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Comment by iambateman | Hacker News Reader

Serious questions...if you’ve used an opioid more than once for recreational purposes, I’d like to hear (1) what prompted you to try it (2) how old you were (3) cost (4) where did you get them (5) why did you stop

Treat me like an idiot, I don’t understand this stuff and I’d like to know more.

* obviously feel free to use a burner account if you’d rather not speak publicly.

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1) In college, I discovered I loved recreational substances. My best friend was a closet heroin addict and convinced me to try it. 2) 19 or 20 3) 90 to 200 USD per gram. Towards the end, I was spending upwards of 3000 a month. 4) Through my friend at first, but I quickly developed a network of dealers. 5) My entire life had been reduced to obtaining and consuming heroin. I didn't stop when my best friend died, I didn't stop after three overdoses throughout the years. It took an indescribable amount of self-loathing, loneliness, financial insecurity, and general misery for me to realize I couldn't go on like this. I sold almost everything I owned and moved a thousand miles away to live with my parents and try to get my shit together (still a work in progress)

Thanks for writing this...really appreciate it.

Hope the best for you...

1: I had a severe burn on my crotch (FML) and was prescribed. Funny thing is I KNEW I would become dependent. I'm an addict. sober from cocaine and alcohol (was sober from coke for a couple years before pills, ironically opiates helped me quit drinking which was a big struggle for half of my 20s). No hyperbole, every relative on my fathers side of the family is an addict, going back generations. My dad is an alcoholic, my mom has some mental issues which when combined together are a recipe for addiction (I have bipolar 2 and my mom has depression among other things). I purposefully avoided opiate meds because I know my addiction struggles and knew I wouldn't be able to just take a few pills I would end up taking them for a long time. But, god damn that burn fucking hurt and it's hard for an addict to say no especially when I couldn't fucking walk or sleep. I kind of question why my doc prescribed, even though I know she was just trying to help. We literally just got finished talking about cocaine and struggle to get sober and then she prescribed Oxy... I don't blame her and I also think there is nothing to gain by blaming myself, even though yes it was my choice to take that first pill I don't think it was my choice to be an addict if it were that simple I wouldn't be an addict. blame doesn't serve a point, just like blaming oneself for getting cancer or having bipolar disorder. However I do think Docs still need to improve more and just help patients get through pain without take home pills. Weed helps, fuck Tylenol can be very very effective and being in pain for a week is much better than being dependent on a pill for the rest of your life imho.

2) 24 I tink

3) free prescription no co-pay! Then off the street about $1 per mg of oxy, online and in bulk I can get it for about $.66 per mg

4) originally from a doctor. Then from my coke dealer. Then from the dark net.

5) I haven't been able to stop for more than a couple days

Really appreciate you taking the time to write this.

I agree that blame misses the point and also that doctors need to bear some weight of responsibility when dishing out opioids.

Hope the best for you...

I’d go further - what the hell was the OP’s doctor doing?

Tylonel accounts for a large number of deaths. Chronic pain patients have to take medications for the rest of their lives, it is safer to consume opiates than acetaminophen long term. Best would be nothing, but as long as there is a slow increase opiates can go on up and up. Where the acenimphen will destroy your liver and kill you fast. Furthermore, this is a direct result of the war on drugs. the fentanyl and carfentanil coming from china are responsible. before these two were being imported at such high rates opioid deaths were 4,000 per year vs 400,000 for alcohol. Which at first was being blamed on fentanyl being prescribed legally, but was incorrect data. Check the numbers yourself at wonder cdc. attached is the screenshot form cdc data. https://imgur.com/a/fFBTe

My point was that over prescription is a problem. Just a couple days ago this study showed the power of apap/ibuprofen equal to opiate in extremity pain: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/26615... Yeah apap is dangerous in really high doses but it isn't super fatal w NAC intervention.

But more people die from opiates than apap nih: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16294364

I didn't "work my way up" from prescription drugs. I have debilitating depression, to the point where I can't get out of bed most days. I can't say I have much to live for, honestly. I am just functional enough to realize that I am deeply unsatisfied with my life.

I've tried many different antidepressants. My psychiatrist told me that if the next few medications didn't work, he mentioned that I might want to consider electroshock therapy.

I tried heroin with my brother a few years ago, and I got high of course (so my opinion is admittedly skewed,) but it just gave me a couple precious hours of what I imagine it life could be. I work in fintech, so I have to take drug tests, but I've used it off and on since.

I don't want to be high. I just want a life where I actually want to live, an "aspiration" I've had for years.

Maybe my desires are even more skewed due to having gotten high, and knowing that I will forever have a "high bar" for however good it made me feel, but in general it just feels like the quote says, "It gives you a taste of heaven and drags you down to hell." But I was in hell already.

I have similar experience with mental illness (bipolar 2) and that's what I thought for the first couple years. a literal wonder drug! I could be social, I had energy to get up and work, I got a boyfriend. But gradually it loses the magic - or you have to keep increasing dose and eventually if you run out of money you're fucked. I'm guessing that if you're here, like me, you're probably fairly well off.

Have you tried tramadol? Or some SNRIs+low dose opiate or tramadol? Ask your psych for a tramadol script I've found my therapist to be receptive to that as med. I find that effexor helps with withdrawals and tramadol and effexor both helped a lot more than SSRIs for me - the problem is with bipolar it causes cycling

Interesting read for you.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/19/psycho...

OK, I'll bite.

I take milder prescription opiates just for fun on rare occasion. That's percocet these days, codeine back in the day.

Only opportunistically though, if I have some left over from a medical reason or someone offers me some. Even then, it's very infrequently. I currently have around 12 percocets that have been sitting around, untouched, for a couple of months now.

I usually don't feel like just lying around and staring at the TV with my mouth open, hence I don't take them. One day though I'm sure I will feel exactly like doing that, at which point might as well add some opiates to make it quite a bit more enjoyable. I usually like to take 2 or 3 with a moderate amount of alcohol, they have a synergistic effect together.

I first tried it around 17, and that was almost 20 years ago. We're talking relatively few occasions over all that time: 0-2 occasions most years, some years more like 4-6, and rarely if ever 6+. I've never seeked it out on the black market or anything; the cost would not be close to worth it, I think. I don't know how much exactly, but surely several times more than medical, where I paid $10 for 20 pills.

I didn't stop, I just don't feel like doing them, most of the time. I have had issues with addiction to other things in the past, but not with these.

That being said, they are quite mild compared to OxyContin, which I think is what most addicts are taking. (Same substance, oxycodone, but much lower dose.) Never tried that stuff but I bet it is a LOT easier to get into trouble with those.

1) Because they're fun and I was bored 2) Most of my pill days were when I was in high school. I haven't sought out pills since but have been prescribed them when I've had surgery 3) It was just recreational (a hydro or oxy here or there) so the cost was low ~$1/mg for oxy. Obviously if you're addicted then $30+/day is crazy, but once in a blue moon it's no different than going to the movies or grabbing a cheap dinner 4) My friends/neighbors who sold drugs or from the good ole medicine cabinet 5) I'm not really a big fan of the feeling.

I took opiates and other drugs to mask emotional pain. No doctor prescribed my first dose. No peer pressure was needed. My life had been absent of happiness, the first time I took a drug, it was as though the world rendered itself in colors other than black and gray. I haven't done any drugs other than weed for at least 5 years now. But there was a good 40 plus year period in which I did opiates daily. My biggest mistake was getting on a methadone program, that was a twenty year addiction that made heroin withdrawal look easy. It took 2 years of incarceration to end my methadone addiction.

I first used heroin when I was seventeen in 1972. It was the first time I had tried an opiate. At the time Heroin was pricey at $30 a bag/dose in the Boston area. Around 3 years later, I went to Phoenix where Heroin was $10 a bag. Taking a ride across the border to Nogales lowered the cost to $5. Making approx. $100 a week back then, a habit wasn't possible until I found lower cost drugs. These days I feel happier than I could have imagined. While opiates never really made me happy, They decreased my misery at times. As bad as all this sounds, I thank drug addiction for allowing me to survive until I learned how to live.

1) Technically my first exposure was oxycodone from wisdom tooth surgery. I didn't really appreciate what a lucky windfall it was at the time, but thoroughly enjoyed it all. Afterwords I occasionally bought or traded for synthetics, heroin and opium when it was convenient. Having sampled pretty much the entire family, I would have to say that hydromorphone/oxymorphone are my favorites, and codiene is not worth taking at any dose, unless for diarrhea relief. The heaviest period of use in my life (w/ physical dependence and a mind prone to "addiction logic") was in grad school, and I haven't used any opiates at all for probably 5 years, but I would happily consume opiates if it was something I felt like doing (much like I feel about doing acid, going camping, playing a videogame etc). I occasionally used IV but the risk of systemic infection and the ugly needle tracks are not so nice.

2) 16-18, mid thirties now

3) Rarely too much, but when I did lots of heroin I ate less and paid for less other entertainment so I guess it evens out

4) Wherever convenient, usually through my social network

5) I just don't care enough to go to the effort. Nice high, excellent for doing work and being social if I dose reasonably. But other things are nice too. Regarding being social, I can take e.g. oxycodone for multiple days/events in a day, but I cannot take MDMA several times to any useful effect. Regarding work, it's good for long sustained bouts of work as it is easy to gently daydream about problems for any amount of time and it's easy to work for hours because I feel great and free of distractions. The side effects of constipation (I LOVE pooping), appetite loss (I like eating), bad sleep (it's really good for you) and apathy towards sex (bad, except for those unfortunate periods in life where it's good) are all worth considering. Generally, it's difficult to maintain ones quality of life and also do boatloads of opiates, just like anything else. It is very easy to find out oneself doing boatloads, though. Regarding addiction-- Tolerance and withdrawal are not currently considered necessary and sufficient for "addiction." It's considered a behavioral phenomenon. A bad case of the flu is much much worse than a bad period of withdrawal. Regarding the behavioral stuff and desire-- Dealing with unwanted desires is a good skill to have, I guess, and I'm lucky I don't want it very much. It is more effort to do more than it is to do less. But every step into "addiction" is infinitesimal and reversible, and every step out of "addiction" is equally infinitesimal and reversible, though you might notice it more.

I can only speak to Heroin, not prescription painkillers.

1) I had tried just about every other drug, and I felt at that point like they had been unfairly demonized. A high school friend was doing heroin, and so I wrongfully assumed Heroin would fall into the same category. I was pretty young.

2) 14

3) My usual habit for the ten years of my addiction was around 100-150 a day. I simply couldn't find a way to reliably get more money than that.

4) Drug dealers that I knew or in downtown areas. (West Coast)

5) Life was untenable. I was thrown into a detox for one last time and then six months of rehab. It stuck this time, it's difficult to say why.

I was not, as seems to be the common case these days, drawn to opiates after a major surgery or chronic pain. Nor was Fentanyl / overdose rates nearly as bad as they are today.

Hope this helps?

1) is an important insight. The fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf works for everyone, not just children. Unfounded alarmism will destroy one's credibility, ultimately to the detriment of both sides.

Glad you kicked the habit. A friend of mine did so too, but was left with some very real permanent damage. Hope you got off easier.

Thanks for writing this...

Agree with @icebraining on #1...it’s not fair to group all substances into one category.

hope the best for you...

Took a few at once of my hydrocodone prescription from a wisdom tooth removal (only two of them at once) at 18 to 20 or so, then did the same thing next time when I had the other two removed. No idea what their real cost is besides the copay. Just wanted to see what it was like. I don't think I really got anything out of it besides a bit of a placebo effect. Didn't seem very appealing.

1. novelty, why not?

2. early 20s

3. de minimis. $12-20 total for dozens of doses of kratom, shipped usps.

4. internet sellers.

5. define "stop?" i continue to use them irregularly. opioids have a very nasty side effect of bad constipation (silver lining: it's a strong encouragement to eat lots of vegetables), so it's not really something you can just use every day. at least for me, that kind of makes use self-limiting.

also, opioids just aren't that great. they're very effective at killing pain, but if you aren't in pain, you don't notice that. beyond that, the high is imo really subtle and easy to forget about. in contrast, with weed, alcohol, lsd, shrooms, mdma, adderall, whatever, you know you're high during the experience.

1. Typical prescription route. Thought I'd "never" do heroin. Tolerance grew and grew, and after realizing it was basically morphine (which, I had had prescribed before), it seemed less scary. I didn't seek it out, but literally found a gram on the ground and immediately realized that this was the best ROI for releasing pain (both the physical pain and the pain of living.)

2. 22

3. Currently can get a really good quality (lab tested) gram for $50; this is cartel type pricing

4. Doctor, darknet, in person

5. I haven't. I should, most likely. I should let my tolerance go down but I'm so, so scared to be stuck in bed with pain off the charts combined with the temporary depression.

1. Sounded like a laugh

2. 23 to 25

3. $8 for a packet of paracetamol/codiene plus a few dollars for coffee filters, $10 for 10 tramadols

4. Pharmacy for the codiene, friend gets the tramadol online from India

5. I didn't really get what the whole fuss is about, it wasn't that fun, and I know anything harder than those is a dark dark path that I have no interest in travelling down.

> I didn't really get what the whole fuss is about

Having taken Tramadols and Oxy for pain (back and separate knee surgery), I can't imagine taking it for fun. The pain stops because they put me to sleep and then I feel like an idiot for 12 hours. At least with the Tramadols I can still sort of function, but I fight the doctor if they want to give me Oxy.

1) I'll try any drug once, all my friends in highschool experimented with a lot of drugs and I enjoyed the shared experiences.

2) It was either senior year of highschool or right after, so around 18

3) Varied, but usually it was $30 for an 8mg dilaudid

4) Everyone I knew had at least one dealer for some drug or other, it was possible to get anything just by asking around

5) Got bored of it

It's mostly people that started medicating for chronic pain.

That's not recreational use.

That's just the problem isn't it? People are prescribed a drug for medicinal purposes that is so addictive and so readily distributed for minor ailments that medicinal use inevitably turns to recreational use after the prescription runs out.

Louis Theroux's "Dark States: Heroin Town" is a good account of how these addictions progress in the US, and some of the reasons for the growing numbers we are seeing.

Opioid prescription has tripled from 1999 to 2015. Meanwhile, deaths only started to skyrocket very recently (starting in 2010-2011), probably mostly due to cheap heroin being adulterated with fentanyl.

Opioid abuse is mostly flat or (among youth) decreasing:

https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-FRR1-2...

http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/mtf-overv...

There is no actual link between opioid prescription and subsequent heroin use shown by any research.

https://grokinfullness.blogspot.com/2017/09/debunking-standa...

You're right, I learned something here. Thank you for correcting me. Fentanyl seems like the culprit.

No I get that but I get the impression those aren't the circumstances the parent was interested in hearing about.

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