Cocaine Coke's duration is its greatest strength (but what makes it so bad for you in terms of fucking up your life)

[danosaurous22]

Before I tried harder drugs, I always heard people complain about how short the cocaine high is. It's gone as soon as it registers as euphoria, since it only goes down from there. My experience lately is about 5 minutes of bliss and then hours and hours and hours of torment if you have a supply and have burnt yourself out with it. Paranoia sinks in faster and faster every time, and each binge leaves you a little more obsessed with that strange feeling that you can't really put your finger on unless you're rushing.

People will say, oh just do speed or meth since it's cheaper and lasts longer. I am confident if I did that I would be a total goner. Dead to the world, in that it would drive me insane. I cannot imagine the hell of being over amped for longer than a few hours. A few hours is torture enough, and since I work and have relationships with some people, if I could do a dose and get spun for any longer than that I would probably do ten and lose my job and the respect of everyone I know. I can't see how the length of a stimulant high is a positive. The stimulant high I know turns me into a complete mess, who is bobbing and weaving between fifteen things at once and ultimately getting stuck on sexual enjoyment in a way that leaves you stuck in the same spot, feeling terror and anxiety that overwhelms the euphoria, for as long as you have a stash. Thank God cocaine wears off and leave you a regular human who wants more coke-- I can function like that, I can get ripped right up until I have to leave for work and I will be fucked up, but still functional and not getting in trouble.

It really is ridiculous to me how smooth the slide to baseline is, the crash after a binge is obviously horrible and I end up thinking intensely about my life and how it is a horrible mess I will never solve. That's obviously not great. But within a few hours, I am thanking God for being alive and sane and sober enough to get a rush again. It fucks up my life, but not as radically as if I was that high for days. That would be pure torture to me and everybody I run into.

Since I'm on the subject too this drug is just too fucking interesting as a concept for me. I can go a week or two without using, but have intense dreams daily about getting baggies, people I know trying to take them away or call me out on my habit, then spend the rest of the dream scheming ways to hide it, transfer it to a secret spot, barter and beg with those to let me have it even if they don't approve. Recently someone was snowblowing outside my apartment (the machine that gets rid of snow, not some euphemism) and I could smell the gasoline, and suddenly I was daydreaming about cocaine. To quote Foreigner's song Double Vision, "It's always new to me". Each time I score feels like I have accomplished everything I've ever wanted from life and it's time to celebrate by using coke. It's almost like it's tricked my brain into thinking that the feeling of getting cocaine is the ultimate goal, and using cocaine is only the celebration of accomplishing that goal. I think that's just a point you get to if you get deep enough in it though, where your brain has been molded to enjoy the concept of doing coke more than the high itself. I'm just blabbering at the end here but it is such a tricky riddle, your memory of its effect drives you to get it but the 5 minutes after dosing it just begins to torture your brain to the point where you may as well be cutting yourself or making yourself feel horrible pain, but you can't control your body and stop it from getting into you. It's totally assbackwards, and this bizarre and hard to define aspect of the experience ends up driving me back too. It feels like a glitch in reality or something where you have found something that is simply more interesting than anything else, and if you turn your back on it then you are giving up on the most interesting thing in the entire world. Except once you start to try to explain what's so interesting, there is literally nothing there. But that's kind of interesting in and of itself. And you just go back and forth on that eternally.

It is obviously an addiction to feeling good, but it is also an addiction to understanding how the fuck this thing fits into the rest of the world. If something is so enticing that capable and intelligent people will throw away their entire life's work to torture themselves with it, where do we go from here? I think coke addicts have a lot of tolerance for discomfort, so they will trade being uncomfortable for having a fascinating high. Whereas every day people who are healthy have a need to be healthy and feel good, so they will look for pleasure in ways that are safe and accepted by others, so they would rather feel comfortable and decent than oscillate between bliss and horror just because they can't stomach the horror.

 

[streaM Freak]

Wow, you put so well in to words things that I have been thinking. Seriously. Am going to go into more detail:

.Since I'm on the subject too this drug is just too fucking interesting as a concept for me. I can go a week or two without using, but have intense dreams daily about getting baggies, people I know trying to take them away or call me out on my habit, then spend the rest of the dream scheming ways to hide it, transfer it to a secret spot, barter and beg with those to let me have it even if they don't approve. Recently someone was snowblowing outside my apartment (the machine that gets rid of snow, not some euphemism) and I could smell the gasoline, and suddenly I was daydreaming about cocaine. To quote Foreigner's song Double Vision, "It's always new to me". Each time I score feels like I have accomplished everything I've ever wanted from life and it's time to celebrate by using coke. It's almost like it's tricked my brain into thinking that the feeling of getting cocaine is the ultimate goal, and using cocaine is only the celebration of accomplishing that goal. I think that's just a point you get to if you get deep enough in it though, where your brain has been molded to enjoy the concept of doing coke more than the high itself. I'm just blabbering at the end here but it is such a tricky riddle, your memory of its effect drives you to get it but the 5 minutes after dosing it just begins to torture your brain to the point where you may as well be cutting yourself or making yourself feel horrible pain, but you can't control your body and stop it from getting into you. It's totally assbackwards, and this bizarre and hard to define aspect of the experience ends up driving me back too. It feels like a glitch in reality or something where you have found something that is simply more interesting than anything else, and if you turn your back on it then you are giving up on the most interesting thing in the entire world. Except once you start to try to explain what's so interesting, there is literally nothing there. But that's kind of interesting in and of itself. And you just go back and forth on that eternally.

First I just want to talk about my view on how "interesting" the drug is. I wonder, do you think it could just be that you are interesting, and coke makes you more confident to express your own personality? Because I know some who when using cocaine they just play chit-chat ping pong like two drunk machine guns, or something.


But the big picture here:

It is obviously an addiction to feeling good, but it is also an addiction to understanding how the fuck this thing fits into the rest of the world. If something is so enticing that capable and intelligent people will throw away their entire life's work to torture themselves with it, where do we go from here? I think coke addicts have a lot of tolerance for discomfort, so they will trade being uncomfortable for having a fascinating high. Whereas every day people who are healthy have a need to be healthy and feel good, so they will look for pleasure in ways that are safe and accepted by others, so they would rather feel comfortable and decent than oscillate between bliss and horror just because they can't stomach the horror.

, I think it takes a certain level of darkness, there must be a better word, I just don't know it at the time, to be obsessed with potent stimulants.

But I ask @danosaurous22, do you too see the triggers everywhere? Movies, "Blow", "Scarface", "Cocaine Bear". Coca Cola. Sugar cane. Music lyrics. Ridiculous amounts of imported cocaine.

And if one of those catches your attention, and perhaps you are feeling a little psychologically defeated, or need an edge up on your competition at work, or maybe mere morbid curiosity, one ends up trying it.

It's the perfect storm. And for this reason, I hope we don't beat ourselves up too much.

I too have drug dreams, sometimes still after years sober. When I first stopped coke and meth I'd have 2 or 3 dreams a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, for a month or two. It gradually went away.

Well anyway, id love to hear more of your thoughts @danosaurous22 . Thank you for sharing!

 

[danosaurous22]

You hit the nail on the head, I am a huge fan of rock music and perhaps it's just in my head because of my obsession with the drug, but since doing cocaine I have come to believe that so many of these songs I grew up loving and researching and learning how to play and how they work it just seems like that intensity and energy came from a honeymoon experience with cocaine. Alternatively, there are many darker songs that go into the misery of it that I have noticed too. The song "Cocaine" by JJ Cale, for instance, is not an ode to cocaine but an incredibly on the nose analysis of how it works, what it does, and how it worms its way into your life. "If you want to hang out you have to take her out" "If your day is done and you wanna run", and one of the best lyrics of all time IMO, "Don't forget this fact, you can't get it back."

And of course, "She don't lie". It doesn't, it gives you what you want and then takes it away with no well wishes, no warning, the same way every time. My joy from the drug comes from the anticipation of the next dose, but you can't get it back once you get it in you. This encapsulates how it drains the life out of you just perfectly.

Not to be too timely, but this recent information that has been released about the elites of America and how they will willingly engage in depraved drug use and sex even when it is documented and used as blackmail is another thing on my mind. These people have everything anyone could ever want, and they choose drugs and sex. Even accepting the risk of their own undoing and cancellation. Because the pull is so strong that nobody who gets deep enough ever gets out, or even wants out. That is a trippy fucking thought, and to compare my own experience to that just confuses the issue even more.

The other night I was dry heaving from over amping on the last of what I had. After a 24 hour binge, where the doses are just a few minutes of pleasure and 60 minutes of paranoia and being stuck in a nearly catatonic state, eyes as wide as can be, staring at a spot in the room. Having to take 10 or 20 deep breaths until one satisfies you. In the past, when I was about halfway into a year of use, I truly used 28 grams of high quality cocaine within 4 days, and only had a spell of madness with the last dose. But since then, the madness begins faster and faster every time. And despite this, the pull is stronger than ever.

It's truly tragic, but tragedy is another addiction of mine. There is something cathartic about going to hell and coming back, and as the hell grows deeper so does my craving for it. This is just fascinating to me even though it is completely absurd.

 

[danosaurous22]

Quality must play a role too. Quality cocaine, I believe, is nearly irrestable. I will try to find it, but I read a study about apes using cocaine in an experiment. They could pick food, or press a button that gives them cocaine. The catch is, every press of the button requires an additional press the next time you do it for the ape to get the cocaine. So first one pump, then two, then 3, etc. The ape preferred to starve to death and press the button thousands of times to get the fix. Is human resistance to cocaine intelligence, or our own denial of what we truly want from then world? This keeps me constantly confused about my relationship with it.

Of course, the reality is it makes you a pariah because if you continue to up the ante you will get ostracized and potentially arrested/disowned/whatever. Which is a fate much worse than sobriety, IMO. But I have threaded the needle well enough so far, to the point where I have talked my way out of interactions with the police while high as a kite in a situation where I really could have been arrested. Coming to work after downing 7 beers within a few hours to come down from a 48 hour binge, only to end up making it out unscathed and doing a decent job. That's a rush in its own right. It all bleeds together, the pain, the struggle, the successes, the crashes. It makes for an interesting life, with an inevitably horrible end. But is that worse than a boring life with a boring end? That sums up what tragedy means exactly. Right now, I couldn't tell you which one is better. I do care for my family and friends though and since it has been straining my relationships I have been rethinking what my purpose is here. Am I here for me, or am I here for others? I go back and forth.

 

[danosaurous22]

To elaborate once more:

I think the descent into addiction is one's addiction to being addicted to cocaine. When it starts, you simply desire cocaine when you don't have it. But when you do it, the focus isn't necessarily on the drug. It is on the way it makes you feel, and the situations you get into, and the high it gives you.

But eventually your desire to have more of the drug to do eclipses the actual pleasure it gives you. Your anticipation gives you a stronger high, with no downsides. But once you get your high, you will chase it to the ends of the earth, to the point where you are doing 2-3x more than you started with and getting 1/1000th of the bliss you got combined with a level of negativity and paranoia that nobody would wish on their worst enemy, truly. This is where I am now. In the past, I could dance between these two approaches to the drug. The horror would only consume me at the tail end of a binge. Now, that horror is the majority of the binge. Yet it tempts me more than it did when it was actually working the majority of the time and giving me a 30-60 minute high where I felt in love with he world. Now it just makes me in love with pleasure itself, and when the pleasure leaves I will do the drug even though it doesn't do anything good. A single dose is good, but the "desire" to do more actually fires up my brain more than the ensuing doses. But the ensuing doses aren't less potent, instead they are less euphoric. They are actually more potent in the horrific symptoms of the drug when I started-- hallucinations, anxiety, OCD, feelings of worthlessness, confusion, psychosis. These just get stronger with every session, but the euphoria from contemplating the next dose actually overpowers my observation of those stronger and stronger and stronger horrific symptoms. This is the torture of the drug in a nutshell, IMO. You will never get back what you got from the first dose, but you will throw everything away lying to yourself that you will. And sadly that is a interesting experience to me.

 

[danosaurous22]

To sum up hundreds of words in a few: I am beginning to believe that cocaine addiction is largely an obsession with obsession itself. I have always obsessed over things, but this is one thing where it will engulf my entire worldview and several days of time with zero thoughts of anything else. To an obsessive person, this can be a kind of relief-- now all of my obsessions have become one, and one that is only dependent on how much money I have. I don't have to worry about anything else, even if I should. The fact that the relief I get from that engulfs a billion different worries is what keeps me coming back. It is an escape from the world, at the cost of losing everything.

 

[danosaurous22]

I'm just making a point of being a fool and posting ten times in my own thread, but smoking some weed and laying on my bed just now (no coke, ended a big binge last night and made it through work somehow) I'm just thinking about how I would have killed to have laid in my bed listening to music and chilling 24 hours ago. I was too paranoid to lay down in my bed, standing on a chair surveying the room like a robot, sometimes trying to relax but finding it impossible, for hours and hours and hours. Body hurting, shameful, wishing to just lay down and relax. Now I'm doing it, and all I could think about today was coke. Already schemed a way to get some even though I'm financially limited. It helps to talk about it here since I'm sure others have been in similar scenarios. One of the hardest parts of this addiction is I have never met somebody who has gone as deep as I have. Everyone has been able to quit and generally used rarely. Nobody in my life understands what it's like to be under the control of cocaine, and that makes me so confused about how individual my experience is-- whether it is something wrong with me, or something is wrong about the world, or most people never get the opportunity to binge on coke for a long time. My addiction began with a couple thousand in inheritance, and I've consumed about a half pound of cocaine over the last year, some of it shit but the majority very high quality. I get proud about having functioned as an adult and in my career over the time, I know I shouldn't but I can't help but marvel at how I have managed to hold onto this lifestyle for so long and get so lucky in so many potentially life ending situations. That especially alienates me from people around me, they're horrified when I tell them not even 1/10th of the whole experience, and then you realize that you can't talk about it and you have to just go crazy thinking about its relation to you. Is it you, is it the drug, is it a problem with the world, is it intelligence or stupidity? I reason about it so much and all of this remains entirely unclear to me. It gets even less clearer when I talk to my closest friends about it, and they can't fathom why I would think the world is a cold and cruel and manipulative trap, set by the merciless to destroy the merciful for their own gain. I suppose that is in some sense what the bad part of me has been doing to the good part of me in this addiction, sacrificing my morals and self worth to experience an unfair amount of pleasure and being okay with that. End of the rant

 

[streaM Freak]

@danosaurous22 you touched on so many things there. I enjoyed reading it in maybe the same way that you enjoy the drug - a fascination with the psychology behind it.

I too had my addictions (meth and crack (cocaine was my first love), 4 years of near daily use of the prior and about 3 years of compulsive binges of the latter. Putting my life at risk, constant debt, destroying relationships). And I was addicted to the lows as well - that is a thing, unfortunately.

Whether it is a compulsion, an escape, both, definitely a normalized societal issue, and there is limited support.

When I think about the fact that (some, the sensational stories) about the rich and famous chosing drugs and sex, I don't know if its a representation of how much it is enjoyable - in my mind is a representation of what lengths we go to. You described the psychology a whole lot better than I could ever have, so I'll leave the "lengths we go to" at that because you've already said it in so much more depth.

It's hard to see when in its death grip, and it's valuable information worth sharing, so I'd like to talk about recovery (a term I used to think was dramatic, recovery, but I'm learning it's the best fit word):

For me, what I value most is clarity of mind. And this goes deep. In sobriety you regain attention to the nuances and complexity in the world. Our planning and foresight. Our ability to anticipate beyond the next day. Learning new things. Furthering our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world. (I know this sounds boring, trust me I know, but stay with me on this train of thought):

Hitting the "more dopamine now" button that sits right next to you is so incredibly appealing, I know this first hand. For a second consider though that you are getting older, things are changing in yourself and the world, and life isn't only what you know at the time. It's also an infinite amount of other things that you will see with a lot more ease when your mind isn't hijacked by this drug. The psychological hijack by coke is huge, and insidious in the early stages.

I'm getting existential here, but honestly that's the world we live in. It's not just the warm shower, the sandwich, the closed deal and the quick fuck, THAT is our society speaking from it's subtle hints, nudging us to be unstoppably competitive at the expense of everyone else, and why? So that we churn it's money machine. That's it, really. And it's profitable to keep us chasing our tails, missing how fucking incredible this universe is.

The longer your mind is in a natural state, the more clearly ideas will come to you. And coca leaves doused in gasoline and chemicals to extract it's potent substance isn't natural.. not the end product at least.

"You don't know what you don't know" sounds so stupid. It really does, at least to me it did. But I don't think it's supposed be a conceited thing. I believe it is quite literally saying that it's hard to imagine something that wasn't taught in your highschool text book. It's impossible to see what you haven't yet seen.

 

[streaM Freak]

And honestly it's constant work, because some of society is set up is to reel us in to behaviors that are unhealthy. Some isn't, but some is. And being able to differentiate the two, weed out the bullshit, is definitely a learned skill and pretty damn difficult.

 

[danosaurous22]

The other thing about coke is the way it kind of shatters your worldview. Not all drugs can say they do this. When I go 24 hours on coke, dosing heavy and isolating myself, there comes a point where I realize that I am so high I have very little relation to the person I was before I tried this drug. I get strange memories out of nowhere, the world looks fresh and new, and I begin to rethink my entire life, particularly where I fall short. It never changes anything, but it is a very peculiar way of looking at the world I can't find anywhere else. It's not a good idea to go here, but it is undoubtably a very strange and novel experience every time, subjectively.

 

[streaM Freak]

The other thing about coke is the way it kind of shatters your worldview. Not all drugs can say they do this. When I go 24 hours on coke, dosing heavy and isolating myself, there comes a point where I realize that I am so high I have very little relation to the person I was before I tried this drug. I get strange memories out of nowhere, the world looks fresh and new, and I begin to rethink my entire life, particularly where I fall short. It never changes anything, but it is a very peculiar way of looking at the world I can't find anywhere else. It's not a good idea to go here, but it is undoubtably a very strange and novel experience every time, subjectively.

How long have you been using the drug? How long ago did you first try it?

 

[danosaurous22]

1.5 years ago. I have probably done about half a pound at least since then. I started by doing huge amounts when I could afford it, an ounce a week or every other week for a season. I'm mostly an alcoholic, but alcohol is just how I deal with not having coke. I can go a week or two without it but then I slip into a binge and it's anybody's guess whether that binge leads to more frequent binges. I swore to everyone I knew who used it I never would because I have been addicted to every drug I have tried, but a bad breakup and relapsing on alcohol after a year of sobriety led to me to try MDMA, Ketamine, GHB, Cocaine, Nitrous, in excess at various points. When I first ran out of coke after my "honeymoon" phase with the first big bag, I ended up feeling so down that I started chipping at a half ounce of MDMA I had intended to save for a long time. Then I was using that daily in progressively larger doses, from 100 mg to 1 g in a sitting. Once I ran out of that, I went back to cocaine and since then that is the only drug I care about. Something that broke up this pattern was a huge ketamine binge when I had no coke. I went through about 7 grams of very good stuff within a few days, I would just get home from work, K-hole for 12 hours, go to work, come home, K-hole for 12 hours, etc. Really did a lot more for me than cocaine but I ended up going back to cocaine partially because the ketamine scared the shit out of me. Not in a "Woe is me" analyzing my life kind of way, like a psychedelic. It scared me in that it took me so far that I can vividly remember my mind being so scrambled for so long, not remembering how I got there or how to get back, and it was just a totally alien experience. The weirdest part was how quickly I took to it. I would just snort mounds of it the second I started to zone out, and before I knew it it would be morning and I would not be able to think a coherent thought to save my life. That really doesn't even touch the weirdness of that experience.

Cocaine I think is just the perfect storm for somebody who easily gets addicted to drugs. The others were all tempting, I was doing loads of GHB every day for a week or so because I just loved it so much and didn't get that blackout thing people talk about from doing too much. MDMA wasn't lingering on my mind long after I quit. Cocaine, on the other hand, barely registers as a drug or a pastime like those. It is the only thing I want to do when I have it, and everything else becomes simple and irritating to me. In some ways this can be helpful, as you don't stress as much over work and I feel like you almost angrily attack whatever tasks you have because you are feeling bored about life and want to feel some kind of energy until you can get back to your stash. It becomes my main objective, and once I'm at the tail end of a binge I literally feel like a different person on a different planet, slowly coming back into the real me. For whatever reason, that makes it register in my brain as way more than a drug, it's like a different way of living that doesn't rest you up, but it puts your brain on another planet when you binge. I see things differently, I reflect on life in ways I never do otherwise. That isn't to say it's productive or worthwhile, but I would compare it to jumping out of a burning building and then just having to carry on your life. Painful, dangerous, fatal, and overall a very short lived experience. But having to move on after experiencing such dangerous excitement and a sensory experience like that makes you look at life differently. How much do we actually like it, and how far are you willing to go for yourself?

 

[danosaurous22]

It's odd too because I've always been obsessed with drugs, even before trying them. Researched them as soon as I could in elementary and middle school, and after the age of 18 I'll generally go for broke every time I experiment with a new drug. It's something about the way it distorts your reality more powerfully than natural means that gets me going. You could visit another country for a week to experience something new, but IMO (and not for better, since it will burn your brain out more--) a huge drug binge on something powerful will be more significant to your brain than traveling across the entire world, just because that is how mind altering many of these substances are. They change you forever, they contain the potential for madness, and they make you feel things no experience relationship or knowledge could. It just happens to be useless.

 

[streaM Freak]

1.5 years ago. I have probably done about half a pound at least since then. I started by doing huge amounts when I could afford it, an ounce a week or every other week for a season. I'm mostly an alcoholic, but alcohol is just how I deal with not having coke. I can go a week or two without it but then I slip into a binge and it's anybody's guess whether that binge leads to more frequent binges. I swore to everyone I knew who used it I never would because I have been addicted to every drug I have tried, but a bad breakup and relapsing on alcohol after a year of sobriety led to me to try MDMA, Ketamine, GHB, Cocaine, Nitrous, in excess at various points. When I first ran out of coke after my "honeymoon" phase with the first big bag, I ended up feeling so down that I started chipping at a half ounce of MDMA I had intended to save for a long time. Then I was using that daily in progressively larger doses, from 100 mg to 1 g in a sitting. Once I ran out of that, I went back to cocaine and since then that is the only drug I care about. Something that broke up this pattern was a huge ketamine binge when I had no coke. I went through about 7 grams of very good stuff within a few days, I would just get home from work, K-hole for 12 hours, go to work, come home, K-hole for 12 hours, etc. Really did a lot more for me than cocaine but I ended up going back to cocaine partially because the ketamine scared the shit out of me. Not in a "Woe is me" analyzing my life kind of way, like a psychedelic. It scared me in that it took me so far that I can vividly remember my mind being so scrambled for so long, not remembering how I got there or how to get back, and it was just a totally alien experience. The weirdest part was how quickly I took to it. I would just snort mounds of it the second I started to zone out, and before I knew it it would be morning and I would not be able to think a coherent thought to save my life. That really doesn't even touch the weirdness of that experience.

Cocaine I think is just the perfect storm for somebody who easily gets addicted to drugs. The others were all tempting, I was doing loads of GHB every day for a week or so because I just loved it so much and didn't get that blackout thing people talk about from doing too much. MDMA wasn't lingering on my mind long after I quit. Cocaine, on the other hand, barely registers as a drug or a pastime like those. It is the only thing I want to do when I have it, and everything else becomes simple and irritating to me. In some ways this can be helpful, as you don't stress as much over work and I feel like you almost angrily attack whatever tasks you have because you are feeling bored about life and want to feel some kind of energy until you can get back to your stash. It becomes my main objective, and once I'm at the tail end of a binge I literally feel like a different person on a different planet, slowly coming back into the real me. For whatever reason, that makes it register in my brain as way more than a drug, it's like a different way of living that doesn't rest you up, but it puts your brain on another planet when you binge. I see things differently, I reflect on life in ways I never do otherwise. That isn't to say it's productive or worthwhile, but I would compare it to jumping out of a burning building and then just having to carry on your life. Painful, dangerous, fatal, and overall a very short lived experience. But having to move on after experiencing such dangerous excitement and a sensory experience like that makes you look at life differently. How much do we actually like it, and how far are you willing to go for yourself?

Have you ever done therapy @danosaurous22 ? The breakup i think is a huge part of this. Might make the usage more manageable.

I saw that @BK38 emoji'd one of my replies, I wonder if he has any insight into this?

My personal experience with cocaine and crack I don't think I've unpacked to this level.

 

[BK38]

I saw that @BK38 emoji'd one of my replies, I wonder if he has any insight into this? BK is a homie and I believe is going through or has gone through something similar.

My personal experience with cocaine and crack I am not sure I have metabolized the impact of it enough to be able to use it to relate on a deeper level, honestly.

I can't say I personally relate to cocaine being a problem for me specifically, but I have been addicted to methamphetamine and heroin.

The amount of drugs @danosaurous22 consumed is significant (I don't say that to scare or judge him). I just know that it can take some time to get back to base line.

I'll also say that I can relate to those self destructive patterns and feel for you @danosaurous22 .

I wonder, do you feel ready to quit? You mentioned you're also an alcoholic?

 

[danosaurous22]

Yeah I've drank about 8 beers a day for a couple years now, it makes the cocaine nearly irresistible when I have money and ends up just being a tool to get through cravings. My falling off the wagon also coincided with getting a promotion that made my job much more stressful, although fortunately I have been doing a good job despite the substance issues. One of my ideas, and I know it's a copout, is to do some LSD one of these weekends when I feel the urge to get a bag. LSD ended up snapping me out of a very very long funk when I was a teenager, one that I didn't really even realize I was in. Although it kind of scarred me in its own way because it was a huge accidental dose, it really helped me see what things were important to me and what things were a distraction. My only fear is that LSD might not be a good idea since the cocaine tends to cause me to go nuts lately (almost psychosis, really more paranoia than anything though that I'm terrified is going to become psychosis at some point coming down) LSD could spin me out a bit too much. I have always viewed it as a merciful punishment though, and I think I am due for that type of an experience.

 

[streaM Freak]

@danosaurous22 - interesting. I have done something similar with weed, in tough times it has actually opened my eyes to more simple pleasures. So as crazy as the LSD idea sounds, I don't think it's that crazy, but you're right about the dissociation and how when next to cocaine and alcohol that could be a bigger issue.

Do you have any time off from work? Thought about paid time off for health reasons?

 

[danosaurous22]

I get plenty of time off from work. The past several months though, I've used some crucial downtime to binge absurdly on this drug. So a week or two week long break becomes more exhausting than a normal week of work.

 

[danosaurous22]

I also wanted to just state this as a bizarre fact of the experience. As I mentioned, in the past, I could use 7 g of primo shit in a day, go to work, come home, do another 7 g, etc.

The other night, I bought 0.5 g and that shit kept me going for a day in a half. Intense paranoia when I did too much, crazy positive symptoms of a coke overdose. Out of it for a day afterwards.

That is a warning to me. It has somehow gotten more potent with time, but provides me just a fraction of the reassurance it once did. And that was off of a two week long break from the drug. Once it has you by the balls, it doesn't take much to get your fill. But it also doesn't take much to experience the horror of a dopamine overdose, where you're manic and psychotic for a long time after your binge. It's fascinating to me how I could go back to 1/25 of what I was doing and still get more fucked up than I was. That's evidence of how it damages your nervous system.

 

[streaM Freak]

I also wanted to just state this as a bizarre fact of the experience. As I mentioned, in the past, I could use 7 g of primo shit in a day, go to work, come home, do another 7 g, etc.

The other night, I bought 0.5 g and that shit kept me going for a day in a half. Intense paranoia when I did too much, crazy positive symptoms of a coke overdose. Out of it for a day afterwards.

That is a warning to me. It has somehow gotten more potent with time, but provides me just a fraction of the reassurance it once did. And that was off of a two week long break from the drug. Once it has you by the balls, it doesn't take much to get your fill. But it also doesn't take much to experience the horror of a dopamine overdose, where you're manic and psychotic for a long time after your binge. It's fascinating to me how I could go back to 1/25 of what I was doing and still get more fucked up than I was. That's evidence of how it damages your nervous system.

Yeah that's definitely a real phenomenon, things not getting better over time with drug abuse.

I think you know what should be done, maybe it's just a matter of time or find the right motivation to reduce use.

I used to have trouble with that. Its hard to compare feelings. Especially when the things that come with sobriety the feelings aren't as intense. Highs not as high, lows not as low.

But it's becoming physically dangerous for you, as it always does. And that will continue to be an issue if changes aren't made.