what is "dope sick"?

it's when stuff is off the hook cool.

like, you might say "that ferarri you bought is dope sick yo."

was that supposed to be funny?

Awesome thread, could you describe what it was like to be dope sick in detail? I've never crossed the line into drugs of that nature but I have some experience with other things, is there anything comparable to it?

Excellent thread, really interesting stuff. Please write more.

oh my god - 22 pills. i'm literally freaked the **** out right now, 'Someone Who Isn't Me' once drove 50 miles with 300+ E pills in his car. I had no idea the punishment was that severe.

Yes. I have failed. Thank you for pointing this out, humor police. I am forever in your debt. I hope you can continue to point out or question other unsuccessful attempts at humor throughout the entire Internet. Keep up the excellent work. You are a true blessing to man kind. Thank you for being you.

Can you explain in agonizing detail the symptoms of dope sickness... please? I am a sadist that enjoys indulging in schadenfreude. Thank you.

mustve been a partay!

I've been dope sicks hundreds of times so I can explain this one a little bit... i'm actually on the tail end of a dope sickness right now...

It relies heavily on how much you use. There were times when I would use every other day or put a couple days sobriety in between getting high, and the withdrawals would be minimal.

But as far as using heroin every day for months strait then quitting cold turkey. ****, i wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Take the worst cold and flu you've had and multiply it by god knows what. You are constantly feeling sick to the stomach with severe nausea, usually accompanied by violent puking, followed by dry heaving. Lots of dry heaving, cause you can't keep any food or drink down long enough.

Also add some of the most severe hot and cold sweats. like everything is uncomfortable. EVERYTHING. imagine freezing and sweating at the same time. sucks!!! I find alcohol diminishes that if you can hold it down (not likely). Not to mention you can not sleep. (the lack of sleep is always the one that gets me to relapse for some reason..)

I find that the physical discomfort lasts for a couple weeks, but it is manageable after a week or so (depends how much use). The last time I made a successful stop i was getting high every day for months strait. Then my best friend and singer of my band killed himself with a hot shot of heroin. (a hot shot is one that is specifically designed to kill one's self or someone else). I sobered up after his funeral. I was unable to do anything for the first couple days, but had to go to work after 4 days. oh my god did that suck...
anyway after the first week I was feeling somewhat better, then after two weeks i didn't really have much physical discomfort. but I couldn't sleep for more than 3-4 hours a night for almost 2 months. no ****ing joke. I was a bartender at the time working 50-55 hour weeks. So imagine coming home after a 10-12 hour shift and only being able to sleep for 2-4 hours. It was hell. drove me crazy. You are so physically tired, but your brain won't let you fall asleep.

I even got a script for Ambien (apparently my doc forgot about my overdose trip to the hospital years before that, otherwise i have no idea why he would prescribe me a highly addictive sleeping drug, but that's another issue). i would drink and take 3-4 ambien and still only sleep for like 3 hours. but i would wake up ****ed up. it was weird.
I made it two months but slipped. I can't explain how it is. All my friends would ask me. "dude you're killing yourself, don't you realize it?" or "man you are so smart, but why do you do this **** to yourself?"

my best answer for that is imagine having your favorite food sitting on the table in front of you and you haven't eaten since the day before. now try and sit there and not eat it for another 24 hours. heroin addiction is like a never ending hunger. no matter how much I convince myself i'm done, **** just happens man. I've been able to convince myself that every shot is the last shot for the last 7 years. I seriously believe myself every friggin' time too. I don't know how to explain that. It's just easier to get high, then to not....

benny

"Awesome thread, could you describe what it was like to be dope sick in detail? I've never crossed the line into drugs of that nature but I have some experience with other things, is there anything comparable to it? "

I've experienced severe alcohol withdrawal but it's totally different. nothing is really comparable to being dope sick. other than a severe cold/flu with intense body aching and restless legs. i'll seriously kick my legs when i'm trying to sleep. i bet it looks really funny. like im try to run or something. it sucks tho.

"if you are going to a new city you have never been before and you want to score what would you do? are there code words for h/opiates you would use?"

my old band would be on the road every summer, and i scored almost every drug possible.
crack, heroin, coke, weed, mushrooms, lsd, was offered meth a million times in the south, never liked it though. heroin is definately the hardest to find if you don't have connections. I would ask street kids, they usually know, but you usually got to buy them some. I've been in some pretty sketch situations. I've been burned but never beaten up. some cities have open air markets it's crazy. just gotta know the right part of town.

like i know a couple area's in chicago where if you are white driving in a particular neighborhood you will have multiple crews RUNNING to your car to sell you heroin ("blows" as they call it) or rock or whatever. it's ****ed up. just like on the Wire. that **** is for real.

i wish i could think of some stories but nothing comes to mind. heroin is definitely the hardest to find though due to its bad perception. (for good reason though i guess).

Probably the more appropriate response would have be "FU, you lazy bas****"....

But I'll give you props for class.

Thank you, that was most satisfying.

Have you ever had suicidal thoughts, etc. during withdrawals? One of my friends recently killed himself a few weeks after getting out of rehab.

did you believe in god before or after you went to jail?

My cousin just went back to jail to await trial for robbing houses to support his heroin addiction. So all this talk about withdrawal got me wondering, when ur locked up do they give you anything to to help with the dope sickness or do they just make you do it cold turkey? Do they do any kind of drug counseling for the junkies?

how does heroine compare to extacy? and tell me more about that NO2/extacy/ketamine combo

Just wanted to let everyone know I haven't abandoned the thread or anything, i'm kinda having a hard time right now as you could probably imagine. Today's my third day on the waiting list for the detox/recovery clinic near my house. I'm expecting to be able to get in there today, and will probably be there for 5-7 days. They apparently give addicts some medical assistance (klonodine, muscle relaxants perhaps) to help with the withdrawl which is good. I just need to be away from my phone and temptation for like a week so I can fully detox. That's obviously not the end of it, but once i'm detoxed and have regained some strength I plan on seeing a counselor and really dedicating every fiber of my being into doing the right thing for myself and my family.

I just wanted to say thanks for the PMs and the support. It's been therapeautic to talk to a few of you guys that have some experience in this kind of situation.

What do you think about dealers? Are they bad people?

they will prolly give you suboxone at the clinic. I'm surprised you've never had any luck with that stuff. from what i understand, if you take it too soon after your last shot, it will put you into immediate withdrawal. you are supposed to wait until you are almost full blown sick before you take it. It really does help. I've always waited for 12 hours after my last shot as a rule of thumb. i would try to wait longer if possible. I'm two days free of my last suboxone dose, and i'm hardly sick at all.

the great thing about suboxone is that it has naloxone (spelling) in it that actually blocks heroin from working, and helps curb your desire too. it's crazy. unfortunately a lot of times that i've taken it, i would wake up sick, take suboxone. then wait two hours for it to fully kick in. then i would feel normal-like. not sick, have energy. so of course i would go out and score again, cause ****, i feel great and i want to get high!

i can't tell you how many times i've done that. it's stupid tho, cause as i said, it does block it a little from working. you still get high though. I only take a bout 2 mg or suboxone at a time now though. when i was really bad i had to take 16 mg.

the danger with suboxone is you can draw a dependence on it after a while. which means you will withdrawal from it pretty bad from what i understand. for the last bunch of years i've either been on dope or a little bit of subs, so a week of tapering off subs produced very little withdrawal effects.

it is kind of a two edged sword in my opinion. you stay on subs for more than a couple weeks you are likely to get sick from when you come off them. the doctors really seem to over prescribe them too. a lot of them want you to take two 8 mg a day for months. it's a great way to stay off dope but you run the risk of a new dependent. i've always tapered off it as quick as possible. which tends for me to relapse cause after i stop taking it, the ****ing urges come back full on... but if you can make it it's way worth it.

oh and you know to suck on it under your tongue right? supposedly it doesn't work as well if you just swallow it.

I rate them as either my favorite person on the whole earth, or my least favorite. kinda a love hate relationship. depending if i'm trying to score or not. I sold a lot of weed back in the day so i have a little bit of understanding for drug dealers, but that being said, my product never killed or ****ed up anybody so it's a world of difference.

they are normal people from my experience. usually black or puerto rican around my city. i'm friends with some of them. i say friends losely, cause when i've gone on clean streaks, they are the last people i would want to hang out with. but when you are high or need to get high, **** yeah they rock!

"I just need to be away from my phone and temptation for like a week so I can fully detox."

not to sound condescending, but do you really believe that with every ounce of your soul?

cause if you don't, I don't see how you can quit. just removing yourself temporarily is a huge first step. but until you can walk into a house where people are shooting up and not do it, I don't see how one can succeed.

I like you, so i'm not trying to attack you. just talking from personal experience. when i quit for 2 and a half years about 4 years back, i would hang out with some of the same drug users and i would watch them shoot up. hell, i had one friend who always would have me shoot him up if i was there, cause i rock at it. kinda weird thinking back on it now. I didn't see anything wrong with that, but I think that's half the reason I was able to stay clean for so long. I would purposely put myself in those situations just to prove to myself that i could do it.

i know that's ****ed up, but hey it worked for me. i can't really remember why i relapsed after 2 1/2 years but it had nothing to do with hanging out with those people. i actually stopped that long before i relapsed. I think i was at a party and someone handed me a couple percocet. i was like "what the ****, just one time." couple days later i was rippin a couple 80's of OC and banging junk in less than a week.

A junkie's mind can convince himself anything. I seriously believed, (and i still trick myself sometimes), that i can do it occasionally and not get hooked again. whoops

even after being dead from an overdose, being revived in the hospital with my family in the emergency room with looks of horror on their faces, and a heroin induced stroke i gave myself (oh man that's a story in and of its self, i couldn't feel the right side of my face for like a month nor move my right arm anywhere close to shoulder level, still ****ed up from that), i still **** around. I can't explain it.

It's called Dreamseller, it's pretty good albeit quite depressing about his battles with heroin.

An album by Eyehategod.

lol I actually thought it was pretty funny

Pretty much everything Benny said, except I would add a few things.

First of all, methadone kick is way worse than heroin. As in, longer and more intense.

The sleep thing is like torture. You know if you could just fall asleep you'd stop hurting consciously for a while, but...no way. No sleep allowed. Note: If you somehow wake up strung out tomorrow, don't think you're the smartest junkie in the world and you're going to kick comfortably by taking small doses of hydrocodone or oxycodone or whatever. All it does is delay the actual start of your real kick. Benzos should be taken, but don't overdo it.

As for symptoms, think of the worst allergies and the worst flu you can imagine, all happening at the same time, no sleep allowed, and there you have it. Not the end of the world, really.

What makes it the end of the world is the fact that you know that it could all be over immediately, just one fix.

But then...what? Shoot dope for the rest of your life, every day, until you die.

Great plan.

Anyway, there's your opiate withdrawal. Fun for absolutely nobody. Don't do it.