Yep, Chip knows them:

HTH


Cheers,
Grant

 

you just got my vote

 

Again, no problem for replying, and for chip, Chemist trip was excellent. Thanks.

Anyways (shameless copy&paste)

Would you say the 95%/5% split said by grant is pretty accurate or biased by the statistics of the types of people who would use the drug services he worked in?? ie is it more likely he would see mostly just the hardcore addicts who cant function rather than those with a level of functioning left???
Interesting question and the answer i give can only be based on my experiences, not on the population as a whole. I'd reckon he's not too far off the mark. Obviously working in any service is going to show you the best and worse cases so i don't see why it'd be different with drugs, heroin specifically.
It boils down to those who want help and those who don't. Attending a service shows on atleast some level you acknowledge your problem and need help, be that for free gear or to clean up. It's irrelevant to messed up you are. The average habit lasts 12-15years before properly kicked.

So the reason you have a lower risk of death than other addicts is because your not completely off the rails??? Im sure a addict wouldnt deliberately inject an OD or are those kind of users so deep in the addiction that they have no control anymore and just dont know what they are doing???
I didn't say that, depending on what the shits cut with i'm fully aware the next charge could be my last, however, i won't inject something i've not seen someone else play with first. Kept me safe so far.
As for intentionally OD'ing, the 1st time i realised the damage i'd done to my life and more importantly those i care about, i tried this exactly. Half heartedly as it turns out casue i'm here just now. But hell, what a kick lol. If i had to go somehow, thats how i'd go. Not a nice sight afterwards, but then why would i care about that?

On the original question i posed, i presume you use clean needles etc, but being "in the scene" can you shed insight into why the hardcore junkies often use dirty/shared needles despite easy access to free sharps???
Seeing as we're being honest here, i've shared works a couple of times. Same guy both times. And yes, i'm BBV clear. Stupid but without knowing the compulsion of feeling better late at night when exchange is closed you couldn't understand the need. As for leaving them about, thats uncalled for, theres NO excuses for that. A lot of junkys i know would kick fuck out of someone found doing that. That said, alot of them have kids.

Also, youve said youve been on and off the drugs for a while now despite detox. You say youve had a average life. Do you know what drives the addiction and why the detox fails??? is it merely psychological and chemical addiction (perhaps genetic factors) or is there a deeper issue you are trying to hide from??
eg you used to take other drugs before heroin, was it to escape from a past or a reality??
Hmmmnnnnn, Detox fails because not enough effort is put into solving the route of the problem. Me specifically, i've fooled around with drugs for so long now its become so normal i almost know nothing else. To put that in contect, i started smoking hash at 11, I'm 26 now. As a child i went through a couple of divorces and allsorts of wierd family shit, but nothing worse than many many other people so blaming that would be a complete cop out. I just liked drugs and thought i knew better. Stupidity in a word.

As a user yourself, other than the legalisation, What treatment/therapys etc would help you?? why did detox not help???
Methadone doesn't have the same result in your body, its an opioide as opposed to an opiate, synthetic. I'd take the Diamorphine trials like in London/Switzerland if you please.
Detox has helped, just not been successful, i'm in a better place at the moment than have been for a long time, but i'm fully aware at all times that it'd be easy to slip backwards.

 

If you were given the choice of being insane, or trying heroin which would you pick?

And I mean PROPERLY insane, you know setting fire to random kids in the park type of insane not just a little bit of mild weirdness?

With a bad enough past, thats often the choice people are making.


Someone I know's mate fosters kids, they have a kid at the moment with such an horrific past, and so many demons, that by the time she is an adult she is about 99% likely to be either:
serious addict / murderer / totally loopy / dead

There is just NO way that with the start in life that she had, and the psychological damage that she has had, that any amount of counselling or therapy is ever going to see her be normal. She's only 8 years old, but her fate is essentially already decided, she's been damaged beyond repair.

 

Hard hitting facts here

 

i think for anyone that wonders what its all about been a heroin addict should read anthony keidis's book scar tissue its the lead singer from the red hot chilli peppers and he is very open and frank about his drug addiction problems from his past in there so is quite an eye opener for any one with no idea about it all

 

They're still going to be insane though, just this time insane AND off their face on drugs and more thank likely making the insanity worse.

 

A very good book and I agree with you a total eye opener. Gotta love his honesty about the fact that at the times of his drugs binges he was a thieving junky scumbag who didnt care who he hurt..

 

Not always because if people can escape their demons for long enough through escapism like hard drugs then they dont always end up as insane as they would if they tried to face them straight.
Plus of course they are SO focussed on their next hit, they havent got time for all the really unpleasant stuff that non drug users do to each other that ironically I dont think you will ever see a heroin addicct do, their life has a purpose, getting their next fix, so they dont have time for the shitty stuff that people do to each other when they have nothing better to do.

Hey, dont get me wrong here, im sure as fuck not recomending heroin, but I am saying that in some people's situation hard drugs and drifting off into a happy place are a better option than being alone and thinking about what has happened to them!

 

will do, as ive just ordered it

 

Amazing thread.

Roscco you said you got to 36 hours then could not take any more without it? Surely you were not far off coming out the other side?

What do you feel like first thing in the morning??

 

I can relate to your points chip, i too know a few people whos' past has more or less dictated their lives. But thinking about your quote above, drifting off into a happy place brings with it knowledge that there's gonna be a crash at the otherside, and inturn your gonna have to do some bad shit to drift off again. It's an incredibly vicious circle.

 

Rossco, agreed, its not a nice option, and im sure thats why almost invariably the people forced to drugs by massive trauma and psycholigical damage seem to be the ones who end up the hardest users, as the thing they are running away from with drugs is there waiting for them when they come back down, so they have to run away again and again and again.

 

So are you into fords and that rossco? do you still use herion or is it just methodone now?

 

Lets forget about my meth for a minute, pretend it's not there.
Say i had a charge now, this time tomorrow i'm gonna be feeling rough, sweaty, restless, irratable, cramps, sore joints/head running eyes/arse/nose. Midnight tomorrow i'll be feeling the same, just alot more intensive.

The morning the day after tomorrow (after a night of no sleep) all i'll be thinking about is a hit. This is such a powerfull compulsion its hard to explain. Think about shagging a bird, then being told to fuck off 3secs before the money shot, with no release. Now magnify that feeling LOTS.

Come 36hours i'll be thinking things i'd swear blind to you now i'd never do, anyway of getting money would be a very realistic prospect. In a word, the drug takes over, i disappear and a stereotypical nasty junky fuck appears. Takes about 5 days to get over the physical stuff, could be years for the metal bit. To be honest, it's the no sleeping that gets me.

Because of the meth none of this happens now, Mornings has been the biggest difference. I now get up, shower and depending on the day, go to work. Pretty similar to your day i suspect. Without the meth, morning means waking up with symptoms mentioned above to face another day or allsorts of shit just to feel normal.

Yeah i'm into fords, Like most of you here i've got a passion for Cosworth and am after an escos but need finances to stabilise more first. It's not my first priority. Having said that, i could probably finance one with a loan or something (a junky with a cossie lol) but as i said, got other priorities. Runnin' around in a Mondeo at the moment.

Yes i still use, just not as much

 

Roscco thanks for making my train journey home from work go so quickly!
It's nice to hear it from a decent and obviously very honest person!!

Thank you! I actually have a meeting about our heroin study tomorrow as a matter of fact!

Can I just ask you a question, sorry if I'm jumping on the bandwaggon!
But from a professional view I'd like to know, what would you rather be treated the cause or the effect?

Thanks again Hun! Hope you don't mind but will be using you as an example tomorrow

 

Cheers for the frank and honest replys!!!! Its what im after so i can understand some of the thought process's.

You mention a few things about childhood then say its no worse than what others had. I can see your point there but surely its how it affected you personally rather than the specific event, eg some people are destroyed by the death of a parent, some are not. Or is that what you meant???

So in essence you might need proper long term therapy to redefine in your mind what "normal" is. Ie relearn a safer version of normality?? Thats the kind of job for long term CBT type therapys.

Sadly that is true in a lot of cases. There has been a lot of research over the last few years into the effect of trauma on the early childs brain and the fundamental problem comes with the fact that at an early age, not all the connections in the brain are fully formed and hence severe abuse etc can lead to them not forming correctly or not at all. Hence why some people abused at a very young age often also appear to suffer from learning difficulties or brain damage and it isnt always caused by physical head trauma.

I think thier current theorys show that after about the age of 8, most of the physical links in the brain are set and cant be changed so the outlook for younger abuse/damage/negligence etc isnt so great.

very very complex psychology they are only just exploring and attempting to treat. Also links between personality disorders and early childhood are now well documented.
Sadly its often not always thier own choice. There are a LOT of vulnerable people who end up on hard drugs through being tricked by others as a consequence of mental health or other disabilities. Its VERY common in the sex trade especially in europe for young women/girls (average age of a prostitutes first time "working" is 12 in the UK) to be forced onto heroin as a way of keeping them both under control and compliant and so they dont run as they then "need" thier pimp who also supplys them with drugs etc

One friend of mine has severe borderline personality disorder and other problems and she is so niave and trusting of others its rediculous and reallly didnt understand drugs and the risk yet they housed her in a social care house with schizophrenics right next to a halfway house for recovering addicts. Despite so called supervision it didnt take long for addicts from the house to offer her drugs. Luckily i got said addict thrown out as he was dealing and using in the so called drug free house!! Unfortunately theres only so much i can supervise a friend when i lived on base at the time and she ended up in a "supported" flat where a junkie bullied his way into living on her sofa, tricked her into trying heroin and then basically abused her as he was then supplying her heroin in return for sex once she had got addicted and as she was so emotionally damaged, such a low self esteem, she couldnt stop him. The insane thing is shes down on the lists as a vulnerable person yet social services couldnt help her get rid of this junky as she could say she didnt want him there but couldnt find the strength to make a formal police complaint to get him legally evicted. Luckily with a bit of help she did report him to police and hes now back in prison serving the rest of his sentance and is awaiting court for a string of other offences including what he did to her. Shes now in a "therapuetic community" for personality disorders and will be for several years. So yes i probably am biased to thinking most junkies are scum, but justifiably in my opinion.

 

massive eye opener i always thought that it was a certain type of person that became an addict and that they were a disease to be fair but now i understand it alot more ! also read nikki sixx's heroine diarys and that shit is grim ! took me a while to read it all as it made me sad to think there are people out there that are like this !

 

I know there are some people who are tricked into taking drugs and stuff like that and I wouldnt want all junky's shot or anything but my personal experiences with heroin addicts like yours have been that they are also thieving junky scumbags who will do anything for the drugs obviously Rosco proves that this isnt always the case but he's also openly admitted that there are times when he hasnt got heroin that he turns into the sterotypical thieving junky scumbag.

And Chip. I still think that insane people like you say should go and get proper help for their illnesses. Unless the person has absolutely no mental ability to say no to drugs and makes the conscious choice to take them then I stand by my original statement of me having no pity. Bad things happen to people all over the world day in day out, not all of them resort to heroin or other drugs to get through life.

 

I remember hearing about how nikki sixx ended up in hospital etc for a massive overdose and was pretty much dead and then the same day he got out of hospital and went out and got fucked on heroin again.

 

i have no pity either, the majority are able to choose their own road to take. you make your own choices in life. ive been close to the edge with coke , i used to spend Ł500 a week on the stuff and still working and functioning to pay for it although i will be paying for my mistakes for a few years yet and fortunately turned it around when my kids came along but theres no one or nothing i blame but myself.
making excuses for people to justify their selfishness doesnt help them. they will only stop if and when they want to.

 

L0ubie, Not sure what your meaning but....... From a realistic standpoint it would need to be the cause thats treated. People are always going to want/need ways to broaden their horizons.
Think of the Incas, they used the effect of various plants to embark on vision quests and such. Substance abuse has been around as long as we have.
If you could treat the cause, people might not want to abuse effect? Your gonna use me? Use and abuse babe, i do

Warren, What i mean by my background normality is that their are plenty of kids who've been through far worse situations that i have and have come out in a better light. I feel it would be all to easy to blame my problems on the fact my Mum divorced twice. The 1st time i was six, the 2nd twelve. Psychiatrist(sp?) reconed that not being able to understand what happened when i was little, hit me two fold when i was old enough to understand when it happend again.

I do fully agree how different people react to situations in different ways though. Maybe i'm in denial, but i'd rather carry the can than blame someone else. I just think i made a dumb decision. As 89xr2 said, it was my concious decision.

As for long term therapy, facing facts i could end up being maintained on methadone for the rest of my life. It's like being punished every day for a mistake i made once about 8 years ago.

Typing this is making me think about things. Thanks to all so far for taking the time to listen and not just shoot me down immediately.

 

So you think that a child who has been raped thousands of times by fully grown adults in daily attacks every single day of her life wether its xmas or or her birthday or whatever from the age of 1 to the age of 7 and then chucked into care when she finally gets taken away from her mother who then gets passed from pillar to post in foster care through countless "parents" who simply havent a clue how to comfort her, because lets face it doing so simply isnt possible, when they finally find out as a teenager that taking drugs allows them to actually sleep at night without reliving the horror of what happened to them, which is what happens every night (and every waking moment more or less) when they dont take drugs, you think that person is "scum" do you?

Cause please bear in mind that IS the sort of story that many heroin addicts have from their past, and is the reason they turned to drugs in the first place, its the ONLY time they have ever found piece from their inner daemons in their entire life, and lets face it, its the only way they ever are going to in some cases.
Some people are SO badly broken as children, that nothing can ever repair them.

 

I didnt call them scum, I only used "thieving junky scum" to describe exactly that, the thieving junky scum in this world, If you read above I said about how Rossco proves this isnt always the case but he also openly admits to having the thieving junky scum tendencies when he couldnt get drugs.

Obviously I don't think that girl or anyone like her is scum, i'm not a complete cunt. But i do stand by my thoughts that unless that girl is mentally incapable of saying no to heroin then yes it's still her choice to take it. It isnt going to help her or make her better, yeah the times when she's high she may be able to get away from everything but when she comes down and she will her life will be alot worse. Drugs may well be an escape but eventually there's no where else to hide and you have to deal with your demons.

End of the day you have your reasons for your thoughts and I have mine, both it seems are based on our own personal experiences with addicts.

The facts still remain for that one child who was raped and abused and turns into a heroin addict there will be plenty of children who went through the exact same things and have managed to deal with everything without the drugs.

 

Cheers hun basically what were looking at is whether we should treat the effect heroin has, with drugs to block it out or to create a drug to target addiction!!


But thanks again hun

 

89xr2
Thanks for the vote of confidence, i don't let myself get that way anymore, hence the methadone. Without it, uh oh.

Anyways
If we accept that there are exceptions to the rules, like the case of the girl chip mentioned, and accepting that no amount of counciling will resolve her problems, how would you suggest we maintain her life?

 

Once someone like the girl I described finds the release of heroin, a week later she will be stealing or selling sex to fund her habbit as that is the only way she is going to score enough to keep the pain away. Dont worry though, she'll probably only be "thieving junkie scum" for a few years before she gets raped and murdered by a punter, or dies of an overdose, so she shouldnt trouble you too much hopefully mate.


I dont think that there is a very high percentage of people sold into viscous and brutal child prostitution at the age of 1 who "manage to deal" with it without drugs at all, i think you just arent capable of picturing the extent to which that destroys someone and leaves them incapable of luxuries such as "dealing with it" without drugs!

 

As in block the receptors in the brain with something like naltrexone (Narcan)? I can't quite get my head around the concept of the other, a drug to combat addiction? If a person has an addictive personality, presumably they'd need to keep taking this drug to remove the threat. Constant taking...........Habit.

If i'm completely wrong can you please let me know, i'll ask 'others' for you

 

Honestly, I don't know... but I still maintain that Heroin will simply make things worse for someone like that, yeah things are all lovely when she's high but as you yourself well know that high is short lived and what follows isnt so nice. There's nearly always something else that can be done instead of resorting to drugs.

 

i also dont believe the majority using hard drugs will be using them because of such circumstances early in life. the majority have made their choices because they wanted to.
you cant say theyre all like her just like he cant say theyre all thieving junkies.

 

But she's no longer trying to keep the pain of her past away she's trying to get rid of the pain of not being on heroin anymore. The drugs have simply given her a different problem to deal with. So what's better, having to deal with the pain of her past of having to deal with the pain of her present.



I imagine theres far more in the entire world than you and I could ever think possible.

 

so what do people suggest should happen to these sorts of folk? should they be excused of their robbing to feed their habits and the suffering they cause others because theyve had a bad life?
is a life like that worth living in the first place for those so beyond normality?
can any amount of do gooding sort out people so beyond it?

 

89xr2 & fuzzy, i fully agree with you both that drugs will only make the situation worse, and i too believe (through experience and aquaintances) that most drug users are where they are now through choice not circumstance (myself included).

However, Chip has a very valid point that a hell of alot of people end up in thier situation through direct result of circumstance. It just goes to show the vast complexity of this problem and the many many different angles that will be required to tackle it. Everybody is different.

For Warren, seeing as you were in the Army, what's your take on soldiers with drug issues?
Would it suprise you to know that the first person that showed me how to 'cook up' was a lynx gunner, and i know several lads currently serving who come back on leave, get totally baked, then head back to base to work it all out in PT?

 

Still using chips young girl as an example, if have nothing but pity for her and for what she's had to deal with however I don't have pity for the addict she's become. I still have pity for the girl underneath the heroin addiction though if that makes sense..

 

Surely all life is worth living, and the decent folk amongst us would want to have something in hand to help those who so desperately need it?
Not do-gooding and no excusing for the robbing to feed habbits, but a sustainable, socially acceptable method for turning those 'who've lost normality' around.

 

If it was a dog suffering like that, you'd put it down, but Im not going to say that is a fair course of action to take out on a totally innocent little girl.

I have NO suggestions, I genuinely think that some people are way beyond repair

I pity them, I really do, but I have no idea what to do about it.



By the way, im not saying all heroin addicts are like that, but its certainly a reasonable percentage, if you took demographics of the normal population in terms of the % who have been abused as children and the same for heroin addicts, I bet it would be tenfold!

 

Yes, but what chip said was she became an addict through her past, what i'm asking is how could we as society prevent that from happening, her past accepted?

 

I know what you mean, but I dont think it makes any sense to stop feeling sorry for her at the point she starts stealing to fund the only way her pain can stop other than suicide.

 

The only way I can think of, is a total absence of access to illegal drugs in the first place.
That would stop the addiction to heroin, but it of course wouldnt stop her suffering, Im not sure there is a way to stop the hurt properly for people like that, as Warren mentions recent evidence suggests it actually stops the brain properly forming, nothing can undo that effect that I am aware of.

 

i think people in such pain should be allowed to or even assisted to take their own life to end the torment should they wish although being in sound mind to make such a decision at the time could be a totally different problem.
its all very well trying to help but if they dont want to be helped all thats happening is your prolonging the suffering.