Re THE "ROMANCING OPIATES" BOOK

[Zoop]

(from the blurb on the book titled "Romaning Opiates" on the Opiophile.org front/home page)

This guy sounds like he's trying to be as provocative as possible. I totally disagree with his thesis. I wonder if he even believes what he's writing. No such thing as opiate withdrawal? Well, he says it's grossly exaggerated - might as well say it's not real. Granted, most addicts will exaggerate how bad they feel when w/d'ing, but to say it's not real is really fucking stupid and misinformed. I'd like to see the guy go through it himself (not really - I'd only wish that on my worst enemy) and then say it's not real.

And as for the "criminality causes addiction" rather than the prevailing view that "addiction is a cause of criminality" (certainly, it's not the only cause of criminal activity, but being drug addicted does cause people to "act up," as it were) that's pure rubbish. I mean, sure, there's got to be a guy out there somewhere who wasn't going to be a drug addict, and because he got involved with shady characters, as a result of being a criminal, that's how he got exposed to drugs, then sure, I guess it happens sometimes.

I just don't know what the dude who wrote this book was thinking - what's he tryin' to accomplish?*

The author of this book is just a nut spouting his rubbish to the world and to anyone who will listen. I'm not listening.;)







*Please, spare me the conspiracy theories, folks - if you just thought "it's part of a hidden social movement with the intention of making drug addicts suffer" then I already know where you're comin from.

[HistoryofMadness]

I hate to comment because I haven't read the book yet (which reminds me - if anyone has a used copy they want to sell, PM me!), but I'm inclined to agree with zoop until someone proves me otherwise. But to do that, they'd have to also explain to me how they know me better than I do, because I've personally got the experience to prove most of this wrong. Most of us here do.

First of all, withdrawl is 10% physical and 90% mental, all at once and over time. It may not look as bad as it feels, and it may feel a lot worse than it is, but its the dark hole that you fall into that makes it hurt the most. That and the sudden realization that you've been walking around dead for a long time.

And as for criminality, well, that's just untrue on every level. Addicts often resort to crime (but not all of them do) to pay for dope, which is very expensive because of the black market, which exists because of prohibition. Any truth to the negative stigma of addicts is a direct result of drug policy.

As for junkies being born criminals, there are plenty of examples of criminals that aren't junkies, and junkies that aren't criminals. The only crime that common to all addicts is buying / possessing.

[devilsdrug]

i just totally dismissed this guy as a crack baby

[vaxn8]

First of all, withdrawl is 10% physical and 90% mental

I don't know HoM? I would agree with you when fully stocked up and planning a taper, or after realizing I have 1 weeks worth and 2 weeks I need to make it. At that point, I am thinking I can do it! I can spread out this week's worth over two. Then, when I of course use more than I planned, I think oh, I can decrease and just do a couple of days without, I won't be that bad.

When I get to the point where I don't have any, the physical just really takes over and seems much more like 90-10% the other way. Even a couple days before I run out, I just get so depressed, I am thinking of ways to just end it (the rest of my life, I am not thinking this way at all). So, that argument does make the mental part higher. I know I'm kind of arguing with myself! :p

For me, what contributes so much to the mental part is remembering my previous experiences, which I did live through, but they really stick in my mind, ya know!

Z- I do agree with you as far as I don't think it is grossly exaggerated. Obviously it is to some extent, but it is a pretty horrible thing to go through. Also Z, I keep meaning to tell ya, I did grad school in RIC, VA (and I keep seeing you mention it, don't run into many people from there or ex-residents very often).

[axe]

I also haven't read the book so obviously I can't offer a critique of it, but consider this:

When I'm out of product and it's a day later and I'm feeling really shitty, and let's say I'm suddenly made aware that my shit's coming but it'll be an hour before it's there. I start feeling quite a bit better just knowing it is on its way. I'd say withdrawal effects are at least 50% mental.

axe

[SirDonkeyPunch]

I was thinking about this. I say we sneak him a shot of 2-3 bags of heroin a day for about 2 months, then we abuptly stop. Then we can see what he thinks of opiate withdrawal.

[bi11i]

I'm glad someone picked up on the review - I'm sure it will be read by the author at some point in time.

Personally, I think his basis is entirely without merit. Much of (if not most of) his clinical experience is in working with addicts who are in prison. It's an easy score to settle that prison and addiction in prison are two insanely different animals than addiction outside of prison. While I'm sure it does happen, I can't imagine that an imprisoned junky would be able to cop and build the same H habit that a street junky can - the resources to do so just aren't available making his observations obsolete. Not to mention that in prison any sign of weakness can mean your life. I just don't beleive that someone can provide themselves with a decent control group by studying this crowd. His own reference shows thisIn the prison in which I worked, the addicts did not know that I observed them before they came into my room. Among themselves, they were chatting, laughing and joking. When they came into my room, they claimed to be in the deepest agony. This is an observation that has been made many times, and indeed there is experimental evidence showing that addicts change their behaviour and their story depending upon their interlocutors, and whether their interlocutors are in a position to prescribe or do anything else for them.

I recall one kick that literally put me out for a week. Minimizing my own symptoms to nothing more than having the flu is completely ludicrous, at least to me. I've had the flu several times and while the symptoms are similar, to compare the intensity (especially given the inability for relief in withdrawal) just doesn't seem realistic, nor would it seem that way to my family, who took watch over me for easily several days.

It appears the author has a definite agenda, and I just don't think that building such an agenda based on a few archaic pieces of addiction-literature and a career in working with imprisoned criminal addicts leaves much room for an unbiased study.

Another statement made by the guy:
Dalrymple: Our culture pays a lot of attention to withdrawal from opiates because there is such a long literary tradition, starting with De Quincey (Confessions of an English Opium Eater) and the poet Coleridge, both of whom were first class self-dramatisers. De Quincey in particular implied that there was a connection between drug-taking and creativity, that drugs opened realms to the mind that others could not perceive, but that the corresponding agonies of withdrawal were of stupendous dimension.

There is a thirst for self-aggrandisement and self-dramatisation: it makes small and rather petty lives seem vast and possessed of a tragic grandeur. I believe this to be romantic clap-trap. De Quincey was swallowed whole by Dickens, Poe, Baudelaire etc, and his influence (even though he may not be much read any more) stretches down to the present day.sounds a little too republican to me. an lsd experience or three mighten widen his sites a little, although unlikely he'd pull through with much.

This quote just blows me away - is this guy related to ann coulter?Curiously, in the prison in which I work, a lot of attention was paid to withdrawing drug addicts, but none at all to withdrawing alcoholics, who were genuinely in danger from Delirium Tremens. But then they were just a lot of old drunks, whereas the addicts were the linear descendents of De Quincey. Sounds like an author with a chip on his shoulder in regard to his own profession....

[HistoryofMadness]

Well, I think it goes without saying most people here are going to disagree. But unfortunately there's a need for this sort of literature is society, so the people that believe in punishment before treatment, and those that belittle or make fun or light of the addict's plight, will feel better about themselves.

I say we start an entire subforum dedicated to countering every argument made by him... its this sort of literature that sets us back 10 years in our efforts, and for that reason we should feel strongly enough. All you negativist wimps can just watch and follow... :cool:

bi11i, start scanning the pages (you didn't think we were actually going to buy it, did you?) for educational purposes of course... we're going to challenge it on its intellectual merits, therefore it won't be copyright infringement... (not you're starting to get it!)...

[deepthoughts]

I think that WE'RE feeding his addiction.........TO MONEY. Everybody is writing books nowadays to make their money, and if you buy this book, he just got his fix.:mad: All of us on this fourm know what addiction is like, cause we suffer it (and will for the rest of our natural born lives) I gotta say, some of the smartest people ive heard, are on this fourm, and i dont need a book to tell me BS when i here it ALL the time around me. So no, i WONT be reading this book, because this is a choice i can make. And we all know that being able to make a choice is the first step to recovery (hehe, the kick is the FIRST step:) ) Take care.......

[shaunclo]

O.k., I have read every post in here and the part about w/d being 10% physical and 90% mental I just dont believe. ONLY because the first time I was using an opiate every day for 2 months I had no idea it was H. I thought it was opium, and I decided to quit cause my brother and I thought that it was just taking too much of our money.

Well the next day came and I was feeling flu like sypmtoms and thought nothing of it expect that maybe I was getting sick. Well day 2 came and I remember at 9:45 in the morning I was at my desk at work staring at the keyboard and all of a sudden I just started crying like a little bitch!!!! You would have thought that my mother just got raped and murdered, I couldnt explain it, it took me a couple hours to put 2 and 2 together. I finally ended up calling a drug line and asking them what was wrong with me, I was explaining to him what it was I had been doing, and he said, "thats not opium, that sounds like black-tar heroin."

So every time someone brings up that opiate w/d mostly in your head, I have to kindly disagree. I still remember that feeling of driving home (and I have experienced depression before, but not like this) and that thoughts of just driving my car off the side of the road and smacking into a telephone poll would be better than this, was so confusing to me, I just didnt get it. I thought I was literally going insane-in-the-membrane.

Now there was a time when I went on a 4 day strecth before that and I thought I had the flu, but no mental agaony and it just felt like the flu. So w/d's can definitely vary. But one thing I know for sure is they get worse and worse. Thats where the mental part starts to play, you make them worse for yourself cause you cant believe that you have actually done this to yourself AGAIN!!!

So mental yes, but I still remember that 1st w/d and having no idea what was happening to me.

[Zoop]

Shaun and wutchacalm' are right.

This dude is getting his money fix allright. He can write this book and people who are all like "it's a freakin' moral failing, drug addiction" will go "see, I read it in a book, so it must be true" and they'll buy his book. And then there's people like us thinkin' what a fuckin' retard and some of us will buy his book, because we want to read how fucked up this dude is.

It's win-win sitchiashun for Mr. Darymple.

I betcha he and that "million littel pieces" dude friends.

[skeletontea]

I hate to comment because I haven't read the book yet (which reminds me - if anyone has a used copy they want to sell, PM me!)

If you have a local library, why not just read it on the weekend for free? (Which is what I may do if I have the time).

While I do feel that the views of withdrawal and addiction are grossly exaggerated amongst the uninitiated, it seems to me that this author touts a polarized embellishment, no less askew than the claims of those he challenges.

[HistoryofMadness]

If you have a local library, why not just read it on the weekend for free? (Which is what I may do if I have the time).



what is this 'library' that you speak of? is it some sort of free book place?

j/k but seriously its been so long I almost forgot about the library... the one near me sucks ass and the good one is way downtown.

[fiiendin]

He says that "addiction is not a disease, but merely a reaction to personal and social difficulties accompanied by poor choice." I think that is true if you know about all the risks of frequent opiate use and the consequences and how it can affect your life in the negative sense beforehand. Thereafter, if you continue to use, after some initial experimentations out of curiousity, and plunge yourself into a hopeless addiction with the full knowledge of what you are doing and committing yourself to, then that can be considered poor choice. However, just starting opiate use is nothing if you do it and can't stop because it was the best feeling you ever felt in your life, and for the first time you find peace in your life and comes to term with yourself and just want that feeling to last. well i actually had a brilliant point but lost myself in the process
oh yeah...I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are some of us who get addicted because of personal difficulties but some people out there just take it b/c it feels good. And then before they know it, they are addicted and don't want to stop because nothing else brings them this peace that they had never known before.

[devilsdrug]

hes a fukkin dumb ass shit even i know that fuk how absurd his ol premise is

[_rlpsd.]

i haven`t read this book. i intend to, especially to see what his stance is on certain aspects. from what i`ve read, he seems a little extreme with his views, especially for one with no first hand experience. how can his views be fair and balanced?

this book sounds like it`s perfect for those (who have no first hand experience with opies/addiction/quitting that addiction) who are more than willing to cite every damn thing out of this book for argument sake.

IDEA:
- everyone on this forum throw down on a FAAAAAAAAAAT sack of opies
- kidnap author
- feed opies for 6 months to a year
- quit feeding
- let him make revisions to this book (as needed)

ps: im stoned.

[Opiyum]

waste of good opiates in my opinion... but it would be worth it so the look on the bastards face when the sickness starts to set in.