"Honeymoon" Periods with Recreational Drugs - Help? Share?

[Phil.McKeer]

What is it about the first time of using just about any substance that makes it so unique compared to every other time? It seems like with the exception of alcohol and cocaine, every single mind altering substance I've used was HEAVEN the first time around, and every subsequent use was a failed attempt to reach that original halcyon peak, which invariably lead to failure/disappointment.

Cannabis - the first time I smoked, I forgot what I was talking about just 30 seconds prior, fell on the ground laughing my ass off and didn't give a damn that I was lying face down in dirt, and had no motivation to get up, not to mention I had a black hole in my stomach that no amount of food could satiate. After 17 years, it's a totally different experience. I just get "high"/sedated. No uncontrollable laughter, no forgetting what we were just talking about, and certainly no munchies.

MDMA - the first time I took X I was "communing with nature", felt a connected love to everyone and everything around me (and felt it reciprocated), and everything felt like utter bliss, and the comedown was a negligible joke. The whole experience changed my entire outlook on life and made me a more loving and accepting person. The last time I took MDMA it just felt like a dirty stimulant and the comedown required alprazolam to overcome. Yes, there was some empathogenic effects, but nothing close to feeling like I love everyone no matter who they are or what they've done and that they love me back. I did control this for bunk disco biscuits - I always check the pedigree of the press I'm going to buy on pill reports so it can't be that it was a mix of Meth and Caffeine etc. It was MDMA or at least MDA every time (I can't be 100% sure but I did the maximum amount of due diligence), and sometimes it was the pure powder ("molly").

Opioids - The first time I used opioids I layed down and closed my eyes and was allowed a visitor's permit to "opiate heaven" for hours in a steady dream-like nod state. Incidentally, this was a hospital administered morphine shot when I was 13 and had broken my leg in 3 places. Years later, my first few dalliances with Oxy (the old formulation OC80's that were smokable) and H produced the same similar priceless euphoria. After some time of continued use, 2 grams of relatively decent quality west coast tar H over the course of the day just gets me feeling "normal", and I'll be lucky to catch a nod (more likely if I've taken any benzos recently). And I have to pay back the loan in the form of agonizing withdrawal (well, not that agonizing, because I have withdrawal mitigation down to a science).

Benzos - The first time I took alprazolam I had been on a cocaine bender all night (probably insufflated over a g through the course of the night/early morning) and 0.5mg xanax put me right to sleep within 30 minutes after administration (whereas without I'd be lying in bed with a heartrate of 120bpm+ waiting for the sun). Now I'm at 4mg to get the same effect that 0.5mg gave me originally and it doesn't even have the same sedative feel, and I can tell that the tolerance increase is close to exponential - like a hokey-stick graph. The first time I took 10mg diazepam it was the most wonderful feeling in the world...40mgs doesn't even TOUCH that feeling now.

LSD/Psylocybin - The first time I took LSD and shrooms they were particularly strong batches (the L was red gel windowpanes available for some time in so cal circa 2000 - the most potent L I've ever come across - and the shrooms were the type that are almost totally bruised blue all over) and even though some parts of the trips got a bit hairy, the whole thing had an overtone of great joy (accompanied by uncontrollable laughter) and a breakthrough into what then seemed like forbidden knowledge. I realize mind set and physical setting playing a huge part, but I don't take these things lightly and control for those factors (set/setting) diligently in all future trips. The last time I did L I had to constantly use whatever logical faculties I had available to fend off an unyielding assault of all past traumas, perceived wrongs, and self-limitations and self-blaming or delusionally paranoid thoughts. The beautiful visual pattern overlays were at best a tertiary phenomenon and at worst a distraction when they were originally one of the most enjoyable parts of the first experience. Most ironic of all is that I was using it to achieve a psychological breakthrough and perform therapy on myself. This may have accidentally caused a negative feedback loop in retrospect, but that doesn't diminish the other 20 times I've dosed L or Psylo and felt nothing near the bliss of the first date.

What, other than build up of tolerance can explain this? Some of these, like the LSD/Mushrooms and E, were spaced apart by years. That can't be tolerance build up.

What is it abut the magic of the "honeymoon period"/first use that never comes again? Is there a store of dopamine or seratonin that never gets fully replaced? What is going on here?

I want to smoke strong cannabis and laugh at nothing and forget who or what I was talking to less than a minute ago.

I want to take LSD or shrooms and become everything again while the cosmos kaleidoscopes all about me.

I want to take X and feel like all the people around me are my comrades to the grave and feel it reciprocated.

Will it take absitence, or as I stated in another thread, is the mental architecture permanently changed?

Any experience will help. Please feel free to discuss. Thanks, BL'ers.

 

[weekendwarrior11]

Personally in my opinion (no science back my theories lol) I think it has to do with your brain always having to adapt to everything changing. Like out brain will perceive things that are not there because it has been trained to make sense of everything in this crazy world.

So my theory is that the first time you take a drug, your brain has never had to explain to your body how to feel that way. So when you overload your body with serotonin or dopamine for the first time it hit hard and full force.

With that being said, I think the reason the "honeymoon" phase ends is because your brain has learned and understands what to expect everytime you ingest or shoot up or whatever. Kind of like a defense mechanism in the way that in your right mind you know its a little illogical and irresponsible to trust someone like you would while on mdma so once you become sober and look at your trip in retrospect your brain learns to defend you from that effect of the drug.

Sorry if that was a run on sentence. Lol but that's my theory. Your brain learns what to expect.ignorance is bliss.

 

[MrRoot]

I would go even further than weekendwarrior11 and give out an hypothesis of using exogenous chemicals mimicking of our own endogenous chemicals of same sort but more potent actually causes our brains neural pathways to alter in a ways that change the amount needed for mechanisms to kick in (=to feel) to very profound way if substance is used long enough for tolerance to be build.

I mean that if you had prior using DOC a neural pathway of analogous to a small street you have instead of that a huge eight lane highway after you used DOC enough for tolerance to be built up. You will notice rush hour with much less amount of cars in that small street than with that huge highway.

It will take a long way for this highway to erode and this is why you won't get rush (=same kind of euphoria as the first times) anymore until the highway has been eaten by desert after the cars have vanished (=you stop using DOC) and until the small street has been built again.

Same goes for jury rigging your brains pleasure and reward mechanisms. You will have too big pipes for them to flood over after the initial ones had been replaced for the amounts needed by the huge tidal waves of exogenous chemicals.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

With heroin it was just the opposite. I actually didn't think that much of H the first time I tried, but on subsequent occasions (especially IVing) I'd get so high that I couldn't walk straight & I could barely speak.

 

[szuko000]

Parallels can be drawn in other areas of life too. When something is new it seems awesome. This may be because as humans our brains are wired to want to repeat pleasurable experiences as this was important for remembering things as more primitive beings without the capability of higher order thinking. If a unique experience wasn't magically there would be a strong chance you wouldn't repeat it if it were challenging. Just kind of thinking out loud but it would make sense the brain would have a way to imprint new positive experiences into solid memories and that's what we experience when people say "honeymoon phase"

 

[MrRoot]

szuko000 did I read from between the lines that you would consider as an option if it might be so that the first experience wasn't that good in the first place but somehow our memory distorts it better than it was?

Just like how plenty of old people use to say that things were better in their youth although in fact it weren't

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Actually the only drugs I've ever done which I feel were the greatest first time 'round would probably be psychedelics, esp. mushrooms. Any drug which I like for "hedonistic purposes" (i.e. marijuana, meth, heroin etc.) were all better when I established really good connections and began to get drugs which were "high grade".

 

[szuko000]

szuko000 did I read from between the lines that you would consider as an option if it might be so that the first experience wasn't that good in the first place but somehow our memory distorts it better than it was?

Just like how plenty of old people use to say that things were better in their youth although in fact it weren't

... I typed that out and deleted it because it was slightly irrelevant and made the post a bit long. Now I'm worried I wrote it somewhere else and thought I deleted it lol, I didn't right?

 

[weekendwarrior11]

@mr root I didn't really understand what szuko was talking about, but the way you put it I have totally thought of it like that before. Like was it really that much better the first time?

That kinda what I meant in my post above. Like the first time you go skydiving will more intense and vivid then say your 10th time. Simply because you don't know what to expect. So your brain will instinctively heighten all your senses as a defense mechanism. With senses heightened you are going to perceive everything in a more intense way.

Like we all know when you first take a hard drug, you're scared, anxious, and/or nervous. So its completely a high likely hood that, the first time, you were not anymore "high" then you get now, just your brain has figured out that its not a complete danger so you don't notice as much stuff as you did the first time.

Sorry I'm probably repeating other posts, I'm just intrigued and thinking out loud.

 

[MrRoot]

Weekendwarrior11, as you add those scared, anxious and nervous parts to the process it pretty much goes into survival learning process and that is something our brains will reward very highly.

This I guess would lead to same memory of that first being fortified by our brains with not only with the drug causing euphoria but with the sensations from learning something which will save your life in future too although you might not notice this except in subconscious level right after the first time.

I mean you are scared, anxious and nervous as you a lot in stake when trying out that drug at first time and especially if it is your very first mind altering substance you are going to use. There is also a lot of anticipation as you don't know how you would feel even if you have tried to learn beforehand what that substance should do for you. Reading about nodding is quite different than experiencing it for example

Our brains function so that situations in which our life was in danger are what we remember quite lively although it might not resemble the real situation at all if we could have an objective recording tool for what happened.

For example people being held hostage might give out false descriptions of the guys pointing gun towards them by saying they were much taller and broader than them even though they were not etc. and yet they still say they can see it as clear as it happened even years from the event.

So I guess when you are trying a new substance there is a risk that it might kill you or you could for example "lose yor face" by overdoing it and losing your self control and end up sexually harassing your mother-in-law, getting your ass whooped by your father and finding yourself in hands of law enforcement at the morning.

At the same time there is also a some kind of other things in stake as there might be more motives atleast in subconscious level than just getting wasted such as understanding the universe better or whatever those hippie stuff are or just plainly thinking you might get that hot and naughty girl by looking cool by using drugs (disclaimer: using drugs doesn't very often look cool ).

So these risks and a possible gains make that first time feel nore superior to others no matter how it actually felt as the umphteenth time you are doing it you are familiar about what happens and you know you are pretty much safe if you do the dose you do.

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

I agree with all who said it's the level of danger or anxiousness that makes the first few times special. When you're anxious then you get instant relief plus a huge mood boost its a big change in consciousness. It was a massive relief when I went from a high anxiety depressive state to euphoria of body and mind all within an hour.

Still, opiates weren't dull after the first dose. I had a good 4 year run before they lost their shine, I would consistently get good effects from low doses of opiates near on par with the first time, albeit with slightly declining quality.