Filed in Category Symptoms of Heroin Use
I am working on the revision of my book Broken Families Broken Homes. I am adding a chapter on substance abuse and I would like to hear if the risk of HIV and hepatitis is a deterrant to shooting up with heroin. If so how strong? What is the effect of the drug on your life and what precludes you from seeking help. Are you currently administering the drug in other ways?
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No addict cares about the risk of infection. They just want to get high. Alot have a death wish so the risk of disease that could kill them is an added bonus. Most heroin addicts have attempted to quit many times and it is the terrible withdrawal that brings them back. Most know they are addicted and don’t want to quit. It is a lifestyle not just an addiction. Many use it to numb both physical and emotional pain. As they approach rock bottom and lost almost everything they care even less and just keep getting high until they die, go to jail or do quit. I know many who don’t do heroin anymore but have been on methadone for over 20 years. Many start with pills, then smoking it and then needles and once they start running they don’t back to crawling. Many love the rush of the needles, not the drugs in them. I knew one girl that would shoot up Vodka.
The withdrawal syndrome we have been discussing is what is termed ‘primary’ or ‘early’ abstinence.
A substantial portion of the physical symptoms of this stage seem to depend on the activity of a part of the brainstem called the locus coeruleus.
Opiates depress this area and it would therefore be expected to become hyperactive during withdrawal.
The locus coeruleus is an important center in the brain’s fear-alarm system, and such hyperactivity would be consistent with the marked anxiety and agitation withdrawing addicts report.
Fortunately for withdrawing addicts, other drugs beside the opiates can depress this region and one of them is clonidine.
Deterrence?:
HIV and Hep aren’t much of a deterrent. If you’re desperate, and our oh-so-wise “superiors” have decided that access to clean needles encourages drug abuse, then people will share needles and infect each other. But if you have good access to clean syringes, then you have no risk.
Effect on Life?:
Total – and I liked it that way for a long time.
What precluded me from seeking help?:
I didn’t want any help. The only problem I had was that the damn stuff is illegal.