That particular pill can actually help alot of players play better, not vice versa. Not suggesting people take em for pool, but if you take them for actual real reasons and happen to get a match lined up while on one you are not exactly at a disadvantage.
Actually I made a mistake. The pills I have now are oxycodone. My dad gives me his leftovers every couple months. I take about two a week at most in 1/2 pill increments unless I am going to play a long session in pool or do something physical for a while.
I don't think that they improve my focus. They do take the edge off the pain and that allows me to focus less on the pain and more on the game.
But I do know lots of people who don't have back pain that take them and other pain pills to play on.
I was once in a one pocket game against a well know professional player getting 10:6 for $600 a game. I had been up all day working my booth and we started playing at about midnight. I had taken no pills and was slightly inebriated when we started to play. I got five games ahead and he had to call his backer for more money. We took a break and I thought I should take a pill.
30 minute later his backer shows up with a stack of money and I am starting to feel the effects of the pill. We adjust the game to 10:7 - 9:6 or something like that - I am giving up some of the weight I was getting.
I never win another game, I feel lost and out of focus, my speed is off, I am taking flyers instead of playing tight, and basically I was not the same player. So he got even and I had to quit. Of course there were tons of mitigating factors happening there, me playing over my head, being up on a champion, being tired from no sleep for near 24 hours, the alcohol wearing off, etc...... but to this day I believe that if I had not taken the pill then I would have played differently.
I am not a fan of playing when you are high. I think it's fake and leads to disaster more often than success. Because if "the mix" isn't right then the game isn't there. Winning on the natural is truly the high you can't buy.
I think that if you are in legitimate pain and you take a pill then it brings you back to normal so in that sense I don't consider myself high when I take enough to dull the pain.
The other night however I think I took too much and that I was a little high when we started and that made me disoriented a little bit so that I wasn't locked into hitting the balls with the right speed.
Once time a friend gave me a pill and I took it and when it hit I told him I felt like someone was driving pins into my joints but not in a bad way just in a weird way. I played some local for $50 a set and gave up the five out and destroyed him. I was running out on the bar table like water, making kicks, caroms, combos, and well everything. When it was done and I came down I told him never to do that to me again.
