Crystal meth: coming to a town near you-Life & Style-Health-TimesOnline
It has been an epidemic in America and a major problem in many other parts of the world. Now it may be our turn to be hit by the world’s most addictive drug
Except, well, you know, meth isn’t physically addictive at all.
crystal meth effects by drug effects.com
As far as we know, it is not physically addictive, although many have quickly developed a very strong psychological and damaging dependence for the drug.
But of course in our kinder, more compassionate, nanny-nah-nah world, anything that requires willpower to defeat is an “unbreakable addiction.”
And before you blather to me that I don’t know anything about the horribly addictive propeties of meth, it was my dope of choice for several years in the early seventies. I don’t recommend it, but calling it the “world’s most addictive drug” is the sort of hyperbolic bullshit that made the anti-pot movement of the fifties such a laughingstock.
It’s a hell of a lot easier to quit meth than either booze or tobacco. I know. I’ve done all three.
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The main point you’ve made to me is you’re stronger than a whole lot of other people. I was also into drugs tho not meth, for many years. Pot was more difficult for me to stop than cigarettes.
I agree about the nanny-nah-nah world but, my point is… sometimes individual experience has to be recognized as such.
Count your blessings.
Bill Quick: the Hunter S. Thompson of Libertarian / Conservative bloggerhood. If Hunter S. Thompson were sober. And not dead.
And your response to the fact that meth isn’t physically addictive, Steevo, nor is pot, while nicotine and alcohol actually, you know, are?
Count your brain cells.
Have I told you my Hunter Thompson story yet, Al? I did actually meet the guy a couple of times, and both times drugs were involved.
Who said meth is not physically addictive? It is an amphetamine, and those are addictive. You smoke it, that makes the effects stronger and faster, that makes it more addictive!
For most people, alcohol and tobacco are the most difficult to stop, in part because of their easy access in our culture. Well, that and nicotine’s inherent addictiveness to most people. But there is always an addiction of the moment that is called the ultimate addiction in order to make more money in fighting the ultimate addiction. Money to be made on both sides of most issues, porno, child abuse, addictions, you name it.
I appreciate your comments, but I am most happy about your sobriety. Keep it up.
By the way, this ad was on your site. I swear!
Trey
Crystal meth
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I met Thompson once in the bar at the Hotel Jerome in Aspen. When I told him I had been born in Vegas, he thought for a moment and said: “Then the rest of the world must seem very strange to you.”
I didn’t realize that was the cause.
They both may be psychologically habituating, but they are not physically addictive. And you simply announcing to the contrary doesn’t make it so. Do a little research on your own, and at least get your facts straight.
I can confirm the non-addictiveness of meth.
I went on a three year meth binge in the early nineties. When I finally made the decision to quit abusing it, I just quit using it. No physical discomfort from quitting at all.
Why is physical addiction the only kind of addiction we’re allowed to consider? Heck we were taught the difference between physical and psychological addiction back in my elementary school days, and even the distinction between addiction and (medical) dependancy.
So the question really is how does one measure “how” addictive a drug is? I think it’s right to give reasonable weight to both forms of addiction.
eMedicine - Amphetamine-Related Psychiatric Disorders : Article by Michael Larson, DO
Hmmm, this doc seems to define physically addictive as causing withdrawal illness. Not everyone defines it that way. And you are correct, my statement does not make it so. The statement of hundreds of people who treat addicts does!
Trey
Surely a little apometh will straighten us all out.
I didn’t say it was, I made the point that psychological habituation is a far different animal than physical addiction.
You may be habituated to ice cream or meth, but you are addicted to nicotine and heroin. Physical addictions are far harder to break than psychological habituations, although the do-gooder industry would have you believe otherwise.
You’re dead on with that assessment. Tobacco and booze are FAR more difficult to quit than meth. In my experience, tobacco is far and away the most difficult to quit. Quitting heroin is like having a bad flu for a couple of weeks, quitting smokes is like losing a loved one.
I can’t speak to meth - but back during the hippie era, I was using both pot and tobacco. Which was a great help, because when I quit tobacco, I had pot to keep me from endless yearning over something smoky to put in my lungs.
Then, one day, I noticed I hadn’t had any pot for several weeks. If it takes you several weeks to notice, you aren’t addicted.
Your mileage may vary. I suspect all of us are individually wired for addiction to certain substances or activities. But no two of us are wired the same. The serene (and occasionally sanctimonious) ones are those whose destined addiction has not yet been discovered - like all the potential crack addicts in the centuries before amphetamines were discovered.
Physical addictions are far harder to break than psychological habituations
By what measure? At least with many physical addictions there are methods for relieving the withdrawal symptoms.
I do ask this question honestly. The fact that it might have been easier for you is wonderful but not convincing in itself. I would genuinely appreciate pointers to studies that attempt to formalize the notion of “degrees” of addiction and rank various substances thereof.
As a layman one measure that I might find convincing is the number of people who are addicted within, say, 6 months of their initial use of the drug. By that measure, one of the commenters on the story itself claims that crack cocaine is more addictive.
Or those few of us that have the combination of luck and good sense to intentionally avoid things that other otherwise bright compatriots seemed incapable of controlling.
I quit alcohol after several years of continuous abuse. I found the psychological aspects of the addiction far more difficult to overcome than the physical aspects. After a week or two of abstinence, I had no physical problems, but the psychological problems lingered for years afterward and overcoming them required some fundamental lifestyle changes.
“Physical addictions are far harder to break than psychological habituations”
On this I’d have to disagree. When quitting something like heroin or barbiturates there is a very clear progression of symptoms. When the withdrawal is over, it is physically over. Then the psychological aspect of the addiction comes into play and that’s the really tricky bit. I’ve known lots of people who were strong enough to be really good at kicking heroin. The problem is that they got plenty of practice because they were also good at getting back on it after the physical addiction was kicked.
I have post-surgical adhesions, thank God not serious in my case, but I know others who take large doses of narcotics to function at all. The problem with adhesions is that you can go in and cut them surgically, but the surgery causes more adhesions. (The mascot for adhesions should be the hydra!)
I know maybe a dozen people personally who have been on high doses of morphine or oxycontin, then had surgery which relieved their adhesion pain for a few months or maybe a few years. So they stopped the narcotics cold turkey and, in all but one of these cases, noticed no effects beyond the relief of the miserable constipation which comes from the narcotics. Completely unscientific, but my personal anecdotal evidence is that 90% of the time morphine & oxycontin cesastion doesn’t cause withdrawl either. Does that make them “not physically addicting” too?
“Physical addictions are far harder to break than psychological habituations”
Is a severe headache a physical or a psychological effect? I ask because if I skip my strong morning coffee, I inevitably get a headache, often a severe migraine. And so I wonder if I am, technically speaking, physically or psychologically addicted to caffeine.
I don’t know if I can say it’s harder for me to quit coffee than it was cigarettes. Paraphrasing Twain, I could say it’s easy to quit coffee, I’ve done it dozens of times. And I am in fact off cigarettes, but still drinking coffee. I think the fact that cigarettes kill you, while coffee makes you more wakeful, explains my varying motivation, but maybe coffee is just more addictive.
My point? Addiction, human responses, and the differences between drugs are all too complex to make a blanket statement about what’s harder to quit based on the at least somewhat subjective terms physical and psychological addiction.
Oddly enough, narcotics administered in controlled dosages for pain seem to be a special case.
Hospice: Prescription Drugs
I think it is key to point out that it is very likely that physical addiction also coincides with psychological addiction. (I could be wrong here I guess, but it is hard to imagine being physically addicted to something but not being psychologically habituated to its use.)
So that means that if you want to quit smoking pot you have to get over the psychological hurdle of not being able to relax, and enjoy a few bong loads or roll up a joing. But in the end that is all you have to deal with.
If you want to quit smoking cigarettes you have to deal with not taking your daily smoke breaks IN ADDITION to the physical symptoms of withdrawl.
Therefore Phsycially addicting drugs are worse that ones that are only psychological, because the recoveree must deal with more than one type of addiction.
Some psychological addictions may be very very bad for some people but I bet that withdrawl would make that situation much much worse in every case.
Indeed I think there is a term called “pseudoaddiction”, which refers to the addiction-like behavior exhibited by some pain medication patients when their drugs are withheld. What distinguishes it from true addiction is that the behaviors go away when the pain is relieved in some other way.
Therefore Phsycially addicting drugs are worse that ones that are only psychological, because the recoveree must deal with more than one type of addiction.
This is way too simplistic. Consider: drug A is not physically addictive but severely psychologically addictive; drug B is physically addictive but only mildly addictive psychologically. Which is worse?
Add to this the possibility that some physical withdrawal symptoms can be relieved medically, and the situation is more complicated…
Brilliant. When you are proven to be dead wrong, just change the definition. “This doc” is hardly a voice in the wilderness; he is in synch with virtually every other “doc” as well.
Not everyone defines the earth as a spheroid, either, but those that don’t are either wearing bones through their noses or seriously deranged.
Ahh, the wonderful voice of the twelve-step folks, who have their own addiction, which is to their dogma. I would assume that there are more and “hundreds” of folks who treat addicts; what do they say?
One leading physician who treats substance abuse, and was for ten years the Chief of Staff for New York’s leading pyschiatric hispital (Payne Whitney Clinic), draws very clear distinctions between chemical dependencies, which induce changes in the physiological operation of the brain and body, and so-called psychological dependencies, which do not.
He has little time for those who substituite one dependcy for another.
Theodore Dalrymple had an interesting article for the Manhattan Institute on the same topic:
http://tinyurl.com/o3t5h
Laxatives (the drug type like Ex-Lax, not fiber) are physically addicting, but not generally psychologically addicting, as I understand it. Anyone can go on laxatives for a month, and then suddenly stop, and be constipated as a withdrawal symptom, even if he was never constipated before taking laxatives. This is a physical addiction, is it not? And yet this “addiction” is trivial compared to the psychological addiction of cocaine, isn’t it?
This is quite a bit of controversy about this. There are many different theories as to why this might be true, but nobody really knows why — here are some samples:
1) Perhaps only some small subset of humans is physically capable of becoming addicted to narcotics. Since avoiding withdrawl and avoiding severe pain are the only reason that any sane person would put up with the nasty side effects of narcotic use, we only have these two subsets of people taking narcotics. It is rare for chronic pain to be relieved, so the only people we see trying to quit are the ones whose only reason to take the drugs is that they will suffer withdrawl if they stop. So they are not exactly a random sample.
2) The physiological response to pain alters body chemistry in all different ways. Perhaps the neurotransmitters involved in pain interfere with the physiological process of addiction — a “protective” effect, if you will.
3) People who suffer chronic pain are usually chronically untreated and undertreated. Perhaps they suffer the full brunt of withdrawl symptoms, but because of their history of surviving severe unremitting agony, they laugh at withdrawl symptoms and find them beneath notice.
This is an excellent point as well. We have even mapped some of these differences with objective tests — go google on “2D6 gene enzyme” for example. I know personally that codeine has no effect on me, that ibuprophen has no pain-relieving effect on me, and my one experience with morphine is that I will commit suicide rather than allow that to be put into my body again. Some google research tells me that I am likely also to have problems taking Prozac, Paxil, tamifoxin, Claritin, or propranolol, too (drugs I have never had reason to take). Just because 90% or 95% or 99.99999% of people react in a certain way to a drug doesn’t mean that you will react that way.
beloml, thanks. Very interesting article.
By a substantial margin, alcohol is the most physically addicting stuff out there. Whe you bring a drunk into the ER, at times you have to literally put alcohol in his IV just to keep him alive because of the physical biochemical changes it wreaks.
Porn is psychologically compelling too for many people, but that doesn’t mean that 1) you get sick if deprived or 2) you don’t sort of crave it when withdrawn. Heck, you get headaches from missing your daily shot of coffee (caffeine)- that actually is physically adicting to a limited degree.
There is a difference between psychological dependence and addiction, and the latter word is used altogether too often in the nanny state.
“And your response to the fact that meth isn’t physically addictive, Steevo, nor is pot, while nicotine and alcohol actually, you know, are?
“Count your brain cells.”
Bill you’re a presumptive idiot. You missed my point entirely.
I was a meth user a little over a decade ago, and while I was able to kick the habit (I got scared out of it by what it was doing to me) I’ve seen far too many who couldn’t kick to dismiss it as non-addictive. And I’ve seen too many lives and families ripped apart to dismiss it as being relatively innocuous. I’ve had trouble quitting smoking, but meth is the most frightening drug I’ve ever been around.
Like blaming your speech impediment on those trying to decipher it.
It was much easier for me to give up the illegal drugs than the legal ones mostly due to availability issues.
A response reduced to nothing paradise.
A non-addictive drug was more difficult to quit for me than an addictive drug. The opposite experience of Bill’s. My point as was stated: it is very subjective. He is very presumptive implying since he did it, its now fact: its easier than tobacco and alcohol. The biggest fact in his statement is he thinks he knows better than a whole bunch of people who apparently just don’t get it.
I’ve seen too many families ripped apart by SUV’s to scoff at America’s addiction to oil. This grinding scourge that breaks the backs of the working class and clouds-out the sunshine so the rainbows can’t come throu…
Oh. Sorry. I was transported there for a minute.
I find this all very interesting. Having made the choice early in my teens to NOT even go there, I have been fortunate to not have had to experience any of this for myself (except caffeine…I did have to give that pretty much UP a few years ago, and Diet Coke lost a good customer). Substance abuse is a huge problem in my family…it doesn’t just run in my family, it gallops. Even at a young age I looked at that and decided I didn’t even want to risk being caught up in that cycle–physical or psychological, didn’t matter–I just didn’t (and still don’t) want to even find out if it is a problem for me. Cowardice is my middle name, I suppose.
I have two brothers whose lives (and the lives of some of their children) have been positively destroyed by drugs, primarily meth. My highest respect to you who have kicked it, or any other addictive habit. Even when it’s “easy,” it ain’t easy.
Bill, a question from someone who’s completely ignorant of such things –
Is crystal meth the same thing as the speed we had in the 70’s? I thought they were related but different forms, like crack and cocaine.
I addicted to Afrin nose spray right now, but I’m going cold turkey next week.
Again,. a font of gibberish is followed by [you] “just don’t get it.” Who could? What the hell is “it’s?” Only you know.
Maybe if you could express yourself in simple declarative sentences, make your point, defend it cogently, we would get it. At present, you are a monkey screeching in the trees. This may account for your frustration,and your all-too-apparent neurosis.
Steevo’s points have been quite clear. So either nemo is an idiot or he’s high.
Richard, thanks for an intelligent question. Back in the sixties and seventies, there were basically three forms of “uppers,” all of them often called “speed” interchangeably. Benzedrine and dexedrine were milder forms of amphetamine, often prescribed as “diet pills” by unscrupulous diet doctors.
I well remember going to one hack in Denver with a pal of mine. His waiting room was filled with sniffling, twitching, strung out speed freaks. My “appointment consisted of me entering his exam room. He stuck a stethoscope to my chest, went hmm, mmm, and then said, “Well, you could stand to lose ten pounds or so.” At the time I was 5′10″ tall, and weighed about 130 pounds.
He then gave me a prescription for 100 5mg tabs of Benzedrine (greenies, as I recall) and 200 time release caps of Dexedrine. (I think those were Xmas Trees, but I could be wrong. It’s been a while). Total cost to fill the scrip: $15. (Ah, the good old days - pharmaceutical speed at those prices!)
Later on, somebody asked me if I wanted to “get cranked.”
I’d vaguely heard of it. “Some kind of speed, right?” I said.
“Best shit you’ve ever had,” he told me. “Methamphetamine hydrochloride.”
It was. Later, it was commonly called “crystal,” or just, “meth.”
The nomenclature changes, but today’s “ice,” is nothing more than the meth and crystal from forty years ago.
The subject of MDMA (which was also around at the time, and which I also developed a fondness for), is for a different thread. Today they call it X, or Ecstasy. It resulted in the longest word I ever employed in everyday usage for a while, Methylenedioxymethamphetamine.
Steevo is a solipsistic dumbass. I don’t debate with such, I just smack them on the snout and move on.
Both, actually. I often have trouble getting my crack pipe lit because of the fount of drool that spouts from my lips.
You are very perceptive. No wonder you understand Steevo. Handicapped by my needs for clarity and definite nouns, I have trouble deciphering the code you two share.
I once worked for a year at Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Harvard’s psychiatric teaching hospital. Often I watched two people conducting a conversation that to them seemed quite lucid. But at night, I went home.
You clearly are both predisposed to disagree with anything he says. That’s your problem. As someone new to the discussion I had no such predisposition; so his point that Bill’s personal experience doesn’t necessary extrapolate to the population at large was clear and obvious. And correct.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
And stated with no cites, no backup, nothing at all to support his views except…that you agree with him.
Sorry, but outside the World of Wishful Thinking, that doesn’t quite cut it. It certainly doesn’t here at Daily Pundit.
And neither of you are intellectually honest (or rigorous) enough to address my original point: that calling a psychologically habituating drug like meth “the world’s most addictive drug,” when it is not physically addictive at all, is hyperbolic bullshit. But, of course, if you challenged that, then you’d really expose yourself as babbling nitwits. Instead, you squirt crap to the effect that your “addiction” to peanut butter is far worse than anybody else’s physical addiction to, say, booze (where people can actually die in withdrawal), and anyway, man, why, it’s all relative, man, and you just don’t get it.
Unsupported, sophomoric, feel-good twaddle, not even worth your own time, let alone ours.
Quack-quack-quack-quack! We have a winner! The magic word in today’s You Bet Your Pundit was “Echo Chamber”.
Bill, you insensitive clod, don’t you know that some people can die from eating peanut products? Or from just breathing peanut vapours? Or even from seeing the word “peanut” in print? Don’t you care about the children? Man, you just don’t get it.
And stated with no cites, no backup, nothing at all to support his views except…
Wait, you mean like your post? That’s funny, the only link I see in your post is… the articule you’re ridiculing.
But if you think I need citations to establish the fact that your personal experience amounts to nothing more than anecdotal evidence… well, to quote myself… that’s your problem.
And neither of you are intellectually honest (or rigorous) enough to address my original point: that calling a psychologically habituating drug like meth “the world’s most addictive drug,” when it is not physically addictive at all, is hyperbolic bullshit.
OK, fine, I’ll take the hit on rigor. So let’s go to it. Where is your evidence—cited, professional, peer-reviewed—hat establishes the relative addictiveness of various drugs? Where is your evidence that drugs that are not physically addictive are necessarily more “addictive” than that are only psychologically addictive? Pooh-pooh psychological addiction all you want, but after detoxification it’s all that’s left to hang blame on when someone relapses.
So sorry, you’ll have to excuse me if I lacked rigor in my responses. I was only following the leader.
In fact, let me be clear: the only reason I joined the discussion was your poor argumentation. I am entirely willing to believe that crystal meth is not, as the article suggests, the “most addictive drug”. When I said I was asking honestly, that I’d like to see some real information to support your claim, I meant it. This is interesing to me, as someone who really hasn’t ever been predisposed to drug addiction.
But to simply suggest that “meth isn’t physically addictive, end of story” isn’t remotely a complete refutation. Nor is your own personal experience. So I joined the discussion to challenge that. Your apparent insistence on replacing the standard term “psychological addiction” with “psychological habituation” further suggested an avoidance of a complete argument. I’m genuinely interested in one but have seen nothing but browbeating. And since I kind of like playing that game, too, here we are.
Instead, you squirt crap to the effect that your “addiction” to peanut butter is far worse than anybody else’s physical addiction to, say, booze (where people can actually die in withdrawal), and anyway, man, why, it’s all relative, man, and you just don’t get it.
Wow, add straw men to your methodology. I said nothing of the sort, of course. In particular I have been consistently focused on drug addiction here. You say you have the right to demand superior argumentation from me? Well, I suppose you do, given that it’s your blog. If you want to look silly, that’s fine.
Correction: you did cite drug-effects.com, but only to support your contention that meth isn’t physically addictive. And heck, it’s not even definitive on that point.
I haven’t been in many discussions like this where there’s such a total disconnect. Bill, I wasn’t putting you down in my initial comment. I basically agree there is a “nanny-nah-nah” world. My point is you’re totally absorbed by your experience and willing to claim as fact the experience of others as unworthy of equal consideration. You don’t understand that? That you could be wrong making judgement on so, so many?
Because I pointed that out, you can’t handle it. So your response in essence is nonsense, claiming I don’t make sense. Have you not come back into reality enough to know how to face it?
You are totally arrogant and closed-minded: “And stated with no cites, no backup, nothing at all to support his views except…that you agree with him.”
Nothing at all to support my views? You’re the one initiating this discussion with your views from your personal experience. That experience is now THE standard for humanity?
Righto now we know world, “It’s a hell of a lot easier to quit meth than either booze or tobacco.” Its irrefutable. Any joe should be able to quit. And the fact that so many have not or those who have required treatment doesn’t disprove Bill’s little experience as being universal fact.
All this is especially comforting to know since you are totally self-absorbed in revelation.
Nemo, since others understand me clearly it doesn’t dawn on you the possibility your confusion is because of you. “Its” refers to his experience: “since he did it.” It is an amazing thing to witness you can’t put it together poster in paradise.
One quick point: meth may not be physically addictive in the same way that heroin or smokes are but there is a serious physical payback when you quit after a long time of serious abuse. Worse than heroin if you ask me. When you’ve had so much artificial energy for a long time it leaves you sapped and lethargic for months on end when you stop. This can be difficult to get past if the dope is still available.
I don’t know if we’ll ever get back on track here, but just in case we do, I have another genuinely honest question. Do we have an unanimous (or nearly so) definition for when one drug is “more addictive” than another?
In one post Bill talked about the fact that you can die from severe alcohol withdrawal. Well, yes, that’s certainly true, but that suggests sort of an endgame definition of addictiveness. That is, drug A is more addictive than drug B because it is harder or more dangerous to wean from drug A after you have become addicted. I still don’t think that physical dependency alone automatically makes a drug more addictive even by this definition (see the Ex-Lax example above), but it’s at least credible.
But what about a definition that centers on the beginnings of addiction. For example: drug A is more addictive than drug B because it is more likely you will become dependent on it from initial casual use. As you can see this definition doesn’t speak to the physical danger of the drug or for that matter even how “high” it makes you (though of course, it seems sensible that the degree of “high” has something to do with its addictiveness… whoa, give me more of THAT shit!).
Under this definition, maybe alcohol isn’t considered particularly as addictive because a lower percentage of people become dependent after using it casually. Or maybe it is, I don’t know those numbers either.
Again, this is an honest question. And if the definition used by the press differs from that used in the medical community, or by various propogandists on different sides of the drug debate, that would be interesting.
Blabber.
First I didn’t cite about meth not being physically addictive. Oops, but I did. But dumbass one isn’t convinced. He doesn’t like my cite, mostly because it disagrees with his unsupported preconceptions.
Dumbass two says my “initiation” of the discussion - which was a clearcut statement of fact - that meth is not physically addictive - and which he still hasn’t countered with anything but whining - somehow makes it my fault that he can’t come up with anything to counter either my statement or my cites, beyond more self-centered groaning that he just disagrees, damn it, and I’m supposed to take that as a rational, meaningful response to which I should pay close attention. Or, I suppose, his feelings will be hurt.
Okay, Dumbass Duo, you’ve got my statement of fact: Meth isn’t physically addictive. You’ve got a legit cite from me supporting that statement of fact.
BTW, Dumbass One, it’s incumbent on you to come up with evidence disproving my contention, not vice versa. And Dumbass Two, for all your imbecilic gabble about my lack of rigor, neither one of you morons have been able to back up any of your arguments with anything even mildly approaching credible evidence.
drug use :: Amphetamines — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Montana Meth Centers to Bring Innovative Treatment | New West Network
Crystal Meth Effects | Crystal Methamphetamine | Effects of Crystal Meth | Crystal Meth Rehabilitation
crystal meth effects by drug effects.com
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Dennis Kunkel Microscopy, Inc Scientific Stock Photography : Methamphetamine (Ice) crystals
disinformation | crystal myths: methamphetamine & misinformation
Latest News - Meth Treatment
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Drug Detox Centers And Drug Detoxification
A final observation: you say my personal experience isn’t definitive, but have either of you two quit heavy usage of all three - meth, booze, and nicotine? Is it possible you have even less standing to comment on comparisons than I do?
It can be an interesting discussion. I also did crystal meth in the early 70s, along with black beauties which seemed to be more powerful and crossroads being much less potent. Because of the confidence speed gives it was very seductive and I could easily run its course under the influence for a number of days without sleep and barely any food, until my system began to fail. I had no choice but to crash and with little or no money couldn’t go back to using until another time, place and tantalizing moment to copout.
So if speed is not physically addictive then it was still so desirous as a crutch I could not make the choice to stop. My body had to do that.
I smoked 2 packs a day and quit cold turkey. I also heavily relied on alcohol and quit over night and haven’t touched it in almost 15 years now.
I was a substance abuser for many years using many types of drugs so it wasn’t necessary to rely on just one. The only exception that was a mainstay was pot and that was the most difficult to finally part with.
BTW Bill, you are one of the most thin-skinned I’ve witnessed. Talk about unable to carry a discussion on equal terms.
“Unwilling to suffer fools gladly” is how I’d put it, fool.
Gotta agree with Steevo. Who knows, perhaps all those years of various drugs have eliminated Bill’s patience for real argumentation. Oh well, we tried. Too bad; I expected more from a prominent member of the “blogosphere”! :-(
Translation: “Damn, I got spanked.”
This entire sentence defies translation. Anyone have any idea what this gibberish is supposed to mean?
It is an amazing thing to see that you can’t figure it out, you poster living in a fool’s paradise.
As poetry, it might work as a lyric from some drug addled, third rate, sixties-era song, except for the use of the word ‘poster’. Otherwise it would have to be considered a bit of word salad.
Obviously aimed at you, nemo, due to the use of ‘paradise’.
Translation: “Damn, I got spanked.”
I guess we’ll have to leave that to the archives to decide, eh?
It’s a real shame you don’t get a basic fact of logic: saying that meth isn’t physically addictive is not in itself a refutation of the article’s claim that meth is not “the world’s most addictive drug.” And yet you seemed oh so proud of yourself for trying!
It’s also a shame to see how much more effort you’ve put into trying to tear Steevo and I down instead of coming up with the additional information needed to back up your claim. I mean, wow, you put some real effort into that 8:39AM post! If only you had expended that effort into addressing my original question—how does one actually measure “addictiveness” for comparison purposes—then you might actually have been informative!
I came here with honest questions but it’s now clear that you really have no interest in such things.
oops…this should say
of course
Interesting discussion, I am enjoying this thread. Here is my experience with meth.
I have not had any contact with the drug using community for years. In college I received pharmaceutical methamphetamine. God, how I loved that stuff. I got so much work done and had so much energy and lost 25 pounds in five weeks. Of course, to get to sleep at night I had to have a healthy dose of MacNaughtons. After the five weeks I quit. But I could not function. I had no energy. It was two weeks before finals so I talked to the doc. He gave me a prescription to Ritalin to get me over the hump. Shortly thereafter I arrived in Berkeley. The street meth (crisscrosses) was similar but not the same. It must have been cut with something. I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much. A year lateed I was working with some of the speed freaks from San Francisco. Life expectancy for those guys was about two years.
From ProCon.org, here are several different takes on the relative addictness of various drugs, complete with source information.
The middle section is very interesting because it provides a multi-faceted approach to analyzing addictiveness: withdrawal, reinforcement, tolerance, dependence, and intoxication. This is the kind of information I had hoped a self-styled expert on addiction might actually have on hand.
Alas, meth isn’t in these tables, but I did see some second-hand, unattributed quotes that placed smoked meth at 98 in the bottom table, behind nicotine at 99 and alcohol, heroine, cocaine, and marijuana at 81, 80, 71, and 70, respectively. I’ll press a bit more to see if an attributed source can back that up.
A somewhat better attributed page with relative addictiveness information. In order from most to least:
So at least some claimed experts think crystal meth is more addictive than alcohol. But I thought you could die from alcohol withdrawal, so how could that be! I guess that means Steevo is right: Bill’s personal experience doesn’t generalize.
No worries, though, Bill. Meth still comes in under nicotine!
Do you honestly intend to debate that fact that alcohol withdrawal can result in death?
No, I don’t dispute that fact. I dispute the suggestion that it automatically means alcohol is more addictive.
I was told I was alcoholic by an MD and I suspect from the criteria he used he was probably right. But that dependency is still subjective to the individual. Some can’t live without it flowing through their veins throughout most of their day. That wasn’t me. I quite overnight because I knew what I truly had worth living for would eventually fall apart. My withdrawal resulted in a higher state of nervous anxiety for a few days and a lot of will power to pass by quality brews in the supermarket for years to come.
I went through a crash much more physically painful immediately after stopping the speed. My body dictated my ability to use it. It was so seductive I couldn’t control my intake and I was around a few others like that. But that’s how we were in disposition and personality in life. Head first so to speak with no willpower. I suppose its similar tho to a lesser degree with many who’ve come to rely on it on a daily basis and they are able to incorporate its usage into their lifestyle much longer.
And Bill, i’m glad you’re free from it, I hope no hard feelings. Maybe this should have been discussed at another time.
Man, I’ve gone through just about all these.
Alcohol, never much of a drinker once I reached 22, but I smoked pot nearly every day for over 15 years - quit, went back, quit - then moved away from my druggie friends. I’ve had an occasional puff over the years (maybe three times in 7 years), but nothing serious.
I did meth for almost a year - damn near ruined my life, but when I ran out of money and couldn’t buy it, I slept for a week, then I was done. Never touched the stuff again.
I’m still recovering from a nasty fracture that put me in the hospital for a week and gave me my first real exposure to narcotics. I was in a lot of pain and the nurse told me I was going to get 3 mg of Dilaudid. I only knew Dilaudid from watching the movie “Drugstore Cowboy”, and after my first shot I remember thinking that I was glad I never had the stuff when I was in my early 20’s or I might have been a junkie. Damn! NO pain, and everything was right in the world (for about an hour or so, anyway).
When I got out of the hospital I was on 40 mg of Oxycontin every 6 hours, with Percocet in between for “breaktrhough” pain. This lasted about 3 weeks, and I remember being worried about taking such an “addictive” drug for so long, but as the pain became less and less, I stopped taking the Oxy, and I still have a few unused pills in the medicine chest.
Oh, and I quit smoking in January when I was hospitalized.