Depending on the drug, and is usually a bit longer than that. Meth users usually take more like three years to recover. All users undergo what is called PAWS: Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome. It is generally recognized to cause the most trouble around three months, six months, one year, two years, and any holidays/events. Symptoms include the urge to use even if the person is dedicated to sobriety, feeling like your high/drunk, shaking, sweating, dry mouth, nervousness, etc.
Initial withdrawal symptoms for most drugs are surprisingly similar, regardless of type. Usually include depression, extreme emotional outbursts, shaking, sweating, hot/cold flashes, seizures, and in the elderly/very young/unhealthy or in extreme cases, death. Alcohol is special in that it can cause delirium tremens. Dear fucking god, delirium tremens.
I can also accurately describe the effects of pretty much any drug under the sun, as well as provide accounts of my experiences with them, and name the effects I felt or didn't feel. I can tell you that marijuana has as much tar in one joint as three packs of cigarettes, and that marijuana doesn't have withdrawal symptoms because it stays in your system for so long, thus spreading the symptoms out over a month instead of just a week or two. I can tell you that cocaine gives you delusions of granduer, and LSD makes all your thoughts seem significant.
I can tell you all this because I researched it all before I started using. I didn't get sucked into using by something outside my control. I willingly and knowingly sought it out, after I found out all I could about it. I'm not like most addicts. Most addicts subsist on pipe dreams and fallacious thoughts about their drugs. I know the truth. Yeah, that shit kills me and rots my teeth and makes me ugly and stupid. This shit fries my brain. That will give me COPD and diabetes.
For example:
Marijuana isn't awesome and isn't safe. I've had more 'near-death' experiences with it than anything else. See, the problem with cheap weed is that the way they brick it up for easy smuggling, they take away the vast majority of its potency. Many people solve this problem in an ingenious way.
Smoking formaldehyde gets you very, very high. It also kills you very, very fast. So, when you brick the weed, you put a good amount of formaldehyde into the water you're using, and the weed gets the people who buy it real high, and you can smuggle it easier. Win win, right?
Yeah, not so much. See, someone like me comes along and smokes this marijuana. And the formaldehyde. The formaldehyde does nasty, cruel things to your brain. For example, I once passed out, then woke up an instant later. Except I couldn't remember
anything. And not like, 'What's today? Where are my keys?' can't remember. Like, 'who the fuck am I? Where am I?
What am I? Who are these smiling creatures around me?' can't remember.
You make a very good point, and I've only been sober nine months, so it is entirely possible my judgement is still affected. But to counterpoint this, most addicts just shift their addiction to something else. Coffee, cigarettes, sex, gambling, AA meetings, whatever. I don't. I have nothing I do right now that is addicting. Except maybe Bay12, that's my only concession to personal pleasure. So, I may have shifted my addiction to Bay12, but I'm still less prone to addictive activities than even the judge watching me, so you know.
Just a thought.
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Topic: Things that made you RRRRRRAAAAGGGGEEEE today: Trust-o-nomics Edition (Read 3780157 times)