Heroin addicts... do some of them lead "normal" lives?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I’m a former heroin addict. I was considered less hardcore than most, as I’m not big on needles and mostly smoked H. I’ve met more than a few other addicts along the way. Far more than you would think live very normal lives. I’d bet money that most people have met one in their life and never noticed. If we expand the discussion to include people who abuse proscribed opiates, I’d guarantee it.

Also, pretty much everything CosmicManiac has said about H is wrong. Your pupils don’t dilate, they constrict on opiates (also called miosis). Also, heroin isn’t a poison, it’s a psychoactive drug. Like every drug ever, it’s the dose that makes the poison.

And speaking of the dose, if you put $80 worth of H in your arms, it’s game over. That’s about a half a gram in my parts, and unless your tolerance is quite high or you weigh 400 lbs, that’s a lethal dose. The tolerance is a huge part of what makes H so dangerous to use. Once you’ve used long enough to drive up your tolerance, the line between euphoria and death is razor thin. Combine that with it being impossible to accurately know how strong the drug you are using is, and it gets real scary, real fast.

62

Might I ask you why you did heroin? I am one of the dopers who is in a pain control situation [opioids] so as long as I am doing the correct dosing it doesn’t do anything except moderate my chronic pain enough to let me move. I do remember how wonderful it was getting morphine [broken back and assorted injuries] but I didn’t like the effects of being effectively braindead and asked to be off it way before they would have normally tapered me off. I can’t imagine wanting to do morphine recreationally to be honest …

63

While we await that Crazy Canuck, let me mention that I’ve had recreational experience with various opioids and found the experience (too) pleasant. Imagine all your pain being gone, even pain you didn’t even realize you had. Physical, emotional, whatever, kinds of pain. All gone.

That’s why I liked it and also why I seldom travel that road today.

64

As a little sidetrack, Kayaker’s comment makes me realize that I have known several heroin users, but none of them were heroin only users. They all had drugs of choice, but would use whatever they could get a hold of when a fix was desired.

65

Many, many, many heroin addicts use cocaine to counteract the heroin’s sedative effects. I’ve known many heroin addicts who were also cocaine addicts. Heroin to get feeling euphoric and sleepy…Cocaine to lift them up out of that stupor…Heroin to bring them back down. And on and on.

66

My childhood best friend was married for years to a heroin addict. he managed the family grocery store and did a fine job as long as he was able to get his drugs. He did this for at least 12 years before he started methadone, and I believe 25 years later he’s still doing the same job. I don’t know if he ever got off the drugs though.

He worked fine but he was a mess any other time. I don’t know how he did it. He drank a lot of beer too, like a couple of those 12 packs a day but as soon as that alarm went off he was like a robot. I don’t even know if customers knew because he was just a regular ol’ business-casual grocery store manager.

67

Short Answer: I was a coward, trying to commit slow suicide in the most pleasant manner possible.

The longer and much more depressing answer:
I should point out that at this point I wasn’t just doing heroin, I was drinking, smoking or snorting anything I could get my hands on. My life was in a very bad place. In the year previous, I had lost everything and everyone I cared about. I didn’t care if I lived or died.

Then, one day out of the blue, a buddy invited me to come over and try something new. I didn’t even know what it was until I arrived. I’ll remember that first hit forever. All the pain went away. The self-hatred went away. The anger went away. All the negative emotions I was going through where gone, replaced with pure euphoria. I was floating on a cloud of happy, and while I was there nothing could hurt me. Until it was over …

Even if heroin was only as physically addictive as pot (and it most definitely is not) just the feelings (or lack therefore of) might have hooked me. But this was more than that. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I wanted to live. The problem was that I just wanted to live so I could smoke more heroin.

And so I did. For many months, I used every day. The cash ran out in the first month, so I started shoplifting. I convinced myself that I wasn’t a thief, but a modern day robin hood, stealing from the rich to feed my poor habit. That was a lie, but if the voices in the back of my head wouldn’t shut up, I could shut them up with more drugs. I continued down the spiral, and my memories get fuzzy. I think it was four or five months in when I found myself on the street. I remember being happy it was spring, so I could sleep outside and stop paying even a minuscule amount of rent and buy more heroin.

Eventually, I hit bottom in the worst way. I quit cold-turkey on the spot, which was probably not the best plan, as I ended up in the hospital and almost died. I have to thank an amazing doctor who saw a person in pain, and treated me like a person, not like a sub-human junkie parasite like most did. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here today. I got into a treatment program, and I began the oh-so-slow process of rebuilding my life.

I’ve not touched an opiate in over three years now. I still dream about it sometimes.

68

Yes, opiates are just so damn good that they’re too good. It’s a shame to know such a pleasant human experience exists, but cannot be had without paying a pretty awful price on the comedown/withdrawal afterwards.

69

Very succinct.

70

About two years ago, I was sitting around thinking about a girl I went to school with. We hadn’t talked in probably 10 years, at least. Being a normal adult, I looked her up on social media and asked how she had been doing. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Finished school at a university nearby, had been married for a few years, was staying at home while he worked, was very friendly still, seemed a lot like I was talking to the same girl I remembered from when we were kids.

After a few months, there was an out of the blue conversation around Halloween. Her husband and her split up. It seemed sudden, but I didn’t know him, maybe he was nuts? From time to time over the next few weeks, I sent her job listings, helped her with interview advice, all that type of stuff. She landed a pretty sweet job in middle management at the university nearby. Figured I was hearing less from her because she was doing well. Then, she posted something about “Taking a break from Facebook” – not entirely out of the normal.

A few weeks later, her sister posted that she was doing well and wanted to let everyone know that. I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. Then, after more time passed, she was back.

She had been at a residential facility and getting clean. I’m not sure how long she was using heroin before, but apparently for quite a while. She’s now been clean for over a year. Often, I think about how surprising that all was. I mean, I am not the brightest crayon, but it was just a complete shock that she was as stable in life as she was and no one had any idea.

It does happen.

71

Does a heroin addict ever stop being addicted to it? I work with a guy who doesn’t use heroin anymore. He went through treatment for the addiction and is now on one of those alternative-to-heroin drug therapies. Last week me and another coworker had to drive him and his car home because something went haywire with his meds and he could barely stay awake for the drive to the other side of the parking lot.

72

As a society, it seems as though people who take illegal drugs are called ‘addicts’ while those who take legal drugs or socially acceptable drugs, are for the most part not judged in the same way.

Not all heroin users are ‘addicts’ in the same way not all alcohol users (sounds weird) are addicts. Although, obviously a larger percentage of heroin users will be addicts compared to alcohol, it’s not a one size fits all logic, and every person is different.

Whether it’s heroin, alcohol or any other substance - there are people out there who are capable of managing their usage.

An easy way of thinking about this is to compare those who can open a packet of chocolate biscuits and only eat 2, with those who after the seal is broken, just devour the lot in a single sitting.

Personally, I struggle with the former… and will happily eat a packet of anything just because it’s there - however, that doesn’t mean I’m fat. In the same way some people can limit themselves to just 2 compared to those who finish off the packet, there are people who can eat the lot but keep their waistline in check, and others who just keep putting on weight (obviously eating a whole packet doesn’t help).

So yeh, there’s heroin users out there who know what they’re doing. They know about the drug, its effects and risks, what they can handle, what they can afford, how to live a healthy and productive life, and most importantly… how to avoid detection.

You can’t find them, because it’s like trying to prove a negative.

Gerard Depardieu reportedly used to drink around 14 bottles of wine a day… but you wouldn’t look at him and think ‘oh, yeh, he’s definitely drinking more than 5 bottles a day’, not unless he was perma-hammered, but even then, you’d just assume he’s had a few too many down the pub.

73

Yup.

One of my aunts may be a high functioning alcoholic. She managed to hold down a middle class job for several decades but time is catching up to her rather quickly now. For her it is going to be her health in some way - a lifetime of drinking that much has surely done some non-trivial damage that is likely to shorten her life a bit. Either that or she will get involved in some alcohol-related car crash.

I don’t understand this statement? What is the difference between a reason and an excuse? Are you saying that they would use drugs anyway even if they did not have a stressful job, etc., or are you saying that having a stressful job, etc. should not be considered a socially acceptable reason for drug use even if some people use it as a reason?

74

i was responding to the post above mine that intimated that stressful jobs had more than their share of addicts. stressful jobs dont make addicts, addicts say “i’m an addict because my job is stressful.”
a reason is a cause, an excuse is an attempt to lessen the blame attaced. i’m saying that addicts will give any reason they can think of not to take responsibility for their actions.
there are myriad reasons why someone becomes an addict and some of these are not (or are very little) in their control, but external factors such as job or class or status, etc are not reasons.

mc

75

I think I just found the reason I’m getting so much crap in my MD Ethics thread…

Opioids (including opiates) can cause euphoria - or so I’m told.
I have been using increasing dosage/strength opioids since 2005, when my right shoulder stated it wanted a divorce. Loudly and for a bit over a year.

I was recently hospitalized for “Morphine OD”.

Now - upon reading that statement, what was your mental image (I’m an old white guy with brown beard and pony tail, if that helps)?

Wrong. the morphine was started in 2009 and took until 2/16/17 to try (and very nearly succeeded) to kill me.
I have kidney failure. Morphine, it turns out, is a very bad drug for kidney patients.
The morphine was used as prescribed my a licensed (and employed by the State of California) MD.

On a total of 11 times from 4/2005 - 2/2017, I had a psychotropic reaction to vicodin (hydrocodone) dilaudid (hydromorphone) or morphine.

This just may be why, after several thousand years and development of 100’s of pain control techniques and drugs, opiates are still prescribed and used safely.

IOW: use of opiates does not ALWAYS cause misery.

If you want giggles and history: Heroin was created and hailed as “Salvation for Opium Addicts”. Which may explain why Methadone was not universally regarded as “Salvation for Heroin Addicts”.
If heroin were manufactured to the same standards as methadone, would there be any reason for methadone? You are just (again) substituting one disabling addiction for another.

Had my kidneys been up to it, I would still be using it (my PCP is in deep shit for prescribing high-dose morphine to a known kidney patient and never even running a blood test*).

    • she will say “I sent him to Nephrology - they should have found the problem”.
      Nephrology will say “He was HER patient, SHE prescribed it, it is HER problem, not ours”.
      (yes, I do suspect a court will get to decide)
76

opiates (any of them) should NOT be used for chronic pain! the problems arising from long term use are often worse the the original problem. the reason theyre so good for acute cases (such as after surgery and for musculature injuries) is they allow the patient to sleep. and sleep is where the bodies restorative powers shine! however, their soporific effects will lessen over time requiring larger and larger doses to achieve the desired effects at the great cost of undesired problems.

mc

77

Yeah - we have noticed that (me and about 5 MD’s involved).

I will attempt to just put this out there without being a lightening rod:

I have high tolerance for all CNS depressants. They just don’t work.

Before the OA developed, I had found exactly two drugs which would control serious pain for me.
That is the important paprt - for me.

Vicodin and demerol (which is used for post-surgical patients) were the only ones.

I have been prescribed Gabapentin (a wonderful drug for nerve-based pain. Not so good with bone) by 3 MD’s who really, really did not want to believe it would take an opioid to control pain.

I would love to be able to go to the store, buy a bottle of OTC pills and live happily ever after. Given the hell that getting a controlled substance involves now, I would really, really love it.

It is just that I’m not wired that way.

78

Yes, yes there would be a use for it.

In fact, there is a use for methadone already beyond treatment addiction. You see, heroin runs through your system relatively quickly, 4-6 hours or thereabouts. Methadone takes a lot longer to be processed, up to 72 hours. For people with extreme pain - terminal cancer patients, for example - methadone can be used to maintain a steady level of pain relief, with another shorter-acting painkiller for “breakthrough” pain and spikes of discomfort.

In theory you could have someone on a regular dose of methadone (which, being long-acting, doesn’t have to be taken often) and use heroin for breakthrough pain. If heroin was legal. Which it actually is in some countries, and used therapeutically for terminal patients.

And, strictly speaking methadone treatment is NOT intended to get the patient high, or be disabling. It’s to stave off withdrawal to enable the person to work on solving the problem(s) that lead to addiction/abuse in the first place and, given the long acting nature, can do this job with a once-a-day dose instead of a 4 times a day dosing.

Does it work? Sometimes. It is NOT a cure all and is not suitable for all addicts. Many people can eventually “detox” off the methadone. Some can’t, but frankly if giving them a daily dose of methadone reduces the harm done by their addiction, enabling them to hold down a normal job, avoid crime, etc. I’m OK with using it for harm reduction. I am opposed to using it as a cure-all, mandating it as a treatment as part of criminal sentencing, or holding it out as a miracle cure which is most certainly is not.

Of course, there are people who are methadone addicts who abuse it terribly just like other drugs can be abused.

79

vicodin is acetaminophen with hydrocodone (synthetic codeine) if used long term, youre better off with just acetaminophen (tylenol),
demeraol is just hydrocodone a medium analgesic with high tolerance aspects. demerol and vicodin are (shoud be) prescribed in short terms (less than 3 month) dosages. after that it starts to build up in your system and becomes less and less effective.

mc

80

Yes. Methadone is prescribed for pain relief.