q.q

yea it aint easy. addicts need professional help and change of environment. friends and family are of little help in these situations and most of the time are counter productive and or basically enablers. not much one can do in these situations unfortunately.

On February 09 2015 22:29 mnj wrote: i guess we use it too much in our vernacular in our daily lives? "i'm addicted to coffee" or "i'm addicted to my netflix" blah blah.

heh, it sounds like a joke but i swear i have a fairly destructive addiction to coffee. it's not going to make me go homeless but my brain just feels fried whenever i try to work on anything even a little bit complicated for more than 2 minutes at a time. feel anxious all the time and it fucks with my sleep. i quit for a while and just drank green tea instead and felt 100x better, was wayyy more productive and i'm sure easier for others to be around.

Adderall is definitely a serious addiction, its an amphetamine salt. I feel you, my brother is addicted to heroin and I don't think he ever wants to quit. My only comfort is that he is in jail so he can't kill himself, but its just a matter of time before he gets out.

change of environment. if his life sucks or he still maintains certain stress triggers then he will resort to drug usage. the intervention is a great idea because it will outline to him all the people that care about him and will give him a reason to quit that shit.

Bill Maher had a recent guest discussing the true underpinnings of drug addiction and how it really has very little to do with the drug and almost entirely has to do with the lifestyle. For instance common addiction experimentation might involve placing a rat in a cage with 2 water bottles, one laced with heroin and the other normal. The rat will of course prefer the heroin water. However if you place him in a nice open environment with other rats, cheese, crackers, basically rat paradise, he actually never drinks from the heroin water and always chooses the regular water. 30% of soldiers in vietnam did heroin and cocaine and people were concerned that once the war was over we'd have this massive influx in junkies to the country, but as soon as they returned most stopped entirely. They only used these drugs because they were in hell.

Look at your friend's environment and see what you can do to better it, his addiction is probably easily kicked with a refresher on life. Perhaps you are what's part of it (if he has a bunch of bad degen friends surrounding him).

It is way more complicated than just getting a person out of the environment. Yes it is true that an addict needs to change his environment, habits, and get away from friends that use and so on. But when it comes down to it, the person has to want to quit. You can try to do anything and everything to intervene, but if the person doesn't want to change its near impossible to get through. I guess the key is to find a way to get the person to want to quit, and then you can proceed from there. There are many reasons that people first begin using drugs; for example to fit in socially with friends, to feel better, to self medicate if someone is depressed, in a shitty depressing environment like Newbsaibot said. But in the end the brain's reward system from how good the drugs feel is what causes the addiction. For some reason some people become addicted from the reward system, and others don't. There are many theories behind this.

An addict will have to change his or her lifestyle to become clean sure, but the underpinnings of addiction as you put it most definitely has to do with the drug. There is a massive release of neurochemicals that give the high and stimulate the reward system.

Probably has some childhood issues. Needs therapy.

heroin and opiates are especially tough to quit because of the strong physical dependence and withdrawal. Luhos if your brother is unlikely to ever quit you should try to get him into methadone maintenance treatment. Most of the harm from opiates are socio economic so with MMT you can live a completely normal life basically just through substitution once you get takehomes. Would get him off the needle too which is always a plus. As long as he isn't shooting coke your brother is not likely to die unless he makes the mistake of dosing at his normal dose after getting out of jail. Opiates are non-toxic as long as you avoid acute intoxication and most vets are able to do that unless they bang something fentanyl laced without doing a tester while alone.

Adderall is a serious drug despite what a lot of people think. It is Dextro Amphetamine, not far off of D-Methamphetamine. Meaning if you abuse Addies you are really not far off of becoming a full blown tweaker. It is speed. One funny thing most people don't know; even pure methamphetamine is prescribed for ADD. Its all the same check out Desoxyn. Pharm meth in 5mg and 10mg tabs prescribed in the USA.

I have found that in order to quit you really have to get tired of the lifestyle and want to do it for yourself. Over time drugs lose their allure to the user; they become less pleasurable and effective. However they never completely give up their appeal obviously. Eventually the drug will cost you so much or bring you down to a point in life where you have drawn the line and will not delve any further.

I thought this article is quite relevant when I was reading this blog - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-...-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html

I never been addicted to anything hardcore, but I have been addicted to things. When I was younger I was addicted to cannabis. Smoking it 24/7. Only way I quit was 2 ways. 1) I wanted to do stuff and wanted to stop being stoned, so I wanted to stop, even though I knew i really enjoyed it, i understood that quitting it would be benefecial for my life, carreer etc. 2 ) I stopped hanging around with anyone who smoked it. Getting out of the enviroments really helps.

There are lots of other smaller things I was addicted too, but these 2 basic principles I think apply to any sitation. As someone posted above, you cannot make someone quit something unless they want to. But that person might need a new perspective on things to want to quit.

Another thought, after watching all of the seasons of The Wire again ( IN HD now. so good!), I cant help but feel for Bubbles and his story. He had to hit rock bottom to stop. He tried lots of times, but he had to get a perspective to truely quit. Great story albeit fictional. Sorry went a bit off topic.

I have a brother who's addicted to crack, and over the years I realized that there's absolutely nothing I could do for him. When I attempted to help him by allowing him to live with me for a year, in a different environment / city, it only enabled him and delayed his inevitable suffering - while causing me a great deal of pain. In fact, any of mine and my father's desperate attempts at helping him only prolonged the suffering. I know it's painful to stand by and feel helpless while watching your friend self destruct, but there's probably very little you can do for him.

I agree with Trax about the addict needing to feel tired of his lifestyle before being able to take the first step towards quitting. You mentioned how your friend would 'play it down' when you confronted him, he's probably nowhere near that stage yet. IMO the best thing you can do is help him realize that he's addicted.

lol @ wh00sel

thank's to everyone who put in more than 3 seconds of thought b4 posting. also the chewits link was very illuminating.

On February 10 2015 06:38 traxamillion wrote: heroin and opiates are especially tough to quit because of the strong physical dependence and withdrawal. Luhos if your brother is unlikely to ever quit you should try to get him into methadone maintenance treatment. Most of the harm from opiates are socio economic so with MMT you can live a completely normal life basically just through substitution once you get takehomes. Would get him off the needle too which is always a plus. As long as he isn't shooting coke your brother is not likely to die unless he makes the mistake of dosing at his normal dose after getting out of jail. Opiates are non-toxic as long as you avoid acute intoxication and most vets are able to do that unless they bang something fentanyl laced without doing a tester while alone. Adderall is a serious drug despite what a lot of people think. It is Dextro Amphetamine, not far off of D-Methamphetamine. Meaning if you abuse Addies you are really not far off of becoming a full blown tweaker. It is speed. One funny thing most people don't know; even pure methamphetamine is prescribed for ADD. Its all the same check out Desoxyn. Pharm meth in 5mg and 10mg tabs prescribed in the USA. I have found that in order to quit you really have to get tired of the lifestyle and want to do it for yourself. Over time drugs lose their allure to the user; they become less pleasurable and effective. However they never completely give up their appeal obviously. Eventually the drug will cost you so much or bring you down to a point in life where you have drawn the line and will not delve any further.

We tried the methadone and suboxone, the problem is he doesn't want to quit. Those are good drugs for someone that wants to stop, but he's such a manipulator and doesn't care. Pretty sure he tried them just to make our mother happy, and was probably using heroin again within a few days. It's a very dangerous drug. Sure its not toxic, but even experienced users aren't immune to the respiratory depression that can happen and kill them. My brother isn't stupid, hes researched everything but he still overdosed once and he would be dead if not for his druggy friend that realized he had to take him and get help.

The funny thing is that you're completely right about the getting out of jail and using the same old dose killing you; however, my brother knows that. He didn't overdose after getting out of jail, but overdoses at some random time. The problem is that the heroin addict can feel invincible, I mean they shoot up everyday and they don't die, then tolerance grows and that's when the higher dose he gives himself to overcome the tolerance is life threatening.