Heavy psychedelic abuse.. how do you handle it?

[Folley]

Sorry if I'm jumping the gun here at all.. thought I'd get this ball rolling though



The question is simple, how does heavy abuse of these mind altering drugs affect you? How do you minimize the negative side effects, or do you feel it is doing you good? I'd like to hear how you guys feel about using such powerful drugs too often... personally, I think it's better than say crack but it's obvious that abusing any drug is not conducive to one's health.


I can tolerate it MUCH better than MDMA or stimulant abuse, though. A trip every week or two won't leave me strung out like it would with MDMA, but you do start to notice a change in the highs at the least. A "loss of magic", if you will. For some, it seems the tripping mentality even carries over to sober life... I think we all know that L-Tard who can only think in metaphors and haikus. Well, maybe not that bad but I sure you see where I'm going with this lol.




So, for the first thread in Psychedelic Harm Reduction, how does this "Psychedelic Harm" manifest itself for you? Is there anything you do to minimize harm when you push yourself a bit past your limits?





For me, staying hydrated in a SAFE ENVIRONMENT (very important) with people you trust is the best way to keep a trip from going bad. Having some emergency xanax on hand just to have that safety net can be very reassuring as well, though, I've never actually needed it.

 

[bloodshed344]

It manifests itself mainly as next day depression (I usually feel sad that I'm not extremely euphoric when I wake) but if the trip is insane I don't get this. A harder trip leaves me "satisfied". Mainly the worst part is the vision fuzz, I get that pretty bad. Some days, it'll be at times weeks after I'll just wake up and it'll be so hard to see at some times of that day. I'll walk into a dark room after being in the sun and for a moment I'm blind, like when I was a kid that happened too, but as an adult it happens and I see patterns and "pixels" everywhere in the darkness. It makes the dark undefinable void look like a fuzzy blur of colors... I can still tell it's dark very easily but there's just... something about it.

Psychedelic abuse... say doing 2C-E EVERY SINGLE DAY, will not have many side effects.

 

[Folley]

Yeah, I agree somewhat. Taking LSD every week for months didn't seem to harm me much at all, maybe made me a bit far out and DEFINITELY changed my life but other than that it was a lot of fun with little consequence.



However, I'm not of the belief that just because you don't feel any problems from abusing drugs that means it is safe to keep dosing in ridiculous amounts... yet MDMA abuse FUCKED ME UP, and psychedelic abuse of the same level seems to have left little mark

 

[any major dude]

Well, side fx are generally a product of chronic administration, which psychedelics don't really lend themselves to. But if one were to begin taking daily doses of most any psychedelic there would likely be some untoward fx before very long.

For example, lots of phenethylamine psychedelics are agonists at, in addition to many other things, 5-HT2b. Chronic use of 5-HT2b agonists can cause some pretty serious heart valve issues, whereas infrequent use is completely safe. Thusly the occasional 2c-b trip is quite safe whereas daily use could be quite dangerous. Similar to ketamine & bladder damage.

 

[bloodshed344]

Well, side fx are generally a product of chronic administration, which psychedelics don't really lend themselves to. But if one were to begin taking daily doses of most any psychedelic there would likely be some untoward fx before very long.

For example, lots of phenethylamine psychedelics are agonists at, in addition to many other things, 5-HT2b. Chronic use of 5-HT2b agonists can cause some pretty serious heart valve issues, whereas infrequent use is completely safe. Thusly the occasional 2c-b trip is quite safe whereas daily use could be quite dangerous. Similar to ketamine & bladder damage.

Actually tryptamines are very strong agonists there too. The main thing that makes phenethylamines more worrying is the strange feeling stimulation (if they're not releasers what is the mechanism of their CNS stimulation?) and the length. The fact you're exposed to 5-HT2B agonism a lot longer with phenethylamines than tryptamines usually means the damage should probably be greater.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I certainly abused psychedelics at times. Didn't help that I had access to a lot of different kinds because I collected psychs and was an avid researcher. Psychedelic abuse cheapens the experience some in my opinion. Once you get in that state of mind where you feel you can handle anything, you chase mind blowing experiences with more mind blowing experiences. Reflecting on those days I wish I had left more time to integrate the experiences I was having. That said, there were things I did that I believe kept me functioning despite daily tripping. One was sitting in water for long periods of time, especially during the come-up. Tripping in a bathtub is one of my favs; smooths out the rough edges. The other was fire. Staring at the flames never gets old. I'd go so far as to say it is cleansing and undoes the damage of constant tripping. Finally, spontaneous yoga and stretching. As someone who doesn't regularly practice yoga or know specific postures, I'd invent my own. Wasn't a regular thing but when I decided to do it I'd spend entire trips focusing just on that. Felt good!

 

[webbykevin]

Luckily I only take high dose mushrooms trips these days, I find it hard to believe anyone could get addicted to or abuse that, It takes me months to integrate a single experience, I'm lucky if I fit in 2 or 3 experiences a year, the thought of doing it weekly makes me shudder.

 

[malakaix]

The question is simple, how does heavy abuse of these mind altering drugs affect you? How do you minimize the negative side effects, or do you feel it is doing you good?

This is hard to distinguish i think, the line between 'Is this having a negative effect' and 'I feel that this is helping me' is so blurred that i find it's extremely difficult to determine accurately and only that person will be-able to make that conclusion . The psychedelic experience can be so convincing and on many levels it's very accurate with self-analysis and moving you into the mental space to observe, acknowledge and resolve personal issues.. but i feel because of this overwhelming realization of truth of self through sensory stimulation and increased mental awareness that there is very little time given towards integration because the experience lends itself to be so 'whole' and complete in the moment.

So frequent use interrupts the natural process of integration with reality, and what you have is someone who is perhaps very in touch with themselves but quite out of touch with reality around them. Im not suggesting this happens to everyone who use's psychedelics heavily, but i think it's an important factor to take into consideration with heavy use of psychedelics.

 

[Jabberwocky]

So frequent use interrupts the natural process of integration with reality, and what you have is someone who is perhaps very in touch with themselves but quite out of touch with reality around them.

Well said! That's exactly started happening to me.

 

[Folley]

I guess the point of this thread is to figure out what kinds of Harm that is associated with psychedelics... because some like 25i seem to be MUCH more damaging than the classics.


I figure we have to know what kind of harm is out there before we can reduce it

 

[bloodshed344]

I guess the point of this thread is to figure out what kinds of Harm that is associated with psychedelics... because some like 25i seem to be MUCH more damaging than the classics.


I figure we have to know what kind of harm is out there before we can reduce it

The harm I experienced with 25I was a harm that only hurt other psychedelic trips. The tolerance from it has weakened my psychedelic trips for many months afterwards, and even today (over a year later) I don't think it's where it was.

 

[Magickduck]

I for one experienced a lot of hurt through the [ab]use of psychedelics.... from the age of 15 till about 18.5-19 I took a ton of psychedelics ranging from cactus to mushrooms to all sorts of RC's such as 2ci, 2cb, mephedrone, 25i-nbome, 4-aco-dmt, and LSD. To be honest, I think the LSD did the most damage.. I was taking it roughly every 3 days to every 4-5 days for a few months. I never experianced anything bad during the experiances, but in the months proceeding the binge, I went nuts, I started to study into the occult/chaos magick and such got involved in some weird stuff got confused, chanted to some weird deity, thought demons were after me, went through some weird stuff, came out the other end a much stronger person, however am still tripping... it is like being constantly on like 75ug of LSD, having visuals all the time, in a manic sort of space usually much happer than your average person but sometimes confused and in a dark place not so much anymore as I am doing better but yeah...I also think dark psytrance played a large part in scrambling my brain....

I may sound scrambled talking about these specific things, as those events in my memory ARE scrambled as such. In the recent past, though, I have been clear and am doing much better, thus the effects were not permanent. But it was nearly a year long bad acid trip.
Anyway, I am doing much better, as all is love and light in the long run, I learned about some things which I suppose were my own doing as I was curious of the shamanic path.. I am back into clarity and finally recovering and I think with time it will continue to improve, though I am not sure I will ever be entirely "sober" again... I think there will at least be miniscule residual psychedelic effects well into my old-age.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention... I think it has something to do with the constant use at a young age while the brain is developing... a chemically induced indigo child so to speak....Could also have to do with serotonin receptor damage as constantly putting in foreign chemicals that pretend to be serotonin and then when I stopped tripping for a bit is when I went crazy, so perhaps the downregulation of the receptor site...?

 

[Serotonin101]

I have hppd from excessive psychedelic usage. I tripped twice a week for a few months, then did 4 trips a week for a couple months with heavy usage of mdma, cannabis, and stimulants (Meth+psychedelics is a horrible combo).

 

[EarthBounded]

I would like to join here in this conversation however I believe it needs to be re-worded first. Reading the rules and guidelines I came across this.

No posts regarding personal drug use, drug sources, synthesis, availability, quality, price, etc. This is not the place for that type of activity, regardless of legality of the substance in question.

So with that being said there is a great amount of good we can get from Folley's question and I think its great however everyone is jumping in with there personal drug use.

Here is how I perceive Harm reduction in everyone using psychedelics:

Patricio Dominguez says it best, " Set and Setting " But he makes this reference to what is inside you and the information you already know. The most important fact of psychedelic use is ones own knowledge, using Erowid to learn the truth of positive and negative effects, Learning LDlow and LD-50s of every drug consumed, learning Dosage etc.. Once you take proper steps and know exactly what you are getting into harm is reduced.

Test kits are also just as important, this way persons can properly ID exactly what they are taking.

I firmly believe Psychedelic's may cause harm when used more than 2-4 times a year. I feel a majority of the population over sees this because of there own desire to trip. This is for the general user. Those using psychedelics for things like Cluster headaches, end of life therapy, PTSD etc.. May need to dose over the four times a year mark for necessary treatment and there is always a professional present for these uses.

 

[bloodshed344]

I would like to join here in this conversation however I believe it needs to be re-worded first. Reading the rules and guidelines I came across this.

No posts regarding personal drug use, drug sources, synthesis, availability, quality, price, etc. This is not the place for that type of activity, regardless of legality of the substance in question.

So with that being said there is a great amount of good we can get from Folley's question and I think its great however everyone is jumping in with there personal drug use.

I feel the topic would be useless like that. Perhaps it should just be moved to another forum.

 

[Anthrogirl]

I certainly abused psychedelics at times. Didn't help that I had access to a lot of different kinds because I collected psychs and was an avid researcher. Psychedelic abuse cheapens the experience some in my opinion. Once you get in that state of mind where you feel you can handle anything, you chase mind blowing experiences with more mind blowing experiences. Reflecting on those days I wish I had left more time to integrate the experiences I was having. That said, there were things I did that I believe kept me functioning despite daily tripping. One was sitting in water for long periods of time, especially during the come-up. Tripping in a bathtub is one of my favs; smooths out the rough edges. The other was fire. Staring at the flames never gets old. I'd go so far as to say it is cleansing and undoes the damage of constant tripping. Finally, spontaneous yoga and stretching. As someone who doesn't regularly practice yoga or know specific postures, I'd invent my own. Wasn't a regular thing but when I decided to do it I'd spend entire trips focusing just on that. Felt good!

I completely agree with you about abuse cheapening the experience. When I was in my teens I would often drop acid or X just because I was bored. I would do it even if I was sitting at home alone. To me that was such a waste.

Of course I also used psychedelics in more useful ways. I used them to work through problems I had, connect with others, get in touch with myself, etc. It's just that I was a stupid kid at the time (this was when I was 15 to 17 years old) and didn't respect the drugs enough.

 

[The Dr]

During my senior year of high school, I dropped or took mushrooms (honestly I did so much psychedelics i can't even remember), at least three times a week or more. Some days I would drop up to 3 or more hits of led, then the next day drop 8 hits or however many was needed. My mind would think, okay what can I do now and trip? Okay let's get mushrooms. So I'd buy enough mushrooms to trip that day, and usually the next. Now this isn't how it went every day, however I can say on average considering some of the insane doses I would do in single/two day trips it would add up to that. I can say that it most definitely made my thoughts very delusional. Also throw on the copious amounts of MDMA/BK-MDMA/Mephedrone/ whatever.. It ended up playing a major toll on my life that year. Was basically tripping visually and mentally non-stop.

A year later with minimal use: I have my mind back if not even better than it was years prior. With medical help and proper medication and a real understanding of why I chose to do what I did really helped me so much. I was hospitalized ( on my own will) for two weeks and that did a world of help. Then for another two weeks on an intensive out-patient program also helped drastically. I started working out and eating more healthy. Moral of my story is that I was told by many people that with the amount of psychedelics I was doing, there was no way I was ever going to be normal. Well what I realized is those people that tell you things like that are scum bags and just want to bring you down to their level. You can always gain your mind back.. Unless your doing thumb prints and shit like that, which in that case you must not give a fuck anyway..

Peace, Doc

 

[EarthBounded]

I feel the topic would be useless like that. Perhaps it should just be moved to another forum.

I am guessing the reason they don't want us to be referring to personal drug use is if they ever want to qoute us at a conference or something, I watched the Psychedelic science vids and they make reference to threads on blue light, nexus, shroomery etc.. and one guy even read some posts.

But it still seems like people are posting personal drug use here, mods it says No posts regarding personal drug use in the rules.

I think it would be most respectful to MAPS to make sure we are not doing this so early in the forum being launched especially!

This thread can be totally useful and we just need to word things differently that is the science behind harm reduction, we dont need to refer to our own experiences however proven facts.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

The only harm that could come from me over-doing psychedelics is derealization/depersonalization.

And when I say "me", I'm not talking about the rest of you, because when I say "psychedelics", I mean DMT, s-ketamine, mushrooms/LSD (I have retired from taking the latter), salvia, and cannabis.

 

[mysticmusic]

The key is to not abuse any substances. By abuse I mean in a reckless, imprudent manner.
Every drug is unique. Knowledge is the key. Knowing the specific risks, and attributes of each substance as well as proper dosage are indispensable in safe use of chemical tools.
Don't be a idiot, some of the substances can seriously damage your mind. ROA, set and setting, accurate identification, purity, and careful titration of dose, are all important.
Less is usually more, although I have seen people somewhat disappointed by a small dose, I have never seen the horror and regret that can follow too large a dose.
Used carefully, these substances can and will add to your life and help you grow. Used carelessly, the end results could be tragic.