First of all, I want to say it was very strong and brave for you to share this publically with everyone, respect that.

My story is similar to kleinstein's, my very good friend also passed from oxy. The difference was this happened when we were only 15, young teens. It was only his second time doing it, the first was the weekend before. We went to a party the first time and he had told me how he tried oxy and how he felt "amazing" after doing it. I told him that if he ever did something so stupid again I would kick his ass. Sure enough the next weekend we went to another party and he did it again. That was the last time I saw my very best friend alive, some one who was like my brother. Immediately after doing it, he went to a room and just passed out on a bed, he never woke up again. It was by far the worst thing I have ever been through, I still think of him to this day. only 15 years old and he was taken away from us, I always wonder where he would be today if he was still alive? He had all the potential in the world.

Anyways, whether it's oxy or any other drug, they are all extremely -EV. The short term high or pleasure you get is not worth any of the negative outcomes. The negatives that come from drugs far outweigh any of the positives ( if there is any) that come from any drug. Too many people do them and aren't aware of the series consequences they can face. Hopefully I save some one from my story, and they think twice before doing anything like that.

Also, really rooting for you in the main bro, take it down!

thanks for sharing kevin, i couldn't imagine losing my best friend at that age from something like that. It really puts things into perspective as to how dangerous opiates truly are. Hope people can benefit from your post and be more careful about the decisions they make in life. Im very blessed to not have overdossed and be here today and i live everyday on a free roll now. Once again, thanks for sharing your story, I'm sorry for your loss.

Nasty story. There was a great (by great I mean scary and intriguing) documentary about OxyContin which followed addicts around the one stop pain relief shops in Florida I think. I love watching drug documentaries something about it intrigues me and saddens me. I am astounded that those pain shops are allowed to operate, in the uk we only have rogue pharmacists and there aren't that many of them, havea friend currently hooked on cocaine, opiates and booze and it's just sad to watch.

Two of my friends in college were addicted to opiates specifically oxycotin. They would get so spaced out from it. Don't know how anyone could grind on it.

i lost a lot of money grinding on it, surprised that people could actually win being so doped up

First off congrats on your sobriety and Main Event run. You seem like an awesome player/person and hard working and you deserve all the success and run good you have! I will be rooting for you in October. While we have different views on drugs, it doesn't make me less of a fan of you as a player.

There is still a huge social stigma to oxycodone use and a lot of pills/any drug use other than weed and its kind of annoying. I've seen and done and been around pretty much everything over the past 5 or so years and don't have many regrets. You can have a very addictive personality and still be smart enough/careful enough to moderate your use and enjoy some of the most euphoric highs ever without ending up in rehab. Just like you can drink without being an alcoholic, or smoke weed without being a pothead stoner loser. Only one of those drugs will get you looks if you were to do it on a break of a poker tournament though.

Granted, with the more hardcore stuff, you'll see less % of people being able to control it and I've seen all the worst out of addicts. Still, I hate how most of these stories paint the picture of drug use to be just this despondent black hole of misery. If the highs associated with some of the drugs weren't ****ing amazing, addicts wouldn't go through such great lengths to get high.

I've had some amazing times on drugs and had some terrible things happen on drugs. You should be glad you have money. The terrible path that most people go down is prescribed adderall aka speed....weed to calm down/go to bed....find percocets after that to go down after uppers/coke use with alcohol....get addicted to oxys....run out of money cuz oxys cost so much and tolerance goes up....and find heroin is much more cheaper than oxys to curb withdrawals/get that warm opiate high....and once you hit heroin...well...heroin is no turning back I've seen terrible stuff and I'm glad I never got into shooting that **** up just because I was never a fan of needles and would creep me out just watching others do it. Poker stopped you from having to go down the H path.

Seen that exact path happen to an old friend and my ex gf...really regret not doing more to stop my ex gf from getting into heroin

Even with all the terrible stuff that it can lead to, wouldn't take back the good times for anything. I've been completely sober for many months mainly due to being broke, and the only way I could ever rationalize doing drugs was to hustle myself. And I just basically use them to self-medicate depression/bipolar...and because I abused them so heavily when I was young and had money (AND ONLINE POKER IN USA!!) its impossible for me to get too deep into them again. My brain/dopamine receptors are just ****ed for life.

I still loved the process, the ritual, the routine, the ups, the downs, the lifestyle. Theres more to drugs than just the misery and I'd never want to be completely sober forever but if thats where you find happiness and peace with yourself then I'm very happy for you. I think I found more of a rush from going into bad neighborhoods than the drug itself sometimes. Addiction and drug use is very weird and complex.

I have one question for you that I'm not sure you can answer. How do you have sex again after having consistent sex while abusing oxys? As I'm sure you know, its nearly impossible to bust a nut while on oxys so that was actually one of the big plusses of the drug. If you weren't that great at sex you could pound away for hours and make girls go crazy. Myself/friends found that if you ever tried sober sex it was like the opposite effect....in that you'd basically become a premature ejaculator. Over time, did this effect subside for you? Or when were you using did your sex drive go down so much that you never had sex. (Common side effect of opiate use, I've known people who got hormone replacement)

Wicked post mate, really liked how you worded it, hope you know what's going on in your life now

Wow greg, your such a huge inspiration to me. Having just kicked a very extreme roxy addiction, I've turned to poker again and am working full time now. I dont have much to say other then I understand how horrible that paticular addiction can be. It just about cost me everything. I can still hardly believe that I beat it to be honest. It sucks because just before my addiction took a turn for the worst, I finally had built a bankroll to take a shot at playing for a living. About 50k spent on drugs later I'm starting all over again, but atleast feeling much better about life being sober. I've always thought that if I ever reached greatness in poker, I'd tell my story to try to get some awareness out there. Opiates in America are crazy right now. Thanks for your post. It deffinetly makes me feel posotive about things. I'll be rooting for you in the ME. GL

Wow, that so freakin' cool and glamorous. I bet Heath Ledger really went for that. He was probably like "Oh WOW man, I was just ****ing for 3 hours because I can't feel my dick (or my face, or my ass, or my feet). WOW that is bloody awesome." Then they just pack him in a hefty garbage bag and wheel him out in front of the paparazzis, and all of his troubles are over. AND he's a Hollywood legend forever. What could be better; living the dream. I bet he had a really spooky dealer named Flukey, too, who lived in the ghetto, and there were teen age hookers with hot pants and thongs on walking around outside Flukey's apartment when he went to go score there. So awesome.

Yeah, I guess you're right, I guess we shouldn't sue the drug companies for instigating a massively expensive and violent "war on drugs" while they manufacture a zillion oxys a year and make them easily available to everybody.

From Wikipedia:

There are a couple of things I will say about this type of perspective. First of all, it will be almost impossible to effectively argue about something like this being "wrong". That being said, I think it is human nature to rationalize away conflicts. I have heard a lot of people saying that drugs are great and they would not give them up, etc. but I wonder how much of that is rationalizing something that they cannot, or are unwilling to change.

I think there are a lot of negatives to drugs that drug-advocates simply do not address. There are also many positives to life without drugs that are not addressed either.

Great post and good to see that 2p2 has a place for these stories as well. A+

I have been addicted for over 10 years to weed and I saw some great weed debate going on in here so might as well chime in. I love the fact that none of these side effects have been proven and that weed is not really that bad for you (or at least not yet proven to be bad if I read some replies.. not proven does not mean that its actually not bad .. just that we cant prove it atm). Maybe physically or mentally its not that hard on a person to be addicted or to stop using when comparing to harddrugs, Ill agree to that.

I seriously doubt a teenagers life will not be harmed by smoking in the educational prime time of his life. Someone who isnt just sitting inside and smoking weed all day with the same friends is doing some different stuff. He'll probably (on average) be skipping less classes and putting in better work, both in school as at the office. As said Ive smoked weed from my 16th year till my 26th and in retrospect it has been terrible for me. Everyone is different but alot of the crowd who I used to smoke with still do that and probably could have different lifes (in a positive way) if they wernt allways looking for weed somewhere or sitting somewhere and getting wasted out of their minds.

I quit weed for the first time in january 2011 and started in august since I thought it was all good and able to handle a bit again. I never had a day where I didnt smoke since that august. Quiting was somewhat easy as I had huge psychological issue's possibly due to the weed or at least made much worse by weed. The issue's disappeared slowly after first getting worse when I quit and reappeared within days when I started smoking again. They only got real bad again last june and I quit per 1 july again. Now I know its probably not smart to start over again.

It has also been the best move I ever made financially. I was in debt for about 30k euro when I was 20 just due to not caring about anything else but weed (rent, utilities, food, anything). My money decisions on weed were also pretty stupid (eg. "rent is 300 .. I have 280 .. so ... I might as well ride it out on random stuff instead of getting that 20 extra somewhere and paying rent and not being able to smoke for a few days till the next paycheck..and Ill probably pay rent then" rinse and repeat lol). Its saving me about 20$ a day right now and loving the extra cash.

Sooo that was tl;dr but couldnt help but sharing my experiences here.

FYI.

Some studies suggest gambling has the same effect as a hit of crack cocaine.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...4-gambling.htm

That's not what the article says. And crack isn't mentioned anywhere in there.

There is also a huge amount of vagueness in the quotes from the researchers.

Also, it should be quite evident that, if certain brain centers are active during stimulation and pleasure (sex, gambling, eating, conversation, etc) and that some people who take drugs get stimulation and pleasure from them (at least in their pre-addiction, pre-sickness phase) then some of those same brain centers ("similar" is the word the researchers used) would likely show increased blood flow or activity. That is an utterly trivial assertion, and imo not really article-worthy.

Okay, meant to say cocaine, which is the base of crack. Now on to "similar":

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/200...ling-addiction

Is this quote better for you? Or how bout this one:

http://www.centerforpublicconversati...r/20120412.pdf

http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~span/...1101press.html


You do not have to believe the studies or find little value in them but I think it is relevant to the discussion when talking addiction to drugs and gambling and subsequently treatment.

I could be wrong. Could just be "similar" and not relevant. I personally think anyone who does not see the obvious similarities between gambling and drugs, specifically cocaine, relative to addiction are just putting their head in the sand.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/data.../3714/1127.pdf

are those too vague for you?

I tried coke the first time about a month ago July 3rd to be exact. In high school I was a pothead but I still was involved with sports and after school programs. I started smoking pot the summer before my junior year. Everyday before school, during lunch, after school, I would smoke at least a blunt, sometimes hit a bowl or a bong. Well weed had got pretty boring to me and so I decided to try something that was popular at my school, mushrooms. Worst mistake I ever did because I had a horrible trip on them and I didn't take enough to hallucinate but I felt like I was in a cartoon and my arms never had an end to them it was some weird/crazy ****. After my one time with mushrooms I was just sticking to weed. Now up till I tried mushrooms I could smoke a ton well that all changed after I did mushrooms. I couldn't smoke anymore then a little bowl pack, because my brain would feel like I was back on mushrooms and I would seriously start to freak out if I had smoked a high dosage of pot. So, I stuck to pot for about a year till the summer of my senior year where I got introduced to poker by a good friend who was making a lot of money. I don't think I went out at all my senior year I was addicted to poker and I fell in love with the game. I feel like if poker wasn't there for me I may have gone down a terrible path because school was definitely not my thing. Anyways, after high school I moved out of my parents place and got a 2 floor townhouse with a guy I worked with in VA. His name is Justin and he had to drop out of WVU because he was running from the cops and jumped from like the 3rd floor of a building and ended up shattering his lower leg. Well Justin, had pretty much unlimited oxy for his leg. I would snort them about every other weekend and mixing it with alcohol it really is a great feeling but I knew it wasn't a safe one. I decided to just stop taking them and stick to the little weed that I do smoke every now and then. After, our lease ran up in VA I found a good job in PA, and moved up here last November. I was doing great, making good money, and just doing my thing. Well, I joined the gym a few months ago and ran into a guy who I worked with. We exchanged numbers to go out and get some beer sometime and chill. On July 3rd, he hit me up to go out and have some drinks and to this day I wish I would of just stayed home playing poker on Lock/Merge like I was doing because the things I was about to do changed my life.

We start at this local bar nearby, putting drinks away left and right. Well it starts getting late and he ask me if I do coke. I said I never had but I would be down to try it. (Now I have never been around coke, or ever been offered it). Anyways, back to the story so we go to his dealers house which is in the sketchiest part of philly. I'm drunk he's driving( I know already a terrible thing drinking and driving.) We end up at the house I end up doing about a line and a half and he does the rest because I'm wasted and I really can't remember how much I had done I could of done more but he says I didn't do a lot because he only bought like a $40 bag(however many grams that is.) We end up leaving like 30 mins later just chilling and talking with the dealers, and we go back to my place and crash.

I wake up the next day feeling like I have a huge hangover. I'm feeling like **** all day and just want to lay on my couch and watch tv. I go to bed hoping I feel better the next day. I wake up and everything got worse, I started having emotional thoughts, weird things going in and out of my head, shaking, my body craving more coke, excessive heartbeats( and by that I mean I'm just laying on the couch and my heart is pumping like I sprinted a mile.) I got really scared after that and I had to tell my roommate what I had done in-case I had to go to ER or something. Thankfully, it only happened that once and I was fine after that scary incident I honestly thought I was going to die on July 5th. The emotion swings and thoughts in my head happened for about another 3 days. I went online to check out side effects of coke and sure enough, what happened to me was a common mini withdrawal called the come down. To this day I will never do coke again and I advise anybody not to do it because I can see how people can get addicted to it, your body goes through so much and I only did it one time but that's all it takes and I am very thankful to say I beat coke and I won.

I don't think I have typed this much since my high school research paper but poker has really always been what keeps me going. I know I am not as successful as most of you players but poker has giving me a reason to live and I am thankful every day for it. Take care and please take my word for it stay out of drugs and stay focused on something you enjoy and you will never work a day in your life.