>
> How good are opium addicts at holding down jobs? At conducting healthy
> modern interpersonal relationships? At contributing to their communities
> and political systems? At raising children? Would you feel happy if your
> kid became an opium addict?
>
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>
>
Quite good. I myself take 300 mgs/day of methadone. This is considered a
large dose even by MMT standards. To put in another way, this about
enough to fatally OD 6 people. A characteristic of opioid use known as
"tolerance" accounts for the fact that I am quite alive and, by most
measurements, a "high-functioning" individual at that....no pun
intended.<g> The reason I mention the amount is to show you that someone
who takes massive doses of a very similar substance to opium or heroin
does not undergo any significant physiological damage. Indeed,
constipation is the foremost problem, the eternal bane of the opium-eater.
Having said that however, being addicted is a bitch... at least in this society and during these times. The problem is that, not unlike a diabetic or someone with a bi-polar disorder, I need to take my medicine on a regular basis. Where it differs from those drugs however is that society just wont leave me alone and let me do my methadone, a drug from which I receive several therapeutic benefits. Because the drug has a highly undeserved stigma attached to it, I must pick it up from a pharmacy 3 times a week. This essentially chains me to the fricking drugstore. The reason for this schedule is to not allow me to have a large stockpile of the drug around.... because we all know how toxic it is (barf...).
As well, I have to take exception to someone who mentioned, among some other good and true points, that perhaps opioid addiction was all psychological and that placebo would clear all withdrawal symptoms. Not so.... The physical addiction is quite real and withdrawal is quite horrid to undergo. I know this probably better than most in that I was engaged in a study using ultra-low doses of naltrexone (a mu antagonist) to see whether tolerance could be lowered or at least halted in an individual who was simultaneously taking an opioid. This drug removes opioid molecules from their receptors in the brain, resulting in immediate, sudden withdrawal. Obviously, this is a good thing in the case of an overdose, but not so good for someone who has become addicted.
Well, long story short, I got drunk and feeling sorry for myself and decided to off myself by taking 25mgs of naltrexone . This while addicted to 300 mgs/of methadone daily....a HUGE habit...by any measure. The delirium , the puking, shitting and the wishing I was dead during moments lucid enough to form the thought were clearly *not* merely psychological. Ohhhh, but how I wish they were. I believe that to this day I am suffering a degree of post-traumatic stress from the incident.
So no, the other point you made were all good, but never let yourself believe that addiction is psychological or that those "junkies" who are feeling terrible are in fact attempting to fool you or are somehow fooling themselves. This sounds very much like a prohibition-funded study, one designed to forestall any empathy others might deign to give "those damned junkies"
Mycos