DOSE:

2 g

oral

Poppies - Opium

(tar / resin)

This is the story of my relationship with Opium. When I first encountered it I was about 23 and experimenting with various drugs. Some of my friends started bringing opium resin to smoke during our lazy afternoons out in the countryside, I never smoked with them but curiosity grew and grew until I decided to buy half a gram of dried resin from one of my friends. A few nights later I was home with the girl who was my girlfriend at the time, she had smoked opium in the past and agreed to initiate me to the new substance. We were at my parent's house, it was a warm but breezy mid-July night. We shared about half a gram of dried resin, smoking it via a weird concoction that she crafted using a safety pin, a plastic bottle and two hot knives, a laborious and uncomfortable method that I did not use again after that night.

I approached the experience with excitement. I was madly in love with the girl, and madly in love with drugs, hence all the excitement. We smoked, settled down on the couch and watched a movie together. I remember a feeling of pleasant warmth and heaviness all through my body. I felt as if my sense of touch was sharpened, and the other senses dulled. Running my hand through my girlfriend's hair, feeling the cool breeze on my naked skin, seeing the movie but not really watching it - everything felt heavenly, extremely pleasant and relaxing. I felt sleepy but awake at the same time, caught somewhere between sleep and alertness. After the movie we went to bed, and I still remember that night as the most comfortable sleep I've ever had. I woke up the following day with no discernible hangover or side effects.

Needless to say I wanted more, and was pretty much hooked right away. I kept buying opium but switched to eating it, as the high felt more intense and longer lasting. As I started taking it more regularly I also changed the way I did it. At the time I was partying every week, consuming large amounts of ash, weed, whiskey, pills, speed and cocaine. I would ingest a small ball of opium before setting off to whatever concert or party I was attending, spend the night consuming weed, booze and cocaine, eat some more opium halfway through the night if I felt like I needed it, and finish the night off with a last joint of opium and ash before settling down to sleep. Eating opium gave me an ever so slight euphoric buzz that got me in the right mood to go out, and most importantly took the edge off the cocaine comedowns, giving me a soft and friendly pillow to crash on when the other substances wore off. It seemed like a perfect routine and I spent loads very fun and twisted nights with my friends that I still remember somewhat fondly.

Obviously all the excitement kept me oblivious about what was really cooking. As this routine carried on, my tolerance to opium increased exponentially. I didn't really notice as I wouldn't take it much on its own but rather as a complement to cocaine, which at the time I started dealing and really abusing. It kind of slipped under my radar, but at that point I was taking opium almost daily, eating it, smoking it with ash, taking more and more without even realizing, masked by all the other substances I was taking.

I realized one day, at my favourite spot down the river, with my dog, a good book and about 2 grams of fine quality opium which I ingested all in one go, certain that an afternoon of bliss was ahead. I was wrong. I had no weed or other substances with it. The whole day I felt nothing but a slight gastric discomfort, and the following day I couldn't get out of bed until late in the evening. I just laid there, awake with my eyes closed, examining slight patterns behind my closed eyelids and rushing to the toilet often for some extremely intense episodes of projectile vomiting. That day I must've been sick about 50 times. I felt horrendous for days and even contemplated going to the hospital, which I didn't.

That day scared me and made me think about my relationship with opium. I realized I was exaggerating, forgetting that I was dealing with a highly addictive substance, so I decided to cut down. So with some determination gradually curbed my opium consumption down to the occasional smoke. A few months after that night I moved to a different country and my drug abuse ceased abruptly.

One day, walking my dog, I saw a familiar poppy along the pavement. I could hardly believe my eyes. There it was, and another, and another further down the road, and another just across. Papaver somniferum, just growing spontaneously off curbs and front yards. I harvested as many pods as I could and gathered seeds. It now grows more or less spontaneously, let's say an highly enhanced level of spontaneity, in my garden. I tend to it and enjoy my yearly harvest and smoke. I still get high occasionally but with a lot of forethought and caution, and I reckon it's all due to that accident that day down the river. Opium is a wonderfully dangerous substance.

Exp Year: 2021	ExpID: 115526
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 8, 2023	Views: 18
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Opium (63) : First Times (2), Combinations (3), Retrospective / Summary (11), Difficult Experiences (5), Health Problems (27), Addiction & Habituation (10), Glowing Experiences (4), Nature / Outdoors (23), Loss of Magic (34), Alone (16)