DOSE: T+ 0:00	50 mg	oral	Pharms - Tramadol	(pill / tablet)
T+ 0:30	50 mg	oral	Pharms - Tramadol	(pill / tablet)
T+ 0:30	10 mg	oral	Pharms - Diazepam	(pill / tablet)
T+ 0:30	30 mg	oral	Codeine	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

I am 26 years old. I began experimenting with drugs around 14, and embarked on an intensive quest of spirit and all things psychedelic from 18 to 20. I did retain a spiritual streak after that but became bogged down in my depression and stressful job and just drank heavily and smoked a lot of hash for a couple of years.

For over two years now, I have been a regular recreational user of moderate to high doses of varied pharmaceutical opioids, including codeine, dihydrocodeine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, and morphine. I take these to curb my severe depression as well as to enhance my meditation in self-awareness and higher-consciousness communication in an effort to overcome that depression, and in this I have been increasingly successful. I am not on any other prescription medications or herbal remedies except for a whole-food nutritional supplement. I recently procured some Tramadol.

I started with 50mg of Tramadol around 9pm and took another 50mg dose half an hour later because I wasn’t feeling anything. They kicked in about 20 minutes after the second dose. Unlike regular opioids that tend to hit me with a very noticeable surge of euphoria, the onset of Tramadol was very gradual and its effects, at least at this dose, remained mild throughout its full duration, which lasted about six to seven hours.

Tramadol’s most distinguishing contrast from analgesic opioids is the alertness it gives me, not dissimilar to that of quality crystal meth, albeit without any of the other “speedy” effects. In fact, my friend and I agree that Tramadol feels very much like an opiate/ methamphetamine hybrid in the sense that it offers some of the calming effects of opioids plus the heightened mental and sensory acuity of good meth. It also quite closely resembles unidentified substance(s) that we have both experienced in professional high-stress training settings where presumably those in charge slipped a little something into the candy dish or water (occupational hazard). Unfortunately, neither of us has any idea what that might have been.

My friend and roommate (male, 38, 150lbs) arrived around the time I took the second dose of Tramadol and took 100mg himself. I have never been a big fan of uppers, so when the effects became apparent to me, I took 10mg of Valium and 30mg of Codeine to mellow out my nerves. My friend took only the Tramadol.

Neither of us are very social when we take opiates, he usually retiring to his room to read and I to mine to meditate, but during this and subsequent experiences with Tramadol, we have invariably preferred to engage in conversation, usually of an intellectual or spiritual nature. On this night, we talked about ethics in sociopolitical issues and explored some less conventional areas like consciously induced paranormal activity through attaining a level of mental discipline and how magnetic and seismic activity affect ergonomics in certain geographic locations throughout the world. While we’re both interested in such topics, we’re usually too distracted or depressed to care enough to explore them in any detail. Tramadol enabled us to put aside those concerns that quietly but constantly nag us at the back of our minds and instead focus entirely on the presented material.

We also discussed at length the Kennedy assassination, one of my friend’s favorite and most extensively researched subjects to lecture on, which I normally can’t stand listening to. In the course of this, we looked at some of the autopsy photos on the web. The close-up of the colorized head wound disturbed me quite a bit and had me feeling uneasy for the rest of the evening, although this would probably not have been an issue with me on opiates. It seems that I can communicate much more collectedly and empathically on Tramadol than on opiates but at the same time am much more easily unsettled by certain ideas and memories. I also find that Tramadol is not the best medium for lucid meditation or deep introspection. When I take it alone on the rare occasion, I usually write blogs and emails or dote on my cats.

The physical effects are not very pronounced. I did experience slight muscle tension, but this also happens to me on opiates. There was no clumsiness usually associated with opiates. I could easily function well at work on this if I wanted to. I had read that Tramadol can be quite nauseating, so I made sure to eat about an hour before taking the pills. As long as I sat still, there was little to no nausea. I had absolutely no appetite, although my friend gobbled down a bunch of cookies and milk while he was high. It is fairly constipating, but possibly not as much as opiates (hard for me to say for sure because I use so frequently, but friend who rarely uses agrees on this).

My friend, being a chronic workaholic who gets very little sleep during the week, managed to doze off after four hours, but I couldn’t sleep even though it was way past my usual bedtime. I just lay awake in bed with my friend and our cats, listening to some Errol Garner. Jazz isn’t my usual choice of music, but I really enjoyed the soft and easygoing feeling it gave me. I was somewhat ashamed of myself for forgetting that my cat loved jazz but was pleased by his incessant purring which eventually put me to sleep.

Although drug effects vary from one individual to another, I think I can safely say that this would make a fairly good therapy drug, especially for those who are shy or have a lot of anger or other challenges hindering smooth communication. It allowed us to ease up and open up just enough to respect each other’s space and feelings without losing ourselves to the overly intense empathic effect of some other drugs that have been advocated for use in a therapeutic setting. Tramadol definitely has its place, although I don’t think I’ll ever become addicted as long as I have a supply of my preferred poison. Psychotropically, for me, this is not a suitable long-term replacement for opiates.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 58635
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 26, 2007	Views: 99,835
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Pharms - Tramadol (149) : Combinations (3), Depression (15), First Times (2), Small Group (2-9) (17)