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They Changed My Life
Opioids
Citation:   Craig. "They Changed My Life: An Experience with Opioids (exp45960)". Erowid.org. Nov 22, 2005. erowid.org/exp/45960

 
DOSE:
  oral Opioids (daily)
BODY WEIGHT: 200 lb
[Erowid Note: Because opiate use can lead to significant tolerance (requiring higher doses for the same effects), the dose used by a first time user is significantly smaller than that used by a regular user. It can be extremely dangerous to choose ones dose on the basis of the amount taken by someone else. Overdoses of opiates can be fatal.]

I have been takeing Opiates (Oxycontin/MS Contin/Hydrocodone) since I was 14 years old. Through I was not abusing them until I was around 18 years old. The abuse started with Hydrocodone Watson 540s/10mg/500mg, and Watson 503s 10mg/650mg. I began taking them 3 at a time which was just enough to make me feel pretty good. That sort of abuse continued mainly on weekends for about 5 months.

The real abuse started when I was over at my friend Chris' house when my other friend Tim came over. Tim brought something new it was called Oxycontin. He said it was really good stuff and I only needed to take one oarly, they were 80mg Oxys. It was the best high I had ever had in my life. I got an overall sense of well being. After the experience I purchased 10 80mg oxycontins from him. I would take them only on weekends when I was not in the mood to drink. My use of the 80mg Oxys continued for about 8 months till my freshman year of college 2002. Soon after I began school the 80mg high was not enough for me and I upped the doseage to 160mg, just a note I was not crushing them. My use also stepped up to 3 to 4 times a week. this continued till around christmas of that year.

I stopped use at this point because of the scarcity of the drug. I looked for a substitute and could not find one that would compare. I began doing cocaine, I had about a gram a day habit, but this was not the high that I was searching for. Then in early 2003 I was able to get a new connect and began purchasing Oxycontin 80mgs again. I then began crushing them up and swollowing then with Coke or Dr.Pepper. I was taking anywhere from 240mg to 320mg. This was a supreme high and I continued use daily for about 6 months. Then I had my first scare. I upped my dosage to 400mg snorted while drinking very heavily. I did not mean to take that much I meant to take about 160mg, but because I was drunk and high I kept wanting more. I became very sick and began throwing up uncontrollably. Hindsight 20-20 I should have been rushed to the hospital. Instead I went back to my house and cried myself to sleep scared that I might not wake up in the morning. At this point I had intentions to stop after a scare like that. However my cravings were too much and I continued use at about 160mg twice a day, once before I went to class and then again later in the afternoon. This use continued through the Summer.

I quit at this point and went back to taking Hydrocodone because Oxy was getting to be very scarce in large quantities. So I abused Hydrocodone at the rate of 3 Watson 540s, or Watson 503s every 2 to 3 hours that I was awake usually no more than 12-15 a day. That continued till christmas 2003. Then as fate would have it I was over at a friends house in January 2004 and happened to have a headache. He did not have any good meds. I asked if he had hydrocodone, he said he did not, but what he said he did have was this stuff called MS Contin. I did not really know what it was but due to the name I figured it was related to Oxy. He handed me one it was a blue pill with PF on one side and 100 on the other. So I looked it up it was Morphine Sulfate 100mg time release similar to Oxycontin. I took the pill with little expectations. I was pleasantly surprised I took it on the way to Best Buy, it took us about 30min to get there and I was already feeling the effects. The effects were similar to that of Oxycontin, but the only way a would say it was different would be it is a smoother high. The next day all I could think about was did he have anymore.

So the very next day I asked my friend Ben if he had anymore he said yeah. I then asked how did he get them he then said they were his mom's, but she could not take them because they made her sick. She had been prescribed them because she was in a severe car crash and had irreversable back damage. He then informed me that she had been filling the prescriptions for years even though she was not taking them so the Dr would not know and for workers comp. reasons. I then asked how many are we talking about, then said he would show me. She had a drawer about a foot and a half deep by about a foot and a half long completely full with bottles staked on top of one another. I checked one of the bottles it said they were MS Contin 100mg and there was 90 pills per bottle. I struck it rich. He began selling them to me for the price of $1 dollar per pill because he had no idea of there worth. I purchased them from him about 50 at a time. I took them every day I would crush up and take 2 of them at a time twice a day. This went on all the way untill August 2004, which was a busy month because I was going to move away to go to school at a state university. So I wanted to make one more purchase from Ben. I had him check how many his mom had left and asked him if I could buy every last one of them.

He checked it out for me and showed up at my house with a Zip-Loc freezer bag completely filled and completely bulged out. I was in total shock. He handed them to me and told me to count them, I was in my parents house and they were home so I went to the bathroom to do the count. I got to 750 and then just estimated the amout of the rest. After I bought them I did a real count it was 1345 pills. The kicker was I paid only $600 dollars for the whole bag. He cut me a deal because I bought so many I laughed because if he only knew how much they were really worth. I took the whole bag off with me to school talk about a nerve racking ride all I could think about was how long I would go to jail if I got caught. Once I was settled in to my apt. my drug use was back in action, but way worse than ever before. I began taking 4 MS Contin 100mgs at a time crushed up and then swallowed. I did this before I went to class everyday I felt like I needed it to concentrate to be able to pass my classes. I also took more when I got out of class just to get fucked up then I would take more or I would not be able to sleep. This drup completely took control of my life, I made all of my moves based on my next high. The reason I took so much was the sheer fact that I had so many I believed I would never run out.

Around Thanksgiving time 2004 I hit rock bottom. I was losing control of my life. Well it had been out of control for quite sometime, but I just at this point began to see it myself. I would not leave my room and would not talk to my roommates, I completely isolated my self and push the people who cared about me as far away as I could. My friends were concerned about me I lost alot of weight and would have to make myself eat. I was always pale and looked like a full blown addict. My grades began slipping and this started a downward spiral. The worse I was doing the more drugs I would take. I began taking about 15 100mg MS Contin a day. Then the enevitable happened I failed out of school. That christmas break was the worst I had ever been and my constant drug use was showing very strongly. At this point I decided that I needed help if I were going to live much longer because or the next step I would take would be to heroin and then probably my death. I then started to atempt to ween my self off of MS Contin I did this in small steps just cutting one pill out a day. This however did not work and would just result in me binging and taking very large amounts of the drug.

I almost killed one of my friends he asked if he could have some of my MS Contin and I said sure and gave him 2 of them and told him to chew them up. He did and about an hour later he was so sick I thought he was going to die and he was very sick and throwing up for the next two days. That really hit home because he almost died taking a fraction of the dose that I take. The next day I took more than I had ever taken before I took 600mg at on time and then another 600mg 2 hours later. I was more fucked up than I had ever been. That same day I decide to quit cold turkey, then I proceeded to flush to my own dimay about 300 MS Contins down the crapper. Ironicly representative of what it had done to my life. The withdrawals were A LIVING FUCKING HELL. I could not sleep and had days of insomnia. When I was able to sleep it was the most unrestful unsatisfying sleep ever. My whole body hurt I was in the worst pain of my life. I felt like I was dying, and was the most depressed I had ever been. The only comparison I could make would be to the movie Train Spotting, however I do not think it even begins to describe the pain I was in. The inability to sleep and the extreme pain lasted for about six months.

That was not even the worst part not even one day passes that I don't think about getting high on Oxy or MS. I have to battle cravings on a day to day basis. This is by far the most fun and then the most painful experience of my life. I am doing what I can fighting the cravings a day at a time and so far I have been drug free for about 8 months, barring taking Hydrocodone on occasion, but nowhere near the amounts I did before. It has been a battle, but every day I am getting better and putting this experience further and further behind me. I now have a steady girlfriend that I am very in love with and if not for my self she is worth staying sober for. So I will tell anyone who chooses to do any of the drugs I have tried yes they are fun and they made me feel like God, but they are not worth losing my life over.

Exp Year: 2005ExpID: 45960
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 22, 2005Views: 35,246
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Opioids (407) : Various (28), Addiction & Habituation (10)

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