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

In My Humble Opinion
81

My takeaway from this thread is that if someone is to be a heroin addict, the smart approach would be to buy a lifetime supply of heroin up front. What would that be, kilos? I don’t know, but with that on hand, 1. you don’t spend all that time and hassle chasing street dealers to score and 2. even if it is not pure, you can assure yourself of a consistent product.

You take your lifetime supply of heroin and sift it and mix it carefully and thoroughly. Now your chances of an OD just fell off a cliff- you are always shooting the same product so you always know what to expect. And you don’t go through the stress of freaking out about withdrawl- you have a lifetime supply already on hand, the planning part is all taken care of.

Like with so many other problems in life, a little financial/advance planning goes a long way. I blame the education system.

82

Fentanyl is so potent that you have no guarantees of an even mix using home methods.

That’s part of the recent increases in ODs, dealers are adding Fentanyl to heroin to increase potency at a cheaper cost.
The uneven mixing is causing the ODs.

83

I just don’t believe anyone who claims they take a potent narcotic and don’t get high from it, saying it just treats the pain and nothing else. Yeah it treats the pain very well, but you also feel damn good. You’re not somehow better than an opiate addict just because you got a prescription from a doctor. If he got the same meds as you he would take them in a heartbeat, and they achieve the same effect that heroin does (except your drug is actually more pure).

In the end it just comes down to moderating use and understanding that there is a consequence on the comedown/withdrawal. When you take it purely for the high and to treat non-physical pain, that price is usually not worth it. But when you’re in actual, physical pain (i.e. the reason it’s prescribed), it’s worth paying the price later to have the pain gone now.

84

This might be the dumbest idea I have seen in sixteen years lurking on this board. Seriously. The. Dumbest. Idea. Ever.

I’d guesstimate that a kilo would last an addict about two years, assuming use of 1.5 grams per day, with one large caveat that I will get to later. First of all, a kilo has a street value of roughly $200,000 USD. So even assuming you only have 20 more years to live, that’s ten kilos, with a total cost of two million. That needs to be in cash and up front.

So first you need a dude. Most street dealers are not going to tell you who their suppliers are. So you’re going to need to bribe a lot of people to find the guy who can set you up. This is the easy part.

Next, you need a posse of dudes with guns. Otherwise you’re not getting kilos of heroin, you are going to get shot and killed. It’s an illegal drug, and the person selling it to you is already breaking the law. There is nothing stopping him from breaking it more to make even more money. The exception is that if he thinks HE might get killed, because you have a bunch of dudes with guns backing you. You still might get killed, but it’s not guaranteed anymore.

Now that 2 million number is the street pricing. It might be as much as half price if you buy in big enough bulk, but as a one-time buyer you are not going to get much of a discount. I’m sure it’s much cheaper if you go to Afghanistan personally to get it. I’m also sure that given the amazing civil stability that Afghanistan is noted for, there’s no chance anything could go wrong with a westerner traveling with millions in cash to buy illegal drugs. If things go wrong, you can rest assured that you will enjoy the fine hospitality that Afghanistan prisons offer for many, many years.

So, let’s say you’ve got great big balls and millions in the bank to spare. You bribe your way to a connection, and get yourself ten kilos of pure, uncut H. Congrats, you have done nothing to eliminate your chance of overdose. On the other side, you have exponentially increased your chances of being robbed, shot or killed.

First of all, the overdose problem, which is the caveat I mentioned earlier. Most junkies use it till it’s gone and the money is gone. If you have an unlimited supply, I don’t think there is a human alive with the willpower to withstand the constant cravings. Sure, for a while you might be able to keep to together. Maybe even six months to a few years for those who have strong ties to the world, like children depending on them. Sooner or later though, the cravings will win. You’ll twist logic, deny reality, and do whatever you need to do to convince yourself that you can handle it. You’ll even believe it, right up until the point where you end up dead. This is what addiction does, and I have seen it happen.

However, that’s not your biggest problem in this scenario. Your biggest problem is that you have millions of dollars of drugs in your house, and too damn many people know about it. The black market is not as quiet as you would think. Your posse of guys with guns will talk. The people you bribed will talk. Anyone you “party” with will talk. It’s as inevitable as the tides. Best case scenario is that the cops show up with a warrant. Slightly worse are armed junkies. I won’t even go into worst case scenarios. I’ve seen what serious drug dealers will do to people who trespass on their “turf”, and it scares the fuck out of me.

So, yeah, this is a very, very bad idea on many, many levels.

I blame the education system too … but I suspect for very different reasons.

85

I have known heroin addicts- a few got clean, a few died by OD, and some got clean, relapsed and scored the wrong dose. Well, the ones in both of the last two groups died by OD.

I have also known heroin users who didn’t seem to get addicted. Tried it a few times and walked away.

86

That would definitely be the case for powdered fentanyl. Pharmaceutical fentanyl for injection is diluted at a standard concentration; some people also acquire it by removing it from discarded fentanyl patches, generally with a syringe, and that would be nearly impossible to standardize… A nurse in a local care facility was arrested a while back in my area for doing this; she got away with it for a long time and nobody suspected a thing until she left one of the patches out, with a small hole in it. Whoever found it knew what that meant, and an investigation was launched.

87

Interesting thread, I’ve often wondered if it’s possible to hide a heroin addiction.

I just ended a course of Percocet for four herniated discs, and thank Jeebus opiates exist. I was in agony for three months before being properly diagnosed by an excellent specialist. I’m now taking gabapentin, which has done miracles with nerve pain.

88

I don’t know. At various times in my life, after injuries and surgeries, I’ve been prescribed Vicodin, Percoset/Percodan, Tylenol 3, and who knows what else. Never Oxycontin, though. Maybe it wasn’t invented yet the last time I had a serious injury. And I’ve had morphine, in the hospital, for a few days after my worst injury (it was New Year’s Eve, no surgeons around, had to wait a few days for the necessary surgery).

Anyway, I never enjoyed it. Well, I enjoyed the pain relief, but I never got all the euphoria that recreational users are looking for.

Mainly, I took whatever was prescribed just when I needed some sleep. Or had to do a lot of walking, which could be quite painful.

And when the injury healed, I stopped taking the prescribed drug.

Maybe those medications aren’t what you mean by a “potent narcotic.” I don’t know. If that’s the case, then I guess my experience isn’t relevant.

89

The only time I had morphine was while I was passing a kidney stone in the ER. I was sitting up talking to the nurse as she administered it and I just kept talking and doing breathing exercises (similar to birthing ones… not that I was taught them other than from watching tv). She kept clicking and I kept talking and then breathing as the pain hit. Then I smiled and laid down.

A CAT scan later and then I peed the stone out (big enough I heard it ka-chink off the porcelain in the bowl).

That was when I found out my left kidney (where my infection stone had been 3 ESWL surgeries prior) was atrophied. The guy who did the scan was very, very concerned and let me know. And he was glad I had passed that large of stone without surgery, again.

Which led to a couple other tests and more surgery and I am now on daily antibiotics to keep my stone from growing (much… it grew 1 mm in 6 months while on the ABX).

But the morphine didn’t get me “high”. It just stopped the pain.

I’ve been high… higher than a kite. Legally and illegally.

Pain relief is a whole different thing and … well, that’s probably why it took so long to find what was causing my pain and sickness because it was the decades of “people seeking pain drugs” so I didn’t complain near enough. Because I didn’t want to be seen as “one of those people” because I am a person of color and a woman.

That and my stone type (infelicitous) is unusual for adults (but I probably had it since I was an uninsured kid).

90

Most people who take opiates have an experience comparable to yours. It sounds like you had the right drugs, at the right dosage, and they did what they were supposed to do and nothing more.

91

What happens when you get intradose withdrawals and have to up the dose? Did you build that into your schema?

You expect the product to be the same over the course of years? No degradation or change, no accidents?

You think that as an avowed lifetime heroin addict that you will not be subject to the psychology of having that much around and getting looser with your doses? Is your impulse control better when you’re high, or worse maybe? Hey I’m Superjunkie!

This is very naive.

That having been said I think that it is possible to manufacture fentanyl. This might be the path for a lifetime habit. But only because the life may not be very long.