From Ubermensch to Mental Lockdown
Amphetamines (Adderall) & Cannabis
Citation:   Stugatz. "From Ubermensch to Mental Lockdown: An Experience with Amphetamines (Adderall) & Cannabis (exp60737)". Erowid.org. May 7, 2007. erowid.org/exp/60737

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
40 mg oral Amphetamines (pill / tablet)
  T+ 12:00 1 bowl smoked Cannabis (plant material)
BODY WEIGHT: 140 lb
Let me just preface this by saying I have a very high tolerance to every drug I've ever tried, which includes grass, alchohol, amphetamine, shrooms, LSD, DXM, Ambien, and a wide range of pharms. I don't know why, but I always seem to be able to take and handle myself on a lot more of anything than my friends. I started smoking grass the beginning of my sophmore year, and within a few months I was smoking it in large amounts on a daily basis, which I guess helped raise my tolerance. I would smoke a whole ounce in less than a week. Soon afterwards I tried alchohol for the first time and found similar situations, people around me would get extremely fucked up before I was even buzzed. I could drink half a bottle of whiskey and still feel relatively normal.

Even when I started to get high with my friends during/before school I could still handle myself fine. My friend Max, who would be destroyed after a single joint, used to marvel at my ability to hold myself better than him after having downed several shots of Vodka, Green Dragon, and unprecedented amounts of grass. Needless to say this always made me feel empowered, what's cooler than being able to show how much you could take?

The only person who could ever keep up with me was my friend Matt, who honestly looked much more the part of someone with a high tolerance than I did. He was over six feet tall and was the kind of guy who crushed beer cans into his forehead. He was two grades above me, but we started hanging out alot when I turned him on to grass. Maybe a month later he turned me on to adderal. The first time we did some he gave me two 20 mg in the middle of a half day. I swallowed one and saved one for later. Later came in about five minutes when I basically said 'fuck it'. Being that it was a half day school was over an hour later and I didn't notice anything. I thought that my tolerance had overwhelmed the small amount I took and was somewhat dissapointed. Me, Matt and some other friends decided to go to my house to smoke and drink.

I first felt it coming on while we were walking together. I started to feel intense rushes of energy, and desires to do strange physical activites. I would sprint for a few seconds, leap towards a lamp pole, latch on, then jump off. I got this feeling of supreme physical ability, which I would then prove with ridiculous feats of running and jumping. The walk home from school which usually takes forty-five minutes took only twenty. Everyone besides me and Matt kept complaining about how fast we were walking. When we got to my house I started to construct a makeshift bong. We didn't need one cause I had plenty of papers and even a small pipe, I just felt inspired to build something.

Matt kept coming into the kitchen to ask me intricate questions about the constructions and nature of pipes. He wouldn't shut up, and everyone was cracking up because of it, including me. His speaking was very rapid and extremely intense. It seemed as though when he asked his seemingly inane questions he somehow meant them more than he usually did. Everyone else was just laughing, but eventually I started to feel a mental connect with him, because I understood the process his brain was undergoing. However, my energy was totally devoted to the construction of the bong, and his questions still somehow felt like an intrusion.

After I finished and we drank a few heavy beers and smoked a whole lot of bowls I started to talk. And talk. And talk. I basically gave the entire history of drugs (I am well read in the subject), starting from ancient mystics using physcadelics to the widespread use of Amphetamine by the Nazis during World War II. My other friends were so stoned/drunk that they just kind of sat there spaced out, but Matt was seriously taking it all in. He kept asking me more and more questions, and we got into intense and lengthy conversations about drugs, mostly with him asking and me telling. We would always be midsentence when the other interjected, and we would always then say 'Just let me finish'. We maybe each said 'just let me finish' a hundred times or so in the space of less than an hour. We each felt that everything we said was so important, such an interesting insight into what the other person was saying. Amphetamine is definetly the conversationists drug.

I don't really remember what we did after that, I think we went to the park. All I remember was that the conversation carried into the entire night and when I got home I cleaned my entire room. And I read. And I drew. I did anything that could hold my attention. I didn't go to sleep that night, and I was still pretty wired for the rest of the next day.

Fast forward a few months. Me and Matt popped addies whenever we got the chance. I continued to use marijuana on a daily basis, and I also started to drink hard liquor more often than before. I also started to drink coffee every day before school. For a few months, everyday after school I would have a cup of strong coffee with a shot of baileys irish cream and I think a joint. Amphetamine, although one of my favorites, became harder to come by. The kid who me and Matt used to get them from graduated (as well as Matt). Soon I was alone in my amphetamine adventures, as well as without a connect. That was until I learned my friend Max (the one with zero-tolerance) had a 20 mg perscription for his ADD. I struck gold.

I had so much weed on me that I could afford to trade him a quarter for a handful of pills. I used them mostly in smaller amounts for tests (especially finals). Still, whenever I had a few days to kill I would stock up and do up to 100 mgs at a time. I can only describe the feeling as being an 'Ubermensch'. I understood where the Nazis got off on taking them. If you take enough you feel indestructible, like you have unlimited power. In cases where I used to have anxiety and depression I would have power and ability. The comedown always sucked, the hangover was far worse than that from alcohol. Still, this didn't outweigh it's positive affects in my mind, so I continued to take it. But Max couldn't always give me some, so for a few more months I didn't have any. In this time period I started with Physcadelics, which radically changed my perspective on everything. I started reflecting more inward than I had before. But those are stories for another time.

I started to get really intense anxiety about a large number of things, grades, college, family problems. Not to mention I had lost basically my best friend Matt when he graduated. Besides from being a really good friend, he was also the only person that could match my tolerance. I became somewhat reclusive and a little depressed. I also started to feel occasionally paranoid on grass, sometimes to a rather large degree. I knew it wasn't the drug, but that it was just because that was my general state of mind at the time. None the less It still bothered me.

And then the last day before christmas break, Max brought me two 20s. I didn't even question whether I could handle them because I had done so much more in the past. So I swallowed them before school, drank two or three strong cups of coffee and set about my way. Initially everything was great as usual, I felt confident, powerful, I was articulate in that very tweaky addy sort of way. I had a great time in my classes and I spoke out every chance I got. It felt like the best way to kick off winter break.

But then, the last period of the day, a few trivial events happened which set me off. I was trying to leave one of my classes and people I hadn't seen or talked to in years kept coming up and bombarding me with questions and conversation. Usually on Adderal this is a plus, an opportunity to spread the vast knowledge of the speeded mind. However, I was already late to class and for some reason I felt that getting to class was extremely important. I didn't want to deal with all these people talking to me, so I just split while they were all in midsentence. I felt bombarded from the outside. I got through my last class alright but I still felt a little uneasy.

After school I was hanging out with a few friends on the street by our school and I was watching all the people pass by us and I started to get paranoid. I could tell from the get go that the paranoia wasn't justified (I had experienced similar feelings on grass) but it didn't stop at all. I was very fucking stimulated, mentally and physically. I was thinking at twenty times the speed of everyone around me and I felt energy bristling inside every part of me. Usually these would be positive effects, but with my negative attitude they started to make me feel wierd. My friends were also incapable of deciding where they wanted to go hangout (as teens usually are) and I started to get very impatient and irritated. I felt somehow exposed being out there in the open with everyone from our school around us, and my mind had already built up the idea that I would feel safe and calm if we could just go sit down somewhere privately.

None of this was helped by one of the kids who was there, because he has a negative attitude towards anyone who would even try Adderal. Everytime I suggested we go somewhere (which was maybe every half minute) he would give me a very condescending look and say something akin to 'You're freaking out'. I mean, he was somewhat right but that's a fucked up thing to say to someone when they're becoming mentally unhinged. Anyway, someone came up and started talking to me and when I turned to talk with them the people I was with left, so I felt really alone standing there on the corner by myself. I decided to go home and try to calm down.

Being at my house actually did help a bit, because I live in a really old/big building and it has tons of places to explore that I never had the chance to. I went up and down every staircase of my building, I inspected every nook and cranny, I went on every roof and through every door that didn't have an alarm (and even some that did). When I had finally a flawless interior map of my building in my head it was about 8 p.m., 12 hours after I had taken the 20s. I had mentally calmed down but was still very much physically stimulated. I came home and met my Aunt and Uncle for the first time, which was something I felt uneasy about. Shortly afterward me, my dad and my uncle went to go smoke a joint.

This had been something I had been thinking about for a long time beforehand. I had wanted to show to my uncle how high my tolerance was ever since I had heard he smoked. I also figured a joint would help me calm down a little more. It had basically the opposite reaction on both counts. I was higher than I had been in a long time, which was pleasant at first but quickly turned around. I started to shake and feel very unhinged so we went back to my house and I crawled into my bed hoping to fall asleep. Of course, I didn't. What followed was the worst 24 hours I've ever experienced.

I wasn't any less stimulated than I had been earlier. I was still unbelievably wired in both body and mind. I started to feel really ashamed almost that I had fucked up this first smoke with my uncle. That combined with a general paranoia, fear, and anxiety about everything caused me to shake even more. Now, I've shaken in previous experiences with stimulants and even DXM, but it was always short lasting and it didn't bother me much. But in combination with the mindfuck I was going through it turned into hell. I somehow worked this idea into my head that I had been shaking the entire day. I know this might not seem like a big deal, and in retrospect even if it was true I don't care, but at that intense moment of isolated fear it was unbearable. I tried to write down everything I was thinking for future referrence. Here is a brief selection:

'I have just now understood what has happened today. While it was happening I was too far gone to completely understand the situation. This is not only largely representative of the entire time have I been shaking all this time? For how long? How many people know? How many people think I have a problem because of this? Is this the root cause of the issue? Fear? Somehow brought on by guilt? WHY IS IT HERE? Why can't my mind conquer it? The guilt I feel really is quite self-centered. I feel guilty because I believe my mind is so powerful and so able to fix the world and yet cannot! Yes, yes NO! NO! NO! I can't run from the truth anymore. I cannot stand the fact that because of my masichist subconsious I have manifested my worst nightmare into reality. And the feeling of incontrolability just makes it worse and worse...'

For most of the time I didn't even write. I tried to draw, and that held me for a while, but the anxiety was just so overwhelming that for most of the time I just lay there in my bed, shaking. Eventually, the next night, my Aunt came to talk to me and brought me upstairs and helped me calm down. At this point the Adderal was starting to wear off anyway, but still it helps to have an understanding and nonjudgemental person to help you come down.

Basically what I got out of this is that my general state of mind and well being has a direct influence on any drug I put in my body. When I was care-free and was with good friends who I felt a connection with, I had a great time. When I felt like I was by myself and was anxious and depressed I had a terrible time. Even though I have a very high tolerance, I too can have a bad experience.

Exp Year: 2006ExpID: 60737
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 7, 2007Views: 59,868
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Amphetamines (6) : General (1), First Times (2), Combinations (3), Retrospective / Summary (11), Overdose (29), Depression (15), Relationships (44), Bad Trips (6), Various (28)

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