Meth Psychosis, Suicidal, Please Help

[Quasimodo_]

Okay so I'll try to make it short.
One of my friends was experiencing Psychosis and it made him paranoid about everyone around him which resulted in pushing us away and then out of nowhere he committed suicide. He was a fairly new user and apparently had been injecting once in awhile.

Now another friend that had been injecting for almost a year went away for a month to get clean and was clean up until he relapsed and started injecting. Now he is also experiencing the same symptoms my other had been and I just don't know what to do. His very paranoid, thinks a group of highly organized people are constantly following him...

I literally don't know what to do! I'm scared he might hurt himself or somebody else or get into a car accident.

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

I'm sorry to hear about both your friends. Unfortunately it's hard to help people in these situations, and the paranoia makes it that much worse. Just be straight with your friend, tell them you're worried and you're here for them. It's hard, but you cant help people if they don't want it.

Maybe try to text or call your friend as often as you can, assuming they respond and don't respond with agitation/paranoid delusions. My reasoning is that you might be able to catch them in between binges where you can hopefully try to convince them to get clean while their reasoning skills are more intact.

I'm lucky enough to be the only addict in my circle of friends so I haven't had to deal with this directly. Hopefully someone can offer you some more options and advice. We are here for you too, I really hope things improve for your friend.

Also I'll move this to The Dark Side, where we focus more on these kinds of hard topics

 

[sonicwhite]

Go get him to a psych ward ASAP. I'm serious. I landed in jail and I still am dealing with symptoms of paranoia from my use of meth and that was 05. I smoked three eight balls a day. Really homie not sick sizing. It was who I was and I knew the cook and the main dealer. I was going thru such a brutal detox in jail that I didn't even know where I was. Instead of thinking cops where after me I thought cannibals and zombies where after me. Don't play with this. Get him committed. Thank God tho I didn't commit suicide but I was so out of it had I not been in a jail cell I would have. I would consider myself retarded. Not throwing shade. Just giving you a perspective that can at least help you and assure you that if My Father in Heaven can heal me. Anything is possible w Him.

 

[Quasimodo_]

I'm sorry to hear about both your friends. Unfortunately it's hard to help people in these situations, and the paranoia makes it that much worse. Just be straight with your friend, tell them you're worried and you're here for them. It's hard, but you cant help people if they don't want it.

Maybe try to text or call your friend as often as you can, assuming they respond and don't respond with agitation/paranoid delusions. My reasoning is that you might be able to catch them in between binges where you can hopefully try to convince them to get clean while their reasoning skills are more intact.

I'm lucky enough to be the only addict in my circle of friends so I haven't had to deal with this directly. Hopefully someone can offer you some more options and advice. We are here for you too, I really hope things improve for your friend.

Also I'll move this to The Dark Side, where we focus more on these kinds of hard topics

Thank you! Really! You're kind words really meant a lot.
Welp something I had been doing was agreeing with him but then I'd catch my self starting to believe some of it. Past two days i haven't been disagreeing but rather told him not to talk about it

 

[sohrah]

I used to get that delusion, being followed. still follows me to this day but when I notice a strong impression I shrug it off I know how fragile I am though it's not a skizo thing but it's drug demention I would think that government agencies, federal, were watching me from unmarked vehicles and the skies. You can't do anything really other than be understanding and nonjudgmental

I think they have to decide how much more pain they want. At least that's what my last sponsor in AA told me, how much more pain do you want he said to me when I last talked to him after I relapsed and fell to the gutter haven't been seen since

 

[Deleted member 569363]

After hardly sleeping on meth for 5 months, spending 2 months in a psych ward is what saved my life. It took me OD-ing on percs, blow, PCP, M, and Vs (on purpose, I thought I wanted to die) and a friend calling an ambulance to get me there, though. Your friend needs help.

 

[Eligiu]

Okay so I'll try to make it short.
One of my friends was experiencing Psychosis and it made him paranoid about everyone around him which resulted in pushing us away and then out of nowhere he committed suicide. He was a fairly new user and apparently had been injecting once in awhile.

Now another friend that had been injecting for almost a year went away for a month to get clean and was clean up until he relapsed and started injecting. Now he is also experiencing the same symptoms my other had been and I just don't know what to do. His very paranoid, thinks a group of highly organized people are constantly following him...

I literally don't know what to do! I'm scared he might hurt himself or somebody else or get into a car accident.

Basically, I'll tell you what my addiction medicine doctor in 2017 told me when I went to come off codeine and heroin and told him I was using a lot of meth a day as well.

Once you go into meth psychosis one time from using, it does this weird thing. It's like it breaks something in your brain and it will happen basically every time a person uses, past a certain point.

For me? That is 2-3 days of continuing use.

Your friend needs to stop using. There is no other way. There is no way to fix this issue, other than to not take meth anymore. The solution is not taking less meth.

I'm sure some person would make the argument that taking it a different ROA would help, but I don't think that that would really help much.

I would suggest they look into treatment options. SMART Recovery is good. I am in the process of scanning and uploading the worksheets I was given for methamphetamine based rehab, but that could be a valuable source of information for you.

There is also NA, Rational Recovery, Dharma Recovery, IP and IOP. Lots of options.

Once I have that done and it goes on to the forum and gets pinned, you can provide to your friend every worksheet I ever did which were from an evidence based gold standard free 16 week 3 day a week rehab I was lucky enough to attend.

Please continue to support your friend, and update us on any changes.