Morphine Hot Shot Then Back On Track

I apologize for having taken so long to get around to writing this post. It feels as though the great enthusiasm and mental clarity I felt in my first few weeks of sobriety has waned and has now been replaced with the heavy burden of the reality and seriousness of the huge task that lies before me. The more my dose of methadone reduces the more I struggle with the craving to have more - always more.
 This past week there was one particular day on which, after taking my dose of methadone for the day, I felt completely unsatisfied. I just couldn't bear the thought of only having my prescribed dose the next day - I needed more. So I made a call and arranged to buy some morphine. I did this thinking that I would be able to then take it to another guy who would have the necessary chemicals to turn the morphine into heroin. Unfortunately when I got to this house I found out that the necessary chemical was scarce all through the opiate using community. There was a possibility of getting some if I waited around, but that was something that even the prospect of a good hit wasn't enough to convince me was something I wanted to do. Instead I thought "bugger this, I'll just go home and inject the morphine straight". Very bad idea as it turned out.
 Injecting morphine is never very pleasant as it is accompanied by a large release of histamine in the the body. The histamine causes a sensation of prickling, itchiness and flushing of the skin; however, it is usually manageable. Having been quite some time since my last injection of straight non-treated morphine I must have lost my tolerance for histamine or something because as I slowly depressed the plunger on this dose I felt the largest more uncomfortable sensation that has ever accompanied any injection of mine. I hadn't even gotten a third of the way through the dose when the prickling started. I rubbed my neck and face to try to alleviate the itch and stopped pressing the plunger any further in while I waited for the wave of histamine to pass. Instead it just kept building and building until I pulled the needle out and collapsed on my hands and knees on the bathroom floor with blood pouring out of my arm and the sensation of someone hitting my head with a sledge hammer over and over again. BOOM  BABOOM  BOOM BABOOM - the drumming of pain continued in my head. I didn't know what was happening. I was scared and my whole head felt like it was on fire. I stumbled to the cold tap still dripping blood all over the flood and my clothes. I grabbed a washcloth, soaked it in cold water and  tried to cool my burning skin down in a futile effort to feel a little better. At least the prickly sensation was gone but the pounding in my head remained. I cleaned myself up as best I could and stumbled into the lounge to google "pounding headache morphine injection". I quickly found numerous similar stories  generally from people new to injecting or who had injected too much. Many thought it might be caused by bacteria in the injected morphine solution, but the mention that morphine could raise intracranial pressure had me convinced that was what I had experienced; added to the fact that it had been a long time since my body had to deal with the injection of that substance. My body was protesting my stupidity and abuse. "Never again" I told myself.
 I have started on the road to sobriety and I owe it to myself to see what I can accomplish without the reliance of drugs in my life. I know that one day I'll use some heroin but that will only be when I have accomplished full engagement with life. When I have overcome my secrets from myself and can look at myself honestly in the mirror and say "what a beautiful day to be alive".

Smooth Sailing On Methadone Seas: The Myth of Self Control

One day after another comes and goes, and every day and in every way I'm getting better and better.

Ok, maybe not every way but I am making progress!

I slipped once in my journey to abstinence from marijuana, and if not for that I would have been clean from smoking anything for over a month now.

It happened like this:

Sitting here one night feeling a little bored and, maybe because of the boredom, a little anxious also. I remembered that I still had my marijuana pipe so I got it out, along with my little tin that I used for storing my drugs in, and had a bit of a scrapping session.

Now as most of you will know marijuana can be a little sticky at times and because of this a little of the resin from the outside of the flowers ends up stuck to the surface of whatever container you use to store it in. If you have ever tried hashish...well its the same thing.

I was able to scrape up enough of the stuff to half fill the bowl of my small pipe. I smoked it and sat back on the couch. As the high started coming on, along with the stoned feeling came a feeling of uneasiness. I felt stoned but it wasn't enjoyable. I thought back to all I had been through to keep myself in a steady supply of this stuff and wondered "why?".

In the past few weeks I had been really enjoying the new clarity of thought and greater ability to focus. I had been able to read again and actually follow a story without having to go back multiple times to re-read the same piece I had just read but forgotten because my mind had drifted off to some faraway place. It's little wonder that my studies had become so difficult. I had attributed my difficulty to the increase in my methadone dose but I knew now that was clearly not the whole story.

I knew that in order to avoid a repeat of this experience - a momentary desire for drugs that once satisfied would leave me with a sense of deep regret - I had to remove the ability to quench the thirst. If there were absolutely no drugs around, no pipes and no needles, then no matter how great the desire I would not be able to do anything about it.

Right there and then I gathered up everything to do with drugs all my tools and supplies, and put them all in a bag. I immediately took them out to my car so I wouldn't forget to do so in the morning. The next day I dropped by the needle exchange, explained what I was doing and handed over all my gear.

I have not smoked anything in the two weeks since that night but I have still been struggling with the desire to inject my methadone. So using the same philosophy I have arranged to change the place I pick up my methadone to the Alcohol & Drug clinic. This means that I don't need to drive into the city to pick up my methadone and therefore won't go near the needle exchange and the needles I need to inject methadone with.

It all comes down to this: Self control is a myth. If you really want to modify your behaviour you must realize this fact and put systems into place that take account of your times of weakness and prevent you from slipping when you are at your weakest points.

Struggles with craving - its beginning again!

Well, here I am again. My brain is running out of artificially induced serotonin, the "feel good" neurotransmitter so I find myself wanting...something, anything that will give me another shot of that substance.
When this weekend arrives I will have been clean of marijuana and nicotine for three weeks - now that's the longest I have been without either of those intoxicants for the past two years or more! The marijuana has been easy by virtue of the fact I have removed myself from the environment in which I was in where everybody around me (even the neighbours) were regular smokers. I think that is the single biggest deciding factor. I mean it's not that I haven't wanted to stop for a long time; its just that my attempts have all been pretty half-hearted knowing as I have that sooner or later I would be offered a smoke by someone and that I would not have the willpower to say "no". Now that I don't have that issue, and because there are no easily obtainable sources close by by new house, it is just so much easier to resist the urge.
With cigarettes, the change of environment has also helped immensely. Once again, there are no smokers around, therfore, I am not being constantly subjected to the idea of smoking (although Hollywood doesn't help us much on that front!). With all these factors falling into place getting to this point has been about environment more than willpower. I think that the most important lesson I have learned in my journey through addiction is that we really don't have any willpower; rather, it's all about setting up a situation where temptation is removed and there ceases to be any need for willpower. However, now I am at this point and the chemicals are really clearing from my system, my brain is noticing this lack of pleasure-giving serotonin and sending the message that to remedy the situation I should seek out a cigarette and a joint. I just have to keep telling my brain that I am doing this for its own good, and that it will thank me further down the line. Once my body and brain reach a state approximating homeostasis then things will be a hell of a lot better for both my body and my brain. For now I just have to keep reminding myself of that fact and stick with the nicotine patches and lots of long walks to keep myself away from temptation.

I sure would appreciate any advice people have to offer...

Setbacks and Progress and Setbacks and Progress

Please excuse my absence from this blog. I have had a difficult few months really. Things were going OK for a while. I was still using but after my last attempt at rehab nearly two years ago I had managed to keep things reasonably stable. My usual schedule of use was to inject a 30mg shot of 'homebake heroin' about once every ten days or so. The problem with such a schedule is that you are always fighting incredible cravings in between times of use.

Eventually I went to see the alcohol and drug service and informed them of the situation - that I was using again and that that use was starting to creep up again. I requested to be put on some sort of opiate replacement therapy and they suggested dihydrocodeine (DHC). For a while this was a good measure. The craving was brought under control but I didn't stop using - I was merely more competent at maintaining a steady level of use rather than gradually using more drugs more often. Of course, as most of you with experience of addiction know, anytime the stress levels creep up so does the drug use.

Adding to my problems with drugs are my problems with social anxiety. In an attempt to self-medicate this disorder, when there was some anxiety-causing social engagement I was due to attend I would combine a couple of days DHC pills (I would get takeaways for the weekend) with a shot of 'homebake heroin' to help calm my nerves. Rather than being a significant aid to my social anxiety issues this practice just made me a boring party guest with a tendency of throwing up far earlier than my hosts would believe was attributable to drinking, and making me look foolish as well as an obvious drug user.

As time progressed the effect of the DHCs was counteracted by tolerance so I transitioned on to methadone. With some effort I managed to institute some beneficial changes. I joined the gym and moved to the country. I was even able to get back into studying toward my psychology degree. For a while things became quite settled and it seemed that going over to methadone had been a wise decision. It even had a significant benefit on my social anxiety. Life seemed to be going peachily.

I have always been attracted to, not only the high that opiates gives, but also the act of injecting. As my relationship with my flatmates at my new accomodation deteriorated and as the stress of exams started looming I began to inject my methadone further and further in advance. This behavior led to my tolerance rapidly increasing. This began a terrible pattern that was bound to end in disaster: I would complain to my case manager at the alcohol and drug service that the methadone wasn't doing what it should. She would put my dose up, and I continued to inject. Before I knew it I hit 100mg of methadone per day and my brain hit slowdown in a big way. Come exam time I was so far behind I didn't even bother sitting them. I got into a major argument with my flatmate and was asked to leave the flat.

Now here I am a few weeks later and things have started to improve. I have managed to stop smoking both marijuana and cigarettes for over two weeks and have reduced my methadone down to 95mg per day. I was able to get a medical dispensation for not sitting my exams because my work had been quite good throughout the year, and I am due to go to a residential rehab program in just under two months time. If I can manage to wean myself off methadone in the next two months and stay off the other drugs then I feel like I will have a really good chance of getting clean once and for all. I know there is a hell of a lot of work to do in the meantime but I feel really positive and hopeful about the future. I feel that in spite of my many setbacks in the past year I have actually come a long way. Now is the time to consolidate those gains and really grab life by the balls and hold on for all I am worth. The payoff will be worth it I know, and the costs of failure too dismal to contemplate. It can be done and it will be. I will keep you informed along the way.

Methamphetamine

I don’t know what to expect. I’ve had it before and it’s been good, but sometimes it’s been better than others. Furthermore, my memory of speed is polluted with the memory of other similar drugs that have a “speedy effect’ but are not technically speed. Drugs like BZP, and Ritalin (methylphenidate), caffeine and Red Bull (if you can call that last one a drug - but why not?). Also, I have tried a drug called adrafinil, which is in the nootropic or ‘smart drug’ category. Nootropics are not really a speed in that they don’t give you much of a physical feeling of energy - at least not the sort of nervous energy that speed can give you, but rather a type of mental energy, a mental clarity. Nothing is forcefully sped up, but the drug allows the brain to work more efficiently so you feel the feeling of things going faster because your thoughts are able to progress from one to another faster than they would usually be able to go, and therefore, you move faster toward your end goal - psychologically speaking that is. Physically, you are able to move faster on adrafinil because your brain controls your physical actions, and a brain on adrafinil can make decisions about which physical movements to make in less time. I’ve always wondered though about these fantastic rushes I heard of people getting from speed. Heroin at its best has given me some pretty fucking fantastic rushes but definitely not the sort I would imagine you would get from speed (methamphetamine). Heroin covers us in warmth and peace, and makes us feel as though there is a wall that separates everything in the universe that can or has caused us hurt. Speed, I imagined, would be a bolt of lightning to the brain, a physical connection to my higher power outlet, an instant rejuvenation and a feeling of invincibility.

Well, it sort of was like that. I didn’t know how much I should have, so I left it up to my patron.

How about a fifty bag? “Sounds good to me”, I said to him. And then he left me alone with my rites.

As I said, I didn’t really know how much I should have. I may not have known much about speed, but I could see that  this stuff was pure. The word at the local needle exchange was that there was a lot of pure stuff around, and this looked like it. I was pleased about this for two reasons: firstly because pure speed is strong speed, and secondly because pure speed is easily dissolved in water with no need for anything like citric acid or even heat. I had to be careful because I knew that even though the amount I had was a tiny volume, I didn’t know how strong it was. In the end I went for the whole amount at once. I was pretty sure I would want to have all of it and I could always stop half way through injecting it and see how I felt.

I tipped the bags contents out on to the spoon I had prepared and added about half a milliliter to the bag to wash any residue out. A quick stir to make sure all of the drug was dissolved and it was ready to draw into the syringe. I dropped a little bit of a wood-fiber filter into the spoon and drew the clear liquid into the syringe. And then I was ready to fly.

As I readied my tourniquet I couldn’t help but feel nervous. Not so much that anything bad would happen but that not enough would happen. I wanted to be impressed by a shot for once, instead of what I have felt the majority of times I have injected any drug – disappointed and pissed off! I slid the 27-gauge stainless steel needle through the scar-hardened skin of my inner arm and felt the release as the pick entered the vein and the blood within it. I removed the tourniquet and began to slowly but steadily depress the plunger so the 1.5 milliliters of fluid started to leave the plastic chamber and enter the chamber of my flesh. I got to the halfway point and took a quick status check – ‘any sensations?’ ‘Any lightness beginning in the head?’ ‘No, well let’s continue. (I hope this stuff is bloody well going to work!) So I keep pushing the plunger down until the chamber is empty. Then, as I usually do, keeping the needle in the vein I draw a half ml of blood into the syringe with the theory in mind that it will wash any remaining amount of the drug out of the syringe and into the bloodstream. Then I sit back and wait for the drug to hit – but there is nothing… oh, wait! There’s something. My chest is expanding. There is a warmth spreading from my chest up the back of my neck and rippling through my scalp. It’s getting stronger. It’s not stopping! OH MY FUCKING JESUS CHRIST!! THIS IS FUCKING FANTASTIC!!!! It feels like the fog is lifting and my brain is all of a sudden alive again. I like this and want more.

Are You A Lifer?

I have been on methadone for for about 6 months now, and I was on dihydrocodeine (DHC) for about 3 months before that. This is the second time I have been on methadone and I can't say when I'll get off it - whether it will be 6 more months or 6 more years is a mystery to me. Like the author of the trip report below, I too feel there is an inevitability to my drug use. The knowledge of the effects of drugs is not something I can just forget - it is burned into my brain forever. Isn't it understandable that knowing such blissful feelings are available to me through the use of these substances, I would want to continue to make use of that gift of the earth?
 Of course as time goes on I learn to be more controlled and become more disciplined in living true to my value system. I have learned that along with the pleasure comes the pain but opiates make the pain a little easier to bear and the pleasure a little brighter and more...pleasurable!  This article puts my thoughts on the subject into words in a highly skilled manner. Enjoy!

What Has Two Years of It Gotten Me?

Methadone

DOSE:

150 mg

oral

Methadone

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

Hello. I want to start off saying that this is not a negative review of methadone. Most reviews I've seen of people who have taken methadone are non-tolerants who've tried it once and abhor it, and I find that a vast majority of people don't really know anything about it. Most people know something, but its usually not much. I thought that it would be nice to have someone with a bit of experience with methadone. Now it can, just like any other substance, do as much harm as it can good. I've been taking methadone through a local maintenance program for over 2 years now, and I've consumed a varitable mountain of methadone pills. And I'm at the same place I started out. I sit here now sick with anticipation and also drug withdrawl. You see I'm not the ideal maintainance patient, as there are days that I take more than I am supposed to. I am alotted 150 mg every day of the week, and, since I've been going for so long, I go to the clinic once every two weeks, get a dose there, and they bottle up the next 13 days and allow me to take it home. Which for me is a mixed proposition. 

Methadone is an opioid (synthetic opiate) first synthesised and manufactured by the German Army in World War II because of their lack of a sufficient supply of opium. Its been used here in state approved and closely watched 'methadone clinics.' It is tyically given to someone coming off heroin or morphine, although it can be used for any opiate addiction, from codiene (weak opiate) to dilaudid (strong opiate). Don't let those labels fool you, the weakest opiate in the world is just as addictive as the strongest. And the clinic is completely volunteer. I have to go in there myself and ask for help, the courts won't tell me that I have to go. Most drug treatment programs actually do not use methadone, some are dry-out places with no drugs, others will provide you with some benzodiazepenes (anti-anxiety drugs). 

When I started the methadone program back in november of 2001, I had been using morphine (primarily), heroin, and occasionaly oxycodone when nothing else was available. I would steal my family's prescription painkillers, or anyone else's for that matter; but mostly I just bought drugs from friends. When I admitted myself, I was desperate for any drug at all. The morphine supply just dried up where I was living, and I figured I might as well get the state to sponsor my addiction. Who wouldn't want a legal drug addiction? Like I said, I was desperate for anything that would quell this horror that continued to rise up inside of me when I wasn't on opiates. I started out just taking one or two hydrocodones two summers before, when I was still in high school, and even before that I was drinking bottle after bottle of Robitussin (the first 'drug' I ever did), sitting in my room by myself, listening to music for hours, just enjoying 'the feeling.' I knew as soon as I first tryed opiates, when I was drinking some of my little brother's prescription cough syrup (with hydrocodone), which I thought had the same active ingredient (dextromethorphan, an opiate relative, but completely non-opiate in its actions) as OTC Robitussin. 

I knew as soon as the feeling started to hit me, 15 minutes after I downed 2 ounces of 'M-End Solution' (I think that was what it was called), that it was something very different, but so much better, than what I had been taking. I thought 'I don't know what I took, I could die.' but the opiates had already captured my love and affection. I was happy as a clam, but in an extremely subdued fashion, realizing that if I did this every day, my life would be a wonderful journey, without pain or sorrow, where I could be the person I've always hoped I could be. 

Looking back, being free from the bonds of pain hasn't been exactly what I thought it would be. I started taking 30mg of methadone my first day at the clinic, and I was in awe of its power. Now, somedays I cut into my doses for the rest of the two weeks and take sometimes up to 400 miligrams, and I still get high. I think that crap about methadone patients not getting high is a total lie. True, I don't get as high as I did when I would put a needle in my arm, but even with my 150mg dose, i feel serene and the world looks beautiful. But the last time I took any methadone was Saturday night, so I'm sitting here sweating and shaking wishing that tomorrow morning was here. My clinic day is Wednesday (tomorrow), and I can go as soon as it opens at 5:30 am. I have some xanax and klonopin on me, just in case things get too hairy before then, I can take one of those and sleep the rest of the night off. And when you're as dope hungry as I am, waiting is almost impossible. Time drags and drags, and I can't find anything to take my mind off my own stupid suffering that refuses to let up. 

But even with this pain, which I continue to cause myself week after week by digging into my methadone reserves, I'll concede that it has been great, but it is deffinately bitersweet in many ways. I used to absolutely love music, art, my wife, but being on as much methadone as I am, my emotions are dulled to a point where I finally feel like they can't overwhelm me, but I lose the feelings of happiness and joy. I also lose most of my ability to be empathetic, and I can't understand what others are feeling. These dull brown eyes just look coldly from my face, overrun by that emotional apathy I used to find so appealing. I just don't care anymore, as long as I can get my methadone and no one stands in my way. My wife doesn't even know I'm on methadone, and I continue to keep it from her because I am afraid she will ask me to stop taking it. And I love her so much, but when given the choice, my answer would be obvious. And I don't want to have to choose methadone over her, so I just keep lying. Lying about where I'm going at 5:30 in the morning, lying about where the $77 a week just to pay for the methadone is going, I even lie about why somedays I just keep nodding off, and then somedays, I just lie in bed all day, tossing and turning, my skin crawling off my body, just existing in what I feel like is my punishment for getting to feel so good so much of the time. 

And if there is one thing I believe in, it is balance in this world. To get high, you gotta get low, to feel pleasure, you must experience an inverse amount of pain. 
I was naive in thinking that I could fight that balance, by feeling good all the time, without even looking down from my tall tower in the clouds to even consider what was happening outside this body. I cannot escape that one truth. I know that now. But now I'm stuck here, almost 2 and a half years on methadone. And I know that I'll be on this for life. For me, there is no other way. I've tasted what life can be like, and how am I supposed to turn back now? I've found a cure for lonliness, for sorrow, for boredom. I can't turn back now. So consider what I've said before you follow the path I've taken, and the path countless others before me have traveled. I have found that there really is no way back. 

Exp Year: 2003	ID: 31219
Gender: Male
Added: Sep 12, 2006	Views: 32392

gh

Retrieved from: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=31219

Why do people use drugs?

The question of what motivates drug use is an extremely difficult question to answer. Maybe because there are many different correct answers.
Psychologists distinguish between two types of behavioural reinforcement - 'positive reinforcement' and 'negative reinforcement'. A lot of people think of negative reinforcement as punishment, but they are actually quite different concepts. In positive reinforcement a stimulus is presented when the desired behavior is emitted (or performed) in order to reinforce the behavior by rewarding it. In negative reinforcement the same thing is happening - a behavior is rewarded in order to reinforce that behavior and therefore lead the animal (or human) to be more likely to perform the behavior in response to a given stimulus. However in the case of negative reinforcement an aversive stimuli is removed as a reward for the emitted behavior. So in both cases there is a reward but in negative reinforcement the reward is the removal of something unpleasant. An example of negative reinforcement in humans is the putting up of an umbrella. Doing so is rewarded by stopping the rain falling on your head. This is negative reinforcement.
 In the case of drugs there has been some debate over whether the drug taking is positively or negatively reinforced. Do people take drugs because the are rewarded with a high or because they a rewarded by the removal of depression, anxiety, or other unpleasant emotions? What if it is both? One could argue that the concepts of positive and negative reinforcement are not very useful. In any situation of reward with something there is also something taken away. If I give a dog a biscuit I am also removing hunger. If I open an umbrella the rain stops falling on my head but I also gave myself a dry space under the umbrella. I am sure there are many other examples that you can think up.
 It is not my intention to answer the question of whether these concepts are useful but just to share the idea with you. It is another way of highlighting that to find the answers to the drug problem we must think outside the box and question everything that we assume to be true. The toolbox we have had in the past has not been able to solve much but I believe we now have the tools required - The Internet and and open mind.