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Misc How quetiapine (Seroquel) is abused

crOOk

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 16, 2004
Messages
4,047
Location
Germany
Hey people!

Neuroleptics have a very bad reputation as recreational drugs. In fact, most people will claim they have no value whatsoever in that respect. I beg to differ. Prison inmates don't seem to entirely agree either. There have been a large number of scientific articles mentioning the phenomenom of quetiapine having abuse potential and being relatively popular among the prison crowd.

I will try to give you my understanding of what is going on here, myself being a huge fan of the substance. One case report has quoted a prison inmate stating that he gets a "rush" out of IV quetiapine. I cannot personally comment on that very extensively and will focus my efforts on another aspect of the drug's effects. Quetiapine is a strong centrally active antihistamine among other things and I imagine that is how this person gets his enjoyment out of it, as other centrally active antihistamines like hydroxyzine are considered to have recreational value when IV'ed by many bluelighters.

A short bit of history about myself: I DO have access to proper drugs! I can score pretty much any psychoactive compound known to the scene at ridiculously low prices, usually for free. I keep DMT stashed at all times. I have a bipolar 1 diagnosis and have been prescribed olanzapine and quetiapine, the latter for the past 4 months or so at a dosage of ~150mg.

I have both used the IR and the XR form of this substance with the IR being accompanied by stronger akathisia, an extremely unpleasant side effect. The way I describe akathisia to those who have not experienced is by comparing it to the feeling you get when you hold your breath for as long as you can, e.g. underwater. Right before you cannot go on any longer you will get an extremely imperative urge to move. When holding my breath this feeling covers most of my body parts, while the drug induced akathisia is usually limited to certain body parts (in my case, inner thighs and feet). It is attenuated by moving around, but only for the duration of the movement.

Despite this absolutely agonizing side effect, I am a huge fan of the quetiapine and I will finally explain why that is:

Vivid dreams that often linger on into my waking state! I have always been a heavy dreamer and have had a few out of body experiences induced from a state of sleep paralysis right after drifting off to sleep. I am not sure if others who aren't natural dreamers like me will consider quetiapine as valuable as I consider it.

Due to my psychiatric illness, I have had to get 1 year vacation from studying medicine. Due to having a daughter I am not partying anymore or very rarely anyway. Since I am separated from my daughter's mum, I only get to see my daughter 4 days of the week.
The rest of the week I currently don't have a whole lot to do except lifting, eating well and getting my tan on. Now most jailbirds don't really have many options to perform either of the the latter two activities, so I imagine they experience the same problems. Lots of time, being very bored and lonely, without much hope, just feeling like shit whatever they do (hang around I suppose).

I often end up coming home from workout at noon, down a huge meal and find myself in a state of anhedonia, not even enjoying computer games or watching movies. This is where quetiapine comes into play!
I would take my prescribed dosage of e.g. 150mg extended release q and then lie down. It is crucial that I do not smoke too much pot now if I want to get the most out of my dose.

Sleep doesn't come very easily to me, even on q. There is a tendency to wake up after every single REM phase (bout every 3 hours). The first 2 cycles or so are usually not worth mentioning. It gets interesting when most of the quetiapine has been metabolized to norquetiapine. Norquetiapine inhibits NET, a protein that transports noradrenaline (a stimulating monoamine) from the synaptic gap (where it is active) back into the presynapses. I will now wake up much more frequently than every 3h. About hourly I'd say, but there's a large variance.
Every time I wake up I carry to my waking state the memories and emotions I experienced during my dreams. I could fill books with my dreams. I will not bore you with details. Some dreams are gruesome, in others I fall in love, in some I can fly, in others I travel the world. Sometimes I work through issues I experience in waking life during these dreams, though this becomes more rare the more I have dreamt in the past weeks.

Whenever I wake up I smoke a ciggie, eat some snacks, drink some proteine and go back to lala-land. In my experience the dreams increase in intensity for about 15-17h with each cycle of going to sleep and waking up again.

Large parts of my life are currently not enjoyable to me. I imagine that's how a lot of the prison population feels about their life as well. My dreams ALWAYS are exciting and enjoyable, no matter how much pain and blood they are filled with. I prefer a good night of dreams over nodding out on opiates, especially when those have a very bad comedown/withdrawals. I even prefer it to dissociated states these days. Ketamine never gets me to the places my dreams take me.

If you have anything left to enjoy during daytime, you will probably not consider "escape to dream land" an option. If you are like me, you can easily dream away 15-21h per day this way and wake up fully refreshed. It just feels like it's the best I can currently do with my time...

Hope one or the other found this an interesting read. And if it isn't obvious already, the stuff doesn't do shit for my hypomania or depression, it just helps me go to bed so I won't slide off into mania.
 
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Quetiapine? That's the one that goes by the UK trade-name of Seroquel ain't it? Friend of mine who was prescribed these (can't remember the dosage, but they were big pills) got me to try 1/2- I'd have to say I didn't get anything remotely recreational from it! I remember this awful feeling of drifting away from my body then waking up 6 hrs after feeling sluggish and unpleasantly dizzy. Certainly not my DOC!
 
This kind of reminds me of that Ramones song:

"I Wanna Be Sedated"...

If you truly just wanna be sedated quietapine definitely works. I'd say it while it does have some recreational value to some people, it's not very euphoric or enjoyable in the same way that a lot of other drugs that are also sedating can tend to be. I'd say this is true of mostly all anti-psychotics....

If I had a bottle of hundreds of quietapine pills and I was desperate to catch a buzz, I might take some here and there but I definitely wouldn't be taking them every day to achieve a "high". They're good for sleep and anxiety relief but not very recreational, Imo....
 
i can see what your getting at

i used to love the vivid dreams that i would get on seroquel as well, i also enjoy the stoned feeling i get the next morning for an hour or two (so long as i dont have shit to do!)

the thing that can suck is if you increase the dose too much you can wake up the next morning in a pool of sweat with horrendous cottonmouth
 
Wow! I absolutely hate the stuff unless im having bad problems sleeping. My mother and I also think ive had 2 seizues on the stuff too so I no longer use it. When I was in rehab we tried to get a rec affect from it but never really suceeded, it just made us ultra hungry and then we'd go to sleep. I have no idea what recreational effect you could get from it, I dont even enjoy it as a potentiator for heroin, it just ruins the H by overpowering it, I love using promethazine to potentiate and I could see how prometh may have a very tiny recreational value but seroquel?!? Yuck! Thats just my personal opinion though and to each their own. Lucky you though! Seroquel is probably the easiest drug to acquire around here though and I know that many people on it that dont take it I could probably get 10 boxes of it for free atm heh.

Good luck with that ;)
 
@Mysterie
Each time I wake up I am covered in sweat, yeah. That's definitely one of the negs, especially with my neurodermatitis.

@BlueHues
Love that song... See I personally don't get much enjoyment from GABAergic downers like benzos. With quetiapine the only thing that I really dig are the dreams. If you experience anhedonia during daytime, life can feel very very dull. A downer usually worsens that for me and often causes amnesia on top. Quetiapine on the other hand allows me to experience things and feel emotions while I'm asleep that I actually recall during daytime.
 
it's great for sleep, but it doesn't get me high just tired. i would NEVER take one during the day, which i can't say for any drug that is actually recreational.
 
Not sure if you've actually read the initial post u2...

Well I on my end went to a raging party after being dropped off by a helicopter in the back yard and afterwards saved a little girl from drowning in a pool. All in the past hour which was the 17th hour of this sleep cycle lol.

Back to sleep!
 
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The main thing that I've been learning in the past few months spending way more time than I should reading BL threads is that there's definitely a "niche market" out there for a lot of bizarre drugs that the majority doesn't consider "recreational".....and quietapine seems to actually be quite popular among a lot of people world-wide as a recreational drug!
 
I've used Seroquel both theraputically and 'recreationally' as my friends dad is prescribed heaps of it, we used to call it "Glue" because it both felt like you had poured superglue into your membranes and you were also kinda glued to whatever you were sitting on. Taking a couple seroquel and smoking a joint or two is okay, not very recreational but it kinda chills you out and makes you fall asleep. You can stick a movie on and not really pay any attention to anything.
 
The main thing that I've been learning in the past few months spending way more time than I should reading BL threads is that there's definitely a "niche market" out there for a lot of bizarre drugs that the majority doesn't consider "recreational".....and quietapine seems to actually be quite popular among a lot of people world-wide as a recreational drug!
Yessir! That's right. I can get my hands on all kinds of shit whenever I please, but the only thing that really draws my attention these days is "odd stuff". There have been a handful of drugs I've tried that I really do not consider pleasant at all, but most of the more unusual substances have something to offer that other drugs don't. Here are a few examples:

-Nutmeg: Name one drug you've tried (I've personally never sampled MMDA) that produces anything close to the mind movies you can watch on nutmeg!
-Salvia: Most people hate it, but there's definitely nothing weirder out there than a full blown salvia dissociation (imho).
-Ether: Sure you'll end up with a headache drooling over yourself, but for the blink of an eye you experience pure and utter serenity.
-Tramadol: Makes me nod harder than hydromorphone does, most people don't consider it recreational at all.
-Antihistamines: I prefer them over benzos any day!
-Propofol: Most definitely not the most popular substance on the black market. Usually the advice on this one is: "Not worth it, will just knock you out or kill you." From all I know though there's a small crowd of people who are HUGE fans of this substance. Personally, I'm 100% certain that no other drug has ever made me feel as orgasmic as this stuff.
-Piritramide: I know a few people who will pay a fortune to get their hands on this one and prefer it over H any day. It's said to be less potent than morphine...
 
I'm presribed 100mg of Seroquel, started out at 300mg and don't get me wrong, I love it as it works specifically for why I'm prescribed. Mood stabilizer, sleep aid, anti-depressant, etc. But I've never really found much recreational value from it. I'll take more if I wanna fall asleep fast and have vivid dreams but that's bout it, IMO.
 
I'll take more if I wanna fall asleep fast and have vivid dreams but that's bout it, IMO.
Exactly my point. Vivid dreams are very recreational if your life is otherwise not very exciting. Should've probably not have written such a long initial post or I might have gotten you to read through it.
 
I am prescribed 300mg's of Quetiapine a day for bipolar disorder and if i am having a real bad day i will take 400mg's. Olanzapine works way way better for me with virtually no side effects even at the max daily dose but my insurance won't cover it and it's a fucking fortune here. I know lot's of jail birds and quetiapine is their drug of choice for knocking themselves out here. Mirtazapine, amitriptyline and even snorting or IVing bupropion ffs have all been things people who have jail as a second home have told me they do to sleep or as is the case with bupropion feel something when you don't have a decent drug to abuse.

I have certainly never tried to snort or IV quetiapine or any other of these drugs but i did experience some euphoria from oral quetiapine once. I was a few days into real bad opiate withdrawal and hadn't taken seroquel in a good while but had some left over so i took 100mg's to sleep and stop me from being so jumpy. When it started to kick in my mind stopped racing around like a hamster on a wheel, the heebie jeebies stopped along with the kind of mixed states i get with opiate withdrawals and for some reason the physical pain faded abit along with the psychological. I think that must have been due to it's anti-histaminic and at that dose barely any anti-psychotic effects just causing some relief for me. I am so used to having my brain revving over that any drug that can slow down or center my thought process especially during opiate withdrawal seems somewhat pleasurable to me. I don't think i could get through opiate withdrawals without a anti-psychotic of some sort anyway because i really hate that mixed state type of symptoms i get during withdrawal. That is what can cause me to loose it.

As for it being recreational it's not recreational at all. Hell i found chlorpromazine to be more recreational cause atleast it goes good with opiates like morphine and dilaudid for stopping nausea and vomiting due to severe pain. I certainly wouldn't try snorting or IVing chlorpromazine as IV chlorpromazine is only used in emergencies i believe and very rarely even then. It does potentiate the sedative effects of opiates like all phenothiazines do but it certainly doesn't boost the euphoric effects or anything. Oddly enough i don't find chlorpromazine to be too bad of a drug on it's own as it doesn't make me a feel like a zombie like risperidone does and didn't knock me out for most of the day like Quetiapine did the first few times i took it. Not at 100mg's which is the most i ever took at once. I wouldn't recommend anyone going and taking any Thorazine aka Largactil with their opiate of choice though due to the rather nasty and sometimes permanent side effects that chlorpromazine and other typicals may be worse for causing then some atypical anti-psychotics anyway.

I don't know why some people try to boost opiates with quetiapine. I always try and take them far apart because i find that quetiapine fucks up the opiate high and that the combo gives me worse hypotension then quetiapine alone.

-Salvia: Most people hate it, but there's definitely nothing weirder out there than a full blown salvia dissociation (imho).

Actually i quite like salvia. I haven't had it in a few years now but it is by far the most mind blowing and chaotic psychedelic i have ever taken. I used to enjoy the very short but very intense trips and the whole puppet master effect it causes. That's freaky.
 
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It's virtually a chemical lobotomy (and I think this is what it was developed for). To make it easier on those who have to be around you (especially if you're in some institution) by lowering your energy and mental/emotional activity.

When I took it I felt as if my mind couldn't move. Like a large part of my ability to think and feel had been taken away and I was more emotionally neutral, but in a shitty way, and felt quite dysphoric. Your ability to express it or act on it is just much more limited and you kind of just sit there.

But I'm sure it makes it easier on those who have to be around extremely depressed, emotionally hysterical, or psychotic people. A very inhumane drug, which I suspect of having some kind of evil origin (i.e. not developed with the welfare of the patient in mind).
 
I've successfully used Seroquel/quetiapine to abort bad LSD experiences. Also works wonders as far as an antidote to stimulants (reverses their effects completely and knocks me out). Even at lower doses (25mg) it seems to work wonders.

I've read on Wikipedia (I think) about people mixing Seroquel and cocaine together in an IV as a "Q-Ball". Can't confirm that though.
 
Thanks, and one thing I'm sure which will make you laugh, is when I mentioned these thoughts to my doctor she said "Ohh nooo, it's nothing like that, no".

Perfect example of a doctor with no personal experience with a drug who completely trusts the medical literature. You almost have to wonder how they are allowed to prescribe. I mean, never having tried it = no actual real knowledge as a matter of fact.

Then again you can't expect doctors to have tried all drugs there is, but it still holds true and I see this as a problem as your knowledge can be lightyears ahead of them.
 
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