Why is heroin so destructive?

[janef001]

I have a friend in the UK who I was chatting to after connecting on LinkedIn. She told me that one of the popular middle class girls ended up dying on the streets after overdosing on heroin.

I don't like saying it but she doesn't fit the typical stereotype of a heroin user. Her parents were educated at Oxford and while not very rich, they were pretty well off. Apparently, she went over to the States for work, got hooked on opioids, and moved to cheaper heroin. The stealing and lying eventually led her to burning bridges with her family and friends.

I feel sad that she ended like that but for some reason I've heard that strong opioids are the quickest way to destitution. I know far more people who've become addicted from prescription stuff (in the UK less so but in America with benzos and opioids and going downhill quickly) compared to alcohol. This girl did party excessively beforehand but I don't think anyone would have called her an addict at the time.

Sorry, I should have said Alcohol is as dangerous, not necessarily more dangerous.

HEROIN

I destroy homes and tear families apart, I’ll take your children and that's just the start.

More costly than diamonds, more costly than gold, the sorrow I’ll bring is a sight to behold.
If you need me, remember, I'm easily found. I live all around, in your schools, in your town.
I live with the rich I live with the poor, I live down the street and maybe next door.
My power is awesome, try me you’ll see but be warned, if you do you'll never break free.
Try me once and I might let you go.

Try me twice and i’ll own your soul.
When I possess you you'll steal and lie and do what you must, just to get high.
Crimes you'll commit, for the narcotic charms.
You’ll lie to your mother and steal from your dad, you’ll see their tears but wont feel sad.
You'll forget your morals and how you were raised, I’ll be your conscience, I’ll teach you my ways.
I’ll take kids from their parents and parents from kids, turn people from God, heaven forbid.

I’ll take everything from you, your looks and your pride, I’ll be with you always ,right by your side.
You'll give up everything, your family, your home.

Your friends ,your money ,you'll be all alone.
I’ll take & take ‘till you have nothing more and when I'm finished you'll be lucky to live.
If you try me be warned, this isn’t a game, given the chance I’ll drive you insane.
I’ll ravish your body and control your mind, I’ll own you completely, your soul will be mine.
Nightmares I’ll give as you lay in your bed, voices you'll hear from inside your head.

Sweats and shakes, bad visions you'll see.

I want you to know these are all gifts from me and when it’s too late you’ll know that you’re mine.
You'll regret that you tried me that very first time.
You came to me and not I to you, you knew this would happen but surely, not to you?

You challenged my power, you chose to be brave, you could’ve said no and just walked away.
If you could live that day over what would you say?

Can I be your master, will you be my slave?

I promise i’ll stay with you and on to your grave.
So now that you’ve
met me what will you do?

Will u try me or not? It’s all up to you.
I’ll bring you more misery than words can ever tell, come take my hand......I’ll lead you through hell.

Amanda Perez

I lost my eldest son, after many stints in re-hab.

Heroin feels like the best thing that ever happened to you - the first time - then not so much until people just need it to stay normal. Because it is illegal it can be difficult to get hold of, so many users spend all their time looking for a fix. It is also expensive so users have to hustle to get the money. If it was legal most users would live quiet lives being addicted and would not die of overdoses because they would know exactly what they were taking. They also would not put themselves at risk with needle sharing. All the gangs involved in drugs would have to get normal jobs and pay their taxes and stop killing each other.

I have close family members who are/have been heroin addicts and alcoholics. We are are a comfortably well off family with a caring upbringing and most of us have very 'normal' relatively successful lives but we do seem to have more than the average number of addiction problems. I'm aware that some people seem to be more prone to addiction than others and that some people have suggested a genetic element to this.

Based on my observations and some fairly frank discussions with these family members, it seems that the heroin addicts had their lives destroyed much more quickly and dramatically than the alcoholics. Within a year each of the heroin addicts went from being able to function perfectly normally to having no aims other than the next fix (not even their own immediate safety, family or relationships). One explained to me that when he was using it's not that he didn't care about his safety or the impact on other people but there was absolutely nothing that he perceived as worse than not getting a fix. They quickly got to the stage where they only contacted old friends/family to try to get money and they spent most of their time with other addicts. They also got involved with crime and very unpleasant people.

The alcoholics took years to get to the point where drink had taken over their lives. For a long time their drinking seemed very sociable and even when it was becoming more problematic it was hidden for quite a long time, then denied for even longer. They slowly pushed friends/family away but didn't dramatically change their social circles. The heroin addicts in my family did eventually manage to get clean and have stayed clean for a long time- but they acknowledge that they were lucky to survive and that they lost many years of their lives to drugs and cause huge amounts of pain to others. The alcoholics in my family are either still denying that they have a problem or have sadly died from alcohol related issues.

In part though, that is because heroin is illegal and expensive. So to maintain the addictive is immediately difficult. Most alcoholics can maintain their addiction fairly cheaply and easily. I wonder if heroin was legal and cheap, if that would be the same.

Heroin isn’t particularly expensive. IIRC cocaine is the expensive one.

Based on my observations and some fairly frank discussions with these family members, it seems that the heroin addicts had their lives destroyed much more quickly and dramatically than the alcoholics. Within a year each of the heroin addicts went from being able to function perfectly normally to having no aims other than the next fix (not even their own immediate safety, family or relationships).

Yes, that’s exactly how it was when my then bf relapsed onto heroin.

Used to work in addiction recovery services. You know when someone you love is heartbroken and you say 'I wish I could take the pain away for you' - well heroin does exactly that. It removes the emotional pain and it removes the physical pain (of withdrawal, and later when addicted it removes the pain of cold, hunger, injuries etc). If you don't have trauma you are running from before you start heroin, most people will end up developing trauma as part of the substance misuse lifestyle. And then it becomes a self perpetuating circle. Whatever has happened or is happening to you, heroin makes it feel better.

Of course there are the unicorns who manage to take it and not become addicted/ruin their lives but chances are slim.

Heroin, especially injected, is extremely dangerous not least because of overdose risk. Alcohol is also extremely dangerous. But with heroin one hit can kill you very quickly whereas with alcohol unless you down a bottle of vodka in one (which most people don't, including alcoholics) , you don't have that instant irreversible overdose risk. So for that reason id say heroin and other opiates are the most dangerous.

"I don't like saying it but she doesn't fit the typical stereotype of a heroin user. Her parents were educated at Oxford and while not very rich, they were pretty well off. Apparently, she went over to the States for work, got hooked on opioids, and moved to cheaper heroin."

Its not the income, resources and creature comforts which are a protective factor in teenage and young adult lives (although they can certainly help in the right circumstances).

It is whether the persons role model / parental figures manage to convey (and the messages are taken on board) the right mix between risk taking and reward and the importances of respecting your own body to the extent you have a deep seated drive to prioritise a basic level of your own health and basic bodily safety from a young age, even when you are at that stage in life when you (like many others) literally think you are invincible and nothing will get to you (whatever logic says to the contrary).
A very difficult thing for the role model/parent to pull off. But material wealth whilst growing up does not guarantee it.

"I don't like saying it but she doesn't fit the typical stereotype of a heroin user. Her parents were educated at Oxford and while not very rich, they were pretty well off. Apparently, she went over to the States for work, got hooked on opioids, and moved to cheaper heroin."

The idea that there is a "heroin stereotype" is a particularly dangerous one. There is no stereotype. In the US it is easily accessible, cheap (but not as cheap as you'd think) and plentiful. The addiction impacts all communities, albeit some disproportionately so.

I have an unfortunate amount of personal experience with this and it is the people who think that there's a stereotype that are often blindsided by an addiction when it comes to light.

My friend is a recovered addict and still says that if heroin didn't have all the negatives he'd do it forever and never would have gotten clean. He said it's the best feeling in the world.

Apparently, she went over to the States for work, got hooked on opioids, and moved to cheaper heroin

This is what happened to your friend.

The US has a huge opioid problem. Doctors had out far stronger pain relief than we get in the uk and people get addicted and lives get ruined.

Generally though addiction can affect anyone.

I grew up in an area full of middle and upper middle class kids who struggle with addictions in their 40s and some have had sad endings. Too much money and too little to do in a lot of cases. My peers were mostly funded by their parents and never really had to work or do much, too many turned to drink and drugs.

I have a friend and as others have mentioned the downfall is swift. I remember seeing her for lunch one day and within 3-6 months she was addicted & spiralling. She is now what she sees as a functional addict - she has methadone and
trys to lead as ‘normal’ life as possible. But she lost so much she now lives in a bedsit, lost friends and her family. The family had tried to help but she stole to feed her habit - they can’t trust her yet. Even she says every day is a struggle all she craves is that warm feeling.

Her childhood abuse is the cause and a court case was the trigger - when we were younger she was always the one to drink the most or try any drug. But the court case for some reason made her turn to heroin. Alcohol wasn’t helping her escape she needed something more :(

I'm an ex cocaine addict. I knew 2 dentists that took heroine while still practicing. I never took it myself . It terrified me but one thing I did see is that the addiction doesn't happen instantly, you had to work at it. I saw a new user that vomited for two hours solid from taking it. The second time they vomited and shat themselves and ended up incredibly dehydrated. Took 4-5 goes to get a dependency going. But I don't doubt for some People it's the feeling, the sensation of safety that is addictive, as opposed to the actual physical withdrawal. For me it deffo only took one line of coke and I was in it to win it. The chemical make up of that drug just slotted into every single gap in my internal jigsaw and it made me feel complete. I haven't took it for 20 years but even now just thinking about it, the routine, the smell.... my mouth is watering and I know I'm going to end up going out and getting some later to take the edge off. I've got a very addictive personality though. I do drink too much now, but it's a bloody miracle that I'm still Alice never mind so high functioning so I try not to beat myself up. Oddly, I have never been addicted to nicotine despite socially smoking when drinking. I can smoke every day for a holiday and then not at all for 2-3 months. Codeine, opiate based Pain killers don't really affect me though.

My brother was a heroin addict. It ruined my entire childhood. He was addicted and essentially a street junkie for 11 dreadful years.

It never killed him. It killed my mother though. Not physically, she's just never recovered from the sheer turmoil she was put through in those years. Another failed attempt at rehab ended up with him overdosed in his childhood bedroom. My mum didn't know he was at home. She opened the door and just screamed. She lost control of her bladder and I think my other brother called the ambulance. 11 years of that shite.

He relapsed during covid. I think being alone with his thoughts just tore through him. I found out through a message on social media from his GF. I had a nervous breakdown and ended up on beta blockers as it all came rushing back. He got himself sorted again though.

If anyone is ever tempted or needs a reason to get off it, It absolutely destroys your family. It's ruined my life, even over 23 years on. I won't ever judge my mother for standing by him. Even though it had the most incredibly detrimental effect on myself and my brother.

OP I'm old enough to remember the awfully sad death of Olivia Channon- young with the world at her feet from one of this countries most privileged families . Heroin chooses regardless of social status and connections and those left behind are ripped apart forever.

Sounds horrific I have some expert as somebody close to.me being addicted for a time,it's soul destroying

Experience *

TBF I feel that way about smoking. I bloody loved smoking.

Lost a cousin who was training to be a nurse to heroin. He OD’d in the US. He was clean then met the same group of friends and they left him when he OD’d and he died in the shower as he had gone in to cool down as was so hot. He was such a great guy before the drugs.

This is really the reason why I've never dabbled much in drugs because I know I'm the type to get 100% hooked and it'll all be downhill from there.

I personally couldn’t think of anything worst. All opioid type pain killers make me violently sick. Only had paracetamol after my c section because the oramorph was so hideous. I think Heroin and anything else like that would just be the same. Can’t imagine it feeling like others describe.

Whoever asked if I had an addictive personality- 100% but I always liked uppers more. Heroin was lovely but I never wanted to be a heroin addict. Im way too bouncy and chatty to want to be sat down and cuddled all day every day. You do have to work at a heroin addiction. You have to take it daily for at least a week to become physically addicted. It will make you puke if you take too much. You might enjoy that first time very much - like if you were given morphine in hospital, but you do not become physically addicted and start cold turkey after using it once.

It's interesting that I watch a lot of documentaries on TV that are all about the cocaine trade and impact on lives/communities but heroin doesn't seem to feature. I wonder why that is?