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Comment by labrador | Hacker News Reader

I'm a recovering nitrous oxide addict so this is interesting, but people should proceed with caution. I didn't know laughing gas could be addictive for some people until it was too late.

In the film Cider House Rules, Michael Caine plays a doctor addicted to ether for sleep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cider_House_Rules_(film)

Google result: Is chloroform stronger than ether? Fluothane and chloroform produced similar anesthesia, and was 4 1/2 times more potent than ether.

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I'm sure you know but PSA for those that don't: N2O is practically the only "safe" inhalant. Others, like gasoline, computer duster, urinal pucks, etc. have a risk of causing spontaneous heart attacks even in young healthy users.

N2O's main physical risk is B12 deficiency, or asphyxiating if you use a mask.

In addition to the risk of sudden death, even on the first use, they cause permanent brain damage with each use and regular use will reduce you to a gibbering shell of yourself from which you cannot recover -- and then you'll probably die. Recreational use is incredibly dangerous and this is one category that you should probably put into the "never use" group. Much worse than any common recreational drugs, including the ones usually demonized by society such as heroin.

With fentynal getting into everything I'd say it's far more dangerous to take a substance orally or by injection that it is to inhale nitrous oxide which fentynal can't get into

What is fentanyl getting into?

I read that the feeling of needing to breathe is actually triggered by CO2 buildup, not oxygen deprivation. So if you breathe pure N2O, you might lose that warning that you need to breathe oxygen. When I played with N2O, I noticed that the high was more intense if I rebreathed or otherwise deprived myself of oxygen. And it also would cause cognitive issues in the weeks after taking it, probably due to oxygen deprivation. I stopped taking N2O after that.

I buy liquid B-12 drops for under my tongue since B-12 isn't absorbed very well by the digestive system

u..u..urinal puck as a drug ?

Random question: I've been hearing this strange clarinet-like noise in my area - exactly like someone practising the clarinet except only one note, never a tune or scales. After puzzling this over for some time the only thing I can think that it might be, is someone going a balloon with nitrous. Is that plausible?

Nada Yoga :)

Did you have any issues with B12 deficiency? I've always wondered to what extent oral B12 supplementation can mitigate the health risks of chronic nitrous use.

Yes I need to take B-12 liquid orally or by shot, but my grandfather had pernicious anemia and it's hereditary, so I don't know whose fault it is. Other than that I have no major health problems, but I have neuropathic nerve pains that the doctor has never seen before so he blames the nitrous. It's not too bad. I was aware that I needed to take a lot of B-12 at the time. People ask me why I didn't get a tank instead of spending all the money on whippets. Because I would have died with a tank.

Two more cautions. Nitrous is an oxidant. I found out the hard way when I almost set myself on fire smoking and doing nitrous. Also, that whah whah you feel when inhaling is not nitrous. That's hypoxia which can cause serious brain damage. I learned to do nitrous in a continuous stream without the hypoxia like at the dentist office.

Edit: I remembered a third caution: nitrous is a hypnotic like kratom. You lose control, like an alcoholic or benzos blackout. One time after doing a bunch of kratom I "came to" riding my bike in my underwear at 2 am thinking I was going to find a swimming pool to take a swim. Fun times.

Why is the O in N₂O not accessible, thus resulting in hypoxia? If you blow nitrous oxide through a lit cigarette the resulting increased burn it says there's more oxygen, not a lack of it.

Same reason the O in CO2 isn't accessible. Oxygen is used as an oxidizer in the slow burn that is human respiration. N2O is already "burnt", so your body can't burn it any further to release energy.

I believe nitrous oxide can act as an oxidizer, but cannot be used for respiration for a different reason than CO2 (already fully oxidized). But I'm not sure what that reason is: maybe the enzymatic capacity to pull the O off the N2 is just order(s) of magnitude too small or it has to go through NO metabolism.

That contradicts "nitrous is an oxidant". Or at minimum, makes it more complicated.

Chlorine is an oxidising agent as well, but you don't want to be breathing that.

Yes, but again, for rather the opposite reason than CO2.

Very interesting, thanks for the reply!

So like how much nitrous did you do?

Let's see there's 50 whippets in a box, 12 boxes in a case. I did a couple hundred cases before I finally stopped. My last two binges 5 years apart were 15 cases over a 2 week period and 20 cases over a 10 day period. Once I start cracking whippets I can't stop. It felt almost like an OCD thing.

It's called hippie crack for a reason.

I didn't know that when I started. I was thinking of "the nitrous philosopher" William James. Later I heard hippie crack. Yep.

Was it a physical addiction? Like would you actually go through withdrawals from not being on Nitrous?

I've done a little bit, a long long time ago, but didn't realize this was a possibility.

I didn't really enjoy it personally

No, there's no withdrawal so it must not by physical, but it would trash my nervous system so I was sick and in pain for a few days. Nothing more nitrous won't cure! So the cycle of abuse would continue until I physically couldn't go on.

* whip-its

The European manufacturers I used spell it a variety of ways

Probably it would be more efficient to fill up balloons from a larger tank and then inhaling from the balloons. You can continuously breathe in and out from the same balloon multiple times for a few times until all the N2O has been absorbed by the body (hypothetically)

Giving a drug addict, who obviously doesn't want to be doing the drug anymore, advice on how to more efficiently do drugs seems at _best_ morally questionable.

They've probably already worked out many other options and know this, but even so...just why do this?

mahathu isn't telling me something I didn't already know. When you are obsessed you figure all the angles. The only way I stopped was to take months long road trips to places that didn't sell nitrous, like the Alaskan wilderness. I did find spiritual recovery by reading Zen books on the road, so now I live in San Jose where there are smoke shops selling whippets on every corner and don't have a problem with it.

Nitrous was useful for helping me look at traumas I suffered in the military by muting my anxiety and strong emotions when I approached the subject. Another reason I don't have a problem with nitrous right now is that I worked through my traumas adequately.

Yeah, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking. I can't delete my comment anymore, but I flagged the thread.

Yeah, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking. I can't delete my comment anymore, but I flagged it.

Let’s try not to help encourage a recovering adding to do drugs in a new, more efficient, way.

I cracked the whippets into a large plastic bag and then inhaled from that. I stuck with whippets because it was the fail safe option.

My buddy and I used to crack whippets with a knife and frantically try to put the neck into a balloon with.... mixed results. The idea of using a plastic bag never occurred to us!

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