Addiction to Codeine?

[renton]

I know most people look on codeine as being a real weak and even pathetic opiate to get high on but do you think that it still can be as addictive as the more potent opies if it's taken for along time in high doses? I read about Howard Hugh's and how he would inject himself with tons of codeine daily for years either cause he liked it or thats all he could get but he was sure hooked to be doing that. If I understand right Codeine is turned into morphine in the body's liver which then goes to the brain, so it seems that it would be the same as low dose morphine. Just wondering what peoples experiences are who have used codeine allot, maybe someone with a Diesal in there name, ;);). LOL

[Nate]

When you inject codeine your lungs fill with fluid and it can be very serious. DO NOT inject codeine.

[rex24u]

I believe that a person can get addicted to codeine. Just as they can pod tea. (There was a thread on here a little while back asling people if they thought they could become addicted to PT).

But, yes I believe that since codeine is an opiate (albeit a weak one) that if taken in enough quantity for a long enough time, a person can or will become addicted to it.

[doctor diesel]

I've got a Diesel in my name and I was hooked on codeine. That is, until I found something better to be hooked on.
It's neither weak nor pathetic: if you're pretty opiate naive it can be an absolute riot of a drug - and believe me, it was. In fact it was much more fun for me then than H is now, would you believe!
Yeah sure I was hooked; almost every day I was down at the pharmacy loading up on pills, or in the kitchen doing endless cold water extractions. And if I went any more than 17 hours without a fix of the stuff, I'd go into nasty, nasty withdrawals.

Don't ever knock codeine, I say.


Doc

[Euphoricgirl]

Jesus, I gotta try that CWE. If Flip knew I wasn't doing that, she would kill me.:D

[nick]

Urr codeine is an opiate(a crap one,but still an opiate).Keep taking opiate and you get addicted.

[OxyContinuously]

The good Doctor and Nick have it right

Codeine is an opiate, maybe not our choice opiate, but an opiate nonetheless

OK guys, here comes the diatribe::p;)

When I first started using opiates, it was about eleven or so years ago. What had happened is that codeine ended up being the 1st one I tried, but here's a little background on me first to help put stuff in perspective.

FOr years, I have always been the type of guy that enjoys knives of all sorts, and guns. I currently own (no joke) close to a hundred knives, hunting, pocket, bowie, and yes folks, for those that know, I am one of the lucky ones to own an ORIGINAL BUCK M9 bayonet...not the Ontario knock-off, but an original Buck...sorry, bragging rights, i suppose. Anyway, like I said, I love knives and guns (in a good way, I'm not an idiot psycho or anyhting like that, I appreciate craftsmanship and design and all that stuff. For example there may be a knife that in the United States version made in NY or whatever looks a certain way, and the same knife, but made by an Israeli company is different, just a bit. Those little differences intrigue me, and I am an avid collector)

Anyway, now you have the background so let me move on to the codeine part. One night, about eleven years ago, I was sixteen or whatever (a typical little puke, rebellious, and all that...I knew better, yada yada, you get the idea) SO anyway, i was cleaning one of my knives and it slipped and cut my left hand bad...really bad. The muscle was showing and my plastic surgeon said I missed the ulnar nerve by less than a sixteenth of an inch...In case u don't know, the ulnar nerve plays a major part in moving the last three fingers of you hand, so u can imagine what a world of s*** i would have been in if I had severed it.

So the surgery worked fine, 38 stitches later (20 inside to put the muscle back together, and eighteen outside to pull the skin back together---yeah it was a mess) and today, my hand is fine, not so much as even a scar (a tiny line where the cut was, but nothing ugly or raised or anythign like that) but the point is that I was prescribed Tylenol 3's with two refills. That was it. From my first taste as a naive 16 yr old boy, I knew this was where it was at. I mean I had never experienced anything like that to date: not only was the pain gone, but I was seemingly "happy" for no reason. Yup, two of those jammies did me right (wouldn't we kill for a 60mg codeine tolerance these days? LOL)

I got the two refills, and when those ran out, you guessed it folks, I moved up on the food chain to a buddies medicine cabinet. He was selling something called "lithium" (which I knew better thank God) and "pain pills" that his mom took for arthritis. He would snag maybe twenty or so out of her 120 a month prescription.....later on I found out that this blue wonder was called Percocet...and here i am today.

But codeine was my first taste, and it tasted GOOD, LOL. Codeine and morphine are pure opiates: meaning that they come directly from the poppy plant "as is," and belive it or not, codeine can be as much an addiction, physically and psychologically as morphine itself, and some of the other opiates like hydrocodone, oxycodone, etc. etc. Just because it is comparitively weak when looking at other opiates, remember that it is a natural one, and not to say that synthetics and semi-synthetics aren't addictive, because of course they are, but the naturals like codeine and morphine have a special kind of dependence, it develops rapidly and forms a solid psychological addiction first....then comes the physical. And to answer the original question, codeine withdrawal can be as much hell as morphine or other opiates.

take care
peace out
Oxy

[rex24u]

Don't ever knock codeine, I say.


Doc


Definitely. I've heard it said many a times on this board.. Codeine sucks until you're in withdrawals.

[insaneike]

Definitely. I've heard it said many a times on this board.. Codeine sucks until you're in withdrawals.
Codeine, WDs?
Morphine doesn't even ease my WDs really...
Unless I got an entire 90-120 count msC 30mg script every 2-1/2 days it's next to worthless for me, and my toler isn't THAT high.

but everyone is different...

and last time i was in WDs i went through 45 Lortab 7.5 and guess what, didn't so much as get rid fo the panickyness and bodyaches! Thankfully that was just one night before my next PM appoint.
codeine... i'm sure i could hit the ceiling effect(400-450mg) and still be in very bad WD...

but for someone only taking say under 40-60mg of Oxy a day I'd say codeien would be very good for WDs. Wouldn't get high but wouldn't be sick I bet.

and codeine is an opiate, of course it can cause a dependancy, as can dearvocet.
even if you dont get high, you can get hooked. You can find yourself in WD and like wTF! id ont even get high from this shit get am hooked, yeap...

[roxi*stardust]

Urr codeine is an opiate(a crap one,but still an opiate).Keep taking opiate and you get addicted.
Yep, you can get addicted to any opi. I knew someone who started their addiction with fucking Darvocet. When Codeine comes without the tylenol or guafensin in it, it is a CII. We used to dispense the 90mg Codiene Hydrochloride tablets at the pharmacy I used to work at, they were CIIs.

[l4l5]

funny , I just watched an episode of ER and this dude, cut his arm open to the bone, he is in terible pain and the doc goes 2mg of morphine stat, then they go to a different patient and come back 5 minutes later, and his attending goes i need another 2megs of morphine the last 2 didnt touch him, then the other doc goes he has been labled a drug seeker, he is addicted to codeine, so they denied him pain meds for the arm. I was like WTF is wrong with america, it then later forced him to go into the drug room and dose up on anything he could find lol, he locked himself in the meds room lol

[MttJocy]

I have been addicted to codeine, my habit started with codeine, doc stopped giving me them found 50mg pure codeine pills from some site on the net was using them, did not take long before I started using them just for the fun factor and not much longer before I was on an 8 pills every 4 hours habit, missing one dose would give me psycological symptoms (5 hours), leading to rebound headaches (6 hours), if I missed the second dose from about 9 hours after a dose the early signs of true physical withdrawal began to occur (I don't think the rebound headaches are physical are they? They are in the mind right?).

After a while I was not even feeling right on the 400mg/4hr regime and had to move up to the next opiate I had connects for namely Heroin, quite a jump really lol.

[pharmboy]

Back in the 80s after one of my various operations they shot
me up in the leg with codeine. It was like hot water flowing
in my leg, then hips, arms and when it hit my head WOW!
I feelt all pink and fuzzy and warm . . . . .the next shot hardly
worked and they switched me over to Demeral. I think the nurse
watered it down after her cut.

The needle is not important. Whether you sniff it
smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result
is the same : addiction

{ William Burroughs }
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[doctor diesel]

I have been addicted to codeine, my habit started with codeine, doc stopped giving me them found 50mg pure codeine pills from some site on the net was using them, did not take long before I started using them just for the fun factor and not much longer before I was on an 8 pills every 4 hours habit, missing one dose would give me psycological symptoms (5 hours), leading to rebound headaches (6 hours), if I missed the second dose from about 9 hours after a dose the early signs of true physical withdrawal began to occur (I don't think the rebound headaches are physical are they? They are in the mind right?).

After a while I was not even feeling right on the 400mg/4hr regime and had to move up to the next opiate I had connects for namely Heroin, quite a jump really lol.


That's really strange Matt, because my codeine addiction went completely differently from yours.
For a start I never went beyond 160-180mg, simply because the ceiling set in at that point, and beyond that amount it didn't matter how much more I took, it did nothing.
More interestingly though, my withdrawals would only start after SEVENTEEN hours, and this was a reliable constant. Whereas with H the WDs start for me after about nine hours, codeine was always a longer-acting drug, and I could reliably go for 17 hours before anything started going wrong. Yet you're talking about five hours? Jeez!
And I never suffered from rebound headaches from anything, although I've certainly heard about them. Your 400mg every four hours is the highest intake of codeine that I've ever heard of - scary really. I hope the H now works for you!
By the way, even though I've been an H smoker for more than a year now, I can still take 120mg of codeine and feel quite good on it. You'd think that the receptors that codeine tickles would have been burnt to a frazzle months ago, but no... they're still there and they still work.
I've tried a bit of most things, but for me the best experience of all was that naive 90mg of codeine those 8 or 9 years ago - real dreamland!


Doc Diesel

[MttJocy]

That's really strange Matt, because my codeine addiction went completely differently from yours.
For a start I never went beyond 160-180mg, simply because the ceiling set in at that point, and beyond that amount it didn't matter how much more I took, it did nothing.
More interestingly though, my withdrawals would only start after SEVENTEEN hours, and this was a reliable constant. Whereas with H the WDs start for me after about nine hours, codeine was always a longer-acting drug, and I could reliably go for 17 hours before anything started going wrong. Yet you're talking about five hours? Jeez!
And I never suffered from rebound headaches from anything, although I've certainly heard about them. Your 400mg every four hours is the highest intake of codeine that I've ever heard of - scary really. I hope the H now works for you!
By the way, even though I've been an H smoker for more than a year now, I can still take 120mg of codeine and feel quite good on it. You'd think that the receptors that codeine tickles would have been burnt to a frazzle months ago, but no... they're still there and they still work.
I've tried a bit of most things, but for me the best experience of all was that naive 90mg of codeine those 8 or 9 years ago - real dreamland!


Doc Diesel

5h as I say was for cravings to set in, but yeah as I say ceiling never hit me till 400mg, having said that comparatively I also happened to find codeine for me seamed to have a greater effect than the supposed equivalent morphine dose, perhaps I am one of the lucky people who happen to have an ultra-rapid CYP2D6 pathway, that leads to increased morphine availability from codeine, makes it easier to get addicted though, don't know if that would also explain the more rapid onset of withdrawal with psychological cravings at 5h and physical symptoms beginning at 8h.

It must have something to do with the codeine metabolism not the morphine metabolism with me though as the duration of action for other morphine like drugs (morphine, diamorphine) seams to be quite normal, at least not significantly shorter than other people when I have adminstered the drugs at the same time as them unlike with codeine where I always seamed to get higher, with an earlier peak, quicker and for less time than they did from the same dose, I guess there is something wrong with me and it might all be related to that.

I guess it is probably logical, the metabolism of the morphine the active drug cannot begin until the morphine exists which is not until the codeine has been converted, if I am somehow converting the codeine to morphine faster it would reach a higher peak blood level in a shorter time, given metabolism is based on a half life and is proportional to concentration reaching a higher blood level in a shorter time would probably lower the duration of effect of the drug.

Unless of course the morphine went via the same pathway and was effected in the same way but then surely Heroin and Morphine itself would reduce in duration of effect and that does not seam to be the case in reality, although the first opiate I ever had in my life was morphine given IV in hospital after a car accident and they then gave me two injections as the first one was insufficient which the doctor said it should have been for someone with no tolerance, not only that but with no tolerance they pushed the second shot slowly as they thought that the entire dose could have been harmful, so perhaps my morphine metabolism is screwy as well, gah what the hell do I know, I am just a junkie who likes his opiates not a biologist lol.

Maybe someone here who is more of an expert would be able to explain some of this, and probably tell me I am outright wrong in my idea of why this seams to happen, I can only say for sure I am right about WHAT happens, why is mainly theory and conjecture on my part using my very limited knowledge of the extremely complex processes of metabolism.


This is all really interesting, when my friends said their were still high after I was not those times with codeine I always wondered if perhaps I was just not really appreciating some subtle after effect, but I have never met anyone who seamed to get PROPER WD's from codeine before, the fact that those seam to set in earlier for me when I was a codeine addict as well makes me start to rethink that, especially combined with the fact codeine's effect seamed stronger as well.