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Will I ever recover? Methamphetamine woes

shroomster

shroomster

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 15, 2002
Messages
1,058
Location
Los Angeles, nukka.
Hello fellow bluelighters,

I'm going to make this short, sweet, and hopefully pronounced, so that I may get as many educated responses as possible.

I'll start from way back when..

I knew I was a smart kid. I remember that quite clearly; everywhere I went, from the age of eight, in starting a conversation with an adult, or even sometimes my peers, they would usually shower me with some sort of praise for an intelligence I never worked for.

At 16 I was reading books on quantum mechanics, understanding quite a bit of it. I spoke very eloquently. I would also be complimented for that quite often, as I had an unusually wide vocabulary for that age group.

then came meth.

No drugalogue. I just did a lot of it. I smoked meth from 16-17. Stopped. Shot it from 19-21. And I went out twice at 22.

I've been clean for the majority of 1.5 years.

I feel retarded and I don't mean for my actions. I am exponentially slowed down.

I have to read the same thing 10x to remember it. My vocabulary is shot. I can't remember new words for the life of me, give or take some here and there, and I AM a reader. I work hard to expand my vocabulary, but as soon as I remember a word, I forget it.

I used to be an EXCELLENT writer. Sometimes for shits and giggles I read some proes or essays I've written at 18, even 19, and I'm amazed that I wrote it. I was getting paid to write periodicals for a school at 20. My heaviest use, btw, came at 21. Shooting nearly everyday.

And it's not just diction - it's everything. I get confused easily. I ALWAYS feel like I'm under a clowd of minor confusion.

I could go on and on and on with my complaints.

Will I ever recover. Can brain cells regenerate? Can the neurons of the human brain regenerate old relationships, and perhaps make new ones?

WILL I GET BETTER

I'm afraid the effects of my drug abuse will be permanent. It's so depressing. I've often thought of suicide in hopes of being reborn..to start over. I hate what drugs have done to me.

I'm in college and I just start my major classes. I'm in a science, which as you know are complicated and ever expanding. I want my life to be about knowledge. I fear I'll never be able to get to where I want to go with this damaged brain.
 
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Will I ever recover. Can brain cells regenerate? Can the neurons of the human brain regenerate old relationships, and perhaps make new ones?

WILL I GET BETTER
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YES!

I have taken a few advanced neuro and bio psychology classes and tell you that you can absolutely both repair brain damage and grow new neurons. This process continues until the day you die.

Here are some musings that might help you along the way.

-They Myelin Sheath is a fatty layer around the axon of nerves. It aids in the rapid transmission of electrical signals and is built from omega-3 fatty acids. omega-3s can be found in fish oil, flax, hemp, and some other sources. I take about 4 or 5 fish oil caps per day.

-Yoga opens up the bodies energy pathways which will fuel whole body recovery. The mind and body are integrated, it is necessary to nurture both.

-Air pollution has been correlated with lower IQ. LA......


Good luck dude, glad to hear you're off the shit.
 
Mehm said:
YES!

I have taken a few advanced neuro and bio psychology classes and tell you that you can absolutely both repair brain damage and grow new neurons. This process continues until the day you die.

Here are some musings that might help you along the way.

-They Myelin Sheath is a fatty layer around the axon of nerves. It aids in the rapid transmission of electrical signals and is built from omega-3 fatty acids. omega-3s can be found in fish oil, flax, hemp, and some other sources. I take about 4 or 5 fish oil caps per day.

-Yoga opens up the bodies energy pathways which will fuel whole body recovery. The mind and body are integrated, it is necessary to nurture both.

-Air pollution has been correlated with lower IQ. LA......


Good luck dude, glad to hear you're off the shit.
Click to expand...

I live in the San Fernando Valley of the greater LA area, one of the smoggiest destinations in the U.S! Haha. God willing I'm transferring to a school in the bay area in spring or fall '11

Thanks for your quick reply! I lift a few times a week. In that respect, I'm relatively physically fit, but yoga...I should find/make the time. I had a class, but once the semester ended, I stopped practicing. Right now, however, I'm taking a 5 unit class in 5 weeks, followed by 16 units in 15 weeks, and hardly have the time to think about anything except studying. As soon as I do, however, I plan on joining a class :D Yogis are, by far, the most impressive group of people I've had the pleasure of meeting in terms of both physical fitness and personability. Seemingly nothing can phase them!

I'm going to go off to Trader Joes and pick up a bottle of fish oil caps today!

As a biopsych major, have you read any studies correlating veganism/vegetarianism to higher IQs, or rather psychological fitness? What an interesting discipline that is. I took psych2 (physio psych) last year and loved it.

I'm glad I'm off the shit too, my friend.
 
Hey man im right here in the valley with you, heat has been brutal today. Im sure youll recover, a year isnt that long of a time. Id recommend doing mental exercises kinda like physical therapy for your brain. Word puzzles and memory games and stuff.
 
Mehm said:
YES!

I have taken a few advanced neuro and bio psychology classes and tell you that you can absolutely both repair brain damage and grow new neurons. This process continues until the day you die.

Here are some musings that might help you along the way.

-They Myelin Sheath is a fatty layer around the axon of nerves. It aids in the rapid transmission of electrical signals and is built from omega-3 fatty acids. omega-3s can be found in fish oil, flax, hemp, and some other sources. I take about 4 or 5 fish oil caps per day.

-Yoga opens up the bodies energy pathways which will fuel whole body recovery. The mind and body are integrated, it is necessary to nurture both.

-Air pollution has been correlated with lower IQ. LA......


Good luck dude, glad to hear you're off the shit.
Click to expand...

Just wanted to point out that re-growing neurons (except for in two specific places) is still a medically controversial topic. This is particularly important for areas like the substantia nigra which is highly affected by methamphetamine use.

Your other advice is spot-on though, I'd definitely be looking into quality omega-3s and other brain health compounds.
 
Yes you will recover. It will take a while. But the best thing you can do for yourself is never to abuse drugs, especially meth. If I were you I would put away all mind altering substances forever. In a few years you will see that you will go back to your old self. Just be patient. It will happen. Since I stopped using drugs my brain has been doing so much better. Every month I see improvement.

Just hang in there. Give it time and don't stress yourself out that its not happening fast enough. The stress will just slow you down. So live your life drug free, put as much effort into school as you can and be patient. Eventually, soon, you will be back to your old self.
 
Mehm said:
-They Myelin Sheath is a fatty layer around the axon of nerves. It aids in the rapid transmission of electrical signals and is built from omega-3 fatty acids. omega-3s can be found in fish oil, flax, hemp, and some other sources. I take about 4 or 5 fish oil caps per day.
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Random information sort of continuing on this...I've taken a few child language classes, as well as other neurolinguistic type classes. A professor told me that Snickers bars were found to help strengthen or at least maintain the Myelin Sheath. I don't have a good source for this, but hell, if you like Snickers bars, it could help. Apparently it's usually recommended to those with MS, since their Myelin Sheath is deteriorating...but I thought this random fact seemed quite fitting in this thread.
 
Z Y G G Y said:
Yes you will recover. It will take a while. But the best thing you can do for yourself is never to abuse drugs, especially meth. If I were you I would put away all mind altering substances forever. In a few years you will see that you will go back to your old self. Just be patient. It will happen. Since I stopped using drugs my brain has been doing so much better. Every month I see improvement.

Just hang in there. Give it time and don't stress yourself out that its not happening fast enough. The stress will just slow you down. So live your life drug free, put as much effort into school as you can and be patient. Eventually, soon, you will be back to your old self.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty much drug free. I occassionally imbibe in drink, and abstemiously smoke pot, but only during intersession. In other words, not very often at all. Right now, for instance, I wouldn't have time to, even if I wanted to. I haven't fully resigned myself to abstinence, nor can I see it being a "forever" type of thing. From stimulants and heavy narcotics, yes, forever. I don't see myself ever going back. Ever. I don't even allow myself the fantasy of it. In fact, I think it's safe to say that I will absolutely not relapse.

ranunky said:
Initiation of movement. Damage to these neurons causes parkonsonian type symptoms.
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I haven't noticed any difficulty in movement. My problems lie in coherent thought, "cloudiness", complicated sentence structure, diction, and others.

purple_cloud said:
Random information sort of continuing on this...I've taken a few child language classes, as well as other neurolinguistic type classes. A professor told me that Snickers bars were found to help strengthen or at least maintain the Myelin Sheath. I don't have a good source for this, but hell, if you like Snickers bars, it could help. Apparently it's usually recommended to those with MS, since their Myelin Sheath is deteriorating...but I thought this random fact seemed quite fitting in this thread.
Click to expand...

Ha, I try to stay away from candy. Why Snickers bars? The chocolate, caramel, or peanuts? :P
 
shroomster said:
Ha, I try to stay away from candy. Why Snickers bars? The chocolate, caramel, or peanuts? :P
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Honestly, from what I remember, its the fact that they are loaded with protein from all of that stuff. I know protein has something to do with it...I'm looking around to see if I can find a source, seems I'm encountering things about protein bars (so I must remember that correctly) but no source on the Snickers. I'm not a big fan of candy either honestly, the post seemed to trigger that part of my memory and hey, anything is worth a shot if it's not harmful (although ingestion of a lot of protein or candy could spawn an entire forum on degree of harmfulness...).
 
Remember that you quit meth around the time that one's fluid cognitive ability (that which does not depend on accrued knowledge) begins to decline normally. Chances are very high that you will recover 'fully' (that is, to where you'd be at this age if you were to have remained meth-naive). Participation in formal schooling should help out your perceived sharpness, but also your objective acuity in restricted domains. You may carry slightly increased chances of developing Parkinson's from here on out, but death of cells with dopamine receptors in the Substantia Nigra doesn't become behaviorally relevant until many, many are dead.

ebola
 
Did you use a lot of marijuana as well? It seems like that has more of a slowing effect and might be the culprit rather than meth.
 
Reinforcing the above, yes you will indeed recover, though not to the complete apex of where you could have gone. Part of that is drugs and part of that is just age. Keep at it and you will find a new plateau that is a good place.
 
Z Y G G Y said:
If I were you I would put away all mind altering substances forever. In a few years you will see that you will go back to your old self. Just be patient. It will happen. Since I stopped using drugs my brain has been doing so much better. Every month I see improvement.
.
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Without hijacking the thread and getting off topic, which drugs have you stopped that have allowed you to experience the increase in brain power?
 
shroomster said:
I'm going to go off to Trader Joes and pick up a bottle of fish oil caps today!
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I would recommend going to a Whole Foods, or even better, a locally owned and operated health food store. They have loads of high-quality, Omega-3 focused fish oil supplements. I get these ones:

NSFW:
61701.jpg


I take 6 - 9 a day, in groups of 3. I've had a great experience with them. You could probably find a similar products at TJ's as well, if its more convenient for you. I take them for general health reasons as well as an attempt to speed/aide in recovery from stimulant (mostly MDMA / MDA / Amphetamine) abuse. It's been a little over a year since leaving that lifestyle behind, and while I couldn't attribute my recovery to this or that in particular, I've definitely made some good progress.



abracadabra girl said:
Did you use a lot of marijuana as well? It seems like that has more of a slowing effect and might be the culprit rather than meth.
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Also an important point of consideration, I found stopping and then strictly limiting my use of marijuana to have great improvement on my cognitive abilities, motivation, and focus. I think this is a major flaw in many peoples recovery, as it feels (as is relatively) so harmless, though heavy usage undoubtedly causes temporary cognitive decline.



shroomster said:
Haha. God willing I'm transferring to a school in the bay area in spring or fall '11
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Glad to hear that. Thats where I live and was raised. Beautiful place, especially the coast north and south of the bay. Pristine!
 
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Yes you will get better.

I have a friend that only used/abused meth on weekends for 15-20 years and he never IV'd it but he had some issues with memory but he no longer does since getting sober.
 
yes as a former amphetamine addict the brain cloud lifts but it could be a year or two before it gets near to where you were. avoid meth and mdma like the plague, eat lots of omega 3 rich food like salmon, trout, sea bass and get a strong b vitamin complex. cannot explain how much diet improved my head after amphetamine addiction. ussually you get hooked on speed cos of underlying depression, thats what the b vitamin complex is for (get a strong one from a health food shop).

it takes time but excercise and improving your diet work wonders

avoid hydrogenated fat or vegetable "fat" in foods, make an effort to read the labels

diet is crucial to recovery
 
avoid meth and mdma like the plague
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I would add all dopaminergic stimulants, releasers proving more toxic than reuptake inhibitors in this case. Epidemiological studies suggest that it takes severe physiological damage to translate to noticeable behavioral deficit, in this case; just avoid doing the worst thing that you can do, saying "Fuck it!" because you think that the damage has already been done.

ebola
 
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