Pills and Powders... Heroin... Part2 Read on for more information about Heroin.  There’s a downside right?
Oh boy…you can say that again, to be frank Heroin is an evil bitch of a drug, it’s so easy get hooked and nearly impossible to give up. How it affects you, depends on how your body works, on your metabolic rate, so this will dictate how long it will take you to get hooked. However nearly everybody who takes it persistently becomes dependent, don’t think your special. Why is that?  Well think about…the feelings it give off are immensely pleasurable ,remove them and you want them back, so you keep taking it. If you keep taking it, you get used to it, so you need more, in bigger amounts, more often. You keep going until one day you wake up on a piss-soaked, vomit-stained mattress in a derelict squat wandering what the hell’s happened in the last year. Taking heroin will affect you ability to keep or get a job, it will drain all your money and often leads to stealing and prostitution to maintain the habit. Plus there’s the physical side effects.
 What are these?
Well imagine the complete opposite to the high it gives… excruciating agony... that’s what it can feel like without heroin. Stomach cramps, vomiting, limb spasms, diarrhoea, unstable moods, sweating, constipation, reduced sex drive, insomnia, breathing problems and general bodily pain and all this after just 8-12 hours without it. This makes you dependent on the drug as it’s physically addictive, you can’t go without it or you become ill. So can you die?  Of taking heroin, yes, and in so many different ways. Heroin depresses the brain and if you take too much or overdose, you fall into a deep sleep, coma and if nothing is done this result's in death. This happens particularly when mixed with another depressant like alcohol or when the heroin is more pure than the person thought. If you inject heroin, sharing needles with people who have HIV or Hepatitis means you can catch these infections as well. Whilst constant injections into veins can lead to them collapsing, limbs getting infected and can lead to amputation. Other serious conditions like endocarditis and septicaemia can also occur.
So I take it, it’s pretty difficult to give it up?  You’re damn right!!!! Remember what happens if you don’t have it within 12 hours of the last high, the sweating, vomiting, cramps, diarrhoea and spasms kick in and giving up ‘cold turkey’, straight away will reduce this and worse. How long these physical effects last depend on the individual but the harshest ones can last up to a week however stuff like insomnia can linger for months but the hardest thing about withdrawal is the lasting mental effects. However you can seek medical help for addiction, whereby you’ll be given methadone, a heroin substitute, to help you come off it gradually. It removes most of the physical withdrawal effects but there’s till the mental battle.
What’s that?  It can take years for a recovering addict to readjust, to get around the carvings and depression and try to disassociate heroin as the only way to get pleasure. Heroin addiction is chronic and relapsing, it’s staggering but addiction on average lasts for 14 years because addicts relapse, they go back due to its power. It’s rare for someone to kick the habit straight away; the norm is 14 years of addiction, abuse, arrest, cleaning up and relapse. Not pleasant, not worth the high and not glamorous in anyway.
 So where can you go to get help?
If you or anybody you know are having problems with heroin try the following places for help and support @ the Addictions Links Page. Go to : Read:
by ChrisM
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Pills and Powders... Amphetamines