Signs that you're at threshold, high dose, and in danger

[placebonaut]

There's plenty of info out there about threshold vs strong dosage of drugs per body weight, and info on LD50, however people have different body chemistry and drugs effect them in different ways, there's a bit of a gamble building up and balancing dosage with tolerance changes as usage increases to remain safe.

I wondered for the popular drugs if there are also common physiological, mental, and/or psychological traits that can help people notice where they are on the range of intoxication through to risk to life, especially early warning signs people are getting close to death! Maybe also risk to dependency/addiction.

I've seen bits of info scattered around usually during drug specific discussion, but can't find any general discussion on the warning signs to watch out for.

A few examples to illustrate the point

1. Soma - When I'm approaching my strong dosage of Soma I tend to nod out, there seems linkage with the dose and duration of the nodding, lower dose nods me for 15 mins, higher dose 30 mins, higher still and I hit the soma shuffle phase once I come round from the longer nod
2. Cocaine + Alcohol - when I start to over do the cocaine dose I get jittery, it's always time to back off then
3. Increased dosage - taking more to get the same high is an indication off tolerance build up and should be a sign to consider a tolerance break

heart rate, breathing, staggering, consciousness, paranoia, compulsive redosing - lots of different angles here.

Anyone else have any other examples that can be used as early warning signs - they might not be the same for everyone but if people are aware they'd have a little alarm bell of warning that might go off in their head to help them stay safe.

 

[Keif' Richards]

Hey there @placebonaut you raise an interesting and valid point. How do we know when we are reaching that so-called "threshold for intoxication"? This is a reasonable question for sure, but this is one of those questions in which the vagueness inherently makes any kind of answer that a person can bank on, basically impossible. We have an already made infrastructure for finding the optimal dosage for various drugs. What you're describing is a subjective feelings that nobody other than the user can really decide upon.

Subjective effects are going to be two-fold, in that there are people looking at you as secondary witnesses who will say you are or are not intoxicated, right? We are also very familiar with what is known as "delusions of Sobriety". What we mean when we use this terminology, is that it is far more common for a person to say they are "okay" i.e. not intoxicated despite their intoxication being obviously apparent to onlookers.

This question is inherently difficult or even impossible to answer because as a person becomes intoxicated, almost as if a mathematical formula (think the rocket equation; a rocket needs more fuel to go faster/farther, but the weight of the fuel eventually makes the highest heights impossible to reach) a person will be less able to make objective judgements regarding their intoxication, as this is essentially the definition of intoxication.

The only person who can answer these questions with any kind of usable answer is the person using the drugs. You can consult resources like Pyschonaut Wiki or even Bluelight. This will only give you a very wide range of what may or may not be appropriate. Personal body chemistry, diet and everything in between will inevitably influence the ultimate effect of a given drug.

I'm going to leave this open, but I'm not sure if it will stay that way. This is not a question that can be answered with precision and we don't like providing information that is overly dubious or could influence another to make a bad decision. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[placebonaut]

you've much more eloquently described the dilemma that I was poorly hinting at myself.

my slight worry here is that the vagueness and patchy information effectively can lead to people taking greater risk with experimentation, if I'm willing to take a risk after properly researching something I'd love some extra subjective information that might also help me recognize where I am on the curve and the risk profile - personally I'd find that more useful than no subjective info at all.

if there's a consensus on subjective info then I'm much more likely to pay attention to it and be more aware of it during my personal experience.

maybe the key point that I didn't explicitly state is that I was looking for these subjective indicators as complementary to the more established things such as weight + dosage guidelines, so an extra way to validate that those "established" protocols with subjective feedback indicators.

recognizing that reduced inhibition plays a part here, I generally lightly dose drugs, and rarely feel I'm pushing things where I can't honestly recognize some of the warning signs that I know - choosing to act on those warning signs and stop is an entirely different point and carries it's own risk.

Thanks for letting the discussion run a bit, I really don't want this to cause any risk or harm to anyone so please do shut it down if it heads in the wrong direction

 

[Halif2]

This is an interesting point to discuss. To some extent, I think BlueLight has helped me out in the past by exposing me to a large set of people's subjective reports on their experiences.

As I'm interested in substances just generally, I often read a lot of info on here in Megathreads and while the info in there is not organised in any way, I can still see commonalities in people's experiences. In fact, being a member here for close to two decades (I lost access to my original account haha) I have seen valuable harm reduction (and even life saving) information come up on these boards which has, many years later on, become acknowledged in the medical community.

Additionally, there are more novel drugs appearing all the time, and BL can be the best or even only place to get info on these things. So my point is that even though you won't necessarily get neatly packaged consensus on a drug's effects and/or dangers, you can still absolutely get invaluable information just by doing lots of reading and tracking the responses and reactions to certain drugs over time.

Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that reading up about a certain drug here on BL means you are guaranteed to be safe when taking said drug. There's never a guarantee, and there's always a risk. BL is a good resource for personal reports and when taken in bulk, these reports can point to potential issues caused by a drug and ways to potentially mitigate any harms caused.

 

[placebonaut]

well said @Halif2, I certainly do pull out the info I need reading the mega threads but it's a lot to wade through and takes a lot of commitment!

I think there's something to be said about people taking drug use seriously and putting in the time to research things correctly i.e. the buck stops with you, however not everyone is that disciplined

 

[Opana313]

Very true and also well said bonaught.

I recently scoured through the dandy dmt thread and loved it & going deep in I had found some new found attributes I had never came across.
THIS has sparked my curiosity for not only said drug & the hallucinogenic state immediately after the 2 minutes of hyperspace but also how closely it may correlates or the compare & contract of mushrooms alone vs DMT.

 

[cautiousenjoyment]

An ex of mine used to diary her experiences, I adapted that idea into a spreadsheet(for obvious reasons not online and very passworded lol). I measure out and time everything I do anyway, so I built a chart I could track dose amounts and time, and different feelings and stages I felt. It's part of my solo ritual, especially when I pick up something new. I've never actually told someone about my charts before today. Partly since it's exactly like you guys are saying, useless data to anyone but me, but also because where I see as an interesting method of harm reduction others would see a neurotic fun sucker...

So the obvious benefit I've found with this process is knowing how much or how often before I'm getting diminishing returns, where I need to stop to prevent suffering the next day, etc. but it's also come in handy since I moved! There's no testing labs here to have a pro tell me what something is whenever I get something new. I have reagent kits but as you probably know, they aren't that accurate, and there's cuts there's no home test for. That said, if I buy something new and a dose has me feeling things quicker, getting jittery when I'm not supposed to, or a bunch of other things on my little list, I know somethings off.

 

[Halif2]

I think there's something to be said about people taking drug use seriously and putting in the time to research things correctly i.e. the buck stops with you, however not everyone is that disciplined

This is a big one for me. Ultimately, I believe in an individual's right to use any substance they want, but I also believe in the flip side whereby anyone who commits serious crimes while on drugs should receive the maximum punishment available. Drugs can be extremely dangerous, or they can be a calculated risk. It all depends on the effort a person has gone to in order to understand what they are taking, and educate themselves on harm reduction and how to mitigate any potential risks associated with that drug. Drug testing prior to consumption should be standard practice (and here the Gov would need to step in to increase access to quality testing kits).

Anyway, in previous discussions I've had on this topic in real life with a friend or associate, I've had people push back on some parts (especially the increased prison sentences part). Everybody has immediately agreed with the first part (where everyone should be free to take whatever drug they want and not be harassed by police), but then when personal responsibility gets mentioned, the whole tone of the discussion changes.

Sorry Placebonaut, I'm getting off topic here! This whole thread is full of potential conversation starters! It's great!

 

[placebonaut]

An ex of mine used to diary her experiences, I adapted that idea into a spreadsheet(for obvious reasons not online and very passworded lol). I measure out and time everything I do anyway, so I built a chart I could track dose amounts and time, and different feelings and stages I felt. It's part of my solo ritual, especially when I pick up something new. I've never actually told someone about my charts before today. Partly since it's exactly like you guys are saying, useless data to anyone but me, but also because where I see as an interesting method of harm reduction others would see a neurotic fun sucker...

So the obvious benefit I've found with this process is knowing how much or how often before I'm getting diminishing returns, where I need to stop to prevent suffering the next day, etc. but it's also come in handy since I moved! There's no testing labs here to have a pro tell me what something is whenever I get something new. I have reagent kits but as you probably know, they aren't that accurate, and there's cuts there's no home test for. That said, if I buy something new and a dose has me feeling things quicker, getting jittery when I'm not supposed to, or a bunch of other things on my little list, I know somethings off.

I do something similar, I track things like effect, time since I last ate (if it's oral ROA), time since I last took the drug to monitor tolerance. I also find this log useful for when I'm trying combos as it helps me attribute specific effects to certain drugs linked to dosage which might change given cross potentiation - too be honest there's so many variables here it's hard for me to draw concrete conclusions to things myself let alone transpose that over to other peoples own personal biochemistry, hence my health warnings that things like this can really only be used as indicators. Throw into the mix the lack of consistency/quality control with many drugs that aren't true pharmaceutical grade and in reality we're left with relying very much on personal experience as our main guide! That's very subjective though, and without a record you're reliant on drug induced memories....

This is a big one for me. Ultimately, I believe in an individual's right to use any substance they want, but I also believe in the flip side whereby anyone who commits serious crimes while on drugs should receive the maximum punishment available. Drugs can be extremely dangerous, or they can be a calculated risk. It all depends on the effort a person has gone to in order to understand what they are taking, and educate themselves on harm reduction and how to mitigate any potential risks associated with that drug. Drug testing prior to consumption should be standard practice (and here the Gov would need to step in to increase access to quality testing kits).

Anyway, in previous discussions I've had on this topic in real life with a friend or associate, I've had people push back on some parts (especially the increased prison sentences part). Everybody has immediately agreed with the first part (where everyone should be free to take whatever drug they want and not be harassed by police), but then when personal responsibility gets mentioned, the whole tone of the discussion changes.

Sorry Placebonaut, I'm getting off topic here! This whole thread is full of potential conversation starters! It's great!

I was coming at this more from a personal safety perspective, but yes agree it also carries over into being responsible for your actions on others.

My unease though is linked to the underlying reason for drug use, it's not always as black and white as maximum punishment IMHO, sometimes the right action might be support and mental health treatment for the problem which is causing the drug use in the 1st place, sticking someone in jail for 5 years is just going to take the risk away from society for 5 years, fixing the underlying problem will remove the risk to society for ever....I'm pro drug decriminalization (with good testing capabilities) or legalization (as this provides pharma grade drug supply without contamination risk) provided they are linked to education, support, rehab, and better mental health services.

very interesting area of debate, and another angle to consider - what are the warning signs you're pushing things to far that might also put others at risk?