The Discomfort Thread

Quote: rxwine

Was never quite sure what you meant by this.

I'm sorry. I do realize that my style of discourse can be annoying particularly to Paco and Face. I do not mean to be so "stream of consciousness".

My 'addicted to the needle, not the drug' is meant to reflect that what the addict craves is control over his life. He jabs a needle and that is the reward he fixates on.

Quote: rxwine

Are you saying you can dose with heroin 24/7 daily for a month and quit?

Some would have no trouble. Some would.
A few examples from real life (but not mine).
A certain southern California professor used heroin for decades but never got 'strung out' and often did his lecture preparation and delivery under its effects. He also used his graduate students to occasionally do purity tests. Now of course from time to time his source changed which interrupted his use: no crazy behavior or sweating or anything. It was like having to wait for the next paycheck to have a glass of wine. Annoying but not disabling.

Some people take heroin and nod off, some take heroin and go riding their lawn mowers and do their gardening.

Expectations and personality plays a major role. An injection of saline that is believed to be naloxone will have the effect on them of real naloxone. So its not always the drug but the expectation. Most 'overdoses' are due to contaminants, often anthrax spores. That is why forty drug addicts in a NY shooting gallery will shoot up, often sharing needles and buying from two or three suppliers who in turn all buy from the same supplier. Yet two will die and no one else will even get sick.
Its hard to administer heroin in a hospital because people often nod off and sleep for a day rather than die. It takes a massive bolus to kill a patient.

>>>>>I knew someone who did LSD for a month and quit. That I find believable.
Most people do a few tabs every now and then often mixing them with 'shrooms', but every day is rare. Bad trips are often one way trips.

Quote: rxwine

There was a kid I knew in high school who claimed to do heroin

Claims are difficult to verify. The problem now is that "heroin" can be either heroin mixed with fentanyl or it can be fentanyl mixed with heroin. Big difference in safety between those two mixtures. Fentanyl is bad stuff. Really bad. So many things today are Vitamin K.... ketamine ( a veterinary drug) often its use is accompanied by glow sticks and water bottles in various rave settings. Sure ketamine is now a wonder drug in certain medical situations in the ER where there is dose and quality control but in a rave event it can be a killer.

Most drug use is initiated and perpetuated by social forces. Try to quit drugs? You get out of rehab and where you got to go but home to the same drug using friends and use the same drug oriented vocabulary? Rehab works better with a geography change and a passion change. Otherwise you are now a socially isolated outsider and will not be accepted until you get over your "sobriety illness". Think of "Trainspotting", "Stella Does Tricks", etc. A world of economic hopelessness is the real prison.

For me, the main issue of coming off long term opiate use, is once it is absent, even your minor aches and pains are suddenly amplified, and your body is miserable. Your brain goes into a dead-like funk, and all motivation to do anything is sucked out of you.

In my case the long term pain was gone after a year, but the misery of quitting opiates was real enough for awhile. That went away eventually.

I've had two herniated discs before, six years apart.

Both times I had surgery for them - but it always takes a few months of doctors visits, x-rays, and MRIs before you can get the surgery scheduled. During that time - pain killers are a necessity. Without them, I would be laying on the floor in agony, unable to sit up or stand without immense pain.

I guess I'm "lucky" in that I have an extremely high tolerance for medication. When I hear about people getting addicted to opiates, I still don't understand what they get addicted to. I can take two Percocet pills and not feel a thing - it made the intense pain go away for me, but I've never experienced anything like a "high" from it.

Quote: ams288

I've had two herniated discs before, six years apart.

Both times I had surgery for them - but it always takes a few months of doctors visits, x-rays, and MRIs before you can get the surgery scheduled. During that time - pain killers are a necessity. Without them, I would be laying on the floor in agony, unable to sit up or stand without immense pain.

I guess I'm "lucky" in that I have an extremely high tolerance for medication. When I hear about people getting addicted to opiates, I still don't understand what they get addicted to. I can take two Percocet pills and not feel a thing - it made the intense pain go away for me, but I've never experienced anything like a "high" from it.

That's right, when you're in pain I don't think you really get high in the same way. Taking meds to escape physical pain is different from taking them for mental pain. Or for fun.

Okay folks, I decided to revive this thread even if its just for a few quick posts.

Now I don't want to encourage anyone to be doing anything... particularly if he already got himself an aquarium and knows oodles and oddles 'bout fish and fishing. So do not think of this as a suggestion, just a 'factoid' blurb from my demented brain cells.

There is a certain small reef fish with a strange name that has always had a strange reputation: Its bite don't hurt. Given this oddity of nature, it finally struck some scientist to investigate the tiny little fish and its now been determined that the bite does not hurt because the fish injects opioids into your finger.

Now I don't know if the DEA is going to make this fish a schedule one fish or something and I sure don't know what pharmaceutical companies are going to do in the future but right now it looks interesting to have a short term fast acting opioid that is metabolized with no known side effects.

See the sppoiler tags below:
Okay, I gave up on the darned tags. Its a two inch long fanged fish known as a fangblenny.
Wired, Atlantic and NPR all have stories 'bout it.


Good luck to you all.
Note: Yes I posted this on April Fool's Day, No, its not a gag.

Revisiting the pain/discomfort topic:

Activist Pennsylvania Governor opens a quasi safe injection site and tells the Feds to arrest him first.

Should drugs and dirty needles be used to rid of us problem people or should tax dollars be used to save their miserable lives and perhaps even let them reproduce?

Are people taking fentanyl or are they taking other drugs laced with fentanyl?

If you provide fentanyl testing strips a failed dosem won't be discarded, the addict will take it to a remote area and sell it so someone else will die.

Shouldn't we just pull the plug on expensive people?

Quote: FleaStiff

Shouldn't we just pull the plug on expensive people?

Start with sufferers of affluenza and I'll help ya bag em

In the process of getting my FL Medical Marijuana card :-)

Quote: Face

Start with sufferers of affluenza and I'll help ya bag em

As you might guess, anyone named fleastiff surely does not know what affluenza is much less does he suffer from it. Many drug takers are not affluent they are 'the working poor' that is why cops go after them: they own cars that can be seized and sold.

Quote: Fleastiff

As you might guess, anyone named fleastiff surely does not know what affluenza is much less does he suffer from it. Many drug takers are not affluent they are 'the working poor' that is why cops go after them: they own cars that can be seized and sold.

Revenue crime.