8 ms·

Heroin addiction is a difficult subject for me for personal reasons...in fact, I am currently on state probation for possession of it in 4 years ago. I become

by cubano 12y ago

Heroin addiction is a difficult subject for me for personal reasons...in fact, I am currently on state probation for possession of it in 4 years ago. I become addicted to numb the pain of my mother's passing and my 13 year marriage ending, although there is, of course, no excuse. It started with prescribed Oxycontin and progressed from there. "Why buy overpriced synthetic molecules designed not to really get you high when you can get the natural ones cheaper and feel better?" I can still remember my engineering-mind thinking. I have been off it now for about 3 years after getting clean, literally, on a cell floor in a county jail...cold turkey...the first time I ever successfully kicked it. After that, I checked myself into a South Florida inpatient rehab (called the Hanley Center...please, do yourself a favor and give them a call if you need help), and with the help of some amazing people, got better. I'm convinced the only reason I finally kicked was simply because there was no other option; jails have pretty much no supply of heroin. To this day I thank the stars for that county jail...it saved my life. The best way to summarize the experience was with a "joke" (it was no joke BTW) I came up with to try to explain how I felt near the end... What's the best thing about heroin? After you do it, you don't feel anything. What's the worse thing about heroin? After you do it, you don't feel anything.

MarkPNeyer 12y ago
congrats on getting clean. thanks for expressing this publicly and confidently.
last_call_x12 12y ago
Firstly, a really big well done for getting clean. That is no mean feat. The last two lines of your comment really rung true. I lost a dear friend a few years ago, in relation to a serious heroin addiction (it wasn't actually an overdose that killed him, but a cheap, adulterated bad 'dose'). I watched a confident person struggle to emerge, only to recede every time lift dealt a blow, and end up trying to find things to remove the pain he felt in life. I am glad that his story actually helped stop one more life being lost - I worked with someone who though life was all about experiences, after blissful weed, there was the high of cocaine, and finally he considered opiates. A trip to the grave, to the family left behind, to the doctors who actually tried to save my friend's life, worked. Sobered him up, so to speak.
- cubano 12y ago
  I empathize for your loss, and truly understand its pain from direct experience.
thatswrong0 12y ago
My girlfriend was recently prescribed Norco for a sore throat. I was flabbergasted. I don't know why you were prescribed Oxycontin, but there is definitely a problem with the way doctors prescribe drugs these days... prescription drugs kill more people than illegal drugs. And your kind of story is very common (my brother has / had a heroin addiction).
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Do prescription drugs kill more people relative to their popularity? With an branded pill like an Oxycontin 20mg, you know what you're getting. With assorted powders, you've got no idea and people are often too lazy to do test shots. Opiates themselves are relatively safe, with a fair therapeutic index. But taking random quantities of drugs seems like a poor idea all around.
  - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
    After personally meeting quite a few people (the unusual suspects...not teenagers) develop a serious addiction to the opiates that were prescribed to them... I would have to say we might want to reevaluate how things are done.
- sjf 12y ago
  Opiates are the most effective cough suppressants, I'm guessing that was the reasoning behind it.
  - patzerhacker 12y ago
    Cough suppression is one of the first things that heroin was marketed for: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--k12ZMisi--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/18p5js1ac32mcgif.gif http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--k12ZMisi...
  - crpatino 12y ago
    You don't prescribe cough-suppressing opiates for a soar throat, the same way you don't prescribe a guillotine for headache. Cough is a symptom, meaning there is a problem in the patient's respiratory system the doctor should be looking into. Suppressing it is the equivalent of pasting a post it with a happy face over the fuel gauge when the needle is approaching the Big-Red-E.
zeidrich 12y ago
My feeling when it comes to addiction is that it becomes a comforting or at least comfortable thing. When we feel stress, we tend to act irrationally, in a way that comforts us or puts us into a more comfortable situation. If someone is irritating you, you yell at them, not because yelling initially comforts you, but because when you yell at them, maybe they go away. That behavior though starts to change your perception, and soon just yelling at people on its own starts to make you feel more comfortable. Even if yelling at people doesn't make them go away or reduce your stress, you're not acting rationally, your brain is basically taking the shortcut to what it has learned long ago will make it go away. Drug addiction works similarly, except especially with something like heroin, it gets special teeth. You stop, and not only does stress trigger your compulsion to seek that comfort, even if you're not otherwise feeling stress, you now start to feel pain, or fear feeling pain from withdrawal symptoms. The article talks about changing environments, and I absolutely agree, but I think a big thing that's overlooked is that these people have been taken out of one of the most horrible warzones, and brought back home. There's a big relief of stress from that. Adding back the fact that you're no longer around the people who used, the places you got your drugs, and the things that made you think about wanting to do it definitely helps. But if you come back to a more or less safe and stable life from being in a hellish situation, you would be less driven to take it up again. On the other hand, had they transferred you to a different unit in Afghanistan instead of sending you home, even if you lost all of those environmental cues, I bet you would see more relapse just because you're in a highly stressful situation. Congratulations on getting clean. I agree there's no excuse, but I also don't think you need to worry about whether there is an excuse. Stressful situations like you had to endure do make it more likely. It happened to you. It's a cycle that is hard to break. You got help and managed to break it. The fact that you became addicted isn't a failing, it's just an incident. It's more like you can say "I saw that side of the world, and I have to be careful to stay away from it." instead of being naive and thinking it couldn't happen to you. It's a part of your life now. It's not good or bad, but you've seen a part of how our mind works that some other people haven't, and maybe hope they never have to.
- cubano 12y ago
  My feeling when it comes to addiction is that it becomes a comforting or at least comfortable thing. Yes. The article talks about changing environments, and I absolutely agree A huge part of the inpatient treatment program had to do with an extended aftercare and halfway-house plan for up to two years. Since my addiction occurred mostly out West, being back "home" had much the same effect, so I was able to skip the half-way house (but of course not the aftercare) The state-of-the-art in addiction care completely recognizes the absolute importance in removing addicts from their environments.
threeways 12y ago
There is, of course, no excuse. Love will set you free. It's taken me a long time to find the kind of love for myself that allowed me to live. I hope with all my heart you find it, brother.
- cubano 12y ago
  Thank you for that, brother, and your wisdom on this issue shines brightly.
mathattack 12y ago
Congrats for getting unhooked (and saving your life) and thank you very much for sharing the story. It may be hard, but it helps others.
wmt 12y ago
I can't find the source right now, but what I've learned of heroin is that most people could actually safely try it out, and it would likely cause nothing but some mild discomfort. The people who end up wanting to keep using heroin are typically those who don't have their life in order due to heavy stress, sadness or something similar. The thing that heroin does is that it makes even the shitty moments feel not-shitty, and doesn't really get you wasted like many other drugs. I'm not surprised that soldiers in a war might seek comfort from heroine, but once they return to their normal lives they no longer need heroine to help make life feel okay again.

by cubano 12y ago

MarkPNeyer 12y ago

congrats on getting clean. thanks for expressing this publicly and confidently.

last_call_x12 12y ago

Firstly, a really big well done for getting clean. That is no mean feat. The last two lines of your comment really rung true. I lost a dear friend a few years ago, in relation to a serious heroin addiction (it wasn't actually an overdose that killed him, but a cheap, adulterated bad 'dose'). I watched a confident person struggle to emerge, only to recede every time lift dealt a blow, and end up trying to find things to remove the pain he felt in life. I am glad that his story actually helped stop one more life being lost - I worked with someone who though life was all about experiences, after blissful weed, there was the high of cocaine, and finally he considered opiates. A trip to the grave, to the family left behind, to the doctors who actually tried to save my friend's life, worked. Sobered him up, so to speak.

cubano 12y ago
I empathize for your loss, and truly understand its pain from direct experience.

thatswrong0 12y ago

My girlfriend was recently prescribed Norco for a sore throat. I was flabbergasted. I don't know why you were prescribed Oxycontin, but there is definitely a problem with the way doctors prescribe drugs these days... prescription drugs kill more people than illegal drugs. And your kind of story is very common (my brother has / had a heroin addiction).

MichaelGG 12y ago
Do prescription drugs kill more people relative to their popularity? With an branded pill like an Oxycontin 20mg, you know what you're getting. With assorted powders, you've got no idea and people are often too lazy to do test shots. Opiates themselves are relatively safe, with a fair therapeutic index. But taking random quantities of drugs seems like a poor idea all around.
- UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
  After personally meeting quite a few people (the unusual suspects...not teenagers) develop a serious addiction to the opiates that were prescribed to them... I would have to say we might want to reevaluate how things are done.
sjf 12y ago
Opiates are the most effective cough suppressants, I'm guessing that was the reasoning behind it.
- patzerhacker 12y ago
  Cough suppression is one of the first things that heroin was marketed for: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--k12ZMisi--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/18p5js1ac32mcgif.gif http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--k12ZMisi...
- crpatino 12y ago
  You don't prescribe cough-suppressing opiates for a soar throat, the same way you don't prescribe a guillotine for headache. Cough is a symptom, meaning there is a problem in the patient's respiratory system the doctor should be looking into. Suppressing it is the equivalent of pasting a post it with a happy face over the fuel gauge when the needle is approaching the Big-Red-E.

zeidrich 12y ago

My feeling when it comes to addiction is that it becomes a comforting or at least comfortable thing. When we feel stress, we tend to act irrationally, in a way that comforts us or puts us into a more comfortable situation. If someone is irritating you, you yell at them, not because yelling initially comforts you, but because when you yell at them, maybe they go away. That behavior though starts to change your perception, and soon just yelling at people on its own starts to make you feel more comfortable. Even if yelling at people doesn't make them go away or reduce your stress, you're not acting rationally, your brain is basically taking the shortcut to what it has learned long ago will make it go away. Drug addiction works similarly, except especially with something like heroin, it gets special teeth. You stop, and not only does stress trigger your compulsion to seek that comfort, even if you're not otherwise feeling stress, you now start to feel pain, or fear feeling pain from withdrawal symptoms. The article talks about changing environments, and I absolutely agree, but I think a big thing that's overlooked is that these people have been taken out of one of the most horrible warzones, and brought back home. There's a big relief of stress from that. Adding back the fact that you're no longer around the people who used, the places you got your drugs, and the things that made you think about wanting to do it definitely helps. But if you come back to a more or less safe and stable life from being in a hellish situation, you would be less driven to take it up again. On the other hand, had they transferred you to a different unit in Afghanistan instead of sending you home, even if you lost all of those environmental cues, I bet you would see more relapse just because you're in a highly stressful situation. Congratulations on getting clean. I agree there's no excuse, but I also don't think you need to worry about whether there is an excuse. Stressful situations like you had to endure do make it more likely. It happened to you. It's a cycle that is hard to break. You got help and managed to break it. The fact that you became addicted isn't a failing, it's just an incident. It's more like you can say "I saw that side of the world, and I have to be careful to stay away from it." instead of being naive and thinking it couldn't happen to you. It's a part of your life now. It's not good or bad, but you've seen a part of how our mind works that some other people haven't, and maybe hope they never have to.

cubano 12y ago
My feeling when it comes to addiction is that it becomes a comforting or at least comfortable thing. Yes. The article talks about changing environments, and I absolutely agree A huge part of the inpatient treatment program had to do with an extended aftercare and halfway-house plan for up to two years. Since my addiction occurred mostly out West, being back "home" had much the same effect, so I was able to skip the half-way house (but of course not the aftercare) The state-of-the-art in addiction care completely recognizes the absolute importance in removing addicts from their environments.

threeways 12y ago

There is, of course, no excuse. Love will set you free. It's taken me a long time to find the kind of love for myself that allowed me to live. I hope with all my heart you find it, brother.

cubano 12y ago
Thank you for that, brother, and your wisdom on this issue shines brightly.

mathattack 12y ago

Congrats for getting unhooked (and saving your life) and thank you very much for sharing the story. It may be hard, but it helps others.

wmt 12y ago

I can't find the source right now, but what I've learned of heroin is that most people could actually safely try it out, and it would likely cause nothing but some mild discomfort. The people who end up wanting to keep using heroin are typically those who don't have their life in order due to heavy stress, sadness or something similar. The thing that heroin does is that it makes even the shitty moments feel not-shitty, and doesn't really get you wasted like many other drugs. I'm not surprised that soldiers in a war might seek comfort from heroine, but once they return to their normal lives they no longer need heroine to help make life feel okay again.