Saturday, 6 January 2007
The Meaning of Craving
Mood: don't ask
Topic: Drugs
The Meaning of Craving
THIS IS WHAT I WISH some of the smug people who work in the drugs services would understand when us junkies talk of “craving”. The tale I’m about to tell you illustrates the consequences of “craving” well enough. Don’t read on if you’re weak of stomach.
It was a dull Friday night. I had no money. I had no drugs. (I’d had my methadone, but as I’ve said, that doesn’t take away the urge to use 100% by any means.)
So I started a game I’m sure many people play; “hunt the dregs of drugs”.
This game involves closely examining all crack pipes, heroin spoons, whiskey bottles etc for any useable dregs of intoxicants. I was going through my top drawer (which isn’t so much full of underwear as tinopeners, playing cards, corkscrews, dead cockroaches, old photographs, mangled cassette tapes, paperclips… a bit of everything. At the back I found what would have appeared to the unwitting to be two enormous scabs of dried blood. (They were. But the blood was congealed around old heroin filters.)
In case you’re wondering how they got there, let me explain. When you inject drugs into a vein, you obviously load up a syringe, you need to stick the needle into where you hope the vein may be (after several years it does become guesswork) pulling back on the syringe all the time, so that when you do hit the vein, blood flows back into the syringe. This is how you know you’re “in”. (However, when the veins are tired, battered, old and collapsing, it’s quite easy to get blood into the syringe, enough to clot up your hit, however for various reasons the vein may misbehave, leaving you with a congealing (and potentially lost) hit of drugs). To get the drugs back you need to re-cook up your own blood (gross, I know) with citric acid to break down the scabs that have formed. And try again.
As I say, this is where craving can lead. Not every addict is lead to do every disgusting thing. But all of us are lead to do some of them... So anyway, I find my scabby filters. Pop them in a spoon. Add citric and loads of water. Cook up, crushing and stirring all the while. A smell of crackling pork hits my nose. Lovely. (No I’m being sarcastic. I hate pork.) Knowing from experience how to just about judge the strength of a dubious injection, I taste it. Yes, I taste heroin. Unmistakeable. And this has been scabbed up in my blood at the back of a dirty drawer for maybe two months or more. Okay…
I stick the needle in. Sod’s law means I get the hit on the outside of my elbow (I’ve used veins literally everywhere except my groin and neck. I had a hit next to my right nipple the other night.) The hit goes straight in. I wasn’t expecting to feel very much, but I do feel something. A slight and gratifying sense of warmth. No more special really than jumping into a slightly hotter than lukewarm bath, but it’s easy to be circumspect about it now.
About five minutes later I felt an odd coldness in my right arm (I’d injected in the left, so this made no sense to me). The coldness spread all over me, with weakness, dizziness, nausea. In fact all the symptoms of a pretty bad “viral” flu-type episode came on in about ten minutes, including a stonking migraine-type headache.
In short I’d given myself what we call here a “dirty hit”. Americans call it “cotton fever”. I was so sick all night I had no energy left from puking. Next morning I could barely walk. I won’t go on, but I really did feel bad by anyone’s standards. Dehydrated, yet not able to drink… all that.
Anyway walk I did to my friend’s house where (thanks to my good timing more than anything else) they were just scoring and gave me a nice clean hit.
My point being? Yes I was responsible. Yes I knew (as much as anyone does) what I was doing. But… that is what craving lead me to.
Posted by gledwood at 11:19 PM GMT
Updated: Saturday, 6 January 2007 11:26 PM GMT
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Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 1:41 AM GMT
Name: "chipper"
Home Page: http://playingwithfire.blogdrive.com
That's quite a story -- a powerful testimony to the hold that heroin can have on a person. I've done similar things, but with alcohol. Searching my old hiding places, drinking mouthwash and cold medicine, etc. I know that craving.
I've seen these before. My girlfriend used to do this. And only now do I know why she had citric acid in the house. There was a lot of stuff in the house that I couldn't figure out why she had it ...
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 1:58 AM GMT
Name: "Gledwood"
Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
Citric acid breaks down brown heroin ("grade 3") for injecting. It also breaks down crack for the same purpose (yes, some people inject crack... injecting it alone is in my opinion madness but a tiny bit mixed with much more heroin is lovely. That's the main reason you'd have citric. (It just so happens to break down blood as well, it also unblocks drains and burns your veins... I won't go on!!)
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 2:58 AM GMT
Name: "chipper"
Home Page: http://playingwithfire.blogdrive.com
I still find bits and pieces of things every now and then that she had hidden around the house. A few days ago I found a needle behind the toilet in the bathroom; while I was cleaning I saw a lump in the carpet and sure enough, that's what it was. I found a crack pipe in my humidor, under my cigars. I don't know why she hit it all from me; I was always understanding and never complained about her using. Believe me, I understand addiction. I even helped her get drugs (well, heroin, anyway) when I could see that she truly needed a fix. It was only when her behavior became abusive that I complained. And that was always due to the crack.
I loved that woman, so very much. She was ancredible woman -- beautiful, intelligent, talented, articulate, fun to be with, loving, sexy and full of life. I did everything I could to make it work. I knew she loved me deeply, and I really wanted to make it work. I probably let the relationship go on far longer than I should have.
I am learning so much from reading your blog, Gledwood. I wish I had found it before it was too late with her ...
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 3:44 PM GMT
Name: "Mary"
Home Page: http://maryblackchurch.heroindiaries.com/
E-Mail: maryblackchurch@hotmail.com
Ahh yes cotton fever...pure misery..a tip..aspirin is the only thing that can take that edge off..take it as soon as you feel it coming on. It works..I promise.
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 6:49 PM GMT
Name: gledwood
Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com
Re the cigars pipe/ etc... junkies get used to stashing things... doesn't necessarily have to be sneakiness, could be pure forgetfulness that such things end up in bizarre places. Say if you have one good sharp works you might want to hide it under the carpet so it's ready for you when you get home... no risk of mixing it up, someone else chucking it...
Okay, I'm playing devil's advocate but that IS the way I see it....
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 6:52 PM GMT
Name: gledwood
Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com
And re the aspirin: you're most probably right... I think I did take 3 paracetamols (I don't know if you have them in USA... like aspirin, but reduces fever, does not irritate the stomach). OTC headache pills... I took 3 so whatever happened I suppose could have been even worse!!
Showing posts with label addict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label addict. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 January 2007
Friday, 19 January 2007
Being Frank
Thursday, 21 December 2006
BloggingMood: not sureNow Playing: Better than I used to!Topic: Drugs
WHEN I TOOK UP BLOGGING I told myself I would be as completely frank and honest as I could. Which inevitably entails ’fessing up to my saddest innermost feelings. Drug addiction is sad. It’s inherently sad. Very sad indeed.
Before I post something I worry what the vulnerable and the impressionable might make of my words.
I’ve taken the drugs, crossed the bridges (burnt many of them), caused myself a lot of damage. For the time being I’m trapped in this addiction. So I see it as my duty to tell it as it is.
If this sounds like hypocrisy, well, I’m willing to make myself a hypocrite if in so doing I put one person off following me down into the morass.
The whole premise of my blog is hypocritical (“do as I say, not what I do”) — what else can it be? The fact is I do take drugs. I know I shouldn’t do, but I do take them. I’d rather be a hypocrite telling the truth than a lying fraud, or — perhaps worse still — a glamorizer of something I know to be a deadly trap. I think of the three options I’ve chosen the best one.
Before it “got” me, I had no idea just how cleverly heroin gets under your skin. Of course I knew the stuff was addictive, knew you got physically sick if you took it too frequently and then went without (I’d also heard a lot of lies, like only people who want to be junkies get addicted; I didn’t so I believed at one time I was safe…)
Nobody in history has ever killed their grandmother for a fix (as the cliché goes) I’m quite sure of that. The real “killer” is the million little miseries no novel or movie could ever adequately capture. The sulky afternoons without quite enough drugs. The slow crawl of time. The eternities of discontent. The pervasive sense of all not being well. Knowing, all the time that white rocks or strong drink or a lumpy brown powder that looks like mud could fix all that. Usually for a disappointingly temporary period of time…
This is the driving force that spurred me on, through hell and high water, to take drugs every day of my life.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner + snacks, the heroin was my food. Methadone has done away with that particular cycle (I no longer wake up desperately seeking a “hit”) And when I do use, I take â…“ or even ¼ of the dose I used to shoot in my veins too many times a day, every day...
Even if I got completely clean, that would only be the start. “Recovery”, as they call it at NA, is a long and winding road.
But, as the old proverb says, A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…
Posted by gledwood at 11:52 PM GMT
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Friday, 22 December 2006 - 7:01 PM GMT
Name: "Amos C"
... What you said about that journey of 1,000 miles, your dead right ...
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Saturday, 23 December 2006 - 2:48 PM GMT
Name: "Holly Blue Eyes" Home Page: http://www.holly-blueeyes.blogspot.comE-Mail: holly-blueeyes.hotmail.co.uk
Gledwood.....I don't know what to say. Reading what you've written brings it home hard....a real-life insight into the reality of drugs. I can only imagine what it must be like to be in your position. Fear of my addictive nature stopped me going down the road you're on, I know I would never stand a chance. This is very sad reading....and I admire you for laying it bare.
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 2:39 AM GMT
Name: "M. Simon" Home Page: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/E-Mail: msimon@xta.com
People on morphine pumps in hospitals can push the button every 8 minutes.
How does your situation match?
BTW thanks for the comment. I put up a permalink to your blog in my comments.
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 2:45 AM GMT
Name: "M. Simon" Home Page: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/E-Mail: msimon@xta.com
"Sobriety" is not possible until the underlying pain decreases sufficiently.
In some it is a few years. In others a life time. Wait and watch.
Go here PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System and read the Max Planck Institute Link
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 2:48 AM GMT
Name: "M. Simon" Home Page: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/E-Mail: msimon@xta.com
Let me try the link again:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/04/ptsd-and-endocannabinoid-system.html
Go here PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System and read the Max Planck Institute Link
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 2:53 AM GMT
Name: "M. Simon" Home Page: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/E-Mail: msimon@xta.com
Here is the direct link:
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2002/news0217.htm
BloggingMood: not sureNow Playing: Better than I used to!Topic: Drugs
WHEN I TOOK UP BLOGGING I told myself I would be as completely frank and honest as I could. Which inevitably entails ’fessing up to my saddest innermost feelings. Drug addiction is sad. It’s inherently sad. Very sad indeed.
Before I post something I worry what the vulnerable and the impressionable might make of my words.
I’ve taken the drugs, crossed the bridges (burnt many of them), caused myself a lot of damage. For the time being I’m trapped in this addiction. So I see it as my duty to tell it as it is.
If this sounds like hypocrisy, well, I’m willing to make myself a hypocrite if in so doing I put one person off following me down into the morass.
The whole premise of my blog is hypocritical (“do as I say, not what I do”) — what else can it be? The fact is I do take drugs. I know I shouldn’t do, but I do take them. I’d rather be a hypocrite telling the truth than a lying fraud, or — perhaps worse still — a glamorizer of something I know to be a deadly trap. I think of the three options I’ve chosen the best one.
Before it “got” me, I had no idea just how cleverly heroin gets under your skin. Of course I knew the stuff was addictive, knew you got physically sick if you took it too frequently and then went without (I’d also heard a lot of lies, like only people who want to be junkies get addicted; I didn’t so I believed at one time I was safe…)
Nobody in history has ever killed their grandmother for a fix (as the cliché goes) I’m quite sure of that. The real “killer” is the million little miseries no novel or movie could ever adequately capture. The sulky afternoons without quite enough drugs. The slow crawl of time. The eternities of discontent. The pervasive sense of all not being well. Knowing, all the time that white rocks or strong drink or a lumpy brown powder that looks like mud could fix all that. Usually for a disappointingly temporary period of time…
This is the driving force that spurred me on, through hell and high water, to take drugs every day of my life.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner + snacks, the heroin was my food. Methadone has done away with that particular cycle (I no longer wake up desperately seeking a “hit”) And when I do use, I take â…“ or even ¼ of the dose I used to shoot in my veins too many times a day, every day...
Even if I got completely clean, that would only be the start. “Recovery”, as they call it at NA, is a long and winding road.
But, as the old proverb says, A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…
Posted by gledwood at 11:52 PM GMT
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Friday, 22 December 2006 - 7:01 PM GMT
Name: "Amos C"
... What you said about that journey of 1,000 miles, your dead right ...
Reply to this Comment
Saturday, 23 December 2006 - 2:48 PM GMT
Name: "Holly Blue Eyes" Home Page: http://www.holly-blueeyes.blogspot.comE-Mail: holly-blueeyes.hotmail.co.uk
Gledwood.....I don't know what to say. Reading what you've written brings it home hard....a real-life insight into the reality of drugs. I can only imagine what it must be like to be in your position. Fear of my addictive nature stopped me going down the road you're on, I know I would never stand a chance. This is very sad reading....and I admire you for laying it bare.
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 2:39 AM GMT
Name: "M. Simon" Home Page: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/E-Mail: msimon@xta.com
People on morphine pumps in hospitals can push the button every 8 minutes.
How does your situation match?
BTW thanks for the comment. I put up a permalink to your blog in my comments.
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 2:45 AM GMT
Name: "M. Simon" Home Page: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/E-Mail: msimon@xta.com
"Sobriety" is not possible until the underlying pain decreases sufficiently.
In some it is a few years. In others a life time. Wait and watch.
Go here PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System and read the Max Planck Institute Link
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 2:48 AM GMT
Name: "M. Simon" Home Page: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/E-Mail: msimon@xta.com
Let me try the link again:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/04/ptsd-and-endocannabinoid-system.html
Go here PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System and read the Max Planck Institute Link
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 2:53 AM GMT
Name: "M. Simon" Home Page: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/E-Mail: msimon@xta.com
Here is the direct link:
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2002/news0217.htm
The Root of Unhappiness
Monday, 11 December 2006
THE ROOT OF UNHAPPINESSMood: spaceyNow Playing: The RemembererTopic: Drugs FAQ
YOU DON'T NEED TO BE ADDICTED TO DRUGS to know craving… think of food addicts, gamblers… (I don’t include alcohol; alcohol is a drug).
Simple old unhappiness… I remember years of it. That utter bleak despair, lost in the dark… But the more common experience of misery (more persistent and long-lasting, one that doesn’t call for help) is being just about okay. Showing the world you do cope — just.
All the time craving something nameless, something more.
Usually we satisfy this craving in “healthy” ways: chocolate biscuits, our favourite television programmes, sex…
We all know of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit. We know the legend of Pandora’s Box. WE see wizened old junkies on our TV screens saying heroin and crack are “The Devil’s Drugs”. Life’s experiences (usually) stretch to guessing what they might be speaking of.
Crack takes you up — way up high. Unlike smoking a cigarette or spliff, the entire dose is taken in a single breath, so the effect is compounded. Just like an injection, all the coke hits the brain in seconds, all at once. For five minutes or so you can float in euphoria before falling. Then you’re left with two options: take more crack or take something else to make you forget it. (“Forgetting” crack, takes potent stuff.)
Crack cocaine hooks nobody at their first smoke. That’s a media myth. And it’s dangerous because it puts vulnerable people at risk. If that’s not true, they reason, what is? Suddenly, unsupervised in the Devil’s Playground, every game seems worth a whirl. “Indulge! You’ll be fine!” temptation urges.
In my “formative years” I was exceedingly impressionable. Vulnerable to all life chucked at me (it threw quite a lot). And once I left home it seemed to throw it all at once. I count myself lucky that heroin and coke were not among the plethora of chemicals that came whooshing in my direction once I was left to fend them off alone.
I shudder to think what might have become of me had I acquired a source of hard drugs at a young age. I doubt I’d be around to speak to you now.
All youngsters experience pain when growing up; mine grew into agonies and I would never go through them again. (At times I was such a wreck I couldn’t even look the assistants in the eye when paying for things in shops. I “blanked” most people automatically, not to be rude but because I was too shy to broach a conversation (even with folks I knew). It is to their great credit that the friends I did make back then saw in me “something” worth knowing. Still, I don’t believe they knew the real me for the most part. I was defeated by depression, I was only half alive. That’s why I count myself lucky. If heroin had got me then I can’t see I could ever have survived it.
For the most part cannabis smoke swirled around me, as well as so-called “candies” — the dance drugs ecstasy and LSD and speed… I knew people hooked on “toking spliff” — from waking to putting their head down at night they put cannabis ciggies to their lips, and (unlike President Clinton) they inhaled very deeply indeed. Cannabis never suited me enough to become a constant companion.
As for the so-called Dance Drugs, some of those chemicals + my unhappy mind =’d reactions (esp. to LSD) severe enough to put off onlookers from ever dabbling with “trips” for the rest of their lives.
Well, now it’s the heroin that’s got me. The other drugs I take have become subsidiary to my main habit, my so-called Drug of Choice. Heroin does things to you no antidrugs poster could ever explain. I cannot recall, for example, the last time I woke first thing with a bright, free spirit, thinking, “What am I doing today?”
My days have decayed. Money = money to score. No money = methadone misery. Do what you have to… daylight passes… back to bed.
Life on this stuff turns black and white.
You either have your gear and you’re happy — or you don’t and life is misery. But between black and white and shades of grey, life’s myriad colours, somehow, have all gone.
Perhaps you’re wondering why I feel the need to say these things.
For one thing among many, I can’t recall anywhere I’ve come across an accurate account of drug addiction from the inside. Writers tend to fictionalize their experiences, or else pen autobiography, often years after the fact. By this time, finer details have escaped them. Memory, as I said yesterday, is an expert Trickster.
Forgetfulness is vast as the Seven Seas…
Posted by gledwood at 3:49 PM GMT
Updated: Monday, 11 December 2006 4:06 PM GMT
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Wednesday, 3 January 2007 - 2:30 AM GMT
Name: "Tatess" Home Page: http://ssssf
gf
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Thursday, 4 January 2007 - 10:46 PM GMT
Name: "Elsie" Home Page: http://ezi-gifts-galore.blogspot.com
I know why you feel to say and write and share these things. It is for mothers like me who do not know anymore how to help their children who in a way do not want help and as you mentioned in another post, who are not yet ready to let go of this habit.
Thank you so much for sharing and telling it straight. Maybe somewhere in here I will find the knowledge to understand my son of 28 who has been on this for years and now really is on "A highway to Hell"
Thank you, I am going to subscribe to your blog, I cannot miss any of your posts
Keep well and look after yourself, please
Elsie
Reply to this Comment
Friday, 5 January 2007 - 11:34 PM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
A child is born... you cut the cord.
A boy grows into a man.
He lives his own life.
You can hate what he does and yet love him all the very same.
He is an adult, standing on his own two feet. He is responsible for what he does.
I'm sure you've done all you can to help... but, on reflection, what can you do? When drugs have hijacked someone else's behaviour? And as I say he might not WANT to be, but he IS a responsible adult. He has no choice in this. (I know how childish addicts can be!)
The best thing you can do is stand by and when he needs you and is ready to quit, THEN you can help him.
Take care of yourself.
Gledwood
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 4:52 PM GMT
Name: "Elsie" Home Page: http://ezi-gifts-galore.blogspot.com
"Gledwood" wrote:
A child is born... you cut the cord.
A boy grows into a man.
He lives his own life.
You can hate what he does and yet love him all the very same.
He is an adult, standing on his own two feet. He is responsible for what he does.
I'm sure you've done all you can to help... but, on reflection, what can you do? When drugs have hijacked someone else's behaviour? And as I say he might not WANT to be, but he IS a responsible adult. He has no choice in this. (I know how childish addicts can be!)
The best thing you can do is stand by and when he needs you and is ready to quit, THEN you can help him.
Take care of yourself.
Gledwood
Hi Gledwood
Thanks for the words. I know it deep in my heart and have decided after another month of "help" that was thrown back in my face (or that is what it feels like to me, or no, that is what he does every time!!!!!) to cut the cord and leave him to sort out his own life.
but why does it feel as if my heart is being ripped to pieces with guilt? My nerves are small tight bundles and when the phone rings, I die a thousand deaths because I never know if this is the day that somebody will tell me he has finally OD'ed for the last time. (do not know how to say this better)
But for my own sanity I have to do this, and go on with my own live as well and as my post - The Gift of Believing - says, we learn to make do, make better, make believe.
thanks for your visit to my blog and the link on your blog.
As always, please take care of yourself too.
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Friday, 12 January 2007 - 12:03 AM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
I feel I want to say something... not quite sure what TO say...
I CAN understand how you feel but you shouldn't feel ripped apart by guilt ... it's someone else's behaviour.
Sounds like the situation's been getting way too emotionally intense and you just need to take some time out. Am I right?
Take care,
Gledwood
Reply to this Comment
Saturday, 13 January 2007 - 7:24 PM GMT
Name: "anonymous"
"Gledwood" wrote:
I feel I want to say something... not quite sure what TO say...
I CAN understand how you feel but you shouldn't feel ripped apart by guilt ... it's someone else's behaviour.
Sounds like the situation's been getting way too emotionally intense and you just need to take some time out. Am I right?
Take care,
Gledwood
Hi
After I left my last comment, I went to bed and had such a long conversation with you in my mind (and I think with my son as well and all the other drug users in the world- and the poor misled Chipper who has so many reasons why heroin is good for a person) but as you said in this post, sometimes you do not know why you write this feelings......
It is the same with me, I have for many years had this feeling that my words are useless, unheard, floating into the air to disappear there for ever.
One thing, it is difficult to let go emotionally, he is my only son......
Strangely, while I am writing this, we are talking for the first time since early December when he left the house again, telling me that he is in a new graphic designing training course (he is really good with this) and then he will have this job and some other things happening in his life now.
And I? I do not know what to believe - should I believe and hope?
can I believe??
__________________________
It is the lies that hurt the most
Because lies destroy trust.......
and it feels awful not to trust the ones you love
__________________________
Take care
and publish more poetry
Lc
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 14 January 2007 - 11:18 PM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
You know the saying: Ask no questions, hear no lies?
When he has good news to tell you, you'll know. It will be written all over him. Then you will know he definitely IS telling the truth...
I just wanted to add this now. I will get in touch again later.
Take care, & all the very best,
Gledwood
THE ROOT OF UNHAPPINESSMood: spaceyNow Playing: The RemembererTopic: Drugs FAQ
YOU DON'T NEED TO BE ADDICTED TO DRUGS to know craving… think of food addicts, gamblers… (I don’t include alcohol; alcohol is a drug).
Simple old unhappiness… I remember years of it. That utter bleak despair, lost in the dark… But the more common experience of misery (more persistent and long-lasting, one that doesn’t call for help) is being just about okay. Showing the world you do cope — just.
All the time craving something nameless, something more.
Usually we satisfy this craving in “healthy” ways: chocolate biscuits, our favourite television programmes, sex…
We all know of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit. We know the legend of Pandora’s Box. WE see wizened old junkies on our TV screens saying heroin and crack are “The Devil’s Drugs”. Life’s experiences (usually) stretch to guessing what they might be speaking of.
Crack takes you up — way up high. Unlike smoking a cigarette or spliff, the entire dose is taken in a single breath, so the effect is compounded. Just like an injection, all the coke hits the brain in seconds, all at once. For five minutes or so you can float in euphoria before falling. Then you’re left with two options: take more crack or take something else to make you forget it. (“Forgetting” crack, takes potent stuff.)
Crack cocaine hooks nobody at their first smoke. That’s a media myth. And it’s dangerous because it puts vulnerable people at risk. If that’s not true, they reason, what is? Suddenly, unsupervised in the Devil’s Playground, every game seems worth a whirl. “Indulge! You’ll be fine!” temptation urges.
In my “formative years” I was exceedingly impressionable. Vulnerable to all life chucked at me (it threw quite a lot). And once I left home it seemed to throw it all at once. I count myself lucky that heroin and coke were not among the plethora of chemicals that came whooshing in my direction once I was left to fend them off alone.
I shudder to think what might have become of me had I acquired a source of hard drugs at a young age. I doubt I’d be around to speak to you now.
All youngsters experience pain when growing up; mine grew into agonies and I would never go through them again. (At times I was such a wreck I couldn’t even look the assistants in the eye when paying for things in shops. I “blanked” most people automatically, not to be rude but because I was too shy to broach a conversation (even with folks I knew). It is to their great credit that the friends I did make back then saw in me “something” worth knowing. Still, I don’t believe they knew the real me for the most part. I was defeated by depression, I was only half alive. That’s why I count myself lucky. If heroin had got me then I can’t see I could ever have survived it.
For the most part cannabis smoke swirled around me, as well as so-called “candies” — the dance drugs ecstasy and LSD and speed… I knew people hooked on “toking spliff” — from waking to putting their head down at night they put cannabis ciggies to their lips, and (unlike President Clinton) they inhaled very deeply indeed. Cannabis never suited me enough to become a constant companion.
As for the so-called Dance Drugs, some of those chemicals + my unhappy mind =’d reactions (esp. to LSD) severe enough to put off onlookers from ever dabbling with “trips” for the rest of their lives.
Well, now it’s the heroin that’s got me. The other drugs I take have become subsidiary to my main habit, my so-called Drug of Choice. Heroin does things to you no antidrugs poster could ever explain. I cannot recall, for example, the last time I woke first thing with a bright, free spirit, thinking, “What am I doing today?”
My days have decayed. Money = money to score. No money = methadone misery. Do what you have to… daylight passes… back to bed.
Life on this stuff turns black and white.
You either have your gear and you’re happy — or you don’t and life is misery. But between black and white and shades of grey, life’s myriad colours, somehow, have all gone.
Perhaps you’re wondering why I feel the need to say these things.
For one thing among many, I can’t recall anywhere I’ve come across an accurate account of drug addiction from the inside. Writers tend to fictionalize their experiences, or else pen autobiography, often years after the fact. By this time, finer details have escaped them. Memory, as I said yesterday, is an expert Trickster.
Forgetfulness is vast as the Seven Seas…
Posted by gledwood at 3:49 PM GMT
Updated: Monday, 11 December 2006 4:06 PM GMT
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Wednesday, 3 January 2007 - 2:30 AM GMT
Name: "Tatess" Home Page: http://ssssf
gf
Reply to this Comment
Thursday, 4 January 2007 - 10:46 PM GMT
Name: "Elsie" Home Page: http://ezi-gifts-galore.blogspot.com
I know why you feel to say and write and share these things. It is for mothers like me who do not know anymore how to help their children who in a way do not want help and as you mentioned in another post, who are not yet ready to let go of this habit.
Thank you so much for sharing and telling it straight. Maybe somewhere in here I will find the knowledge to understand my son of 28 who has been on this for years and now really is on "A highway to Hell"
Thank you, I am going to subscribe to your blog, I cannot miss any of your posts
Keep well and look after yourself, please
Elsie
Reply to this Comment
Friday, 5 January 2007 - 11:34 PM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
A child is born... you cut the cord.
A boy grows into a man.
He lives his own life.
You can hate what he does and yet love him all the very same.
He is an adult, standing on his own two feet. He is responsible for what he does.
I'm sure you've done all you can to help... but, on reflection, what can you do? When drugs have hijacked someone else's behaviour? And as I say he might not WANT to be, but he IS a responsible adult. He has no choice in this. (I know how childish addicts can be!)
The best thing you can do is stand by and when he needs you and is ready to quit, THEN you can help him.
Take care of yourself.
Gledwood
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 7 January 2007 - 4:52 PM GMT
Name: "Elsie" Home Page: http://ezi-gifts-galore.blogspot.com
"Gledwood" wrote:
A child is born... you cut the cord.
A boy grows into a man.
He lives his own life.
You can hate what he does and yet love him all the very same.
He is an adult, standing on his own two feet. He is responsible for what he does.
I'm sure you've done all you can to help... but, on reflection, what can you do? When drugs have hijacked someone else's behaviour? And as I say he might not WANT to be, but he IS a responsible adult. He has no choice in this. (I know how childish addicts can be!)
The best thing you can do is stand by and when he needs you and is ready to quit, THEN you can help him.
Take care of yourself.
Gledwood
Hi Gledwood
Thanks for the words. I know it deep in my heart and have decided after another month of "help" that was thrown back in my face (or that is what it feels like to me, or no, that is what he does every time!!!!!) to cut the cord and leave him to sort out his own life.
but why does it feel as if my heart is being ripped to pieces with guilt? My nerves are small tight bundles and when the phone rings, I die a thousand deaths because I never know if this is the day that somebody will tell me he has finally OD'ed for the last time. (do not know how to say this better)
But for my own sanity I have to do this, and go on with my own live as well and as my post - The Gift of Believing - says, we learn to make do, make better, make believe.
thanks for your visit to my blog and the link on your blog.
As always, please take care of yourself too.
Reply to this Comment
Friday, 12 January 2007 - 12:03 AM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
I feel I want to say something... not quite sure what TO say...
I CAN understand how you feel but you shouldn't feel ripped apart by guilt ... it's someone else's behaviour.
Sounds like the situation's been getting way too emotionally intense and you just need to take some time out. Am I right?
Take care,
Gledwood
Reply to this Comment
Saturday, 13 January 2007 - 7:24 PM GMT
Name: "anonymous"
"Gledwood" wrote:
I feel I want to say something... not quite sure what TO say...
I CAN understand how you feel but you shouldn't feel ripped apart by guilt ... it's someone else's behaviour.
Sounds like the situation's been getting way too emotionally intense and you just need to take some time out. Am I right?
Take care,
Gledwood
Hi
After I left my last comment, I went to bed and had such a long conversation with you in my mind (and I think with my son as well and all the other drug users in the world- and the poor misled Chipper who has so many reasons why heroin is good for a person) but as you said in this post, sometimes you do not know why you write this feelings......
It is the same with me, I have for many years had this feeling that my words are useless, unheard, floating into the air to disappear there for ever.
One thing, it is difficult to let go emotionally, he is my only son......
Strangely, while I am writing this, we are talking for the first time since early December when he left the house again, telling me that he is in a new graphic designing training course (he is really good with this) and then he will have this job and some other things happening in his life now.
And I? I do not know what to believe - should I believe and hope?
can I believe??
__________________________
It is the lies that hurt the most
Because lies destroy trust.......
and it feels awful not to trust the ones you love
__________________________
Take care
and publish more poetry
Lc
Reply to this Comment
Sunday, 14 January 2007 - 11:18 PM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
You know the saying: Ask no questions, hear no lies?
When he has good news to tell you, you'll know. It will be written all over him. Then you will know he definitely IS telling the truth...
I just wanted to add this now. I will get in touch again later.
Take care, & all the very best,
Gledwood
Bodily Functions
Thursday, 7 December 2006
Mood: don't askNow Playing: PreacherTopic: Drugs FAQ
BODILY FUNCTIONS
Start taking heroin, it'll do little for you at first. Except for the unfortunate likelihood you'll end up with your head down the loo, you may well wonder (as you puke your guts up) what all the fuss is about. Heroin - the ultimate high?
Let me set one myth straight right there. Speaking as one who's tried everything going I can announce that heroin is not the ultimate high.
Heroin kills pain, so the more pain you're in the more it kills. (It might also kill you - so if you must experiment, go easy.)
One less well-publicized fact about heroin: it will only give you its full effects once it's got you hooked. Yep, there's a short-lived honeymoon phase when the drug is stealing your natural endorphins (the brain's feelgood chemicals) so you feel worse without it and without them. And yet every dose you do take fills you right up to the brim.
Then the law of diminishing returns kicks in. I barely noticed until it was too late, that everything it gave me with the one hand it was theiving back with the other.
I can't deny that heroin appeals to the susceptible with its inverse glamour. (It appealed to me as the one thing my druggie friends considered taboo. They said it was uncool: I just thought they were scared of it.)
Somehow, though, grainy photographs of mashed-up rockstars and hollow-eyed models can't quite capture the daily growing misery that no amount of drugs can ever quite cover up - or the bleak reality of withdrawals at dawn. (No-one ever seems to be around to photograph them.)
That's right - ten years on and your head is still down the toilet. Only now you're retching when the drugs aren't there!
The end result of heroin (not counting lost veins, abscesses, overdoses and half your friends having died over the years) is nothing more exciting than an added bodily function, one that costs money to relieve. Imagine waking up in the early morning busting for a pee. You are forced to wait till well past nine o'clock when the man has troubled to get himself out of bed, taken his kids to school (maybe - drug dealers breed like cockroaches, they're always laden down with babies), had breakfast, made himself feel okay, bothered to make his way to your neck of the woods - ie add another hour at least and cross your legs because it's probably going to take longer than that. Once the dealers realize a junkie will wait as long as it takes because they need their dealers (in the short-term) more than the dealers need them. Then imagine you're charged TEN POUNDS sterling (€15; US$20; Aussie $25; Rs Indian 700 etc etc) well I mean a lot of money - it's all relative.
Twelve hours later - tops - the entire situation repeats itself over again. So if you ain't got more money, you'd better think fast and smart and get moving...
So your happiness goes into the hands of criminals. As does every spare penny you've got.
Heroin? I don't recommend it.
Posted by gledwood at 5:36 PM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 7 December 2006 5:40 PM GMT
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Friday, 8 December 2006 - 10:57 PM GMT
Name: "Mousie" Home Page: http://plumpiemousie.blogspot.comE-Mail: claudine.le-gac@laposte.net
come on dear, go on shouting ...
your message is positive...
take care my friend
Mousie
Mood: don't askNow Playing: PreacherTopic: Drugs FAQ
BODILY FUNCTIONS
Start taking heroin, it'll do little for you at first. Except for the unfortunate likelihood you'll end up with your head down the loo, you may well wonder (as you puke your guts up) what all the fuss is about. Heroin - the ultimate high?
Let me set one myth straight right there. Speaking as one who's tried everything going I can announce that heroin is not the ultimate high.
Heroin kills pain, so the more pain you're in the more it kills. (It might also kill you - so if you must experiment, go easy.)
One less well-publicized fact about heroin: it will only give you its full effects once it's got you hooked. Yep, there's a short-lived honeymoon phase when the drug is stealing your natural endorphins (the brain's feelgood chemicals) so you feel worse without it and without them. And yet every dose you do take fills you right up to the brim.
Then the law of diminishing returns kicks in. I barely noticed until it was too late, that everything it gave me with the one hand it was theiving back with the other.
I can't deny that heroin appeals to the susceptible with its inverse glamour. (It appealed to me as the one thing my druggie friends considered taboo. They said it was uncool: I just thought they were scared of it.)
Somehow, though, grainy photographs of mashed-up rockstars and hollow-eyed models can't quite capture the daily growing misery that no amount of drugs can ever quite cover up - or the bleak reality of withdrawals at dawn. (No-one ever seems to be around to photograph them.)
That's right - ten years on and your head is still down the toilet. Only now you're retching when the drugs aren't there!
The end result of heroin (not counting lost veins, abscesses, overdoses and half your friends having died over the years) is nothing more exciting than an added bodily function, one that costs money to relieve. Imagine waking up in the early morning busting for a pee. You are forced to wait till well past nine o'clock when the man has troubled to get himself out of bed, taken his kids to school (maybe - drug dealers breed like cockroaches, they're always laden down with babies), had breakfast, made himself feel okay, bothered to make his way to your neck of the woods - ie add another hour at least and cross your legs because it's probably going to take longer than that. Once the dealers realize a junkie will wait as long as it takes because they need their dealers (in the short-term) more than the dealers need them. Then imagine you're charged TEN POUNDS sterling (€15; US$20; Aussie $25; Rs Indian 700 etc etc) well I mean a lot of money - it's all relative.
Twelve hours later - tops - the entire situation repeats itself over again. So if you ain't got more money, you'd better think fast and smart and get moving...
So your happiness goes into the hands of criminals. As does every spare penny you've got.
Heroin? I don't recommend it.
Posted by gledwood at 5:36 PM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 7 December 2006 5:40 PM GMT
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Friday, 8 December 2006 - 10:57 PM GMT
Name: "Mousie" Home Page: http://plumpiemousie.blogspot.comE-Mail: claudine.le-gac@laposte.net
come on dear, go on shouting ...
your message is positive...
take care my friend
Mousie
Generation Next's Growing Habit
Tuesday, 5 December 2006
GENERATION NEXT'S GROWING HABITMood: incredulousNow Playing: ObservantlyTopic: Generation Next
According to the BBC, 14% of American schoolkids admit to popping prescription opioid painkillers — just to get "high".
Plundering and purloining leftovers of siblings' and parents' prescription meds, they gather enough together for bimonthly "Pharming" Parties. Here, stimulants for behavioural disorders — ie Ritalin, the famous "baby speed" and, most alarmingly, OxyCodone-style pain medications are the buzz of the day in so-called Generation Y's meds-fuelled answer to the old-fashioned sleepover.
Those painkilling pills are members of the same chemical family as heroin, morphine and methadone. Underage kiddies popping this are riding the road to addiction before riding the road to college. No-one's stabbing grimy needles in their limbs. But they're developing a taste for the family of drugs where heroin is Big Daddy.
Prescription drugs aren't always easy to get hold of when you really want them. Doctors get tetchy once they start to suspect there's something amiss with this back-ache/migraine/other spurious condition that will not shift. Heroin, by contrast, doesn't demand cover-stories or excuses. All you need for heroin is money — a daily supply.
These painkillers are the habit of a lifetime. The kids start young these days.
But when will they be able to stop?
Posted by gledwood at 9:03 PM GMT
Updated: Tuesday, 5 December 2006 9:16 PM GMT
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Wednesday, 6 December 2006 - 8:39 PM GMT
Name: "mousie" Home Page: http://plumpiemousie.blogspot.comE-Mail: claudine.le-gac@laposte.net
hello my friend,
i hope my address is ok this time, thank you for your nice words...that's too much , I blush...
you've changed your blog haven't you?
it's quite cool...
I'm very tired today but I'll come back longer tomorrow
take care my friend
love from Mousie
Reply to this Comment
Thursday, 7 December 2006 - 3:33 PM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
Thanks for your reply, Mousie. There really is no need to blush. I know what was wrong with the email address now. I'm writing back to you hopefully tonight... Yes I did change the blog to "Fridge" setting. Ooer!
Best Wishes Gleds xx
"mousie" wrote:
hello my friend,
i hope my address is ok this time, thank you for your nice words...that's too much , I blush...
you've changed your blog haven't you?
it's quite cool...
I'm very tired today but I'll come back longer tomorrow
take care my friend
love from Mousie
Reply to this Comment
Thursday, 7 December 2006 - 3:36 PM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
PS I'm not sure about the green colour though, are you??!
Gleds xx
"Gledwood" wrote:
Thanks for your reply, Mousie. There really is no need to blush. I know what was wrong with the email address now. I'm writing back to you hopefully tonight... Yes I did change the blog to "Fridge" setting. Ooer!
Best Wishes Gleds xx
"mousie" wrote:
hello my friend,
i hope my address is ok this time, thank you for your nice words...that's too much , I blush...
you've changed your blog haven't you?
it's quite cool...
I'm very tired today but I'll come back longer tomorrow
take care my friend
love from Mousie
GENERATION NEXT'S GROWING HABITMood: incredulousNow Playing: ObservantlyTopic: Generation Next
According to the BBC, 14% of American schoolkids admit to popping prescription opioid painkillers — just to get "high".
Plundering and purloining leftovers of siblings' and parents' prescription meds, they gather enough together for bimonthly "Pharming" Parties. Here, stimulants for behavioural disorders — ie Ritalin, the famous "baby speed" and, most alarmingly, OxyCodone-style pain medications are the buzz of the day in so-called Generation Y's meds-fuelled answer to the old-fashioned sleepover.
Those painkilling pills are members of the same chemical family as heroin, morphine and methadone. Underage kiddies popping this are riding the road to addiction before riding the road to college. No-one's stabbing grimy needles in their limbs. But they're developing a taste for the family of drugs where heroin is Big Daddy.
Prescription drugs aren't always easy to get hold of when you really want them. Doctors get tetchy once they start to suspect there's something amiss with this back-ache/migraine/other spurious condition that will not shift. Heroin, by contrast, doesn't demand cover-stories or excuses. All you need for heroin is money — a daily supply.
These painkillers are the habit of a lifetime. The kids start young these days.
But when will they be able to stop?
Posted by gledwood at 9:03 PM GMT
Updated: Tuesday, 5 December 2006 9:16 PM GMT
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Wednesday, 6 December 2006 - 8:39 PM GMT
Name: "mousie" Home Page: http://plumpiemousie.blogspot.comE-Mail: claudine.le-gac@laposte.net
hello my friend,
i hope my address is ok this time, thank you for your nice words...that's too much , I blush...
you've changed your blog haven't you?
it's quite cool...
I'm very tired today but I'll come back longer tomorrow
take care my friend
love from Mousie
Reply to this Comment
Thursday, 7 December 2006 - 3:33 PM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
Thanks for your reply, Mousie. There really is no need to blush. I know what was wrong with the email address now. I'm writing back to you hopefully tonight... Yes I did change the blog to "Fridge" setting. Ooer!
Best Wishes Gleds xx
"mousie" wrote:
hello my friend,
i hope my address is ok this time, thank you for your nice words...that's too much , I blush...
you've changed your blog haven't you?
it's quite cool...
I'm very tired today but I'll come back longer tomorrow
take care my friend
love from Mousie
Reply to this Comment
Thursday, 7 December 2006 - 3:36 PM GMT
Name: "Gledwood" Home Page: http://gledwood.tripod.com/blog
PS I'm not sure about the green colour though, are you??!
Gleds xx
"Gledwood" wrote:
Thanks for your reply, Mousie. There really is no need to blush. I know what was wrong with the email address now. I'm writing back to you hopefully tonight... Yes I did change the blog to "Fridge" setting. Ooer!
Best Wishes Gleds xx
"mousie" wrote:
hello my friend,
i hope my address is ok this time, thank you for your nice words...that's too much , I blush...
you've changed your blog haven't you?
it's quite cool...
I'm very tired today but I'll come back longer tomorrow
take care my friend
love from Mousie
To Prescribe or Not Prescribe
To prescribe or not to prescribe?Mood: quizzicalNow Playing: Expert WitnessTopic: Drugs FAQ
TO PRESCRIBE OR NOT TO PRESCRIBE? SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT GIVE HEROIN TO HEROIN ADDICTS?
IN THE UK, as in most Western lands, the standard treatment for heroin addiction is prescription of daily oral methadone.
Though many junkies do reduce their intake of illicit heroin and some feel stabalized enough on methadone to cut out heroin all together, most do go on using "on top" of their daily methadone doses.
Because the statistics say that the majority of crime is drug-related, an English police chief, reasoning that cutting down on drugs will cut down on crime, proposed that instead of methadone, addicts should be treated with the very drug they crave.
This old chestnut has been cropping up increasingly frequently of late. The Netherlands and Switzerland both do diamorphine treatment — apparently with great success.
The very idea of dishing out heroin to junkies flies so far in the face of the accepted War on Drugs "wisdom" that no Government has been willing to put anything more than a few very low-key experimental schemes into operation.
This most recent proposal, by the Northern England police chief Howard Roberts, provoked some colourful comments in last Monday's Daily Mirror's letters column.
"What next, giving robbers money so they don't rob or giving car theives cars so they don't steal cars?" demanded Sharon M Moore from Dunstable, Bedfordshire.
"I was disgusted to read of the suggestion to give free frugs to heroin addicts. I suffered asthma all of my life and I have to pay for my inhalers, without which I would need hospital treatment... Is this any way to treat a law-abiding citizen, while addicts may get their treatment free?" said D Kelly from Liverpool.
(Actually, heroin addicts pay the same prescription fees for methadone as everyone else.)
"Drug abuse is not an illness, it is self-inflicted," said Ken Bishop of Carterton, Oxfordshire.
(Smokers and drinkers also cause self-inflicted illness. Their rights to treatment aren't called into question...)
"Most people are under the misconception that drug addiction, like alcoholism, is self-inflicted. It isn't — it's a disease like any other and shuold be treated as such. That's why I support... Howard Roberts's suggestion that doctors should prescribe heroin to addicts. The examples of Holland and Switzerland prove it works. Crime has been cut and the number of users has fallen. The current system isn't working so at least we should give it a try." M Webb of Brighton, East Sussex.
Until the early 1970s heroin prescribing was the first-line treatment for addiction in the UK. However over-prescribing and abuse of the system lead to an about-turn in policy and Britain has been a methadone state ever since.
As for addiction being an illness; drugtaking is not a sickness in itself in the beginning. But as addiction gradually takes over over time, the condition most definitely develops into an illness.
Can't people see that this condition begins as a self-inflicted "choice" — but turns into a state where drugs are used with no choice — they are used automatically at every available opportunity, without thinking about it.
That's what "habit" means.
Posted by gledwood at 6:37 PM GMT
Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 6:39 PM GMT
TO PRESCRIBE OR NOT TO PRESCRIBE? SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT GIVE HEROIN TO HEROIN ADDICTS?
IN THE UK, as in most Western lands, the standard treatment for heroin addiction is prescription of daily oral methadone.
Though many junkies do reduce their intake of illicit heroin and some feel stabalized enough on methadone to cut out heroin all together, most do go on using "on top" of their daily methadone doses.
Because the statistics say that the majority of crime is drug-related, an English police chief, reasoning that cutting down on drugs will cut down on crime, proposed that instead of methadone, addicts should be treated with the very drug they crave.
This old chestnut has been cropping up increasingly frequently of late. The Netherlands and Switzerland both do diamorphine treatment — apparently with great success.
The very idea of dishing out heroin to junkies flies so far in the face of the accepted War on Drugs "wisdom" that no Government has been willing to put anything more than a few very low-key experimental schemes into operation.
This most recent proposal, by the Northern England police chief Howard Roberts, provoked some colourful comments in last Monday's Daily Mirror's letters column.
"What next, giving robbers money so they don't rob or giving car theives cars so they don't steal cars?" demanded Sharon M Moore from Dunstable, Bedfordshire.
"I was disgusted to read of the suggestion to give free frugs to heroin addicts. I suffered asthma all of my life and I have to pay for my inhalers, without which I would need hospital treatment... Is this any way to treat a law-abiding citizen, while addicts may get their treatment free?" said D Kelly from Liverpool.
(Actually, heroin addicts pay the same prescription fees for methadone as everyone else.)
"Drug abuse is not an illness, it is self-inflicted," said Ken Bishop of Carterton, Oxfordshire.
(Smokers and drinkers also cause self-inflicted illness. Their rights to treatment aren't called into question...)
"Most people are under the misconception that drug addiction, like alcoholism, is self-inflicted. It isn't — it's a disease like any other and shuold be treated as such. That's why I support... Howard Roberts's suggestion that doctors should prescribe heroin to addicts. The examples of Holland and Switzerland prove it works. Crime has been cut and the number of users has fallen. The current system isn't working so at least we should give it a try." M Webb of Brighton, East Sussex.
Until the early 1970s heroin prescribing was the first-line treatment for addiction in the UK. However over-prescribing and abuse of the system lead to an about-turn in policy and Britain has been a methadone state ever since.
As for addiction being an illness; drugtaking is not a sickness in itself in the beginning. But as addiction gradually takes over over time, the condition most definitely develops into an illness.
Can't people see that this condition begins as a self-inflicted "choice" — but turns into a state where drugs are used with no choice — they are used automatically at every available opportunity, without thinking about it.
That's what "habit" means.
Posted by gledwood at 6:37 PM GMT
Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 6:39 PM GMT
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