This is a story about being tired & depressed all the time...
As things start to get out of control with uppers and downers, you're going to come across legal highs and the black market sooner or later. Let me describe my life to you, after it was ravaged by depression: I never left my bed except to go to the toilet. I never answered my phone. I never answered the door. What does a depressed person want? They want a life.
For the summary of what I'd tried myself to date, you can read:
and:
I was completely disillusioned with medications. The common antidepressants take 6 weeks before they kick in, and they're a nightmare to stop taking: the withdrawal effects are horrible.
I went on a legal highs website, and I systematically worked though every chemical they had on offer:
- 5-IAI
- 6-APB
- MDAI
- Benzylpiperzine
- Ephenidine
- Ethylphendiate
- 3-Fluromethamphetamine
- 3-Flurophenmetrazine
- Methedrone
- Methiopropamine
- Methoxphenedine
- Methylenedioxypyrovalerone
- Mephedrone
- Methylone
- Pentedrone
- 4-MePPP
Those are just the ones I can remember. I have a spreadsheet somewhere that documents everything I bought, and all the dosages I took. I used a high accuracy measuring scale (down to 0.001 of a gram) which I calibrated before every use, and I was careful to do an 'allergy test' before taking anything approaching a psychoactive dose.
The short version of the story is... all these designer drugs were a pile of pants. Complete rubbish. Waste of time & money.
With one exception: Methylone. The chemical name of Ecstasy (MDMA) is 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. The chemical name of Methylone is 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylcathinone. Basically, the clever chemists swapped out the crystal meth and replaced it with Meow Meow. The novel compound is known as βk-MDMA, instead of just regular MDMA.
If you were to try and take Ecstasy every day, you probably wouldn't get much sleep, and people would think you were really weird. Your face would be gurning all over the place, and you'd keep telling strangers you loved them.
Methylone is not like that. It was as if I'd just gotten over a really bad sickness and I was back to my old self. I had energy and motivation. I could feel joy again. I was getting stuff done. I was functional.
I used to measure out my exact same dose every morning, and then I could feel the storm clouds part about 30 minutes later, and I could get on with a normal day, just like a normal person. I did my work. I did my chores. I socialised... I had re-entered the world.
This went on for the best part of 6 months, and then the government decided to make it illegal. I stockpiled as much as I could afford (about 2 months supply) but when that ran out I was screwed.
Prolintane and Pyrovalerone (sold as Jolly Green Granules) propped me up for a while, but I had pretty much lost my antidepressant. There was no more gas in the tank. The engine was spluttering to a stop. All the other stims I tried were just that: stimulants. They made me awake, alert and they stopped me sleeping. The best part of all about Methylone had been that I could sleep normally at the end of the day.
Out of a suicidal death-wish, I tried NRG-3, which sounded from anecdotal experience very much like MDPV (Supercrack). I was so terrified by this chemical that I diluted an entire gram in a litre of water so that I could measure a very precise 3ml (3mg) as a test dose, using an oral syringe. Turns out that water completely screws up the compound.
Anyway, after the car-crash that was my ex's brother's wedding, I decided "fuck it" and measured out 15 milligrams of the powder on my scale.
"Binge" was not a term that I had first-hand experience with. Not until that point.
When 3 or 4 days go by, you haven't eaten, you haven't slept, you're just shovelling white powder up your nose... yeah I guess I had my baptism of fire.
When you wonder what day it is. When you wonder when the last time you checked the time or the date, or did any kind of reality check at all... you're pretty deep into a binge.
It's weird, how somebody who was always so self-disciplined, so self-controlled, even with coke and speed and pills... one day they find their drug of choice and they're like an instant junkie. I did kinda panic a bit when I'd had 800mg of a 1000mg bag, because I'd read about somebody who suffered heart damage after 800mg of this potent stimulant, but you find yourself saying "ok, well I'll make this the last one".... until it's all gone... and all you can think about is when can you get some more.
The reason it was so addictive, is because it broke my dependence on my girlfriend. We needed to break up, but I couldn't see an alternative. I couldn't imagine going backwards to go forwards. This stuff was powdered girlfriend. She no longer had any power over me anymore. I wasn't afraid of us breaking up.
She didn't like that very much.
Tags: #drugs #addiction #depression
