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Do you actually feel that you've got dumber because of drug abuse?

Well there's no real way of knowing unless you could compare yourself with the alternate time-line you who never touched substances. That said, I don't feel any less intelligent and I've gone way overboard on lots of drugs. Perceived psychological deficits can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy - it's not healthy ground to be treading imo.
 
webbykevin said:
I always thought an arts degree was the university equivalent of a GED :)

They actually awarded a chimp an arts degree some years ago, cant remember the details but i'll try and hunt down a link for you.

No offence intended bro :)
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Um, a Bachelor of Arts and particularly a Master of Arts from a good university is FAR from a GED equivalent, I have both degrees in General Linguistics. One is a 4 year degree, the other is an additional 3 semesters of work. You are thinking of a degree in liberal arts, and I'm actually pretty insulted with that comment. And, I don't have a penis, i have a vagina, and you were offensive, please know what you are talking about before commenting. Guess you never went to college, bro.
 
purple_cloud said:
Um, a Bachelor of Arts and particularly a Master of Arts from a good university is FAR from a GED equivalent, I have both degrees in General Linguistics. One is a 4 year degree, the other is an additional 3 semesters of work. You are thinking of a degree in liberal arts, and I'm actually pretty insulted with that comment. And, I don't have a penis, i have a vagina, and you were offensive, please know what you are talking about before commenting. Guess you never went to college, bro.
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as someone who loves art and did dabble in art in college, I commend your success bro, that's solid hard work. And natural ability.

comparing it to a GED is one of the most absurd comments I've read - pay no heed.
 
Thanks OD and taow, I actually thought about this all day and thought maybe I went a little too far - just sorta hit a sore spot after all that work, ya know? And the degrees aren't art related at all, "College of Arts and Sciences" is just the overall name, and you get either a Bachelor/Master of Science/Art depending on the field and the school you're at --- I do Linguistics, which is the specific area of the degree.

But yeah, back to topic --- I'll just always wonder what potential would have been there, maybe one day I'll give up fun and go get a PhD, we'll see.
 
Heuristic said:
Apostacious's posts are dead-on.

Working with information is a kind of skill. Don't use that skill much for a while, and you may feel a bit clumsy next time you sit down to work.

But with a little practice, that skill will return. Old connections are found, and refreshed, and new ones are grown.

Now, there's no question that present drug-use (not all of them, but most of the ones mentioned in this thread) can reduce cognitive skills. However there's also little question that stopping the drug-use, and working/playing again, will refresh and enhance cognitive skills.

Also, for those of you running self-diagnostics out of anxiety, keep in mind that such anxiety can be distracting, and will lower your score.
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Thank you, Heuristic. You too are absolutely correct that anxiety can cloud one's mind. I know that anxiety causes me to think obsessively about certain things, and when I am supposed to be focusing on new material that is not emotionally congruent to me during an anxiety attack, I tend to be unable to understand it until my anxiety goes away.

Additionally, you have encapsulated how old skills, once forgotten, can be learned again better than I could.
 
Not at all.

I mean there are plenty of times I could've spent my time reading rather than getting high...so I suppose I've robbed myself of those chances to exercise my intellect, but in terms of raw cognitive ability, it's all still there.
 
A certain clarity of mind accompanies sobriety, and only sobriety.

It can strike with vigor in the midst of the occasional peak drug experience. The feeling when it does is akin to the feeling of shedding very uncomfortable shoes. But it is only consistent and prolonged in a sober mind, properly directed.
 
.Lucid. said:
i dont think my level of intelligence has dropped because of drug use.. but my functionality and my ability to apply my intellect is definitely hindered by drugs. im pretty sure the fog will clear up with enough sober time though.. i hope lol.
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This is what I find, as well.
I'm able to recall old information and, other than the expected decline that comes with age, I feel that I still process and retain new information as well as I ever have I just find that my ability to express this information to others is hindered. It's as though I've forgotten the function of language, Schoolhouse Rock level language function, but I've also noticed that I'm recovering it, albeit slowly, the more that I socialize (Something that I rarely did, other than with my husband, when I was using.).
 
I wouldn't put too much faith in the IQ test that has contributed to this conclusion as their outcomes can vary depending on what time of day you take the test, and that's the least of the variables.
 
Y'know, this is a real kerfuddle of a mindfuck of a question that leads me to this connundrum:
IF my intellegence has gone down because of drugs should it really matter as a considerable amount of what I know, anyway, has come from my experiences as a drug user?
 
I used to be in the 99% in those SAT tests (california in the 90s). I havent took an IQ test in awhile but I sure did a shit load of drugs. I believe I am still smarter than most, not to sound too argogant. But when you look at all the shit these college grads dont know, it kind of pisses me off. I am looking to go back to school, so I can actually make something iof myself instead of just being (hopefully an ex) junky. I had a lot of people tell me that I had a lot of potential, oh well. Maybe even just ROP classes will work for me.
 
"turn on, tune in, and drop out" - I still haven;t finished highschool, I just saw it all as a sham, not i'm starting to think my way out of it but mannnn psychedelics gave me some GOOD reasons at the time to be unnaturally undriven in a sense of personal gain.

Dumber...not a shade!
 
Sometimes I do. I abused drugs for about four years and have been sober for over two. I was diagnosed with epilepsy after a head injury at age 16 though so I could never really tell if the seizures were what made me feel sort of stupid and forgetful or if it was the drugs. I'm willing to bet it was a combination of the two.

It has, however, improved dramatically over the years and continues to get better. I think it just takes time for your brain to sort of repair itself and get back to a normal state. A lot of people expect this to happen overnight and oh, how nice that would be. Unfortunately it doesn't.
 
I find that when i smoke cannabis very heavily my iq does drop a few points. Its really high to begin with so I dont notice much. But this always seems to go away with cessation of heavy thc intake.
 
i dont know if its so much being dumb as it is being burned out! alot of brain cells left for dead. lol
 
Goddamn alcohol, mdma, every benzo, coke have definitely taken the edge off my intelligence. Even the fucking SSRIs seem to have slowed me down a bit. However, some of my book smarts (English Major; love reading and writing) have been traded for street smarts. While I was in High School I was, without a doubt, naive as they come. After a few years getting drunk and high, I learned a little bit about the dark side of humanity. We all have good hearts, somewhere along the line though, we just became a little jaded.
 
Not dumber, just different. I think my focus has suffered more than anything, but I can overcome it most times. It just takes me a bit longer to get on track and stay there.
 
i feel my opiate n benzo use over the last 5 years has made me lazy dumber and short term memory loss is shocking i do think its because while abusing these things i havent been training my brain hopefully now i start to i will get sum of my functions back
 
I thought I posted in here but guess not. Drugs absolutely make you dumb imo and they also make other people downright crazy. But I believe it depends on genetics, what you used, and not just how long but the frequency in general.
And the evidence is really everywhere if you ever just go to an NA meeting and talk to some of the older drug addicts in there (alcohol too).

Yet like I said I also think this is very specific to what you use. I think meth makes people wayyy stupider than opiate, and I also think alcohol makes people stupider than opiates. Some drugs are just far too traumatic for the brain imo and are known to destroy brain tissue (like speed). I've also met a lot of older k heads that where both slow and outright insane.

As far as pot I absolutely think it makes you dumb, but once again so many factors come into play.
For example, when I was young I was sharp as fuck, naturally gifted, could understand and comprehend organic chemistry by the time I was 17. I also taught myself how to make mdma among many other drugs and it is NOT as easy as you might think, actually extremely elaborate and complex of a process.
At this age I can still comprehend things, and would still say I'm sharp, but that intense ability to learn things as fast as I use to is no longer existent. For exams I find myself studying for hours, my memory does not retain information like it use to, and although I wouldn't consider myself dumb, after another 20 years of smoking pot and doing opiates not only will I have effects of age, but the effects of long term drug use along with age.

I've also read some things I wrote when I was much younger and I had abilities at that age I don't seem to possess now. Like writing for one. I use to be a really great writer, and also kept a journal at a young age. When I go back now and read that journal there are words in there that I DON'T EVEN KNOW what they mean today. So apparently my vocabulary as shrunk over the years although I've simultaneously become more outgoing so its hard to really notice I think.

I also know anytime I stop drugs for a bit of time my brain just seems to work much more efficiently (ok stop pot is what I mean really). When I stop opiates my brain gets sharper, but it also scrambles all over the place and makes it hard to focus on one thing. Overall though I think
the people who really need to worry about this are the extremely compulsive addicts. The ones who need to rob and steal to support their habits, or use 20 times a day, just any situation where there is a high frequency of drugs persistenly slamming their receptors.

Although I'm a drug addict I still never use more than once a day, and I no longer use to get as blitzed as I possibly can. I really use just to maintain my physical addiction, and occassionally bump it up every few weeks. As far as pot I never need to smoke more than once, and its only really 5-6 tokes a night. I never roll blunts, and never engage in hourly long smoking sessions
as its that type of shit I believe really winds up catching up with you.
And my goal isn't to maintain a moderate habit for life, its to quit asap. So hopefully I'll be able to spare a few brain cells to take me through old age. All I know is I tell myself if I get past 30 still using drugs I will kill myself. No questions asked. I'm 28 now and am hoping to be off everything by spring, but only time will tell I guess.
 
villian said:
most definitely. 10 years of hard drug use fucked my mind. I think the high dose benzos were the worst culprit.
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yeah after hardcore using benzos for 2 months i had gone into a massive depression suicidal going to mental health units and whatnot and also rehab i couldent stop taking them id take about 10mg ativan and 7-10mg klonapin everyday and drink sometimes id go way overbored and black out witch i usually did everynight anywase and snort anything that i could resulting in not breathing not being able to talk didnt know who i was or anything my <3gf<3 saved my life multiple times in those 2 months but i think when i used to huff gas back when me n my buddies did it alot for like a month n i stopped i noticed myself getting slower to say the least but anymore i think im back to ware i was before i did it but the benzos did more than just make me dumb they made me have severe psycological problems im still "fasinated" with near death and death idk its weird
 
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