Ask a former IV heroin addict

[AceBoogie]

Hey, congrats on getting clean!

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How did you quit? Was it cold turkey? Did you quit all the drugs you were doing at one time?

Can you explain what withdrawal is like?

You didn't answer my questions, you hoe!  

Damn catlady my bad lol i didn't even see em

I ended up asking my family for help actually and despite how much of an ass I was to them they helped get me into a detox center and then a sober living house after that. So no I didn't really quit cold turkey because during detox they give you small amounts of opiates to help ease the withdrawal... though before that I had quit cold turkey at times and forced myself to go through the withdrawal. And yes quit everything at once though heroin was the only thing I had true physical withdrawal from

Heroin withdrawal is terrible. It's like the worst flu you've ever had times 10. One minute you feel cold all the way down to your bones.. the next minute you're hot. Then you'll get cold sweats. You get incredibly tired but you're unable to sleep. Then at times you're crawling up the walls because your mind is racing 1000mph and you know all you need to do is go get more heroin to make it all stop. All the while your stomach does flip flops and cramps up... you have horrible diarrhea (though you probably like that part, huh) and you throw up constantly. It's really terrible and it lasts for about a week depending on how bad your habit it. even after that week you still don't feel right for like a month. I've heard methadone withdrawal is even worse and lasts even longer.

Well, I always had the wherewithal to stay away from a needle.  Even though I was extremely self-destructive,  I knew that once you cross that line, it's extremely difficult to come back from.  I could see the effect it had on the people around me using needles, and I knew I would lose control if I went there.  Maybe I was just always holding out hope that life didn't have to be like that.

Have you been following the opiate epidemic?  Part of the reason overdoses are so prevalent right now is that dealers have started cutting heroin with carfentanyl, which is an analogue of fentanyl.  For those that aren't aware, fentanyl is so powerful that doses are measured in micrograms, so the addicts that have a tolerance to heroin ingest the large amount it takes to get them high.  Only they're ingesting a much more powerful drug that they don't have a tolerance to and dying.  There was one small town in West Virginia that had something like 25-30 overdoses in one day because of carfentanyl.

Here's some statistics for anyone interested in just how much overdoses have increased since 2002...

https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics...eath-rates

Yea I know people who developed a really bad percocet habit but never snorted a pill in their life. I suppose everyone draws a different line somewhere.

And yea I was well aware of everything throughout my addiction I suppose I just didn't care. I'm pretty confident that I've never unknowingly taken fentanyl, though I suppose you never really know. Fentanyl produces a very short high and is in my opinion distinctly different from the high heroin produces. I had access to lab grade fentanyl at one point (I can't say how or where I obtained it because I would be risking other people's freedom) so I was always able to safely take it without worry of overdosing and it's not quite as euphoric as heroin in my opinion. But yea surprisingly fentanyl and carfentanyl is what's really killing people out here, not so much heroin.

Even before the flood of fentanyl and its analogues began most people who overdosed on opiates actually died because they mixed opiates with benzos or alcohol. That's not to say heroin is safe by any means, however.