52
votes
Whats a drug that you would never try?
For me its meth. I had an online friend who developed schizophrenia and addiction from it. As well as it just seeming unappealing to me I think the risk from using it are too much.
Heroin.
To quote another comment from a similar post:
There's that guy on Reddit who did an IAMA 12 years ago or something. His entire profile is, "Trust me bro, I won't get addicted!" through to his life imploading and then getting sober. It's a hell of a ride if you go through his posts, but you see how arrogance will get you trashed.
There's also a guy on here who told his story of 'falling into opiates' and it's harrowing to see how easy painkillers lead to hellish behaviour.
Guy might have been me. I fell into opiates and they fucked my life up good.
I'm six years clean now, married with a kid and an amazing job. But yeah, you really mess up your perception of fun/good/novel/pleasurable forever.
It does get better with clean time, but you have to accept a medium buzz of contentedness over the immediate, full-body, full-mind warmth-orgasm that is heroin. Heroin beats everything in terms of intensity-of-pleasure.
I think part of the reason many people need to reach rock bottom to get clean is that the cost for doing heroin needs to start competing with the benefits. In other words, only when you lose everything and everyone do you start to wonder if it's worth it, and even then many people continue to say that it is.
For me, I was fortunate to be forced into taking a break right around the time I had lost almost everything and everyone. After 40 days in rehab I was able to barely see through the haze of misery and realize I didn't want to keep losing things. I still had more to lose and I was in a position where it wasn't too late to get my life back on track. Truly perfect timing.
At this point in my life, I don't think about heroin very much. I am happy with the contentedness and love I have in my life. I feel fulfilled. But I have told my wife I absolutely won't die sober. She knows that my deathbed wish is to be shot up with morphine. The idea that more opiates will come later in life helps me feel at peace with staying clean now. I can feel that way again with no cost and no hurt, but I have other things to do and enjoy first. It's pretty sick but it works.
Edit: Wrote seven years clean before I had my coffee. Only six. I have to do the math every time I mention this and I'm bad at math. I know a lot of NA folks actively count every second but I always found it easier to just put it in the rearview mirror as much as possible and forget about it!
I think it may have you been you fella, username rings a bell.
Was a toughie to read!
If you're referring to the username in a social media context specifically, maybe. But "Wolf 359" is something famous enough that you may have heard of it elsewhere.
Oh I am aware. Star Trek goodness is never lost on me.
Even if I am just a plain, simple tailor.
Kadir beneath Mo Moteh.
There's also a really good scifi comedy podcast by that name that's worth checking out. For anyone wondering it's Trek adjacent but not actual Trek.
I didn't even realize it was in star trek!
I was thinking he was a big fan of the radio drama https://wolf359.fm/
When I read your comment I thought yes, it's a pretty well known star because it's so close to us. I like astronomy, but I don't like Star Trek. Same thing, different famous..
For anyone interested, the Heroin guy is u/SpontaneousH. It's a really cool read and I recommend everyone who's interested to read through his post history. (TW drug addiction, obviously)
Wow, this sent me on a pretty crazy rabbithole of how AA really works and what twelve step programs actually are. I find it crazy to think that addiction centers in the US (also in the EU?) that pretty much use religion as their method, and one of the core ideas is to understand that there's a "higher power".
I struggle to understand why this is necessary. I feel like they can just have an eight step program or whatever and do away with preying on one of the most vulnerable populations and making it seem like God is their savior.
It's hard to frame it as capable of being anything and also that it helps because it requires faith, combats loneliness and hopelessness and gives bonding with peers.
I just think that there are more evidence based non-religious programs and it'd rather AA not pretend to be secular while keeping the trappings of religion. (I also have a dim view of it as a useful tool. It feels more like AA just replaces the addiction with a new one, until the relapse. And even with relapses being part of change... I'm sure it helps some, but I dislike it being mandated and would rather money be put towards more effective methods. )
There are. I got "cured" from alcoholism by using naltrexone and the Sinclair method (take 1 pill 1h before drinking).
It saved my life.
It's weird how the biggest addiction programs are weirdly religious. In addition to AA, one of the earlier drug addiction programs out there was Synanon, which evolved into something of a cult.
I don't think it's weird it makes sense in a "replace this addiction with a different one" and a "provide structure and ritual" sense. But it's frustrating
But the founder truly believed that the higher power step was essential. It doesn't have to be Christian or monotheist or personal, but he was invested.
Early influencers of movements have a remarkable amount of power to shape later trends.
It's about humility. Understanding that sometimes you're going to feel like shit for no reason you can control, and that sometimes you just have to get through it even though every ounce of your being is saying "I know how to fix this". A god is an easy one, but most programs accept "the world around me" as a valid higher power. Insisting that there is nothing in the universe greater than you is kind of fatal to recovery.
Okay, I guess this makes more sense, even if it still rubs me the wrong way. I'm in no position to judge anyone though and if it works it works.
In pursuit of further understanding in either yourself or others, please feel free to ignore: crucial to proper addiction treatment is the acknowledgement that it is not some broken process in the mind, that addicts aren't born that way in the meaningful sense. Yes, for some people's specific struggles, any or all drugs can be especially soothing. But the mind is simply trying to maintain a sense of balance. Everyone is out of balance at times, and developing addiction is in one sense developing a lack of belief that one can survive without that comfort and sense of balance. Humility is a scary word in our world where it's used as a leash and whip to subdue "uppity" minority groups, but it's seen as a virtue in many traditions for real reasons beyond as a means to power. One of the many hooks of addiction is believing you can figure it out later, or that you know better than everyone else. That's where it's necessary for survival.
I reread those posts every now and again, and it continues to be an absolutely harrowing experience.
I was not quite that bad but could have easily been me, I was at a pretty low point in my life, single, remote consulting, and almost all my social interactions involved getting blackout drunk. I was trying to turn things around, got a gym membership with some friends. Then one very snowy Friday night I was playing squad at the gym with my friend and a bad twist I broke my leg, I ended up in the hospital over the weekend as I had surgery. My friends could visit because just about everyone was snowed in. I spent most the weekend high as hell on morphine and percocet. On Monday I was sent home with 16 tabs of percocet and a prescription for Tylenol no.4s.
I spent most of Xmas/New Years vacation at home alone, just a short visit with my family but it was hard because my leg was still very painful unless I was laying down with it elevated. I started drinking while taking the percocets/T4s, I remember at one point I was getting all tingly and sleepy in my chair, looking back I'm pretty sure I had overdosed and probably had a good chance of dying had I succumbed to sleep, but I managed to shake myself awake and go get a coffee.
The only saving grace for me is that one of my old friends got back from vacation and realized I was hitting rock bottom, she spent time with me, got groceries, did some cooking and cleaned up my place. She got my other friends to come visit and hangout when they could. It was just enough to pull me back from the brink and allow me to come to my senses to not go seeking more pills. A few months later I started dating my future wife (different woman).
Almost 15 years later I would be lying if I still wouldn't mind having some again.
I hurt my back many years ago and was prescribed a lot of Vicodin. I quickly realized that I liked that feeling too much.
I wish cannabis wasn't considered psychedelic-lite, I understand why it is, but I've tripped 20+ times on LSD/Psilocybin, and I have had MUCH worse experiences from smoking weed.
I don't think anyone "needs" to do psychedelics, but I wish people weren't so scared of them. LSD with close friends has always been the bubbly happy experience for me that cannabis has always been sold as, and while cannabis often feels stupid (for lack of a better word) psychedelics feel deeply meaningful. Of course set and setting plays a role here too.
As far as dangers go, I would absolutely caution people with a family history of mental illness, but again the relationship with mental illness and cannabis is much more clearly established.
To answer the question, I don't think I'm interested in opiates (at least not recreationally, maybe if I break my arm), and meth sounds like a nastier more addictive (and probably more fun) MDMA that I should stay away from.
Edit: ooh, I'll add a controversial take too, I don't ever want to take SSRIs or TCAs.
Why not antidepressants?
I dislike the idea of being medicated, and I wouldn't want to deal with side effects or withdrawals.
I've dealt with depressive episodes myself for a while and I feel in control of my mental health.
Maybe if my own methods for dealing with my emotional health fails, then I'll consider antidepressants.
I think 2 years ago I would have qualified for a MDD diagnosis and probably would have been put on escitalopram, but I moved country, met new people and I'm personally glad I was never medicated.
I don't deny they may be the right choice for others.
I've been curious about psychedelics for a while, but acquiring them seems nigh impossible compared to just going to my local cannabis dispensary and getting a bag of gummies.
If you know enough stoners you can usually find someone who knows someone if you ask around. There are a lot of places in the US where psilocybin is now decriminalized, though not legal for sale. You're other option is growing, since spores are legal and unless you intend to sell them it's unlikely you run into any legal problems. Though it's too much effort for most people.
Or book a flight to Amsterdam and pick up some magic truffles from a smart shop.
thanks, i had no idea it was legal to grow your own in most states, including mine surprisingly.
It's actually pretty easy and accessible nowadays for the average grower. I won't link it here, but a simple search for "Uncle Ben Tek" will take you to some Reddit threads that outline a really hands-off process with a low buy-in so the expensive clean-boxes and subtrate are eliminated. Spores themselves are very cheap too for how much you get out of them. Great entry point for those interested.
Aside from prescription drugs and alcohol I would never try any other. Life is weird enough as it is.
I know too many people who's lives have been negatively affected by drugs, even marijuana.
I can understand not wanting to do any of it, but being OK with alcohol but not weed will always be a weird stance to me. I have several family members with fucked up lives because of alcohol. The worst any of us ever did on weed was get sick eating too many fried eggs. I'd recommend weed over alcohol 10 out of 10 times if you're going to pick one.
Some people just don't like weed. I'm one of them. And I have a considerable sample size. It took me a while to figure out that I didn't enjoy either the head high or body high, and just ended up dabbing myself to sleep every night out of boredom. For me weed makes everything less fun. People are wired differently.
I am not interesting in trying marijuana (outside of hypothetical medical care that calls for it) because all of my close relatives who have tried it had bad reactions, such as paranoia and disassociation. Therefore it seems likely that I would have a bad reaction, too.
Mind you, I also don't really drink alcohol. I will have a tiny sip maybe once or twice a year (e.g., as part of a toast at a wedding), but certainly nowhere enough to get any kind of buzz. However, no one in my family has reported any negative reactions to alcohol, so that's not something I'm worried about. I just really hate the way it tastes. If I liked alcohol, I would have no qualms drinking it in moderation, though; alcoholism and binge drinking do not run in my family, so I'm not too worried about that.
When it comes to other people using marijuana or alcohol, however, I overwhelmingly prefer people who use marijuana. I will go to a party where people are getting high (so long as there is adequate ventilation), but I will not go to a party where people are getting drunk. Drunk people are extremely obnoxious, and they sometimes violate my boundaries and can be downright scary. I have never experienced anything close to that with marijuana users. People I like turn into people I hate when they drink, whereas people I like just become boring when they smoke, but I still fundamentally like them.
I know no alcoholics. I do know two people (one being my now deceased sister) who ruined their lives with marijuana and other crap.
Odds are you know some alcoholics but they aren't struggling enough yet/you're not close enough that you would know.
Everyone knows an alcoholic. It is rampant.
Many are unnoticeable because we normalized it or they can have a functional life and hide it well.
I was one of them.
I'm in the same boat, but I also strictly stick to 1-2 drinks for an evening for the enjoyment of the flavor/company, I'm never out to get drunk anymore because I already went down that road and I really didn't like myself or the consequences of it.
Idk I know some people where weed usage has triggered some psychosis type symptoms for them. Mostly from long term use though, but I still wouldn't underestimate the way weed can fuck up your psyche
It's more that it's pretty incontrovertible that alcohol can cause all those issues and then some, so it's an inherently inconsistent line to draw.
Anything in the amphetamine family of substances. I am not a neuroscientist, but I visualize psychoactive drugs as something like keys for locks in the brain. Everyone's got some set of locks which, once opened, can never be fully closed again.
My brief dalliance with garden-variety biphetamine (amphetamine + dextroamphetamine) in high school was beautiful. For the first time, I wasn't depressed, I felt capable of meeting life's demands. Not grandiose delusions of power, just an insidiously gentle sense of vitality, focus, and incisive insight. Everything seemed clear - sharp where it had been murky, bright where it had been dark.
Life was wonderful for 10 days, until I nearly killed someone because I was fucked up from not sleeping. And stopping, even after that short use, was perhaps the worst time of my life - suicidal doesn't begin to describe how much agony I felt. Even sleep was torture, and the nightmares lasted for months.
Forty years later, I still crave that exquisite feeling of capability. I have no idea, on a population-wide basis, how common it is to live daily with a sense of depleted exhaustion and anxiety about not being able to do enough to survive. While that seems to me like an eminently reasonable response to modern life, it's not very functional or pleasant. The medical system bins that response as "major depressive disorder". There are whole suites of purportedly non-addictive drugs to address it, including norepinephrine-reuptake inhibitors that work much like amphetamine.
Do I understand why people would destroy their lives with meth, and why it's nearly impossible to stop taking it? Hell yes. And so it baffles me that amphetamines are routinely prescribed to children for ADHD. I understand that ADHD is miserable for those struggling with it, in the same way that pain is miserable for those who were given opiates to make life bearable. I understand that prescription amphetamines aren't meth, in the same way that oxycodone wasn't fentanyl. But it's a matter of degree, not kind, and so I'd wish that no one who might be vulnerable to amphetamine addiction is ever exposed to it.
People with untreated ADHD are actually generally more vulnerable to addiction. Arguably the most effective way to prevent a child with ADHD from later getting addicted to illegal drugs... is prescribing them legal ADHD medication to treat the condition.
It's also very worth noting that (and I'm quoting Thomas E. Brown's A New Understanding of ADHD in Children and Adults here, and there may be more detailed sources in that book's bibliography) incidence of addiction to stimulant meds for ADHD is extremely low as long as the medication is taken orally (not by injection) and used as prescribed. This is true even when the medication is taken over many years.
Stimulant medication to treat ADHD is one of the most effective psychiatric treatments we have. To quote Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Dr. Russell Barkley, ADHD medications can normalize behavior of 50-65% of those with ADHD and result in substantial improvements in another 20-30%.
Dr. Barkley also explicitly points out that adults and children with ADHD tend not to become addicted to theor stimulant medication because taking it orally results in the drugs entering and leaving the brain relatively slowly compared to those who snort or inject the same drugs. Amphetamines increase dopamine in the brain, which contributes to their addictive potential, but this is exactly why they help treat ADHD -- the areas of the brain where dopamine levels and activity are increased are areas that are chronically underactive in people with ADHD.
I absolutely empathize with you, I was diagnosed as an adult but I was very lucky to get diagnosed when I did. I will say, I think psychologists/therapists with experience with ADHD are more likely to be sympathetic and actually do due diligence than normal medical doctors, but it's a difficult path regardless. I was misdiagnosed with bipolar 2 by a school psychiatrist and brushed off by a therapist (two separate occasions) before I got a diagnosis. I only ended up getting diagnosed because a therapist who had brushed off ADHD as an option got pregnant and her replacement immediately recognized my symptoms and suggested we perform the proper diagnostic process.
It's not easy, especially if you live somewhere where you can't afford to see therapists until you find one who doesn't discount ADHD without even properly assessing it. And of course the ADHD makes it harder to do all the things required to actually get the diagnosis, which is awful. I wish I could say otherwise! I'd help you directly if I could; getting treated for my ADHD has been a major stabilizing force in my adult life, and I wish I'd understood what I was fighting against sooner.
I do recommend reading/watching material for those with adult ADHD even if you don't have a formal diagnosis. Yes, medication is by far the most effective treatment, but these resources will often give good practical advice to keep yourself functional with or without medication. It's hard mode without meds, but the same strategies can still help you regardless.
Some of my personal recs for online creators:
In addition to these online or mostly-online creators, here's a quick list of books on my shelf that my therapist(s) recommended when I was first diagnosed (some of them I already cited above):
I hope this comment is at least better than useless; feel free to DM me if you want to have a more personal chat.
To an ADHD brain, increasing dopamine using prescribed stimulant medication - from increased production via *phetamines or from decreased reuptake via methylphenidate - is no different than getting obsidian everything in MW2 and playing 12 hours a day as an adult with a full time job.
But one lets you also be a functioning family member, friend, and student/employee.
To reiterate takeaways from other comments, if people with ADHD take their medications as prescribed there isn’t a substantial risk of addiction.
There will be stress about not having meds, but that’s because their lives tend to start falling apart without them.
For what it’s worth, I take amphetamines on a prescription every single day, and I’ve never had the issues you’re describing. I don’t have any trouble at all falling asleep, I’ve never felt suicidal (since I’ve been on amphetamines anyway), I don’t have nightmares, and I’ve never almost killed anyone. I also have never abused them though so maybe that’s why? I’ve been on 20mg a day for about 3 years now, and it’s pretty much only helped my life.
I've been suicidal but my depression is actually worse when I'm not taking my Adderall because not functioning makes me feel like a worthless human being.
Fwiw most kids aren't given Adderall or Ritalin as the more modern drugs are now an option.
But hey, I can understand how someone who has experienced that addiction, would want to spare anyone else it. If we apply that to any addictive drug we wouldn't be able to give anyone anything.
But then, if I had a society where I didn't need a brain masked as neurotypical, I wouldn't take Adderall either.
This is my experience, generally. Ever since starting Ritalin I have an actual way of forcing my brain to do the basic things that it refuses to otherwise do. You hit the nail on the head in regards to living with ADHD in a world that only ever expects you to move as fast as humanly possible; it's the only possible way that we can sustainably maintain society's expectations.
I've had a lot of people tell me that Ritalin is "unnecessary" for me or for kids, blissfully unaware of just how awful it is to live with.
I can understand someone worrying about addiction, but not when it comes to treating someone else's disorder. If someone isn't a doctor in the field I don't think that holding the opinion that "kids with ADHD shouldn't be given amphetamines" is legitimate.
Tbh I still would -- I'm constantly napping if I'm not on my Vyvanse. I was before I was diagnosed, but it's really obvious now that I'm taking it regularly.
As soon as I said it I was like "but the absolute chaotic mess of my home ..."
But I also think about a fully different society, not just a slightly modified version of our current one - living in a social support network, not needing to maintain an artificial schedule, etc. and maybe I wouldn't at all.
I've always been a bit fond of the "hunter in a Farmer's world" metaphor though.
I think it probably varies from person to person how much certain changes to society would benefit them, even among people with ADHD, but yeah overall I totally get that for a lot of people they wouldn't need to be medicated if they lived in a society that were structured radically differently from our own. I just don't necessarily think that's the case for me personally!
Absolutely agreed! (I know stimulants are also used to treat some sleeping disorders and such, is it possible you're dealing with both ADHD and a sleeping disorder? My ADHD fucks up my sleep schedule but I've never been able to nap well in part due to my brain being unwilling to chill)
I've definitely considered that I've got a sleeping disorder as well, but since I'm already getting what would be the treatment for it, I've not put much effort into getting that side of things checked out by a professional.
That's legitimate. I had a student I was working with get diagnosed with narcolepsy finally but decided that the meds weren't worth it right now after trying them for a semester.
Just to add to what others have said, it may of interest to note that ~100 years ago, mild brain damage was one of the leading theories as to what caused ADHD symptoms; indeed, people who suffer damage to their prefrontal cortex often exhibit impairments in the same areas.
In reality, that particular area of the brain, which develops right into adulthood, just happens to develop around 30% slower for children with ADHD:
i.e., a 10 year old with ADHD will have the same 10 year old brain as everyone else, but their self control etc. will be at the level expected of a 7 year old.
This is also why there's a commonly held belief that it's something people 'grow out of' because some people's PFC does eventually 'catch up' and develop to the point where they no longer have a disorder.
Simulants are primarily active in this area of the brain, and result in it working harder. That's why that morning cup of coffee is often needed (caffeine, of course, being everyone's favourite stimulant.) As others have mentioned, there's nothing about an ADHD brain that changes how simulants work, but whilst that extra jolt of PFC activity might make a normal person feel high and super productive, the ADHD PFC has a much lower starting point. It's perpetually pre-morning coffee.
Typically, when people want to do something, they do it. When someone with ADHD wants to do something, the PFC just isn't active enough for that intent to reliably and consistently turn into action. So they're started on simulants at a low dosage, which is gradually increased until the patient functions as would be expected.
There is also a HUGE correlation between developing adhd and experiencing extreme childhood traumas and stimulant medication is also prescribed for treating ptsd in war veterans.
I know a lot of other people have replied, but I'll throw my two cents in as well. I'm almost 40 now, family history of ADHD, medicated 2nd grade through the end of high school. I had to stop when I enlisted because my job (nuclear power) wouldn't allow any psychological drugs, and when I separated I was broke and couldn't afford any medication.
Now I'm a senior professional, moving into the "purely administrative" phase of software engineering (kill me lol), and I found I've been doing everything under the sun except the paperwork that's required of me.
The best way I can try to explain ADHD is fatigue. Imagine if you had COPD or some other heart/lung issue. Your brain functions just fine, you've got the best plan: I'm going to clean house. You walk around and pick up a few things, but before you can put them away you're exhausted and need to stop. You set it all on the couch. You go to mop, put a mop bucket in the bathtub and fill it with water, and it's too much to lift. You need to go to the store to get some windex, but you sit in the car in the parking lot because it's just too damn far to walk.
Every project is started with the sincere intent to finish it, but there's no mental stamina. It takes so much effort to stay on task that it's exhausting. People act like we're not aware that we half-ass everything, but I at least am acutely aware of that fact, and it can drive a deep sense of frustration and apathy that can verge on depression because I still want to finish all those tasks as well.
The jobs I've been truly successful at are the ones where there are varied items for me to work on in parallel. It gives me permission to put something on hold and come back to it later, and that relieves a lot of the stress about not getting it done.
Ironically, kind of like procrastination, not finishing a task is (again, to me) exquisitely obvious, and knowing that it's due only drives up the stress that further saps that mental stamina.
The amphetamines I'm on now give me the mental stamina. I just restarted a few weeks ago, but already I can plan the work start to finish. I can sit through a 9 hour workshop without pulling up other tasks in the background. I can get work done, and so now I'm getting that dopamine hit that I've accomplished something. The anxiety is less because I don't have all this stuff looming over me. I'm sleeping the best I have in years because I can lay in bed without ruminating on the work I know I haven't finished. Sleeping better helps me feel better in the morning, helps build more of that mental stamina.
I understand that "feeling of exquisite capability," in that I understand what it feels like to hold a thought through to completion. I have the power to do the tasks I set out for myself in the same way that someone who trains to run feels like their body is exquisitely capable because they know they can run a marathon. Every day doesn't need to be a marathon, but knowing you've got the ability to go long-distance really helps to confidently start something new.
Navy nuke?
Yup! I was on Truman (CVN-75) from April '03 to August '07.
The comparison with fatigue is really apt imo, at least in my experience.
Thanks <3
An ADHD brain is physiologically different from a neurotypical brain and thus, their response to amphetamines is different.
The effect of amphetamines is the same on an ADHD brain, it is just starting from a lower level of executive function so a small dose can get you more on a functional level. That doesn't mean people with ADHD cannot become addicted to amphetamines, as I can attest.
Just for context, folks with ADHD don't experience amphetamines the same way neurotypical folks do. ADHD is a slight delay in the brains processing and amphetamines bring it up to normal speed. So while most folks get energized by the stimulant, people with ADHD actually get a calming effect. Just food for thought.
You absolutely can get energized and jittery from stimulants as an ADHD person, I can attest from experience -- but this is generally a sign you're not on the right med or that you're taking too high a dose. People with ADHD can still abuse amphetamines despite their different neurophysiology because of this -- taking too much can still give you non-therapeutic effects. It's just that at an appropriate clinical dose when taken orally, the risk is very low and unmedicated people with ADHD are actually more at risk for addiction more generally, so it's a tradeoff that's worth it.
If you (with adhd) take enough you do get euphoria and fast on top of the more functional benefits, but it's not the same reaction to how 'normal people' feel on it. I've heard the drug is unpleasant for normal people and every other recreational speed user I've ever known also had adhd.
Speed (amphetamine) is still my favourite drug, and it was the only way I felt normal and could interact with people and enjoy myself for years. In my late teens and early 20's, I was taking a few grams a week to function and a few more on the weekend to party.
It's also how I figured out I had adhd on top of autism, and this self medication experience it was (once I found a decent (expensive) doctor as the nhs are criminally bad at diagnosing adhd in girls and women) key in getting my adhd diagnosed and starting on a prescription.
When I was working through antidepressants, I briefly tried Wellbutrin (a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, where most are serotonin reuptake inhibitors). It's also used to treat ADHD, and for the brief time I took it (before I had an allergic reaction to it), I felt super "on" in a way that seems similar to what you described. I don't know whether it would work for you, or be a good idea, but ... it's not amphetamines.
I'd be cautious about recommending Welbutrin -- it is often prescribed off-label for ADHD, but this is often more out of a desire to avoid stimulants than because it's a safer and better option for most people. It can backfire. In my case, it ended up making me hypomanic (similar to feeling super "on" as you describe, but definitely not in a particularly functional way) and I discontinued it immediately. That experience resulted in an erroneous bipolar 2 diagnosis that delayed my proper diagnosis and treatment by a lot (and would've resulted in a lot of taking very shitty, heavy-duty meds for bipolar disorder I didn't have if I hadn't been unable to afford such treatment).
By contrast, my Vyvanse doesn't make me feel remotely like that. Even the one time I took a bit too much while we were figuring out dosage, the "tweaky" symptoms and insomnia were less extreme than my reaction to Welbutrin was.
I find it interesting this was posted by @buddhism@ ... see later.
I crossed out drugs from the NIH Commonly use drugs chart that I haven't taken
AyahuascaFentanylGHBKetamineKhatKratomOver-the-Counter Medicines—Dextromethorphan (DXM)Over-the-Counter Medicines—LoperamidePCP (Angel Dust)Prescription Opioids (Oxy/Percs)SalviaSteroids (Anabolic)Synthetic Cannabinoids (K2/Spice)Synthetic Cathinones (Bath Salts/Flakka)I'm pretty sure I would have tried the rest if I'd had access to them, except Steroids.
I'm not sure if I was addicted to the harder drugs - though probably weed and alcohol. Despite the horror stories and danger, a lot of people take harder drugs recreationally, probably way more than you think - though I'm not condoning it.
I ended up in a bad way at one point. I still don't understand why but weirdly I convinced myself to spend a year in a Zen monastery in Japan. Japan is notoriously expensive so I travelled and worked (mostly illegally) through Asia trying desperately to save enough. Despite continuing my bad habits I was introduced to a yoga/meditation teacher which eventually led me to quit everything though it was quite a long struggle.
I never made it to Japan へ‿(ツ)‿ㄏ
Your ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ buddy hurts my brain.
I just meant it as an ironic footnote.
Yeah but the shape of the arms...
Heroin, meth, PCP, research chemicals I'm not familiar with, and any powder that I haven't tested. Fentanyl is everywhere now.
I take Adderall daily, and before I was prescribed it, occasionally I used it recreationally by snorting it. I have ADHD, so neither taking it normally or snorting it is anything fun or special. Now that it's prescribed to me, the concept of becoming addicted to it, and the fact that I ever tried to use it recreationally, is pretty funny to me personally, though I'm not denying that it can be abused. It's a very boring drug for me - with normal use it helps me focus on speadsheets, and snorting it just kept me awake for a few hours longer than I wanted to be. With normal use, the main side effect is that I lose interest in food and have to set alarms to remind myself to eat. Riveting stuff.
Snorting coke is quite boring as well, I've done that in the past but it's not at all worth the money it costs. It just makes you super talkative/annoying, and again, keeps you awake.
Nitrous is another one that I've tried but don't have an interest in continuing. It feels like a giant orgasm in your head, to the point where it feels so good that you just know it has to be destroying your brain. I go to a lot of music festivals where nitrous is popular, and I don't mean to be judgemental, but when you meet people who are really into nitrous, it's pretty clear that their cognitive ability has been severely harmed. The enjoyable effect is also very short-lasting. Just not worth it at all to me.
Drugs that I find are worth the risk, for me personally:
With all four of my favorites above, I wake up in the morning feeling like a million bucks, totally hydrated and almost always well rested. I'm no longer interested in doing drugs that make me feel any worse than that when I wake up the next morning, or drugs that empty my pocket more than a couple dollars. All of the above cost less than $10-15 for an entire day/night of fun. Now, part of that is because I've learned over the years that less is more when it comes to drugs. Anytime I use drugs, I'm taking 10%-50% of a typical dose.
Finally, alcohol is by far the most dangerous, devastating, and utterly worthless drug I have ever used. Having tried pretty much every mainstream hard drug under the sun (besides heroin/meth,) it is truly astonishing to me that alcohol is essentially entirely normalized in our society. It is, and should be considered, a dangerous hard drug. Yet, I got most deeply involved with alcohol through my white collar office job of all places.
It frustrates me a little to see people lump in PCP with meth and heroin. PCP is probably the most unfairly maligned drug out there, simply because of a few lurid and highly publicized instances of PCP causing violent behavior. For most people, its reputation is mainly as 'that drug that made a dude kill someone and eat their lungs'. But frankly, a lot of more socially acceptable drugs (including alcohol, benzos, amphetamine, and even psychedelics) can make people violent if they have severe mental health issues and are already prone to violence. Objectively, PCP is only marginally more dangerous that ketamine. It causes nowhere near the direct behavioral harms of methamphetamine, and is nowhere near as addictive as meth or heroin.
The main difference between PCP and ketamine is that ketamine is very sedating, where the higher a dose you take, the more difficult it becomes to coordinate your body movements. A ketamine dose high enough to make you kinda insane also renders you basically immobile. PCP on the other hand is not sedating, even slightly stimulating - so you have all the dissociating mental effects of ketamine, but you can still walk around and do things. There is definitely some additional risk to this.
But on the other hand, the actual mental effects of PCP do not intrinsically provoke violent behavior. It may distance you from your emotions and it also reduces bodily sensations (including pain), so if you were already going to act violently, it would make it slightly easier to do so. But you could make this argument for many other drugs that are perceived as less harmful (see list in first paragraph). I think for the vast majority of normal people, taking PCP would be very similar to ketamine, except instead of lying on the couch, you might go for a walk.
And like ketamine, PCP is not especially addictive. It's mildly euphoric, but also mentally kind of overwhelming - the kind of experience that makes you glad to be sober the next day. It's definitely not a drug you should be taking if you are bipolar or schizophrenic or anything, but that's also true of psychedelics, MDMA, etc. Also, in terms of physical health effects, it may actually be less harmful than ketamine - one of the main risks of ketamine use is that it causes bladder inflammation, and while theoretically PCP may have a similar effect, the dose is so much lower (10 mg vs 80 mg, let's say) that practically it's no issue unless you are really overdoing it.
You know what, as soon as I started reading your comment, I realized that I actually don't know much about PCP at all. When trying to decide why I put it on the list, all I could come up with is the fact that I've commonly heard it mentioned or joked about whenever someone aggressive has a drug-induced meltdown at a music festival. (With no proof of which drugs were even involved.) I don't like being the type of person who makes assumptions like that about drugs, positive or negative - I should be more discerning.
I also hear you on the comparison to ketamine. K is actually a drug that took me a while to warm up to, since for years I would just see people at music festivals use it in a foolish way, getting themselves into panicked K-holes in the middle of crowds at shows. I thought that was ridiculous and seemed like an awful way to party. It took me about a decade to try it and I realized that it's very simple to use it in smaller doses that don't dangerously incapacitate you mentally or physically. My initial perception of ketamine was completely different than my experience of actually using it.
I'm also very conscious of the risks that come with K, but I'm still glad you brought it up because it's worth mentioning to anyone who thinks K is completely harmless. (I take d-mannose and EGCg before and after using ketamine to reduce the risk of bladder inflammation. I've read enough horror stories on /r/ketamine...)
Anyway, appreciate you calling this out!
You seem similar to me on the four drugs of choice you would take. I've realized recently how fucking self-destructive and poisonous alcohol is to myself and everyone around me - but when I started to experience with LSD, Shrooms, MDMA, Ketamine, and Marijuana all the shitty during and after effects didn't exist anymore.
I could go out for a night, party, go home, still get great sleep somehow, then go push a new 1RM on deadlifts the next day. With my two "alternative" drugs of choice, marijuana and MDMA, the worse that happens is I laugh at everything and get hungry, or I get super happy, want to dance, and might get some dry mouth.
Meanwhile with alcohol so many people drink themselves to the point of puking, absolutely destroy their sleep patterns and health, and whenever I see a fight it's because of two dumb-asses who drank too much.
I hate that I currently live in a country with such regressive laws towards drugs, while at least my home country has legalized weed. I also hate that society doesn't view alcohol as the destructive drug it is, while for some reason looking down on people that use the ones that you listed.
My mantra was always "no party drugs and nothing that involves needles". I lived in a place for a long time where I was regularly exposed to the human results of stuff like meth and heroin. You don't want to even consider going down that road for a second.
Three classes:
Psychedelics. I have a family history of schizophrenia, bipolar and other disorders and allegedly psychedelics have a risk of causing the right connections to form to induce a latent condition.
Heroin/recreational opiates. I haven't taken any opiates yet and don't plan to. I've had injuries where I wish I got something stronger than 800mg ibuprofen but I survived. I once took enough kratom to push from stimulant to chilled-out opioid-type effect and it was uncomfortable anyway.
Stimulants: crack, coke, meth. I wouldn't be opposed to a prescription for an ADHD med, for example, but none of these seem like a good idea.
Weed, alcohol and caffeine are both enough and enough trouble for me.
I've tried most things at least once but datura scares the crap out of me. That sort of fucking with my reality is not appealing in the slightest.
(Edited for grammar)
Yeah i forgot to mention that but you're right, anything related to deliriants (datura, benadryl, etc) seems really painful and unpleasant, and especially considering that they are more likely to permenantly fuck up your brain. I find it really odd how some small communities on the internet seem to prefer it to other drugs. Like i get that many people get really desperate for drugs, but idek if mega-psychosis from allergy medicine abuse is even a 'high'.
Yeah, I've seen and heard, first and reliably second hand, how seriously datura fucks people up and leaves permanant psyche damage.
I'm incredibly lucky I grew up in London with easy access to a lot of very good quality, fun and surprisingly cheap, party and psychedelic drugs that I got to explore in my teens and early 20s and get that need out of my system.
In my late twenties I lived in NZ for a few years and it broke my heart to find out how prevelant and damaging meth was and how few other 'fun' drugs were available. I'd never even heard of datura, or met anyone who used meth, before I got to NZ.
By the time I left the country, at least 3/4 of the people I knew were functional meth users (who I'm pretty sure all had undiagnosed adhd. I was a chef and my partner was a sex worker, go figure) and we both knew a few people who had used datura in their teens and had issues with psychosis and permanently fucked up friends from it.
Unless these datura communities you've heard of are synthesizing it into more palatable compounds, I just can't conprehend how or why anyone would use it, let alone more than once.
Datura is especially dangerous compared to, say, Benadryl, because the dosage is totally uncontrolled. At least with Benadryl, you know are consuming X mg of diphenhydramine HCl, meaning you can look up other people's experiences at various dosages and titrate your dose to your desired level of risk and subjective effect. With datura, you may be aiming for a mild effect, only to find that the flower you ate is especially potent for some reason, launching you in a several-day-long journey of utter delirium and potentially landing you in the hospital.
I lost an estranged brother to opiates, and had two other siblings in and out of rehab for it. For those of us still here we are pretty grateful that time is passed (hopefully). Seeing first-hand what the opioid crisis has done to people really makes a stark impression on you. I will never touch the stuff - and have very strong feelings about pharma companies making an absolute killing from these drugs.
I have tried cocaine in the past but it never did it for me. Thankful for that too because I've seen friends lose themselves to that one too. Not die mind you, just become different.
I, myself, am partial to drinking but even that has reduced significantly in the last couple of weeks. I also cut my cannabis intake tenfold once my son was born. Not being able to be present for him or if an emergency happens terrifies me and keeps me sober more often than not these days.
Pretty much anything aside from caffeine, cannabis and (once in a blue moon) psilocybin.
Also took me a little too long to figure out that alcohol is literally just poison. Not sure why, since I've had more than enough family members ruined by it
I'm aware this goes against everyone in this thread but I would never even consider coming anywhere close to any drug and I'm a bit baffled everyone else is so willing.
I can't criticize and don't judge but why would you, being sober and under no pressure, out of your own will, choose to consume drugs? It just seems reckless when there's more fun, less dangerous things to do?
I don't think this goes against anyone, you're just being honest and curious. Sorry if your questions were meant rhetorically.
Well, the key is that there are not "more fun" things to do. The only things that will feel better than a good acid trip or a dose of heroin before tolerance really sets in are like...your child being born, or getting married. Not to say that the rest of life is worse than drugs. But they are not as fun. They're harder, less reliable, and usually feel just as risky as the drugs. Someone with severe social anxiety/agoraphobia might not go anywhere without constant tension, might not feel like they can face the world without something to block out the pain. Or they might have a completely healthy life, plan on climbing a mountain, but when their partner bails, decide that the risks of soloing make LSD the safer prospect. There are a mix of real and imagined reasons that the danger is overlooked.
But also, drugs can be a lot less dangerous than you may think. Most people here aren't taking opioids, heavy duty sedatives, and meth. They're talking about cannabis, psychedelics, and alcohol. Cannabis has its risks, but if used responsibly, the direct negative outcomes are pretty much on par with going to a bad party. You might feel uncomfortable, you might even work yourself up to a panic attack, but that's about as bad as it gets. Alcohol deserves a much worse reputation than it has, but it has that one anyway, and ignoring recent research that really condemns even "responsible drinking", it's very socially rewarded, quite fun, and can be tasty. Psychedelics have even fewer risks than cannabis, when you're honest about the statistics. Sure, you might have a psychotic break under the influence, but they tend to be very hard to abuse without being very aware of your own bad choices, remarkably few people who take them develop unhealthy relationships with them (despite stereotypes, most people who trip never talk about it outside their very close friend groups), and effectively cause no damage to the body in and of themselves. The risk is that you might spend 5+ hours in a state of terror, and if you're not being particularly reckless, that isn't a likely outcome.
Now, in terms of regular use of the more dangerous classes of drugs, or careless abuse of any of them, it does come down to the fact that life sucks for a lot of people. It's hard for me to not see why someone on the streets in the US would happily take the health risks of fentanyl for the ability to get through a winter night. If they've tried their hand at working, ended up destitute, and won't be given a modicum of dignity by any passersby, let alone offered a place to get cleaned up and find a job, what can they achieve that's fun at all without inviting police harassment? They can pretty much either, through sheer willpower, become a wandering sage who has transcended the need for humanity and pleasure, or they can run the risk of some chemical that lets them stop shivering and get a good night's rest for the time being. Most drug users aren't homeless, but most lives aren't so carefree that the diffuse risk of addiction outweighs the relief from a few drinks once you're off work.
Great comment, I just had a question about one of the things you said -- how does opioid usage help the unhomed survive a winter's night better?
Doesn't it make it more likely that they are unable notice their body temperature and thus increase their risk of death by hyptothermia?
Yes, but in cases on the borderline of hypothermia, which are the majority when you're bundled up in blankets on the side of the street (since they know better than to try and make it through winter anywhere colder than that), the options are to suffer through it and maybe look for a way out vs be slightly more likely to die and comfortable. It isn't helping them survive physiologically, only psychologically.
PS: This is despair that is the issue. Despair kills less reliably than what goes on the death certificate, but despair on top of those kinds of hardships all but guarantee their fatality. An opioid can be a momentary respite, and while it's never the best solution, it can help.
To experience new things in life.
I'll never be able to accurately describe a psilocybin trip to anyone who hasn't taken one. Weed similarly caused me to feel and view things differently. I'll never forget those experiences.
I've only done weed and mushrooms, I thought they were interesting and gave me different perspectives on life. I think that's cool. I also like that they're just plants and fungi growing in the environment and they cause such trippy effects. Nature is cool.
(I wouldn't ever, and am not interested in, trying hard drugs like crack, cocaine, heroine. Don't like man-made drugs.)
I could just add easily ask "why would someone, being sober and under no pressure, out of their own will, choose to bungee jump?" because I honestly have no idea why some people like or want to do that and I'm sure someone would respond to me the same way I answer about recreational drugs "to experience new things."
People are weird, we do weird things. It's cool.
Cocaine is "just" coca plant leaves, heroin is "just" poppies. There are lots of dangerous plants out there, especially fungi but also foxgloves, yew, &c. Even enough ground apple seeds can kill (cyanide).
I think it's disingenuous to claim cocaine is "just" coca plant leaves and heroin is "just" poppies when that's clearly not how those drugs are sold to the users of those drugs. Cocaine and heroin have extensive refinement processes to extract the compounds in those to get their expected recreational drug form.
Mushrooms as a drug is as simple as consuming a mushroom. Weed as a drug is just grind up and smoke the bud.
What is your point about foxgloves, yew, and apple seeds? Those are actually poisonous. Weed and magic mushrooms are not. Who is consuming foxgloves, yew, or apple seeds as recreational drugs?
So there are definitely drugs out there that merit this attitude. I've never had an opiate, not for recreational or medical uses, and I'd resist any prescription to them unless I'd snapped a leg (or maybe a kidney stone? I hear they're really bad). Heroine and related drugs are supposedly so bad for the human brain's reward function that they will ruin your life. I think the best things a person can do involve helping others, especially in a long-lasting impactful way. Breaking your sense of reward and punishment gets in the way of doing good for others.
Having taken psychedelics a few times I think it's really revelatory to how subjective the human experience really is. The human brain is not in one holy configuration. Everyone's brain is different, sometimes wildly so, and it's impressive that humans are able to be relatively in sync with each other through shared culture and beliefs. A psychedelic drug will alter how your brain works temporarily, sometimes permanently, and in predictable ways. If you live in Oregon you can even get a professional psychiatrist to guide you through a magic mushrooms trip - kind of the equivalent to getting a personal trainer before trying to learn dead-lifts the first time. You could have a mildly bad experience, but the worst cases are eliminated.
For example around 4 years ago I was depressed. I hadn't seen a professional about it but I performed a self-assessment using whatever guidelines a professional used and it said I was somewhere on the border between mildly and moderately depressed. Magic mushrooms are well known to help with depression - and other mild mental disorders - and I got the opportunity to try them. I already knew the general issues my brain had. I was experiencing a lack of self-confidence, a lack of emotional security. And I knew what people said about how a healthy person is supposed to think. But getting from A to B is really hard just knowing where B is. It's like trying to move a paralyzed limb by yelling at it. Magic mushrooms will re-organize your brain by having neurons outside of the core "highways" share the load. You are literally, physically, thinking differently. And the brain will continue to use neurons that it has used recently, that's how behavioral patterns form. So as I tripped I thought about my condition and where I wanted to be and had deeply revelatory thoughts that reprogrammed my brain to think in healthier ways. Put simply, drugs can be medicine. Mushrooms like these are pretty safe, especially if you have a professional watching over you (I did not but was in a safe and calm environment).
Drugs can also be fun. I think a person is free to make decisions that are net neutral or net slightly negative to themselves. Most of the time I do not like how alcohol makes me feel. But it's pretty safe to get mildly drunk and then wake up with a hangover. Maybe the hangover is worse than the euphoria of being drunk but you can do that if you want. The same goes for cannabis. It can make you anxious but it will simultaneously amplify any hedonistic pleasures you can experience sober. There's also a small weed "hangover".
You are a brain. You might as well shake things up once in a while.
I won't do most things. I've tried cannabis and I occasionally drink an alcoholic beverage. Anything else is RX. And I don't even like opiates enough when they've been prescribed to me to want them at other times. (Codeine or Vicodin cough syrup have saved me from hacking up my abs through my trachea but that's the extent of it)
I have zero desire to get high or be drunk or whatever.
Heroin because it's too good and I wouldn't be able to handle it.
Cocaine because I'm enough of an asshole already.
Psychedelics because I don't wanna sound like a cultist.
Okay, I might take a psychedelic once under supervision. But I wouldn't go around preaching about it. I would try to avoid it at least. That's so lame.
(In reality, none, not even alcohol. I have way too many diagnoses for my psychiatrist to allow me)
I’m pretty well past my experimentation with drugs years. At this point, I don’t think I’d really do anything that wasn’t prescribed to me besides caffeine and alcohol. I hate weed, and basically every other drug is just too much of an ordeal for me. There are much more interesting things I’d rather do with my time.
Pretty much all of them, for a variety of reasons.
Probably chief among them is that I seem to be fairly drug-resistant overall. Salvia, for instance, has a reputation of taking you on an uncontrollable psychodelic high. I've taken some supposedly high doses of it and it just made me a bit loopy for a very short time. A little while back I did something particularly reckless and tried a pot gummy for the first time. I was told to be really careful and perhaps only eat a little bit because of it. But the 10mg gummy I ate didn't really do much for me; I was in a good mood but that may have just been because I was on a liesure trip.
The other big reason is that my family has a history of psychological issues that I'm told that psychodelic drugs are likely to trigger. That's why I described taking that edible as reckless. The salvia was before I had heard of it. I imagine that I'm probably safe, but I'd rather not take the risk. There are times in my life when it seemed appealing to take heroin, especially because I suffered greatly with depression, but the stories I have heard about how bad addiction was - especially how bad recovery from it was - really scared me away from it.
I also just don't think they're really necessary. Altered states of mind can be achieved without drugs, and I've managed to do so several times when I was younger. They really aren't that great, and the prospect of not being able to control it is unnerving. I already have a pretty flexible mind as it is, and there are even people who have called me a hippie or guru in the past.
I love the introspection on most of these comments. I think it's great that if you feel predisposed to an altered state being a negative influence on your genes, you avoid it. That's strength. Some folks here have described the opposite, and I will say my addiction to cannabis hits that right on the head.
I chased that cannabis dragon. As much as it "isn't physically addicting," it can make you think you really need it to function. And after 10+ years of smoking thru every major event of my 20s, and not hardly being able to remember any of it, I really feel a piece of myself missing.
Also you grieve it! When I cut back (I still am not off the stuff) I grew so fucking depressed cause I just wanted to be stoned all the time. When you live on a cloud, the ground just feels cold, at first.
I will add though that mushrooms and LSD were game changers for me.
The altered states for these two had more beneficial aspects than I ever expected. The dissolving of social boundaries and the subsequent rebuilding of your status quo in the wake of an ego death should be researched before making any hard-line statements of avoidance. I have come out of trips realizing things about myself that i never would have otherwise. I have come out of trips realizing I actually had the strength to fight addiction. I have come out of trips realizing that we're all one love, and that my behavior needs changing.
As they put it in The Midnight Gospel, "there's no such thing as a bad drug; it's the circumstances!"
Idk. Possibly heroin? But really that's "I will never try heroin unless I somehow find a completely reliable source of medical grade heroin in a form that does not require me to inject because I don't know how to do that and don't want someone else controlling the dose and also happen to be in the mood to put up with puking (because H will 100% make you puke, I've babysat people doing it. So much puke.) because I hate puking. The word puke has stopped making sense." But I'm not really motivated to even try doing that, if finding 100%-definitely-not-fentanyl-or-rat-poison heroin is even possible anymore. Or opium, is it possible to find old school opium? I've tried prescription opiates on several occasions and it's a nice floaty feeling, but I've never taken a high dose because of the aforementioned puking. I guess I probably won't try crack, because I've found coke to be fairly boring and I don't see how crack would be an improvement.
I've always been open to trying drugs, either because they sound like a good time or because I want to know what other people are experiencing that attracts them to it. I've only ever been addicted to alcohol (got over the addiction a while back and only drink on special occasions now) and nicotine (still struggling with this one). Other drugs have been various levels of entertaining, but I seem to have a very sensitive stomach so many of them there's no point in doing them more than once or twice for the experience unless I'm really in the mood to hang out in a bathroom. Even marijuana makes me feel sick, along with other unpleasant side effects. Meth was actually one drug I didn't seem to have any bad side effects from, that was just a real fun night (this may have something to do with my ADHD). But idk how to get more and I'm not motivated to try, so it'll probably never happen again. I'm not really in a stage of my life where random-drug parties happen anymore.
SSRIs.
Add antipsychotics to that. That shit is almost a modern day lobotomy.
Hopefully theres more research and legalization efforts for medical psychedelics, MDMA, ketamine, etc. They can be harmful but under most circumstances it seems that they could be a lot more helpful than typical mental illness treatement.
"Drugs" is a very broad topic. Smoking weed is very different than smoking salvia. Both are very different than taking alprazolam. All three are very different than downing a bottle of Benadryl. Even green tea has physiological and psychoactive effects. Most people who say they would abstain from drugs would still take OTC medication as intended or drink coffee without considering that as "doing drugs", and I've also met people who don't consider weed or mescaline to be drugs as they are naturally occurring in plants. So what is and is not a drug is already open to interpretation on top of the vastly different cultural views that color the topic.
[Slight tangent, but I once knew a Muslim guy who was adamant that he would never try bacon because it was haram but was very interested in trying MDMA.]
Which is all to say, even for being an inherently subjective question, it's hard to have a conversation about it in an open forum with strangers who may be operating with drastically different assumptions, experiences, and knowledge.
The reason I lead with all of that is because there are a lot of different drugs that I wouldn't try, but there's a lot of different reasons for them.
At this point in my life, I probably wouldn't try most hallucinogens because I don't want to be high for that long and don't feel like I can arrange a good set and setting to enjoy the experience. It still sounds fun in theory and I might consider it under perfect circumstances, but I just don't see that realistically happening.
I would never try to get high off of nutmeg or dextromethorphan or most other ways people try to experience getting high when they can't get their hands on better drugs because that just sounds dumb and I have better options for getting high if I wanted. Research chemicals are included in that list.
I would never try fentanyl because the risk of OD is too high. I wouldn't try any opiate if I wasn't 100% certain it came from a pharmacy because of the risk of it being cut with fentanyl. I've also had Tramadol and Vicodin (medicinally) but the experience didn't make me interested in trying opiates recreationally.
I have no interest in trying meth or really most other stimulants because I already take amphetamines for ADHD and don't see any recreational benefits to them. I don't really see how anyone would take them recreationally, but I guess having ADHD just means I react differently to them.
I don't think I'm brave enough to try salvia or datura. Trip reports are fun to read, but that sounds like actual, literal Hell to go through. Especially datura given the duration, but from what I've read it sounds like salvia screws with your perception of time, so while it's short acting it still feels like an eternity.
Otherwise there's not a lot else that comes to mind. I'd try coke in a heartbeat given the chance, but I doubt the opportunity will come up now that I'm out of my 20's. I probably sound like a drug fiend, but honestly most of what I enjoy or am interested in is either too hard to come by or else drug tested by my employer, so I live a drug-free life aside from what's managed by my doctor.
Any ED drug. For me when it stops working, it stops working. I don’t get the “need,” but as with most things in life, whatever floats your boat.
Really I've tried the only ones I'm interested. I include alcohol and caffeine as drugs. I think we do a disservice not including them when discussing drugs. They carry as much risk (or more) as anything else on this list.
Some I'm curious in but not enough to find methods to acquire. Not even sure I would accept depending on setting.
Anything else: No. Everything else carries more risk than I am comfortable with or the "high" provided isn't something I'm interested in.
Any drugs. Even just the thought of consuming a mind-altering substance can give me a panic attack.
Ironically some of them could rapidly heal your anxiety.
Also - sorry about the panic attacks. I’ve had them myself. Feels like you’re about to die :(
I have an intense fear of having something weird inside of my body (eg I'm really scared of parasites or microplastic or the fact that there is a thing called "lactic acid" in my muscles) and also a strong fear of not controlling myself (mostly of being manipulated, but as a child my biggest fear was hypnosis). It just so happens that drugs and alcohol lie on the intersection of those two things that I'm scared of.
Genuinely not wanting to ever use drugs is a very good trait itself, but getting panic attacks from thinking about using them seems really fucking horrible and i hope that that can be addressed somehow. Especially considering how common place things like drinking and medicines which would otherwise be considered narcotics.
Thanks. I'm a HS student, so yeah, I do have to deal with drinking people pretty often. But I am getting better at it. A few years ago I went to my friend's house with a bunch of other friends and they all started drinking, and I got an actual panic attack from it to the point where I had trouble breathing and I had to leave. Nowadays I still feel intense physical discomfort in a company of drinking/smoking people, but it luckily doesn't get that bad anymore.
Through high school and college I didn’t drink. I got really tired of people trying to pressure me into it every time it happened, so I just started lying and said “I can’t, it interferes with my medication” whenever someone was trying to push me into it. I originally tried “I don’t drink” but that was often interpreted as something to be challenged or me being uptight or judgmental.
Switching over to the line about medication made my social life so much easier. The line wasn’t true, of course, but it politely stopped the pressure to drink every single time. Even completely sloshed people who were well past the point of active listening would genuinely hear it and understand it, and nobody ever gave me any flack for it. If peer pressure is part of what triggers your anxiety, then I cannot recommend lying like this enough.
Thanks for advice, but no, it's definitely not peer pressure for me - I'm lucky to have friends that don't pressure me into drinking anything. I explained the reasons behind my anxiety in a neighboring comment ITT
https://tildes.net/~talk/1caz/whats_a_drug_that_you_would_never_try#comment-b9zz
Lots of D.a.r.e. quality fear mongering in this thread. Especially you people hating on weed.
Weed can be a net negative when used in excess. I’ve experienced that personally.
Yeah that's literally everything. You drink too much water it will kill you. You eat too many hamburgers it will kill you. But you know what has no deaths under its belt for using too much? Weed.
Now if it's not your thing, or you don't enjoy it for whatever reason there's no reason to become a D.A.R.E. officer and try to scare people away from it. It's not the 70s.
Poison