Illegal Drug III: Pharmaceutical Amphetamines (Stimulants, ADHD meds, dopamine releasers), dopamine's role in ADHD, and the blessing-and-curse of stimulant abuse. (Part 2)

Now, what I said before applies to normal, low doses of stimulants. Taking a high dose of a stimulant FLOODS your brain with dopamine. It's a feeling that can best be described as...well...You know that happy, excited feeling you get when doing something you enjoy? Imagine having that feeling applied to any mundane task, even staring at a wall or cleaning. That's actually why tweakers have a reputation for cleaning, it feels like the most fun game in the world to them. The euphoria(1) felt goes away quick with redosing(2), and people who go on binges usually spend 1 day in euphoric bliss and the next 4 being frustrated trying to bring that euphoria back.

The euphoria doesn't come back because your brain has released all of it's dopamine stored up, and at that point taking the stimulant just gives you the effects of Noradrenaline(3) release, which is only pleasant when combined with dopamine release. You need to take AT LEAST a 24-48 hour break for the euphoric bliss to return, and that's the only way, no matter how high of a dose you take. But people still commonly go on binges because, although they conciously know the euphoria isn't coming back, their brain tells them "well damn it we're gonna try".

High-dose or long term stimulant use has no physical withdrawal syndrome except in the case of HARDCORE, intravenous meth users, who experience symptoms similar to parkinson's disease for a time after stopping. For most people, the mental "withdrawals" are killer enough. It's like ADHD symptoms times ten. Anhedonia appears like I've mentioned, but also boredom so intense the minutes feel like hours. I also develop somewhat of a narcoleptic sleeping pattern, where I'll fall asleep for a half an hour at a time every so often and have very vivid dreams that all involve trying to get something but never getting it. It sucks when a dream goes on for what seems like hours and you wake up realizing only 20-30 minutes have passed.

We'll cover this more in another blog, but if you're using a non-pharmaceutical stimulant heavily that is not only a potent DA releaser but also a Serotonin(4) releaser, such as MDMA or 4-FA(more on these later), you'll have all of the above on your plate plus the horrid effects of Serotonin depletion. I'll cover this more later. I'm sticking to pharmaceutical stimulants for this blogpost.

Luckily, stimulants are quite hard to fatally overdose on. A minor overdose will make you uncomfortably physically stimulated and anxious, but death is HIGHLY unlikely unless you intentionally took an insane dose like 500mg of adderall, you have a heart condition/high blood pressure normally, or you mixed it with certain other drugs such as DXM(5). Binging for 4 or more days can cause acute, temporary psychosis and, while psychosis itself will not kill you, something stupid you're doing while psychotic such as walking in to traffic or hurting someone, can get you in to deep shit. Don't take stimulants at all if you're prone to psychosis, aka have a disorder with "Schizo-"(6) in it or are bipolar I. (In which case it can trigger psychotic mania.)

Tolerance to stimulants is due to downregulation(7) of the dopamine receptors, and can be lowered by taking a break and allowing your dopamine system time to heal. Taking Magnesium supplements (NOT Magnesium Oxide or Milk of Magnesia, but any others.) has been proven to slow the development of tolerance or even stop it completely in light users. I'd highly recommend picking up a bottle of magnesium citrate from a pharmacy and taking one or two tablespoons every day. Yes, MagCitrate is a laxative, but to get that effect you'd need 20x the amount I'm instructing you to take.

Stimulant use really is a blessing and a curse. It can enable you to do things you've never imagined possible, and it can totally destroy your life if you let it. And make no mistake, no matter how strong you think your willpower is, the dopamine system is truly a force not to be reckoned with. Do you think every sad, homeless tweaker started stimulants thinking he'd end up that way? No, most of them were normal, functioning people! Destruction of the dopamine system can turn you in to something you never thought you'd be IF YOU LET IT. Stimulants are probably the safest drug available if taken in moderation, all of the kids who grew up on adderall and ritalin show no problems, because they didn't abuse it. If you're the type of person with no self control and still are hell-bent on doing stimulants, have someone else hold the drugs for you, you'll thank yourself later. Stick to oral usage, intra-nasal usage is much more addictive, and smoking is by far more addictive than even that and by doing that you're basically catapulting yourself down the road to ruin. (Smoking only applies to the non-pharm stimulants like crystal meth, crack, etc. Don't smoke pills unless you want to die.)

Remember, I'm not a doctor nor am I a pharmacist, what I write is based on personal experience and pharmacology books, while I wouldn't intentionally mislead you, I am human and I can be wrong or make mistakes. So please, be careful.

To end this blog on a lighter note, I mentioned that dopamine controls sex drive. Well, the bitch about stimulants are, they will make you hornier than you've ever been in your life, yet it'll be very difficult to get it up due to your veins being constricted. Once you do get it up though, dear god, you'll have the most potent orgasm of your life that will literally make you convulse in pleasure.

Footnotes

1. Euphoria - A profound happiness and/or contentment given by many drugs, mainly induced by dopamine but serotonin can increase it. (But causes dysphoria(8) on its own)
2. Redosing - Taking more of a drug after your original dose, can be anything from good to deadly totally worthless depending on the drug or amount
3. Noradrenaline - Neurotransmitter responsible for physical stimulation such as hyperthermia, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, and also is the main chemical cause of anxiety along with, to a lesser extent, dopamine. Release of NE can be euphoric if in a good situation combined with dopamine, and incredibly uncomfortable and anxiety causing if released alone. If released in an extreme amount such as when a NE Reuptake Inhibitor is taken with a releaser, or a large amount of an NE selective releaser such as Ephedrine is taken, it can cause a deadly condition known as a hypertensive crisis, where blood pressure spikes to dangerous levels.
4. Serotonin - Neurotransmitter responsible for a plethora of bodily and mental functions. While pharmaceutical stimulants release serotonin, it's too small of a release to be noticible. It plays a larger part in other, non-pharma stimulants such as DXM, MDMA and similar, and 4-FA. Too much serotonin caused by many combinations of drugs can cause serotonin syndrome, which is discussed in depth in another blog post.
5. DXM - Dextromethorphan, found in OTC cough syrups in the US. Relatively safe on it's own, but it can cause a hypertensive crisis if combined with pharma stimulants, and serotonin syndrome in combination with serotonin-preferring stimulants. More on that here.
6. Schizo- - Psychotic illnesses, such as Schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, schizoid personality disorder, and schizotypal personality disorder.
7. Receptor Downregulation - When receptors are over-activated, they get destroyed for the time being, leaving you with less and less receptors for the released dopamine to bind to, causing tolerance. They, except in extreme cases, always come back with time.
8. Dysphoria - The opposite of euphoria. A feeling of "wrongness", sometimes accompanied by anxiety.