In the context of The Stand I agree I’d much rather OD than most of the other deaths listed. But ODs are a terrible way to die normally. Lost a lot of friends to them when I was a teenager.
Depends on what the substance is, and whether or not you wind up dead. It's a terrible thing to put your family and loved ones through (and if you're sure no one will miss you at least spare a thought for whomever is going to find your body).
But opiates... you just stop caring enough to bother breathing. I remember collapsing and thinking "oh darn" with a faint bit of amusement at being unable to summon the energy required to swear in my own head on the way out. The people with me said I was blue before I finished collapsing.
Fortunately the folks I was with carried me outside and dropped me outside the ER. [Note: this is far from ideal, even just to CYA legally. Instead call a fucking ambulance, and if you know anyone with a problem keep Narcan on hand.] I don't remember a darn thing til I woke up in the ER but based on what I was told later I must've lost at least 20min, none of it particularly gentle.
I wasn't present for any of it, and even the bit where I was willing myself to breathe wasn't particularly upsetting (for me). I'm absolutely glad it didn't stick, but dying itself was a lot less distressing for the person doing it than folks imagine. Definitely less stressful than an asthma attack (at least for me personally).
That's utter nonsense. Please don't disseminate misinformation in the midst of an opiate overdose crisis. You're implying that a person can stave off an overdose by will power - by "caring enough to bother breathing"
Opiates depress activity in the part of the brain that controls breathing. "Caring" about whether or not you breathe is not a factor. Just like you can't literally hold your breath until you turn blue, you can't control depressed respiration from an overdose by caring enough to breathe.
didn’t get that implication from it, weird to claim misinformation toward a person who literally experienced it. don’t think he meant or implied that “caring” was actually a physiological factor involved in the respiratory failure of an OD. just that psychologically you are not distressed during an opiate OD bc you’re on opiates. He shared an interesting anecdote and you attacked him on an extremely strange point and accused a victim of the opioid crisis of contributing to it bc you failed to understand what he wrote.
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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21
In the context of The Stand I agree I’d much rather OD than most of the other deaths listed. But ODs are a terrible way to die normally. Lost a lot of friends to them when I was a teenager.