What drugs have you used?

[RaptorChrist]

This is a sensitive topic for me.

I started with cannabis in High School. In college I tried salvia, followed by mushrooms, ecstasy, acid, ketamine, and amphetamines.

That was all fun and cool, but eventually I tried something that I really liked.

I started taking oxycodone fairly regularly, and absolutely loved the way it made me feel. Man, oh man, one cannot begin to understand how amazing these things can make you feel until it's too late. I became physically dependent on opioids fairly quickly, all things considered. I had a significant other at the time whose parents house had medicine cabinets filled with all kinds of things, so I was able to support my recreations (soon to be "habits") for free.

I've taken a laundry list of different substances at this point in my life, including crack cocaine and several years of intravenous drug use. I want to explain myself here, not that I really owe it to anyone, but the reason I began IV drug use was due to a prescription drug known as Dilaudid (hydromorphone). This was after my "free" supply ran out, and I met someone willing to sell me these 8mg pills for between $10 and $15 each. I was fully dependent at this point, and not having an opiate meant being miserable and sick. Anyways, Dilaudid has a very low oral bioavailability, meaning that the percentage of the drug that makes it to your bloodstream is not very high. I remember I was taking two at a time before first injecting, and I was a student, certainly not making enough money to fund my habit, let alone any other expenses I had.

IV use was the economically right thing for me to do at the time. Don't get me wrong, it's maybe my biggest regret in life, but it allowed me to continue living a "normal" (and I know that sounds weird) life.

I'm not going to write my full story here, but I would like to point out a couple things, as many people make assumptions (even me). It seems like most people always expect some sort of sob story when it comes to drug use, and maybe that's the case for many people, but not for me. I had good grades all my life, was in the advanced classes, was center forward on my soccer team for over a decade, etcetera, etcetera. I didn't turn to drugs as a way to escape everyday life, but more to enhance it. I never realized that addiction was a real thing that affected your body. For many years I would hear stories about drug addicts overdosing and think to myself, "why don't they just stop taking the stuff? It can't be that hard." What I didn't realize was that your body stops functioning properly after you become addicted in the absence of the drug.

End of the story, here I am today, almost 30 years old. I did manage to get my life straightened out. I'm not "clean". I still require opiates to function, but now it's a prescribed amount, and I'm not taking it in an abusive manner. It'll be 5 years in June since the last time I abused opiates.

Moral of the story: "don't do drugs". Or at least stick to drugs that aren't addictive.