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Posted: May 1, 2013, 1:26 AM
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 1:51 AM
OMG, That would be so scary! I'm sure on a nice day it's lovely though..
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 1:55 AM
Meh.. There's lots of greenery, Truman lake and Lake of the Ozarks isn't too far from here. But the weather is absolutely nuts. They have a saying here, something to the effect of if you don't like our weather, stay around. It'll change. It'll be 40 then 80 then 30 then 80... And the humidity is awful. In the summer time it gets as high as 110+ with 90 something % humidity. Oh and the people aren't too bright, evidenced by no one taking cover. And this was AFTER Joplin.
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 2:40 AM
Thanks Allison for helping me get through Day 3, looking forward to bed tonight and feeling positive knowing I can come here to help stay clean as time goes on, and thanks to everyone else posting today too...
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 5:56 AM
For those asking about the chemical(s) in synthetic weed:
It was originally a medical research cannabinoid, produced at the John W Hoffman facility, the first main one called JWH-018. It was never intended for consumption, but the chemical formula was copied and the rest is history. Then, as Alison says, the formula was tweaked, there were many JWH variants, all banned, and then (from what I understand) another benzene ring was added and we had chemicals like AM-2201 appearing, which was where the real trouble started as these seem to be highly addictive. To be clear, none of these chemicals were produced as an alternative to weed, they are not an alternative to weed. The chemists, mainly in Chinese labs, and home grown garage labs, are just taking basic chemical structures that have some 'drug' effect, tweaking them past what has been made illegal, then selling them to distributors as a white powder who then dilute in acetone and spray diffuse onto a plant base - voila 'synthetic weed'. There are now hundreds (at least) of these chemical variants, none tested (apart from on consumers!) and all, as far as i'm concerned, are poisons. The government will keep banning them, new versions will keep appearing, as it is a multi-million pound/dollar industry now. In a large part, I blame cannabis-prohibition for this mess. I hope this helps. tog. This post has been edited by tog on May 1, 2013, 5:59 AM | ||
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 9:50 AM
Yeah tog - in the USA alone we have spent 2 trillion dollars since 1980 on the 'war on drugs'. Marijauna was made illegal some time in the 1930's , but they failed to learn from the prohibition debacle that preceeded it.. Ever heard of Al Capone? The St Valentines Day massacre, etc.. When alcohol was illegal, drinking didnt stop. It only went underground and made the gangsters rich beyond belief. It caused the murder rate in cities like Chicago to soar to the point it became frightening. Now? Its not even american drug lords that have the money. Its columbian and mexican narco-trafficers who own their respective goverments and officials and have the best weapons, and armies, that money can buy. Just look at the murder rates in the texas border towns.
Ever seen a show called 'weed country'? Its about growers in northern california where it is semi-legal to grow up to 60 pot plants for medical consumption. They will show the DEA guys in helicopters busting illegals , who are growing on public land. One officer actually made this statement after busting 3 mexicans, and it made me just shake my head. He said " We will question these guys but they wont know anything. They are just pawns and probably are even being forced to come here and grow in the forests against their will . Some even have their families being held hostage to force them to do so. But these three are looking at 10 years apiece for the 100+ plants they were growing....Plants we kept off the streets!" 3 people whose lives are ruined, X 10 Yrs each, X $35,000 to $50,000 per year to keep them in prison.....thats $1 - 1.5 million dollars spent on that bust alone for what? A hundred plants?? For little or no impact at all on the problem... In a state where you can LEGALLY BUY pot in a store or dispensary?? Yeah! Great job buddy...keep cutting down those plants! These efforts KEEP the drug lords rich. They arent at risk , and the price per lb is artificially kept high by OUR government - using OUR tax dollars! WE work for THEM... Do they know that they have made the synthetic industry rich as well? That they have made a much worse problem encouraging chemical usage over a plant? The one loophole most of us fell through in the beginning was that the synthetic was 'legal'. One grower on the show actually said it would be less punitive to rob a bank than to get caught with just 5 lbs of marijuana! Also, if pot were legal, the hardcore drug usage would drop - just look at the experiment in real time in denmark... Sorry to go off on a rant...it just doesnt make sense to me. This is just cannabis prohibition and I consider pot to much more benign than alcohol. By the way, the settlement conference on my house didnt yield anything definitive...which means they can't kick me out just yet. It looks like they may even do the loan modification, so I still have a chance... So why is it that I cant sleep? I worked a full 14 hours yesterday! I fell asleep around 11 and woke up at 12, 1, 2, 3, 4:30 , 6 and 7:30. I stay awake for 5-10 minutes each time I wake up so I do get some sleep. But why cant I STAY asleep? I dont seem to get much rest at all. It will be 3 weeks completly clean tomorrow and I just dont get it. I was woke up at 3 by the dogs barking, so I got out of bed and let them out. I was awake 15-20 minutes that time and then the covers got doubled up on me somehow, and it seems like when I am hot I get the most intense and vivid dreams. I can remember everything in them too, something I have always had trouble doing. In this particular dream I was recounting when I worked at the Hilton as a room service attendant. A job I had over 21 years ago. I remembered everything in astonishing detail. From the people, to the work schedule, to the dining room and kitchen where I was at most of the time. I felt anxiety over having given my two weeks notice and I wanted my job back....then I noticed I had no shirt on and was walking around in my boxers...I would often change on the way to work and I could not find my uniform. So there I was, walking around almost naked in front of customers, employees, friends... And then security wanted to catch me , kept grabbing me by the arm. I was running, struggling to get free, just couldnt shake him and then I yelled at him... This woke me up. And I was absolutely drenched in sweat - very gross! My heart was racing and because of the length of the dream, I was sure it was almost morning. But is was only 4:30, about an hour an 15 minutes after I fell asleep after letting the dogs out! I share this as info. Maybe someone who reads this knows more about sleep cycles and what is going on internally with me. I know that last night I was trying to show my 12 year old how to do percentages in his head. I told him I sat at the desk with the calculator when I worked at the Hilton and could come up with 15% (the gratuity at the time) faster than people could get the answer from a calculator. Most of the numbers were $100 or less and not hard to do. Just take 10% and add half back. For example 15% of $80 is 8+4 or $12. All the amounts under a dollar I just knew, so if someone asked "what is 15% of $64.48?" I could instantly take 64+32 and add seven cents for $9.67. It made me look like 'rain man' or something but it was just a trick. But because I remembered that desk and calculator....it became the setting for my 'fever dream' later that night. I just wonder what is really going on in my mind. It seems that I think in more 'extreme' and intense terms since the synthetic came into my life. I seem more prone to ultimatums, drastic thinking, and 'final solutions'. Bad things seem more dire, good things seem so much better, and frustrations seem all the more intolerable. This thinking is still present weeks....even months after completely stopping so I just wonder what I have done to my normal thought processes at a base level. I hear others saying the same things about 'drastic thoughts' or 'extreme thinking' and many have even mentioned the 'suicidal ideating' that seems to be increased when prolonged use of this drug persists. I believe that understanding this change in thinking would go a long way in helping users get through the PAWS effects easier. Again just more theories... | ||
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 10:06 AM
Every time I write something of length, I hold my breath when I hit 'post comment'. Too many times I have lost stuff that I liked.
Maybe just set a date to move to a new thread if that is what everyone thinks we should do. Say, friday morning? If anyone doesnt like this idea then speak up. Mumma got me thinking about this when she asked for Josh's 'detox kit' as many also have. She mentioned the 800+ posts and the detox kit would be hard to find if you didnt know where to look. If he puts it right at the beginning, and then all of us write little 'summaries' of our basic experiences with the synthetic, I believe it would be helpful to new people coming to this site. Dont get me wrong. I LOVE the fact that we have over 800+ posts on 44 pages, but it is hard to know what we are talking about without going through all the material and that is just daunting to some. If you have ever printed any single thread page out, it usually is 8 pages in length - all single spaced. That's 350+ pages of material! Oh, and the view counter maxes out at that number. I noticed this with some others on the alcohol board. Some of those threads had 250+ pages over many years though. Could you imagine trying to find something you wrote on page 115? Most early posters didnt stick around very long. Josh was the first one to put out the really long posts. Now we have several who are doing likewise and offer experiences at every step of the process. This topic really has a wealth of information for someone who is sincerely looking for help. Being able to relate at the user level is much different than advice coming from a non-user. The venting, ranting, and emotional cries for help appeal at a very base level to people in this particular addiction. The honestly, theories, and sharing of life stories puts a face on addiction for non-users as well. So think about it, and as always....chime in with what you think. gotta work p.s. interesting story about legalizing pot on yahoo.. Tried to post a link but it would not go through. This post has been edited by DAC on May 1, 2013, 11:34 AM | ||
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 2:34 PM
Has anyone actually seen the movie "Refer Madness?" It's on netflix if anyone has an account. It's hard to watch now for us who can see through the bulls***, but at the time, it was taken as gospel. The fear and panic that it induced in our grandparent's or great grandparents is the reason that this is still such a huge taboo now. And it's amazing how ONE piece of propaganda can sway the opinion of generation after generation after generation. I guess the 60's counter culture movement didn't help, either. That was overkill.
But yeah, I try to stop myself from quietly fuming about the injustice of this. If Budweiser started putting the same addictive chemicals found in synthetic into their brew... it'd be the trial of the century. And you mean to tell me nobody and no institution working for the government has noticed a rise in profits from sales tax on this crap alone?? Nobody in the IRS is noticing these gas stations increasing their profits by hundreds of percents? I emailed the 'Dr. Drew Show' awhile ago suggesting someone look into this, not the tax aspect but the huge number of new addicts. Nothing. Not a word. | ||
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 2:41 PM
As careful as I believe we should all be about getting the word out and not inducing a chaotic frenzy of media hype... we've all seen how hard if not impossible it is to stop using this particular drug until it just isn't an option anymore. I wish I knew a way to invoke public attention and outcry enough to make elected officials and the judicial system do something about this with finality. And not in a "save us from ourselves" kind of way, but to STOP allowing the manufacturers of this drug to create addicts and victims of synthetic for the sake of profit. Stop allowing a deceitful warning label to protect them, too. I hate cynicism now. I really do. But something tells me they're making way too much money, and by they I mean the government, to ever do anything definitive about this. Gotta make back all that money Obamacare is using up somehow. Gotta get people to the doctor...
I feel sick. | ||
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 2:45 PM
Maybe we should all Shawshank them. LOL. Start sending your state representative one letter a week. For awhile. If you get little or no response, make it 2 letters a week. Still nothing? 4 letters a week. Hell even if we sent 4 letters a day, it's still nothing compared to the amount of money we were spending on synthetic.
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 5:17 PM
I was thinking exactly that about the tax revenue myself.
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 5:59 PM
auuuuggghhhh
Yay my roommate is back. And he brought company! Oh Goody! Anyone feel like praying for me? That he leaves by the 4th??? Landlords, too?? :) I got an interesting phone call a little while ago... from my old drug counselor years ago. I think I posted on this thread about writing a letter to the facility about one of the other licensed counselors kicking me out of an NA meeting for not being a seasoned enough addict. I bet now I could sit through... The letter finally made it to her; she works in another city now. And guess what, she's dealing with lots of synthetic weed cases now. Shocking. Anyway, it was nice that she called to reaffirm my, "that guy's a jackass" theory. | ||
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 9:29 PM
Last year I kept referring to the 'reefer madness' movie to illustrate what people were saying about the spice/bath salts thing. I called it a 'false drug lore' argument. When people tell you that you will turn green and your d*** will fall off if you smoke something, and then you smoke that very thing and nothing happens? Kind of kills the argument they are making and causes you to not listen at all. To me, that was the movie reefer madness. They showed some of the craziest , most stupid behavior, that I have NEVER seen with either pot or synthetic. But yeah, people believed it to be true....probably still do.
Also...allison...by 'shawshanked' are you referring to what happened to Andy in the courtroom...or his experience with the bull queers on what morgan freeman called the 'longest night of his life' ? Ohhh Annndyy!! just wondering.. This post has been edited by DAC on May 1, 2013, 9:30 PM | ||
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 9:35 PM
LOL well I know I refer to "shawshanking" often, and always with different implications. This particular time I meant how he wrote a letter a week to the governor (I think) to get money for a new library. When they finally sent him a small check, he started writing 2 letters a week until he got more; books and records included..
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 9:39 PM
Okay, finally home from work!!!!
I'm exhausted, but this needs to get done, so I'm going to start a new thread entitled: "Beating Synthetic Weed Addiction: A Beginners Guide" I'll go ahead and kick it off with a restatement of the "survival kit", along with much of what I had posted almost a year earlier. I hope all you veterans will also go on and pass along your words of wisdom when you fought this demon, anything specifically you would want to recommend to someone who just found this forum and doesn't know what to do. I think this thread is still a great place for our general discussion on the topic, but I think the opening posts from all of us on the new thread should be specific advise on a newbie who just found this forum. I'm going to first say a prayer on the religious synthetic weed thread before we start off, for some reason I feel pulled to do so... Almost like an invocation, if you will. It'll be up shortly, I'm starting right now, so please join me when it's up! | ||
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 11:05 PM
Let me know when you're at a stopping point Josh, I don't want to interrupt your flow.
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Posted: May 1, 2013, 11:27 PM
Thanks Allison,
Thats all I've got in me for now, I'm exhausted from work. I want to write more but now I'm getting frustrated, I can't really remember much of the details from my first few months!!! I remember the big ticket items, but I feel like a lot of it now is "Scene Missing".... Like a repressed bad memory. Please, the floor is yours, fellow recovering addicts! I think I will have more sound advice for the later parts, how I put my life back together and developed good habits. For the life of me I can't remember much of the details of my first month or so, now I feel like I don't have as much to contribute about that other than my old posts. Please fill in those blanks as you all have gone through that much more recently. What did you all do to cope? I'll put in more about emotional recovery after withdrawals/detox is over. Thanks again for all that you do! | ||
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Posted: May 2, 2013, 12:53 AM
I think you about covered it, lol
I just finished writing an essay for school.. I'm also exhausted. I'll reread it in the morning. | ||
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Posted: May 2, 2013, 3:02 AM
Wow, that was so interesting about the 'extreme' thinking, as I'm going through this now, and mood swings, high, low, high, low, and sleep is alluding me too, I had some valium from the doctor the first night and slept, but last night went to bed at 10 hoping I would be tired enough to drop off to sleep, and layed there until 2am before I finally tried to read for a bit and then crashed, woke again at 6, hope it's better tonight! But so glad Day 4 is done, have no desire to get more fake at this time, but know this may not last as time goes on so looking to put other things in my life to fill in the time, and trying to get motivated again... I'm going to go have a look at the new thread now!
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Posted: May 2, 2013, 8:34 AM
A lot of work to do...not much time to write. The end of the week is the worst for me, and we have rain coming tomorrow so I will be at it til late today. Just came from a breakfast with a long time friend. He goes to my church and is going through a divorce. I told him of the troubles I have had in my life as well. People hold christians up to such a high standard, we are not suppossed to have these things in our lives. But the truth is we are all human. We all face the same difficulties in life, and we all make a mess of things sometimes. Being honest, and able to forgive oneself , and the ability to move on are all hard to do when we feel we have made a disaster out of our lives. It was one year ago yesterday that I was in jail...Everything reminds of that life-changing experience. I believe I was in an already over-stressed condition and that event led to something of a nervous breakdown. I became dysfunctional as a person, took it out on myself and my business, and shut down emotionally, physically, and even spiritually. The fallout of which I am still experiencing today. The synthetic played a role, but there was much more to the problem as it took years and years to get to that critical breaking point. But when I got out of jail? The synthetic was something I completely indulged in recklessly. I did it every 20 minutes to half hour, every day , all day for the first time ever... When I tried to put it away, I experienced dark thoughts and depression that I had never experienced before in life.. Trying to understand that brought me to this site after many failed attempts to quit completely on my own. I am so grateful to have others willing to share their experiences in their struggle with this substance as well. It is not easy to come out of. Even though I believe I have put the worst behind me .... I have thought this many times before. Only now, I have a support that was never present before- all of you!
Thanks for being there, and reading, and sharing... til later | ||
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