I had a big dose of morphine at hospital, which is essentially the same high. It was just pure pleasure, and a feeling of incredible contentedness and well-being, but I could function fairly well, hold a conversation (albeit slowly), and would have been able to play guitar if there had been one there - and if I hadn’t been in agony from a twisted intestine.
I have tasted smack via skin popping a couple of times, and that pretty much describes my experience. I can’t say it was anything like alchohol, and definately not like pot. It was so good that I felt the pull and ran away from it.
I could concentrate on what I was doing, but everything else would kinda fade away. It was extremely pleasant.
If you/ve seen Pulp Fiction, Travolta’s depiction was, for me, pretty much what it was like.
I do believe that some artists, sometimes, were more creative when stoned. At first, at least. Graduating to junkie status is a different story.
Exactly!
The effects of heroin or other major narcotics aren’t similar to those of alcohol much at all, really, except either one can cause the user to fall deeply asleep. Opiate habitues are quite often capable of maintaining and scraping by in a way that few real serious drunks can manage,
FWIW, and for example,there’s this old friend of mine, let’s call him Mad-Dawg Jim, who’s a pretty ace poet, songwriter and player of blues and hard-rock guitar, of long standing and fierce talent, (though not much wealth nor fame). For the first dozen years I knew Mad-Dawg, he was also a drunk of some note. Later on his health started going downhill fast and so he detoxed, got away from the sauce…and promptly became a junkie, a change most of his friends didn’t disapprove of, because it is a lot less damaging to one’s health, and if Jim had kept on poundin’ the lush, he’d have been dead within a year.
To get to what you were asking about, Dmatsch: Anyone who’s heard this man Jim’s guitar playing much over the years would notice how much his whole way of axe-handling changed once he set down the bottle – he used to have sort of a crazed, reckless uninhibited style; now he plays with a lot more precision and nuance, and nowhere near as sloppy around the edges. Whether this is due more to laying down the bottle, his learning a new habit with its accompanying headspace, or a combination of the two, nobody can say, not even the man himself.
“Clean” heroin, that is with trash cut (mixed) in and used with some moderation, isn’t all that detrimental to one’s health. Not good, but not all that bad either. A friend, the guy who give me the taste referred to above, was a long-time casual user. He was a non-drinker. Didn’t like the payback from alchohol.
I might sound loke I’m advocating the use of heroin. Not true, I’m just saying. I believe in being truthful is all. From my experience (not personal) alchohol is one of the worse drugs, right up there with meth. But slower.
I feel that pot is beneficial to a lot of people, and does aid many artists.
Look at Willie Nelson! 
You’re right.
A couple more to add:
Brian Wilson
Dennis Wilson
See “Heroes And Villains” by Steven Gaines for particularly nasty details.
Billie Holiday
Charlie “Bird” Parker
You know, Brian Wilson did every drug known to exist, but Dennis Wilson was more of an alcoholic and Carl Wilson smoked like a chimney. So who is the only one still alive?
That’s very interesting. No wonder it’s such a dangerous drug.
Thanks all for the info. That’s a question that’s been eating me for some time now. I feel the ignorance leaving my being.
Elliott Smith was most definitely using heroin during the latter part of his career, as well as a variety of other hard drugs. You just have to look at recordings of live performances from the last couple of years of his life to see it… he was often so far gone that he’d forget his own lyrics.
He also more or less admitted to it in at least one other song besides “Needle” (“True Love”), and it’s not a secret that he spent some time in rehab shortly before his death (not that the two events are related).
Another name I haven’t seen listed so far is Trent Reznor. He’s been fairly open about his addiction to heroin and subsequent recovery, not that anyone listening to NIN would’ve had much doubt about what most of “Downward Spiral” was about.
Wow, nobody has mentioned the Ramones yet? Or Al Jourgensen from Ministry?