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Any hatrack folk out there have first or second hand experience with opiate addiction and are willing to talk about it? If so, please ping me. I want to know stuff that's not available on the standard web pages. I will, of course, be completely discreet.
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fwiw my daughter was given morphine when she had cancer and hallucinated. She thought there was a lion in her room once and another time asked me what the colered lights on the wall were. She was 3-6 years old at the time. They ended up giving her a synthetic pain med after that.
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Aaaa yes Opium, the deadly addicting fun drug that makes you dream. Although I in my drug using past I never touched the stuff I here it will drive one insane and broke living on the street. Back in 01 I had a knee injury that became infected and almost killed me. They put me on self-induced morphine drip, I would push the button many a time to feel all itchy line numbness all over and attempted to play Nintendo 64. I would turn all the lights out and close the blinds and sit in my hospital bed looking at the cool colors on the TV. That is from what I hear an opium trip is like.
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I watched something about them on the History Channel once, but I don't suppose you're wondering Why there is a drug law against Opium? Well, you see, it all started in the China Town district of San Francisco. Many immigrants were coming to the area and finding success because they had a work ethic and started really, really good opium dens...
maybe I should have paid more attention. The best suggestion I have is to google for a good stoner site, like, I dunno gobraindamage.com (I don't know any real site names but I know they are out there, maybe search for leagalize drugs! and infiltrate them) so you can get a grasp on the mindset of a user/patient in the midst of using, I mean, if you're trying to research a character. Then check out the national drug prevention site. They can tell you all about the effects that everyone else sees the user/patient going through.
Also, ask around on Yahoo answers, its a lot more anonomous so you'll get a lot more honesty. AND -- you can always look up a local drug and alochol treatment center and ask if they can help you with your research.
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I've many, many, second-hand experiences with opiate addicts. First-hand, well, that's a whole different ballgame. Suffice to say I've had a few physician-prescribed experiences with morphine, Percodan, oxycodone, Vicodin, and codeine. All of them made me feel unpleasant. The worst was an hours-long watery sensation of drowning with a temple-pressing head rush. Couldn't eat without throwing up while under the influence of the morphine.
In the late '70s, I spent several weeks as a volunteer pushing gurneys in a Veterans Hospital in-patient clinic for drug-addicted Vietnam War veterans, hardcore heroin addicts. The horrific relics of humanity. It was the kind of place where a patient went in and didn't come out of alive. A few arrived still whole in body, none stayed that way. Amputations from gangrene, organ failures . . . I did get out mostly whole, in body anyway, but I wasn't a drug-addict patient. Nicotine and, arguably, chocolate are my vices.
Heroin, morphine, methadone, codeine, black tar opium, the synthetic opiate fentanyl, semi-synthetics OxyContin, oxycodone, Dilaudid, Percodan, Vicodin, the list of abused opioids is as numerous as the ways addicts find to satisfy the fix of the moment and where to shoot, snort, ingest, or pop it. I'm not allowed to speak of recent opiate-addict or drug pusher experiences related to my work, nor do I feel comfortable talking about my past experiences. Reliving nightmares is not my favorite pasttime.
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Opiates have the reputation of being sleep-inducing as well as pain-killing. Laudanum was used to help people relax and get to sleep. Paregoric was used to help people with stomach upset to keep food down because it was supposed to relax the gag reflex (I think). Wikipedia says it would "inhibit normal peristalsis." Also: "It was a household remedy in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was widely used to calm fretful children."
My mother used to give me paregoric when I was little and had stomach flu, and I still remember the taste--sort of licorice-like (which is probably why I love the taste of licorice). However, for me, it was a stimulant. She said it made me so hyperactive that if they'd had chandeliers, I would have been swinging from them.
The above offered as anecdotal evidence that opiates don't always have the same effect on everyone who is exposed to them.
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A couple of years ago, I (whilst wearing my minister hat) counseled a man who was addicted to OxyContin (opioid), and his wife.
It's rather a sad story of the destruction of a man and a family. I can discuss generalities and non-attributable information, if my perspective would be helpful.
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