actually, meth does not release serotonin. nor does it release norepinephrine. it inhibits the reuptake of these neurotransmitters. imagine your brain cells each have vacuums for cleaning up excess neurotransmitters. meth basically unplugs the vacuums. it drastically raises your dopamine and norepinephrine levels and moderately raises your serotonin levels. mdma, on the other hand, is speculated to actually act as a serotonin releasing agent in addition to the effects that methamphetamine causes. not much is known about the mechanisms that mediate the recovery from use of either of these substances, so it's kind of hard to say whether a meth user can recover more quickly than an mdma user. if you ask me, i would speculate that it's not true that meth users recover faster. it is clear that mdma has more effects on serotonin modulation than it does norepinephrine and dopamine. it has the base effects of methamphetamine, but they are much weaker than they are in methamphetamine. when you take mdma, you do much more "damage" to your serotoninergic system than you do to your dopamine and norepinephrine systems. the opposite is true for methamphetamine. i should think that if you took enough mdma to match the dopamine and norepinephrine effects a certain meth dose would cause, you would be causing serious damage to your serotonin receptors and possibly risking serotonin syndrome and death. on the other hand, if you took enough meth to match the serotonin effects a certain mdma dose would create, you would have severe psychosis and probably a heart attack. that said, it follows that the recovery a MDMA user faces is different than the recovery a meth user faces. if you're recovering from mdma, you're trying to get your serotonin system to properly modulate. on the other hand, if you're a meth user, you're trying to get your dopamine system, and to a lesser extent, your norepinephrine system, to properly modulate (norepinephrine seems to recover much more quickly than dopamine). so perhaps, if it is true that meth users recover more quickly, that would suggest that the dopamine and norepinephrine systems recover more quickly than does the serotonin system. of course, this is a gross oversimplification of these processes. nobody really understands the way these drugs work with significant accuracy. scientists have barely come up with decent hypotheses as to why mdma causes cognitive and emotional deficits, so us speculating on how long it would take to recover is pretty silly. that said, studies suggest that even one time doing a moderate to large dose of meth causes lasting alterations to dopamine levels. how long lasting is probably different for everyone. this is why most sources, not just D.A.R.E. tell you "not even once" when it comes to meth. it's really up to you, but anyone who's trying to get loaded on meth but not become a psychotic braindead tweaker will probably use a maximum of once every few weeks. the most dangerous thing you can do is binge. one dose in the morning, and that's IT, no booster dose and no getting pissed that you can't sleep so you smoke more to keep from coming down. you're just prolonging the inevitable. you gotta come down either way, but the longer you prolong it, the more damage you're doing to your brain. and it's not a linear function. the damage is likely to compound exponentially each day you go without sleep and continue to use, considering your tolerance is going up and you're depleting your antioxidant reserves. so you really gotta just avoid the binges and you might actually never have a problem using as much as once a week or so. i've met plenty of people who use meth but aren't messed up from it. a friend of mine does what i described. he smokes his first and last bowl at like 7AM, and of course he can't sleep at night. if he's starting to come down he says he takes a handful of xannies.. if he's still not coming down he'll just stay up and crash the next day. sleep is essential
