psychadelic psychosis lasting for weeks after a binge?

[\/apor]

a friend I recently started hanging out with aquired a bunch of mescaline to try and do whatever he wants to with it. Anyway to keep it short he ended up taking between 3-5 hits of mescaline [he wont tell me how many he ended up taking] (about 600mg mescaline HCL in each hit) spread out about 3 days. That was 2 weeks ago, he's still talking about frequencies and shit, last week he chased a kid down the road naked, he was blacking out all last week and the week before, he also went on a heavy drinking binge after his trip binge. I've been sitting with him every day trying to remind him that its just the drugs and it's all in his head, is there anything I can do to help besides bringing him to a mental hospital? He keeps getting stuck in thought loops and I'm genuinely worried about him

 

[OTGee]

It sounds like he was going through some mental shit or the mescaline brought out that mental shit. Did he ever have any mental problems prior to taking the mescaline? I mean I don't think psychosis has a designated length so I don't think you could say if it was psychosis or anything else at this stage. The mind is a complicated thing so it hard for people to help this dude with only a paragraph of info on him. My advice, get him to cut drugs out altogether or extremely cut down, sit down have a chat with him, if his thought loops are already so bad that he cant listen to you then I would say he needs serious help. Tell him that your worried, all that shit etc etc. If the symptoms do not plateu or slowly go away, get medical help. If the symptoms stay for a long time, get medical help. Good luck, I hope your friend is fine and quite a lot of the time things like this, aren't permenant.


EDIT: Strange, sometimes negative after glows have lasted upto 2 months with me, although this sounds a little more serious.

 

[collinz12]

I agree with OTGee. mesc most definately exacerbated a metal problem that already existed. Marijuana does the same thing with biploar disorder, for example. Ganj will make bipolar people schizophrenic if abused enough.

 

[RobotRipping]

^that's not necessarily true; if someone has underlying mental issues, be it depression, anxiety, schizophrenia then using certain drugs MAY bring out these illnesses. It's still difficult to figure out whether people develop issues from using drugs or whether they use drugs to cope with mental issues.

my father smokes cannabis medicinally, all day long to treat his bipolar and it is more effective than any other medication i've seen him use. It certainly won't make you go schizophrenic unless you were going to be anyway and even that is a contentious argument.

on the topic of psychedelic induced psychosis; i've had it last for 3 weeks and one day i kind of just became lucid and everything settled down. I'm sure drinking alcohol isn't going to help the situation but there's not a whole lot you can do other than reassuring him that he will recover. It helped me to ignore the crazy things i was experiencing but it's kind of hard to convince someone what they are experiencing isn't real. The thought loops suck, he's probably just sitting there really confused all of the time, that's how it was for me.

it's a tough situation, hope your friend recovers soon.

 

[Aporia]

To the above poster...
Cannabis will NOT turn a bipolar disorder into a schizophernic.. they are two TOTALLY different disorders while having similar symptoms. Often one is misdiagnosed as the other but they are NOT THE SAME and one does NOT turn into the other..

on the topic of psychedelic induced psychosis...
If you are considering taking him to a mental health professional please check out the Spiritual Emergence Network (google it). They have a list of mental health professionals who aren't going to necessarily medicate him with heavy tranqs just because of what he is experiencing. Most of them have experience with counselling someone who is having a crisis from psychedelics and aren't just going to give him a lable with a psych disorder either. They are great therapists. However I do think that if given enough time, love and support your friend will be okay. The psych ward can do more harm than good sometimes

 

[bgju38]

you people speaking so authoritatively about undermining cannabis's connection to psychosis and schizophrenia are WRONG. there are studies that very clearly indicate that cannabis SEVERELY increases a persons chance of psychotic break and onset of schizophrenia. if they were close to it before using cannabis regularly? they WILL go psychotic after using it regularly.

 

[IamMe90]

Thank you the citations and compelling arguments. 8)

 

[SpecialK_]

I haven't read the above posts but this is very relevant to me.

Yes this does happen, I've witnessed it with LSD. Intervene now, get your friend to stop taking drugs and get some routine. Honestly, there is no other option before you know it they are going be hallucinating/paranoid and much harder to get out of it.

And by drugs, that does include weed and alcohol. EVERYTHING has to stop and for all those out there that don't believe they are contributing factors, you are wrong and haven't been in the situation. When someone reaches this point, even a toke of a bong completely changes their ways of thinking.

Also, do what you've did now, tell you're friend how it's making you feel and how you are genuinely worried. Sometimes people in these situations are well aware of what's going on, but in the mindset believe they can handle it themselves and by just trying to ignore it. When in fact, this makes it worse so much faster than even if they were venting to someone.

Best of luck to you, remind you're friend this is all only temporary because it really is. If they enjoy their mescaline so much, then they need to stop with the drugs now if they want to ever continue in the future. If they don't, they wont be able to. If they enjoy having control of their life they need to stop now, because if they don't they will take it too far in public and will be deemed 'insane' and no longer have control.

 

[Jesusgreen]

Honestly to me it sounds like your friend is drinking a bit much and acting strangely. "Talking about frequencies" and saying other weird eccentric things is quite common during and after trips, particularly with phenethylamines in my experience - but blacking out, chasing people naked etc.. sounded more like alcohol to me. When you mentioned he also went binge drinking that just solidified that idea for me. Maybe he's still drinking?

My best advice is to keep an eye on him and if you suspect he's still drinking (or even still dosing) then try and get him to take a break from everything for a while.

Make sure your friend knows you're worried about him and want to help