Sapped by stimulants

queenscarlet88

Bluelighter
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USA
I've been a sucker for stimulants for the past two years. It began with Adderall. I took 80mg my first time and I was blasted so high I didn't even realize I was high anymore. I loved how all the muscles in my body stood out in stark relief beneath my flesh and my veins engorged.

A chart of my use pattern would show an exponential curve. I began spending all my money copping not only Adderall, but also Ritalin, Vyvans, and benzo's to keep me from freaking out.

My thinking sped up in exciting ways for a long time, but one day I realized that all I felt anymore was a hideous buzz gnawing at my very vitality, a physical feeling all but devoid of thought. So I started combining weed and stimulants just to feel the way either of the two had previously made me feel by itself.

My stim use waned and I picked up a nasty benzo habit because I was left with panic attacks, social terror, and paranoia that people and institutions were trying to kill me. I got Xanax prescribed on a few occasions and stole benzo's from friends and even a boyfriend to whom they'd been prescribed. I also bought them in enormous quantities.

So, where am I now, after two years of consistent pill-popping? I lack motivation (surprise, surprise). Reading is a lot harder than it was before I ever popped a pill to get high; I used to be able to read hundreds of pages in a sitting with a clear and vibrant reel of imagery in my head as I read, along with commentary and analysis. Now I have to ponderously read and re-read each page because I tend to inadvertently skim through whole paragraphs at a time with glazed eyes, even while reading a compelling novel.

Writing doesn't come naturally, or at least not as naturally as it used to. I wrote an average of a thousand words of fiction per day from age 13 to age 16, but starting at age 17 with my discovery of drugs, I lost my discipline, even as I wasted my reserves of creative energy on useless and disorganized stimulated thought, burning the candle of my mind at both ends. After about a year I had killed both my discipline and my creativity. I don't really have ideas anymore, much less the motivation to implement them.

I miss reading so much. I never valued my mind when it was intact, so now I've reduced it to a ruin bordering on a carcass. :'-( I'm 19 years old and, absent amphetamines or methylphenidate, I need several hundred milligrams of caffeine per day to hold at bay the feeling of inhabiting an eighty-year-old body: exhausted, foggy, creaky.

Caffeine wears off mentally within an hour and a half regardless of dose (and doesn't even bring me up to my pre-drug baseline during that time, though a lot closer than I am while sober), yet if I have any caffeine in a day I can't sleep for a minimum of 16 hours after the time of last ingestion. My eye sockets are black and hollow behind my eyes, my skin stretched across them to form dark circles that never fade.

I'm trying to cut out caffeine and stronger stimulants so that I can sleep more than five hours a night, which is what I've averaged the past several months owing to heavy caffeine consumption. No caffeine or anything else today, yet here I am wide awake at 3am, and completely unable to read anything substantive. So, my questions:

1) How long after quitting daily stimulant intake must I wait before I can focus as well as I used to be able to, before I ever assaulted my mind with stims and benzo's? Am I forever damaged, even if only to a subtle yet permanent degree?

2) How long until sleep returns to normal?

3) Would a drug like Welbutrin be a viable mid- to long-term solution, or would it deepen the damage and hollow me out even more thoroughly?

I understand nobody can answer these questions with any certainty, but I'm hoping other people have come out of similar abuse patterns and recovered their full faculties ...
 
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For the sleep I would strongly suggest that your try melatonin before you go to bed - 2.5 mg sublingual or 5 mg oral would do. This should help with your sleep cycle. Read up about it first.
 
I've tried melatonin 5mg sublingual wafers. A beautiful languor descends after 20mins and I lie in bed feeling nice but then I begin to quickly feel normal. Or else I just feel cranky and tired but not sleepy. It is typical for me to be too tired to think but not sleepy for several more hours.
 
Yeah it can be a period of adjustment trying to slow down your body/mind after heavy stimulant use.

It sounds like you are taking care of the physical aspect by avoiding stimulants. I've found that even though caffeine is considered mild, it's effects on anxiety can be just as severe as other stronger stimulants. I still consume it although I know it does not do much good for me and decreases the quality of my sleep.

It may be beneficial to learn some meditation or other kinds of relaxation exercises. Deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation are good for this. If you have been using stimulants heavily then your body can stay in high adrenaline mode even after stopping, so you may have to retrain yourself to stay present in the moment instead of rushing around fueled by adrenaline. It is possible to still think/act with a kind of overstimulated energy even without using stimulants, so this is something to watch out for.

I can't give you any kind of timeline, I would just suggest to be patient and put your energy toward learning how to slow down.
 
Sounds familiar... are you me?!
No it's just me. Lol everyone is a different part of me.

I got to a similar (or... maybe worse) point through Sativa weed and oral speed (dexedrine). With this combo you're just asking for paranoia.

Similar to you, I thought people were out to get me, often I'd think an agency was out to get me (I called it the institution or digital government prison), sometimes I thought they were actually breaking into the house, sometimes I thought members of the agency ('executioners') were behind every door and I was in a prison, not just some BS thought-based prison, everything had a camera on it and my EVERY move was being tracked. Every room was a variation of the same prison, like inescapable deja-vu.
My reading slowed down, everything slowed down, positive thoughts too. Negative thoughts just got worse and more pervasive though.
My eyes are a little fucked but my skin is definitely quite the victim here.

Stimulants like amps are awesome at first (and for the first few hours). To me they were a super moodlifter as well as subtle psychedelic (not sure if 5-HTP or weed had to be in the mix for any psychedelia). But after a while they make your mind fuzzy and the good side reverses while the bad side stays. Your thoughts are still racing, just like on a stim, but instead they are all bad... you are still strong, inside you can feel your body aching to burst out of your skin and run around, but in reality you're weak as fuck.

Trust me on this one, downers are not a cure for uppers. If you stop using stimulants, benzos MAY help long-term, as could seroquel (I don't like it for many reasons but it kind of works for me). Other downers, such as alcohol and diphenhydramine, however, will just bring you down, don't get sucked in by the FEW hours of relief. My recommendation is to wait it out, I am not confident that you will recover fully but after a year you should see a major difference.

Also, if you smoke weed (even in small amounts), stop. It is a worse stimulant escape than all of the actual downers, it may even be the opposite of an escape IMO.
If you must, make sure it's very Indica-dominant, there's a clear difference in the high and side-effects (if you can't be sure, take 1-2 hits. If you're mainly high you're going the wrong way, if you're mainly stoned take it easy and it won't be too hard on you. Cause THC is undoubtedly the worst for someone in your case.

Anyway, take care brother/sister <3

Keep us posted. As a lonely guy, it would lift my mood to know that you read and/or replied to my post, can relate, comment on it. But I don't expect you to waste much time on it. Really, I'm glad that I can give advice in the first place.
 
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My experience with stimulants was a long and bullshit experience that too started with adderall. Doctor's became my new best friend and within two years I felt I had gained all "positives" I could from the drug (there were none).

Little did I know that the next two years would be hellish. Constantly lethargic and tired, depressed, anxious...these drugs really mess you up in the long run. Keep us posted on your recovery. Fish oil/omega 3/6/9 supplements work wonders. Also look into something by the name of L-Theanine for the anxiety you're destined to experience.

There are a number of drugs I just can't enjoy anymore. Speed is one of them, along with cocaine, alcohol and benzos.
 
Sipx

Fish oil has worked for me on a very few occasions. It has improved my skin texture and added gloss to my hair. It has also improved my mood. However, I take it every day and it doesn't do much any longer.

I can still enjoy everything you've mentioned, just as long as I don't ingest too much of it at once or in combination, and as long as I'm getting enough sleep. Anxiety is largely absent unless I smoke too much weed, especially on top of Adderall.

Legerity

I think I will invest some energy in meditation and other non-chemical physical calming techniques. I'll also force myself to do more exercise (right now my exercise is limited to walking 20 or so miles a week, a number which has dwindled of late as it's been so cold).

Learning how to slow my body and my physiology down is a good idea, but only in service to sustainably speeding my mind back up.
 
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I too suffer from the abuse of stimulants. Extreme paranoia and anxiety constantly. I've cut them out completely and it's been almost a month since I touched a strong stimulant (still use caffeine but that really doesn't have any noticeable adverse effects (paranoia and anxiety are still the same without ingesting caffeine). It sucks. Big time. If I hear anything negative, or loud swearing, or people in the hall, I associate it with being about me. I can't shake it. Even with my clonazepam, I still feel that paranoia.

When I run out of my script early (which has been every month) due to taking more than prescribed to keep the feelings at bay, I start to drink like a fish in order to substitute the paranoia and anxiety with the feeling of "i don't give a fuck." Terrible. I fucked myself up real good and I feel for you. I wish I could give advice, but I could only give advice on something that worked for me - and so far nothing has.

Kind of a depressing post.
 
Tiesto:

That sounds excruciating. I can identify with overhearing fragments of conversation and automatically fitting them into a sick mental framework characterized by feelings of persecution and mistrust. I, too, have been known to erroneously think people were snickering and gossiping about me based on bits I've overheard, only for it to turn out that they were discussing another matter entirely.

My symptoms aren't nearly as bad as yours, though, and intermittent use of benzo's has always aggravated them more in my case than has intermittent or even habitual use of stimulants; when I'm taking benzo's regularly but not constantly, the time spent not acutely intoxicated by them becomes excessively paranoid and unpleasant time.
 
Tiesto:

That sounds excruciating. I can identify with overhearing fragments of conversation and automatically fitting them into a sick mental framework characterized by feelings of persecution and mistrust. I, too, have been known to erroneously think people were snickering and gossiping about me based on bits I've overheard, only for it to turn out that they were discussing another matter entirely.

My symptoms aren't nearly as bad as yours, though, and intermittent use of benzo's has always aggravated them more in my case than has intermittent or even habitual use of stimulants; when I'm taking benzo's regularly but not constantly, the time spent not acutely intoxicated by them becomes excessively paranoid and unpleasant time.

I suspect my reduction in benzo use could be causing some of the side-effects... at the same time I think I'm much more mentally healthy than I was months ago.

Tiesto

And funny that you mentioned hearing other people... whenever two or more people are talking and I can't clearly hear them, I'll hear things like

'I heard he used too many drugs, what a fuckup. Yeah, that's him right there. Do you think he knows we're talking about him? Probably. Yeah they are way paranoid, and when he was nine he did ... alright when he stops paying attention to us we'll rob him'

It's like everything they talk about is directed toward me, but then I start warping it into bad situations. Sometimes I'll think about asking them if they're talking about me, then I'll catch myself in time. I never asked a group of strangers.
 
I used to over do stimulants constantly, I have to admit they fucked me up pretty good for awhile but I was combining them with alcohol every day and night as well as other pills. I didn't have a script at the time and I eventually ran out of money and connections and had to quit.

Besides rest and good food and some exercise the thing that really saved my life was Wellbutrin, within two days of taking it I felt great, better than normal, better than when I was high on dextroamphetamine.

I also quit smoking pot which cut down on the anxiety alot, I stopped taking xanax and started klonopin instead. All of these things helped me quite a bit.

Then I was diagnosed with ADD and prescribed the stimulants I used to abuse, I don't abuse them anymore and they actually help me out quite a bit at low doses. I don't take Wellbutrin anymore either. It's not too difficult for me to keep my stimulant use at prescribed levels, I don't think they are evil, I just think you have to use them responsibly or not at all.
 
i abused (very stimulating pre-ban) mephedrone and alcohol for awhile, fucked me up quite badly. whilst i was on it i felt like ontop of the world. on the come downs i used to keep thinking everybody was against me, unsure of myself, became very insecure, depressed, anxious, mental fog, loss of motivation, physical side effects. didnt get anything as bad as you guys as in terms of social "terror" and shit like that, or bother taking benzos, but it effected me quite badly. pretty much recovered from it now, much less anxiety and paranoia, clearer thoughts and generally feel better. i think omega 3 and ginko helped me to some extent, also started taking piracetam
 
Hello again everyone,

It's been two weeks but doesn't feel like it. I have continued spending much of my time free of caffeine and indeed of any drugs. I haven't been drinking or smoking weed. I have still been ingesting caffeine, but in far smaller amounts. I have been getting some -- some -- good sleep. I resorted to Benadryl to sleep one night and will not make that mistake again. Benadryl hollows out my eyes as if I'm coming out of the tail end of an amphetamine bender.

I must confess that I am about to smoke some indica weed. The look, texture, and scent of the bud all fill me with relative certainty that it is indica; it is not the glistening white luscious beauty of a sativa strain. Described as a "body high" bud.

Lord, I was glib in my original response to you, and I severely understated the true scope of what I frankly believe to be a mostly-latent case of schizophrenia, the first episodes of which were drug-induced and which to this point considers -- thank God! -- to still be mostly drug-dependent.

Your advice for the most part was spot-on. Uppers are unsustainable for me and my goal is to cut them out entirely from daily life, reserving caffeine and theobromine (and no other uppers, period) only for occasions of the utmost need. A once-every-couple-of-weeks sort of indulgence.

As far as downers go:

Fifteen .25 Xanax's prescribed to last two weeks? Gone in a single night, with alcohol. 50mg of diazepam? Gone in a single night, with alcohol.

So benzo's are out of the question for me. As are seroquel and other anti-psychotics, assuming I do not fall into an acute psychosis requiring their administration, because I value my clarity of mind.

I continue to ruminate on notions of acquaintances plotting against me and of maleficent institutions machinating against me. However, these are becoming more and more fleeting. The only time I've ever heard voices in my head which seemed beyond my control was while under the influence of weed, and weed alone.

However, I will not seek out psychiatric help. Psychoanalysis would be the only form of therapy I would consider resuming, and it's too expensive. My therapy shall be twofold: reason, and necessity. It is not reasonable to assume that others are plotting against me. And it is necessary for my own sake that I not become trapped in that sort of thinking.

Otherwise, it's the mental hospital and an entire life of clouded, poisoned, anti-psychotic thinking for me.
 
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Adderall 20 mg Rx'd since May. I binge, though have taken it as prescribed -- a positive review. But mostly, obsession + abuse. Like a train wreck I see your words becoming my own after some more abuse + attempts to keep running.

I read every word of this thread. Until recently, I refused to read information about Adderall side effects, w/d, antecdotal experiences, etc. I told myself that I would internalize it and "feel" those things simply by exacerbating what I'd read into something real.

After 1 semester on Adderall, I wasn't successful. I have 3 Incomplete courses and one F. There are other antagonists in my life, but logic tells me that this isn't working out.

I'm not even thinking long-term (more than 2 years). I want to forget some things I read about Adderall + "neuron damage", compromised cognition, and so on. But I've already started digging in and solemnly digesting the chronicles of those who've already been here.

When I run out of my script early + after the long sleep phase- generally I find it quite simple to put it out of my mind until it's about time to refill.

I've been smoking the K2 for a couple months though, after quitting weed for several months (was so proud of that). Now that it's illegal, I refuse to perpetuate getting stoned. That will generate some much needed confidence. Alas, I'm still on the ride, here.

I need a therapist, I need a full-day session!

Thanks all for sharing this.
 
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How regrettable that my story has become someone else's horror story, that it has become an abject example of drugs' potential to destroy the mind.

I'm glad that you've cast aside the artifact of magical thinking which was telling you not to read about negative side effects lest you begin to imagine yourself experiencing those side effects. To continue doing so would have been akin to an ostrich burying its head in the sand as a predator closes in to devour it. Far too many Bluelighter clutch the defense of "placebo effect" tightly to their chests to avoid considering the ramifications of the sensations which they experience while on drugs.

I hope you don't make the same mistakes I have. If you value your abilities to read and think critically, to focus on an endeavor for longer than a couple of minutes at a time, to sleep normally, etc. -- then stop taking stimulants! And And by the way, K2, in my experience, has been much WORSE than stimulants in leaving apathy and intellectual incapability in its wake.
 
Well my Ex has called my Dr., telling him about my abuse + surely some untrue things as well. I just got the email from him gloating.

Well, I'm still going to try and find another doctor (assuming this one doesn't work out) either for Dex or Amp.

A second option would be to buy tons of supplements + look more into nootropics.

*sigh*

I'm craving to get stoned a little bad, but it's really a very quiet thought so I'm going with it. It is the loud , frequent, & persistent obsession-thoughts that are harder to kick.

Again, thanks for writing these things down for folks in my position..:\
 
What a vile thing for your ex to do. I can see why he's an ex ...

20mg of Adderall, even extended-release form, would blast me high up into tweaker land and keep me there for a while. It used to be that 10mg of Adderall or 5mg of Ritalin could do that to me. In fact, for a long time, I would take only half of a 10mg Adderall at a time.

My tolerance has risen, but I can't imagine taking 20mg every single day. I don't think I would ever sleep. Are you prescribed any sedatives or tranquilizers? My point is, your habit of usually sticking to the prescribed dose is not going to protect you against psychological dependency. The amphetamine molecules have no awareness of whether you're following your doctor's instructions or not, after all ...

To be quite frank, orienting yourself toward supplements and nootropics rather than toward amphetamines does not seem to me like it would be productive. By "supplements" I assume you mean either herbs or vitamins.

Herbs are just unregulated drugs which have not been refined into pure pharmacologically active chemicals. Vitamins are useful while taking amphetamines because a poor, spotty diet could potentially engender deficiencies, but what use could they possibly be in quitting drugs?

In short, playing amateur chemist with your own brain would remain your mechanism for coping with life, and I doubt that you would long be content to stick to herbal chemicals rather than pharmaceutical chemicals. The mindset of "Life is too hard, so I need to ingest psychoactive chemicals to help myself cope" would continue governing your life, and I think you would very quickly fall back on amphetamine use.

"Loud, frequent, and persistent obsession-thoughts" exactly describes my thinking when I'm tweaked-out. Coming up on amphetamines and during the plateau, my thoughts race with joyful, (seemingly) creative vivacity. But as I'm coming down, my thinking degenerates into nonsense: phrases repeat themselves over and over again, emphasizing and warping individual sounds within those phrases (for example, I might start repeating, "Um, can't help you with that" and the syllables of each word will become stretched out and distorted as I repeat that phrase over and over).
 
I can totally relate to all this, being a 7 year meth user and currently I abuse Dexedrine. I get so paranoid and scatterbrained. I feel like I'm going to die while at the same time feeling euphoric. And I get these HORRIBLE negative racing thoughts when I start to come down. I get so sick of it I switch to opiates for a break from the insanity. But I always go back to speed.

I can't read when I'm tweaking at all, or focus on anything. Including conversations. I joke with my friends that when I'm tweaking they must remember to talk to me in Idiospeak, because every other sentence I forget what we were talking about.

One time when I took a break from speed I tried taking Welbutrin but it just made me have horrible constant mood swings. I know that's not much help to the OP, it's just my experience.
 
QueenScarlet,

Clearly -- despite the deficits you enumerate in your initial post -- you still have a robust command & enjoyment of the language. Which makes me curious: how do you believe your posts here would differ had you never begun indulging in stimulant use/abuse?

(Right, you wouldn't BE posting here -- I get that -- indulge the conceit, mkay?)
 
Tina_Dopemau5:

Of course it's useful! I have spoken to many Welbutrin users and, aside from the glowing testimonial earlier in this thread, the evaluations have been unanimously negative. One said that it put her constantly on the edge of tears, imbuing her daily life with feelings of impending apocalypse. I have opted against pursuing Welbutrin because my goal is to get to a place where my brain can balance its neurotransmitters all on its own. (A simplistic and pseudoscientific statement, but you understand what I'm getting at. And, hey, it's no more simplistic and pseudoscientific than the bullshit justifications psychiatry employs in defense of permanent antidepressant use ...)

Clementine's ghost:

I wouldn't resort to such glibness. =)

Drug use has fitted my mind with a dimmer switch, which only allows me to shine at full brightness while I am under the influence of just the right drug cocktail.

My reading abilities are what have suffered most. Throughout my childhood, reading was what I lived to do. I read books during class, lunch, and recess. As I read, my mind effortlessly became a reel of images -- and by "image," I mean a comprehensive amalgam of sensory input, symbolic freight, and my own running commentary.

Now, I require marijuana (sativa is better, but indica also works) to read every single word and not merely skim. Pot speeds up my thinking so much that time seems to be moving very slowly, just as it did during childhood.

What has most changed about my mind over these past two or three years is the texture of my thinking. My thinking now leans far more heavily on words than on images (using the same definition of "image" as I did earlier). Images constitute a far more concise, comprehensive, accurate, and powerful medium for thinking than do clumsy words.

My thinking while sober moves much more slowly, such that time seems to move faster. Time constriction is good while on the clock, but bad everywhere else, if only because death will subjectively seem to arrive all the sooner!

Most devastating was my DXM abuse. I abused DXM compulsively for a good two or three months, a little over two years ago, right as I was beginning to take amphetamines. I don't recall exactly how many times I took it, but I prefer to be pessimistic and guess about 30, usually around 600mg each time. It got to the point where I was taking such a dose twice a week. At the tail end of my abuse, my entire body erupted in pustules and scabs reminiscent of poison ivy -- but this occurred during the dead of winter, with no possibility of my having come into contact with poison ivy! This led me to finally quit.

My thinking and moods were stunted, warped, and pitiful for months following my cessation of abuse. I certainly felt as though there were holes in my brain. (I don't mean this statement literally, as I know Olney's lesions have not been observed in humans and that a person wouldn't be able to "feel" them regardless. I'm just trying to evoke the terrible limitations within which my consciousness existed during those months.) Following the abuse is when my thinking seemed to crumble from image-boulders into word-pebbles.

No matter the circumstances, I would rather read a book than take a pill; it's just that I have a hard time doing the former without taking the latter!
 
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