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My friend is on dirt

#21
I have a lot of experience with this crap. Both of my older brothers got heavy into drugs. One got into heroin for a bit. What go him off of H was when he wound up in the hospital with Hepatitis. He went to rehab. Got out and went right back to drugs, pot, coke, crack, crystal, what ever. He went rehab a total of about 3 or 4 times in and out of jail a few time over years. Then he went to real prison for short stint. We thought that would scare him straight. Nope. He went back drug running, dealing and what have you. Then he got pinched again. Second felony offense, mind you this is in Texas, so he went to Huntsville Prison for 18 months. He doesn't talk about what happened in there much. That stint did it. Plus I'm sure the "3 strikes you're out" law in Texas motivated him too. He been clean for almost 10 years now. He's married with 3 kids, got his GED and is now an electrician. I honestly never thought he'd live to see 40. He'll be 42 in May. Point is, we tried everything as a family. With him and my other brother, both have said they couldn't/didn't get clean until they wanted to. It took rock bottom for them both but some people don't bounce off that rock when they hit it so you have to keep at them and encourage them to get clean. Most importantly make them realize they have self worth and to do it for them selves and no one else. So much of addiction is escapism stemming from low self esteem, depression, anger and anxiety. If those issue are not dealt with success is impossible.
 
#23
I guess I should have mentioned I have had my bouts with alcoholism and food addiction too. Not as bad as smack but I can relate. it took me almost loosing my marriage and being in chronic pain to get my **** together.
 
#26
+1 to having something to live for. When you're killing yourself slowly like that you definitely don't feel like there's a future, so you keep at it. Trite, but the term vicious circle applies 100%.

You should start with harm reduction. That's not so overwhelming, and a good compromise between a full on intervention. Do you know if he's using clean needles? When I was shooting it (I only used needles for about 3-5 months, as my left arm turned green for a few days, and that scared the crap out of me), I made sure to use one needle per injection, then throw it away. I used rubbing alcohol to sterilize it and a bandaid after. I never messed with tar, only brown powder.

This may sound like enabling, but maybe offer to buy cotton balls and 99% rubbing alcohol, as well as money for clean needles. Reusing them can get you hep C quickly (I can't tell you how many of my friends got it, but I got a blood test after a year off H and was fine).

Right now he doesn't want to stop, but make sure he does it in the safest way possible. The next step is a big one: getting him to slow down and eventually stop. Do you know how big his habit is? Has he tried to stop but couldn't deal with the detox? That can keep people using forever. I've never detoxed (always shot 3-4 days and then took 2-3 days off), but I've let friends crash in my place to detox, because they wanted to stop, and that honestly helped them.

There's rapid detox (look it up online), or he can taper down, and then use valium when he quits entirely. You don't always need to do this at a hospital or other medical facility. Addicts fear hospitals and other authority figure places. Home detox is completely manageable when you taper down. It's still no fun (I've seen it a bunch), but it's better than full on cold turkey. Again: cold turkey can make people go right back to it, because they know one shot can make them "better" again. Those are just some ideas I've seen work.

Start with harm reduction. See how much you can be present, even if he's shooting up in front of you. Make him comfortable with that. It's sooooo hard to see first hand, but you may help him not OD, and help him come down slowly on Valium. Some doctors will prescribe it outside of a medical facility. Like I said, he's probably afraid of authority figures. Harm reduction first, and then transition to helping him quit. On the inside he wants to. You just have to dig deeper into his mentality.
 
#27
I am in a different generation so the street name escapes me .. but I gather that dirt is heroin?

I lost several friends in my coming of age years courtesy of Frank Lucas & crew.. back in the 70s... Some of them ODed .. some of them died the slow death.. some of them overcame ... The ones who overcame .. did so because they wanted to ... and the ones that didn't did so .. because they could not see the way out.
 
#28
I'd like to believe he's being as smart as one can about it. He was an EMT for around 3 years, so he is well aware of the risks associated with using dirty needles. I can't say I know anymore about the situation other than what I posted in the OP. He's back in Memphis and I'm in Knox, so I don't get to see him too often. Heck, even when I'm in Memphis I don't see him too much anymore. Apparently he's started to hang around his old friends a lot more (who are also heavy drug users).
 
#29
Try to reach out and hang with him as much as possible so he doesn't hang with his user buddies, and feels more a part of the family. Anything to keep him out of the user crowd will help. Running in those circles you are in houses or appartments with a bunch of people shooting up a bunch. It makes you shoot it more than if you were alone. It also means sometimes you forget what needle is yours, and you're out of it and don't care, so you might grab the wrong one, and that one could be from someone who doesn't know they have hep c or something worse. Pressure him to be with you as much as possible, even if you know he's high.
 
#30
I don't know that there is much you can do, jmatt.

I've seen people mandated to rehab by a court order so they HAD to go and HAD to complete it. When they came out, they'd go right back to the street and hit the dope again. The reason is that you can't help someone unless and until they are really, seriously ready to quit.

Sadly, I'm just not sure there is much you can do except to let him know if/when you see him that you can tell he's hooked and he's looking worse than before...and encourage him to consider getting clean.

Otherwise, I'd be careful about hanging out with him or spending too much time with him. In addition to the usual problems of him begging money from you and stealing your stuff to sell for dope money, if/when the police bust him for possession...you don't want to be around or you might go down for it too.
 
#31
I respectfully disagree. I think you need ro be around him instead of him being in a drug house, running around with other addicts. Don't give him money. Cook him food if he needs it, but nothing other than safety stuff I mentioned (sterilzing equipment).

I went to a court mandated thing. Many just want money, and won't kick you out if yo use; they send you to detox for a couple of days. In court rehab, many don't want to be there. You just learn how to cheat drug tests and get more hooks for drugs. Many rehabs are just money farms. Some aren't. If he goes, investigate them thoroughly.

If you're with him and he's busted, I would think you could explain to the police that you were there to help. You don't have track marks and look high and sucked up from malnutrition. It's easy to tell you're clean. Many cops understand that.

The people I know who went to jail for over a year were changed for the worse and 100% went back to drugs, because they had an even more depressed look at the world. If he's suicidal, call and get him 5150 before you send him to jail. That's a less drastic first step.
 
#32
TOOL460002 said:
I respectfully disagree. I think you need ro be around him instead of him being in a drug house, running around with other addicts. Don't give him money. Cook him food if he needs it, but nothing other than safety stuff I mentioned (sterilzing equipment).

I went to a court mandated thing. Many just want money, and won't kick you out if yo use; they send you to detox for a couple of days. In court rehab, many don't want to be there. You just learn how to cheat drug tests and get more hooks for drugs. Many rehabs are just money farms. Some aren't. If he goes, investigate them thoroughly.

If you're with him and he's busted, I would think you could explain to the police that you were there to help. You don't have track marks and look high and sucked up from malnutrition. It's easy to tell you're clean. Many cops understand that.

The people I know who went to jail for over a year were changed for the worse and 100% went back to drugs, because they had an even more depressed look at the world. If he's suicidal, call and get him 5150 before you send him to jail. That's a less drastic first step.
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You can't expect some one else to give up their lives to help a junkie beat their habit, especially if that junkie isn't family.
 
#33
sloasdaylight said:
You can't expect some one else to give up their lives to help a junkie beat their habit, especially if that junkie isn't family.
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You're completely correct. I guess I just posted all I could think of. If he did all that the guy would be a nervous wreck, and his friend still might just keep on using. I should say those are all options. Reading my posts again, I do see how it looks like I'm telling him to put his life on hold and babysit this guy. Sorry. I should've toned it down a bit. Anyway, I hope whatever you decide to do helps, even just a bit. Anything positive is a gold star and life points for you. Best of luck in dark times.
 
#34
Life apparently just through my friend another curve ball. Apparently his dad just had some tumors on his pancreas and liver checked out, and they came back cancerous and already at stage 3 :(
 
#37
I helped stage an intervention for a friend of mine last summer:

He went from being the normal "have a few beers on the weekend" kind of guy to smoking a pack a day and drinking every night. He got to the point that he was picking cigs out of ashtrays and stealing from his parents to buy more booze and smokes. At one point he tried pot and started occasionally smoking dirt weed and fake weed with a friend of his. He started selling plasma to fund it, and when that didn't cut it, he started stealing from his roommates. Over the summer, he took heroin and coke for the first time and ended up texting us, after a two week binge, that he didn't know where he was and about what had happened.

When we heard what happened, I called his mother and let her know what was going on and that she needed to be at the apartment when we picked him up. He flipped a table, bit a friend of mine, and I'm pretty sure he broke my nose. When we finally got him to calm down, he cried for a few hours about being overly-protected growing up, having some anger and anxiety issues, and feeling like he couldn't fit in with any group of people. He's been in rehab off and on since last June and hasn't responded to any of my texts, calls, letters or cards.

Best of luck to you man. Addiction can be very difficult to deal with, especially if you have to see what friends are doing to themselves. I still feel bad that we didn't act sooner with him, but honestly, the changes were so slow that it took his binge for us to fully see what kind of problems he had going on.
 

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