Amazes me how some of y'all are downplaying heroin...it ain't crack/meth but its right under it....I ain't judging cause I honestly don't give a **** what you do with your life...just leave innocent people alone (to the broke addicts)
I do not want anyone to mistake the meaning of my last post. Do not try heroin in any form and do not abuse opiate painkillers. Even if the world were a sane and rational place where the risk of criminal sanctions and the risks associated with dirty needles and no one ever was faced with homeless and families accepted opiate use in the same way that they usually accept and even celebrate alcohol and tobacco and caffeine consumption; if if all of those things were a reality, opiate addiction would still not a very good condition for a person to experience.
In the early stages of opiate use, the euphoria is powerful, transcendent, better than sex (according to a good deal of users of opiates) and fairly cheap because a person needs very little of the drug. Unfortunately, tolerances rise very quickly. If someone is using intensely, within a month, that person could be facing the prospect of nightmarish withdrawal symptoms. Because of those potential symptoms, people will stay using the drug and eventually, after six months to a year, people need to massive amounts of the drug to simply stave off withdrawals and the euphoria is very mild at best.
Drug addiction also makes pleasure monotonous, a drug addict can only experience one sort of pleasure, the high from their drug of addiction. Our brains, when they are functioning properly should be rewarding use with all sorts of diverse pleasures, some very subtle and some very great but a normal brain creates a variety of big and small rewards. The exhilaration of carnal pleasure, seeing one's favorite college or professional team win a championship, receiving a degree or a major professional award and reunion with a loved one after a prolonged absence. Those pleasure can still exist when a person is addicted but they are greatly muted.
The more subtle pleasures are a warm bed on a cold night or a drink of cold water after a summer 10k or a perfect cheese and fruit combination after a meal, a very deep and prolonged laugh or the satisfaction of being the cool uncle who can see his nephews beaming with happiness when he lets them play whatever violent video game they want as late as they want while baby sitting them. Relationships, familiarity, conviviality, taking joy in a great meal or captivating entertainment or achievements both great and small are all thing that make us human and addiction robs the addict of all or most of those feelings.
My main objection is the fact that the news media and popular culture distort and embellish to the point that many drug users, try drugs a few times and see that the sky did not fall down and it causes those people to assume that the danger and dysphoria of addiction is entirely fabricated or he or she believes that he or she possesses so extraordinary ability to to no become addicted.