How a nation of junkies went cold turkey
newrepublic.com
newrepublic.com
I'm an ex-heroin addict, and am on Suboxone Opiate Replacement Therapy. I've been clean for 9 months, after 6 years of opiate addiction (starting with Oxycodone, and moving quickly to Heroin). I'm 22 years old.
This article has a few factual inaccuracies, which I want to correct.
First: Injecting Suboxone is NOT safe. Not even close, especially with the method described in the article: unless you are a fan of Talcosis (which will kill you), you need to get a micron filter. Even then, it's not worth it. The high is minimal, tolerance builds rapidly, and it's dangerous. There are numerous complications that come from injecting pills, and it's never worth it.
Second, and this is a small nitpick, heroin users don't have "eyes like saucers" - you have eyes like pinpricks. Opiates constrict pupils, not dilate then.
Third, heroin withdrawal IS torture, at least if you have a sizable habit. Yes, Burroughs did say it was "overrated", but I can tell you from experience, it's absolute torture. It's not like fever. It's an entire body ache, down to your very bones; it's your mind crying out for relief. It's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
Just thought I'd add my two cents.
Back when I was going through a really rough spot, I sought solace in food and became quite the, uh, chunky chap. When I realised the destructive path I was headed down, I decided to quit junk food cold turkey. There were many, many days when I would lay on my bed trembling and gripping the sheets tightly to prevent myself from dialling out for pizza or chicken. I swear it did feel as if even my knees and toes wanted to eat, eat, EAT!
> ..time-killing properties of opium or heroin, but with none of the likelihood of it stopping his heart
Opiates do not stop your heart. The notion that every single usage of opium or heroin is like a game of russian roulette, that might stop your heart, is fantasy. Opiates are actually quite safe, as drugs go. It's not until you take far too much or mix them that you are screwed. And that's true of any opiate, prescription or otherwise.
> Heroin kills, and OxyContin, unless badly mishandled, does not.
Basically not true; injected oxy requires no more 'mishandling' than heroin to kill. Both will happily shut down your respiratory system and kill you if you administer too much. Of course one could argue that the pharma is of a consistent manufacture and dosage, whereas one batch of too-strong street opiates could kill someone used to weaker stuff, but the author of this piece seems far too clueless about the subject to be making such distinctions.
Then we have comparison of marijuana's 'addictiveness' to that of opiates. The difference between psychological dependence and physical dependence is one of kind, not degree.
Heroin and pure opiates are actually "safe" as far as drugs go. I'm clean, and even when addicted held down good jobs, earning good money, and no-one was the wiser. My vitals are still perfect to this day.
It's the addiction that gets you, unfortunately.
Most of the "zombified" methadone users are way overmedicated, usually because this is the state they are seeking.
> Most of the "zombified" methadone users are way overmedicated, usually because this is the state they are seeking.
They, in large doses, stop your breathing which is close enough and will kill you (like you later said), unlike, say a benzodiazepine which you can take to your hearts content and will just knock you out senseless without killing you (unless you add alcohol or another GABA receptor drug).
They also can send you into a hypotensive crisis if you're hypovolemic, which also will kill you. So I would really be hesistant to call them "quite safe, as drugs go" because they are definitely on the dangerous spectrum. We could list a ton of drugs I'd rank higher on the safety spectrum than opioids in terms of both short and long-term effects, with opioids only "redeeming" quality being their instant reverse agent (naloxone) or partial reverse agents (pentazocine or buprenorphine).
All I'm trying to get across is that taking a moderate dose of an opiate is exceedingly unlikely to suddenly kill the naive user, as the article suggests - less so than with say, coke or meth, which can interact poorly with a wider range of health conditions and other substances.
None of which is to say that I endorse the use of opiates or recommend them. I am generally all for responsible drug use, but nearly everyone who thinks they can responsibly 'manage' the use of heavy opiates ends up losing that gamble eventually. And the costs are very, very high.
I think 'vast majority' of drugs is overstating it a bit, but still - I very much understand where you're coming from and do not disagree.
I regret saying that "Opiates are actually quite safe, as drugs go." I think it has some validity in it's hastily-written context, mostly concerned with countering the article author's cluelessness on his subject. In moderate dosage and without mixing substances, it's basically true - though I'm admittedly coming at it from the perspective of a long-time recreational drug user, hardly that of an upstanding mentor to the young and impressionable here. It's obviously a reckless thing to say in any context, and I would certainly hope that no-one takes it as guidance.
Apart from that, needle fetish, mainly. That and culture: if everyone is injecting it, if you start, you are probably going to start with the needle yourself.
Interesting thing however, Suboxone as the film has been known (anecdotally, but across a lot of people) to cause your veins to harden and become useless for fixing with.
Such a terrible idea. I did it once, at the start of my treatment, then vowed to never do it again. And I haven't :)
I used Suboxone to wean myself from physical dependence to opiates after years of pain management. I agree that the article glosses over how bad opiate physical withdrawals are, and my experience didn't include the emotional withdrawals. My understanding is that suboxone withdrawals are much longer, due to its long half-life, but not as intense as heroin's. For six weeks, I didn't sleep more than two hours at a time, had constant chills and diarrhea, couldn't really eat, ached everywhere, and had non-stop restless muscles. A fever, indeed!
Bupe's affinity for opiate receptors is so high that the Naloxone never gets a chance to bind itself. It simply has no effect, and doesn't stop a number of people at my clinic from injecting Suboxone.
I hope you're doing better SoftwareMaven. Opiate withdrawals are hell, although mine were self-inflicted.
As another interesting anecdote: Suboxone/Subutex withdrawals are far more drawn-out (although less acute) than heroin, due to it's long half-life. They suck balls, too. EDIT: LOL, you said that yourself. I'm an idiot.
Also, it has never killed anyone? Mindboggling. It is well-known that year-long users can die from withdrawal (brain aneurysm in the cases I know of).
What finally enabled you to get clean 9 months ago?
Do you feel there is a solution to prevent others from becoming addicted to opiates?
I'd like to note, though, that I take full responsibility for my choices. Doesn't matter how bad things were: I still consciously chose this path.
I decided to get clean, because I had had enough. I simply didn't enjoy drugs (any of them) any more, and I believe that a heroin addiction isn't conducive to running your own business, which is my plan for the medium-term future.
No, there isn't a solution, I'm afraid. People will take drugs, and the people that want to most are at the greatest risk of addiction.
What saved me from blood-borne infections, and other various hazards was Harm Minimisation. We have an excellent needle exchange with a huge range of information and amazing people running it here in Brisbane (Biala, on Roma St, next to the QLD Police Headquarters ironically enough).
This enabled me to do things "right". I never shared a needle, I never re-used a needle, and I always tested my gear before "going nuts". That's why I'm still here.
Interestingly, Biala is also where I decided to get clean. They are amazing, and my case-worker is brilliant. I plan on staying this way for the rest of my life (sans the Suboxone hopefully).
Minimise harm, and let people take responsibility for their choices. That's what did it for me, at least.
And how about "addicted to programming"?
How? Couldn't limiting access of an addicted person to the substance or activity the person is addicted to be one part of compassionate treatment? What research is there on this?
First, and most notably, heroin withdrawal, like withdrawal from any opiate worth its cost, is absolute torture. It's ironic that Burroughs was quoted here, since he's written some of the most accurate descriptions of the utter pain of withdrawal. It's far, far more serious than something like swine flu (which I had during the pandemic), and people can and do die from opiate withdrawal on a frequent basis, usually from the accompanying cardiac issues.
Second, having dosed in methadone clinics across this country, I've never seen one with an armed guard, or even an unarmed guard. I've dosed in a clinic in Gary, Indiana, and one in a rough spot near Orlando. Both were clean, safe, well-run places with no guards necessary. In my 5 years on methadone, I've only seen the police called to a clinic on one occasion, when a disgruntled patient got a little verbally abusive toward a counselor. But never physical violence, and never a need for armed guards. It's possible that there is a clinic somewhere that has an armed guard, but saying methadone clinics in general have armed guards is incorrect.
Others with far more experience in issues like this than the writer have commented on other inaccuracies, like the "saucer-like" eyes of heroin users, and the exaggerated desirability of Subutex to IV drug users.
Because of inaccuracies like this, I have to doubt the other "facts" reported in this article. The whole piece seems to have been written to support a pre-existing idea the writer has about drug policy. Good journalists do this the other way around.
>If you think New York’s stop-and-frisk rule is invasive, try Georgia’s: Cops can stop anyone at any time for no reason and force him to urinate into a cup. Fifty-three thousand people were stopped on the street in 2007, or about one in 20 of the young men in Georgia.
However I am not familiar with opiate withdrawal killing people without other medical things going on.
Note to readers: don't google pictures of Krokodil effects.
Dictatorships can do a lot of nasty things, but they cannot solve such problems. They may _look_ like they are able to, and they may _pretend_ that they solved these problems(especially if problems aren't easily noticeable by an average citizen. Take heavy heroin abuse as an example), but no, they can't and won't solve them.
I think a similar argument could be made about Lincoln. He too siezed unprecedented executive powers.
I'm not saying they were good or bad. I'm just trying to point out that we have had presidents that have taken extreme measures to deal with percieved crises. And we have, for the most part, interpreted this as a-ok.
Um, no. This is incorrect. Roosevelt's plans and projects were repeatedly frustrated by opposition in the other branches of government. That doesn't happen in dictatorships.
Much of the New Deal, for example, ended up being struck down by the Supreme Court. Roosevelt tried to prevent that from happening again by "packing" the Court with friendly justices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_Reorganization_Bill_o...), but Congress shot that plan down. He desired for years before Pearl Harbor to get the US to join with the Allied powers in opposing German and Japanese expansionism, but the Neutrality Acts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrality_Acts_of_1930s) made it nearly impossible for him to provide any US support for the Allies at all. Even in 1941, after the fall of France and the Battle of Britain, Congress only agreed to extend the military draft instituted in 1940 by a single vote.
You can argue whether Roosevelt was in the right on any of the policy decisions he made, but you can't argue that he was operating without checks and balances, because he wasn't.
There were actual laws on the books long before FDR (some repealed and some not) that gave such authority to arrest and detain US citizens without trial or for controversial reasons. The first time in 1798[1] and the second in 1917[2] and the third and 1918[3]. If we're just talking about imprisoning without trial and not the rationale behind it, then even Abraham Lincoln is guilty of that[4]. Not that FDR is my favorite president, but the US Government has had a long history of abusing* power and bending the rules when it was considered critical by certain powers that be (regardless of political party and historical popularity of the politician). I just don't think one can single out FDR when it was already a precedent in times of war (and near war) to do so before him.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_Sta...
*Obviously open to interpretation and subjective
"Dependence on pot isn’t a minor thing—imagine stalling the careers of a tenth of the U.S. workforce for a year—and we should certainly consider it in the negative side of the ledger when contemplating reform in drug policy."
When it comes to lifestyle, choice trumps IMO, and no, I don't smoke.
Talk about an addiction, an unhealthy dependence, obsession with a metric that has nothing to do with either happyness or fullfilment.
Almost as if we're actually craving enslavement. As if chasing promotions, or wealth as if we're gaining XP or coins in a videogame, is a better way to spend our time, health and energy on.
Im not saying there is no pot abuse, or working is evil, or other hippy logic, i just wanted to point out that this particular argument is flawed.
Some people thoroughly enjoy their drugs, bringing them great satisfaction. And it is certainly true they had to give up on those drugs because of the usage of illicit invasive labour practises.
There is this assumption, mostly in the states, that one should sacrifice almost anything to be as productive as possible. I disagree strongly.
Im proud to say im about 60% as productive as i could be. The other 40% of my energy is poured into other things that matter to me. Like family, friends, free time, being allowed to be myself, and just enjoying life in general. I could sacrifice many of these things to be more produtive. But i am not a slave. And the notion of limiting the freedom of people, because as a society we decided their output volume should be higher, is at the very least unhealty, and perhaps even a tad fascist.
There are many more people suffering from pressure to "achieve" than that society is pressuring people to relax and take care of their loved ones. Some people do amibition way more unhealthy than others do pot.
However, we live in an imperfect world and the career disruptions that can ensue from a devotion to TCH reduce people's quality of life in no uncertain terms.
THC does not, in the majority of cases, reduce somebody's quality of life. Mandatory drug tests on the other hand...
As entertainment, it's no worse or distracting than television; and miles away from alcohol.
Look, not everybody gets addicted to pot, in fact most folks don't. But it's psychologically addictive like everything chemically active you put in your body, and being constantly stoned because you're addicted is a miserable way to live.
I know, because I've been trying to quit all year. I've failed twice since February and I'm on my third go of it right now. And I only smoked a half-ounce a week for a year or so. That's probably a lot to the people reading this, but it's really not much as far as potheads go.
I'm sick of thinking so much slower than I know I can, being so much dumber than I used to be. I can't do my job nearly as well and I take pride in my work, so being too dumb to do my job has been really upsetting. I almost wish I were still addicted to cocaine, because at least then I kicked ass and took names when it came to thinking/analyzing/working in general.
I'm tired of being too lazy to leave my apartment all weekend, of the food I eat when I'm stoned, of not being present around my friends, family and co-workers, of needing to smoke when I wake up because it's so uncomfortable to be lucid. My motivation to pursue new ideas, to eat healthy and go to the gym, to meet new friends and pursue new women is all through the floor. My body desperately wants pot right now and I'm anxious and depressed as hell and my body is tugging at me to reach for any alternative, like alcohol or cigarettes.
Every drug taken to extreme can seriously hurt your life. Even weed. Stop trivializing it because you smoked a few joints in college.
Edit: and now I'm slowbanned, for sticking up for myself when someone kicked me while I was down. Time to roll a new account, I guess.
edit: look, I'm entirely sorry about the appeal to ridicule. It's a shitty way to get a point across and I just look like an asshole by doing it.
I get that addiction is no joke, however your problem is not the same problem caused by the drugs in the article, and your failure to quit the pot is entirely of your own pattern of behavior. Find another peer group to associate with.
I guess what I'm frustrated with is the on-going prohibition, which was brought about by the same exact type of alarmist bullshit. So you have problems with your choices in life, that does not mean that everyone else has that issue, or even a significant sample.
Let others have the freedom to make their own decisions, the same sort of freedom that was decided during the first great experiment with Prohibition. We all know what happened there. I think people are starting to realize what's happening now.
If not, then I truly sympathize, but it is entirely incorrect to link a behavioral addiction with a physical addiction such as the one caused by opiates. They are in no way equivalent.
Excuse me? First of all, nothing I described was "descent into ruin." I said I'm having a hard time not smoking pot and it's affecting many aspects of my life. You have no idea what you're talking about, how dare you say I'm not struggling? Have you ever considered that people have a hard time quitting drugs? That pot might actually harm someone? No, your mind's made up: it's all a conspiracy by the drug companies!
> I have to doubt its legitimacy because the post reads like a plant by one invested in treatment facilities and private prisons.
Fuck you, you conspiracy-minded, condescending prick. I'm having a hard time over here but you think you're so important that treatment facilities and prisons are planting stories on a tiny technology startup forum.
> If not, then I truly sympathize, but it is entirely incorrect to link a behavioral addiction with a physical addiction such as one caused by opiates. They are in no way equivalent.
You don't sympathize, you're busy paranoid that prisons are astroturfing HN. And I thought paranoia was bad when you smoke on the streets. By the way, this entire subthread is talking about marijuana use and affecting career growth. So this entire point is irrelevant.
I fucking hate this site sometimes.
Uh yeah, food is a very common form of entertainment; restaurants, cook-offs, eating contests... it's only when people go overboard that they begin to have a problem.
I'm tired of being too lazy to leave my apartment all weekend, of the food I eat when I'm stoned, of not being present around my friends, family and co-workers
These are all personal choices you made. If you really wanted to spend time with your friends and family you'd just do it. It sounds like you just can't be bothered but smoking pot gives you a convenient excuse to blow off social obligations. I mean jeeze, you're just so addicted to pot, how could you ever find the time to hang out with your friends?
I know, because I've been trying to quit all year. I've failed twice since February and I'm on my third go of it right now. And I only smoked a half-ounce a week for a year or so
Give me a break. Failing to quit pot is in the same category as failing to quit World of Warcraft, it ultimately comes down to the fact that you really just prefer to smoke.
needing to smoke when I wake up because it's so uncomfortable to be lucid.
I don't think pot is the problem.
Some people have an easy time quitting tobacco. Others don't. There are real differences in how the drug works on a person and fits into their life which aren't captured by phrases like 'you just can't be bothered'.
Caffeine is also a psychoactive drug, but overworked engineers don't blame coffee for 20 hour work days, instead, their coffee habit is understood as a supplement to their chosen lifestyle. Pot functions the same way for someone who decided to sit on the couch and play xbox all day; the pot didn't intoxicate him into playing video-games instead of going to class, if class was important to him he'd just go, stoned or otherwise.
edit: s/weeks/days
A half-ounce a week is a pretty hefty habit. I can barely imagine the constant cognitive impairment, paranoia, and anxiety that are likely to come with that on a daily schedule. You aren't using the drug, you're abusing it.
> My body desperately wants pot right now
No, it doesn't. Your mind does. Your situation is not even remotely comparable to an opiate addict going cold turkey.
> Every drug taken to extreme can seriously hurt your life.
The drug isn't seriously hurting your life. You are. The psychological addiction you are experiencing is yours to walk away from - or get medication for, since there are probably serious compulsive or depressive problems in the mix if the hold is that strong. I wish you the best in conquering it and feeling 1000% better - and you surely will - but I really don't see what you're trying to say here, or what everybody else in the thread supposedly has got wrong. Weed is a remarkably benign drug by any measure, and the author of this piece is far too naive of his subject matter for anyone to be thinking too hard on anything he has to say.
That's basically nonsense. A heavy weed smoker can stop smoking immediately, and while he will certainly be in anguish, bored and anxious and miserable without it, there remains no true physical component to his 'withdrawal', if that term could even be credibly used in the context of marijuana.
The heavy opiate user has developed a full-blown physical dependence on the drug, and their body will go into excruciating revolt upon it's sudden absence. Most ex-addicts spend years tapering off on suboxone, methadone, etc for a reason.
The point is, hard drug dependence vs soft drug 'addiction' is utterly apples and oranges, comparing them is meaningless. I am not sure why people insist on blurring the lines between these two very different conditions. Like it or not, Bagdar has far more in common with the guy upthread who was talking about cold sweats from ceasing his overeating, than he does a Subutex fiend in Georgia.
Yes. Sudden withdrawal from some substances (alcohol, barbiturates) can cause death because physical addiction is so destructive.
That sounds very serious, and I hope you get help, but there's no way that's addiction.
I understand that cannabis can cause a _real_ addiction, although many people deny this. I've been there. It's not fun, when all you can think of is getting high.
Yoga, swimming and sauna were the savers for me. Without kundalini yoga I would not have realized that I have the power to empower myself, to make myself feel good, without the pot. I would totally recommend to anyone doing some kind of spiritual exercise, where you get your Chi flowing.
Because this is what cannabis does, at least according to my experiences, it makes your life energy or chi flow down to your physical body, it drains it so to speak on the long run. And you start to crave food to replace it, and this drainage also leads to the bad moods and thought patterns of "I need this in order to do this", when truthfully you can do it without the pot also.
Hang in there, you can do it. I've done it a couple of times, from my experience it takes around 3 weeks to get rid of the habit, after this if you continue and just persist on choosing the alternative way, you can make it back to normal life.
Although probably you are going to be bored a lot, so it's important to find some new activities to fill in those blanks.
Anyway, here is also a good text on what cannabis does to us, how it drains our chi: http://pastebin.com/1zKRXDZR.
Smoking pot does effect the drive of many people, whether you would like to believe it or not. Some people are better at functioning under the influence than others.
Two examples of people that dabbled in drugs does not make your case.
I could give you two examples of couples that have sex without protection every day and have never gotten pregnant. Does this mean everyone can do it with the same outcome?
I don't have a particularly weak stomach, but my dinner started getting restless.
Sounds like a hangover.
That's kind of irrelevant since alcohol is much more widely available and used. The question is, what would happen if [insert drug] was legal and widespread? What effects would it have on individuals and society at large?
[edited to make it less harsh]
can induce mild withdrawal symptoms in patients dependent on opioids; also diarrhoea, abdominal pain, anorexia, dyspepsia; vasodilatation; dyspnoea; paraesthesia, asthenia, fati- gue, agitation, anxiety; less commonly flatulence, taste disturbance, angina, hypertension, syncope, hypoxia, wheezing, cough, restlessness, depersonali- sation, dysarthria, impaired memory, hypoaesthesia, tremor, influenza-like symptoms, pyrexia, rhinitis, rigors, muscle cramp, myalgia, tinnitus, dry eye, and dry skin; rarely paralytic ileus, dysphagia, impaired concentration, and psychosis; very rarely retching, hyperventilation, hiccups, and muscle fasciculation
--British National Formulary 59
Another big problem is that since it operates as an opioid receptor anagonist (rather than an agonist, as practically all other opioids), the usual treatment for overdose -- Naloxone -- won't work very well. Buprenorphine also has a fairly hard effectiveness ceiling at ~32mg/day (although it would be a lucky/rich addict indeed who could afford that at €300/8mg quoted in the article)
Finally, if an addict ends up in hospital or requires strong pain-relief, there's not a lot of options because the blockade effect will prevent (afaik) virtually all other opioids from working.
Subutex misuse is a big problem in Finland, and it seems to create more problems than solve them, at least to the information I've read about it.
It has properties that break opiate withdrawal almost instantaneously, as well as other psychological effects that tend to reset senses such as smell, touch, etc, back to an almost childlike state. Very mysterious and beautiful substance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine
This is also a must-watch documentary:
Ibogaine, Rite of Passage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPDIH9WODnk