DOSE:

repeated

insufflated

Methamphetamine

BODY WEIGHT:

220 lb

My Experience with Amphetamine Psychosis

Just thought I would share an experience I had once with meth. It might help people avoid getting into the same situation. As it turned out, it was one of the last times that I used speed, because it made me realize some things about that particular substance.

I'd been using speed pretty regularly for about a year. I was using it all the time or anything, mostly because I couldn't afford that, but I was binging pretty hard every few weeks. This particular binge started at a party - it wasn't really my type of party, and I was bored and ready to leave when I saw someone I knew who sold speed there. We discreetly took a trip out to his car and I bought three eightballs from him. We each did a few lines in his car, then went back to the party, which was MUCH more enjoyable then.

To make a long story short, I went on a particularly long binge - when I was done with the three eightballs I just kept buying more. All in all, I was up for eight days. On the evening of the eighth day I snorted the last of my speed and went with some friends (who didn't do speed, but were OK with me doing it) to the local street fair. I was really out of it by then, nothing was really making sense, so I just kind of kept quiet and listened to my friends talk out on the street. Gradually I started feeling weirder and weirder, and I started seeing weird visual effects. The pavement on the street was shifting around, people's faces would become distorted if I looked at them for more than a few seconds, and (this was the most unnerving) I saw huge bubbles everywhere that made me feel like I was underwater. It reminded me visually of LSD, but the mental effects were not similar - I was just extremely confused, irritable, and scared.

My friends eventually noticed that I was sort of freaking out, and they kindly took me back to the car, then drove me somewhere safe where I could relax and try to get a grip. I really, really wanted to sleep, but I'd been doing speed long enough to know that I wasn't going to able to do that for quite a while, so when we got to one of the friends' home I just sort of huddled on the floor in misery. My friends later said that I just sort of sat there and glared at them, and snapped at them angrily when anyone said anything to me. Eventually the hallucinations stopped, and I must have looked better because at some point someone took me home. I was up all that night, slept all the next day, and woke up feeling...not much better. I wasn't hallucinating anymore, true, but I was still extremely irritable and aggressive, which is completely out of character for me. This mood lasted for almost a week afterwards, and a few times the hallucinations came back briefly, although they were never as intense.

This episode really made me think about my use of speed, and as I said it was one of the last times that I used it. I felt absolutely horrible that I was so rude towards my friends, especially when they were being so kind and caring towards me. It was like I had no control over what I said, because the buzzing in my head made it impossible to filter myself. I was very lucky to have such good friends, and even luckier that they forgave me so easily for how I'd acted towards them. I feel that there are many drugs that are beneficial to the user overall, but I think that speed does nothing but harm to mind, soul, and body. I stay away from it now, even though I sometimes still crave it, five years later.

Exp Year: 1998	ExpID: 26004
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 12, 2003	Views: 24,166
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Methamphetamine (37) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Hangover / Days After (46), Addiction & Habituation (10), Difficult Experiences (5)