Sign In
Create Account
1
szaxe, on 04 September 2011 - 02:43 AM, said:
Every type of addict lived on the squatted island and many frequented the bar. The amount of recovering addicts that have told me that for all the pain of going cold turkey nothing compared with the drip drip cravings of nicotine withdrawal.
I've been unlucky enough to witness this process and fortunate enough never to have experienced it for myself. Late '80s, early '90s with my group of friends, we were all stoners as isn't at all unusual for the age group. Other drugs being used as well, as wasn't unusual for the time period, Acid, MDA, MDMA etc was being necked at weekends, all stuff I regarded as non-addictive at least in the classical sense, fun was being had etc, etc, blah, blah.. However it's obviously not healthy and started taking its toll on me and I could see I seriously needed to calm down but I knew if I stuck around I wouldn't have been able to so in late '91 I buggered off, did the kibbutz thing in Israel for a few years, Egypt, Europe etc. I (temporarily) severed contact with my peer group and didn't return to the UK until '95, I found things had changed. Other drugs had crept in whilst I was away and unfortunately Heroin had been given the same respect we gave to weed, which was very little/none at all.
I had lost a mate to an overdose already whilst I was away (I lost another later, apparently to impurities in street heroin) and two others were addicts. I spent a lot of time around one of these lads after he'd decided to 'get clean' and witnessed a lot of the withdrawal process, he tapered down for a while and then went "cold turkey" with the help of whatever benzodiazepines he could lay his hands on to try to ease the process. Seeing one of your mates crying in pain, shivering and sweating like a malaria victim in a bed with his pants soaked in stinking liquid shit isn't the prettiest sight in the world. Oh there was a fair bit of puking too, can’t forget the puke.
There but for the grace of god.......eh? I like to think I wouldn’t but I probably would have been in the same boat. He did ‘get clean’ and stayed that way, the lad I was talking about is now a paramedic in Lancashire, and no longer smokes
Obviously nicotine withdrawal doesn’t have that sort of effect, but I find it extremely unpleasant nonetheless, unpleasant enough to leave me in no doubt it’s physically addictive rather than a psychological ‘addiction’ like gambling etc.
Alcohol is a weird one and for me I find it a confusing example of differing physiologies and differing responses to drugs because of them. When I left the UK in ’91 I wasn’t a drinker, at all, I hated alcohol. There was a weird kind of prejudice against it in the circle I knocked around in, as mentioned above we weren’t exactly a virtuous, abstinent group but for some odd reason alcohol was largely frowned upon. Upon hitting Israel all the other travellers were big drinkers and it didn’t take me long to follow suit, whenever we weren’t working we were pissed, all night every night. I didn’t go to bed until I was pretty much bouncing off the walls and I kept that up until the age of 34 when my son was born so 19-34, 15 years of being properly pissed every single night.
When my son was born I stopped dead, I had a weird feeling something was missing but that was just habit, I was used to coming home from work, having my tea and then either going out or starting on the cans in the fridge or the whiskey etc. It was my wind-down routine and it had been altered so it felt a bit weird, not bad just odd and after a week I was fine.
By rights have been a full-blown alcoholic shouldn’t I? Having all sorts of withdrawal symptoms and going through hell, I had none of it, zip. I have no problem at all with drinking now either, I like a drink on a Friday or Saturday night if we have babysitting on one of those nights but it doesn’t bother me if not and I don’t even think about a pint midweek. I had liver function tests done for something unrelated a few years back and that’s functioning perfectly too so I seem to have gotten away with it on all counts. More luck than judgement but I do sometimes wonder why I got so lucky after being so bloody stupid for so many years.
Not having my usual four (minimum) strong cups of coffee during the morning gives me more problems than stopping 15 years of stupidly heavy drinking did, I get headaches without caffeine. It’s been an interesting read this thread, full of the usual UKV twists and turns, a few home truths etc. I don’t think any of us are any the wiser but I still know I feel bad without nicotine, it’s consistent, it’s unpleasant and it doesn’t stop until I have a vape
Back to top
). My drummer was an english alchoholic and drove the band off the bridge to the squatted island into the river ij on purpose (fortunately I had missed the lift happily fornicating 
