eli5 I’m looking for a visual on what happens inside your body during opiate withdrawal. So far I picture my brain screaming at me wanting food.
In: Chemistry
Not wanting food. It’s not a hunger like that. The body has become dependent on external opioids and no longer functions properly without them. A normal body produces endorphins, which are opioids that bind to the opioid receptors all over the nervous system. These receptors play a role in pain regulation and mood. If your body has stopped making them (because they have been present from another source), you will have problems with pain and mood. To make things worse, if the external opioids have been kept up for some time, the nervous system has made even more opioid receptors.
So the brain is screaming for opioids to fill up some of its vacant receptors so that it can function normally.
Our bodies are basically computers controlled by chemicals. There’s two things happening with this addiction, and one of them is the most dangerous.
Part of how we learn “good” things is our brain’s supposed to release a chemical when we do something like eating a meal or having sex. The chemical makes us feel good, but also changes behavioral parts of our brain to make us want to do the things that released that chemical again. But because it’s not good to just eat or just have sex, there’s some safety measures where if you keep doing that thing too much the brain’s supposed to stop paying attention to the “good” chemical. So we stop feeling good if we do the thing and seek something else. It’s pretty complex.
Opioids cause the brain to release a lot of that “good” chemical. Then your brain gets used to “when I take this drug I feel good”. But because it keeps happening, the brain starts ignoring some of that chemical. But the drug was making the brain release *so much* of it that nothing else presents itself as “do this to feel good again” but “take more of the drug”.
Think of it if like, eating a good pizza released 10 points of happy chemicals. Taking one pill could release *50* points. So your brain gets “numbed” to the point that it ignores 50 points. Now you’d have to eat 6 pizzas to feel happy. But clearly you can’t eat 6 pizzas, so instead you take 2 pills to get 100 points of happy chemicals. This escalates fast.
The second part is more dangerous. Opioids mess with part of your brain that releases a chemical that means we’re awake. That chemical governs our heart rate, breathing, and a lot of other important processes. Opioid addicts end up with a brain that only produces that chemical if they’re on the opioid. That means if they quit, the chemical isn’t produced and their body starts behaving like it’s asleep. The heart rate will slow, breathing will slow, etc. The problem is the body isn’t a great computer, and even when we’re asleep the amount of that chemical isn’t supposed to get lower than a certain amount or else you could stop breathing or the heart could beat TOO slowly. For an addict, being off of opioids can easily cause the brain to make so little of that chemical they basically sleep to death.
So yes, your body’s screaming at you, but it’s not screaming at you to eat food or play video games. It wants you to take more pills, and it tells you that taking more pills is the only thing that could possibly make you happy, and when you take them it tells you no, that wasn’t *enough*, you’re not going to be happy if you don’t take *more*. The brain in this case can only move from “it’s about lunchtime” to “I’M STARVING TO DEATH I GUESS I’LL JUST DIE” and there’s nothing in between anymore, because these drugs CHANGE how the brain’s physical ‘machinery’ produces the chemicals that regulate your body.
That’s why it’s so hard to get people off. They *need* something that tricks the brain into making the right chemicals, but it *also* has to be something that changes the brain back to how it was.
With physical opiate withdrawal you can expect to feel; body aches, shivering, sweating, chills, muscle pain, insomnia, dysphoria, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, runny nose, watery eyes, as well as tiredness and irritability.
Some of these are dependent on how long and how much someone’s been taking.
It was surprisingly difficult to find an infographic on google, but found a timeline of symptoms on this site about halfway down; https://riverwalkranch.com/opioid-withdrawal/
Honestly if you’re just feeling hungry, then you might not even be physically dependent yet (especially if it’s been over 24 hours since you last took anything). In that case it’s just psychological drug cravings, which will pass in another day or 3. I’d STRONGLY advise anyone to stop taking any opiate they’re not prescribed. (It’s literally the only drug I’ve ever known where I witnessed a 100% addiction rate in friends).
That’s sort of correct, but on the mental side of it. Essentially your brain starts to see the drugs like food or water, so trying to cold turkey it is similar to trying to starve yourself, at least mentally.
Physically it starts off with a runny nose, watery eyes and excessive sneezing (being in jail you hear constant sneezing, six or seven tomes in a row). Your muscles start to feel tight, especially your arms and legs, but also your back. Some people have stomach issues and will throw up, but that doesn’t happen to me. After a day or so since the last dose your legs get super restless to the point it almost hurts to stay still. It doesn’t really cause pain exactly, it’s more like you are the most uncomfortable you could ever be. Sitting still is terrible, you won’t be able to eat or sleep and you’ll just wander around miserable.
Luckily it only lasts 3 or 4 days but you spend the whole time knowing that you can make it all go away so easily. Most addicts don’t do this by choice so your probably either unable to get the money for more dope, or you can’t find anyone that has any. But that thought is always on your mind and it drives you crazy. The easiest withdrawals I ever had were actually in jail since you know there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve done this shit dozens, maybe hundreds of times. I didn’t decide to quit until the heroin disappeared and all that was left was fentanyl. Fentanyl is even worse since it only lasts maybe 2/3 the time heroin does, so your sick more often. It also just wasn’t a good high, not worth risking death.
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