Eight years ago, my life changed because of drugs. My story.

thattequilagirl

Martypants1 wrote: »

Nothing illegal that has the potential to kill me, and has the potential to put strain on my family or friends no. Or anything that fuels the killing of innocent people on our streets no.

Do you feel sorry for a murder who in a moment of rage killed someone?

Thinking further on this, the only remotely similar situation is a friend of mine who drank and drive and killed his best friend in an accident. He went to jail for dangerous driving, which was fair, and got off drink. When he talks about it I do feel sorry for him.

He made a horrendous decision as a young man and can never escape the consequences. When he talks about going back to his friend's parents and how they forgave him, it's very powerful.

Of course, he never would have gotten in the car and of course he should never have been drink driving - but he was young and dumb and didn't have the benefit of hindsight.

fryup

*** it fries your brain ***

Sariah

I'm 41. I smoked hash regularly in my 20's and experimented with acid, e, speed etc.. also. One night about 18
years ago I was sitting smoking a joint with a friend who was just having a drink. I had what in hindsight was a panic attack but at the time it felt like I was after experiencing a massive revelation of something that had happened to me in my childhood. The feelings were so intense that I was never able to get those thoughts out of my head. I ended up in psych hosp 2 years later for 6 weeks as the thoughts and feelings overwhelmed me so much. I have also suffered from situational specific social anxiety since.

After years of therapy I have been able to understand and rationalise what happened that night but that experience caused me and many others years of needless heartache. And that was just a simple joint similar to what I had been smoking for years.

Pac1Man

thattequilagirl wrote: »

You'd swear some of the people on here never made a stupid decision in their youth.

thattequilagirl wrote: »

Thinking further on this, the only remotely similar situation is a friend of mine who drank and drive and killed his best friend in an accident...........but he was young and dumb and didn't have the benefit of hindsight.

Firstly, this isn't directed at you thattequilagirl even though I've quoted you twice!

These points always come up in threads like these whether it be excessive drinking one night, drug use, blowing a months wages on a lame horse etc. Are these now the definition of stupid decisions? How are they not a bit more than that?

Why does being young suddenly expel an element of responsibility from these choices and cause a few understanding arms to be placed on their shoulders? Being young & dumb (hate that phrase) should not give you an excuse to go off the rails to 'find yourself'.

"Are sure weren't they just experimenting? We were all young once."

That way of thinking is just so ingrained into modern society. If a middle aged person living a stable life went on a spontaneous acid trip and fuked themselves up, I can only imagine the responses here.

I know the OP is not looking for sympathy and is only sharing his frightening experience but some the responses are laughable, filled with the obligatory 'if you haven't done it, you wouldn't understand' undertone which conveniently removes the need for an actual answer.

daRobot

>OP

Maybe we're just getting into semantics here, but perhaps consider the viewpoint that your personality has not changed, nor is it even possible.

Now of course, with matters of the mind, everything is open to debate, but Psychiatry proceeds from the viewpoint that the personality is fixed and unchangeable.

From the limited amount that you've written, it seems to me that your outlook and perspective on life was what changed, due to your experience of severe trauma.

It's no different from soldiers returning from warzones, having experienced stuff of nightmares. A trauma occurring that you just can't shake, and has rocked you to your very core, never feeling like you did pre-trauma.

Just because the actual real level of threat was hugely exacerbated by your consumption of a combo of drugs is largely irrelevant. Your mind doesn't differentiate between this and an a soldier who has seen his friend step on a mine right beside him. It's all trauma that is cognitively processed the same way.

Your experience seems to have left you interacting differently with people, quite possibly due to the fact the initial trauma was caused by a combination of drugs and a threatening person. Is it any surprise then, that you'd find it hard to be the same carefree person in your interpersonal interactions afterwards?

Of course not, no more than you'd expect a woman who was raped in an alley on a dark night, to be comfortable in that type of environment again without a whole lot of time and work.

The angle I would personally be looking at this from a treatment perspective, is a PTSD one, as that would seem to match up closely with what you've written. There's a lot of help out there, and this may be an approach to returning to your 'old self' that you may not have considered previously.

Wishing you the very best of luck, and commending you on your bravery to even post something so personal in After Hours.

scopper

Sariah wrote: »

After years of therapy I have been able to understand and rationalise what happened that night but that experience caused me and many others years of needless heartache. And that was just a simple joint similar to what I had been smoking for years.

This is a big thing that gets overlooked. Sometimes it is a kind of insight during drugs that casts the long shadow. (Ditto on social anxiety, I think this is a massive additional weight that is overlooked with a bad trip afterwards).

Martypants1

LETHAL LADY wrote: »

To be fair to the op, I think he was giving a warning and not saying that his experience should be mimicked.

I wouldn't be inclined to disagree with you overall. Why risk it like?

I do know of people, as I'm sure you do, who've murdered a member or for that matter their entire family, while under the influence of prescribed medication from their GP.

I also, as I'm sure you do too, know folks who've murdered due to their fragile mental condition at the time.

Airing on the side of caution is most definitely the best advice when it comes to taking anything really, but in reality it's just not going to happen like that now is it?

What is he warning against? Everyone with a right mind knows drugs have the potential to go wrong. I don't do drugs because who knows how my body will react and I don't need drugs to have fun anyways.

What it is is people are so mad to do drugs and get a buzz they think they'll never get the bad effects of it even though they know the risks involved.

JackieBauer wrote: »

I've read a few pages and I want people to stop thanking posts about people being off their heads on drugs. That's part of the f.ucking problem. People won't admit it but they are BRAGGING about their drug use and people are enabling it by thanking these posts. It's sick, thank god I don't have kids

Unfortunately there's a lot of drug user apologists here. There's strength in numbers. Most people here have probably done drugs with no harmful effects so anyone who had a bad experience gets the "awh sorry to hear that" treatment.

People are sorry they did drugs and had a bad time, they're not sorry for doing drugs.

Washington Irving wrote: »

I don't think you fully realise just how harmful this kind of narrow minded opinion can be when it becomes widespread.

Try this:

People have always taken mind altering substances and will continue to do so regardless of legality, what anyone says, what they're told or how you feel about it.

Drugs can be a wonderful tool that can open people up to beautiful new worlds and provide life affirming experiences (That sounded more hippyish than I intended).

The problem lies in lack of education. If people were properly informed as to the risks involved (not the fear mongering stuff even evident in parts of this thread), treated drugs with the respect they require, used some common sense and exercised adequate precautions then we wouldn't have near the amount of problems we have now and have had in the past.

Attitudes to drugs in the western world have slowly been changing for the better, it's only a matter of time before we can finally have a balanced, unbiased, sensible reevalution of the whole thing.

Ah of course the addicition card comes in. How many regular drug users are there in Ireland? Hundreds of Thousands I would imagine. Are they all addicts? No.

Read back through the thread and there's many people who have done drugs without any bad effects and I'm sure if someone asked them what they think of drugs they'd say "Ah sure they're good, I had a great time on it anyways".

That'a adding to the problem.

Anyone who puts an illegal substance into their body with the potential of long term health effects and then their health gets effected has no sympathy from me.

That's the problem with this country and with modern times, it's never your fault....it's not your fault you snorted that stuff up your nose, it's because you suffer from addiction.

What else can you expect on boards though with a bunch of leftys.

Main moral of the story from the thread, it's grand to do drugs as long as nothing bad happens!!!!

KomradeBishop

LETHAL LADY wrote: »

To be fair to the op, I think he was giving a warning and not saying that his experience should be mimicked.

I wouldn't be inclined to disagree with you overall. Why risk it like?

I do know of people, as I'm sure you do, who've murdered a member or for that matter their entire family, while under the influence of prescribed medication from their GP.

I also, as I'm sure you do too, know folks who've murdered due to their fragile mental condition at the time.

Airing on the side of caution is most definitely the best advice when it comes to taking anything really, but in reality it's just not going to happen like that now is it?

Man it'll be hard to look at your username the same again now :pac:

I'd be surprised if many of us did know such people really

thattequilagirl

Martypants1 wrote: »

Nothing illegal that has the potential to kill me, and has the potential to put strain on my family or friends no. Or anything that fuels the killing of innocent people on our streets no.

Do you feel sorry for a murder who in a moment of rage killed someone?

Pac1Man wrote: »

Firstly, this isn't directed at you thattequilagirl even though I've quoted you twice!

These points always come up in threads like these whether it be excessive drinking one night, drug use, blowing a months wages on a lame horse etc. Are these now the definition of stupid decisions? How are they not a bit more than that?

Why does being young suddenly expel an element of responsibility from these choices and cause a few understanding arms to be placed on their shoulders? Being young & dumb (hate that phrase) should not give you an excuse to go off the rails to 'find yourself'.

"Are sure weren't they just experimenting? We were all young once."

That way of thinking is just so ingrained into modern society. If a middle aged person living a stable life went on a spontaneous acid trip and fuked themselves up, I can only imagine the responses here.

I know the OP is not looking for sympathy and is only sharing his frightening experience but some the responses are laughable, filled with the obligatory 'if you haven't done it, you wouldn't understand' undertone which conveniently removes the need for an actual answer.

There's a difference between excusing something and explaining it.

KomradeBishop

Autonomous Cowherd wrote: »

...
Consider some cognitive behavioural therapy, NLP, or best of all an appointment with a Human Givens therapist who will guide you through the Rewind Technique which can help greatly with re-engineering the amgydala's habitual response.

Best of Luck.

PS I'm not involved in any of these areas of treatments, and have received no kick-backs for mentioning them (unfortunately)

Nonetheless, I'd be highly skeptical of this - doesn't appear to have good empirical backing, and the health/mental-health sectors have a huge number of obscure/faddish concepts like this, that appear out of nowhere with little research, and get used to fool people into parting with money.

Not saying that's what this is - but am saying be ultra-skeptical of it, as it looks a lot like one of those faddish/obscure things that I've seen plenty of examples of before.

Call Me Jimmy

Those legal highs, jesus. I've done a fair amount of stuff, never been so ****ed up as when I took them. Sometimes I do think my personality changed as well, but always thought it was unrelated. I would have described the changes exactly as you have OP so at the least it was interesting reading

Washington Irving

Martypants1 wrote: »

Ah of course the addicition card comes in. How many regular drug users are there in Ireland? Hundreds of Thousands I would imagine. Are they all addicts? No.

Read back through the thread and there's many people who have done drugs without any bad effects and I'm sure if someone asked them what they think of drugs they'd say "Ah sure they're good, I had a great time on it anyways".

That'a adding to the problem.

Anyone who puts an illegal substance into their body with the potential of long term health effects and then their health gets effected has no sympathy from me.

That's the problem with this country and with modern times, it's never your fault....it's not your fault you snorted that stuff up your nose, it's because you suffer from addiction.

What else can you expect on boards though with a bunch of leftys.

Main moral of the story from the thread, it's grand to do drugs as long as nothing bad happens!!!!

The video focuses on addiction alright, but there's bit more to it than that. If you listen you might find the answer to your question about why people take drugs in the first place.

Why does it matter to your sympathy whether or not it's illegal or not? Do you have sympathy for drinkers or smokers who run into bother as a result of their use because those ones are legal?

Attaching a stigma to people who are going through a bad time because of drugs is only going to push them further down the rabbit hole and worsen the situation for everybody.

Arsemageddon

Martypants1 wrote: »

Blah, blah, blah...

That's the problem with this country and with modern times

Blah, blah, blah

This line has given me a cramp from laughing.



Damn those pesky modern times for ruining everything

Martypants1

Arsemageddon wrote: »

This line has given me a cramp from laughing.



Damn those pesky modern times for ruining everything

Yup. We live in an age where everything is fine.

You don't see yourself as a man or a woman....that's fine.

You want to marry a tree? That's fine.

gormdubhgorm

Did anyone else read the Op's headline as "Eight miles high....my life changed because of drugs...my story" ?
Here is the summary:

Arsemageddon

Martypants1 wrote: »

Yup. We live in an age where everything is fine.

You don't see yourself as a man or a woman....that's fine.

You want to marry a tree? That's fine.

What have you got against people marrying trees?

Letree

Martypants1 wrote: »

Anyone who puts an illegal substance into their body with the potential of long term health effects and then their health gets effected has no sympathy from me.

I'm devastated Martypants i was relying on your sympathy to get me through the day..

dr.fuzzenstein

Arsemageddon wrote: »

What have you got against people marrying trees?

Forget it, Mr Pants is only interested from preaching from his soapbox and shouting down anyone who doesn't agree with him/her.
Could be Grainne Condon, that whiny, sanctimonious drone sounds familiar. Definitely of the mindset that smoking a spliff immediately turns you into a dangerous, violent delinquent and there will be drive-by shootin's and it'll be like boys in the hood. And there'll be prostitutes on street corners, and the pimps will be using crack to keep the hoors under control. Probably locked in his basement now for fear those bad people completely off their mash on ecstasy pipes will kick the door down.

Of course a good session with 20 pints every weekend (or three times a week) and a spot of wifebeating are legal, can't be classified as "un-Irish" as they are tradition and therefore are a splendid way for a fellow to amuse himself until he keels over dead with a liver the size of the Hindenburg. Bravo that man!

Martypants1

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Forget it, Mr Pants is only interested from preaching from his soapbox and shouting down anyone who doesn't agree with him/her.
Could be Grainne Condon, that whiny, sanctimonious drone sounds familiar. Definitely of the mindset that smoking a spliff immediately turns you into a dangerous, violent delinquent and there will be drive-by shootin's and it'll be like boys in the hood. And there'll be prostitutes on street corners, and the pimps will be using crack to keep the hoors under control. Probably locked in his basement now for fear those bad people completely off their mash on ecstasy pipes will kick the door down.

Of course a good session with 20 pints every weekend (or three times a week) and a spot of wifebeating are legal, can't be classified as "un-Irish" as they are tradition and therefore are a splendid way for a fellow to amuse himself until he keels over dead with a liver the size of the Hindenburg. Bravo that man!

Unfortunately your speaking to a person who doesn't drink and doesn't need to drink to have fun. Next thing you'll be saying there's no drinking problem in Ireland.

ArtSmart

It's the legal stuff I'm concerned about

Cigarettes

Coffee

Reality TV shows

Sugary Drinks

The Internet

I know someone that mixed ALL FIVE, as is now nothing more than a vegetarian.

daRobot

daRobot wrote: »

>OP

Maybe we're just getting into semantics here, but perhaps consider the viewpoint that your personality has not changed, nor is it even possible.

Now of course, with matters of the mind, everything is open to debate, but Psychiatry proceeds from the viewpoint that the personality is fixed and unchangeable.

From the limited amount that you've written, it seems to me that your outlook and perspective on life was what changed, due to your experience of severe trauma.

It's no different from soldiers returning from warzones, having experienced stuff of nightmares. A trauma occurring that you just can't shake, and has rocked you to your very core, never feeling like you did pre-trauma.

Just because the actual real level of threat was hugely exacerbated by your consumption of a combo of drugs is largely irrelevant. Your mind doesn't differentiate between this and an a soldier who has seen his friend step on a mine right beside him. It's all trauma that is cognitively processed the same way.

Your experience seems to have left you interacting differently with people, quite possibly due to the fact the initial trauma was caused by a combination of drugs and a threatening person. Is it any surprise then, that you'd find it hard to be the same carefree person in your interpersonal interactions afterwards?

Of course not, no more than you'd expect a woman who was raped in an alley on a dark night, to be comfortable in that type of environment again without a whole lot of time and work.

The angle I would personally be looking at this from a treatment perspective, is a PTSD one, as that would seem to match up closely with what you've written. There's a lot of help out there, and this may be an approach to returning to your 'old self' that you may not have considered previously.

Wishing you the very best of luck, and commending you on your bravery to even post something so personal in After Hours.

Eye-opening post.. I'd never want to compare what I did to what a soldier does but I guess the after-effects could be similar. Something to ponder.

Another poster pointed out the "19 years old / graduated / had a job" thing I said. To clear it up, I graduated at 20 and started work and then left Ireland at 22. I got these two ages mixed up. So this actually happened when I was 21.

As for posting on AH, I'm sure some people back home will see this.. Lots of people knew my name on here. They'll probably put two and two together and remember the change / me falling of the face of the Earth. I don't care who knows anymore..

Smidge

Martypants1 wrote: »

Unfortunately your speaking to a person who doesn't drink and doesn't need to drink to have fun. Next thing you'll be saying there's no drinking problem in Ireland.

I have read your posts throughout the thread and tbh, I am not sure what to make of them.
People have given their experiences of using drugs, mostly by far in the negative.
I have never done drugs and drink very rarely(similar to yourself ).
However, you lack of understanding of even discussing the subject without blame and judgment is very usual to say the least.
You are either very very young with little life experience so have no empathy in place yet for when people fall down (which if this is the case, believe me, when bad **** happens to you which it envitably will do, you will then totally get the point ) or else you are a lot older and have lived a very sheltered life and judge everyone harshly who have done differently to the life you have led.
Either way, your posts and the moral high horse they rode in on are dated. And that's to say the least.
I applaud the op and other people's honesty with regards to drug use
If more people spoke about the crappy side of drug use then maybe there could be a valuable conversation about it.

thattequilagirl

In my experience, the people who got involved with taking drugs on a regular basis tend to have certain things in common. Many suffered from depression or had low self-esteem and were looking for an escape, most came from difficult family backgrounds, struggled to fit in.

People like me who did it because of peer pressure tended to find it easier to have the experience and then walk away from it.

When I was graduating in 2009 I wanted to get away from that whole scene so I moved to a country where it's almost impossible to get drugs. I never missed drugs once I stopped doing them, but it's worth noting that while I drank moderately during the 18 months where I was using, my drinking really took off when I stopped.

Superhorse

Deleted User wrote: »

When I was younger, I was the funniest person in the room. I was successful, nailed uni and had a good job in a bank. I had a great personality.

I had three years of amazing times on acid while doing everything I needed to do. Then I had a mad night where I ended up taking some "legal" drugs and acid at the same time. Chaos, terror and tears ensued and my personality changed forever. I couldn't look at people for months.

I spent about six months trying to get my old personality back. Didn't work. So I left Ireland.
I traveled around Asia. Didn't work. I could manage to be mad but not fun and nice.
In the end, I decided to not go to Australia because I knew my head was screwed so I spent a few months more in Asia learning how to be social and make friends again. Which used to be so easy. It kind of worked.

Five or six years later, my personality is still a bit "off". I've never gotten back my interest in people. I have an amazing girlfriend and we have a great life but I miss the old me. I wish she could see and experience how much life and energy I had, and lost that night.

I'm fine. I can laugh. But the difference is black and white.

Hold on until I make a violin.

turbot

OP,

You need to study the work of Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson (read Prometheus Rising) who extensively discuss long term personality changes achieved/driven by combining acid with intense experiences.

Probably you literally induced a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder and re-imprinted your neural pathways with a a feeling of horror or stress from your bad trip and/or whatever dodgy interactions occured with so called legal highs.

So some things worthy of exploration:
- Havening (which is a method of resetting profound stress in your brain)
- HeartMath - a technique and method for switching your nervous system and resetting it through breathing patterns
- Agni Hotra - a vedic fire ceremony that is ultimately, incredibly calming and used in many rehab centres
- Stack mini rituals that boost your well being and do these every morning to build up a better state of mind
- Read about people who share similar stories and what they did about it when they got themselves back

Hope these tips prove helpful for anyone like the OP.

turbot

scopper wrote: »

Legal highs...indeed.

When I was younger I did what we all did drug wise and all was relatively fine. One night I took a pill, a legal high, that I assumed to be an upper but turned out to be a version of LSD-lite (I had taken acid before and it did alter me a bit, but not massively).

Long story short over the next few months I lost all capacity to engage people socially, developed social anxiety disorder and fell into alchoholism and xanax addiction. I managed to get off these after many relapses.

I am OK now, but I will never be the same.

I also know such stories have no effect, but do, at least, keep it in mind.

Scopper & OP,
What was the legal high and in particular, what nasty chemicals/compounds were in it? Probably you should research other people who had similar experiences and what they did about it.

armaghlad

Martypants1 wrote: »

I don't need drugs to have fun anyways.

What do you do for fun then? Apart from talk ****e on here of course.

Unfortunately there's a lot of drug user apologists here. There's strength in numbers. Most people here have probably done drugs with no harmful effects so anyone who had a bad experience gets the "awh sorry to hear that" treatment.

How exactly should people with a history of drug problems be treated? Ostracised?

Ah of course the addicition card comes in. How many regular drug users are there in Ireland? Hundreds of Thousands I would imagine. Are they all addicts? No.

I'd say closer to millions. If you consider the more dangerous, life-threatening drugs alcohol and tobacco.

Read back through the thread and there's many people who have done drugs without any bad effects and I'm sure if someone asked them what they think of drugs they'd say "Ah sure they're good, I had a great time on it anyways".

That'a adding to the problem.

Should they all tell lies then to fit your agenda?

Anyone who puts an illegal substance into their body with the potential of long term health effects and then their health gets effected has no sympathy from me.

Presumably then if the government say it's legal does that make it ok then? Cos you know two of the worst drugs are legal and are sold and consumed in a multi million euro industry here in Ireland.

That's the problem with this country and with modern times, it's never your fault....it's not your fault you snorted that stuff up your nose, it's because you suffer from addiction.

What else can you expect on boards though with a bunch of leftys.

How dare they take something that the government says is bold!? Why can't we all be good croppies and take government-approved drugs like alcohol and tobacco. I just wish more people had your right wing tendencies Marty. I mean you don't even need to drink to have fun!

Mark Tapley

turbot wrote: »

OP,

You need to study the work of Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson (read Prometheus Rising) who extensively discuss long term personality changes achieved/driven by combining acid with intense experiences.

Probably you literally induced a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder and re-imprinted your neural pathways with a a feeling of horror or stress from your bad trip and/or whatever dodgy interactions occured with so called legal highs.

So some things worthy of exploration:
- Havening (which is a method of resetting profound stress in your brain)
- HeartMath - a technique and method for switching your nervous system and resetting it through breathing patterns
- Agni Hotra - a vedic fire ceremony that is ultimately, incredibly calming and used in many rehab centres
- Stack mini rituals that boost your well being and do these every morning to build up a better state of mind
- Read about people who share similar stories and what they did about it when they got themselves back

Hope these tips prove helpful for anyone like the OP.

Sounds good and I've heard slamming your testicles in a door helps to clear the head.

beach_walker

Interesting (and scary) read OP. Sounds like you're doing good now though?

Thankfully I never had such an experience. I did spend a few years smoking entirely too much weed though. Like near daily getting monged and this was after graduating from college while working a "proper" job. I definitely think it had a negative impact on my mind but it's all good as it's in the past now.

Maximus Alexander

The flying mouse wrote: »

Nostalgia. Your problem is not that your past was so much better, but maybe that you are dissatisfied with the present. That’s something everyone goes through, many times, and nostalgia is simply an escape from that.

Agreed. Nostalgia was much better in the old days.