I know a guy from high school who got hooked on painkillers, and moved onto shooting up heroin.
His life was falling apart, I tried to offer him help, but you know how addicts are....
One day he asked me to research Kratom for him. I came to him with my findings, and talked him into trying to kick the smack by using kratom to help make the wall-climbing less severe.
He ordered some, supposedly super strong shit, I think it came from India or Pakistan- so I would question the quality. So the guy called out of work for a week, and locked himself in his home for 10 days, drinking tea made from the kratom. I saw him in early withdrawals (I think it's called "precipitated withdrawal"?), and holy shit did that change my view on addicts. I always looked down on addicts, thinking "You should have the discipline to just stop." This is a naive outlook.
The agony this man was in for the first two days was fucking terrifying. The physical withdrawal symptoms were so severe, we almost took him to the hospital because he was really dehydrated and we saw something that looked like seizure activity. He refused and agreed to drink more water.
The tea seemed to ease a lot of his symptoms, specifically the stomach issues that come in withdrawals. At the end of those 10 days, we went and bought a home drug test kit. My friend did it- he was clean, all of the poison was out of his system. We had a "before and after" photo, and it's amazing- initially he was like a wilting flower. After those ten days.. it was like he was resurrected. He relapsed once since then, but has remained clean and in recovery otherwise. He didn't continue to use kratom after kicking.
Man, I wish all the stories were like that.
Fortunately, when I got low on pills, I never even thought about using heroin instead, but many do exactly that.
I used to look down on addicts as well, people have no idea (and they can get self righteous about it...but pride goes before a fall).
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