. If you got little or no buzz after the first 2 pills, you’re really going to get nothing after you’ve been taking the same amount at the same intervals for 2 days.
The drugs take away the pain, but I don’t feel any side effects ie: high/buzz, relaxed feeling etc… As stated in my OP, if it didn’t take the pain away I wouldn’t even know that I had taken anything. A skittles has about as much effect as the drugs. Like I said, I have no desire to get high, just trying to understand why someone would choose these drugs.
OTOH one weekend I stopped taking the drugs cold turkey because I had a pain block injected into my back and we wanted to see the effect. It was a very painful weekend, but I didn’t seem to experience any withdrawl symptoms. I will admit I did get slightly clammy for a few hours, but other than that no withdrawls. I found that rather strange as I have been on the drugs everyday for 8 years.
Very interesting. How in the world did you and your friends keep from frying your liver? Especially since you (or they) drank booze with it, sound like a good way to wake up dead.
Because we didn’t live on Vicodin and alcohol. 5 Vicodins and a beer isn’t exactly a recipe for death and doing it once or twice a month for two semesters (which is probably what it averaged out to over the course of the year) isn’t going to destroy your liver.
Also, destroying your liver from the Tylenol in the Vicodin would take at least 4 grams (8 Vicodins) and IIRC death isn’t instant (you don’t wake up dead) it takes several days. I’m not sure how much a single beer would factor into it though. I suppose it would bring the 4 gram limit down a bit.
Just to add: one of the dangers of acetaminophen is it’s ubiquity in so many everyday OTC medicines and products, some that you would not even think of. This can lead easily to an overdose beyond that 4 grams given the right circumstances.
I’m well aware of that. In fact, in college I was the go to guy when it came to meds. Everyone always assumed I was going to be a pharmacist when I grew up.
What bothers me the most is how many people take Tylenol PM to help them fall asleep. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said “Ya know, the PM part of Tylenol PM is Benadryl…you can just take 2 Benadryls instead” A few days ago my sister mentioned that she took 2 Bendryls because of an allergic reaction to something that caused her to break out in hives on her arm and then she took two Tylenol PMs to help her fall asleep because the itching was driving her nuts. :smack:
There is a very simple way to separate the narcotic from the acetaminophen for recreational use. I won’t go into the details here, but if you must you can search for “cold water extraction” at your own peril.
I was given a prescription for Vicodin a few years ago after I broke my (dominant hand) wrist. It was right before Christmas, too, and I was stressed over the injury, the high number of limitations I had on what I could do, etc. After I took the first Vicodin, my wrist still felt like it hurt, but I noticed I wasn’t so stressed about it any longer, and in fact didn’t much care any longer.
Until 20 minutes later when suddenly I got a feeling of nausea in my mouth (not in my stomach), then ran to the bathroom to throw up.
But for 20 minutes I had lost a ton of anxiety, so I understood why someone might seek to escape feelings of stress/sadness/etc.
Edit: Acetaminophen and alcohol - I gather it’s much easier to harm your liver (if not necessarily die) if you only moderately up the alcohol intake. I was on a wine touring vacation when I got a terrible cold, and quickly realized that I had best watch out if I wanted to keep my liver intact, so I had to decide what to do. I opted to avoid all acetaminophen-containing cold medications, which is harder than you think if you are miserable and have multiple, tough cold symptoms. There have been times when I’ve been very sick with a cold that I’ve actually lost track of how much medicine I’ve taken out of desperation to sleep, and when - at times like that, I don’t drink anything.
Interesting as well. So would you say that those who take these meds to get high do so for a relaxing feeling vs. a high like from pot or from drinking. Those are the only two things that I have experienced that made me buzzed. Maybe that is why I can’t understand those wanting these meds. Perhaps the high they are seeking isn’t the high I am using for comparison.
That was just my first-timer experience on Vicodin, which is apparently pretty wussy for an opiate. Stronger opiate medications/dosages may have different effects.
Wikipedia seems to suggest that my feelings weren’t uncommon, though I don’t think I had euphoria per se. Sleepiness and a feeling of satisfaction, sure.
Vicodin not only doesn’t give me a buzz, I have had trouble getting to sleep when I’ve taken one, and then my dreams are more apt to be vivid and nightmarish. PLUS it makes me queasy. I avoid taking it unless I’m in a lot of pain.
But why would a drug ONLY give someone a buzz if they’re not taking it for pain? Is the idea that it works on pain receptors, and if there is no pain, instead of working on pain receptors, it somehow works on other parts of the neurological system instead to produce the buzz? I’d really like to know.
I would like to know this as well. It seems to me with the dosage that I am on I would be getting something. So, perhaps maybe because of my pain the pain receptors are “absorbing” all of the meds, leaving nothing for whatever receptors get you high.