DOSE:	300 mg	oral	Codeine	(extract)
	5kg	oral	Poppies - Opium	(tea)
	16 mg	oral	Naloxone

BODY WEIGHT:

50 kg

When I was 16 my curiosity in drugs took a new level when my curiosity met opiates. I stole 2 packets of Prodeine forte from a relative and I researched the contents; codeine 30mg/paracetamol 500mg. I was informed to do a Cold Water Extraction (CWE), and that night I completed the procedure of extracting approximately 240mg easily enough using a shirt filter. This was my first ever taste in opiates, and it was so subtle that I shrugged it off as placebo.

Just to be sure, I used the rest the next day, making over 300mg, as I heard some people have a predisposed tolerance to codeine due to enzyme deficiency. Fortunately, the consecutive use did little to nothing in my daily lifestyle. I continued school as usual, and due to me not owning a car, I only took codeine on rare occasions.

It wasn't until Christmas eve 2011 (?) that I officially planted the seed. I only did my typical dose of 300mg, but this time I decided to let the nod take me over by lying down in bed and remaining conscious enough to feel its transcendent high. Three days later I earned my P-plates. When I earned my P-plates I was free to drive everywhere - including pharmacies. I was reluctant to use regularly as the pharmacies record your information, but soon I found a routine in which I would cycle through pharmacies in order to get a stable dose of 400mg codeine every two days. Within 2 weeks I was taking about 600mg once or twice a day.

My curiosity of opiates still perked my interests, however, and I quickly found out a procedure to extract opioid alkaloids from poppy seeds available in several supermarkets around me. Not a month after getting my license I began experimenting with the poppy seed tea. My first night was a simple 200 gram dose of seeds. I left the seeds in warm water for approximately 20 minutes before extracting the water and drinking it. Since it was 10pm at the time I decided to simply go to sleep with the assumption that it would never work. 2 hours later I woke up with an indescribable opiate feeling of absolute numbness in my entire body, with surges of joy and power flowing through my arm every second. I was in love.

This use of codeine and poppy seed tea continues for a few months before I started getting huge histamine attacks from codeine, primarily due to my doses (1.2 - 1.6grams codeine a day). The codeine was costing $30-40 a day and I was stealing from my parents to keep my habit up. Since poppy seeds were cheaper (1.5kg-2kg dose at the time) I resorted to that entirely. Eventually, quite quickly, it got carried away very quickly. When I turned 18 I resorted to a local pawn shop, to buy items from my room and my parents' property for dirt cheap. I sold something like 2-3 ipods, a $600 guitar, 2 ipod docking stations, a tv set box, a dvd player, a few computer mouses, computer speakers, two expensive headphones, 10+ dvds, 10+ music cds, two GPS's and other items which I cannot remember over 7 months.

On top of that, over the period of the 7-8 months I stole around $1k from my parent's savings account, several hundred dollars in Pawn shop loans, several hundred dollars in overdrawing my savings account as well as my part-time job which earned me a few hundred a week. During this time I was in University and I stopped going entirely to support my addiction. I also stole a bunch of money from co-workers and other relatives. Instead of spending my time at night clubs and pubs I was at chemists, pawn shops and supermarkets. I also learned of a technique on how to steal the poppy seeds to a point where I would only have to pay 1/6 of the amount. At some lucky days $1.66 would suspend me for a day - at other days $60.

I completely isolated myself from my family and friends during this time; sometimes going out for days in my car making poppy seed tea and stealing. It was quite hard to keep using daily/twice a day while my parents were around. But I figured out a way to make poppy seed tea and CWE codeine in unusual situations, such as while having a shower, while in my car, in my bedroom while my parents slept and even in the middle of a major shopping center once. It was both the addictive nature of morphine and the addictive nature of myself that made us such a compatible couple.

When my Mom gave me access to that precious 2 grand in my major savings account (around January) that I had been saving up for my entire life, the problem turned full-blown. The two-grand was spent quickly, in about a month, as I was taking 1.5kg-3kg of poppy seeds per dose twice a day. I started getting suicidal thoughts, but I'd always go out and brew tea in my car (I found a super quick way in which I could extract huge amounts of seeds quickly) and it sort of prevented me from ever doing it. Well, eventually my parents caught on again with my drug addiction and my Mom didn't really care any more. She had tried to help me earlier, and she just said 'Don't steal from us and we don't care about your addiction.' Well, when I spent the 2 grand I tried quitting. Boy, that lasted a day. I quickly snatched 10 dollars from my parents' drawer and found ways of minimalising my costs over the next month or so by outright stealing the seeds.

My Step Dad loathed me for my usage, and with reason, but he made it very hard for me to live there. I moved to my brother's place for a bit, where I begged him for money and needed his help after my car ran out of fuel (one of many familiar times). I returned home one night to my Mom's place high on poppy seeds I took in my car and I was having huge breathing problems. I felt like I was going to overdose, but I took it steady. I went to watch TV - but the dvd player was gone because my step dad had hidden it. I thought 'I'm going to jump on the computer' and I did so, but my step dad turned off the internet. I started having a panic attack and after a huge altercation I was quickly driven back to my Brother's place in a taxi.

I stayed at my Brother's place for a while, claiming to go out to University when I was really out stealing and brewing tea. This went on for a few days when my Brother came home to me nodding off. He didn't really notice, but he told me that I couldn't stay at his place any more because it was too packed. Although he was perfectly right in saying so, as the house had 5 residents excluding me, I nodded off before waking up in a state of panic. To cut it short, I tried to kill myself after getting into a fight with my brother but I got high instead and drove back my Brother's place. As it turns out, 5 police knocked on the door and I was quickly sent to the psych ward. They kept me over night because I was nodding off and couldn't concentrate.

I wasn't sure what to do when I woke up, but I was directed by a friendly nurse to wait for my doctor which I did so. I met some lady who started going crazy after waiting 15 minutes, and I told her to shut the hell up because I had been sitting in the same waiting room for well over 2 hours and I was still content in my poppy-induced high. Anyway, the doctor eventually came and I told him some truth about my story, lying only in the effort of getting out of there. Fortunately, the doctor said I should stay in the Hospital and I started panicking. He asked 'are you going to go through drug withdrawals?', and I naturally responded yes, and he was quick to feed me valium which kept me content as I waited to be up into the psych ward.

The whole event of the psych ward was traumatizing, but the valium helped make it a huge blur. My Mom visited and my Dad and family soon learned the severity of my addiction when I was vomiting and in general sick from withdrawals which I had never met to such an extent before. I met some characters who had their brains fried and had it worse than me, and they helped me get through my 8 day withdrawal hell by calling nurses and in general giving me comfort. After 8 days I was discharged from the ward and put on anti-depressants. I was on cloud-nine knowing that I was finally through the physical withdrawals.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of it. After 4 weeks of sobriety and tremors caused by the new anti-depressants I was on, I decided to go back to using poppy seeds. Naturally it started as that typical 'one more time' dose of codeine, but it quickly escalated after a few weeks and I was back on track for project addiction once again - riding the merry-go-round to nowhere. I knew that I was getting physical withdrawals again and that I couldn't keep it up, so I finally tried getting myself on a maintenance program.

After a few weeks I did get an appointment with my local hospital's drug and alcohol services, and they agreed that I should be on suboxone (buprenorphine/naltrexone). The only issue was the fact that I had to wait another 2 weeks to do this. My Dad, the man who I started living with after being discharged from the ward, agreed to fund my addiction for that time. Since my tolerance was only at 1-1.5kg a day and the fact that I was still using 'budgeting' techniques described above it was relatively cheap. When the two weeks past I was put on suboxone and kept under watch for a week while the helpful staff were able to stabilise an appropriate dose for me - that dose being 16mg suboxone a day.

It has now been nearly two weeks since I was put on the program and I have only used recreationally once, which, for my standards, is astounding. I still have a long road to go before I'm finally free from these invasive thoughts and depressive mentality, but the fact that I am now on maintenance makes me no longer feel like a constant screw-loose cripple. I may still have bad days, but there's a beauty in knowing that I won't wake up with aches and pains and have to resort to stealing. I have currently lost my job, my University course and my friends, as well as the respect of my family, and it has only been a few years of using opiates. I cannot comprehend what torture a man with a long-term heroin addiction must endure.

My addictive nature, depression and social anxiety made my opiate use like putting kerosene on fire. Perhaps the drug is not as bad for others as it has been for me. Perhaps these circumstances are the bittersweet difference between addiction and non-addiction.

[Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]

Exp Year: 2012	ExpID: 100436
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 16
Published: Aug 15, 2022	Views: 3,162
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Naloxone (339), Codeine (14), Poppies - Opium (43) : Various (28), Loss of Magic (34), Post Trip Problems (8), Families (41), Glowing Experiences (4), Addiction & Habituation (10), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Health Problems (27), Retrospective / Summary (11), General (1)