This is great news in general. Maybe if we can get this working we can de-criminalize otherwise legal prescription drugs and stop turning guys who blew out their knee doing roofing into unemployable felons. Like alcohol the biggest problem is still getting people to admit they have a problem, but if this works out as a solution at least once that point is reached maybe it wont be just as big an uphill battle to come off the stuff.

Also, in before 'hurrhurr bootstraps hurr willpower'

LowbrowDeluxe: This is great news in general. Maybe if we can get this working we can de-criminalize otherwise legal prescription drugs and stop turning guys who blew out their knee doing roofing into unemployable felons. Like alcohol the biggest problem is still getting people to admit they have a problem, but if this works out as a solution at least once that point is reached maybe it wont be just as big an uphill battle to come off the stuff.

Also, in before 'hurrhurr bootstraps hurr willpower'

Wait, what?

I think this would be a great way to help people kick, but the problem is that the reason that most people get into (or back into) this kind of behavior is because they like the way it makes them feel. With booze, most people know when enough is enough, and we've done a pretty good job of making DUI really unacceptable. Yeah people get disagreeable and some even get violent, but again- other people have developed a way to recognize this and socially handle it.

Unfortunately, most people can't recognize states of 'high' in others enough to encourage druggies to get a taxi home or to take away their car keys. This, combined with the exponentially poor judgement of such persons, causes a real problem for society. Add to that the willingness to do something - anything - to feel that good again, and you have a set of real problems. Selling heroin, coke, pot or meth at bubble-gum-stick prices won't fix these, and the 'taxes' generated won't fill any coffers.

/ready to be hit with a full on booze/pot derpfest.

Cue the hyper conservative wackjobs disapproving of this because they believe the withdrawal symptoms are a punishment for taking TEH EVILE drugs.

rubi_con_man: Wait, what?

I think this would be a great way to help people kick, but the problem is that the reason that most people get into (or back into) this kind of behavior is because they like the way it makes them feel. With booze, most people know when enough is enough, and we've done a pretty good job of making DUI really unacceptable. Yeah people get disagreeable and some even get violent, but again- other people have developed a way to recognize this and socially handle it.

Though I know simply saying prescription drugs wasn't enough of an indication, I was speaking specifically of prescription painkillers. I'm not talking about people who do it because, as you so quaintly put it, 'of how it makes them feel', unless you're inclined to include 'capable of walking upright and fulfilling daily functions' as a 'feeling'. I'm not quite sure what your discussion of DUI has to do with anything, to be honest. Whether people recognize the symptoms or not doesn't change the fact that the only person who can make the decision to quit is the person doing it. My point was that like any other addiction, the first and most important stumbling block is the person being able to admit it's a problem. This treatment, if it works and/or ever becomes available, can't help with that. But it could help a lot of people who are only still taking their prescription, and possibly a bit extra bought elsewhere, in order to feel normal and avoid withdrawal compounded by whatever pain started them on it. I suppose I should have skipped discussing the legality of legal prescription painkillers since it starts a certain type of person salivating at the thought of being tough on crime, but I just don't feel that criminal sentencing does anything to help most people with a prescription drug problem, and unless more people are starting such a habit illegally than legally it also fails as a deterrent.

rubi_con_man: LowbrowDeluxe: This is great news in general. Maybe if we can get this working we can de-criminalize otherwise legal prescription drugs and stop turning guys who blew out their knee doing roofing into unemployable felons. Like alcohol the biggest problem is still getting people to admit they have a problem, but if this works out as a solution at least once that point is reached maybe it wont be just as big an uphill battle to come off the stuff.

Also, in before 'hurrhurr bootstraps hurr willpower'

Wait, what?

I think this would be a great way to help people kick, but the problem is that the reason that most people get into (or back into) this kind of behavior is because they like the way it makes them feel. With booze, most people know when enough is enough, and we've done a pretty good job of making DUI really unacceptable. Yeah people get disagreeable and some even get violent, but again- other people have developed a way to recognize this and socially handle it.

Unfortunately, most people can't recognize states of 'high' in others enough to encourage druggies to get a taxi home or to take away their car keys. This, combined with the exponentially poor judgement of such persons, causes a real problem for society. Add to that the willingness to do something - anything - to feel that good again, and you have a set of real problems. Selling heroin, coke, pot or meth at bubble-gum-stick prices won't fix these, and the 'taxes' generated won't fill any coffers.

/ready to be hit with a full on booze/pot derpfest.

To be fair, you started it with that idiotic, generalized, no-supporting-facts-included statement. Responsible drug users, like responsible drinkers, know when they or someone else has had too much to drive. Just because PSAs and DARE commercials say otherwise does not make it true.

Let me make this very clear -

If you have not experienced a full blown opiate withdrawal, you simply have no idea of the suffering involved. To put it lightly, it is like a week long high fever flu, mixed with a constant panic attack, sleep deprivation, shakes, inability to eat, and general all around bodily pain.


This is a good thing. The idea of having to go through this keeps a great many people from ever stopping.

mrpants5587: If you have not experienced a full blown opiate withdrawal, you simply have no idea of the suffering involved. To put it lightly, it is like a week long high fever flu, mixed with a constant panic attack, sleep deprivation, shakes, inability to eat, and general all around bodily pain.

I have experienced partially-blown penis withdrawal (not by choice), which resulted in severe groinal pain, anxiety, pleasure deprivation, and general irritability.

/DNRTFA

As far as their similarity, I can't really speak to that.

I'm sure that with enough time (many years) you could build up enough of a drinking habit that you would have withdrawals AS UNPLEASANT. The big difference here is that I would bet a hefty wager that it would take years of heavy drinking in order to put yourself in as much withdrawal agony as is experienced when kicking a few months of solid opiate use.

I'm an incorrigible Percocet addict, so I'm really getting a kick out of these replies.

Joking aside, I do like to dabble with painkillers recreationally now and then. It's been my experience that the trouble isn't really withdrawal in the traditional sense. It's the realization the morning after you come off that all those little aches and pains we've learned to ignore - the sore lower back, the creaky shoulder, the stiff neck - are still there, and will be there every damn day till we die. You don't necessarily feel worse than you did before, you're just more aware of it. A couple days away from the normal feeling of being even slightly run-down is all it takes. You come off the pills and you think, shiat, is this how I actually feel every day? And it dawns on you that, yeah, that's pretty much true.

That can be pretty depressing.