Heroin addiction

Watch PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK.

Heroin addiction is the hardest to break, and each time you try, it takes a higher dose when you go back on. I think a fair number of junkies could probably function in the world if it wasn't for the legality. I knew a mason who was a junkie who did better work then most masons I know. Until he started getting busted (which is how I met him), he was a good family man and provider.

I met many people who had a substance abuse problem and legal problems (comes with representing criminal defendants). I was never too optimistic with many of them, knew they'd do life on the installment plan (life sentence done in short bursts), but the only ones I never had any hope for were the heroin addicts. The ones who I represented are all gone now.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

On withdrawal, these guys have it right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_withdrawal#Symptoms_of_withdrawal

The effects can vary greatly with the dosage, person involved, other drug use, experience with the drug, etc. If you explain what you need for your story, maybe we can help better.

In my case, quitting was cold turkey. Very effective, but I lost a week of my life somewhere. And I was not your typical junkie. I had an incredible support structure.

Jeff

Celia Cyanide said:

Thank you for the replies!

I have seen Panic In Needle Park. The director recommended it, as well. May I ask why you thought of this particular movie? Are there any scenes in particular you feel are relevant. I thought it was a good movie, and it was fascinating to see Pacino so young.

In the movie I am doing, I show up at a club to buy from the owner. I am starting to feel the effects of withdrawal. The people at the club find the heroin and give it to me.

The may sound like a dumb question, but...if heroin is so euphoric, why do people in movies always look so depressed when they're taking it?

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They don't look depressed; they look like they are falling asleep. Heroin is a CNS depressant, so it lowers metabolism, etc., and that leads to sleep.

According to my dad, who was a heroin addictin his youth, it is euphoric, but the more you take it the less euphoria you get. It's also not a manic, giddy, energetic kind of euphoria, but the sort that just makes you drift off. When he was lying there, on the floor, staring at the wall, it looked 'depressed' to outsiders, but he wasn't.

He came off it cold turkey. He laid in food and water and then nailed his door shut. He almost died. He hallucinated and vomited and shat himself.

He told me this whole story as part of my drugs education. Heroin was the only drug that he said 'no, never try it, not worth the risk' about. And given that he tried pretty much every drug he could, I believed him then and believe him now.

Have you seen Trainspotting? Or read the book? My dad always said it was fairly accurate.

Someone I know was given morphine in hospital when in a great deal of pain and said it was wonderful, like lying on a pink cloud. They said it wasn't that they couldn't feel the pain anymore, it was that they just didn't care about it.

Celia Cyanide said:

The may sound like a dumb question, but...if heroin is so euphoric, why do people in movies always look so depressed when they're taking it?

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In movies, it's just acting. In real life, you're not depressed as much as Jonesing for the next hit, which can make you jittery, panicky and really stupid. You gte that hollow look because you are fixated on the next trip, getting out of the here and now.

When you're on it, you might look depressed but you're really zoned out. You don't care how you look, whether you eat or not, what people are doing around you or anything. You just watch the lights, look at all the colors and move back and forth in time at will. You are happy, which is why you have the psychological need for it. It's the physical addiction that causes trouble.

Jeff

From my experience, the saying "Never trust a junkie" has some ring of truth. More than once, leaving a wallet lying around in the presence of an acquaintance who had a habit proved to be a mistake. Not that they were otherwise bad people, but the need for the next fix seemed to be a very strong driver.

Incidentally, some people I knew seemed to be able to use heroin casually. Others developed real habits.

I would say watch BASKETBALL DIARIES. Leonardo Di Caprio had it aces on with his withdrawal scenes when another character took him in and locked him up so he had no alternative but to get clean. From experience, it's shockingly convincing.

That's what I was thinking, KTC. I also read the book, but Di Caprio was amazing in that.

akiwiguy said:

From my experience, the saying "Never trust a junkie" has some ring of truth.

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Absolutely. Your best friend will lie to your face, rip you off, and lie again. They'll feel bad about it, but they'll do it.

I have a friend who threw away friendships, relationships, and a seriously promising career as a rock musician in favor of the drug.

As to euphoria, as has been said, that euphoria rapidly fades for an addict. The first few times are amazing, and then you end up needing more, but even so, never totally recapture that initial high.

To make it worse, you then need the drug to feel even remotely normal. Imagine having the worst flu of your life, and knowing that a simple shot will instantly relieve every symptom.

But it's not just a physiological thing. Being a junkie, weird as it seems, gives you a purpose in life. It's a full time job, with an entire support system of people who understand where you're at, the way outsiders really can't. You not only have to kick the drug, but the addiction to the life style.

My best friend in the seventies was a junkie. He also had an IQ in the 160's. We were roommates on the lower East Side of NYC, and I helped him tie off many a morning -- I'd have my coffee and he'd cook up breakfast in a spoon.

He was also gay. Between sharing needles and having sex with men in NYC at the time, as you might guess, he did not make it through and eventually died of complications from AIDS.

Still depresses me and pisses me off at the same time.

rugcat said:

He was also gay. Between sharing needles and having sex with men in NYC at the time, as you might guess, he did not make it through and eventually died of complications from AIDS.

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The other one that has caught up with many people I know, usually about 25 years later, is Hep C. Often there are absolutely no symptoms, and one friend went to a doctor purely on the basis of what she heard a doctor saying about the risk for i.v. drug users.

I lost a cousin to heroin addiction. He was constantly going back and forth between being on it and off it as he was trying desperately to quit. Anyway, in the times when he wasn't on it, he shared a lot about what it was like and obviously, I could literally see the differances in him with and without the drug.
So, if you want, you can PM me if you want to know something in particular. I'm not really comfortable publicly going into detail about him and his struggles.

Man with the Golden Arm, '55 is a good flick. Stars Sinatra. Based on a book, supposedly good too. Been meaning to read it.

Read up on some of your favorite rock stars. That's what traumatized me off of even trying heroin. Grunge is Dead shows some of the damage since the stuff was so prevalent in that scene.

I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you, but some other people were giving you answers that would be better then mine.

PANIC is good at showing the entire focus on your next fix, no matter what. If a heroin addict needs a fix bad enough, they'll sacrifice their children, their significant other, their parents, whoever. And from their point of view, they know that each high won't be as good as the one before, but they'll constantly chase that first high.

Rehab is a tough thing to do. I had clients who went into rehab, and decided quickly that prison was a better alternative. But heroin addicts end up approaching rehab differently then most addicts. They actually survive rehab fairly well, once they've detoxed, and are great at mouthing the party line.

But once they get back on the streets, heroin sings to them, calling them. And they succumb, knowing it isn't going to work.

Coming out of prison nearly everybody is pretty clean. Even if you're getting drugs behind the walls, it's hard to remain under the influence. Prisons spend a lot of effort in helping to set up inmates to avoid drugs when they are released.

Despite prisons being smoke-free, nearly every inmate who is a smoker resumes the habit within 24 hours of being released. It's the least successful drug intervention that law enforcement makes. In my experience, the next least successful intervention that prison makes is heroin, followed closely by meth. I haven't had a junkie that stayed clean for longer then a couple of months after being released, despite knowing they would be drug tested.

Compare this to alcoholics, who frequently can use prison to turn their lives around. Or pot heads. Or to a lesser extent, coke heads.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

I had a cousin who died from an overdose of heroin at age 37.

He had a job, a good one, but lived alone. He was in and out of programs for heroin and alcohol addiction. He once told his parents he could never completely quit heroin; he loved it too much.

One night he had a few beers, shot up with heroin, and went to bed. His parents came to check on him, found him sleeping, and tucked him up warm and cozy. Then they left, figuring he'd be up and about the next day. Unfortunately, he didn't wake up.

I suppose he might have died happily. I don't know. The whole thing was terribly tragic as he was his parents' only son. (And his grandparents' only grandson.) He also left a little boy without a father.

I suppose I am not adding very much to your story.