It's so much a part of my daily routine anymore, I don't give it a whole lot of thought at this point. After a few years of copping street-opiates (mainly hydromorphone, IR Morphine, and occasionally some brown if the price/quality was good), I became fed-up with the lack of reliability/consistency with my hookups and moved to dealing mostly with dried poppy pods (P. Somniforums). I order from an unadvertised supplier online (hooked up with them before the big crack-down on pod sales a few years back), and my friendly fed-ex man brings me a box of 150-200 pods several times a month. These pods contain a heavenly mix of morphine and codeine, along with smaller amounts of thebaine and other alkaloids. The process is simple: crack open the pods, dump out the seeds, grind 'em up in a food-processor, and brew the grounds into an infusion via a french-press. My daily dose is, potency wise, about equivalent to 100-140mg of oxycodone with a longer half-life/duration of effect.

Because of this, my opiate use is far from the stereotypical image put forth by the media and western society. Honestly, my life seems to be the closest example of what legalization of drugs would result in. I work for my money, live in a nice house/area, have a decent job where my performance is top notch, and just generally go about my life. My basic day goes as follows: I wake up, brew some pod-tea, and drink it down. By the time I've finished my morning routine, the tea is starting to kick in full-force and it's "off to the races". This gives me 6 hours of zero-fatigue, elevated mood, and social extrovertedness with a solid afterglow for most of the day. Basically, it puts a smile on my face and raises my quality of life.

I won't pretend it's all sunshine and flowers; it is not. I spend a fair chunk of money on pods...a few hundred bucks a month. Additionally, going without is not an option because of the withdraws. I can skip a day, thanks to the long-acting cocktail of opiate alkaloids, without being in too bad of shape...after that, I'm worthless. Body aches, constantly running nose/watery eyes, GI issues, chills/flushed non-stop, several-day insomnia, and the absolute worst malaise ever for a week+ is what being dopesick is like. I've become very vigilant on keeping stocked up, and generally always have a weeks worth of goods set aside for an emergency.

Running out is not pretty, and buying street opiates to keep me well is more expensive my an order of magnitude (the amount of oxycodone needed to keep me well is about ~$80-$100 a day, compared to about $10 for pods), so I've learned enough discipline to not let that happen.

Another issue is traveling. If I go on a trip for two weeks, I absolutely MUST bring some pods with me. My old strategy was to ship them to my destination ahead of time, but a lost package nearly ruining a trip to NoLa taught me not to do that. The current strategy is to carry the grounds pods with me through security in a Metamucil container;looks nearly identical and non-suspicious enough to get my Schedule I narcotics through TSA without issue.

So, the big question, is why bother to keep it up? Why not take a vacation from work and get cleaned out? Well, the answer is I have done so before and made a sober, conscious decision to start using once again. After getting fed up with the obligation, I did just that and took two weeks off and headed to the coast to detox away from everybody. Went entirely clean for over six months, with the exception of some weed now and again. After the initial dopesickeness subsided and my endorphin levels stabilized, I was back to the person I used to be....and I hated it. I could no longer power through long days at work with a smile, and my cheery/outgoing demeanor was exchanged for a muted and anxious personality. I became somebody that I did not want to be, the same overthinking introvert that I used to be. Friendships drifted apart and my general enthusiasm towards life became non existent. Work suffered and grades dropped. Without the ability to chemically manipulate my body's opiate receptors, I simply lost enthusiasm for life.

So, after giving sobriety an honest chance, I hopped back on the opiate train. I know it's self-medication, and is not something I can sustain indefinitely. Eventually the laws will tighten up, or something else will give and my pods will be no more. At that point, who knows...maybe I'll just move to a proper climate and grow pods all year round.