KCI The Anti_Meth Site

Meth vs. Heroin - which is worse?

mary mary1	Meth and Heroin; which is worse? Just a curiousity question: Is heroin worse than meth or vice versa? Is the high better or worse. How about getting off of it, which is worse. Which is more addicting? When you are dead set to stay clean, is there one or the other that is easier to keep clean from?
Replies...
Naiev Newlywed	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? I will tell you what I HEARD from a heroin addict, but don't believe or agree, because I've never done heroin. But she told me that meth is all mental and heroin is all physical. Getting clean from meth is a cake-walk next to getting clean from heroin. I've done meth, I haven't done heroin. Where's IAN when you need him?
Sfj	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? Would you ask? "What's more difficult, to lose weight or quit cigs?" The comparisons between meth and opiates are not even in the same league. Opiates go down, meth goes up. Two different directions. More to the point, "What do you enjoy more? relaxing or playing?" Opiates relax, stimulants, well, uh, stimulate.
sierra nights	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? I’ve been wanting to bring this up but this being a meth forum was afraid I would get yelled at. A couple of weeks ago I caught the end of a program on A&E. “The Junkie Next Door-Women on Heroin.” These women were going thru a methadone treatment but yet they were out looking for other drugs. They said the one they usually wanted was crank but would take about anything. They talked about the pain they went thru to not use heroin. The best I could understand, it was a very bad physical pain. They also stated that is was impossible (I do not believe this) for an addict to have a normal life. According to this program, heroin is 7 seconds to lethal death. They are saying it is virtually impossible to get into treatment. There is a treatment that cost $3000.00. It involves a 4 hour detox. Then they insert and “opiate antagoizer.” Now, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, this is way over my head. I just found it interesting. Anyway, they went on to talk about loved ones that had addicts in their lives. They say that we, the loved ones, should change our lives to know want an addiction is. There was much more and I would have liked to have seen the entire program. Like I said, I just caught the end of it. It was an interesting show to me and it raised about a 100 questions. Where is Ian? Sfj, agreed, this should be interesting. Oh and they also stated that addiction was un-curable.
Sfj	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? It may be uncurable, but it is ceratainly possible for addicts to get clean and stay clean. As a VietNam Era Veteran, I know many people who were addicted to heroin during that war. They had to test clean in order to come back to the USA. Guess what? They kicked - cold turkey, but they did it. Many thousands did. Easy? Nope. Possible, you bethca. When a person is properly motivated, from within, there is virtually no limit.
Naiev Newlywed	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? *Quote:* Oh and they also stated that addiction was un-curable. Yes, but managable. IMO
Sfj	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? I dunno, What do they call cured? I haven't smoked a cigarette since Sept, 21st, 1974. Am I cured yet?
sierra nights	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? Yeah, when I was watching this program, I was thinking about people here. I've read to much here about how hard it is to kick meth. Yet, look at all the ones who have beat it all to heck. I'm like Mary in wondering if a heroin addiction was all that different from meth. I mean, isn't addiction addiction? Whether it be meth, heroin, booze or pain pills. No matter what you are trying to stop doing, wouldn't you go thru withdrawal and have pain. I would think emotional as well as physical.
mary mary1	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? SFJ - now quit asking different questions- you're going to get people off on another subject and then I won't get my curiosity taken care of. One thing at a time!!
Lives With Wolves	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? My take on this (as a non user of both drugs) is that Meth is a worse drug and harder to quit. Meth alters your brain and how you think and perceive life. It "tricks" you and creates an intense craving. It can cause some people to become violent. It ruins your health quicker and can cause damage to an unborn fetus. It also ruins the environment. Heroin makes people more mellow. Heroin is not that hard on an unborn fetus.
Sfj	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? True, Opiates cause no physical harm at all. (other than the addictive properties) No liver damage, No heart damage, No CNS damage etc. Meth destroys plenty.
Venus Jones69	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? I have to respectfully disagree with Lives with Wolves. Heroin also changes the chemistry of the brain making it so that when the heroin addict quits, they are literally SICK - cramps, throwing up. They need the heroin to get "well" again. People are physically and psychologically dependent on it. The addiction to meth is much more psychological. I saw a friend kick heroin and it was one of the most heart-wrenching things I have ever seen - she was literally screaming she was in so much physical pain. Years after she quit, she got pretty heavily into meth. From her perspective, quitting meth was horrendous but quitting heroin made her feel like she was literally dying. She said there was no comparison - quitting heroin was MUCH harder. I speak from some experience as well. I quit meth after 5/12 years of daily use and it sucked. It sucked really really bad. I was depressed, exhausted, anxious, felt absolutely no hope etc. But I must say it was nothing like my friend's heroin withdrawal from heroin. RE: the impact on the fetus, I'm not sure that that really determines which is worse. Alcohol can also cause sever liver and neurological damage. Also, opiates naturally occur in nature and are not man-made like meth which accounts for why meth can have such a physically destructive impact. Also, when someone od's on heroin, they are much more likely to die than someone who od's on meth. Most meth od's go to the hospital while most heroin od's go straigtht to the morgue. Those are my two cents - from first-hand experiences and from things I have read as well.
Lives With Wolves	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heroin is not that hard on an unborn fetus. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Really? It is true that heroin doesn't hurt the unborn fetus as other drugs do. Alcohol is terrible and so is speed. The baby can still be born addicted and I can see that there could be a danger in the early moments and days of birth because of this. But, for the long term damage - it doesn't harm the baby as much. My experience in this area comes from trying to adopt a drug damaged baby (Meth). I could visually see the baby had problems (tiny and jerking uncontrollably) but when the Doctor's told me that he may not ever be able to even turn himself over we decided we couldn't go thru with the adoption. I learned and researched as I raised a different baby, his brother....my son. VJ69 you seem to have a lot of knowledge on this subject. When my son went to Rehab they had a special building for folks that were trying to detox off of certain drugs that required Doctors screening and care 24/7. Not sure what those drugs would be.
ian	Re: Meth and Heroin; which is worse? Well, here's my 2 cents on this.. First of all it seems a little petty to argue which drug is 'harder,' when it comes to hard drugs differant people get addicted to differant drugs, we are all differant chemically so differant drugs appeal differantly to us all. Myself, when I started doing drugs the first drug I got really addicted to was heroin and I kept using that through out my 'career.' I had a lot of cross addictions, I got used to doing cocaine with the usual fix of heroin, I did the same with benzodiazepines and later on meth. It never felt right when I just did opiates like something was 'missing' but I know I couldn't of gone without opiates (and later benzos) but I could go without the other drugs for quite considerble amount of time. Even when I tried taking methadone while doing other drugs if I did not have an opiate fix I would go into very serious withdrawals. Opiates themselvs do not cause damage to the body but a lot of street heroin or mainlining pharmacuticals causes a lot of damage to the body. I picked up hiv, hepC and my tests dont come up normal at all. Opiate withdrawal is not just physical, there are actually three stages to opiate withdrawals, the acute withdrawal that usually peaks at 5 or so days and than slowly subsides over a long period of time, the second stage isn't as physical but it also has a lot of elements of depression and craving for the drug and lasts 2-5 months (of course all depends on how long and how much you used), the third stage is last about a year and is usually described as 'mild' depression, anxiety, craving for opiates and all the other phases, it just subsides over time all depending on how long and how much you used. That was my take on it. It was very hard for me to ever quit opiate since I would first go into very severe physical withdrawals 6 hours after my last fix and even if I did stay clean for a few days or weeks I would still have problems with depression, anxiety, cravings, ect ect ect. for a few years. To this day my receptors are burnt out, after my wife had a miscarriage I got unreasonably angry and they gave me valium and until now my body can take large amounts of benzodiazepines or opiates unlike 'normal' people. On the other hand Iv'e known ALOT of people who have gotten very hooked on shooting cocaine (or smoking), meth and other drugs like pcp. The experts are still out why some people are 'drawn' to certain drugs, we also still don't know what makes one person a drug addict and one person a casual drug user. Personally I don't believe that chemical dependancy is a disease, I think it's more of a psychological disorder that starts for one or more reasons and continues for complete differant ones. I do think it can be treated and cured. Although the body might take longer to heal itself I fully believe it's possible for someone addicted to any drug to quit using. Although there is a differance between all these drugs and the differant chemicals they affect in the brain it is important to look at the similarities in all these chemical dependancies instead of the differances and although treatments might be differant. One chemical might be needed to be stopped abruptly (i.e. meth, cocaine, pcp) and other drugs don't (benzodiazepines, opiates, barbituates). Last time I quit I stopped doing heroin, valium and meth and I had problems going through unsupervised withdrawals, my blood pressure, pulse and other vital signs were really through the roof, thankfully I survived. For me, opiates might of been the drug I 'needed' the most, but thats just how my brain chemistry works. It's not that heroin brought me 'down' - sometimes I would be quite up and talkative and sometimes I would nod out and be out of it, all depending on the dose and other drugs trying to find that 'perfect combination' of drugs for that specific moment, but have't we all tried that? Like I said, look at the similarities, their really not that hard to find. All these drugs drove us to the same place at the end, maybe our journey's were different but we all wound up here, right?