And this is the other myth - addiction is not a discrete state. Addiction is a lengthy progression into unsustainable use. And drug users will find genuinely perceiving themselves as addicted as very difficult. They will say it because it is expected of them, because it is a label that will be put on them, and eventually you begin to perceive yourself as such. Addiction, too, seems like a very final statement of submission: you are beholden to your drug, you are to be treated as an untrustworthy, pitiable, dangerous creature, capable of nothing worthwhile and everything questionable. The key is self-belief. I am willing to admit I am addicted, but I am one of the many, many functioning addicts. I am an addict but I am not desperate, broken, hopeless, useless, dangerous. I can still operate in society's system despite being addicted. It's not the end of the road.
But the insidious nature means the end of that road, once stretching into the horizon and clearly signposted, becomes unclear and indistinguishable. You alter your reality to suit your initial vision of the impossibly far-off cliff face at the end of the road, from which you fall sharply to rock bottom. You change your rules. "I'll never..." god knows how many times I have broken that promise to myself; never gratuitously, always with justification. Have I justified it because I realise I can still function despite it? Or because my mind refuses me to think of my behaviour as unacceptable and unconscionable? All I know is that by the time I come to doing them, I cannot recall just how or why I felt so strongly against it. I'll never get high without this particular friend that first introduced me. I'll never get high around non-using friends who don't approve. I'll never get high on a weekday. I'll never get high for longer than a night. I'll never get high in the daytime. I'll never get high at home. I'll never get high alone. I'll never be high around my family. Listing them all now I marvel at the notion of my stringentness. I can no longer fathom the logic behind it: I've pushed the boat out. I've been high pretty much everywhere.
Of course, certain milestones stand out amongst what I have thus far expressed as as one singular event -growing in magnitude only through the tiniest of increments - which were perhaps seismic. It is interesting that these events are vivid, because just how the mechanisms of many drugs alter our conscious perceptions, it feels as if the craving for them alters my memories, as if my subconcious is subverting me. After 3-4 day binges your spirit is well and truly broken. In those hideously low moments I can recall vowing to never get high again. And even though when I wake up after finally resting I feel immeasurably better I cling to that feeling. I motivate myself with it. But it quickly dissipates. I only have the memory of having a memory of being utterly desolate, hopeless and avowed to quit. Suddenly I am left feeling amusingly trivial, hyterical even - oh how pathetic! I feel absolutely fine. I can't believe I reallhy felt like that; I couldn't have! You're exaggerating the harm... it's really nothing. You just need to take it easy next time!
I remember doing it at home, alone, in the daytime for the first time. This was a big mistake. I was having friends over later that night and thought, why not a little early? My friends were vehemently anti-drug and I used to chop lines pre-prepared, my very own "And here's one I made earlier", sadly Blue Peter never catered to surreptitious drug use. I actually did an Andre Agassi who, on first taking crystalmeth - a drug of similar properties, but far greater potency - said he went on a cleaning binge. I was the same. Tidied the room, danced to music, generally felt great. And in that mundane two hours I had normalised the feeling I craved but had confined to social events. I was always addicted to the confidence. I didn't need the calming effects of weed. I didn't mind alcohol but I required such great amounts to enjoy it that it was such a knockout: no-one likes the shambolic delerium of being drunk, but you do enjoy not caring.
The unique effet I found with stimulants was that it removed inhibitions but instead of detracting from processes of thought, it enhanced them. I felt sharper, wittier, funnier, more interesting, more able to articulate how I felt and what I thought. In fact, I could express myself better than I ever had done before. For someone with a tendency for relentless ruminations who could maintain no better than a chaotic link between full complexity of thoughts and verbalisation of them, it was a feeling of unbridled happiness. I no longer felt boring. I no longer felt embarrassed to speak up, or plagued by self-doubts and self-loathings that would manifest as a reticence to ever offer up a thought in unfamiliar surroundings lest I be misinterpreted and ostracized: suddenly everything was clear. I feared no one and nothing, and I embraced everyone and everything. I suddenly wanted to talk to people and just bask in what empathy we could generate, not be ever fearful of what awkwardness or disconnection might arise. I made friends. I strengthened friendships I had. I opened up to people I'd never opened up to before, and vice versa. Every night out I would stroll, pupils dilated, jaw gyrating, thoughts endlessly spilling. I would cogitate on every interest I had or issue I felt important, and as my mind raced my heart would soar. No matter what happens in my life - not just with regards to drugs, but generally - I will always cherish that series of nights. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Each and every one was a self-contained joy.
I came to associate excitement with every single aspect of my experiences. I loved moving the powder into smaller packets in my room beforehand, I loved cutting the straw up, I loved choosing an old card to chop it with. I loved the whole process of snorting. Chopping the line up would bring immense satisfaction and a brief pause to look down upon my creation with pride before snorting. I loved the feeling of it thrashing the nasal passages, rarely without at leats a faint sting; some stoppd by one of the body's natural defences, mucus, dripping down the back of my throat in a mix and burning on the way down. I'd often use the inside of my passport as a 'snorting pad'. The smell lingers even now, and did even when I stopped for months. Every time I had to use my passport I'd smell it, a weird chemical vanilla of a scent, but absolutey intoxicating. I'd take a deep breath of the surface every now and then and the smell alone would induce excitement. For a moment or two that wonderful soar would return to my heart before it was gone again. I have read that the olfactory system has a very direct link with memory, and can elicit some of the most powerful memories; I can certainly attest to that. Whilst my mind was a never ending spiral of emotions and I could never unquestionably associate the drug with happiness and good times, that scent lingering on my passport was like a direct route to the purest memory my mind had recorded.
They say "you're always chasing that first high". It is another well-rehearsed drug 'fact' that people like to trot out. Whilst the statement is definitely inaccurate, I would concede that the underlying principle is valid. I am so jealous of my own early (the first 6-8 months or so) enjoyment; I could snort gram after gram without repurcussion, I also needed less to get going, and the stuff was undoubtedly of a higher quality. Now every line leaves a bloodied, mucusy mess behind in my nasal passages. The stuff is cut with some kind of awful corrosive element, and I need so much more of it just to get a feeling of anything.
And then it became less of a typical tale of enjoyable youthful excess. Some of the humour was lost. I could tell people about debating the meaning of life with a taxi driver or getting home at 6am still completely sped and concluding it's a good time to walk the dog and elicit easy laughs, but I doubt they would laugh so openly and so freely at being told I was not only still awake after 48 hours and losing all grip on reality, but still dosing. I experienced delusions and paranoia - this is no effect of the drug, but of lack of sleep. Typically you could not eat or sleep for 18 hours and feel perfectly fine. Indeed chewing and swallowing became an unpleasant difficulty and I had no appetite. I would perhaps eat a bowl or two of cereal over a few days. I'd be awake and still feeling good, but there is only so long the body can sustain such a deception and the paranoia and delusions where the manifestations of a fractured mind losing control of all its faculties. I cannot overestimate the reality of these incidents: I would be convinced people were coming to get me. I was about to exposed as this reckless, dangerous drug user. Being in public in that state is unbearable, given you are convinced everyone is talking about you. It's very odd: you catch the odd sliver of a snippet, it's actually almost nothing other than the sound of muffled whispers, but your brain interprets those sound waves as nefarious conspiracies to either threaten or judge you. In my case it was often the latter: I was convinced that the everyday furtive glances public transport passengers are sometimes forced to exchange were indeed heartless and knowing sneers, subtle expressions of the fact that they knew I was crazed, sleep-deprived, drugged, dishevelled, a mess. Every sound became suspicious.
But the insidious nature means the end of that road, once stretching into the horizon and clearly signposted, becomes unclear and indistinguishable. You alter your reality to suit your initial vision of the impossibly far-off cliff face at the end of the road, from which you fall sharply to rock bottom. You change your rules. "I'll never..." god knows how many times I have broken that promise to myself; never gratuitously, always with justification. Have I justified it because I realise I can still function despite it? Or because my mind refuses me to think of my behaviour as unacceptable and unconscionable? All I know is that by the time I come to doing them, I cannot recall just how or why I felt so strongly against it. I'll never get high without this particular friend that first introduced me. I'll never get high around non-using friends who don't approve. I'll never get high on a weekday. I'll never get high for longer than a night. I'll never get high in the daytime. I'll never get high at home. I'll never get high alone. I'll never be high around my family. Listing them all now I marvel at the notion of my stringentness. I can no longer fathom the logic behind it: I've pushed the boat out. I've been high pretty much everywhere.
Of course, certain milestones stand out amongst what I have thus far expressed as as one singular event -growing in magnitude only through the tiniest of increments - which were perhaps seismic. It is interesting that these events are vivid, because just how the mechanisms of many drugs alter our conscious perceptions, it feels as if the craving for them alters my memories, as if my subconcious is subverting me. After 3-4 day binges your spirit is well and truly broken. In those hideously low moments I can recall vowing to never get high again. And even though when I wake up after finally resting I feel immeasurably better I cling to that feeling. I motivate myself with it. But it quickly dissipates. I only have the memory of having a memory of being utterly desolate, hopeless and avowed to quit. Suddenly I am left feeling amusingly trivial, hyterical even - oh how pathetic! I feel absolutely fine. I can't believe I reallhy felt like that; I couldn't have! You're exaggerating the harm... it's really nothing. You just need to take it easy next time!
I remember doing it at home, alone, in the daytime for the first time. This was a big mistake. I was having friends over later that night and thought, why not a little early? My friends were vehemently anti-drug and I used to chop lines pre-prepared, my very own "And here's one I made earlier", sadly Blue Peter never catered to surreptitious drug use. I actually did an Andre Agassi who, on first taking crystalmeth - a drug of similar properties, but far greater potency - said he went on a cleaning binge. I was the same. Tidied the room, danced to music, generally felt great. And in that mundane two hours I had normalised the feeling I craved but had confined to social events. I was always addicted to the confidence. I didn't need the calming effects of weed. I didn't mind alcohol but I required such great amounts to enjoy it that it was such a knockout: no-one likes the shambolic delerium of being drunk, but you do enjoy not caring.
The unique effet I found with stimulants was that it removed inhibitions but instead of detracting from processes of thought, it enhanced them. I felt sharper, wittier, funnier, more interesting, more able to articulate how I felt and what I thought. In fact, I could express myself better than I ever had done before. For someone with a tendency for relentless ruminations who could maintain no better than a chaotic link between full complexity of thoughts and verbalisation of them, it was a feeling of unbridled happiness. I no longer felt boring. I no longer felt embarrassed to speak up, or plagued by self-doubts and self-loathings that would manifest as a reticence to ever offer up a thought in unfamiliar surroundings lest I be misinterpreted and ostracized: suddenly everything was clear. I feared no one and nothing, and I embraced everyone and everything. I suddenly wanted to talk to people and just bask in what empathy we could generate, not be ever fearful of what awkwardness or disconnection might arise. I made friends. I strengthened friendships I had. I opened up to people I'd never opened up to before, and vice versa. Every night out I would stroll, pupils dilated, jaw gyrating, thoughts endlessly spilling. I would cogitate on every interest I had or issue I felt important, and as my mind raced my heart would soar. No matter what happens in my life - not just with regards to drugs, but generally - I will always cherish that series of nights. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Each and every one was a self-contained joy.
I came to associate excitement with every single aspect of my experiences. I loved moving the powder into smaller packets in my room beforehand, I loved cutting the straw up, I loved choosing an old card to chop it with. I loved the whole process of snorting. Chopping the line up would bring immense satisfaction and a brief pause to look down upon my creation with pride before snorting. I loved the feeling of it thrashing the nasal passages, rarely without at leats a faint sting; some stoppd by one of the body's natural defences, mucus, dripping down the back of my throat in a mix and burning on the way down. I'd often use the inside of my passport as a 'snorting pad'. The smell lingers even now, and did even when I stopped for months. Every time I had to use my passport I'd smell it, a weird chemical vanilla of a scent, but absolutey intoxicating. I'd take a deep breath of the surface every now and then and the smell alone would induce excitement. For a moment or two that wonderful soar would return to my heart before it was gone again. I have read that the olfactory system has a very direct link with memory, and can elicit some of the most powerful memories; I can certainly attest to that. Whilst my mind was a never ending spiral of emotions and I could never unquestionably associate the drug with happiness and good times, that scent lingering on my passport was like a direct route to the purest memory my mind had recorded.
They say "you're always chasing that first high". It is another well-rehearsed drug 'fact' that people like to trot out. Whilst the statement is definitely inaccurate, I would concede that the underlying principle is valid. I am so jealous of my own early (the first 6-8 months or so) enjoyment; I could snort gram after gram without repurcussion, I also needed less to get going, and the stuff was undoubtedly of a higher quality. Now every line leaves a bloodied, mucusy mess behind in my nasal passages. The stuff is cut with some kind of awful corrosive element, and I need so much more of it just to get a feeling of anything.
And then it became less of a typical tale of enjoyable youthful excess. Some of the humour was lost. I could tell people about debating the meaning of life with a taxi driver or getting home at 6am still completely sped and concluding it's a good time to walk the dog and elicit easy laughs, but I doubt they would laugh so openly and so freely at being told I was not only still awake after 48 hours and losing all grip on reality, but still dosing. I experienced delusions and paranoia - this is no effect of the drug, but of lack of sleep. Typically you could not eat or sleep for 18 hours and feel perfectly fine. Indeed chewing and swallowing became an unpleasant difficulty and I had no appetite. I would perhaps eat a bowl or two of cereal over a few days. I'd be awake and still feeling good, but there is only so long the body can sustain such a deception and the paranoia and delusions where the manifestations of a fractured mind losing control of all its faculties. I cannot overestimate the reality of these incidents: I would be convinced people were coming to get me. I was about to exposed as this reckless, dangerous drug user. Being in public in that state is unbearable, given you are convinced everyone is talking about you. It's very odd: you catch the odd sliver of a snippet, it's actually almost nothing other than the sound of muffled whispers, but your brain interprets those sound waves as nefarious conspiracies to either threaten or judge you. In my case it was often the latter: I was convinced that the everyday furtive glances public transport passengers are sometimes forced to exchange were indeed heartless and knowing sneers, subtle expressions of the fact that they knew I was crazed, sleep-deprived, drugged, dishevelled, a mess. Every sound became suspicious.