Are Drugs (including some psychopharms) Just A Big Illusion?

[dopamimetic]

I have been and somewhat am a big advocate of that (some) drugs can heavily improve suffering and quality of life for some individuals which otherwise struggle with life, make interesting changes to character traits and spirituality (in the good case, that is), and it was like this for myself for many years now - there is a price tag, like failing to manage a stable dose regimen, finding excuses to do more, partly loosing healthy interest in life (not that I did have that before) etc.pp. but most of the tax comes from artificial limitations, in particular War on Drugs related stuff, legal repercussions, social stigmata, and of course money and being dependent on doctors, dealers, legality of compounds and so on.. so in an ideal world, these wouldn't count but then again in an ideal world we wouldn't need to self-medicate.

Now I am heavily into low doses of dissociatives. For interest, but more so for improvement of my conditions. It always feels weird how pronounced the 'switch' is between being on them, socially functioning, full of energy etc. and off them, introverted, rigid, lethargic, in pain ... and always, while on it feels like 'this is it' and that the depressive self is just like a bad trip of reality. Then when I run out of supply or decide to take a break, the opposite feels true and that the time on drugs was and is just a huge delusion and life just ain't to be easy.. Never managed to work on that, as even with the addiction counselers you can't talk openly as dependent on the individual, they either tell you one or the other but apparently nobody really understands. What I indeed understand since they mostly don't have much personal experiences or no at all. And from what I've seen in person, there are really quite some drug users who utterly lack control so I get how the profs come to their conclusion. (Yet doesn't this make any better imho as telling reckless users that they won't be able to control their use certainly won't improve anything.)

Yeah. Tried to live w/o drugs countless times but I just don't support my sober self. Tried psychotherapy, self aid groups, half of a pharmacy worth of meds, different docs and clinics without any real success, often leading to worse than before.. So what's the deal? Are some individuals just too sick to life, and then again if you have the choice between a decent illusion or a fucked up reality, what would you choose and what to make about this?

Also, so many people make a strong distinction between medical, prescribed use of medicines (and less so, self-medication with approved drugs) and the 'destructive, sick, addicted' use of recreational/non-regulated and the worst, illicit drugs. Many of them will exclude alcohol from that distinction but include alcoholism as a worst case - still seeing e.g. heroin use as even worse. Just that imho there is nothing like such a distinction and many approved drugs are recreationals and recreational drugs could be approved medicine.. Sometimes I could convince some people a bit about their strange conception but usually they will defend themselves to the end, just leading to senseless debates and me hiding the things, which in turn is indeed destructive.

 

[polymath]

Also, so many people make a strong distinction between medical, prescribed use of medicines (and less so, self-medication with approved drugs) and the 'destructive, sick, addicted' use of recreational/non-regulated and the worst, illicit drugs. Many of them will exclude alcohol from that distinction but include alcoholism as a worst case - still seeing e.g. heroin use as even worse. Just that imho there is nothing like such a distinction and many approved drugs are recreationals and recreational drugs could be approved medicine.. Sometimes I could convince some people a bit about their strange conception but usually they will defend themselves to the end, just leading to senseless debates and me hiding the things, which in turn is indeed destructive.

Humans learned to use tools about 2.5 million years ago. To me the use of drugs (either medical or recreational) to affect one's own brain directly is just the next step in the same development. Of course anyone can believe that all foreign substances are bad for your health if they want; especially the use of recreational drugs, in average, has a clearly negative effect on a person's life (but the illegality of them makes this much worse that it would have to be).

 

[dopamimetic]

Ok, maybe I have assimilated more of this prohibition-fueled sort of thinking than I wanted or thought, indeed I see drugs as tools but even in an ideal situation, with an unlimited, free source like e.g. growing yourself and no negative health issues you still have the thing of dependence. But I guess I answered my own question, and it's about social stigmata. In a world where tools are seen as bad, it would be much more difficult to build things, without any real reason, and it would make feel part of the builders very bad about themself - maybe like doping in sports (granted, here its about fairness too but if people want to extend their limits, why not just make natural world records vs. doping records...)

I realize how subjective argumentations are.. there are indeed bad tools, like guns, but people feel less bad about them than with drugs and see them as a neccessity for saving peace (yeah, like fucking for virginity) or sth.. you could come up with similar arguments about drugs, that they can be bad in the wrong hands but are a neccessity for others to live a good life.. and guns will never lead to anything spiritual.. That's another thingy, somehow I am convinced that psychedelics can and do put you in exact the same space as e.g. intensive meditation or other spiritual 'tools', just that they are kind of a powerful shortcut to there, but the majority of spiritual people disagrees and sees them as destructive, evil etc.pp. without providing any real arguments other than the usual narrative about addiction, criminality, health etc.

What indeed makes me feel bad is the said opposition between 'on' and 'off'. Guess that's more of a philosophical thing but it is so real. Just one accident with an adulterated supply, a dosage mistake, a wrong set/setting and something socially seen as bad, crazy, ill happens (well, these things don't happen with ethanol, do they?) and people will point with their fingers on the user ... over time this is catastrophical for mental health. It's always you being the Bad Guy and the others the Good ones who have to protect themselves about, umm, what exactly?

 

[Jabberwocky]

I totally identify with what your saying, I've had depression and substance abuse issues my entire adult life, so that's normal for me. It doesn't matter if I'm sober, which have been for years at a time, or I'm dependant on something, or okay with recreational use, its still my normal all the time. Those two things have never gone away and I don't expect them to. It can bother me or be an annoyance, but really lots of people have lifelong health issues, so its really no big deal in the grand scheme of things. It's very hard to explain to people who don't or won't understand what I'm saying about the reality of the situation, but I've found over the years its really better to listen to myself and go with that.

 

[empeebee]

Social stigmata is a result of the social construct. If you were to dare deviate from 'the norm' then you are an aberration to be shunned, or medically assisted to bring you back to normality. Perhaps the social construct was badly architected, hence badly constructed.

While there will always be those lacking self-control and not knowing when to stop There will also be those who perceive that the reality they have been born into and have grown up in is the real aberration. This second group owe no apologies should they wish to temporarily escape into their own realities. As long as they do no harm to others.

 

[dopamimetic]

Oh yes. Just fucked up another relationship cause of this exact point, she is sure as hell about her naive understanding about medicine and drugs, doesn't listen at all and continues to control me, hiding my medicine, talking to doctors without my ok, worrying all the time when there is really only to worry about the worrying. Even wanting to limit my freedom (yup!) for the 'best of me' .... This sort of thing is turning me again into an introverted nerd running from society/people/reality after I found dissociatives to attack and change the core of my lifelong suffering...

Guess many so-labelled mentally ill people who depend on pharmaceuticals will experience the same to some degree but usually as long as they obey psychiatrists/social workers/nurses/etc like a dog to his owner, people see it as less bad than somebody who dares to play his own doctor ... Independent of the result, which really wakes anger in me.

 

[empeebee]

Doesn't sound like she was right for you, she has to accept you for who you are. Or, she was right for you and was trying to help in the only way she knows how, even if misguided.

Psychiatrists/social workers/nurses may not be living your life so are ill-placed to understand you. All they can do is apply their medical training to try and assist you even if they get it wrong more often than not.

Neither of the above should affect your self esteem though. You cannot be Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy Osboune cannot be you. So here's the deal. Ozzy be Ozzy, you be you and all will be in balance .

 

[thegreenhand]

I agree with this sentiment for sure. You can go into a psychiatrist using a drug(s) responsibly to manage your mental health but then they still spit you back out with one of their own, because apparently prescribed = better ???

Drug users will always be deviants (unless that drug is ethanol and as of late cannabis). I would love to be "out of the closet" about my use but it's simply not worth it. Better just to find the few like minded people you can and keep it in that circle.

I love MDMA, it is the most healing drug I have ever used. But I won't tell anyone about my use unless I know they are smart about these kinds of things. If I told my grandma I use ecstacy to heal my depression she'd call me a filthy junkie. It really fucking sucks (especially with ethanol used as it is) but it's how we have to live. Infiltrate the system as my buddy says. It's starting to happen with psychedelic research centers at Imperial and John Hopkins but the movement towards rational drug policy/thought is still in its infancy. But it can't just stop with psychs.

Drug elitism hurts people no matter which drug we put on the pedestal whether it's medically prescribed xanax or pscilocybin mushrooms. Dr. Carl Hart at Columbia talks a lot about this, you may find his works/talks interesting. Keep fighting the good fight and we'll win this eventually brotha (sista??)

 

[empeebee]

If I told my grandma I use ecstacy to heal my depression she'd call me a filthy junkie

Understood, but the era your grandma and your ma even lived in were brainwashed into believing the drug use, even for medicinal reasons, was bad.My ma is the same, hates taking drugs because drugs are bad.

If it were me, I'd openly admit that I use Methylenedioxymethamphetamine for medicinal purposes. If anyone sneers and frowns, I would ask them what medicines they were taking. Even if their answer was Ibuprofen I would counter that my medicine is purer and less toxic that theirs

My 2c.

./empeebee

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm okay with doctors, therapists, spouses, etc. they all help in my experience. The big issue I have is feeling like I'm being coerced into something, or judged by a value system I don't agree with. In my experience drug counselors and therapists connected to my HMO are so ideological and coercive that they're completely useless. I actually have paid to see a counselor out of plan who actually knew how to be a therapist because the HMO counselors all follow some weird script the HMO forces on them.

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

No. Sertraline saved my life.

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

Understood, but the era your grandma and your ma even lived in were brainwashed into believing the drug use, even for medicinal reasons, was bad.My ma is the same, hates taking drugs because drugs are bad.

If it were me, I'd openly admit that I use Methylenedioxymethamphetamine for medicinal purposes. If anyone sneers and frowns, I would ask them what medicines they were taking. Even if their answer was Ibuprofen I would counter that my medicine is purer and less toxic that theirs

My 2c.

./empeebee

I'm like that with people who tell me how terrible my opioids are and then say they take acetaminophen.

 

[thegreenhand]

Understood, but the era your grandma and your ma even lived in were brainwashed into believing the drug use, even for medicinal reasons, was bad.My ma is the same, hates taking drugs because drugs are bad.

If it were me, I'd openly admit that I use Methylenedioxymethamphetamine for medicinal purposes. If anyone sneers and frowns, I would ask them what medicines they were taking. Even if their answer was Ibuprofen I would counter that my medicine is purer and less toxic that theirs

My 2c.

./empeebee

Well ya see I hve tried this conversation with my mom and it doesn’t lead to anything good. She still thinks I’ll overdose or get addicted or go on to use “harder” drugs. And when presented with evidence form the clinical trials with MDMA she rebuked that with “well a doctor gave that to them” and said mine was purely recreational. Some battles just can’t be won. I don’t engage in arguments with people who don’t play by the rules of evidence. And sadly most people argue about drugs on an emotional level (eg. “my brother ODed after trying it once”) not a rational one

 

[empeebee]

@thegreenhand, print off some pubchem or inchem stuff. She can't argue with clinical evidence. If she does, well.....

 

[thegreenhand]

@thegreenhand, print off some pubchem or inchem stuff. She can't argue with clinical evidence. If she does, well.....

Oh trust me I have. That was my point. Some people simply don't play by the rules of evidence. Her brother/my uncle abused substances and it cost him his life eventually. She has a purely emotional response to talks about drugs because of that. As I said above, she replies to me with "That is under doctor supervision" and therefore mine is unsafe and invalid. It makes no sense but it's how many people react to any notion that drugs aren't as bad as they've been told. But of course my sister who binge drinks 2-3 times a week is just dandy

It makes my life much easier to simply not talk about it with her as I expect she will never accept it. Don't get me wrong I am generally open about my substance use among people my age but sometimes it's just not worth the hassle.

 

[dopamimetic]

Well first I thought, that's going off-topic but I see that probably the point really isn't about whether something is an illusion or not (at last we have scientists believing whole reality is a flat out illusion) but how one does judge that, and to my belief it is irrelevant what others judge when it comes to victimless behaviour. Leaves me with simple math, the price of doing chems (money, stigma, illegality etc) vs the price of not to do so (living with all the pain) I guess.

Problem arises when your self esteem is directly related to drug use. For long time I've tried to convince me that it's just (hypo)mania and depression and I still do but for that it is much too reliable, NMDA blocked: above normal. Sober: below normal, tendency falling. So both is true, it is mania, but also reality. Maybe it's just where therapeutic effects and 'abuse' cross their lines. (Again, whats the point of calling sth abuse if there is no accepted use?) But try to explain that to other people, even druggies tell me I am a sick addict -- if they know about my use, that is. Many people tend to like the high, disinhibited me, as long as they didn't know the introverted one before. The other way round too.

Yeah, that girl wasn't compatible. Just when things like this happen on and on, the only girl I've really ever loved left me too after 9 years because of some really stupid mistakes which could have been avoided without the need for hiding... I gave up dating a long time ago, and I will completely ban all thoughts about relationships in the future. It's just not worth it.

But the only alternative, well somehow I am 'in love' with particular chemicals, as they give me a life back I've never known I could ever dream of before, isn't one as fucking War on Drugs, prohibition and repression *will* take them away from me sooner or later (obviously, just for the best of me, sigh) and very probably let me experience jail time...... so, as somebody who never really considered suicide an option as, how to say that, tripping made me value life just too much and me somehow scary about afterlife / other dimensions / however to call that.. at least it convinced me that this here isn't the only reality and there won't be just darkness afterwards, so, if not for anything else, I just don't have the balls to finish it here and now.. Sometimes the thoght of being able to do that if it should show neccessary at some point in time does help me relax though, as I've overdosed more than once on morphine (never dangerously so, never required antidote or reanimation) and it indeed appears that you'll just sleep away... but then again, maybe it just never was really dangerous and if it were, the experience could have been very different...

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm not understanding your point, is your relationship with your girlfriend over, and now you're thinking about suicide?

 

[Flynnal]

If you don't mind me asking, what specific dissociative are you referring to?

I noticed that 10mg memantine works for me, but only about half the time - unless I take 20mg. The problem is that dissociatives have side effects for me, even DXM has them and they're not pleasant - insomnia being the worse of them, but sometimes a slight nausea/unwell feeling.

 

[dopamimetic]

If you don't mind me asking, what specific dissociative are you referring to?

I noticed that 10mg memantine works for me, but only about half the time - unless I take 20mg. The problem is that dissociatives have side effects for me, even DXM has them and they're not pleasant - insomnia being the worse of them, but sometimes a slight nausea/unwell feeling.

Oh yeah, I too get heavy insomnia from memantine which is pretty strange given that it's a dopamine agonist, in opposition to stimulants which increase the output of endogenous dopamine, which in turn will partially be metabolized into norepinephrine (might be responsible for the rebound of stims), dopamine agonists should rather lower the levels of dopamine by hitting autoreceptors, so signaling high DA levels.. With 20mg or even 10mg it's subtle but certainly worsens the quality of sleep - does improve nightmares though for me. With 40mg and more (did up to over 100mg on some occasions, then it becomes more of a typical dissociative but still a very clean one) I get somewhat like a 36h/12h wake/sleep rhythm which isn't socially compatible and probably not healthy either..
There's a solution though, clonidine works great as a sleep aid together with memantine. Guanfacine might be better tolerated yet the primary problem is that these were developed as antihypertonics and thus have a day-long half life. There is one related chem which is shorter acting but unfortunately I don't remember the name and wikipedia doesn't help either.. With 75mcg of clonidine I slept well with 40mg/d of memantine but guess it made me bit lethargic/sleepy sometimes.. Maybe you could use even less. Or try high dose melatonin..

Unfortunately I get insomnia from all dissociatives, but too they are very unique in being stimulating and anxiolytic at the same time.. with deschloroket I could stay up for days without feeling any tiredness up to the point of sleep deprivation symptoms.. the most manageable is probably 2f-dck, if you don't dose too late in day sleep is fine.

I tend to dose too high because well, it just feels so good and they are pretty heavily more-ish. But it should be possible to find a dosage regimen that is sustainable - or even better, some people get decent antidepressant efficacy from just once a week, K got approved for major depression recently. As my problems are more of "Asperger's" or something alike, with heavy introversion, tension, being overwhelmed by sensory input or even thoughts etc.. I need to stay on a slight dissociation all the time for it to work. I get the instant and prolonged AD effect too but it's being overshadowed by other things.

Get strange not-a-real-headache impression from higher amounts of memantine, and others report similar about arylcyclohexylamines but with them it goes away with time. But here DXM is certainly the worst and the most promiscous dissociative currently available.. it produces additional nausea by its SNRI mechanism. With the RCs you can greatly minimize side effects by insufflating them, so they won't pass the digestive tract and be more potent without first pass effect.. at the price of more craving though.

The supplement agmatine might possibly make an interesting combo with memantine. It's an endogenous NMDA antagonist and putative neurotransmitter.

I'm not understanding your point, is your relationship with your girlfriend over, and now you're thinking about suicide?

Sorry yeah, I am a bit out of it these days and still learning English..

I was referring to an earlier post of me where I described the devastating consequences not of the drug use itself but the social stigma of it can have to relationships, lost my long term gf due to this and somehow it is always like this. Hiding in close relationships is neither easy nor healthy and somehow unfair but to be open isn't easy nor healthy for yourself either.. In earlier times I thought of that I could only make (close) friends with people with history of mental illness as others won't understand and would judge me.. but it is certainly worse if you are somewhat dependent on drugs, even if it isn't H.

Suicide tends to come to mind when you're desperate.. I don't want this, and won't do for now, but it scares me how things develop. That I begin to lose hope in society, in life, in future and while in past it was only during heavy depression that I thought of suicide, now sometimes I see it as a possible alternative in more or less distant future, if life won't let me other options, even when I don't feel depressed.. Now I need hypomania to remain hopeful, and this is heavily dysfunctional..

About the point of illusion. Guess I've specified this too less.. you could read it as "Is Hypomania Just An Illusion". I've always wondered about this, some people seem to have natural hypomania all the time, and these people tend to be successful in social life as well as in business. Too they'll never search treatment, as long as it's not full-on mania with loss of control etc. but if you have had depressive tendencies or dysthymia, the people will see you as crazy when having similar energy to other people and docs will put you on antimanics.. it's so subjective yet so common to get these reactions, and nobody really thinks about.

 

[Jabberwocky]

It seems like it would be pretty hard to avoid manic depressive swings if you're predisposed to depression and using ketamine to keep up your energy with manic states. It sounds like you have a complicated problem.