the siren song

Lately I've seen two posts telling users--one MDMA user and one Adderall (amphetamine) user--to just forget about it, the euphoria, that is.

If only it were so easy.

Sometimes I feel like Ulysses (the Homeric one, not the internet legend who went to prison for MDMA manufacture or James Joyce's protagonist) who had his crew tie him to his ship's mast so he could hear the alluring Siren song without crashing the boat onto the rocks. Although hearing the Siren song was beautiful, exhilirating, and wonderful, for years thereafter Ulysses was tormented by the memory because he wanted to repeat it, to experience it again. I know how he feels.

They say no one wants to grow up to be a junkie, but after reading Andrew Weil's "From Chocolate to Morphine" in high school religiously, from cover to cover, I immediately signed on to his philosophy and chose to be a psychonaut, which is a fancy term for a particular type of junkie, really.

Years later, after abusing MDMA in the late 1990s until 2002 and then crystal meth from 1996 until 2007, I feel much the same way. I became an amphetamine addict. I still take 60mg of Adderall (amphetamine) a day, and I still want more.

However, Adderall is a much less damaging daily habit than methamphetamine, and it's legal. If drugs were cheap, readily available, and legal, then I would not have a problem. I would always have more.

But the black market drives up prices and reduces availability and sometimes purity. You see, as long as I am high, then I am happy. Running out or not being able to get some old drug anymore is what bothers me.

Anyhow, I became a bona fide psychonaut just as I had intended to trying all sorts of alphabet soup barely legal and sometimes illegal research chemicals, but I must also mention rehab 4x, countless mental hospitals, a couple of real hospitals (overdoses), too many forced 12 step meetings, and a crack addiction, which is now in remission. So I thank God that I'm still alive.

But, the truth is, I still feel like the band My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult's song lyric that says, "I live for drugs. Its great. It's great."

 

I feel what you're saying. I'm a veteran addict with 31 yrs experience, during which time I've had 27 mo. in a row (longest time of complete abtinence from all fun drugs.) As for my DOC, that is crystal IV 1st choice an my Rx pills, as a close 2nd. The legal issue creates the $$ issues, having to pay high black market prices, not to mention being forced to associate with shady, scandalous sorts that make basically honest addicts or addicts in general stigmatized & labled low lifes. To be an addict in USA is considered taboo. Although addiction is according to the AMA a disease, making us sick, paradoxally it is often usually a felony which is why a good 80%-90% of US penal institutions are unnecessarily filled with drug addicts. Most of the time, eventually we do end up in there leaving with felonies and probation violations on our wrap sheets, & as most addicts well know once in the system, its a revolving door.

It wasnt always this way in the USA. There was a time when being drug addicts did not automatically make us criminals. Stealing or murdering people to get drugs was illegal, but many respected members of society had been IV users of heroin and cocaine. The crime rate due to drugs had been about 1% in the early 1900's. Prohibition has hurt us physically, emotionally, and financially. I agree decriminalization would help stop so much unnecessary pain & save many lives.

I understand too about always wanting more BUT I know from experience just because you could always get more legally when you wanted, don't kid yourself that everything would be blowin clouds and stayin high. The tolerance factor guarantees that. Keep getting high so does your tolerance. All too soon you find yourself wondering stuck with one bitch of a habit thats gonna consume more money, more time, more intensive withdrawals and a hell of a mind fuck once the physical kicking finally stops.

I found myself missing a huge chunk of my identity. Who AM I but an addict without drugs? 25 yrs with drugs, using daily or if not the NEXT day during most of the last 10 yrs as a user. It had become ingrained as a part of who I was, a daily part of living which left me feeling my husband, best friend, lover, and enemy died. I had a different marriage partner, friends so to speak, and issues that were new. NA helped, but whereas before drugs had provided protection and the ability to overcome destructive negativity, suppress appetite to maintain a size 8 or an attractive wt of 160 lbs. Not too thin, not too fat and I could create to my hearts content, while sober I was quiet an to myself if I didn't know you.

I HATE feeling and having to work through a state of awkward and would have done almost anything to avoid that shit. Immediately I think all I need is a fix or 3 pills, then well you know the drill. I'd get anxious, sad, tell NA can't I just have the high or the fix sober without actually having to swallow pills or fix? I was told no, what I'm asking is the equivalent of asking my ex husband for break up sex.

I tried anyway after 27 mo because after 9 months feeling tired 24/7, Dr and tests exhausting my income, I said fuck it, I'm done. Although sex may have been sublime with any given ex - he may be happy to say what you want to hear, that yeah of course you can have the milk all you want for free and no you don't have to buy the cow. Ha ha the jokes on me. I gota go, the cow is mooing and she brought home that pecky bull again.