#abuse of opioids

[joseywritesng]

Deadly heart infections linked to opioid abuse have tripled among young Americans

Deadly heart infections linked to opioid abuse have tripled among young Americans

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter WEDNESDAY 9 Nov. 2022 (HealthDay News) — The US opioid epidemic has been heartbreaking — literally. Young adults’ risk of dying from a devastating heart infection has doubled to tripled in the United States in the past two decades, a new study reports. Researchers attribute the increase in fatal heart infections to the growing number of people between the…

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Recently released data by Alberta’s government shows First Nations Peoples make up a disproportionate number of the province’s opioid-related deaths.

That includes people in Jody Plaineagle’s family.

“I had an uncle who lost his daughter to the addiction,” Plaineagle tells Global News.

Across Alberta, provincial government numbers show the rate of unintentional opioid deaths is more than eight times higher among First Nations Peoples.

“They’re fighting for their lives right now,” Plaineagle said. “They’re out there in survival mode trying to fight for their life.” [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @abpoli

[anaaxiety]

From before my shower, starting to nod fucking hard rn 🤤 // pure morphine powder 🤍

[heroinangelz]

♡ I just want to be high with you ♡

"whats it feel like?"

"theres a chill....dont forget it passes.. and you'll see, I'll see you there ♡"

~Breaking Bad - Jesse And Jane (Episode 11)

[aduckwithears]

Let's Talk Laudanum - a GO meta

Hey all - I'm gonna preface this one with a tw/cw for opioids, death, suicide, and substance abuse ok? It shouldn't be too heavy (just canon typical), but I don't want anyone surprised.

Ok! I've been watching some of the Good Omens s2 behind the scenes specials, and in the "Grave Danger" clip it mentions that Laudanum is "...a very intense kind of alcohol, or like ethanol, that would kill somebody…" which is not actually true. In the show itself we see the bottle:

Which confirms that laudanum is a combo of Opium (45 and 1/2 grains per ounce) and Alcohol (40%).

It also says Poison and CMOT Dibbler... The poison angle (is it poison? well yes... if you take enough) has been covered in another post by @queerfables who talked about the make up of laudanum as well. CMOT Dibbler is a great nod to Sir Terry of course :)

What do I want to add? That yes, laudanum is in fact an opioid, and was actually an incredibly popular and over-used drug in the 18th and 19th centuries, both in real life and maybe more importantly in novels of the time. Proceed under the cut!

In my non-duck life I work in a field with some familiarity with opioids, so I also want to add that while yes, opioids can make you loopy, they are ultimately a soporific (meaning a sleep aid, a downer, a relaxant), a pain reducer, cough suppressant, and a respiratory depressant. That last bit is why they can be deadly in the case of an overdose.

So let's get back to laudanum. Yes, it was used post-surgically, but quite often would also be prescribed to (predominantly) women with various aches or pains that their doctors couldn't (or wouldn't bother) investigating. Subsequently women would become addicted to the opioid, needing more and more to achieve the desired effect, leading to eventual death or any of the other mental, emotional, or socioeconomic ills of addition.

Given the above and the era's fascination with the "sexiness" of wasting diseases such as consumption (hmmm, cough plus pain, perfect for treatment with laudanum!) laudanum was also a little bit of a romantic drug. It was also popular in novels of the era such as those in the Gothic Romance genre. (A quick peek at Wikipedia turns up lots of examples... though I'm sure a literature expert of the era would have lots more to add.)

All of which to say! The Resurrectionists as a minisode is channeling some pure Gothic Romance (think Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - pub 1818, etc) so laudanum is the PERFECT poison for Elspeth to pick. It dulls pain and at sufficient doses suppresses the respiratory system to the point of death. Without the modern miracle of Narcan or naloxone, death is all but assured. Of course, then, enter Crowley.

You know what laudanum doesn't do? Give you an Alice in Wonderland experience and make you specifically shouty about people not killing themselves. Now, this could be how opioids affect demons (it's possible), or the more entertaining option is that Crowley has no clue what laudanum is or isn't supposed to do, saw the poison and alcohol label, and decided to have a bit of fun while doing some deniable (the laudanum made me do it! honest!) good. It's also handy that he doesn't need to do mundane human things like breathing. So he gets to sing about Scotland, save the human, and get hugged by Aziraphale - pretty good day... until he gets Lightning Sanded to Hell.

I'll just add here that the laudanum plot line works well if we are taking the minisodes at face value... OR if we are reading them as Aziraphale's version of events of the past, especially with the literary aspect.

Bonus: If you've made it this far, maybe you'll come along with me on a little cross-fandom jaunt.

I'm also a massive fan of the Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian's books set in the early 1800s and starring Captain Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin. If you've read the series or even watched the Master and Commander movie you may know... those two characters have their own odd couple thing going on and quite a collection on AO3 :) . Anyhow. In the books Stephen is hooked on laudanum for a good while, mostly to dull the pain of a love that cannot be acted on. That's actually what got me started thinking about this post since there are certainly some parallels there.

Thanks for sticking with me on this ramble!

[fentanyl-rabbits]

No opioids means no peace or sanity in mind

[neuroticboyfriend]

something i unfortunately learned the hard way is that you can hallucinate/dream things while you're nodding (going in and out of consciousness due to CNS depression). this is to the point you can think you're awake, when in reality, you're falling asleep... and if you fall asleep for good, you can stop breathing. you can die with absolutely zero awareness that it's happening, even if you were somewhat aware just seconds ago. this is why's it's so important to be careful with depressants (aka downers) - especially if you're on multiple depressants and/or on opioids.

so yeah. if you're ever using alone, you can call the the Never Use Alone Hotline (USA). they'll stay on the phone with you to make sure you're okay, and if you stop responding, they can call emergency services for you. if anyone knows any other resources (non USA especially) please add on.

[crimeronan]

last night i was musing on how it's coincidental that the only main OC in the quartet who abuses drugs is the antagonist, but how i don't really like the messaging regardless, because it's impossible for strangers to tell whether i'm taking gross potshots at drug users or not. at first i considered just taking out nova's drug use but doing so kind of limits me in terms of characterization. so the actual solution is to also give devin so many drugs.

you may be thinking "kitkat, why would you give devin ANOTHER thing," to which i would reply: giving devin access to fantasy opioids and amphetamines is probably..... The Kindest thing i have ever done for her.

[joseywritesng]

Setting time limits on opioid prescriptions can reduce abuse

Setting time limits on opioid prescriptions can reduce abuse

By Robert Preidt HealthDay ReporterHealthDay Reporter MONDAY, June 6, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Here’s an easy weapon to use against the opioid epidemic: New research finds that setting time limits for prescribing highly addictive narcotic pain medications can reduce the risk of abuse. In 2019, 1% of opioid prescriptions from dentists and surgeons in the U.S. were filled more than 30 days after…

[anaaxiety]

Pathetic little cloud, still kinda a noob at smoking on foil lol 😅 but at least it gave me happy nods 🌬️

[heroinangelz]

[prolibytherium]

I was wrong about kratom not causing hallucinatory-esque cognitive effects I just snapped out of this detailed waking dream-vision-fantasy that I was a guy living in LA being hunted by a sniper named 'Granny Longshot'

[fentanyl-rabbits]

[neuroticboyfriend]

finally tried hydrocodone for my back pain and THIS is the ~big scary opioids~ they've been talking about?! i know they're still ykno, serious medication but. i. feel. fine! i even took my other medication todayy!? i'd be angry but im honestly just. WHAT. i'm not in pain! yall coulda gave me this YEARS ago but you just didnt! i shouldnt have had to have figured this out all on my own especially with how it coulda easily gone sideways if i didnt have some awareness of what im doing?? fuckkk the war on drugs man. fuck it. shit.

edit: to be clear no i am not prescribed this i found some in the house it aint mine

[quietly-by-myself]

Shadow By My Fireplace - Chapter 29

Masterlist

In which, Cyril breaks down.

Thank you as usual to @darkthingshappen for beta reading. You're amazing.

CW: drug/alcohol addiction (opioids), opioids, overdose and death due to overdose, hospital setting, chronic illness, panic attack, caretaker has a breakdown, hospital whump, mass shooting mention, minor character death, brief suicide mention, emeto

===

One of the questions Cyril would have never been able to answer clearly was simple. What would happen if somebody he loved walked into the emergency department, dying?

Of course, there was always another doctor on call for that very reason. Nobody could act objectively. 

Well.

That was the ideal. Sometimes, it happened, in those smaller, less equipped hospitals, the more rural ones that Cyril found himself working at, that doctors were alone to manage an entire emergency department. Sometimes, the other attending called out sick. Sometimes, the residents just quit. Hours were longer in rural hospitals. The patients were sicker, poorer, more in need. 

In cities, perhaps doctors were praised. In rural medicine, Cyril was lucky to see a patient before they cut their own melanoma off. A backache in the rural emergency department was never just a backache. 

That night that haunted Cyril every night was a particularly bloody one, but not because of a gang turf war or mass nightclub shooting like in the cities.

No, the plague of the country was far less dramatic: oxycodone. 

Well, oxycodone was how it all started, at least. It was like a hydra. Once the doctor who’d been paid to overprescribe left, the problem sprouted two more heads. Cyril remembered in high school when only a few people knew the word “oxycodone.” Now, everyone knew it, along with heroin, codeine, and fentanyl. 

All it took was one miscalculation and Cyril would be working twenty-four hours on his feet, fighting to save life after life that just didn’t get Narcan in time.

They had a word for it.

Oxycuted. 

Cyril never thought it would be someone he knew. 

However, that night, when a bad batch had found its way into town, everything changed.

The attending was down with the flu. They only had one resident on staff. Cyril’s eyes were red from a lack of sleep and far too many caffeine pills.

He wanted to go outside to smoke. However, there were far too many people pouring in, mothers with sons and sons with sisters.

Everything in Cyril’s world fell apart when the stretcher with paramedics came rushing in the back.

“Code Blue. Code Blue.”

Cyril froze. He recognized the face.

Oliver.

Oliver. The one he’d grown up with. The one he’d had his first cig with. The one that had asked him to start a band when he knew what little talent he had.

Oliver. His best friend.

What little food Cyril had managed to fit in between patients immediately came up. One of the nurses rushed over to him as he huddled over one of the hallway trash cans.

“Dr. Galanos, are you okay?”

Cyril shook his head. “It’s Oliver. Oliver Marchmont.”

The nurse looked at him sadly. “Dr. Galanos, you’re the only doctor here tonight. I’ll call Dr. Tharby to see if he can come in.”

Cyril knew what that meant. He stood up, accepting the paper-thin tissue that the nurse gave him.

As Cyril had to test Oliver’s reflexes to ensure his death after thirty minutes of trying to save him, the moment of peace they held for him didn’t feel real.

However, when Cyril had to see Oliver’s mother, tell her that her baby boy was dead, he couldn’t take it anymore. Holding her in his arms as she cried and cried and cried was too much for Cyril.

That night, he cried as he smoked his last cigarette. Cyril never cried. But, that night, he nearly jumped off a bridge from the depths of his sorrow. He felt like an awful person. Why was he the one who had to tell that woman, the one who was practically a second mother to him?

He would never return to the hospital.

In fact, after a few months, he never returned to medicine at all.

The farther he was from the hospital, the better. So, he moved where there wasn’t one for thirty miles.

His little cabin in the woods.

—

Sacha awoke during the night in pain. It wasn’t out of the ordinary, exactly. Sacha had lived most of his life since Master bought him in pain. Even then, five months after Master’s death, Sacha was still in pain.

Cyril had explained that it was likely permanent. Nerve damage, he’d called it. Pain from injuries that never healed correctly, too. Those years of medical neglect and endless tortures had taken its toll on Sacha’s body: neuropathy, migraines, essential tremor, tinnitus, vasovagal syncope, and a lot of other diagnoses that he didn’t care to remember.

Luckily, Cyril wasn’t Master. He gave Sacha medical care. He gave Sacha medicine. A pill of acetaminophen and a pill of ibuprofen did the trick most of the time. Cyril had offered to try to get him on longer-term treatment, but Sacha didn’t like taking pills. He’d take medicine when he needed it. 

That night, the pain was bad enough that he decided on two acetaminophen and one ibuprofen. 

He rummaged through the bottles in the medicine cabinet and pulled out what he thought were the bottles he needed.

As he laid his head down, Sacha felt especially sleepy. The pain was going away in a different way than usual. Sacha almost recognized it, but the medicine was also taking away any worry that he might have.

Before long, Sacha’s head hit the pillow and his eyes closed.

—

Cyril awoke with a start. Nightmares of the time before his cabin in the woods, that time before Sacha, had plagued him recently.

He was getting awfully tired of seeing dead bodies in his sleep. He was tired of seeing their lifeless eyes and their bleeding bodies. In some ways, his experience with Sacha had triggered it all to come back. He’d stopped practicing medicine because he didn’t feel like he was actually saving people. Now, in order to save someone who genuinely needed it, he had to practice again.

Did Cyril mind? Not really, though taking care of Sacha was definitely taking a small toll on him. Well, maybe small wasn’t the word. The toll wasn’t insignificant, but it wasn’t big enough that Cyril would want to get rid of Sacha. The very thought was repulsive. Cyril loved Sacha like a little brother. It was his job to take care of Sacha.

Eventually, Cyril decided to get up and get something to drink in the kitchen. He wasn’t worried about waking Sacha up. Sacha slept like a log. 

However, as Cyril brought a glass down from the top shelf of a cabinet, he noticed a bottle on the counter.

“Hydromorphone, 5 mg tablets.”

Why did he still have those damn pills?

Immediately, he turned to Sacha. Had Sacha taken them? Sacha often woke up in the middle of the night to take pain medicine. Cyril had tried to convince Sacha to switch onto something long-term, but Sacha refused. He never gave a reason as to why, but Cyril suspected that he had a fear of long-term treatment after being drugged for so many years.

Sacha was sound asleep.

Almost dead asleep.

Cyril took the pills out, counted them. Sacha had taken two. He took two!

Panic overwhelmed Cyril as he ran over to Sacha and shook him.

“Sacha! Sacha! Wake up.”

At first, Sacha didn’t wake up. Dread filled Cyril’s blood like a poison. Sacha was dead. Sacha was dead.

He’d lost another one.

He couldn’t. 

Surely, he had Narcan somewhere. Maybe it wasn’t too late to give it to Sacha.

“Sacha, wake up!”

Desperation filled Cyril’s voice.

In fact, he didn’t even realize when Sacha groaned. He was too busy looking through the cabinets for Narcan. He needed Narcan. He needed to save Sacha. He couldn’t lose another person. Not another friend.

“Cyril, what’s wrong?”

Cyril’s breath caught in his throat. Sacha was standing, breathing.

“You-”

Cyril stopped himself from asking Sacha if he was dead.

The panic suddenly came crashing down and Cyril felt tears in his eyes. Sacha wasn’t dead.

“You took two hydromorphone pills.”

“Two… what?”

Sacha squinted at Cyril. He sounded pretty tired, groggy, but he was still there. A lot more calm than usual, but not anywhere near being dead.

“Opioids. I thought you overdosed.”

Sacha shook his head. “I’ve overdosed before. I’m… definitely… tired, but not overdosing.”

Hearing that Sacha had overdosed before certainly didn’t calm Cyril down. However, he knew that he risked freaking Sacha out with his panic, so he quickly went to his room and slammed the door shut.

Cyril heard Sacha roll back over to bed. He’d ask in the morning what Sacha meant by that.

Still, he grabbed his shirt, placing his hand over his racing heart. Sobs broke through his chest. He kept himself quiet. He couldn’t stand to have Sacha hear him cry.

However, Cyril couldn’t hold it back anymore. He cried tears, remembering the dead body of Oliver laying on the bed. The cold of his dead skin. The hollowness of his dead eyes. Sure, the soul was impossible to prove from a medical standpoint, but from a physical one, a presence always left the room or was simply not there.

Oh, how Cyril longed to be in his garden, far away from the worries and fears that plagued him.

But it was winter. It was cold outside. There was no garden to tend to. Only the fears that he had to face head-on.

===

Tag list: @whumpsday, @i-can-even-burn-salad, @pigeonwhumps, @darkthingshappen, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @darlingwhump, @maracujatangerine, @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi, @flowersarefreetherapy, @octopus-reactivated, @quietshae, @whump-blog, @inkkswhumpandstuff, @whumpycries, @whumpkinz

[plaguedghosts]

OML i just realized I've been clean from opiates for almost 7 years :)