Modafinil for help with quitting meth

[Miss Berry]

I've been a daily meth smoker for almost 2 years now, and looking for ways to stop at the moment. I've already got 3 failed attempts to quit behind me and I'm so tired of not getting anywhere with this; I need to actually make it through my next attempt without relapsing.

I've read a few studies which have found Modafinil helpful in assisting meth addicts to quit, by reducing cravings and increasing cognitive function in areas which have been damaged by meth use. I'm really interested in hearing anecdotal reports from anyone who's tried this as well though. The studies give me confidence that this might be worth trying, but I've had trouble finding any kind of discussions online from actual users (which surprised me a little to be honest).

Anyone have experience with this?

 

[neversickanymore]

Hey Miss Berry.. I'm going to throw this to Neuroscience and Pharmacology Discussion. I would suggest that you link the studies you are talking about into this thread. It also may get moved again if they think it will do better. I look forward to reading anything you link in as I know nothing about this and am interested. Best of luck to you MB.

SL--> N&PD

 

[pofacedhoe]

first of all before you quit move from smoking to oral consumption of meth. a large part of making addictions hard to break is the speed at which the drug hits you.

i have found poppy tea easy to taper (unlike home made opium), coca tea very euphoric but i dont crave it like snorted coke or crack.

seriously. smoking meth is why you are having a hard time breaking the habit. get over the rapid onset of smoking, take less orally taper if possible and try to space your use. one off using isn't a relapse to full addiction unless you then chose to go back

i had an amphetamine habit so i have a fair idea how incredibly hard it is to quit. lots of mini relapses, but eventually you will have longer gaps between using and they get bigger and bigger. now i rarely take amphetamine (once a year maybe) and IF i do i never buy it myself or snort it.

 

[tweex]

I'd definitely recommend it. I'd list modafinil as a major contributing factor in the reason I've never gone from occasional functional meth user to meth addict.

Switching over to the oral RoA is also a great idea, as pofacedhoe said.

Practically speaking, I think 200mg once a day was found to be pretty effective in clinical trials, but taking that every 4-6 hours even isn't going to cause any problems. Basically, it will take the "rollercoaster effect" out of meth when combined with oral use. Instead of getting hit with a huge rush and later a terrible comedown, you'll barely notice a more subtle and very focused stimulation come on, and almost won't notice when it comes off. Similar to the effects of modafinil alone, but more potent.

Before too long, you'll probably be able to taper down to just modafinil.

 

[Cubaze]

I searched Pubmed and found that aripiprazole has more studies on it than modafinil in treating meth addiction, but no study claimed to found any set effective treatment method. Dextroamphetamine was also studied a good bit for this purpose.

 

[pofacedhoe]

i dont understand why a drug that blocks dopaminergic functions would help a withdrawal characterized by less dopaminergic action in your brain.

they'll try and market anything for anything to rinse those patents

 

[Cubaze]

Aripraprozle is an inverse agonist though, so even though it blocks the effects, it still fulfills the role as agonist, so it still might be somewhat effective in treating meth addiction.

 

[endotropic]

Aripraprozle is an inverse agonist though, so even though it blocks the effects, it still fulfills the role as agonist, so it still might be somewhat effective in treating meth addiction.

An inverse agonist doesn't really "fulfill the role of an agonist", it blocks both the effects of agonists, and also eliminates intrinsic receptor activity.

Aripiprazole acts as a partial agonist at D2/3/4 receptors, which probably explains its effectiveness in treating meth dependence.

I've read a few studies which have found Modafinil helpful in assisting meth addicts to quit, by reducing cravings and increasing cognitive function in areas which have been damaged by meth use. I'm really interested in hearing anecdotal reports from anyone who's tried this as well though. The studies give me confidence that this might be worth trying, but I've had trouble finding any kind of discussions online from actual users (which surprised me a little to be honest).

Anyone have experience with this?

To Miss Berry: considering you've already found the medical literature on this topic I'm not sure how much more help we can offer you here. I can move this thread over to "Other Drugs" where more meth users are likely to read this if you'd like.


Neversickanymore asked for a link to a clinical trial on this topic so here are a few:

A pilot randomised controlled trial of modafinil during acute methamphetamine withdrawal: feasibility, tolerability and clinical outcomes.

Modafinil for the treatment of methamphetamine dependence.

Based on the trials I've seen it's not terribly effective.

 

[pofacedhoe]

Aripiprazole acts as a partial agonist at D2/3/4 receptors, which probably explains its effectiveness in treating meth dependence.

why would they make an antipsychotic that was a partial agonist at D2. for a new patent or because its a good idea? patent me thinks.

no drug will be a cure for amphetamine addiction because the withdrawal makes you feel so incredibly shit and lasts a long time. weed helped me a lot and i craved it when i came off amp

 

[Cubaze]

An inverse agonist doesn't really "fulfill the role of an agonist", it blocks both the effects of agonists, and also eliminates intrinsic receptor activity.

Aripiprazole acts as a partial agonist at D2/3/4 receptors, which probably explains its effectiveness in treating meth dependence.

I'm sure you are more knowledgeable than I regarding this, but by fulfills the role of an agonist, I meant the body recognizes the receptors being activated, therefore though the response may be opposite to a regular agonist, it will ease withdrawal

why would they make an antipsychotic that was a partial agonist at D2. for a new patent or because its a good idea? patent me thinks.

no drug will be a cure for amphetamine addiction because the withdrawal makes you feel so incredibly shit and lasts a long time. weed helped me a lot and i craved it when i came off amp

You're right about that, they could make more effective drugs to assist with amphetamine withdrawal, but instead market this to make money, but it's still an option

 

[shinyhappypeople]

Although I've never been addicted to meph, I have plenty of experience with modafinil. I would highly recommend it for fighting any sort of cravings or addictions. It gives you plenty of positive focus and even enhances your mood for the first couple of hours. I found there to be very few side effects whilst taking it.

 

[endotropic]

why would they make an antipsychotic that was a partial agonist at D2. for a new patent or because its a good idea? patent me thinks.

no drug will be a cure for amphetamine addiction because the withdrawal makes you feel so incredibly shit and lasts a long time. weed helped me a lot and i craved it when i came off amp

That's a great question! One I get asked a lot actually.

The rationale is that when a partial agonist is bound to the receptor dopamine can't bind and activate the receptor fully. So even though the aripiprazole activates the receptor partially, it still blocks the much more intense activation that dopamine would cause. So in that sense it's acting as an antagonist, blocking most of the effects of dopamine.

On the other hand there's still that small bit of receptor activation from the partial agonist activity. That little bit of activity is enough to prevent some of the more serious motor side effects that dopamine receptor antagonists cause.

Essentially the weak partial agonism is enough to prevent motor side effects, but weak enough that it still antagonizes dopamine's action.

 

[Miss Berry]

Thanks so much for all these responses! I actually checked back in just after pofacedhoe wrote his/her first reply, and it was such an eye-opening point about the behavioural aspect of actually smoking, being a huge part of why I'm finding it so hard to quit, that I just needed to sit on that for a few days. The instantaneous resistance I felt to the idea of moving to oral intake was very telling indeed. I also do really like the suggestion by tweex to combine them orally until I am able to taper down to just the modafinil. Good practical advice, thank you! There was a couple of studies I found in which mice were given modafinil and meth together, and whilst that in itself is not something I would base an assumption of safety on, there doesn't appear to have been any negative effects from the combination, but rather the modafinil was found to act protectively on a neural level. One such study is here:

Modafinil Abrogates Methamphetamine-Induced Neuroinflammation and Apoptotic Effects in the Mouse Striatum
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0046599/

I also found multiple studies in which humans who were meth-dependent were given modafinil and then followed to see if this reduced the number of meth positive urine samples over a time period, and there didn't seem to be concern that anything horrible would happen if participants did take meth whilst also being on the modafinil. Links to a couple of them:

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of modafinil for the treatment of methamphetamine dependence
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20092966/

Modafinil for the treatment of methamphetamine dependence
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21840138/


In regards to the studies I mentioned in my first post, with modafinil being found to increase cognitive function specifically in areas where there was damage caused by meth use, here are links to some of those:

Effect of Modafinil on Learning and Task-Related Brain Activity in Methamphetamine-Dependent and Healthy Individuals
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3077264/

Modafinil restores methamphetamine induced object-in-place memory deficits in rats independent of glutamate N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor expression.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24120858/

Acute modafinil effects on attention and inhibitory control in methamphetamine-dependent humans.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22051208/

That last study there is quite interesting as well for its findings in regards to inhibitory control. What they found was that there was no significant difference for control participants on this measure, but there was for the meth-dependent participants (a positive effect). Another study which looked at modafinil and impulse control, but this time with alcoholics, found somewhat complimentary results with only those participants who had a poor baseline level of impulse control gaining benefit on this measure from taking modafinil. Concerningly, they did also find that it could actually have a detrimental effect on this measure for participants who had a higher baseline level of impulse control (although I don't believe his will be a relevant issue in my case):

Effects of modafinil on neural correlates of response inhibition in alcohol-dependent patients
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322312005872/

I think for me, the idea of something which will speed up the rate of recovery I can experience from the vast cognitive damage caused by my methamphetamine use, is very appealing. I feel extremely unmotivated to face going through withdrawals and cravings, and also have it take so long before the positive benefits of quitting start to kick in.

One of the other daunting issues for me personally, is avoiding weight gain whilst quitting. Despite that I have not lost weight from meth as it doesn't make me lose my appetite when I'm using it daily, I still get the huge appetite increase and food cravings when I try to stop! The second time I tried to quit and went up almost 2 dress sizes, really freaked me out. As petty an issue as it may seem to some, this is a serious issue which really contributes to my hesitation in stopping, despite how bad meth is!

Another of the studies involving humans taking modafinil whilst being required to return urine samples on a regular basis, which I don't think I linked above, did find that those meth-dependent participants who took modafinil had a significantly reduced level of weight gain:

A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of modafinil (200 mg/day) for methamphetamine dependence
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19149817/

 

[Miss Berry]

I searched Pubmed and found that aripiprazole has more studies on it than modafinil in treating meth addiction, but no study claimed to found any set effective treatment method. Dextroamphetamine was also studied a good bit for this purpose.

Very interesting to hear about aripiprazole being studied at a higher rate than modafinil, for meth addiction. I didn't really consider the use of an antipsychotic given their reputation for causing tiredness and weight gain, but I will have a closer look at aripiprazole specifically!

To Miss Berry: considering you've already found the medical literature on this topic I'm not sure how much more help we can offer you here. I can move this thread over to "Other Drugs" where more meth users are likely to read this if you'd like.

endotropic, if you think moving the thread might get me more response from people who might have tried modafinil in getting off meth, I'd be happy for you to do that. I've already got some great responses here in terms of giving me ideas and practical advice, but I'd still like to seek some anecdotal reports, if there are any to be found.

 

[endotropic]

NsPD -> BDD

Hopefully you can get some personal experiences concerning modafinil for getting off meth here. BDD mods if you don't think this is the best place for that discussion feel free to move it along.

 

[Miss Berry]

I've been trying to use quotes for a few days and it just won't work for me at the moment despite swapping browsers, so I'm just going to forget about them for now. Thanks endotropic for moving the thread for me.

Replying to shinyhappypeople, I used modafinil a few years ago, and I definitely agree with you that it enhances mood for a few hours and doesn't seem to have many side-effects either. I think that's probably what got me so interested when I first came across studies using it to help people come off stimulant addictions, because I already knew it and liked it as a wakefulness and mood-lifting substance. I'm just worried about whether it is strong enough to counteract the kinds of issues I get when I try to stop meth (tiredness, weight gain, lethargy), and I need to be confident in my quitting plan as the last few fell short of success. The second time I actually did have a clear plan with a different substance I was hoping would prevent too large of a weight gain, but it didn't work and that contributed massively to my relapse, so I'm much more cautious this time around about how I plan this, and what supporting substances (or groups, or quitting methods), I end up using.

 

[neversickanymore]

^right click on quote and open a new tab and it should work.

 

[Miss Berry]

^right click on quote and open a new tab and it should work.

Oh thanks! Yepp that works perfectly. Problem solved