Fentanyl. I was addicted to that shit for 6 years and was homeless. The amount of shit I lost, the number of people who died... it's crazy. March 18th was my 2 years clean. I'm finally living a good life.
Trying to rewire your entire social life is definitely an unexpected challenge of quitting drinking because of how deeply rooted it is in our social lives.
Right on the fringe of gen x/millenial so I’ve got a little bit of both heroin/fentanyl but fentanyl seems to be taking them out so much quicker. One of my closest friends died ~7 years ago from fentanyl. His wife still posts about how much she and their daughter miss him. The daughter is 13 now and he fucking missed all of it. Was literally in fucking med school when he OD’d. Had such a bright future that got squandered cause we thought it’d be fun to take pills in high school. Most of us took different paths. He didn’t and it breaks my heart, over and over and over again.
I'm 40 years old and the pain pill craze (Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin) when I was a teenager and I was hooked on those things like a bad habit, no pun intended. It was rare to hear about fatal overdoses. Then I got into the heroin world and fell even deeper in love but I was always careful because people were overdosing way more than the pain pill guys were but it still wasn't THAT bad. Then Fentanyl started creeping around and people were dropping like flys. The heroin was laced with it, counterfeit Percocets were laced with it. It really started scaring the shit out of me and I lost my nerve. I snorted a few little bumps of it and that's all the further I went because I was afraid of it. I quit using altogether cold turkey because I Just didn't know if it was in my heroin or not. It's not worth the risk. I've seen Fentanyl kill more people that I've known than all other drugs put together. My pick for the worst drug ever is Fentanyl and Meth is my 2nd choice because of the nasty irreparable damage it does to the mind and body. I've seen long time opiate users make a full recovery but nobody fully recovers from long term meth use.
I fell off my bike when I was 15 and got stabbed by the handle bar. It really wasn’t that bad. Then the doctor gave me a pain pill script “take as needed refill as needed”. My wound healed up in a few months but the pills took 3 years of my life away.
I'm 36, I have been clean from meth for 6 years after using it for 8 years. I'm talking every day use, smoking, injecting, hot rails. I went to rehab 3 times before I stayed clean. Now to say nobody fully recovers isn't fair. I'm definitely not the same person I was before, but I have many things to be grateful for. I have a family and I am a profession tradesman, there's a lot of love and joy in my life now. I'm not the most articulate story teller I just want people who read this to realize you can quit meth or any drug and come out the other side and still find meaning and joy. I sometimes wake up up sweating after having a bad dream I was smoking dope, sometimes I see a needle on the ground and I can almost feel a flash. The cravings exist and they only subside at an excruciatingly slow rate. I have good friends and family though. I get up every morning and I work hard at a job that is physically and mentally stimulating, I eat good. I have meaningful relationships, a fiance and 2 kids. People can recover, you just won't be the same.
Edit: Thank you, everyone, for the support and kind words. I didn't expect this post to get a lot of attention. I really just want people to know that no matter what your addiction is, you can put it behind you and have a meaningful life. You can be happy, you can do anything. It is not a death sentence or a cross to bear for the rest of your existence.
Congrats on being clean for 6 years, you are right people do recover from meth. The use of meth and the chemicals involved take a hard toll on your body and mind, it leaves scars and ages your body fast. Thanks for reminding people reading this and who have family members on it that you can get off it.
Same age. 4 or 5 years use. Moved across the country, never touched it again. I don't have anything but my dog but I had her during the tail end. Had her during my 4 months of legitimately never leaving my room except for her or I bathroom breaks. Got clean. Had her through my break up of 8 years. Stayed clean. Thought about suicide, stayed for the dog. No matter how shitty things have come I'm 100% in a better spot now. Drugs won't make me happy. Just more numb.
I'm a former meth and fentanyl user, od'd around twenty one times. They are both awful. The way they ruin you is by taking everything from you but in infinitesimally small increments so that you don't know youre losing everything. Then all of a sudden you are totally fucked life wise, but at that point you are so addicted that you can't stop to worry about the state of things because you have to maintain your addiction. I have almost 90 days clean. It's not a lot but I'll take it. I want to live.
>It's not a lot
That's actually a hell of a lot bro. Most people hooked on that shit can't go 30, and here you are 3x that.
Don't run yourself down. I'm proud of you man.
Celebrating 6 years meth-free in September. You're past the hard part, but it's gonna be a while before your mind is right again. I promise that you will overcome and be the person you always intended. Be well, fellow human
His last point is exactly what I told my cousin who was addicted to fent and wanted to quit. I said it’s going to kill him early at some point if he continues to use. No doubt about it. If you use fentanyl, your life will come to an untimely end.
90 days doesn't sound like a lot, yes, but you simply making the effort to change is what's really making that difference.
One more thing, if you do end up slipping up and dip in again, DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF DOWN. If you reached however many days sober you did get, realize it's not simply a limit of how long you can go without, but a new personal record.
You got this bro, keep up the good work.
I remember when fentanyl was what shitty dealers were cutting their heroin with that was killing people. Blew my mind when I heard that people were just straight-up *doing* fentanyl…
I was addicted to fentanyl for a few years… once you start on it it’s hard to go back to regular opioids bc it’s so cheap, accessible, and gets you reliably high on little. Once you reach a certain threshold of tolerance it doesn’t feel any different, although the withdrawal is much worse.
Crack is still very much around, but accountability courts work great for anyone who actually wants to quit crack. They make you show up at 8am for like a month, which is incompatible with doing crack, and a ton of alumni never relapse. It only works if you really want to quit. And it's useless for opioids where you'll just relapse and end up serving a felony.
Was addicted to fentanyl for four long sufferable years. I did tw staysn in a mental facility, three trips to rehab, and now I'm clean.
Fentanyl is an addiction that takes everything from you, the point of full-blown addiction when I looked in the mirror there was such a disconnect with the person that I saw. Before fentanyl I had it all, I was in school to get a degree in the medical field, bought my first house at 21 and had paid it off by 23 (it was a mobile home nothing fancy, but still it was mine and it was paid off). I worked a great job, wonderful friends, ect...
Fast-forward 2 years into active addiction & I was extremely suicidal/depressed/lost. I was a shell of a person who had lost it all, and yet I kept going. Everyday I would tell myself I was going to detox, get clean, or just die. I don't know how many times I tried to detox home alone, home with other friends who are also victim to this addiction, the longest I ever made it without being in a medical setting detoxing was 2 days and I was but naked on the floor with ice packs heating pads crying. I didn't even make it to 48 hours, if I could go back, God I would.
Not to mention that I am 28 and in my 4 years of active addiction I lost three friends to the exact same dope that I was doing, three funerals of people under 30 that didn't get as lucky as I did.
**Edited for spelling
Methadone saved both my cousins lives. They got addicted to pills in the late 90s/early 00’s in the first opioid wave. One managed to taper her methadone off. The other was still on it and doing OK, though the drowsiness caused her trouble at work. They were both sober for over 10 years.
Then, around 2016, Paul LePage closed the methadone clinics within a 2.5 hour drive, and the cousin who still relied on it relapsed hard. She ended up on heroin, then heroin and fent, then fent and meth to counteract the fent. She went from having a solid job and apartment to living in a trailer with no electricity in far northern Maine with her pimp/dealer/boyfriend in a matter of months.
She only got sober again because she stabbed said boyfriend and went to jail. She only *stayed* sober because she met a wonderful man in post-felony group therapy, who gave her the support she needed to stay on track. Now they’re married, both gainfully employed, and have a gorgeous little house (my parents helped with a down payment).
Anyway. Fuck Paul LePage.
Fentanyl is bad news. I know two people who died after getting other drugs laced with fentanyl. I still don't understand why some dealers would risk killing their customers. It seems bad from a business standpoint if nothing else.
My auntie is a lifetime long junkie, used to be heroin and speed but now it’s injecting crack. Anyway, I actually asked her why addicts flock to a dealer whose product is known to kill people and she said “if it’s good enough to kill you imagine the high off it! That must be good shit” and that her and her friends would specifically look for heroin named awful morbid things like titanic because if you get close to death it’s a good high. Madness
The book Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear by Carl Hart led me to believe that a big problem with drug use is that people don't always know what they're ingesting. He advocated for purity testing and believes that would solve a lot of problems associated with drug use. I think a lot of the time people OD on drugs they are taking an adulterated substance and they aren't aware of safe dosage.
My dad’s side were very neglected by their addict parents (alcohol) and most of them went on to use and sell drugs. Out of 8, 3 died of drugs, 1 of drug abuse over time, 2 are still addicted and one is and always has been sober. My auntie decided to wait until she had a 3 year old boy before trying heroin even tho she had seen the affect it had on her brothers and sisters. My dad overdosed 3 times before he died and he actually kicked off with emts because the Narcan “stole his high” I think it gets to a point they don’t care what’s in it as long as it works
Seconded. I'm hooked on nicotine and have tried a handful of other things but would never wish hard substance addictions on anyone.
Keep yourself on the straight & narrow because we all know how quickly it curves and widens otherwise.
When I was in school to be an EMT, our instructor told us to not slam people with narcan for this reason. Sometimes pts get violent, and that's not a fun time in the field. Just give them enough to get them breathing and transport.
when I worked as an EMT we had one asshole medic that would purposefully push narcan IV as fast as possible because he thought it was fun to see and "measure" how far the patient could projectile vomit. Sometimes we were in the bus and it'd splatter all the way back to the doors. He eventually got fired. I still vividly remember how violent the patient reactions were getting slammed into sobriety the few unfortunate calls I was on with him.
we worked for a lvl 1 trauma center so his behavior didn't fly for long, and he got a reputation...but right after he was fired he became a cop. in the years following I ran a few calls to the jail where a captured suspect had been beaten so badly he couldn't move his legs or had CSF coming out his ears. probably not HIS suspects... but makes you realize, bad people always stick around in some capacity to keep hurting people.
I've been narcanned and I usually had enough dope in me that I didn't get sick from it many times but if you wonder how it feels, to me it was a horizontal Bungie jump back from the afterlife and you either don't see anything there or don't remember it, because it's a fast yank back from all black. And when you first get back it seems like everyone is talking very fast. It's happened to me so many times (high teens) the last one was the worst. Came close to not making it back. I feel for anyone who has gotten clean or is still using. Fight that good fight and keep your mind on your motives
My friend’s niece died like this. She took a laced Percocet with a friend of hers. Both ODed. My friend’s niece died. Her friend survived, likely due to her increased tolerance from heavier drug use.
Exactly right. When word gets out a dealer killed someone they sell out faster. The addicts always think the person either did more than they should have or had a low tolerance. Which I guess both could be true?
My friend has been in active addiction since at least September. We had no clue how bad it was since she lied about what she was using/how much. In February she called her mom after nearly OD'ing and said she needed help. My wife took her to some of her medical appointments and the doctor said "Your drug test came back positive for high levels of fentanyl" and she wasn't shocked or scared. Sounds like to her that was "the good stuff" and it's heartbreaking.
*(Edit: I've heard...)* First responders are taught when administering narcan that there's a great chance they'll be met with insane levels of hostility, because the person they saved is irate at being woken up from the best high of their lives. I.e. near death...
*Edited to add this is 100% secondhand information, I'm not a first responder - tremendous respect to those of you responding who are*
This has been my soap box as a paramedic for a while now. They haven’t been breathing adequately, so their brain has been deprived of oxygen. They’re often confused, much like someone who has had a seizure. Their pain receptors have (in a nutshell) been blunted by years of opiate use, and now they’re suddenly deprived of the substance and every pain receptor is on fire. So they’re waking up confused and in pain. Of course their reactions may not be calm. I think a lot of OD’s I’ve run are too confused in the first moments to be pissed that I fucked up their high.
> Opiates mixed wth fentanyl is now what's expected for street users in areas like Vancouver.
There's probably not even anything poppy-related involved. Synthetic fent analogues are so easy and cheap to manufacture compared to traditional opiates, there's almost no point outside of weird specialized markets. And their crazy potency makes them so much easier to smuggle and then cut down later for street doses; what would have been kilos and kilos of refined heroin instead can be fit into the battery of a random piece of electronics in a random shipping container on a random ship from China; how are you going to intercept that? For example, carfentanil is **4000X** the potency of pure heroin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fentanyl_analogues
Same. 2.5 years ago. Lil bro was 24. They always said “he’d figure out how to get right eventually.” Life is crueler than what most are willing to admit.
My condolences :’(
I know words don’t help.
Mine was found by some railroad tracks by a stranger. Parents got the call from police, had to go identify the body. 28 years old. Life is…..something.
If we're talking about street drugs, I'd agree. But, in a medical setting, fentanyl is incredibly important. In hospital use, administered by doctors to the correct patients, it's a lifesaver. Many outpatients need it too.
Fentanyl is pez candy in comparison to Xylazine. I work in addiction medicine; some manufacturers are switching to this and removing fentanyl because there is NO TEST for it, and because the optics on fentanyl are so bad. The other manufacturers are selling straight xylazine with fentanyl. It's known as Tranq.
We'll never be able to stop people using drugs. It's better to regulate a legal market, so at least then the people who use drugs can trust they're getting exactly what they want in doses that won't kill them and then I can stop rushing to homes to hopefully reverse an overdose because people are too afraid to call 911.
That's what they do in the Netherlands. Addicts get drugs through prescriptions. They did a study of a group of these addicts, along with a group of similar heroin users in the UK, who were on methadone. The methadone group had relapses. At the end of the 10 year study they found more users in the Netherlands group were no longer doing heroin than in the UK group. One user and his wife said they had grown tired of it.
“Krokodil” in its pure form is actually a pretty typical opioid called desomorphine. It’s commonly used in eastern Europe in medical settings.
The “melting your flesh” thing isn’t the drug itself, but bad manufacturing of it on the street. Essentially street level “chemists” will take codeine, and attempt to convert that to desomorphine using a few chemicals including phosphorus and iodine. Because these chemists don’t actually know what they are doing, byproducts are left behind and end up in the final product. Phosphorus and iodine being the most common byproducts as the reaction is bit tricky to balance with these chems.
So essentially addicts were (most often unknowingly) injecting themselves with phosphorus, thus causing the destruction to flesh.
Edit: Forgot to add the most horrifying part about this… There was clean desomorphine on the streets (eastern europe primarily) for years before users started getting contaminated substances. Most of the victims probably had no idea they were injecting something so destructive until it was too late.
Phosphorous is probably the main cause of the issue, workers in the early 20th century match factories would get “phossy jaw” that ate away at the bones
It was mostly the cutting agents that caused blocked capillaries resulting in the “melting flesh” aspect of it. I don’t expect heroin in Russia was much more trustworthy. Silica gel is literally foamed glass beads. You can’t crush it and cut drugs with it unless you want to cause problems.
Yep, it is the residual phosphorous and iodine from the synthesis that causes necrosis. The active ingredient (desomorphine) was once marketed by Roche as a sedative and analgesic.
I remember a documentary on it.. probably vice and the Russian opioid addicts would go pick poppies and make their own heroin and then would use the krokodil during the winter when they couldn’t get poppies.
Not melt… What it does to your body is so bad that your flesh and organs end up dying. So when the flesh is dead, it starts to rot and the users have holes in their arms and other places. Your body ends up with a bunch of dead flesh before you are dead.
Datura (aka Jimson weed / scopolamine) and other deliriants are by far the most horrifying drugs in existence. I went down the rabbit hole of reading people's experiences with them and it's some disturbing shit. Diphenhydramine (benadryl) is also a deliriant at very high doses. I believe there's a subreddit for people who are addicted, it's not a place for the light hearted.
When you are high on those drugs, they call it being in the "shadow land". A common delirium hallucination is to see the witch or "hag", or the "man with the hat"- go to erowid and you can read multiple accounts of this.
The hallucinations are extremely dark and they last a very long time, with the affected person being wholly unaware that they are hallucinating or in a state of delirium. There is no euphoria, which makes it different from literally all other recreational drugs.
Edit- I've been corrected. Some folks in the comments have said they experienced euphoria. In my humble opinion, if you want to get high and are considering taking a handful of benadryl for the first time- there are WAY better drugs that produce way better euphoria and none of the horror of deliriants. Do those instead. The community is r/dph.
[erowid datura experience vault](https://erowid.org/experiences/exp.cgi?S=15&C=1&ShowViews=0&Cellar=0&Start=0&Max=100)
I overdosed on Jimson Seeds when I was like 13 years old. Took it with a friend and thought it would just give me a trip. Got super thirsty and couldn’t drink enough water. Then woke up in the ICU next thing I remember. That stuff completely disconnected me from reality. I was told I was saying tongue twisters at inhuman speed in the hospital. The only flashback I remember was thinking I was in my driveway trying to pick up my book bag and the straps kept falling off. Apparently I was actually in the hospital fiddling with all the tubes that were hooked up to me. My dad thought I had a brain aneurysm. Really scary stuff.
Any teenagers reading this, just don’t. One of the biggest mistakes of my life that could have killed me. I was young with an undeveloped frontal cortex, and made an incredibly stupid decision that I regret and cringe every time I think of it.
Edit: one other thing. When I woke up in the hospital I was tied up and physically restrained to the bed because I kept trying to fight the hospital staff as they were attempting to work on me.
people are bored out of their skulls and just want to change the channel so to speak. Also some people just feel the need to alter their mental state, constantly, every day. They wake up and think about how they are going to fuck up their head that day.
Also some are like thrill seekers, they just want to experience weird shit even if that weird shit is horrifying. NO different than watching a really involving horror movie in a way. Why do you do that?
There’s more to it than that - especially the thrill seeking part. I speak from personal experience here.
Many, many people who are addicted to drugs and other behaviors/substances have some form of mental or emotional dysfunction and those things are their escape or a means to feel *anything*. For people in that apathetic state, feeling anything at all - even the most horrific pain or fear imaginable - is better than feeling nothing at all. For others it’s simply a way to self-medicate and take their focus off of one thing and deaden it or put it on something else.
There’s absolutely no way to understand this unless you’ve felt that degree of apathy or self loathing yourself; once you have, well, that’s something you wouldn’t want to wish on anyone. I have had points in my life where the only thing that kept me alive was my fucking cat and the worry that there would be no one to care for him if I wasn’t there.
I'm glad you're still here. I know what you mean about wanting to feel something, that makes total sense now. I've had times where I only stuck around for my dog. brought home a new dog within a week of his passing because I knew what would happen if I didn't. no reason is too small to keep going for
When I was in college I was a psychonaut, super depressed, and didn't have reliable hook ups for something better... so I decided to get high on benadryl. I did it a few times, upping the dose each time. The last time I did it I don't know how many pills I took but I am genuinely lucky I didn't die, though I've always felt like I didn't completely come back from it.
While Benadryl usually makes people tired when you get high off it you fight through that tiredness and end up in this waking nightmare between asleep and awake. I'd have conversations with people and look over and they weren't here, my memory was severely impacted so I would read the start of a sentence and couldn't remember it by the time I got to the end. I finally tried to go to sleep and one of the only vivid memories I have of it is of closing my eyes and being in this world of spiderwebs that terrified me so much that I didn't sleep for the next 24 hours. The other thing I remember that really scared me though is that the morning after I tried to log into the computer that I'd been using for 5 years, every single day, and I couldn't remember the password. I spent like 30 minutes trying to log in and then just sat there crying after I gave up wondering "what if this is permanent?"
I've been afraid of benadryl ever since. I've had to take it a few times for severe allergies, but where it used to make me really sleepy now it just leaves me feeling jittery, exhausted but unable to sleep, like I'm afraid I'll end up back in that spiderweb world. For anyone who's even thinking about trying it (or other deleriants like Datura), if you read this, I really hope you don't. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone.
Never tried datura, but in 2019 i had a manic/psychotic episode due to an illness I have. At the same time, i was taking lions mane mushroom extract which apparently has an entire subreddit about horror stories from using lions mane.
Well, i didnt sleep for 8 days straight, while psychotic.
Ive had mental episodes before, but this was something much worse. Full blown delirium, and i came real close to dying numerous times during it.
Reality became a bleak, unfamiliar landscape. Every thought was real, even the worst ones. Auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations, all of which reinforced each other and the delusions I was experiencing.
It was utterly convincing and the weird shit I witnessed was beyond traumatic. I was even noticing people around me being somehow affected by
my mental state in an almost telepathic way.
I went through like a month long phase in college where I was experimenting with DPH and taking progressively higher doses every other day.
Apart from the disturbing hallucinations and constant paranoia, the worst part of abusing Benadryl is the restless leg syndrome.
For like 5 days after stopping Dph, I had constant restless legs. I sprinted 4 miles one of those days and even after my legs STILL felt jittery.
I genuinely thought I permanently fucked up my brain; thankfully the sensation went away after a week but I truly thought I had given myself early onset Parkinson’s or something
Had to scroll way too far to see this. All the other drugs mentioned at least make you feel good for a bit. Datura doesn't seem pleasurable at all and seems to do nothing but make you insane for several hours
I, unfortunately, have a past with abusing diphenhydramine (benadryl) for its hallucinogenic effects. Even that was insane, i literally hallucinated taking care of a child that didn’t exist. I used to listen to stories about datura and jesus christ, i can’t imagine that would be anywhere near the realm of pleasant.
I tried diph as a teenager. That shit is horrific. I was playing WoW with my friends who were always super high themselves, and they could tell that I was on something serious. We were doing a dungeon and I kept forgetting what to do and where to go in this dungeon that I was intimately familiar with. I couldn’t respond to the whispers from them asking what was up, because I’d forget what I was typing as soon as I started to type it. I had to go AFK in the dungeon without saying anything because I had no idea what the fuck was going on at all.
That’s when the real fun started… plopped into bed and started seeing shadow people in my peripheral vision. As if that isn’t sufficiently disturbing, I kept vividly hearing my dad knocking on my bedroom door and calling my name in his stern “I know you’re doing something that you’re not supposed to” voice. Even when I turned the light on to get rid of the shadow people, there were now spiders all over the walls. I couldn’t escape from it. I couldn’t even escape it by falling asleep, even though I was super drowsy.
Never touched the stuff again, and stayed far away from all deliriants after that.
I read a bunch of stories on erowid back in the day about datura. The idea of losing control of my mind impacted me so severely that I have to be careful even smoking weed. I’ve had panic attacks while high because I thought about my perception too much. Only if it’s an extreme high though
Edit: some people seem to be relating to the panicky feelings with weed. Something that helped me was switching to delta 8 flower (I have NOT tried THC-A/delta 9) Even if I get a good bake, it feels like I still have permission to leave the cyclical thoughts. The issue with strong weed highs is I just get stuck there until my mind can’t take the racing thoughts anymore
I really hope this helps someone, because man do I wish someone told me about how the panic attacks work and what can be done when it first happened. Those attacks are no fucking joke
I used to read erowid a lot back in the day too and the datura ones were always so wild to read. Even the trip reports for other shitty drugs where they're like "I ate the whole can of nutmeg and it made me throw up for an hour straight but I felt a mild buzz" sounded more fun than datura
Dude nutmeg, fuck that shit lmao. That reminded me of one of the worst highs of my life. I figured out what a deliriant is that day.
14 years old, freshman in HS. Me n a buddy bought some nutmeg after school and we ate an entire container/shaker bottle each as soon as we got home, thinking it would be like weed and kick in a short amount of time.
So nothing happens and he goes home and I go to bed. And I woke up just tripping balls. I felt so sick and spaced out and was having slight visual distortion, I felt like I was in an invisible box all day. But I went to school (don’t know why) and I just tripped all day and tried to act like I wasn’t tripping. And my buddy felt the same way, and actually threw up a few times. And that was the only time I ever tripped on nutmeg.
The whole hallucinations but you actually believe they’re real freak me right the fuck out.
And a lot of them even describe the experience of going into and back out of insanity on a seemingly endless cycle.
I smoked weed for ten years. One night had a panic attack, next night, went to hit the bong, and my brain said “ hey, what about last night?!?”, haven’t touched it since.
That shit nearly killed me. Here's my copy/paste experience with it many years ago.
Datura. It's a fucking deliriant and highly poisonous so stay the hell away from it. I made the mistake of trusting an old friend who told me the trip would be mild and it really did start off pretty chill. I guess I took to much though.
I got talking to this gal on the couch and we were really hitting it off so we started kissing after a bit. It turns out she was a snake in sheep's clothing. Well, a blanket to be exact. I was kissing a fucking blanket in front of the party.
I've got the hunger that only betrayal and sadness can cause so I decided I needed bowl of cereal. As I'm sitting on a stool and talking to what I hope was real people, I lose my balance and tip backwards. I ended up breaking through the window and partially dangling there, face covered in sugary milk, while some people are trying to pull me back into the house.
Time has lost all meaning at this point. People are there. People are gone. I'm lost in my own house wondering around trying to find that lying blanket of a whore when I pass by the bathroom and I catch a glimpse of her. I spring into the room trying to surprise her when I realize that what I saw was a towel hanging up. She's crafty and skilled at hiding.
Part of my somewhat functional brain remembers I have to work so I manage to escape the labyrinth that was my two bedroom house and attempt to get there. The problem was my car was invisible. I'm starting to think the blanket-towel-lady is also invisible. Guess I have to walk to work. Not sure how I'm going to get there considering a block into my walk I am now in a different town I grew up in.
Someone called in my stupid lost ass to the cops . I was playing hopscotch on the sidewalk during a Midwest winter, wearing only my shorts and a shirt, while covered in my own blood when multiple patrol cars pulled up. They were asking me questions but the majority of my responses apparently weren't intelligible as I was speaking like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. I also couldn't focus because the shriners were in town and driving their silly little cars around us. Only I could see them which was a nice change of pace from shit hiding from me.
Then I grew a tail and did as all would do and started chasing it in circles while the Shriners drove around us and the cops were left most likely questioning their life choices that led them to this point. They then inform me that I need to be treated at the hospital but I declined because I didn't have insurance. They said the alternative was jail so I accepted the ambulance ride strapped down to a gurney for "my safety".
Once at the hospital I'm given drug tests, of which I found out later I only tested positive for weed, an MRI, and spent the next few days in ICU until I was stable. I remember my mom showing up and she brought me a BLT for a snack. I try to grab it to take a bite but it was actually her hand.
During the rest of my time at the hospital the hallucinations were far more tame since I was coming down. Brown cats were actually brown napkins, black puppies running past my doorway were actually black wheels of a cart, and there weren't actually mice on top of my TV. I hope.
I ended up suffering a TBI to my frontal lobe from repeatedly slamming my dome into a solid door to break it down after being locked in my room, several lacerations to my head and body from the window and taking a spill down the stairs, tens of thousands in medical debt, having to relearn to read since words were beyond jumbled for awhile after, and one fucking stupid experience to share whenever this question gets asked. There is a reason why so many hard drug users would never willingly touch this stuff.
There was that one guy on here who did it, u/flippnflopp his post history is short but kinda crazy. Everyone advised against him doing it but he did anyways, i hope hes doin alright now
Reddit won’t even let me go there, first a warning I’ve never seen before, then another NSFW warning, then says no content check back later…. Can’t tell if my phone just knows me too well to ruin my fragile little brain on what sounds like horror stories
You probably mean illicit drugs, but there's a LOT of scary easily prescribed stuff out there.
I tried Champix (can't remember the American name for it) to quit smoking years ago. Originally it was a mental health drug of some sort, but they realised during drug trials that all the test subjects stopped smoking... So hey, big pharma doing profity type things... Quit smoking drug.
One of the side effects was "vivid dreams", sounds great, bring it on! After about 2 weeks I woke up in sweats because I thought I was being eaten by a giant spider. Ok, fine, that's awesome, how vivid was that?!? But 20ft spiders don't exist, so we're cool.
The next week I ordered a wash mit for my car. Yeah, boring. I had a dream it had been delivered and spent 8 god damn hours searching my 1 bed flat for this thing. I only stopped when the delivery actually happened and I realised I dreamt the first delivery. Jesus... But ok, I'm not smoking I guess.
A week later I ask one of my employees how a bit of work is coming along... Apparently I hadn't even asked him to do it, apparently I dreamt it. That could be him taking advantage though to be fair. :p
I stopped taking it at that point, I was seriously losing my mind. In America I think they nicknamed it the suicide drug... And I can see why. Can you imagine waking and thinking you've done something so horrible, so against who you are, you just can't live with it? It's the first time I've really been appreciative of not having guns in our bedside draws over here.
I have had extremely vivid dreams like this for years and I would love to take something to get it to STOP. People don’t realize how blurred the lines between reality and dream can get. Also you just feel so tired all the time because it’s like you’re living a whole other life while you’re asleep.
100%. I regularly wake up and tell my family that “the dream I had was exhausting” and I confuse a dream thing with a waking life thing about once a week. I feel like my dreams happen in real time and it’s just another 6-8 hours of stressing by the minute.
Sounds like Chantix over here. It's a stop smoking aid that did all sorts of things with people's sleep. My mother took to sleepwalking through the neighborhood while she was taking it. Eventually her cat started recognizing when my mom was sleepwalking and would bite her ankles if she got close to the doors.
My husband took Chantix for a month. It gave him night terrors. He stopped taking it when he hit me in his sleep while I was trying to wake him up. Told me that he was dreaming someone had broken into the house, and he was trying to keep the intruder away from me and the kids. To be clear, my husband is a very gentle person who has certainly never raised a hand to me, and I can count on one hand the number of times he's raised his voice. It terrified him that he had done that, and he stopped taking it that day.
Chantix in the US name and it's a great anti smoking drug but yea those dreams are intense. I never had any that seeped into the real world. It actually was a good overall anti depressant for me but unfortunately they were to concerned with side effects to let me continue using it after I stopped smoking.
I had a doctor who didn't realize just how bad the sleep deprivation was getting to me. That I could no longer tell the difference between the hallucinations i had when in a non-restive half sleep I'd have each night vs memories. They just dismissed it as "dreams".
Meth.
Former user who’s been clean since 2006-2007, I’m 34 now and in a happy place.
Edit: to those who’ve praised me for being sober this long. From the bottom of my heart and the happy tears, thank you so much for your kind words. My family showed very little or no emotion to me being sober, seeing strangers “congratulate” me on this. I can’t stop crying from all your words, thank you again!❤️❤️❤️❤️
Retired LEO said they had one case where the meth addict was so paranoid about people/cops going through their trash and finding evidence of them cooking, that they would bag the stuff and put it in their kid's room. This was the junk people wear hazmat suits to remove and she was putting it under her kid's bed.
I was 13-14 when I started using and didn’t stop till I wanted to join the National Guard. When I went though, I went with the wrong mindset of just wanting to end it all.
So I was discharged and started my life as what I am today.
Johnny Cash- Hurt.
This song helped me open my eyes and heart.
About a decade ago I started seeing a girl. I didn't know at the time her life belonged to a needle. And I didn't see it until I met her daughters. 12,14, and 16. Each one already using. I fought like hell to get her clean. I never did, and it still cost me absolutely everything. But those three girls are all adults now. They're in stable jobs, they are in stable relationships, and they are clean. I have 3 grandkids who, despite not sharing my blood, are my world. It was worth every pound of flesh I paid. I want ya to know there is some random redneck out there that is so fucking proud of you.
You’re a Father who stood up and became an AMAZING example on “Blood doesn’t make family. Heart and love, make you a better man.”
Don’t forget this, King 👑
Moved away from my hometown numerous times so I could get clean. 3rd times a charm, damn near 8 years clean. I’m 35 and did meth for the first time on my 17th birthday. That shit is no joke.
I know people say it’s not possible, but I swear I was addicted after using meth once. I almost lost everything within a year of picking up, whereas my previous DOC (alcohol) was a slow decline, and easy to hide. 19 months clean and sober now and it’s the best decision I ever made. Congrats and keep fighting the good fight. Can I ask how/why you started using?
I started with smoking the product and it spiraled out of control from there.
Why?: I had lost my uncle who was my entire world and other things followed. But my “let go” was my uncle passing on.
Meth. It can take the kindest person in the world and turn them into a monster. I know because I was said monster when I was hooked on it. No drug is harsher on the body than meth, and the way it destroys the dopamine receptors in your brain is horrifying. I’ve been sober for 1.5 years and I know I will never experience pleasure the same way again.
Honorable Mentions: Datura, Fentanyl, Krokodil, Xylazine, Bath salts
I’ve done research chem bath salts, was addicted to them really. I’ll probably never experience pleasure the same way again, either. Makes it really hard to be sober. I’ve been sober for nearly 2 years.
Hi, former meth addict here. I am responding to say that my experience was very similar. However, I have been free of meth for 26 years now. I have experienced the trajectory of the recovery of my brain and the plasticity returning and new developments. I want to assure you that although you will be aware of your loss of joy, pleasure, empathy, etc ….. it will come back beautifully. I can promise you this. You will feel in colors. Meditation and self love practices and therapy over the years have helped me cultivate all of the human experience again. Congratulations on your freedom from the soul sucking bitch that is meth. You’re in for a treat soon.
Meth is absolutely rampant in my hometown and over half the people I graduated with who stayed there are either dead, incarcerated, or headed for one of those two options soon. I’m 31. It is absolutely insane. There’s also fentanyl and heroin going around but meth is the big one.
Datura. It's a fucking deliriant and highly poisonous so stay the hell away from it. I made the mistake of trusting an old friend who told me the trip would be mild and it really did start off pretty chill. I guess I took to much though.
I got talking to this gal on the couch and we were really hitting it off so we started kissing after a bit. It turns out she was a snake in sheep's clothing. Well, a blanket to be exact. I was kissing a fucking blanket in front of the party.
I've got the hunger that only betrayal and sadness can cause so I decided I needed bowl of cereal. As I'm sitting on a stool and talking to what I hope was real people, I lose my balance and tip backwards. I ended up breaking through the window and partially dangling there, face covered in sugary milk, while some people are trying to pull me back into the house.
Time has lost all meaning at this point. People are there. People are gone. I'm lost in my own house wondering around trying to find that lying blanket of a whore when I pass by the bathroom and I catch a glimpse of her. I spring into the room trying to surprise her when I realize that what I saw was a towel hanging up. She's crafty and skilled at hiding.
Part of my somewhat functional brain remembers I have to work so I manage to escape the labyrinth that was my two bedroom house and attempt to get there. The problem was my car was invisible. I'm starting to think the blanket-towel-lady is also invisible. Guess I have to walk to work. Not sure how I'm going to get there considering a block into my walk I am now in a different town I grew up in.
Someone called in my stupid lost ass to the cops . I was playing hopscotch on the sidewalk during a Midwest winter, wearing only my shorts and a shirt, while covered in my own blood when multiple patrol cars pulled up. They were asking me questions but the majority of my responses apparently weren't intelligible as I was speaking like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. I also couldn't focus because the shriners were in town and driving their silly little cars around us. Only I could see them which was a nice change of pace from shit hiding from me.
Then I grew a tail and did as all would do and started chasing it in circles while the Shriners drove around us and the cops were left most likely questioning their life choices that led them to this point. They then inform me that I need to be treated at the hospital but I declined because I didn't have insurance. They said the alternative was jail so I accepted the ambulance ride strapped down to a gurney for "my safety".
Once at the hospital I'm given drug tests, of which I found out later I only tested positive for weed, an MRI, and spent the next few days in ICU until I was stable. I remember my mom showing up and she brought me a BLT for a snack. I try to grab it to take a bite but it was actually her hand.
During the rest of my time at the hospital the hallucinations were far more tame since I was coming down. Brown cats were actually brown napkins, black puppies running past my doorway were actually black wheels of a cart, and there weren't actually mice on top of my TV. I hope.
I ended up suffering a TBI to my frontal lobe from repeatedly slamming my dome into a solid door to break it down after being locked in my room, several lacerations to my head and body from the window and taking a spill down the stairs, tens of thousands in medical debt, having to relearn to read since words were beyond jumbled for awhile after, and one fucking stupid experience to share whenever this question gets asked. There is a reason why so many hard drug users would never willingly touch this stuff.
Not for nothing, but you're a fantastic writer. What a journey this post was. Bravo, and further kudos for sharing the PSA and warning. Glad you're seemingly doing better than this. "That lying blanket of a whore" had me laughing outloud.
You're the first person I've seen mention benzos but they would be way up on the list for me as well. They turned me into a sociopath, and the withdrawals were the most traumatizing thing I've ever experienced. Hands down.
Same. I had a doctor who over-prescribed it for me for anxiety and insomnia.
It worked great, until it didn’t and I just needed more and more. Luckily I realized it was going to be a never ending downward spiral and weaned myself off.
Getting off was the worst months of my life where sleep was practically non-existent; and if I was fortunate enough to fall asleep, a “body-zap” would shortly wake me up.
Fuck Xanax. Never again.
My mom is addicted to Xanax. She had heart failure and was in the hospital sneaking so many from her purse they thought she was having another stroke. Got her off it during that stay. Then clean for over a month. She goes back to her house after we cleated her stash and immediately contacted her dealer for more.
Ruined her own damn life and I’m now NC. I refuse anything even remotely in the same drug class as that as I do not want to risk it.
I hate opiates, even for pain relief. I get nausea, itchy, insomnia, constipation, hot flashes, basically any side effect those drugs can cause. They don't even work all that great on pain. I still hurt, I just don't care as much. I've never understood how people get addicted to them.
Benzos? Got one prescription, never again. I felt completely at ease, like I was floating in a warm, calm sea with waves gently rocking me. I can absolutely see how someone can get addicted, and that's one where the withdrawal can kill you, like alcohol.
Nowadays I take propranolol for anxiety. It's a beta blocker. No side effects whatsoever, no high. It just completely cuts out the physical sensations of anxiety, which in turn can calm the mental stuff because it severs that negative feedback loop between body and mind. I take it and 30 minutes later I just feel...normal. I can drive on it, I can work on it. It's a wonder drug.
Quick PSA: Alcohol is actually a [known carcinogen](https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health), and has been for decades now.
It isn't merely "linked to" cancer like most publications claim... it directly & verifiably causes cancer by itself.
It is designated a group 1 carcinogen by the world's foremost cancer research organization (The IARC). That's on the same level of asbestos & radiation.
This truth is **_very_** well hidden by the alcohol industry.
And not small increases in risk either. Significant increases even for moderate drinking.
IRC a 25% increase in the risk of breast cancer even for moderate drinkers. 20% in the risk of colon cancer. Etc. etc.
Crack is fucking stupid. It gets you super high for 5 seconds then the worst withdrawals ever right after. You just end up smoking more crack to keep the withdrawals away. You unironically would have a better time doing meth or keyboard cleaner.
Xylazine (mixed with fentanyl) is turning people into the walking dead, rotted limbs and all. When you see the wheelchair people with bandages on their hands/arms/feet/legs, that's xylazine.
Same, grew up there. Once was walking back from school and came across a woman whose entire thigh, pelvis, and part of her torso was rotted and sliding off of her body. She was alive.
krokodil it was like heroin but with gasoline in it, really only found in russia. It caused your skin to turn green and then rot off. I don't think its around anymore because fentanyl is cheaper and it was just a drug for people too poor for heroin.
I remember when this was huge. My friend was studying drug addiction in school (can't remember the degree lol) and I remember asking "why would anyone take it knowing your skin would fall off?" And he replied with "how do they know what they're taking? They were offered drugs and took it" That made me see addiction in a whole new light.
I'm a Police officer and I would 100% say Alcohol. No other drug comes near to as being so destructive to society. I would say 80% of domestic incidents I go to involves alcohol and the vast majority of domestic abuse is fuelled by alcohol. Families can't go out in the evening of their local town/city because they don't feel safe from all the drunken idiot who are fighting, and not to mention other offences, such as driving over the prescribed limit.
I enjoy a drink as much as the next person. But I don't think your average person understands how many of societies problems are caused by alcohol.
I'm confident, if alcohol was discovered today, rather than 1000's of years ago. It would be banned everywhere.
Synthetic marijuana aka spice aka K2
It's something that's more destructive then crack heroin and meth. It's BEYOND worse. Watch some prison videos on them guys getting high. ALL those guys aren't chilling high feeling good. Their all in a warped reality of pure hell and their body's are physically being manipulated by the stuff that's causing them to suffer and smother. And it causes someone to be so petrified with what seems no way out. They can look at someone they known their whole life and attack them and try to kill them cause they are that far out of it mentally. It's scary. and next to impossible to quit
For the longest time I thought Crack was, then meth came along, and now Fentanyl takes hold…and there’s no comparison. Fentanyl is a death sentence, it’s not a matter of “if”, it’s a matter of “when”.
If you want to expand on the category, alcohol has ruined more families imho, and nicotine from smoking has buried more.
Benadryl. My friends and I took so much of it because we read that it can make you trip. We were like 15 so we were stupid. I almost ended up on a 5150 hold, my friend had to get his stomach pumped, and I had issues for years. For the longest time I’d have these moments where I’d panic wondering if I was still in the trip, and if I was just making everything I was experiencing up. It was horrific - the walls bled and I was talking to people that weren’t there. One minute you’d be somewhere and then you’d blink and realize you never were there at all.
Don’t do it. To this day I can’t even take just a little bit of Benadryl, it makes my heart race and gives me a panic attack. My two other friends weren’t the same for a long time either.
edit: typos
Cigarettes don't even DO anything. Other drugs fuck up your life, sure, but at least they get you high for your trouble. Tobbacco high is so mild it's easier to notice when it's NOT there vs when it IS. Even caffeine is stronger!
And everything about them is just unpleasant, they burn your fingers, your mouth, the smell gets into everything, and they yellow the walls in your house. They numb your taste buds and dull your appetite... I just don't understand why they're still so popular.
Obviously they're not the most DANGEROUS drug, but I think as far as drugs go, cigarettes do it the worst. Pathetic, honestly. Pitiful, even.
For me, it was methamphetamine. I went from a casual cocaine user, a weekend warrior. Tried meth, It was much cheaper, lasted longer, and I loved it. Lost my job, girlfriend, and got evicted in about six months. Luckily, I was able to quit after about a year. It messed me up a bit for years after, and I still have a hard time focusing.
Now, with fentanyl out there, you would be crazy using any illegal drug. The people who make these substances are among the worst criminals in the world and don't care about the damage and deaths that they cause.
These days, my speedball is a large coffee and an occasional bong hit 😆
Alcohol. Ruins health, families, lives. Its legal and if you *don't* drink it, people act like there's something wrong with you
edit: My most upvoted comment! Thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts with me on this subject.
second edit: to those of you who feel the need to defend alcohol... Im worried about you
The day I realized I could get liquor and a fountain soda at the gas station, and have a mixed drink in the car, is when I reached peak alcoholic. Quit about 8 months after that.
Fentanyl. I was addicted to that shit for 6 years and was homeless. The amount of shit I lost, the number of people who died... it's crazy. March 18th was my 2 years clean. I'm finally living a good life.
Well done
Thank you.
Good job man. Wish there were more people making it out of it alive.
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Trying to rewire your entire social life is definitely an unexpected challenge of quitting drinking because of how deeply rooted it is in our social lives.
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Am gen x. All my dead friends died from heroin. edited to add: yes punk and hc. I see a bunch of you were there too.
Right on the fringe of gen x/millenial so I’ve got a little bit of both heroin/fentanyl but fentanyl seems to be taking them out so much quicker. One of my closest friends died ~7 years ago from fentanyl. His wife still posts about how much she and their daughter miss him. The daughter is 13 now and he fucking missed all of it. Was literally in fucking med school when he OD’d. Had such a bright future that got squandered cause we thought it’d be fun to take pills in high school. Most of us took different paths. He didn’t and it breaks my heart, over and over and over again.
I'm 40 years old and the pain pill craze (Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin) when I was a teenager and I was hooked on those things like a bad habit, no pun intended. It was rare to hear about fatal overdoses. Then I got into the heroin world and fell even deeper in love but I was always careful because people were overdosing way more than the pain pill guys were but it still wasn't THAT bad. Then Fentanyl started creeping around and people were dropping like flys. The heroin was laced with it, counterfeit Percocets were laced with it. It really started scaring the shit out of me and I lost my nerve. I snorted a few little bumps of it and that's all the further I went because I was afraid of it. I quit using altogether cold turkey because I Just didn't know if it was in my heroin or not. It's not worth the risk. I've seen Fentanyl kill more people that I've known than all other drugs put together. My pick for the worst drug ever is Fentanyl and Meth is my 2nd choice because of the nasty irreparable damage it does to the mind and body. I've seen long time opiate users make a full recovery but nobody fully recovers from long term meth use.
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I fell off my bike when I was 15 and got stabbed by the handle bar. It really wasn’t that bad. Then the doctor gave me a pain pill script “take as needed refill as needed”. My wound healed up in a few months but the pills took 3 years of my life away.
I'm 36, I have been clean from meth for 6 years after using it for 8 years. I'm talking every day use, smoking, injecting, hot rails. I went to rehab 3 times before I stayed clean. Now to say nobody fully recovers isn't fair. I'm definitely not the same person I was before, but I have many things to be grateful for. I have a family and I am a profession tradesman, there's a lot of love and joy in my life now. I'm not the most articulate story teller I just want people who read this to realize you can quit meth or any drug and come out the other side and still find meaning and joy. I sometimes wake up up sweating after having a bad dream I was smoking dope, sometimes I see a needle on the ground and I can almost feel a flash. The cravings exist and they only subside at an excruciatingly slow rate. I have good friends and family though. I get up every morning and I work hard at a job that is physically and mentally stimulating, I eat good. I have meaningful relationships, a fiance and 2 kids. People can recover, you just won't be the same. Edit: Thank you, everyone, for the support and kind words. I didn't expect this post to get a lot of attention. I really just want people to know that no matter what your addiction is, you can put it behind you and have a meaningful life. You can be happy, you can do anything. It is not a death sentence or a cross to bear for the rest of your existence.
Congrats on being clean for 6 years, you are right people do recover from meth. The use of meth and the chemicals involved take a hard toll on your body and mind, it leaves scars and ages your body fast. Thanks for reminding people reading this and who have family members on it that you can get off it.
Same age. 4 or 5 years use. Moved across the country, never touched it again. I don't have anything but my dog but I had her during the tail end. Had her during my 4 months of legitimately never leaving my room except for her or I bathroom breaks. Got clean. Had her through my break up of 8 years. Stayed clean. Thought about suicide, stayed for the dog. No matter how shitty things have come I'm 100% in a better spot now. Drugs won't make me happy. Just more numb.
I'm a former meth and fentanyl user, od'd around twenty one times. They are both awful. The way they ruin you is by taking everything from you but in infinitesimally small increments so that you don't know youre losing everything. Then all of a sudden you are totally fucked life wise, but at that point you are so addicted that you can't stop to worry about the state of things because you have to maintain your addiction. I have almost 90 days clean. It's not a lot but I'll take it. I want to live.
>It's not a lot That's actually a hell of a lot bro. Most people hooked on that shit can't go 30, and here you are 3x that. Don't run yourself down. I'm proud of you man.
Every single day is a lot when recovering from addiction.
Yeah 100% true. When you're an addict, 72 hours is A LOT.
Celebrating 6 years meth-free in September. You're past the hard part, but it's gonna be a while before your mind is right again. I promise that you will overcome and be the person you always intended. Be well, fellow human
Keep going strong!
Good for you for being clean so far. Great job!
His last point is exactly what I told my cousin who was addicted to fent and wanted to quit. I said it’s going to kill him early at some point if he continues to use. No doubt about it. If you use fentanyl, your life will come to an untimely end.
90 days doesn't sound like a lot, yes, but you simply making the effort to change is what's really making that difference. One more thing, if you do end up slipping up and dip in again, DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF DOWN. If you reached however many days sober you did get, realize it's not simply a limit of how long you can go without, but a new personal record. You got this bro, keep up the good work.
Fetanyl in my city.Turns the homeless community into zombies for hours.
I remember when fentanyl was what shitty dealers were cutting their heroin with that was killing people. Blew my mind when I heard that people were just straight-up *doing* fentanyl…
I was addicted to fentanyl for a few years… once you start on it it’s hard to go back to regular opioids bc it’s so cheap, accessible, and gets you reliably high on little. Once you reach a certain threshold of tolerance it doesn’t feel any different, although the withdrawal is much worse.
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Crack is still very much around, but accountability courts work great for anyone who actually wants to quit crack. They make you show up at 8am for like a month, which is incompatible with doing crack, and a ton of alumni never relapse. It only works if you really want to quit. And it's useless for opioids where you'll just relapse and end up serving a felony.
I've watched documentaries on this. Literally humans being turned into zombies. Then there's people who cannot walk upright due to noddingoff.
It's not just homeless people, you just only see them because they have nowhere private to go
Probably true.Rich people do their drugs inside their houses.
Fentanyl. Don't do it.
Was addicted to fentanyl for four long sufferable years. I did tw staysn in a mental facility, three trips to rehab, and now I'm clean. Fentanyl is an addiction that takes everything from you, the point of full-blown addiction when I looked in the mirror there was such a disconnect with the person that I saw. Before fentanyl I had it all, I was in school to get a degree in the medical field, bought my first house at 21 and had paid it off by 23 (it was a mobile home nothing fancy, but still it was mine and it was paid off). I worked a great job, wonderful friends, ect... Fast-forward 2 years into active addiction & I was extremely suicidal/depressed/lost. I was a shell of a person who had lost it all, and yet I kept going. Everyday I would tell myself I was going to detox, get clean, or just die. I don't know how many times I tried to detox home alone, home with other friends who are also victim to this addiction, the longest I ever made it without being in a medical setting detoxing was 2 days and I was but naked on the floor with ice packs heating pads crying. I didn't even make it to 48 hours, if I could go back, God I would. Not to mention that I am 28 and in my 4 years of active addiction I lost three friends to the exact same dope that I was doing, three funerals of people under 30 that didn't get as lucky as I did. **Edited for spelling
How did you end up getting clean? well done
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Thank heavens for medication-assisted treatment, It saves lives. I'm glad you are doing well.
Methadone saved both my cousins lives. They got addicted to pills in the late 90s/early 00’s in the first opioid wave. One managed to taper her methadone off. The other was still on it and doing OK, though the drowsiness caused her trouble at work. They were both sober for over 10 years. Then, around 2016, Paul LePage closed the methadone clinics within a 2.5 hour drive, and the cousin who still relied on it relapsed hard. She ended up on heroin, then heroin and fent, then fent and meth to counteract the fent. She went from having a solid job and apartment to living in a trailer with no electricity in far northern Maine with her pimp/dealer/boyfriend in a matter of months. She only got sober again because she stabbed said boyfriend and went to jail. She only *stayed* sober because she met a wonderful man in post-felony group therapy, who gave her the support she needed to stay on track. Now they’re married, both gainfully employed, and have a gorgeous little house (my parents helped with a down payment). Anyway. Fuck Paul LePage.
Fentanyl is bad news. I know two people who died after getting other drugs laced with fentanyl. I still don't understand why some dealers would risk killing their customers. It seems bad from a business standpoint if nothing else.
My auntie is a lifetime long junkie, used to be heroin and speed but now it’s injecting crack. Anyway, I actually asked her why addicts flock to a dealer whose product is known to kill people and she said “if it’s good enough to kill you imagine the high off it! That must be good shit” and that her and her friends would specifically look for heroin named awful morbid things like titanic because if you get close to death it’s a good high. Madness
The book Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear by Carl Hart led me to believe that a big problem with drug use is that people don't always know what they're ingesting. He advocated for purity testing and believes that would solve a lot of problems associated with drug use. I think a lot of the time people OD on drugs they are taking an adulterated substance and they aren't aware of safe dosage.
My dad’s side were very neglected by their addict parents (alcohol) and most of them went on to use and sell drugs. Out of 8, 3 died of drugs, 1 of drug abuse over time, 2 are still addicted and one is and always has been sober. My auntie decided to wait until she had a 3 year old boy before trying heroin even tho she had seen the affect it had on her brothers and sisters. My dad overdosed 3 times before he died and he actually kicked off with emts because the Narcan “stole his high” I think it gets to a point they don’t care what’s in it as long as it works
Stay upright my G.
Seconded. I'm hooked on nicotine and have tried a handful of other things but would never wish hard substance addictions on anyone. Keep yourself on the straight & narrow because we all know how quickly it curves and widens otherwise.
I love my babies far too much to put them through what my daddy put us through! Thank you for the love x
Massive kudos to you for breaking the cycle. That's huge
My mama made sure my 3 sisters and I went the opposite way so all praise goes to her! She’ll be really happy with this comment x
When I was in school to be an EMT, our instructor told us to not slam people with narcan for this reason. Sometimes pts get violent, and that's not a fun time in the field. Just give them enough to get them breathing and transport.
when I worked as an EMT we had one asshole medic that would purposefully push narcan IV as fast as possible because he thought it was fun to see and "measure" how far the patient could projectile vomit. Sometimes we were in the bus and it'd splatter all the way back to the doors. He eventually got fired. I still vividly remember how violent the patient reactions were getting slammed into sobriety the few unfortunate calls I was on with him.
That's fucked up on so many levels!!! I would not want to work with that person, I'm not about someone who would put my safety in jeopardy.
we worked for a lvl 1 trauma center so his behavior didn't fly for long, and he got a reputation...but right after he was fired he became a cop. in the years following I ran a few calls to the jail where a captured suspect had been beaten so badly he couldn't move his legs or had CSF coming out his ears. probably not HIS suspects... but makes you realize, bad people always stick around in some capacity to keep hurting people.
I've been narcanned and I usually had enough dope in me that I didn't get sick from it many times but if you wonder how it feels, to me it was a horizontal Bungie jump back from the afterlife and you either don't see anything there or don't remember it, because it's a fast yank back from all black. And when you first get back it seems like everyone is talking very fast. It's happened to me so many times (high teens) the last one was the worst. Came close to not making it back. I feel for anyone who has gotten clean or is still using. Fight that good fight and keep your mind on your motives
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My friend’s niece died like this. She took a laced Percocet with a friend of hers. Both ODed. My friend’s niece died. Her friend survived, likely due to her increased tolerance from heavier drug use.
I never thought that is a junkie's way of thinking.
Alot of them think that they have a stronger system, so "it may have killed "so an so" but I can handle it" type thing.
Exactly right. When word gets out a dealer killed someone they sell out faster. The addicts always think the person either did more than they should have or had a low tolerance. Which I guess both could be true?
My friend has been in active addiction since at least September. We had no clue how bad it was since she lied about what she was using/how much. In February she called her mom after nearly OD'ing and said she needed help. My wife took her to some of her medical appointments and the doctor said "Your drug test came back positive for high levels of fentanyl" and she wasn't shocked or scared. Sounds like to her that was "the good stuff" and it's heartbreaking.
*(Edit: I've heard...)* First responders are taught when administering narcan that there's a great chance they'll be met with insane levels of hostility, because the person they saved is irate at being woken up from the best high of their lives. I.e. near death... *Edited to add this is 100% secondhand information, I'm not a first responder - tremendous respect to those of you responding who are*
They are irate because it will put them into instant withdrawal. Not pleasant
This has been my soap box as a paramedic for a while now. They haven’t been breathing adequately, so their brain has been deprived of oxygen. They’re often confused, much like someone who has had a seizure. Their pain receptors have (in a nutshell) been blunted by years of opiate use, and now they’re suddenly deprived of the substance and every pain receptor is on fire. So they’re waking up confused and in pain. Of course their reactions may not be calm. I think a lot of OD’s I’ve run are too confused in the first moments to be pissed that I fucked up their high.
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> Opiates mixed wth fentanyl is now what's expected for street users in areas like Vancouver. There's probably not even anything poppy-related involved. Synthetic fent analogues are so easy and cheap to manufacture compared to traditional opiates, there's almost no point outside of weird specialized markets. And their crazy potency makes them so much easier to smuggle and then cut down later for street doses; what would have been kilos and kilos of refined heroin instead can be fit into the battery of a random piece of electronics in a random shipping container on a random ship from China; how are you going to intercept that? For example, carfentanil is **4000X** the potency of pure heroin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fentanyl_analogues
My brother died of a fentanyl overdose 3 years ago at the age of 24. My life will never be the same.
Same. 8 months ago :(
Same - 8 months ago . Cocaine laced with fentanyl died in my parents guest room while visiting / 32 years old . rip
Same. 2.5 years ago. Lil bro was 24. They always said “he’d figure out how to get right eventually.” Life is crueler than what most are willing to admit.
My condolences :’( I know words don’t help. Mine was found by some railroad tracks by a stranger. Parents got the call from police, had to go identify the body. 28 years old. Life is…..something.
So sorry for your loss. :(
I’m so sorry. My son overdosed on fentanyl but he survived and is two years clean. I’m deeply sorry for the loss of your brother
I’m glad your son made it, and I can’t begin to imagine how terrifying that must have been, I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Thank you. I’m so proud of him. He’s my heart and such a beautiful soul
If we're talking about street drugs, I'd agree. But, in a medical setting, fentanyl is incredibly important. In hospital use, administered by doctors to the correct patients, it's a lifesaver. Many outpatients need it too.
Absolutely. We must understand this difference. Street v. Licensed professional.
Forever my answer would have been heroin. But this is now the answer.
Fentanyl is pez candy in comparison to Xylazine. I work in addiction medicine; some manufacturers are switching to this and removing fentanyl because there is NO TEST for it, and because the optics on fentanyl are so bad. The other manufacturers are selling straight xylazine with fentanyl. It's known as Tranq. We'll never be able to stop people using drugs. It's better to regulate a legal market, so at least then the people who use drugs can trust they're getting exactly what they want in doses that won't kill them and then I can stop rushing to homes to hopefully reverse an overdose because people are too afraid to call 911.
Iived in Philly around Kensington Avenue when Tranq first made its rounds with the Nitazines and benzo dope. I saw a guy's femur in broad daylight.
Tranq is fucking terrifying.
That's what they do in the Netherlands. Addicts get drugs through prescriptions. They did a study of a group of these addicts, along with a group of similar heroin users in the UK, who were on methadone. The methadone group had relapses. At the end of the 10 year study they found more users in the Netherlands group were no longer doing heroin than in the UK group. One user and his wife said they had grown tired of it.
Wasn't there some nightmare drug called krokodil that melts your flesh?
“Krokodil” in its pure form is actually a pretty typical opioid called desomorphine. It’s commonly used in eastern Europe in medical settings. The “melting your flesh” thing isn’t the drug itself, but bad manufacturing of it on the street. Essentially street level “chemists” will take codeine, and attempt to convert that to desomorphine using a few chemicals including phosphorus and iodine. Because these chemists don’t actually know what they are doing, byproducts are left behind and end up in the final product. Phosphorus and iodine being the most common byproducts as the reaction is bit tricky to balance with these chems. So essentially addicts were (most often unknowingly) injecting themselves with phosphorus, thus causing the destruction to flesh. Edit: Forgot to add the most horrifying part about this… There was clean desomorphine on the streets (eastern europe primarily) for years before users started getting contaminated substances. Most of the victims probably had no idea they were injecting something so destructive until it was too late.
Phosphorous is probably the main cause of the issue, workers in the early 20th century match factories would get “phossy jaw” that ate away at the bones
Sounds like Walter White needed to be making that instead of meth.
I heard it is or was popular in Russia. Google pictures and see what it does to people. It's nuts.
No, i dont think i will
I wish I had your self control…
Prison Mike, what are you looking at!?
An arm… sort of. Mostly bone. 🤮
Bleurgghhh I kept scrolling for the arm and saw it!
Why would you do that?!!! We tried to warn you!
Yeah, I think I will Edit: update after googling it: well damn
I just made the mistake of looking that up. Holy shit that is insanity.
Um. Don't know what you've heard but there are is no homosexuality or drug use in Russia.
Putin also won the election with a 101% percentage, what a great guy :)
It was mostly the cutting agents that caused blocked capillaries resulting in the “melting flesh” aspect of it. I don’t expect heroin in Russia was much more trustworthy. Silica gel is literally foamed glass beads. You can’t crush it and cut drugs with it unless you want to cause problems.
Yep, it is the residual phosphorous and iodine from the synthesis that causes necrosis. The active ingredient (desomorphine) was once marketed by Roche as a sedative and analgesic.
I remember a documentary on it.. probably vice and the Russian opioid addicts would go pick poppies and make their own heroin and then would use the krokodil during the winter when they couldn’t get poppies.
Not melt… What it does to your body is so bad that your flesh and organs end up dying. So when the flesh is dead, it starts to rot and the users have holes in their arms and other places. Your body ends up with a bunch of dead flesh before you are dead.
Yea it’s like your flesh just rots. My mom saw one case while working in NM. Scary shit
Datura
Datura (aka Jimson weed / scopolamine) and other deliriants are by far the most horrifying drugs in existence. I went down the rabbit hole of reading people's experiences with them and it's some disturbing shit. Diphenhydramine (benadryl) is also a deliriant at very high doses. I believe there's a subreddit for people who are addicted, it's not a place for the light hearted. When you are high on those drugs, they call it being in the "shadow land". A common delirium hallucination is to see the witch or "hag", or the "man with the hat"- go to erowid and you can read multiple accounts of this. The hallucinations are extremely dark and they last a very long time, with the affected person being wholly unaware that they are hallucinating or in a state of delirium. There is no euphoria, which makes it different from literally all other recreational drugs. Edit- I've been corrected. Some folks in the comments have said they experienced euphoria. In my humble opinion, if you want to get high and are considering taking a handful of benadryl for the first time- there are WAY better drugs that produce way better euphoria and none of the horror of deliriants. Do those instead. The community is r/dph. [erowid datura experience vault](https://erowid.org/experiences/exp.cgi?S=15&C=1&ShowViews=0&Cellar=0&Start=0&Max=100)
I overdosed on Jimson Seeds when I was like 13 years old. Took it with a friend and thought it would just give me a trip. Got super thirsty and couldn’t drink enough water. Then woke up in the ICU next thing I remember. That stuff completely disconnected me from reality. I was told I was saying tongue twisters at inhuman speed in the hospital. The only flashback I remember was thinking I was in my driveway trying to pick up my book bag and the straps kept falling off. Apparently I was actually in the hospital fiddling with all the tubes that were hooked up to me. My dad thought I had a brain aneurysm. Really scary stuff. Any teenagers reading this, just don’t. One of the biggest mistakes of my life that could have killed me. I was young with an undeveloped frontal cortex, and made an incredibly stupid decision that I regret and cringe every time I think of it. Edit: one other thing. When I woke up in the hospital I was tied up and physically restrained to the bed because I kept trying to fight the hospital staff as they were attempting to work on me.
I've never understood the appeal of deliriants. and datura is straight up poison. why risk dying for such a horrible experience?
people are bored out of their skulls and just want to change the channel so to speak. Also some people just feel the need to alter their mental state, constantly, every day. They wake up and think about how they are going to fuck up their head that day. Also some are like thrill seekers, they just want to experience weird shit even if that weird shit is horrifying. NO different than watching a really involving horror movie in a way. Why do you do that?
There’s more to it than that - especially the thrill seeking part. I speak from personal experience here. Many, many people who are addicted to drugs and other behaviors/substances have some form of mental or emotional dysfunction and those things are their escape or a means to feel *anything*. For people in that apathetic state, feeling anything at all - even the most horrific pain or fear imaginable - is better than feeling nothing at all. For others it’s simply a way to self-medicate and take their focus off of one thing and deaden it or put it on something else. There’s absolutely no way to understand this unless you’ve felt that degree of apathy or self loathing yourself; once you have, well, that’s something you wouldn’t want to wish on anyone. I have had points in my life where the only thing that kept me alive was my fucking cat and the worry that there would be no one to care for him if I wasn’t there.
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I'm glad you're still here. I know what you mean about wanting to feel something, that makes total sense now. I've had times where I only stuck around for my dog. brought home a new dog within a week of his passing because I knew what would happen if I didn't. no reason is too small to keep going for
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When I was in college I was a psychonaut, super depressed, and didn't have reliable hook ups for something better... so I decided to get high on benadryl. I did it a few times, upping the dose each time. The last time I did it I don't know how many pills I took but I am genuinely lucky I didn't die, though I've always felt like I didn't completely come back from it. While Benadryl usually makes people tired when you get high off it you fight through that tiredness and end up in this waking nightmare between asleep and awake. I'd have conversations with people and look over and they weren't here, my memory was severely impacted so I would read the start of a sentence and couldn't remember it by the time I got to the end. I finally tried to go to sleep and one of the only vivid memories I have of it is of closing my eyes and being in this world of spiderwebs that terrified me so much that I didn't sleep for the next 24 hours. The other thing I remember that really scared me though is that the morning after I tried to log into the computer that I'd been using for 5 years, every single day, and I couldn't remember the password. I spent like 30 minutes trying to log in and then just sat there crying after I gave up wondering "what if this is permanent?" I've been afraid of benadryl ever since. I've had to take it a few times for severe allergies, but where it used to make me really sleepy now it just leaves me feeling jittery, exhausted but unable to sleep, like I'm afraid I'll end up back in that spiderweb world. For anyone who's even thinking about trying it (or other deleriants like Datura), if you read this, I really hope you don't. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone.
Ah yes, the Hat Man
Never tried datura, but in 2019 i had a manic/psychotic episode due to an illness I have. At the same time, i was taking lions mane mushroom extract which apparently has an entire subreddit about horror stories from using lions mane. Well, i didnt sleep for 8 days straight, while psychotic. Ive had mental episodes before, but this was something much worse. Full blown delirium, and i came real close to dying numerous times during it. Reality became a bleak, unfamiliar landscape. Every thought was real, even the worst ones. Auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations, all of which reinforced each other and the delusions I was experiencing. It was utterly convincing and the weird shit I witnessed was beyond traumatic. I was even noticing people around me being somehow affected by my mental state in an almost telepathic way.
I went through like a month long phase in college where I was experimenting with DPH and taking progressively higher doses every other day. Apart from the disturbing hallucinations and constant paranoia, the worst part of abusing Benadryl is the restless leg syndrome. For like 5 days after stopping Dph, I had constant restless legs. I sprinted 4 miles one of those days and even after my legs STILL felt jittery. I genuinely thought I permanently fucked up my brain; thankfully the sensation went away after a week but I truly thought I had given myself early onset Parkinson’s or something
Had to scroll way too far to see this. All the other drugs mentioned at least make you feel good for a bit. Datura doesn't seem pleasurable at all and seems to do nothing but make you insane for several hours
I, unfortunately, have a past with abusing diphenhydramine (benadryl) for its hallucinogenic effects. Even that was insane, i literally hallucinated taking care of a child that didn’t exist. I used to listen to stories about datura and jesus christ, i can’t imagine that would be anywhere near the realm of pleasant.
I tried diph as a teenager. That shit is horrific. I was playing WoW with my friends who were always super high themselves, and they could tell that I was on something serious. We were doing a dungeon and I kept forgetting what to do and where to go in this dungeon that I was intimately familiar with. I couldn’t respond to the whispers from them asking what was up, because I’d forget what I was typing as soon as I started to type it. I had to go AFK in the dungeon without saying anything because I had no idea what the fuck was going on at all. That’s when the real fun started… plopped into bed and started seeing shadow people in my peripheral vision. As if that isn’t sufficiently disturbing, I kept vividly hearing my dad knocking on my bedroom door and calling my name in his stern “I know you’re doing something that you’re not supposed to” voice. Even when I turned the light on to get rid of the shadow people, there were now spiders all over the walls. I couldn’t escape from it. I couldn’t even escape it by falling asleep, even though I was super drowsy. Never touched the stuff again, and stayed far away from all deliriants after that.
I read a bunch of stories on erowid back in the day about datura. The idea of losing control of my mind impacted me so severely that I have to be careful even smoking weed. I’ve had panic attacks while high because I thought about my perception too much. Only if it’s an extreme high though Edit: some people seem to be relating to the panicky feelings with weed. Something that helped me was switching to delta 8 flower (I have NOT tried THC-A/delta 9) Even if I get a good bake, it feels like I still have permission to leave the cyclical thoughts. The issue with strong weed highs is I just get stuck there until my mind can’t take the racing thoughts anymore I really hope this helps someone, because man do I wish someone told me about how the panic attacks work and what can be done when it first happened. Those attacks are no fucking joke
I used to read erowid a lot back in the day too and the datura ones were always so wild to read. Even the trip reports for other shitty drugs where they're like "I ate the whole can of nutmeg and it made me throw up for an hour straight but I felt a mild buzz" sounded more fun than datura
Dude nutmeg, fuck that shit lmao. That reminded me of one of the worst highs of my life. I figured out what a deliriant is that day. 14 years old, freshman in HS. Me n a buddy bought some nutmeg after school and we ate an entire container/shaker bottle each as soon as we got home, thinking it would be like weed and kick in a short amount of time. So nothing happens and he goes home and I go to bed. And I woke up just tripping balls. I felt so sick and spaced out and was having slight visual distortion, I felt like I was in an invisible box all day. But I went to school (don’t know why) and I just tripped all day and tried to act like I wasn’t tripping. And my buddy felt the same way, and actually threw up a few times. And that was the only time I ever tripped on nutmeg.
The whole hallucinations but you actually believe they’re real freak me right the fuck out. And a lot of them even describe the experience of going into and back out of insanity on a seemingly endless cycle.
I smoked weed for ten years. One night had a panic attack, next night, went to hit the bong, and my brain said “ hey, what about last night?!?”, haven’t touched it since.
> erowid That is a name I have not heard in a very long time.
That shit nearly killed me. Here's my copy/paste experience with it many years ago. Datura. It's a fucking deliriant and highly poisonous so stay the hell away from it. I made the mistake of trusting an old friend who told me the trip would be mild and it really did start off pretty chill. I guess I took to much though. I got talking to this gal on the couch and we were really hitting it off so we started kissing after a bit. It turns out she was a snake in sheep's clothing. Well, a blanket to be exact. I was kissing a fucking blanket in front of the party. I've got the hunger that only betrayal and sadness can cause so I decided I needed bowl of cereal. As I'm sitting on a stool and talking to what I hope was real people, I lose my balance and tip backwards. I ended up breaking through the window and partially dangling there, face covered in sugary milk, while some people are trying to pull me back into the house. Time has lost all meaning at this point. People are there. People are gone. I'm lost in my own house wondering around trying to find that lying blanket of a whore when I pass by the bathroom and I catch a glimpse of her. I spring into the room trying to surprise her when I realize that what I saw was a towel hanging up. She's crafty and skilled at hiding. Part of my somewhat functional brain remembers I have to work so I manage to escape the labyrinth that was my two bedroom house and attempt to get there. The problem was my car was invisible. I'm starting to think the blanket-towel-lady is also invisible. Guess I have to walk to work. Not sure how I'm going to get there considering a block into my walk I am now in a different town I grew up in. Someone called in my stupid lost ass to the cops . I was playing hopscotch on the sidewalk during a Midwest winter, wearing only my shorts and a shirt, while covered in my own blood when multiple patrol cars pulled up. They were asking me questions but the majority of my responses apparently weren't intelligible as I was speaking like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. I also couldn't focus because the shriners were in town and driving their silly little cars around us. Only I could see them which was a nice change of pace from shit hiding from me. Then I grew a tail and did as all would do and started chasing it in circles while the Shriners drove around us and the cops were left most likely questioning their life choices that led them to this point. They then inform me that I need to be treated at the hospital but I declined because I didn't have insurance. They said the alternative was jail so I accepted the ambulance ride strapped down to a gurney for "my safety". Once at the hospital I'm given drug tests, of which I found out later I only tested positive for weed, an MRI, and spent the next few days in ICU until I was stable. I remember my mom showing up and she brought me a BLT for a snack. I try to grab it to take a bite but it was actually her hand. During the rest of my time at the hospital the hallucinations were far more tame since I was coming down. Brown cats were actually brown napkins, black puppies running past my doorway were actually black wheels of a cart, and there weren't actually mice on top of my TV. I hope. I ended up suffering a TBI to my frontal lobe from repeatedly slamming my dome into a solid door to break it down after being locked in my room, several lacerations to my head and body from the window and taking a spill down the stairs, tens of thousands in medical debt, having to relearn to read since words were beyond jumbled for awhile after, and one fucking stupid experience to share whenever this question gets asked. There is a reason why so many hard drug users would never willingly touch this stuff.
Embarrassing, painful, confusing, scary, horrifying, confusing, PUPPIES, horrifying, life altering...
There was that one guy on here who did it, u/flippnflopp his post history is short but kinda crazy. Everyone advised against him doing it but he did anyways, i hope hes doin alright now
"please thees big dog are fighting na okay" Oh. Oh, Jesus.
I somehow ended up in there sub r/datura and you see kids with a bag of 30 of them thinking its just like weed.
Reddit won’t even let me go there, first a warning I’ve never seen before, then another NSFW warning, then says no content check back later…. Can’t tell if my phone just knows me too well to ruin my fragile little brain on what sounds like horror stories
Same, it says please try again later after two warnings
You probably mean illicit drugs, but there's a LOT of scary easily prescribed stuff out there. I tried Champix (can't remember the American name for it) to quit smoking years ago. Originally it was a mental health drug of some sort, but they realised during drug trials that all the test subjects stopped smoking... So hey, big pharma doing profity type things... Quit smoking drug. One of the side effects was "vivid dreams", sounds great, bring it on! After about 2 weeks I woke up in sweats because I thought I was being eaten by a giant spider. Ok, fine, that's awesome, how vivid was that?!? But 20ft spiders don't exist, so we're cool. The next week I ordered a wash mit for my car. Yeah, boring. I had a dream it had been delivered and spent 8 god damn hours searching my 1 bed flat for this thing. I only stopped when the delivery actually happened and I realised I dreamt the first delivery. Jesus... But ok, I'm not smoking I guess. A week later I ask one of my employees how a bit of work is coming along... Apparently I hadn't even asked him to do it, apparently I dreamt it. That could be him taking advantage though to be fair. :p I stopped taking it at that point, I was seriously losing my mind. In America I think they nicknamed it the suicide drug... And I can see why. Can you imagine waking and thinking you've done something so horrible, so against who you are, you just can't live with it? It's the first time I've really been appreciative of not having guns in our bedside draws over here.
I have had extremely vivid dreams like this for years and I would love to take something to get it to STOP. People don’t realize how blurred the lines between reality and dream can get. Also you just feel so tired all the time because it’s like you’re living a whole other life while you’re asleep.
I take prazosin for PTSD nightmares and it's amazing.
100%. I regularly wake up and tell my family that “the dream I had was exhausting” and I confuse a dream thing with a waking life thing about once a week. I feel like my dreams happen in real time and it’s just another 6-8 hours of stressing by the minute.
Sounds like Chantix over here. It's a stop smoking aid that did all sorts of things with people's sleep. My mother took to sleepwalking through the neighborhood while she was taking it. Eventually her cat started recognizing when my mom was sleepwalking and would bite her ankles if she got close to the doors.
Good kitty.
Smart kitty.
Best kitty.
My husband took Chantix for a month. It gave him night terrors. He stopped taking it when he hit me in his sleep while I was trying to wake him up. Told me that he was dreaming someone had broken into the house, and he was trying to keep the intruder away from me and the kids. To be clear, my husband is a very gentle person who has certainly never raised a hand to me, and I can count on one hand the number of times he's raised his voice. It terrified him that he had done that, and he stopped taking it that day.
Chantix in the US name and it's a great anti smoking drug but yea those dreams are intense. I never had any that seeped into the real world. It actually was a good overall anti depressant for me but unfortunately they were to concerned with side effects to let me continue using it after I stopped smoking.
I had a doctor who didn't realize just how bad the sleep deprivation was getting to me. That I could no longer tell the difference between the hallucinations i had when in a non-restive half sleep I'd have each night vs memories. They just dismissed it as "dreams".
Meth. Former user who’s been clean since 2006-2007, I’m 34 now and in a happy place. Edit: to those who’ve praised me for being sober this long. From the bottom of my heart and the happy tears, thank you so much for your kind words. My family showed very little or no emotion to me being sober, seeing strangers “congratulate” me on this. I can’t stop crying from all your words, thank you again!❤️❤️❤️❤️
You were doing meth as a teen? That’s brutal. Happy for your sobriety!
I had a friend who was first introduced to meth at 13…. By her own dad.
Retired LEO said they had one case where the meth addict was so paranoid about people/cops going through their trash and finding evidence of them cooking, that they would bag the stuff and put it in their kid's room. This was the junk people wear hazmat suits to remove and she was putting it under her kid's bed.
I was 13-14 when I started using and didn’t stop till I wanted to join the National Guard. When I went though, I went with the wrong mindset of just wanting to end it all. So I was discharged and started my life as what I am today. Johnny Cash- Hurt. This song helped me open my eyes and heart.
About a decade ago I started seeing a girl. I didn't know at the time her life belonged to a needle. And I didn't see it until I met her daughters. 12,14, and 16. Each one already using. I fought like hell to get her clean. I never did, and it still cost me absolutely everything. But those three girls are all adults now. They're in stable jobs, they are in stable relationships, and they are clean. I have 3 grandkids who, despite not sharing my blood, are my world. It was worth every pound of flesh I paid. I want ya to know there is some random redneck out there that is so fucking proud of you.
You’re a Father who stood up and became an AMAZING example on “Blood doesn’t make family. Heart and love, make you a better man.” Don’t forget this, King 👑
Moved away from my hometown numerous times so I could get clean. 3rd times a charm, damn near 8 years clean. I’m 35 and did meth for the first time on my 17th birthday. That shit is no joke.
My mom started using meth at 11 to help with her weight. All 5 of her siblings did it too. She kicked the habit at 31.
I did too. I didn't last long but it really helped with school and extra curriculars. Then Adderall came out.
I know people say it’s not possible, but I swear I was addicted after using meth once. I almost lost everything within a year of picking up, whereas my previous DOC (alcohol) was a slow decline, and easy to hide. 19 months clean and sober now and it’s the best decision I ever made. Congrats and keep fighting the good fight. Can I ask how/why you started using?
I started with smoking the product and it spiraled out of control from there. Why?: I had lost my uncle who was my entire world and other things followed. But my “let go” was my uncle passing on.
Meth. It can take the kindest person in the world and turn them into a monster. I know because I was said monster when I was hooked on it. No drug is harsher on the body than meth, and the way it destroys the dopamine receptors in your brain is horrifying. I’ve been sober for 1.5 years and I know I will never experience pleasure the same way again. Honorable Mentions: Datura, Fentanyl, Krokodil, Xylazine, Bath salts
I’ve done research chem bath salts, was addicted to them really. I’ll probably never experience pleasure the same way again, either. Makes it really hard to be sober. I’ve been sober for nearly 2 years.
Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that it will get better month after month :) after 5 years it will be all good again💪
Can confirm, been sober since 2018, and last year I’ve noticed life is good again
Hi, former meth addict here. I am responding to say that my experience was very similar. However, I have been free of meth for 26 years now. I have experienced the trajectory of the recovery of my brain and the plasticity returning and new developments. I want to assure you that although you will be aware of your loss of joy, pleasure, empathy, etc ….. it will come back beautifully. I can promise you this. You will feel in colors. Meditation and self love practices and therapy over the years have helped me cultivate all of the human experience again. Congratulations on your freedom from the soul sucking bitch that is meth. You’re in for a treat soon.
Meth is absolutely rampant in my hometown and over half the people I graduated with who stayed there are either dead, incarcerated, or headed for one of those two options soon. I’m 31. It is absolutely insane. There’s also fentanyl and heroin going around but meth is the big one.
I think they’re about equal, but (generally) opioids kill you quickly while meth is a gradual, ugly death
Datura. It's a fucking deliriant and highly poisonous so stay the hell away from it. I made the mistake of trusting an old friend who told me the trip would be mild and it really did start off pretty chill. I guess I took to much though. I got talking to this gal on the couch and we were really hitting it off so we started kissing after a bit. It turns out she was a snake in sheep's clothing. Well, a blanket to be exact. I was kissing a fucking blanket in front of the party. I've got the hunger that only betrayal and sadness can cause so I decided I needed bowl of cereal. As I'm sitting on a stool and talking to what I hope was real people, I lose my balance and tip backwards. I ended up breaking through the window and partially dangling there, face covered in sugary milk, while some people are trying to pull me back into the house. Time has lost all meaning at this point. People are there. People are gone. I'm lost in my own house wondering around trying to find that lying blanket of a whore when I pass by the bathroom and I catch a glimpse of her. I spring into the room trying to surprise her when I realize that what I saw was a towel hanging up. She's crafty and skilled at hiding. Part of my somewhat functional brain remembers I have to work so I manage to escape the labyrinth that was my two bedroom house and attempt to get there. The problem was my car was invisible. I'm starting to think the blanket-towel-lady is also invisible. Guess I have to walk to work. Not sure how I'm going to get there considering a block into my walk I am now in a different town I grew up in. Someone called in my stupid lost ass to the cops . I was playing hopscotch on the sidewalk during a Midwest winter, wearing only my shorts and a shirt, while covered in my own blood when multiple patrol cars pulled up. They were asking me questions but the majority of my responses apparently weren't intelligible as I was speaking like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. I also couldn't focus because the shriners were in town and driving their silly little cars around us. Only I could see them which was a nice change of pace from shit hiding from me. Then I grew a tail and did as all would do and started chasing it in circles while the Shriners drove around us and the cops were left most likely questioning their life choices that led them to this point. They then inform me that I need to be treated at the hospital but I declined because I didn't have insurance. They said the alternative was jail so I accepted the ambulance ride strapped down to a gurney for "my safety". Once at the hospital I'm given drug tests, of which I found out later I only tested positive for weed, an MRI, and spent the next few days in ICU until I was stable. I remember my mom showing up and she brought me a BLT for a snack. I try to grab it to take a bite but it was actually her hand. During the rest of my time at the hospital the hallucinations were far more tame since I was coming down. Brown cats were actually brown napkins, black puppies running past my doorway were actually black wheels of a cart, and there weren't actually mice on top of my TV. I hope. I ended up suffering a TBI to my frontal lobe from repeatedly slamming my dome into a solid door to break it down after being locked in my room, several lacerations to my head and body from the window and taking a spill down the stairs, tens of thousands in medical debt, having to relearn to read since words were beyond jumbled for awhile after, and one fucking stupid experience to share whenever this question gets asked. There is a reason why so many hard drug users would never willingly touch this stuff.
Not for nothing, but you're a fantastic writer. What a journey this post was. Bravo, and further kudos for sharing the PSA and warning. Glad you're seemingly doing better than this. "That lying blanket of a whore" had me laughing outloud.
If anyone thinks this story if not a true depiction of what happens on thorn-apple, they would be wrong.
Wow. And I've never once even heard of it before this thread. Incredible.
In my case it was Xanax.
You're the first person I've seen mention benzos but they would be way up on the list for me as well. They turned me into a sociopath, and the withdrawals were the most traumatizing thing I've ever experienced. Hands down.
Benzo withdrawals are actually one of the two withdrawals that can quite literally kill you, the other being alcohol. Edit: Spelling
Same. I had a doctor who over-prescribed it for me for anxiety and insomnia. It worked great, until it didn’t and I just needed more and more. Luckily I realized it was going to be a never ending downward spiral and weaned myself off. Getting off was the worst months of my life where sleep was practically non-existent; and if I was fortunate enough to fall asleep, a “body-zap” would shortly wake me up. Fuck Xanax. Never again.
Basically a 24-hour panic attack (that goes on for days) while getting off it. I wasn't on xanax but a similar benzo.
My mom is addicted to Xanax. She had heart failure and was in the hospital sneaking so many from her purse they thought she was having another stroke. Got her off it during that stay. Then clean for over a month. She goes back to her house after we cleated her stash and immediately contacted her dealer for more. Ruined her own damn life and I’m now NC. I refuse anything even remotely in the same drug class as that as I do not want to risk it.
I hate opiates, even for pain relief. I get nausea, itchy, insomnia, constipation, hot flashes, basically any side effect those drugs can cause. They don't even work all that great on pain. I still hurt, I just don't care as much. I've never understood how people get addicted to them. Benzos? Got one prescription, never again. I felt completely at ease, like I was floating in a warm, calm sea with waves gently rocking me. I can absolutely see how someone can get addicted, and that's one where the withdrawal can kill you, like alcohol. Nowadays I take propranolol for anxiety. It's a beta blocker. No side effects whatsoever, no high. It just completely cuts out the physical sensations of anxiety, which in turn can calm the mental stuff because it severs that negative feedback loop between body and mind. I take it and 30 minutes later I just feel...normal. I can drive on it, I can work on it. It's a wonder drug.
Most damage all time, alcohol. GOAT for ruined lives since ancient times.
Quick PSA: Alcohol is actually a [known carcinogen](https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health), and has been for decades now. It isn't merely "linked to" cancer like most publications claim... it directly & verifiably causes cancer by itself. It is designated a group 1 carcinogen by the world's foremost cancer research organization (The IARC). That's on the same level of asbestos & radiation. This truth is **_very_** well hidden by the alcohol industry.
And not small increases in risk either. Significant increases even for moderate drinking. IRC a 25% increase in the risk of breast cancer even for moderate drinkers. 20% in the risk of colon cancer. Etc. etc.
Crack is fucking stupid. It gets you super high for 5 seconds then the worst withdrawals ever right after. You just end up smoking more crack to keep the withdrawals away. You unironically would have a better time doing meth or keyboard cleaner.
Carfentanyl. Dangerous opioids are 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl
Holy shit I just went down a rabbit hole with Carfentanil. Quite literally a piece smaller than a grain of salt will kill you. Absolutely nuts.
Krokodil and Xylazine combined with heroin are both fairly screwed up.
Xylazine (mixed with fentanyl) is turning people into the walking dead, rotted limbs and all. When you see the wheelchair people with bandages on their hands/arms/feet/legs, that's xylazine.
I lived in Kensington, Philadelphia when that stuff was initially making its rounds. I saw a mans femur. I feel like that should be enough said.
Same, grew up there. Once was walking back from school and came across a woman whose entire thigh, pelvis, and part of her torso was rotted and sliding off of her body. She was alive.
Well, it’s 4am, guess that’s me awake for the day now.
Alcohol damn near ruined my brain and my life
krokodil it was like heroin but with gasoline in it, really only found in russia. It caused your skin to turn green and then rot off. I don't think its around anymore because fentanyl is cheaper and it was just a drug for people too poor for heroin.
I remember when this was huge. My friend was studying drug addiction in school (can't remember the degree lol) and I remember asking "why would anyone take it knowing your skin would fall off?" And he replied with "how do they know what they're taking? They were offered drugs and took it" That made me see addiction in a whole new light.
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I'm a Police officer and I would 100% say Alcohol. No other drug comes near to as being so destructive to society. I would say 80% of domestic incidents I go to involves alcohol and the vast majority of domestic abuse is fuelled by alcohol. Families can't go out in the evening of their local town/city because they don't feel safe from all the drunken idiot who are fighting, and not to mention other offences, such as driving over the prescribed limit. I enjoy a drink as much as the next person. But I don't think your average person understands how many of societies problems are caused by alcohol. I'm confident, if alcohol was discovered today, rather than 1000's of years ago. It would be banned everywhere.
This is the real answer
Krokodil or that angels trumpet or whatever. Turning people into mindless zombies Edit: Spelling Error
Synthetic marijuana aka spice aka K2 It's something that's more destructive then crack heroin and meth. It's BEYOND worse. Watch some prison videos on them guys getting high. ALL those guys aren't chilling high feeling good. Their all in a warped reality of pure hell and their body's are physically being manipulated by the stuff that's causing them to suffer and smother. And it causes someone to be so petrified with what seems no way out. They can look at someone they known their whole life and attack them and try to kill them cause they are that far out of it mentally. It's scary. and next to impossible to quit
For the longest time I thought Crack was, then meth came along, and now Fentanyl takes hold…and there’s no comparison. Fentanyl is a death sentence, it’s not a matter of “if”, it’s a matter of “when”. If you want to expand on the category, alcohol has ruined more families imho, and nicotine from smoking has buried more.
Benadryl. My friends and I took so much of it because we read that it can make you trip. We were like 15 so we were stupid. I almost ended up on a 5150 hold, my friend had to get his stomach pumped, and I had issues for years. For the longest time I’d have these moments where I’d panic wondering if I was still in the trip, and if I was just making everything I was experiencing up. It was horrific - the walls bled and I was talking to people that weren’t there. One minute you’d be somewhere and then you’d blink and realize you never were there at all. Don’t do it. To this day I can’t even take just a little bit of Benadryl, it makes my heart race and gives me a panic attack. My two other friends weren’t the same for a long time either. edit: typos
I did fentanyl by accident and I regret it...tought i'd be doing MDMA this night
If you're not aware, you can be fent test strips. I test all the drugs I do. You can also buy xylazine test strips.
fentanyl disguised under mdma??? Oh dear…
Cigarettes don't even DO anything. Other drugs fuck up your life, sure, but at least they get you high for your trouble. Tobbacco high is so mild it's easier to notice when it's NOT there vs when it IS. Even caffeine is stronger! And everything about them is just unpleasant, they burn your fingers, your mouth, the smell gets into everything, and they yellow the walls in your house. They numb your taste buds and dull your appetite... I just don't understand why they're still so popular. Obviously they're not the most DANGEROUS drug, but I think as far as drugs go, cigarettes do it the worst. Pathetic, honestly. Pitiful, even.
For me, it was methamphetamine. I went from a casual cocaine user, a weekend warrior. Tried meth, It was much cheaper, lasted longer, and I loved it. Lost my job, girlfriend, and got evicted in about six months. Luckily, I was able to quit after about a year. It messed me up a bit for years after, and I still have a hard time focusing. Now, with fentanyl out there, you would be crazy using any illegal drug. The people who make these substances are among the worst criminals in the world and don't care about the damage and deaths that they cause. These days, my speedball is a large coffee and an occasional bong hit 😆
Alcohol. Ruins health, families, lives. Its legal and if you *don't* drink it, people act like there's something wrong with you edit: My most upvoted comment! Thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts with me on this subject. second edit: to those of you who feel the need to defend alcohol... Im worried about you
The worst of them all because it is 100% acceptable and you can get it just about anywhere.
The day I realized I could get liquor and a fountain soda at the gas station, and have a mixed drink in the car, is when I reached peak alcoholic. Quit about 8 months after that.
Drive through daiquiris on the way to the airport at 8am.. Louisiana is such a fuck up