[refurb]

Why is it scary? Heroin isn’t unique in this aspect.

I had a friend tell me “when I had the first drink ever my first thought was ‘I want to feel like this the rest of my life’”. He was sucked in right away and struggled for years to break that hold.

Plenty of people feel that way and practically kill themselves with alcohol, opioids, cocaine and even food.

And plenty of people take opioids equivalent to heroin and say “i felt terrible, nauseous and dizzy, I don’t get it”.

I cant find the source but there was a DEA (?) report a long time ago that noted “80%+ of cocaine users use it less than 5 times per year”.

When drug use gets pushed into the shadows the only examples you see are the ones where it spirals out of control.

[damontal]

Say you use heroin or have used it in the past. Now you have to go in for some kind of surgery. Guess what? The opiate pain meds won't work for you! I've seen it first hand. It's awful. Hospitals are only allowed to give so much and if you're a user or were a user, the amount they give you won't touch your pain.

Guy who used heroin shattered his hand in a fall off a roof. Had pins put in. When he came around after surgery they had to call the police he was so out of control because his pain couldn't be managed.

[goatsi]

Opioid tolerance will absolutely decline if you stop using. it's actually a significant cause of death. People will quit (or go without due to jail, etc) and then relapse with the same dose they has used before and have a fatal overdose.

[exikyut]

Morbid but curious question: when tolerance declines, does a de-rated dose (say, 100% of the body's safe mechanical limit) produce the same mental effect as the previous, now way higher dose would? IOW, does the tolerance affect the mental response as well?

(NB. Have integrated the understanding that pushing The Button™ is a generally bad idea. The above is purely intellectual curiosity.)

[kyleee]

Do you really struggle to see why that's scary?

[refurb]

I struggle to see why heroin is uniquely scary.

[evilos]

Because it has such a strong effect for most people compared to food, sex, alcohol, etc.

Obviously I don't know how strong (and I really really hope I never know, unless I'm on my death bed etc) but by all accounts it is overwhelming. Everything is toxic at the right dosage, and heroin is pure toxic pleasure.

[refurb]

That's the point, it's not. At least not any more than other drugs. Plenty of people try heroin or opioids and hate it.

[denton-scratch]

I was spiked with heroin once. It didn't impress me - it made me feel a bit ill.

I've tried coke - good stuff, in good company, for an evening. It didn't impress me much.

I guess I was just lucky. I have an "addictive personality" - I drink way too much, and I'm a heavy smoker. I could easily have fallen into one of those holes, if I'd actually enjoyed those drugs. I found psychedelics much more engaging; but they're generally not addictive - after 3 days of continuous LSD use, no amount of LSD will get you tripping again. It's anti-addictive.

[evilos]

Local Man Not Impressed By Heroin: "It's Basically Novocaine"

[refurb]

Where did I state that?

[gwbas1c]

Because heroin (and similar opiates) are one of the hardest addictions to quit.

It's also easier to accidentally OD on heroin compared to cocaine or alcohol.

[watwut]

I really don't think alcohol causes such a strong reaction in most people. It is pleasant, but not to that extreme.

Also, people dont get addicted to alcohol that fast. It takes a lot more usage to develop physical dependency.

[refurb]

A physical dependency is not a requirement nor is it necessarily that strong of a motivator for continued use. Psychological dependency is often the harder thing to break. Addiction is defined by continued, compulsive use despite negative consequences in one's life.

And sure, most people don't say "I want to drink forever" when they have their first drink. But that's my point, most people don't say that when they get opioids - remember they are very widely used in medicine. Some small fraction of users actually spiral into a deep addiction.

Now, one could argue the percent that develop a problem is larger than with alcohol - that might be true. That said, it's estimated something like 10% of drinkers have "problems" with their drinking. Again, not everyone ends up a homeless drunk - plenty of functioning alcoholics.

[denton-scratch]

10% looks low to me. I know a lot of people that drink, but very few of them are free of drink problems.

[denton-scratch]

This is correct. You have to work on an alcohol addiction. It takes a few months to develop a dependency severe-enough that withdrawal might result in seizures. Short of that, you can just quit, if you can get time off work for a few days in bed.

You also have to work on a heroin addiction, so I have heard. It simply isn't true that "one dose and you're hooked". People become addicts because they want to be addicts, for whatever reason. Part of it is lifestyle; part of it is the desire to be dependant, so you get to not have to be responsible for yourself.

[watwut]

> You also have to work on a heroin addiction, so I have heard. It simply isn't true that "one dose and you're hooked".

When I looked at it, it is something like 30% of people develop dependence after first one-two usages. Then there are people who can use it casually for a long time before developing it.

[denton-scratch]

Could it be that those people were "dependent" even before their first dose? My argument is that some people want to be dependent. So they work on it.

[denton-scratch]

I shouldn't have said "you can just quit" - that's medical advice, and I'm no kind of medic. A decent nurse will tell you if you'll be able to just sleep it off.

Sorry for commenting to self, but it's too late to edit.