7.5 Hydrocodone Photo by Candice Martinez
Sharp turns ahead are difficult to see and come up unexpectedly fast. Sometimes, a person does not know what he or she is getting into.
Opiate addiction is prominent in South Jersey, as several users blindly fall into the
lifestyle. The developing cycle displays a pattern between prescription drugs and heroin.
“I went to dope because it’s cheaper,” said Mark Craig, a 30-year-old guitarist from
Deptford, NJ. “When I stopped working, the pills became too expensive.”
Craig’s opiate addiction began at age 15, with 5mg Percocet. Eventually, he would take other opiates such as Darvocet, Vicodin, morphine, and methadone. Around his early twenties, he began to use Oxycontin, by this time he was averaging 35 mg of Percocet per day.
The day of reckoning happens to every user for this drug, in which they wake up feeling like they have the flu. The body assimilates to the opioid and a physical withdrawal occurs. This “sickness” is experienced differently by everyone. Craig’s day came using his choice drug, Roxicet (30 mg Percocet). A few months ago, he graduated to heroin, while mixing it with Percocet.
“They are pretty much the same thing, but the dope was a little stronger for me,” he
said. “The sickness is similar too, but again, dope is a little more extreme.”
According to Craig, opiate withdrawal from Roxicet took two or three days to set in. The withdraw from heroin took about four days to set in.
“I felt like the withdrawal was worse from the pills,” said Danielle R., a 25-year-old hair stylist from Deptford, NJ, who prefers to keep her last name private.
“I started using opiates when I was 15. The doctor gave me a Darvocet prescription for my back.”
That prescription took her on a painful course filled with tough lessons. She started Oxycontin around the age of 16. Her first taste of heroin came at age 18, with a tolerance for 50 mg of Oxycontin. She was switching between heroin and Oxycontin
for some time, eventually building a 120 mg tolerance for OCs.
“The first sickness was with heroin,” she said. “It’s cheaper. I wasn’t going to spend
$50 on a 40 or 80 mg oxy when I could get five bags of dope with that.”
According to Craig and Danielle R., 40 mg of Oxycontin is about equivalent to one bag of dope.
Mark Craig began his opiate addiction with the recreational use of Percocet. This cycle has become increasingly familiar in South Jersey. Photo credit: Mark Craig
“Sickness felt like I was crawling out of my skin,” Danielle R. said. “It was sweating, feeling so uncomfortable, hot and cold, and excruciating back pain. Pills would hold it off about four to eight hours before starting to get sick again.”
Currently, Danielle R. is working the Narcotics Anonymous program with meetings and a sponsor. Craig recently finished cold turkey withdrawal.
They both said that upon initial recreational use, they were unaware of the highly
addictive attributes shared between prescription opioids and heroin.
“If I could go back and change it, I wouldn’t have done any of it,” Craig said.
The x-factor seems to be price in making the leap from prescriptions to heroin. In any form, this drug is easy to need and difficult to go without. It leaves a bitter-sweet taste that stays for a lifetime.
The Lost Highway 
pitmanplace
October 4, 2011
I really like how informative and fact-based your posts are, along with the first-hand accounts from people who have been there. It gives the post a more personal feel. Have you thought about adding any video?
ACmusic23
October 5, 2011
It is nice to see a blog about something other than fashion, music, entertainment, etc. More importantly, it is nice to see a blog that is relative to people more than they know. Whether it be themselves, a friend, a family member, a blog like this is supportive to sharing the stories of other people on a subject that is usually forgotten about or not talked about out loud. I would like to see a post about one of the most harshest outcomes of being an opiate addict—and that is passing down the addiction to an unborn child. A lot of pregnant woman are too afraid to ask for help or don’t have enough support to receive help and therefore their children are suffering through opiate-withdraw upon delivery. It would be an interesting focus on the topic.
Candice Marie Martinez
October 5, 2011
@pitmanplace Glad you like it:) I have thought about a video. It’s going to be at an Oxford House, basically it’s a Narcotics Anonymous house. A group of addicts live in a dorm type setting and work the 12 step program from there. They are not shy individuals at all, so it should be interesting.
@ACmusic Being pregnant and withdrawing from opiates is complete hell. The emotions from the pregnancy combined with the emotional rollercoaster of coming off of any drug (caffeine included) will drive any woman insane. But, it must be done. There is a drug out there called subutex that is much safer than methadone; easier to come off from than methadone, as well. It’s basically the same thing as suboxone, but with less ingredients that get filtered through the liver and consequentially into the placenta.
Now-a-days, women are urine tested once a month throughout pregnancies and then once a week throughout the last month. If the mother comes up for any narcotics (including alcohol) and continues to come up dirty, the state will take the baby upon delivery.
If an expectant mother is addicted to opiates, she should immediately tell the doctor so the doctor can prescribe her to the subutex. I’ve never heard of a baby being taken from a mother who was taking the steps to help herself. Those are the two tough choices: 1) humbling oneself and asking for help so mother and child have a fighting chance
2) Risk having the baby taken away and going through withdraw.
Thank you for the topic idea too! I’ll definitely contemplate it.