bumping this rather than starting a new thread in the hopes that some of you folks already invested in the conversation/investigation will be able to help me figure out a weird and very disturbing experience. if not, well, at least i'm adding a new data point... and maybe a cautionary tale someone will benefit from.
i have to preface this by saying that this was almost a year ago and occurred during a period of extreme upheaval/uncertainty/emotional trauma, so a lot of details that would surely be helpful are lost to me.
background about my history: i'm more familiar with meth than i planned to be (lol). i enjoyed a few short binges when i was a kid but went over a decade without touching it to focus on my burgeoning career as a fulltime junkie. after i finally quit for good, i ended up trying meth again and used pretty often for a few months, then daily without exception for at least as long. nearly every ROA possible. it got bad until i lost access. after nearly a year, it showed up again and i used frequently but irregularly for 18 months or so. then i lost access for a few more months.
now the experience that brings me here. a chance encounter resulted in an opportunity. i'd reconnected with an old friend and he was using some DNM to get all manner of shit. i was elated, as i had relapsed on painkillers and was in the middle of the aforementioned traumatic misery. i wanted off the opioids and wanted the energy and focus to figure out how to dig myself out of the nightmare i had been thrust into (and then made worse).
well, he hooked me up with
much more than i had ever had at once. it was the best value on whatever market he was using when weighing dollars per gram against vendor reputation, i guess. i was
stunned. this was like a six month supply even knowing i'd go hard af for fun in the beginning. package arrived and i was shocked by the fucking size of some of the crystals but figured i'd just never bought enough to see any like them. i was also struck by how much the shards stuck together but assumed it was a result of the vacuum sealing. after i chipped off a good bowl pack, i got a huge rip and a great rush. so began a few blissful days. i did kick the pills and got a ton done, including a lot of soul-searching about how i'd ended up there and where i wanted to go. eventually, i broke up the biggest shards until i ended up with a pretty uniform size and i weighed it out into separate containers with which to budget. so at this point everything is mixed, and i can't remember anything about the crackback pattern/speed and little about the hardness, though it did vary some iirc.
what i do remember: soon i began to worry about my technique. even with all my experience, i was never great at hitting a pipe between my vision, general lack of graceful movement, and shitty lungs - but this was worse and different. it seemed like i was burning it way faster, and it would turn this almost caramel brown color when it recrystallized after just a couple hits, even when i was certain that i had kept the flame sufficiently far and didn't think it could've been nearly long enough to burn. i was used to meth getting darker as i smoked and inevitably burned it, but this got significantly darker much faster. i tried switching between Bic lighters and torches and it didn't seem to make much difference. pipe, bong attachment, even the trusty appliance bulb. i tried packing smaller amounts, more powder, all crystal. even just enough for a single hit, which sometimes seemed to work. (obviously i wonder now whether that was because i sometimes got packs that were just meth.)
then there was the taste/smell. it was like... burning plastic or carpet fibers, with a sickening sweetness. it was immediately and intensely nauseating and seemed to stick on my tongue. that was definitely new to me, even having burned countless bowls (and pissed off countless friends lol). eventually i got to the point that i simply couldn't keep hitting a bowl until it was finished. it just made me too nauseated and sometimes brought on a pretty intense headache and i'd be rendered useless for a few hours. once it had become more brown than white or yellow, (one to a few hits, depending on the size of the pack) i took to inserting a thin metal scoop into the pipe, scraping the residue, and placing it in gelcaps to take orally. absolutely ridiculous, but the absence of that taste and subsequent nausea made it seem totally reasonable.
i snorted a fair bit as well. i always liked that it lasted longer and it didn't make me as fiendish. now, meth has always made for a rough line compared to most things, and i have some pretty bad sinus issues so it's probably worse for me than average. but it was brief and entirely tolerable, certainly worth it. eventually i even came to enjoy the sting in the same sick way that i enjoyed the prick of a needle. the congestion was always a much bigger obstacle when it came to that ROA. not so with this stuff, my fucking god. congestion was about normal as i recall, but the pain was
awful. even when i was really dissatisfied with my high and was very keen to boost it, i had to psych myself up for even medium lines after i got used to each one resulting in intense, searing pain that lingered for like 30 seconds and made my eye on the side i snorted with water immediately and profusely. when a shard crushed up into more powder than i had expected, i'd wince lol. but for all the pain, it didn't make me want to throw up, so i did it as often as i could bring myself to.
other tidbits:
- it was variously clear and cloudy/white
- i became more anxious much faster than ever before, but given my emotional state at the time it seemed explainable
- i became unproductive faster, and it seemed less like punding or even distraction/overstimulation and more like... lethargy. meth has always made me really happy to work hard as fuck, but that stopped very quickly. again, i attributed it to everything i was going through at the time.
- i definitely got high, over and over. all the expected hallmarks of a meth high, including duration, were experienced. but sometimes the high simply wasn't fun, not in light of all the negative effects anyway. it reminds me now a bit of the "high" from eating Benzedrex cottons.
- i shared quite a bit when i first got it. my friend didn't notice anything untoward, but maybe it's because i hadn't yet mixed it all together.
- that enormous quantity that i expected to last me months disappeared in just a few weeks. i still almost don't believe it, expecting a vial i hid in my paranoia to surface while cleaning someday. but really, i'm pretty sure that i just sat and chain smoked the shit, which i had never done before, not to such an absurd degree.
- a few days after i ran out entirely i experienced a number of intense - and intensely alarming - neurological issues. like, i expect some shit to happen while tweaking, and to linger after if it was a bad binge, especially if i took insufficient care of myself. but these started after i was done. i had some kind of dyskinesia or chorea, these spastic jerks in all my limbs that hit at random. i ran into the wall, i ran into a stone pillar. a few times i lost consciousness, including while standing up and woke when i hit the floor, once when my face hit the counter and busted my lip. i don't think this was the usual post-binge exhaustion. i've fallen asleep in the middle of all sorts of stuff after staying up too long and ofc sleep tons when a binge ends. this was different, like blacking out or fainting. this all stopped entirely maybe two days after it started, so around a week after i had run out.
- during the period that was happening, i actually felt really good for the most part. i didn't have the depression i expected coming off such a monumental binge and i felt sharp, was in a fun, playful mood (enough to be noticed and enjoyed, since no one saw anything other than the movement issues) and... well, high. more than i had for the second half of using!
it took a few months for me to realize that i should have been much more concerned (and then
distressed) by what i experienced, but i was in such a pit of despair and fear, and so desperate to escape from it, that i lost all objectivity. i've done plenty of reckless shit in my time, but even at the absolute worst of my heroin addiction, i don't think i ever so thoroughly discarded my own safety or ignored so many warning signs. it was sufficient to scare me off DNMs since, even without a local plug.
i'm bringing this up now because i was given a few hits a couple days ago and a small line a few hours ago and it got me thinking about how incredibly fucked up that experience was, especially now that i can contrast it with a fresh reminder of what half-decent speed is like: the taste and smell from smoking, the way it behaves in the bubble, the brief and enjoyable sting of a line, the high itself.
so, i'm certain that some portion of that shit was the advertised product. but it's obvious that a significant percentage was
not and i would very much like to know what the hell it might have been. parts line up with various suggested agents, but others don't seem to. maybe it was a mixture of multiple things? whether cuts/adulterants or impurities, i'd love some informed ideas that fit.
Im gonna be so sketched out driving that long with it on me.
