Great thread, good luck in the main.

A lot of this stuff hits home for me because I just lost a close friend to oxy.

I couldn't agree more with the idea that for someone to get clean they have to truly want to be clean themselves. My friend that passed would say he wanted to stop, had a lot of opportunities to check into rehab and get help, but never went through with it.

For anyone saying that drugs help them perform better, or giving some other benefits of using drugs, I would encourage them to take a serious look at that statement. Possibly even ask trust worthy friends or family to give an honest assessment of what effect drugs have on your behavior. For the most part, heavy addiction and drug abuse is not recognized by the abuser until long after it becomes a serious problem.

Yes, balance, no danger. Of course I wasn't trying to glamorize weed, as such. I don't smoke either, and for good reason.

Maybe I should've mentioned instead something like going to a yoga class in the morning, having some Thai curry and iced green tea; followed by a four-handed two hour massage carried out by two lovely and skilled masseuses. Followed by two more hours of extra massage with one of the girls, because it is just so good, culminating in her grinding her silk panties on my face while she sucks me off. Then watch some TV or read a book.

Good clean fun and completely drug-free.

I'm sorry for your lose, fortunately i havnt had to deal with that yet, but did lose a friend to suicide this summer. Drug overdoses are so sad especially when you really can't help the person and they don't get that second chance at life.

Always grateful for the person I've become from having to deal with this disease on a day to day basis.

Enjoyed your post, once again sorry for your loss.

Great thread, Greg. You had an awesome series and I'm rooting for you to take down the ME.

My brother has been using heroin for about a year and a half, but he won't admit it, even though we find needles and he has all of the symptoms of heroin addiction. I barely see him because he wakes up in the afternoon every day and leaves the house right away to go hang out with his friends and do who knows what and comes back in the early hours of the morning. I'm really worried about him. Does anyone know how I can help him?

not to derail the thread but Pizza, what gif is that in your avatar?

Ezekiel Kemboi at the London Olympics. He is dancing after winning the 3,000m steeplechase.

love to see you doing so well greg. always knew you had the toughness and that $200 turning stone ft 5 years ago was just the beginning

pizza, i've never had to deal with a situation like that, but i think confronting him without judgement and showing him you are concerned about his well being would have a positive effect on the situation. if nothing else you'll have a better grasp of what's going on and have shown love to a brother who's in a tough spot. best of luck.

Thank you very much for the advice. I try to reach out to him and show him that I love him and am concerned but I don't think he understands the effect that the situation has on me. Last time I saw him I told him that he's my older brother and I look up to him and seeing him like this terrifies me because whenever I say goodbye to him I'm scared that it's the last time I'll ever see him. He just said "Ok." He's right at the age where he needs to choose which path to go down on in life(21), and i'm really hoping that he'll realize that no good can come from what he's doing.

^^ watch some episodes of Intervention and set up a plan with your family to try and reach out to him.

i agree with this, think you should talk to your family and his closest clean friends that are willing to set something up to save him. gl man

I cringed. All drugs are -EV long term. There is so much more to life than money. I was on a similar path as Greggy. I was using everything, and it's tough to get off. I cut out a few months ago and then went through PAWS, so I hopped on Lyrica then got hooked on that. I just cut everything out last week and now I'm letting my brain heal. It can be frustrating because my brain can feel "hollow" at times, and I feel dizzy a lot, but that just means my brain needs rest after using pills to pump out the dopamine before.

Exercise, meditation, routine, proper nutrition are all essential for recovery. Another thing is don't beat yourself up when you're recovering, accept that you're in a low key state and don't push too hard, otherwise you'll get frustrated and go back down the slippery slope.

And as for other addicts and how to help them...You can't...Or I should say you cannot help anyone who doesn't want to help themselves. The only thing you can do is be a beacon of good energy, let them know that you're there to help when they're ready, and don't enable them by giving them money, doing favors, etc.

I deal with addicts everyday and it's difficult, but if you don't draw your boundaries you will go down with them. If someone is not willing to improve you must let them hit rock bottom.

To be honest I don't understand the emotional and interpersonal aspects of such situations well at all... but my approach tends to be like reverse psychology (which is real in this case) such that drugs are not glamorous or cool. And they are also very dangerous. That takes them out of the "chic" or "hip" category squarely into the "wtf" and "lame" category and stop-doing-this-****-NOW category.

The Apa-Morphine cure mentioned by Burroughs in Naked Lunch is interesting, but I have no idea about the science of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apomorp...iate_addiction

Reading Burrough's letters and commentary after Naked Lunch was for me very enlightening about the problems of opiate addiction, a ton of things that I did not know about it.

Hey Greg. I don't have anything to add to the thread except to say I think it's awesome of you to do this and pretty brave, since you could have just tried to shut that part of your past out of your head and forget about it.

Going over dark times is not the easy route imo, so, bravo. Good luck.

hey thanks oldjude, i remember playing against you a little on ftp. If i didn't love poker so much i would be a drug counselor and its nice to have this thread for people to vent/discuss issues. I would never want to forget who i am, a drug addict. The moment i start to think that I'm not is a scary thought and can lead to things turning for the worse very quickly. This disease has made me so much more humble and positive about poker and life in general.

Just want to thank Anthony Gregg, Evan Jarvis, and most of all Christian Harder for really helping me stay focused this year. Having the right people in your corner is huge.

one love