DOSE:

repeated

Heroin

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

I had been using regularly (daily) and building a tolerance for heroin for approximately five months, and supporting both my habit and the habit of my boyfriend at the time (who worked a regular job but didn't make nearly enough to support a full-blown habit). I had gotten a job at a strip club to finance our habits and I was sick of that, too, as it's not the most glorifying career.

One day, my boyfriend (P) and I both decided to quit. We knew what was in store since we'd both gone a day or so without it, but we also knew the magnitude of this withdrawl would be much greater. We set a date and decided that was it. So we both took about four days off work following the date we'd set to quit. We told all of our friends not to come over. We rented a whole bunch of movies, bought lots of soup and beer, got some pot and locked ourselves in our apartment. If you've ever seen 'Trainspotting,' the account there is actually a fairly accurate one.

Day One: Sucked. Day one is when I started getting cold sweats. I remember asking P once before when we hadn’t done it for a day or so what the weather was like outside, and he responded with, “I don’t know.” That’s pretty much what it’s like - I was hot and cold, and then hot again, and then I was hot and cold at the same time. I covered up to get warm and then I started sweating all of a sudden but I was still cold. It’s terrible. With the cold sweats came massively watery eyes and a runny nose (this generally happens first when an addict knows he/she needs a hit, as it’s the beginning of a small withdrawl).

Also, one of the first symptoms of my withdrawl was the aching body. My whole body (especially my neck and back) felt like they were incredibly stiff and sore and just needed some WD-40 sprayed in them. Toward the end of the first day, my bones began to jump out of my skin. This experience is a little harder to describe. It started in the legs and worked its way up through the body. My legs started jumping, all by themselves, and I couldn’t control it. Soon, it was full body convulsions. At this point, I’m trying to sleep to escape the sheer misery I’m in but I can’t due to the cold sweats and the flailing limbs.

Night fell on the first day and P couldn’t quite handle it. So we went to our dealer and got two hits (one for each of us, when we were both up to about a 10-hits-per-day habit just to keep from getting sick), and that gave some relief, enough so I could sleep for a while.

Day Two: The junk had worn off and I was right back to where I started, except a little worse. By that point it was more annoying than anything because I knew it would get better, I was just waiting. And the waiting is the worst part. The second day, like I said, was much like the first day, except the aches were a little bit worse, and the convulsions had come on full-force. I tried to keep myself occupied with movies and books and whatnot. I did anything I could to keep my mind off of what’s happening to my body because I knew there’s only one thing I could do to make it better, and I didn't want to think about that.

P literally didn’t leave the bed for three days. He read an entire full-length novel in two days and then started in on another one before he got up. Neither of us really needed to get up because the constipation hadn’t subsided yet and, though we were trying to a.) get drunk and b.) drink tons of water to flush out the toxins, it’s still hard to pee when you’re detoxing. At the end of the second day, one of our friends came through the window and said, ‘what’s wrong with you guys?’ We told him we were quitting and he said, “oh, you’re getting off heroin? ‘Cuz I got a whole bunch of it!’ I told him to leave, and I think that’s when I felt a little bit of accomplishment.

Day Three: They say the third day is the worst. I always wondered why up until I actually did it, and then I figured it out. Not only is detoxing from heroin quite a physical struggle, but it’s an extreme emotional struggle as well (for me, at least. I’ve heard some people say the same, and I’ve seen people come off of it with no emotional symptoms whatsoever. I don’t know what causes the emotional outburst, or if it’s just the type of person I am). I started bawling. I cried for at least three days straight. I called my mom and I told her things were not okay and that my life was flipping upside-down. She didn’t know about the heroin or anything but I had experienced some emotional/psychiatric issues in the past so she was sympathetic. She told me to come home for a few days and sort things out.

My muscles were still achy, my head still hurt, and I still could only sleep for short periods, intermittently. The cold sweats were still coming and going. The world just looked dull. The world looks amazing and vibrant when I am on junk, and when I come off of it, everything looks... dull. Colors and sounds are muted. Everything seems slower and less important and the world seems depressing. I was freaking out about where my life was going, what I was doing, what I had done, what I was going to be when I grew up, how much I had fucked everything up.

I found myself experiencing this extreme sense of urgency, like I had to get my entire life planned out RIGHT THEN or I was never going to figure it out. And logically, I knew that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t escape the feeling. I told my boyfriend I had to leave for a few days to get my head straight, made the drive to my parents’ house, and continued to detox there. I still couldn’t sleep and my eyes and nose were still watery and runny and my muscles still hurt like hell but I played it off as the flue or something, and they were more worried about my mental state anyway.

After a few days there I started to feel a little better, but I realized that if I surrounded myself with the same people and environment I was in that I would start using again. I had to move away and not talk to any of my old friends for a while, and I did. I successfully quit using for about six months, and when I did start using again, it was recreationally. It got out of hand once but I recognized it early and quit before it got too bad. I still use recreationally, but I never let it get out of hand and I’ll never let it control me again.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 65043
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 11, 2010	Views: 16,791
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Heroin (27) : Addiction & Habituation (10), Various (28)