Today, let's visit the weird, wacky, and horrible world of stimulants. Now, I am fairly sure that most of us use one stimulant, maybe two. I am, of course, talking about caffeine and nicotine. These, unless you go completely nuts using them, are relatively mild and pretty darn effective. But, there are others.
Speed is the generally used name for a group of powerful stimulants: Benzedrine, Dexedrine, Ritalin, Adderall, Amphetamine Sulfate, Methedrine, and a few variants. They all work about the same. Back in the days of my mis-spent youth, we took speed in pill form. Yes, there are medical uses for these drugs. Treatment of narcolepsy is one, and, at that time, they were given as appetite suppressants. Prescriptions were easy to get and there was huge black market trade. Remember, not just us young 'hippies' took them. Truck drivers, cab drivers, folks working odd shifts, and students needing to cram for exams all sought speed. The difference: those folks needed them for work; we just took them to get high. And boy, did they work. When they hit, if you take enough, you feel like a combination of Batman, Superman, and The Flash. The rush of power and pleasure is amazing. Usually, that was about all we did, sit and rush and, in fact, that is about all you could do when you took enough to get good and high, just rush and talk and, get higher. Yeah, when speeding, we smoked a lot of weed, which was okay until you figured out how much you were spending. Then, we switched to beer. Much cheaper and it really went good with speed. It made you feel like King of the World. Trust me, there is almost nothing as dangerous, obnoxious, and useless as an energetic drunk. You had fun, those around you, did not.
But, all of that aside, inevitably, you start coming down, and that is a nightmare. You feel exhausted, your muscles ache from the tension speed causes, you are jittery, have a headache, your sinuses start pouring out snot, your mind is muddled, you cannot quite sleep, and those are the milder issues. If you have been up long enough, you will be extremely paranoid, possibly you will hallucinate, your pulse will range from a fast pounding beat to barely existing, and, listen up guys - you will be very impotent, for a while. Then, to make things worse, your brain, which is not always your best friend, will start screaming at you, "Hey, dummy, you can stop all this by doing some more, I want more," and a whole cycle of destructive and potentially terminal behavior begins.
Cocaine is similar, but more insidious. The rush is sweeter and the wired feeling is not as intense. It is, in ways, an even dumber drug to do. At least with speed, a dose lasts a long while. The coke high fades quickly and it is easy to find yourself, very quickly, shoveling the stuff up your nose at a frantic rate. I never smoked the stuff but, I am told, that the high is more intense and shorter lived and, as a result, far more addictive. The long term results of coke use is about the same as speed use, except it costs a lot more and you will go broke faster.
How wide spread is the use of speed and coke? Of coke, I honestly am not sure. Statistically, it is still significant, or so the government says, but I do not trust government statistics and I do not travel in the circle of coke users. Of speed, I am more sure. It is still a horrible problem and probably will not abate for awhile. The pills we took, gave way to crystal, crank, whatever you want to call it, and that crap is cheap and easy to make.
Why do people put themselves through such agony? Short answer, the rush, that feeling that you are brilliant, powerful, filled with super human energy. The long answer is way more complicated, and, as I will attempt to answer that at the end of this series.
One last note which I will take up when I discuss psychiatric drugs: Keep in mind the names Ritalin and Adderall that I mentioned above. They are powerful stimulants that are often given to kids for ADD, and I will have a lot to say about that.
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