Addiction Cope

I swear to you, this is OP the entire Reddit post:

He is so convinced that he knows what he is doing, even though he has no idea. One Redditor even said to him:

[deleted]

This might sound odd, but definitely tell your closest friend. It’s very easy to start a drug addiction by keeping it separate from your real life. Tell your buddy, accept that it will freak him out, but know that him/her knowing will make it way less likely that you’ll fall prey to the addictive nature of this drug.

And without a hint of irony, he responded:

SpontaneousH

OP 17y ago

I actually told him before reading this post. He smokes a lot of pot and we had a mutual acquaintance that was a heroin addict and he watched him OD on his couch while his junkie friend had to run over and give him an injection of some opiate antagonist in his ass and then mouth to mouth to revive him, so he was a little concerned. After talking it through and explaining it he understands though. I can’t think of anyone else I could tell, but someone in my life now knows.

It’s like he doesn’t read what he types. Yeah, your friend is concerned. He literally had to watch one user to do mouth to mouth on a friend that almost died after giving him a reversal shot. I am sure that wasn’t traumatizing at all… I am also sure he is totally comfortable with your decision making process.

He spends an inordinate amount of time yelling at other people, discounting their criticisms, and basically only agreeing with the people that are cheering him on.

[deleted]

Not a question just a suggestion based on knowledge gained from years as a heroin addict. Don’t do it again. EVER. There is nothing so terrible in this world as heroin withdrawals. It takes doing heroin every day or every other day for about 2-3 months to get your first habit, but that time goes by real fast when you are high. Just leave it alone. Seriously.

SpontaneousH

OP 17y ago

I’m sure the addiction sucks. I’m glad someone here has some real experience (well not glad for your sake but in terms of setting things straight) with what it takes to have withdrawals unlike the first 20 comments asking me if I was withdrawing right now...

Above that, someone had said:

formfactor 17y ago

Yes, opioid molecules are the best on earth. It really is the greatest feeling life has to offer. Unfortunately once I got a taste for that feeling it was all over. Opioids are the most addictive drugs on the planet. Once your body gets addicted the withdrawal is pure hell. Be very very careful not to ingest the stuff everyday, because in a matter of a week you will be completely addicted. I was very surprised at how fast my tolerance went up and how fast I was craving the stuff.

I’m now clean of it and taking suboxone to minimize the withdrawal. It has helped, but I can never take another opioid without my body going completely crazy for it. Enjoy it, but save it for a rainy day. Opioid addiction nearly killed me.

Does he take this to heart? No.

He basically waves them away saying, “Good insightful post, thanks”, and nothing more.

There is a comment from a guy that got involved with cocaine and how it destroyed his life. SpontaneousH did appreciate his story because he didn’t include what he termed “obnoxious scare tactics” that other posters had apparently used.

Dude, the only reason that you think what other people are saying is “obnoxious” is because they are telling you what you don’t want to hear. They are telling you their own life experiences, and you are just pooh-poohing them because you don’t like what they have to say.

Another Redditor shared their own experience about the path SpontaneousH is on:

test450

17y ago

Just wanted to let you know you sound exactly like I did when I first did dope. Same optimistic and sense of self control that us thrill seekers have. Smart enough to rationalize and study exactly what was going on. That was over $500,000 ago. I was a CIO and built a very successful company while hiding track marks. Eventually it all fell apart. I od’d several times and now I steal from my best friend and hate myself.

And you know you are coping when you think that this story is somehow a troll:

SpontaneousH

OP

No offense here but I can’t tell if this post is trolling or sincere. If it is sincere, my heart goes out to you....

At this point, my thoughts toward this guy is that he’s an idiot, and is going to have to deal with some nasty consequences. Weirdly, this is also another reason why I think that people who think that they are, or pretend to be psychopathic, are playing with fire.

You might be wondering how I factored those types into my reasoning here, but it is actually pretty simple. There are a ton of people that will claim that they are psychopathic, and either are just wrong, or lying to the world. However, they also might be lying to themselves, and are telling people the same lie to reinforce it in their own minds.

These people might also then believe that they too are immune to addiction, and think that they can try whatever drug they want without consequences. Immunity to addiction is not one of the things that alerts a psychopath that they might be one if they don’t already know, but it certainly is something that we notice, regardless of knowing why it’s present. It’s an interesting aside, but that’s all.

People that are pretending or trying to create psychopathy out of thin air are not going to possess this immunity and thus are going to have a very unfortunate crash out with reality when they discover that they are not psychopathic. However, that can also go the other way, and they then believe that psychopaths can indeed become addicts, and either the science is wrong, or they’re just special, just not in a good way.

People that are looking for an identity in psychopathy tend to be the ones that have other things going on mentally, emotionally, things that make addiction an attractive avenue to self-medicate, and if there are people going into it thinking that they have some built in shield, they are setting themselves up for a head-on collision with disaster. Just like our friend is here. Not that he thinks he is a psychopath, but he definitely thinks that he understands how to play a game that he knows nothing about. It is a dangerous negotiation that he is undertaking.

It seems to me that this Redditor is just as naive when it comes to the problems looming.

miasma66

17y ago

Thanks for doing your best to combat the myth that you’ll be ZOMG ADDICTED HOMELESS JUNKIE after one hit; it doesn’t work that way.

I’ve never done street heroin but I’ve experimented with plenty of similar drugs (particularly Oramorph, which is seriously good shit if you can get hold of it) to know what it’d be like. I can easily see how people get addicted to it though, it’s one of the most intensely pleasurable experiences I’ve ever had I think, and I’ve tried a lot more than my fair share of drugs over the years.

Definitely one for infrequent special occasions, isn’t it!

1. I have never tried it

2. You won’t become addicted if you try it

How the hell do you know? You have never tried it. That is some sh*tposting right there. Also, almost immediately after saying you won’t become a junkie, I can see how people get addicted… Dude.

SpontaneousH

OP 17y ago

You’re welcome, I am not one to be easily brainwashed. As a teen I stayed away from cigarettes because of the myth that 5 cigs will make you an addict. Then one day I thought to myself that’s bullshit and tried a cig. I’ve probably smoked a couple hundred cigs in my life and never once felt addicted or the urge to smoke them, it was more while drinking or if someone offered me one in a social setting. I can’t stand the smell though.

I know heroin and cigs are quite different but I hear the habit is pretty damn hard to stop. I knew I wouldn’t get addicted to anything instantly which is why I decided to say fuck it and try Heroin. If I go back and buy like 20 more bags and do it every day I’ll probably get addicted, but once or once in a long while isn’t taking that much risk.

Anything to defend your position I see. Here’s a challenge. Don’t go back and buy any more, ever. Then you will know you aren’t addicted. It isn’t the physical addiction to begin with, it is the high that people chase. That is all I have ever heard about it. Not that people tried it once and were awash with withdrawal, but that they felt incredible and they wanted to feel that way again, but they couldn’t. After that, they are chasing that high forever, and as the high gets less, the addiction gets more entrenched, and to feel functional, one must be loaded. That is the process of addiction. Never have I ever heard, I tried it, and then immediately after coming down I was crawling up the walls with withdrawals.

The cope is strong with this one.

I have no idea what prompted this comment:

SpontaneousH OP 17y ago

Edited 17y ago

Do I have to fucking spell it out to you why I didn’t get a needle and IV a drug into my vein? You’re really trolling with your ‘correct usage’ bullshit, only an idiot looking to get addicted would shoot heroin, and I don’t know anyone who would try shooting it up the first time they try it or attempt injecting themselves without knowing what they are doing. I bought the stuff on a whim, I have said several times I will never IV a drug, it’s asking for problems and I wasn’t about to go looking for a needle for the reasons stated above. It doesn’t count if you don’t shoot it? Give it a fucking rest, everyone knows that’s bullshit and being an ‘elitist heroin addict’ like yourself is laughably pathetic.

Now you can go fuck off and I hope you are proud of your track marks.

But you can easily see that he is very defensive about his perspective and does not appreciate it when people give him fair warnings about what he is playing with. He also claims that he will never IV the drug, yet, as we will later learn, he absolutely does, but we will get to that in a bit. For now, his behavior prompts at least one user to say that he is behaving like a toddler, because he feels like this is an Ask Me Anything thread, not an Ask Reddit thread. He believes that people are offering him unsolicited advice against his chosen actions, and does not appreciate their weigh ins. They just made him double down:

SpontaneousH OP 17y ago

Well considering I made this IAMA, quite often. No negative effects, posting here and getting the responses I did has removed any mental guilt I had or doubts about the decision. It is really all the ignorant and dickish posts telling me I’m a fucking asshole for trying it that made me realize I didn’t make a decision I regret. So I thank them for that.

Why consider doing it again? The same reason you continued to use cocaine.

When you want to know how a psychopath thinks of addicts, this is a pretty good summation of it. For me, I consider this comment sort of descriptive of the whole mentality they appear to have.

I don’t regret it

Everyone that warned me is stupid

You can’t tell me what to do

You just proved to me that I’m right, you’re wrong, case close, go to hell

It is this childish emotional pursuance of feeling good that a psychopath will never understand. We see neurotypicals as slaves to their emotions, and addicts even more so. They want so desperately to not feel the bad things, and to only feel good things, that they will just wreck their lives, as well as everyone’s lives that happen to be around them, because they can’t handle their emotions.

To a psychopath, that makes no sense, and, to us, it seems weak.

Even SpontaneousH states that he used to judge heroin users, himself:

SpontaneousH OP 17y ago

Poverty and growing up in that environment in Baltimore in poverty is what got people hooked on heroin and the drug wars are what got people killed.

I always passed judgment on drug users, and almost everyone does, especially about Heroin. Why not try it first hand and get a better understanding of what causes it. One time will not make you an addict despite what your high school health teacher and society want you to believe.

“you are trying to submit too fast. try again in 4 minutes.” I thought they fixed that...

I’ll respond to an above post here:

You won’t go through withdrawal or have a physical dependence from doing it once. If you do it constantly for several days and definitely after a week you will have a physical addiction and maybe a little withdrawal, but the crazy withdrawals you see in movies are after weeks, months and years of use. I feel perfectly fine now, the only reason I would want to do it again is because it felt amazing, but I have no physical need.

Hmm… Something tells me it won’t be the song he is singing next week. Another Redditor responded quite appropriately to his flawed reasoning:

filenotfounderror 17y ago

i agree, we should murder, rape, and self mutilate before we pass judgments on these things as bad ideas.

Mind you, you can go through his posts and see all the times that he interacts on this post. It is a lot, over a hundred times. I could go through all of them, but really, it doesn’t matter how many times he justifies his actions, and tries to convince everyone that he is making the right choice, all the while reaffirming to himself that he is in control.

What matters is the mental negotiation that you can already see on full display here, and why I find addiction to be a series of bad decisions that do not need to be made. It is difficult for me to cognitively comprehend why there is any empathy or sympathy offered for people that jump into the valley of thorns and then cry piteously that they are getting stabbed. But, they don’t want to leave, they want you to assist them staying down there, and if you don’t, you’re somehow the bad guy.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument that SpontaneousH is correct, that he has no physical attachment to the drug… yet. However, he wants that high, and he is more than willing to forgo any logical or reasonable point that gets in the way of what he wants. He knows better, and he is going to do whatever.

That to me is a choice, and not one that I have to offer any understanding of. If you have emotional issues, get help with them, but going down the drug rabbit hole is not the way to do so. I don’t understand emotional suffering. I am the first to admit that, and I know that I am stating this without having personal experience. However, SpontaneousH is making my case for me. It isn’t because he is in so much emotional pain that he is seeking an out. He wasn’t introduced to it as a kid, before he had the wherewithal to make better decisions. He chose to do it because he simply wanted to, and didn’t want to listen when people tried to warn him away.

That is so childish in my mind, and not something that I really understand.

For context, I do understand that there are other addiction stories. I have mentioned that my friend works with people that suffered severe abuse, and addiction is a constant problem in this world. Either they were introduced to drugs as children to keep them in line, or they turned to drugs in order to cope with their emotional damage. I know that these stories exist as well. It is not entirely black and white, but those that chose this life, that is a different story in my mind. Next week we get to go into the update, where things have gone awry.