I'll say one more word on the subject and then I'm done...I've decided that I'm going to try and quit using, and obsessively talking about the drug kind of makes me want to go out there and get some.
Anyway, what follows is a description of the experiences of one guy. People have different reactions to drugs obviously and I don't pretend that my experience is universal. However, I think my descriptions of some of meth's effects are generally accurate for most people.
I've used meth for a couple years now, on and off. My preferred method in the beginning was snorting it. Back when I was doing that it was actually somewhat easy to maintain, as far as the psychological addiction was concerned...snorted methamphetamine combines a pleasant, strong high with a minimalization of one of the most notorious aspects of meth, which is the "fiendyness" of the drug, the constant urge to re-dose. However, I wrecked my nose doing this. Snorted methamphetamine burns like hellfire and can damage your nasal tissue. I ended up with a sinus infection and a wound in my nose that took over a month to heal/stop bleeding. One night the healed wound busted open in my sleep, smearing my pillow with blood. I woke up with an eye infection which I theorize was from all the disgusting shit in my nose leaking out unto my pillow and getting into my eye. Gross, right?
After this I moved to another area of the state I live in for 6 months and quit the habit. It wasn't hard at all to quit, actually, at least in the short term. One always remembers what it felt like to be high, though, and thus it's a long-term addiction, or has the potential to be. A friend of mine once said that there are two kinds of people who use hard drugs: meth people and heroin people (and people who like meth AND heroin, but usually they have a preference between the two, a DOC). I'm definitely the former, IMO it's the best high that exists. I went through a brief "heroin phase" of a couple months but honestly I didn't get what the big deal was. It's a strong drug obviously, and I understand why people like it, but for me personally it's just not particularly addictive. I'm sure there are many opiate users who have tried meth and feel the same way. So I'm a meth fan...I think it's a fantastic drug with potential benefits if administered responsibly. But it'll kick you straight in the nuts if you start up a habit and/or abuse it, real fuckin' fast. Your mental state, physical health & weekly schedule all start to degrade, QUICK. A stimulant addiction involves a far faster and more dramatic decline than an opiate addiction, IMO.
Anyway, for six months or so I stayed sober. I recently moved back in to this city and got back into the scene, though. My strategy for "recreational use" was as follows: buy Friday. Consume Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. Finish by Sunday night and by Monday be sober. I also started smoking it instead of snorting it. But even this became ultimately unsustainable...my weekends became blurs of me just relentlessly and obsessively getting spun out of my mind, at the expense of EVERYTHING ELSE. No sleep, but also no work for school. Little to no eating or drinking. For three days out of the week I was a complete basket case...it finally reached its climax today when, after spending 3+ days awake, I went to class and started nodding off during the discussion. So I think I'm done with it. It's also negatively affected my personal relationships in a big way. I give exactly 0 shits about my friends or girls or hanging out with anyone or doing anything other than hitting the pipe, and hitting it again!
And to give some perspective: this was off 50 dollar bags of meth. 50 dollars a week is not much money to spend on a drug habit, and even that minimal amount of gear punked me out.
I'm not saying that it's impossible to have a recreational relationship with meth...that was more-or-less the situation when I just snorted, but that proved to be unsustainable. Smoking crystal meth is a whole other ballgame, though. If you do manage to have a non-problematic relationship with smoking it, then congratulations and godspeed sir or ma'am, you definitely have more willpower than me. Prior to meth I had a long and storied career of drug use, all of it being recreational/non-problematic and much of it involved drugs that people commonly consider addictive like cocaine, various prescription pills and heroin. I like to think that I can handle my business pretty well and can stay on top of my shit. Meth made me its bitch, though. Treat the drug with the respect and caution it deserves.