DOSE:

3 - 4 g

oral

Kratom

BODY WEIGHT:

230 lb

I smoked pot in high school. I thought it was fun to totally lose track of a conversation. But I didn't enjoy the paranoia aspects of pot: thinking people didn't really like me, etc. So I smoked only occasionally in college. By grad school I like holding on to thoughts and dreaded losing track of things. So I smoked only a few times per year, until, now, only once a decade or so.

In college I had my wisdom teeth taken out and was given 10 opioid pain killers pills of some kind. Besides the pain relief, I liked the effect. So, starting then, I occasionally took opioids for fun or relief when available. I hoarded them from say, a prescription after a hernia operation or when friends had pain-killing leftovers. When they died, my parents medicine cabinet gave me a supply that lasted a decade or so. Now, mostly due to lack of opioid availability, I have switched almost entirely from narcotics to Kratom.

My typical opioid dose was about 2.5 mg of oxycontin or 5 mg of morphine. That's half or quarter of a typical prescribed pill. I don't know the difference in the effect of one of these opioids from another. And even tramadol seems to have the same effect. And the magnitude of the effect is about that of 2 beers. 3-4 grams of Kratom (3-4 extra large capsules) is about the same magnitude effect. Kratom is identical to opioids, in effects on me, except that it is shorter lasting. I have mostly lost the Kratom glow after 2 hours, and the opioids last more like 4, I think.

For decades now, I have took those opioids about 1 to 10 times a month. And that is now switched, mostly, to Kratom [Maeng Da]. As far as I can tell the effects of opioids and Kratom on me are the same, only that the Kratom is shorter lasting and doesn't give me constipation.

Why Kratom and not beer? Alcohol and opioids are both mood enhancers for me. Alcohol makes me tired, opioids and Kratom do not. Alcohol makes it harder to focus, opioids and Kratom make it easier. Alcohol reduces my physical coordination, Kratom seems to have no effect. Alcohol visibly changes my personality (more talkative, less attentive, more belligerent), Kratom is not visible to the outside, besides my mood being good. Alcohol might reduce the anxiety of procrastination, but it doesn't help me get things done. I can get things done with Kratom.

In recent years I take Kratom 1-3 times a week and mostly for particular events. I take it before I give a lecture, so that I will have a more positive attitude towards my audience when they ask questions that might otherwise annoy me. I take it when I have to get something done some night, after days or weeks of procrastination. I take it before a social situation where others will be drinking and I don't want to drink and get tired. I take it when I am in, or feel coming on, a bad mood. My sense is that squelching those bad moods occasionally with Kratom has the net effect of keeping me away from depression generally. The occasional use of Kratom seems to work better as an anti-depressant than any of the 5 or so anti-depressants I have tried. I have not tried Kratom for pain, so can't comment on that.

If I was not afraid of habituation, I would take Kratom every day. Maybe twice a day. I think I am a better person in all ways when I take it. I am not afraid of addiction because if you could give me that choice, I would commit to living with the effects of Kratom on my life from this second until the end. I don't feel any downside. I would be a happier and more successful person if I had Kratom effects in my blood for all of the past 50 years. So it seems to me. And I write this days away from my most recent Kratom experience. If there was a switch called "Live with the Kratom effect" I would switch it.

Exp Year: 2020	ExpID: 114727
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 67
Published: Sep 22, 2020	Views: 681
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Kratom (203) : Various (28), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Performance Enhancement (50), Retrospective / Summary (11)