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Important question re: smoking meth

H

HippieChick

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If someone smoked meth for 8 or so year would it affect their ability to feel happiness years later? Also, does someone ever grow out of ADHD? Thanks for responses.
 
I know a lawyer whose lawyer husband, with expendable income who did large amounts of methamphetamine every day for a year, developed the complete inability to achieve an erection and had to get a surgery to install an artificial erection creating penis pump just to be able to get it up. It internalizes your dopamine transporters (unlike drugs like cocaine which do not derive their action from directly compromising DAT to function as a euphoriant in any degree) and the dopamine transporters in your genitalia become destroyed. It takes 4 years to regrow all your DAT after your DAT has been compromised by methamp, with possibly diminishing returns that may never fully recover. Rectal administration probably compromising the groinal DAT the most, and it needn't even cross the BBB to create this kind of dysfunction.
 
It's difficult to answer either question Hippie, given how little we really know about how the brain rebuilds. That said, the brain is remarkably plastic, and there has been encouraging research lately into its ability to continue neurogenesis and repair damage. So I wouldn't tell anyone that they could never feel happiness again.

ADHD symptoms can change over time, and they can improve. That said, it's something for which someone should seek treatment.
 
Thanks.

Astavats said:
I think it definitely would compromise your capability to feel happiness again without it. If you haven't read it yet considering briefing through it; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhedonia
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This was very helpful to me. I am not the one I was asking about ... my 1/2 sister smoked crack for like a decade and is now clean, but a total bitch. My husband smoked meth for about 8 years (and had the lovely teeth to prove it) when he was an over-the-road truck driver - he too has a hard time just being happy. He loves him some sex though and has zero problems in that area. Thank God.
 
Heuristic said:
It's difficult to answer either question Hippie, given how little we really know about how the brain rebuilds. That said, the brain is remarkably plastic, and there has been encouraging research lately into its ability to continue neurogenesis and repair damage. So I wouldn't tell anyone that they could never feel happiness again.

ADHD symptoms can change over time, and they can improve. That said, it's something for which someone should seek treatment.
Click to expand...

He has a shrink who says ... huh, here's a scrip for Ritalin and heres one for 60 mgs of Valium a day ... that'll be $85. He had a horrible childhood, parents split when he was 1 month old, mom wouldn't let his real dad visit him much at all, his mom remarried a guard at San Quinton in CA ... a real winner. For what he's been through, he's remarkable. I suspect he's with a wife (me) who's 11 years his senior as he's probably seeking that mother figure thing. Man, I see therapy coming down the pipeline. Oh well I love him anyway.
 
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maybe you have an underlying depression or anxiety disorder. the reason you don't feel happy could have nothing to do with the meth. rather, you used meth heavily because its the only way you can feel happy.

ADHD symptoms are very common in depressed/anxious people.
i have only recently come to realize that my ADHD is mostly attributable to an anxiety problem because of traumatic childhood events.

concerning long term damage, yes you likely damaged your brain. some of that will never come back. but it should not stop you from trying to figure out the other reasons for your unhappiness so that you can reach your full potential as a person.
 
This question was about my husband really. I have my own problems, but they don't include long years of smoking meth or cocaine (crack). 20 Years of smoking weed and abuse of Valium are my crutches of choice. Lately the RCs have entered my 'problems'. But I've been berated by some poster who says I'm irresponsible (maybe with the RCs but boy she/he really does not know me at all) Perhaps some of my choices have been irresponsible and unwise but on the whole I am the ROCK of my whole fucking weird family. And one of these days, being the 'good' daughter, I will be stinking fucking rich. Will miss my mom, but will spend the money wisely.
 
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