So You Wanna Be A Junkie? 2006 Revisited

[Anti-hero (OP)]

Sixteen were her sisters but she was by far the most beautiful.

Yes I am talking about heroin
The glue that holds the universe together.
The secret secret that makes you the coolest motherfucker in the room.

It breaks my heart when I see someone who is under 24 brand themselves as a lifer

"I grabbed a handful of sand,
Wishing for as many years
As grains
Foolishly I forgot to ask that they be years of youth."
~Ovid

"The future is a steamroller with a strange sense of humor."
~some dumb movie quote I heard

If you are young please get on maintenance unless you are comfortable being an agoraphobic hermit, you are branding yourself as a person who is
Not worthy of
Family, trust, normal relationships, a danger to yourself, and a weirdo who is just too stupid to see what you are doing to yourself (not my opinion).

I get it
I really do
You need this to not feel like you want to take a razor blade and peel yourself out of your skin.

I will be the first to admit
That any kind of maintenance, with the exception of heroin, is not as good as the real deal.
And who knows there may be heroin maintenance in the future.

You are cutting yourself out of a lot of things in life.
I'm willing to bet the addicts here will tell you 10 years is the blink of an eye.
In ten years you could become a brain surgeon maybe not a good one, but you could probably get away with ten or so surgeries before anyone noticed!

You may say "my art will suffer".
No
Wrong...
Some of the best stories, songs, and\or poems have been written by those who have been through the looking glass and made it back alive.

Although some people have a problem with maintenance it's more acceptable than just down right junkie.
At least you are not closing all of your doors. You may even be opening a few.

Please go out and live your life.
Then come back here and post about it/ ask questions.
Heroin\opium has been around since the beginning of time.
I GUARANfuckingTEE it will be around once you have done a couple of things with your life.
You have your WHOLE LIFE to be a junkie but if you pick junkie first there is  NO GOING BACK.
Like that movie quote says, the future is a steamroller and it runs at high speed.

I lucked out
I found ONE person I can count on, be with, and trust, and who accepted me for me.
ONE PERSON
That looks beyond my bad habits and sees ME.

Look at the membership here
We are world wide yet we have under 400 members.
You wanna join this club?
Okay
But it will most likely be baptism by fire b\c you are making a choice
That NO ONE here is going to applaud you for.
The better option
IMO
Is for you to go live your life
Come back here and post about it then you will possibly get some applause.
I know you will from me

You're smarter than your average bear just because you found this site and are possibly questioning some of your life choices.
Then again, maybe not...
You may be smarter than me and may have found a way to make this choice without paying the Piper.
You should take heed to the advice given.
If you really don't like it you should definitely try to at least riddle yourself with it.


So please
If you are young
More so 24 and younger
Your brain has just begun to stop growing.
You are doing damage that is not easily repaired, if at all, some of it will be permanent.
YOU WILL NEVER RID YOURSELF OF THE WANT
You will wish a million times that you could

People on maintenance will tell you it isn't all that great but it does give them some balance to do other things.
Wanna know what I did with my day?
I waited until 6 p.m. for mediocre (6\10) delivery.
That is NOT life

All the money in the world will not fill the hole you are making in your soul.

Keep in mind you have "eaten the sun so your tounge has been burned of the taste."
Thank you Mr. Staley RIP

All I'm really trying to say is
Please go live
Go through the looking Glass and come back alive so that you may pass some of your knowledge along in time.
After you have lived
You can relapse
I would hope not but its always an option.
The one thing I was told that stuck with me
Is that you can ALWAYS get high tomorrow.
But that goal doesn't wait like heroin.

I'm also asking my fellow members that if I am wrong or you have more advice
PLEASE put it here.

Why don't I take my own advice?
I am trying.
I'm on the wrong side of 40 and still trying

Love and luck
Hero1


Tl;dr
I'm too smart
Carry on

[Zoops]

Yeah once you've visited heaven it's not easy to come back to Earth. Please don't think you're a lifer if you're only 21 and done dope a few times - but if you've been doin it since you were 14 then that's a different story. It's IMPOSSIBLE to go back once you've crossed the "line." I don't know where that line is but you'll find it eventually if you keep on trying to search for it.

Like once I tried heroin (and I don't mean pharmaceutical opiates), I couldn't just be satisfied with smoking weed. You can't go back. And the needle is a whole nother story right there.

"If your life needs correction then don't follow my direction" as Mike D. or MCA or Adam Yauch once said (it was one of them on Paul's Boutique and if you need explanation for that then fuggeddaboudit). I mean like Hero1 said, dope's ALWAYS gonna be here, come back if you're not satisfied with "real life."

But messages like these only make it more attractive to dumb and irresponsible youth. I didn't take my first dose of any opiate until I was 15 but it planted a seed that just grew in my mind until at the age of 21, fresh out of college and beginning a second college degree at a different graduate school, it was off to the races as soon as I located a reliable connect for opiates. Until then it had just been weed, acid and beer, but after that the focus was all on dope from there on out, honey. Not saying I still didn't do weed and acid and plenty of beer but just that my main preference for mood-altering chemicals was primarily  on opiates from there on out.

So I know what it can do to someone.

And unless you're filthy fuckin rich and have NO money worries ATALL (that excludes pretty much EVERYBODY on this forum's membership even the truly rich people on here) I mean you've got to be Rothschild rich to never worry about running out of dope and all the attendant legal pitfalls facing the typical opiate-dependant person in the world today, it's almost like it's not even worth it. But do I really believe that? No.

So call me a hypocrite all you want.

So, bottom line, don't no 22 year old opiate user call yourself a "lifer."

[Anti-hero (OP)]

I agree once that seed has been planted.
Hello tree. And like oak tree.

Also the really rich. I dint have to work for a living but still spent 30 days in jail in Chicago. 300000 bond for three bags. I had only been arrested for misdemeanors before. They really wanted to teach me a lesson.
I loss a good 10 grand just getting then to drop the charges. The fall out from my family was unrepairable and with my s.o family too. So I couldn't use the well it doesn't affect my life line any more

[Narkotikon]

Well said, the both of you. 

[makita]

meh.  I got on maintenance pretty young (20 or 21ish after maybe a couple years of using and only 4-6 mos of using all the time).  I wish I hadn't.  I did the required 4 failed detoxes back to back in 4mos to get on MMT.  I didnt really want to stop and I ended up using a lot, eventually doing speedballs when I couldnt get high from just dope on MMT anymore.

What I really wish is I could have worked through the stigma and my anxiety about making a decision NOW about whether I was going to use heroin for the rest of my life.  THAT, the misery and fear from all the messages I'd be told about how I was fucking up my life, were what kept me from living.  If I'd have had the chill, everything will be ok, there are many worse things that heroin dependence, I'm a good person and a strong person and I can take care of myself and drugs can be a part of my life too...that attitude which I have now, if I'd have known the things I know now about opiates and the drug war and how the things I was afraid of and beating myself up about were just internalized oppression bullshit (just like the way I was when I was a teenager with internalized body judgement and fat phobia), I could have definitely managed my use without MMT, at least for a few more years. Maybe even gotten into CPP treatment with a lower tolerance and avoided the klinik altogether.  But then again I am not a stereotypical junkie, and I never was (thats not the same thing as saying I never had chaotic/addictive use patterns, which I did for awhile).  Chances are you wont be either.  70% of us arent. 

So I guess like if you're doing really bad and you're young by all means consider MMT or suboxone (which I wish was around back then).  It definitely is stabilizing and takes care of the physiological piece of things.  But try to work on your mental health first, maybe get in therapy with a harm reduction therapist, and see if you can change your relationship to the drugs you do.  That will make whatever you choose to do more likely to be a good decision, instead of one made out of utter desperation and fear. 

[Anti-hero (OP)]

Yea I agree.
It's the stigma.
Until we have a heroin maintenance program.
You are getting judged by people who don't under stand.
I have had the luxury of being able to afford my habit.
It's just being accepted by others.
And the ones who can't afford it
Are pushed into making some decisions that they wouldn't have to.
If the could buy 90 cents worth of heroin. Instead of buying it at street prices.
If I ran the world people would be allowed to do what ever made them happy as long as they didn't hurt others.
Or impose there will/ morals? On others.
But I am just a junky and have no clue to the way life works.
I think I am a better person
Because of my heroin use.
I just don't like the punishment
We have to take because of it.
So much money wasted on the drug war.
It could be used for mental health
In today's world mental health= jail

Much love
Hero,1.

[chemicalchart]

IV'ed heroin in the late 60s and early 70's. Had no idea there was any other way to do opiates. Seriously. Buying balloons from 80 year of Hispanic men outside of ghetto churches like in True Detective Season 1. Drove down irrigation dams to dirt roads to ramshackle churches. Ten years of that and I got clean for 17 years. Got a life. Got a wife. A career. Now that I relapsed I lost the wife,  but didn't lose my life or my career. Few women will walk that tight wire with you. Some will. Most won't. Deal with it.  Opiates or women. Your choice.

But yeah, find something outside of the life to focus on or get used to kissing the holding cell floor.

[Chip]

such good advice but people just don't listen to those that really know ... not in this game, anyway.

hey, but you all said it right.

if just one person listens then that's wonderful !

[Wildcat]

Some real and beautiful knowledge- Hero(in)1, Makita, Chemical Chart, Zoops.

Unfortunately, youth truly is wasted on the young.

[St. Theresa]

Some real and beautiful knowledge- Hero(in)1, Makita, Chemical Chart, Zoops.

Unfortunately, youth truly is wasted on the young.

You said it sister.


Great thread hero.

[ArSoN]

Yeah i agree with all that hero1 said...being a junkie is nothing to be proud of or to build a mystique around.  It is a truly loosing game, i once had a pile of cash and still blew it in a matter of months cause usage always increases with the amount of funds available.  I wont go into the details cause they are truly depressing but moral is I didnt win the dope game.  Im now back on the bottom and all the dealers i spent the mountain of cash with just forgot about how i spent it with them.  Really if someone offers you dope just run the other direction...I sure wish I did