How I reconstructed my brain and regained my life after years of extreme drug abuse

[KingBlueTwista]

Hey all. I haven't been around bluelight for a long time! I used to frequent this place a lot. I would say I have good memories, but I actually don't have any memories of it at all. Until about two years ago, I had been doing drugs pretty much every day of my life for about five years, and it completely destroyed my memory, and any semblance of a human being that looked out of these eyes. I am sure some of you are in this painful state now, or are heading there already. It sucks so bad. And the worst part is, when you start the ascent and the rebuilding and the long nights back to sobriety and normality, you feel that you destroyed some part of yourself. That somehow you're a ghost, a pale imitation, a shadow of who you once were. In my particular case I can fairly say that I was completely gone. I had no autobiographical memory, couldn't remember what I did earlier in the day, yesterday, or for any of my life really. I could barely form a thought, except for thoughts about how I had not thoughts and how brain damaged I was. I lived in a constant state of painful apathy, nothing was engaging in the slightest, and the only times I felt anything were when I felt stressed by stuff or felt deeply depressed. I could not engage the world, could barely form coherent sentences. At some point my girlfriend left me because I was getting back into the drugs and becoming more selfish and basically dying on the inside from it all and I was probably horrible to be around. Before this I had tried several times to be sober but it never seemed to stick, maybe a few months here and there but I'd always find myself coming back to the drugs in a moment of boredom or despair. When she left I realised that my addiction to fleeing myself in the form of narcotics had destroyed everything I ever loved; my mind, my relationships, my enjoyment of anything. This gave me a fire, an impetus to fix myself and my life. Every step was a god damn struggle. And you know I feel the most difficult part of this is that I felt so much less of a person than I was, my mind was basically gone. That is the hardest part. Because then what do you have to build from? If life still continues to suck because you have destroyed the instrument with which you engage it, it is really difficult to be motivated to stay on the path of sobriety. The world you created for yourself is an inescapable hell. And what did we use drugs to escape from in the first place? Probably our own personal hells. See the catch 22 here. I think this is why so many attempted recoveries fail. Anyway so this is why I am writing this, because I discovered something (by the grace of Dog) that basically enabled me to rebuild my mind into some semblance of a human being, and then some.

I discovered this profound technology around one and a half years ago, and it is called neurofeedback, more specifically, TAGsync neurofeedback. Neurofeedback is a way of feeding back your brain signals in real-time to your conscious awareness. By doing this you can learn to modulate and direct your electrical brain dynamics, which via the process of Hebbian learning, restructures your neural networks over time. There are no limits to this restructuring. Neurofeedback as a whole has been found effective in the remediation of pathologies such as autism, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, cognitive decline associated with aging, ADHD, insomnia, addiction and so on [see here for a comprehensive list of scientific studies - http://noviancounseling.wix.com/bibliography]. This particular development (TAGsync protocol) is a quite profound step in the development of neurofeedback protocols, because with it you can train inter-frequency and cross-brain EEG relationships. These are known as 'cross-frequency coupling' relationships and have been shown via hundreds of studies [see here - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=cross-frequency+coupling] to be the key neural signature of complex information transmission, underlying short/long-term memory encoding, valid perception, decision-making, reward processing, motivation, consciousness, creativity, intelligence and so on. With TAGsync you can directly train and develop these dynamics to profound levels. The actual protocol itself was designed with the aim of engaging the EEG brain dynamics of a) master meditators in state (enlightenment, satori etc), b) expert in their fields and c) optimal neurocognitive development. interestingly effective cross-frequency coupling dynamics across key frequencies (such as theta, alpha, gamma (what TAG stands for)) is a shared feature of all of these.

See, when I first started trying to fix my brain, I dived into the reports and tried to find the source, in order that I could address and hopefully correct it. What I found was many people talking about downregulation of receptors of various kinds and thinking that was behind the damage, so naturally I sought ways to address that... I found nootropics, which are basically chemical enhancers and neurotransmitter modulators which are meant to improve cognition with minimal side-effects. Long story short, some stuff worked, but exacerbated my insomnia to the point where I was at a net deficit, while a lot of other stuff did nothing at all. Then by some great fortune I stumbled on a thread on the longecity boards about TAGsync neurofeedback. I started reading the site of the inventor (original can be found here - http://tagsynchrony.com/) and thought maybe this could work for me. It was quite a bit of money to get the whole kit (about $1600) but by this point I was desperate. I knew it could not get worse and that I'd continue to have no life if it didn't get better (was 21 at the time, am 23 now). So I brought it and got set up, learned how to use it with some help from the inventor of the protocol. And I started to see improvements from the first session; afterwards I went for a walk and my mind was clearer than it had been for years, I was over the moon with hope that this could fix me, heal me. I have been doing this neurofeedback for about a year and a half now and I have experienced a consistent and profound development in all areas of my life; first I remediated my problems, regained my sense of emotion, ability to have fun and be happy, the ability to form thoughts, to read, to comprehend, to think, to engage with people socially, to not be a nervous wreck around other people. To get rid of all of these took me about 4-5 months I would say, and it had been about a year before that that I had been (approximately) sober and had seen hardly an iota of development in any of these areas. The year since then has been one of continual intellectual, creative, emotional, meditative, social development, in all areas of my life I am improved and continue to improve! I am now the most tranquil, happy and engaged person I know! This really is a groundbreaking technology. I totally understand if any of you are skeptical about any of this, so I encourage you to do more digging at these extensive threads from many of us who are currently using this technology to great effect.

Threads can be found here;

- http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/69328-the-power-of-neurofeedback/

- http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/72710-tagsync-operation-and-discussion/

- http://www.reddit.com/r/TAGSync/

An interesting thing that I learned from this is that the way that brain damage is typically understood is quite deeply flawed, as it only takes into account structural brain damage such as lesions, tumors, physical traumas etc that are visible on physical scans. But what scans of that nature don't show is the disruption that extensive drug use can cause to the internal electrical dynamics of brainwave activity. Those only show up on a comprehensive EEG analysis, which tests for cross-frequency coupling and synchrony measures across large parts of the brain (which most don't). Often this can correct itself to a small degree over time, given health in other aspects, although at other times during heavy use there is no way that the brain can correct itself because the total dynamics are so out of whack that there is no order to seed the generation of further order. That was the case with me, and I never even began to see improvements until I started this.

So yeah, that's my story. Thankfully now I am completely cured, and in a sense I am grateful that I destroyed myself to the degree that I did, so that I could stumble upon this tech and having used it (and continue to do so) now far surpass whatever I may have been had I not done so. I believe this technology can take you to superhuman levels of functioning, and at the very least I know that it can completely heal a drug damaged brain, of which I was an extreme example.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. I hope that you all find the way out of your darkness, with this tech or without.

Love, P

P.s. latest official website on TAGsync can be found here - http://tagsync.com/

 

[KingBlueTwista]

If anyone finds this interesting, if you post your interest here we can keep this up near the front page so others can see it. Honestly I think this tech is one of the only things that currently exists that can undo the neurological damage of extensive drug abuse. I tried fucking everything and nothing even came close to this. I feel it is important to get it out there, and I feel an affinity with my fellow damaged ex-addicts because I know how much it sucks to feel you'll never be the same. Sorry for double posting, but I hope to spark interest and discussion in this here, as opposed to it falling into oblivion. For me, this was the difference between living in purgatory as a mental invalid and being a happy, thoughtful human again; and I am keenly aware that there are people out there who are in the same horrible position I was in. If you find this interesting and potentially helpful, it would be really cool if you could post something so we can increase the likelihood of more people finding out about this.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks for sharing KingBlueTwista. Lots of people here that could benefit from something like this. Interesting. So regarding the TAGsync, how long do you spend a day using it and do you need a professional to help you though the process or is this something you do entirely by yourself.

 

[KingBlueTwista]

Thanks Levels, I hope that some people here can benefit from this! I wish I had heard about it sooner, I wasted about a year of my life in the hell of a post-abuse addled mind. So since this is gonna be one of the first places bluelighters are gonna come, it is more likely to reach people here I think. I found out about it by stumbling on a post at the longecity forums about a year after I started my search for remedies for a broken mind. I hope this thread can cut that search short for many, and offer others who didn't think to search the possibility of healing.

A TAGsync session usually lasts about an hour, including preparation of the sensors and later removal. I usually do a session every day but you can of course do it with less frequency. Since the effects are accumulative and permanent, you do as many sessions as you feel to get yourself to the level you want to be at. To fully fix my mind, to something resembling a 'normal' brain (all basic functions eg memory, emotion, thought etc intact) took about 5-6 months of training I would say. Beyond that I continue to train because the progressive effects are awesome in themselves :D

Regards DIY vs professional use it is actually really easy to use yourself. Once you get to grips with the basic operation of the protocol, which takes about an hour or two, you can get set up in a couple of minutes each time. I was in a right state when I started, a mental zombie, yet I managed to get the protocols working with a bit of help from others, so that shows how easy it is.

 

[arvsnap]

"What I found was many people talking about downregulation of receptors of various kinds and thinking that was behind the damage"

I just registered for BlueLight specifically to reply to this thread, which I hope isn't considered a zombie thread, because I think it's important. This passage really struck me, and you're right: There's an incredibly amount of reductionism in drug thinking. It's not all untrue, of course---receptors certainly come and go---but it's far from complete, and it doesn't fully account for everything that people who have undergone these types of neuroadaptation experience.

King, can you give a bit of a summary of your drug history? I'm eager to get a synopsis of your own personal road to wreckage, so that I can try to compare mine.

 

[Muzda Jonxx]

Congratulations on your recovery! However messed up you one were, you clearly are not now. That report was really well written, I thought.

I too am on the road back from decades worth of mind abuse. I pushed the envelope every which way too, so now am a poly addict with a somewhat discombobulated thinker.

What are you doing in terms of staying straight from the drugs? That must be one of the biggest challenges you now face.