From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Subject: The Adventures Of Smacks Past (Part 36) Occasional Heroin Usage Date: 1996/11/19 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard THE ADVENTURES OF SMACKS PAST (PART 36) OCCASIONAL HEROIN USAGE It's a joke, right? A social heroin user. Like the guy I knew way the fuck back when, who said he only used occasionally. He shot up three times a day for years, but he insisted it was occasional. Guess it all depends on your time frame. Well, since it's become a topical subject of late, I thought I'd throw in my two cents. Okay, let me get in a few pre-emptive blows before I blast into the rest of this concept. Occasional heroin use IS POSSIBLE. That's about the closest to the truth as we're gonna get in words. For whom is it possible? Yup, you guessed it, you'll probably have to find out for yourself. You know, as in, you'll have to find out if YOU can become an occasional user. I'll throw in another salvo here. Don't hold your breath, that you'll be able to pull it off. Either before or after you've been strung out. Also, I want to throw in the standard disclaimer, that everything that follows only really applies to those of us who really really like opiates. Cause baby, if you don't like heroin, you're almost certain not to get strung out on it anyway. Hell, you'll probably try it once or twice, and say, "that shit sucks. It made me puke." Nuff said? Of the two possible times for occasional heroin usage, the easier of the two, is before you get strung out. And it makes sense too. In the beginning, if you know anything at all about the mechanics of addiction, you can take steps to insure that you never get addicted. Even this gets real tricky, because there are enough "stories" out here about folks that have chipped for years and then, one day... I'm sure you've heard the stories. Something pretty damn exceptional needs to be happening, when after years of occasional usage, a really low point strikes in your life, and you continue to resist the temptation to administer this stuff into your veins. But, it's safe to say, for the record, that it has been done. The trick, as others have pointed out before, is to spread out your use to only about once or twice a month. This will vary from person to person, but almost anything more than twice a month is going to gradually or more quickly get you in trouble. Even once or twice a month is enough to acquire some tolerance and resistance to the drug. You might want to notice that the resistance and tolerance are actually a very initial stage to the mechanics of addiction. After you've done dope for a few months, you'll notice that even only doing it twice a month is enough to need about three times as much as you did initially to get the right high. Talk about the law of diminishing return! Ahhh, heroin. So much of it out there. So much more you end up needing. The second scenario for occasional usage is after you've been really good and strung out. And I'm talking about for at least a year or more of hard core usage. This one is really fucking dangerous. Much as I hate AA/NA and other "recovery" modalities, it ain't for poetic writing that these systems have as their slogan, "one is too many and a thousand is never enough." Like a lot of stuff, if it's out there, there's something to it. But man is it tempting. The biggest temptation ever. There you are, you're all clean and shit for the last six months or longer, and you're just dying to get high. And here, unless you just plain don't care about getting fully re-addicted again, you're going to try to sell yourself a bill of goods. "Well, maybe just this once. Hell, my Aunt Thelma is in town. I hate her guts and the only way I can deal with her is to get high." But probably it's going to be more like, "Shit, I can do this tonight. Just this once." Etc., etc., etc... Well, you better make sure that you only do it, just this once. Sort of. That is, unlike the first scenario where you might be able to chip a couple of times per month and get away with it, after you've been strung out and then got clean, you better figure on two or three times per year. As always, your individual mileage may vary. But it's possible. You may be able to get away with six times a year. Who knows for sure. It's up to the person in question. The problem with chipping after you've had a good habit and kicked it, is that your damn cells don't ever seem to forget. They are so good at having a memory of the mechanics of addiction, that all it takes is about three to five days of continuous usage and you're "all in" again. Pretty much. Contrast that with how long it takes to get hooked the first time. It's a factor of at least 10 to 1. It's possible. Is it smart? I don't think smarts has much to do with it. Like Clint Eastwood would say, if he were talking to heroin users, "A dope fiends gotta do what a dope fiends gotta do." Don't try this in your own home, you might hurt yourself. Copyright Gizmo 1996