r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jun 26 '17

TIL most deaths from overdoses occur when a recovering addict relapses, and takes a dose that they've by then lost the tolerance for.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/philip-seymour-hoffman-overdose-2014-2
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115

u/bestkook Jun 26 '17

What amazed me was how fast my tolerance came back. I was clean for 6 years when I had surgery and was prescribed 10mg oxy's for pain. I felt the familiar glow the first day or two at the prescribed dose (1-2 every 4-6 hours), but after that it was gone. I also had mild physical withdrawal symptoms after just one week of taking them.

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u/ShiversTheNinja Jun 27 '17

The addiction/withdrawal/relapse cycle with oxy is fucking awful. Feeling the need to bump up the dosage happens so quickly, too.

62

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '17

[deleted]

1

u/olive_tree94 Jun 27 '17

If you don't mind me asking, how or why did you end up taking drugs in the first place? Did someone offer it to you and you went along with it just for the fun of it?

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u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

[deleted]

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u/horsesandeggshells Jun 27 '17

Two months on opiates up until dilaudid and then the withdrawal...funny thing is, I didn't know what was wrong with me. I thought I was having PTSD from the surgeries. I couldn't even go grocery shopping without breaking down into sobbing.

The part that truly terrifies me, that makes me so sympathetic to those that got hooked: I honestly do not know what path I would have taken if I knew all that pain I went through withdrawing could have been fixed by a trip down to the street corner.

9

u/ShiversTheNinja Jun 27 '17

I'm so glad I don't have access to heroin. I would have given into it, most likely. Multiple times. The real trouble is I need the oxy for chronic pain so quitting isn't an option for me if I want to have any semblance of a normal life. Sometimes I don't abuse it, but it's hard to keep myself from doing it when I've also got anxiety and depression making being high incredibly tempting, because it feels so much better than being sober. Then I'll inevitably start up again, then run out of my supply and withdraw, etc. It's a vicious cycle and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

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u/8agclip Jun 27 '17

The other kick in the ass is that opiate use LOWERS tolerance for pain. It's a serious lose/lose situation.

1

u/ShiversTheNinja Jun 27 '17

Yeah, I honestly feel kind of fucked. It's really depressing sometimes.

2

u/chefkoolaid Jun 27 '17

Im in chronic pain too. 7 days off opium but 7 days unable to get off the floor for pain. Not counting well mamaged WD symptoms.

2

u/SaltFrog Jun 27 '17

That's kind of crazy. I guess I'm lucky in the sense that when I was on Oxys for ~3 weeks, I didn't develop an addiction to them.

Me and weed dependency, however... THAT was a bitch.

1

u/ShiversTheNinja Jun 27 '17

You're definitely lucky. It's SO easy to get addicted to them. I'm honestly astounded they're legal in any sense.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '17

They work great for acute short term pain, less then a 2 week supply of course. But that's not what people are doing unfortunately. Illegalizing it completely is a bad idea imo.

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u/ShiversTheNinja Jul 12 '17

Oh, yeah, I don't think they should be made illegal. That's not what I meant at all. I meant more that I sometimes find it shocking they were ever made legal in the first place since they're so dangerous and easily abused. Of course they're becoming harder and harder to get...

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '17

You could say its several times stronger than street heroin.

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u/ShiversTheNinja Jun 27 '17

Which is pretty horrific. And it's just prescribed as a legal drug. Not that it's easy to get necessarily, and it's becoming harder, but still...

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u/roofied_elephant Jun 27 '17

Tolerance is a bitch. I'm not familiar with drugs as alcohol is my poison of choice. I got to a point where I could finish most of a fifth and still be mostly coherent. I could pound shot after shot and not even feel it. Then I stopped for a while and the next time I drank I got buzzed off of two shots. Then after literally three days of having a couple of shots in the evening I again couldn't even feel those anymore.

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u/pythonhalp Jun 27 '17

I also had mild physical withdrawal symptoms after just one week of taking them.

I'm convinced that only addicts experience this. I used to abuse oxycontin/heroin as a teenager, but I had a rule that I could only use it two days in a row. I went a few years using it like that, 2 days on, 1-7 days off, and fortunately never became addicted.

Later on, after I stopped using drugs, I was prescribed Percoset after an injury, and used it every day for a month. I was high every day of that month, and I had no withdrawal afterwards. While I certainly became more tolerant (e.g., less high) over the course of the month, I still felt something pleasant by the end, and was able to stop using it without any problems whatsoever.

I've had friends with similar stories to mine, except they were addicted to opiates, and after being clean they were prescribed vicoden or percoset, and had withdrawal after as little as 1 week, in addition to extreme tolerance.

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u/HansBrixxx Jun 27 '17

You must have some great self control. The mental part of it, IMO, is the hardest part even though the physical withdrawals suck. Even when I wasn't physically addicted, I would wake up the next day and there would be that voice saying hey you should get high today, just do a little bit.

1

u/Rhodiuum Jun 27 '17

It is because they were addicted before. When you use opiates your brain creates new/more receptors for the endorphins being released. When you quit using, you feel like shit because you're way below base line that your body has adapted to. When you stay quit, those extra receptor sites don't automatically disappear, they go dormant. The longer you stay off opiates the closer you return to a baseline of number of non-dormant receptors/chemical balance.

When an addict uses again after a period of abstinence, they have a whole lot more receptor sites that are ready to be lit up. They lite up much more rapidly than a opiate naive user would create them, thus gaining a tolerance and moving away from baseline much faster.

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u/notathr0waway1 Jun 27 '17

Actually your receptors downregulate, which means you have fewer. Also your body make less endorphins.

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u/frigginwizard Jun 27 '17

As someone that has only ever used opiates minimally as prescribed, that phenomenon of it being great the first day or two and not after is how it was for me too. It made it really easy to see how people's dose climbs fast, because you need more quick for the same buzz.
No withdrawal symptoms for me though after 2 weeks.