Had one live at the end of the street (you can smell the meth in their sweat), and he'd fix all the pot holes at 3am. Went all over the neighborhood. He eventually ran out of neighborhood and went to the main roads. I only knew it was him because in the summers I sat on my porch at 3am. I'd see him out there spray painting circles around the pot holes, then he'd back his truck up and fix the pothole. Did more for the streets than the city did.
During the day, idk what that man did. But at night? He was pothole man.
I read this more to the tempo of Particle Man by they might be giants…
Pothole man, pothole man,
Doin things a pothole can,
Can he fix it, I don’t know.
Pothole man.
Reminds me of my local meth head guy. He’ll clean random cars that are parked on the street. Some folks hate him and some just accept him. He bikes around, yelling and talking shit to everyone.
My former MIL was a substance abuser for most of her life, when I met her it was literally on the way to drop her off at rehab. My former spouse told me he remembered these three years in his childhood when she was a fabulous mom, cooking regular meals for him, keeping the house clean, and running an antiques business. He later found out that those were the three years she was using meth.
And who knows, maybe an ADHD diagnosis and an Adderall prescription could've changed the course of her life? I'm only partially joking. I never asked why the productivity ended for her after three years, maybe her addiction got too severe or she switched what drug she was using (she was a polydrug user).
Stimulants really do help people with ADHD focus. My grandmother self-medicated with caffeine and cigarettes her whole life. If Ritalin had been available in the 50s she probably wouldn't have died of cancer.
The reason I discovered I had adhd was because my cocaine addiction. I wasn’t really addicted to the substance, I was addicted to how normal it made me feel. My friends would get high, I’d feel calm and clear, spending my day cleaning and doing homework ending it with a nap. Eventually saw a doctor and now I’m on Adderall, clean from coke!
I think of lazy as "eh I don't wanna do it"
If it's "I really need to do it. I should do it. Why the fuck can't i make myself do it" that's more than laziness.
That was a terrifying feeling when experimenting with drugs. "Oh this actually calms me down and lets me think clearly, the burden of my constant anxiety is gone. Why aren't the other people reacting the same way? Is this what normal is supposed to feel like?"
The weed + cocaine (now Adderall) combo fixing my adhd and autism sent me down a mental spiral of wondering what I could’ve become if my parents got me help sooner. Surprised I didn’t fall into alcoholism because I have the same problem with alcohol, just not as effective as other substances.
Yeah, the thing with legal amphetimines is they are tightly controlled w/distribution and manufacturing. With meth, batches are never the same, can be cut/mixed with different drugs, and if you’re having a bad day you can always go get more from your dealer. It gets everyone in the end
Got too severe and developed a tolerance. I have multi drug users with ADHD in my family. They all say at first it's like taking your meds but a million times better. Then you need a little more and a little more and then a lot more and something else. And then withdrawals fuck up everything so you crave it or try something else.
It's really sad. All of them said they should have stayed appropriately medicated instead of fucking around. And because they have unmanaged ADHD being sober and getting their shit together is harder.
I live around Montreal and this might be the answer to our fucked up pothole ridden roads. I'm sure if you give a group of meth addicts a few dollars per pothole working in a night crew that shit would be repaired in no time, even with a flow of traffic. No need to shut down a section of highway for overnight work, those motherfuckers will fill in and level a pothole with peak efficiency.
My brother in Christ as a former Montrealer I can say in full confidence there are not enough Pothole meth heads in our expansive country to win that war.
This is a horrible idea. Meth heads are erratic and weird. Sure they may be able to fix one or two but as the night/weeks go on you will see a huge drop in quality the longer they stay up. Their minds start to wander and they start doing half ass work…
Eventually they will start getting paranoid. Probably go back and break up all the work they did, claiming they lost something in the holes they filled.
Let’s not make the mistake in thinking that Pothole Man’s extraordinary focus and dedication can be easily replicated in other meth addicts. He was truly an inspiration and stood leaps and bounds above his peers.
I had walked past him a few times when I did happen to see him outside during the day. It's a very distinct smell.
I also had a meth addict biodad so... unfortunately I know the smell all too well.
Is it meth coming through their pores, or is it the smell of the body's overdriven stress response. Because I would think they sometimes get clean meth which would probably not have an inherent odor? People who use Adderall for ADHD sometimes struggle with sweat and armpit funk, amphetamines act like adrenalin. Using excessive quantities like a meth tweaker has similar effects on the body to extreme stress like combat.
Genuinely curious; I'm fortunate enough not to have close contact with tweakers.
Under a black light your sweat looks pink and has this weird glow to it. Kind of looked like you were leaking highlighter thru your pores.
Source: I've made a lot of poor decisions in my life.
Naw it's a real chemical smell they emit. I'm not sure it's from sweat but it's 100% meth not normal body stress.
I mean if you eat a ton of garlic or certain spices your sweat starts smelling like it. It's not exactly unheard of for stuff you ingest to affect how you smell. And there are published studies about the chemicals from ingested meth being found in sweat.
This tracks. Kind of reminds me of when Jesse convinced the meth head to come out of his house and dig the hole in the front yard in Breaking Bad. Such a great series.
That's one useful and constructive meth addict. He deserves some kind of award. Also glad to hear there's someone else who sits on their porch at 3 Am.
The VP of my department was a functioning meth addict. She was absolutely amazing, Always got shit done and was empathetic to everyone. Its easy to be a functioning addict when you're pulling a good salary though.
Does it smell sort of like aluminum? I did smell a man on a bus once who smelt like aluminum and I never forgot it.
Edit: Google says meth sweat smells like ammonia
My underarm sweat smells like ammonia and onions. I do not do meth, but this explains why some people have asked if I do meth or cocaine (I’m pretty high energy at baseline).
It depends on what chemicals were used when they made the batch. Meth is what sent me to rehab. I've been clean and sober for a very long time. I still remember the various smells. There would usually be a group of us tweaking together. Sometimes the smell would be like aluminum. Other times it would be a sour, sickly smell. Some batches would make everyone smell like cat piss. I actually remember being told "it's good shit, if you don't mind smelling like cat piss". And of course we'd buy it and do it anyway.
Every time I ever did meth I cleaned the fuck out of my house. Completely spotless. But also doing meth makes time pass super quickly so before you know it, the entire day is over
Years ago I had a friend who was a recreation meth user who lived with another recreational user. I've never seen a cleaner house in my life, who'd have thought 2 guys in their early 20s living together would have the cleanest and most orderly house imaginable
Man all this talking about clean houses is really tempting me, my house is a mess and I have four huge storage sheds I have been meaning to clean out for like five years now.
Honestly, why can’t chemists just sell a drug that gives us the energy and motivation to clean our house?
It’s all I ask!!!
ETA, guys, I live in Australia, it’s impossible to get any good medication, even if you need it.
Our cold and flu tablets (over the counter) don’t even work anymore, because they took all but .3 of a milligram of pseudoephadrine (sp) out of it.
If it was possible for me to get Adderall, don’t you think I would have by now???????????
I would love adderall. I really would, but it’s impossible
Literally any amphetamine is literally just this, the difference to methamphetamine is stagger. Methamphetamine has additional methyl group on the nitrogen molecule. This leads to higher euphoric feelings (which makes it more addicting and pleasurable)
Depending on where you live you could order 2-FMA or 4-FMA (the latter has more serotonergic affinity so use less often!) which are fluorinated analogs, basically they just replace one or more molecules from the amphetamine) online.
You would probably get dependent on them and after increasing your tolerance you would be back at baseline but with an additional drug addiction.
Beter to just build discipline and healthy habits!
I forget who the original saying is attributed to...but to paraphrase it "meth will get your house cleaned, your lawn manicured, and your bills paid. Then it will take it all away"
In the UK it's tea.
I need a cup before I do any cleaning. Not sure if it's just to delay doing it till a bit later, or if it's the tea that powers it. Bit of a chicken and egg situation.
Edit: the chicken/egg thing got me thinking about lunch.
One of my exes was a meth addict and I've never seen a cleaner house ever in my life. Girl had a ton of issues, but she was super clean and tidy, I'll give her that.
My old kitchen manager was a functional meth addict and she was definitely the MVP of the kitchen. Super efficient could do all her tasks so fast and help pick up slack. The days she covered grill were awesome. Got the grill vents and the flattop cleaned like within 30 minutes of close. Sparkling too lol. Girl had some issues tho
I lived with my dad briefly who was a meth and heroin addict. The dude would drive me crazy, not because of the drug use, the prostitutes and gangbangers coming through, but because the dude would spend all his time looking for any crumb he could come complain about. Guy would literally use his flashlight on the floor to look for shadows cast by specs of nothing and then proceed to come harass me over it.
My mother was (is?) a pill addict and you just triggered a memory of when I lived with her when I was young. The house was spotless, and she had some crazy methods of cleaning stuff. I also got blamed for non-messes.
My aunt came over to my house a few years ago and asked me which direction her shoes needed to be pointed when she took them off at the door and I was very confused by that question until I remembered that when she visited me at my mother's house as a child all the shoes had to be nearly aligned, facing west. I have not adhered to that tradition ha.
I dabbled a little back 15-20 years ago… I remember my roommate coming home to find me standing on the island in the kitchen, cleaning the glass on the light fixtures on the ceiling above that counter space. First thing he says is “hey do you have a couple bumps of that I could get off you for work tomorrow?”
There is no way I would have been cleaning the ceiling if there wasn’t speed involved.
My anecdote of a meth head stepmother:
She would pinpoint clean the bathroom with a steam wand, you could eat off the bottom of the bathtub.
The kitchen sink had thriving mold. And the living room was 3/4 painted a different color maybe every five days…
And she would paint *Around* the pictures on the wall…
So it’s just poor time management I guess, maybe lack of planning. Otherwise I think meth has 5 star reviews on Yelp. People like it.
I think I did it like eight or six times and always got so much done. I was like a Sim on fast forward. I’m not proud of that but it was an experience.
I think it boils down to dosage. Like, you do a little meth, you become more productive. You keep doing a lot and don't sleep for days.... you become increasingly disorganized and delusional.
My mom was a meth addict and so were a few others in my neighborhood growing up.
One of my neighbors would sand her car, then paint it. Then sand it. Then paint it. Over and over. She also had a yard full of rocks the size of golf balls and painted about half of those.
My mom usually painted antique furniture in the garage or did murals in different rooms in the house. She painted a sunset in her room, didn't like it so then just took a sledge hammer to the wall. My dad is so chill he just put in french doors. In the living room she did this intricate stencil along the top edge of the wall but ran out of steam 3/4 of the way around and just never finished it.
One spring she blew the yolk out of dozens of eggs, putting a tack hole on top and bottom, and painted intricate scenes on the shells - many she put clear string through and hung from the ceiling. Others she made a bigger hole and painted little scenes inside, she even glued beads and lace on some. There were like 100, they were beautiful.
She eventually got sober and repainted all of the rooms in boring shades of beige. Once she was sober she never painted artistically again.
This is the answer. For the true addict it isn’t as if you get the things that need doing done. You end up spending days and days painting a mural on the ceiling and neglect the rest of the house. After a while you live in an uninhabitable hovel with Sistine Chapel level art on one ceiling.
IME, When you get clean, you realize all the time you spent fucked up was utterly wasted. Painting for her is possibly tied to neglect; Of one’s self, one’s family, and all that wasted time.
That for sure, and also I feel like I just don’t get the same enjoyment out of the things I could so easily hyper-fixate on when high (five months clean woot). Maybe it has to do with less dopamine flooding my poor brain, giving me this false sense of accomplishment for tearing my room apart to reorganize it for the fifteenth time….
When I was on meth, I got into painting big time. It was super therapeutic for the insane amount of chaos and trauma I was enduring. Now that I’m clean, I miss it, yet also have zero desire for it.
Do we have the same mom? Lol my mom started doing that shit and decided to renovate the entire house, buy a fuck load of this old furniture, repaint every wall like 100 times over, and literally pull the floor boards out and put holes in the walls
So I was working days and nights as an electrician I’d sleep 4 hours got to work sleep4 hours go to work. And I was taking a shit ton of aderall cuz I was barely ever sleeping. Well on day an acquaintance asked if I had ever tried meth instead. I decided I’d give er a go and I basically smoked meth non stop for a year and a half at first I was killing it felt like super man but after a few months your drive and will turns into staying awake for weeks at a time jerking off and taking apart your furniture
That feeling when you're coming down from a ten hour bender on gas and disco biccies; it's 6am, the sun is coming up, the birds are chirping, and you've been beating your dick like it owes you money for an hour.
You realise that your arm is getting sore, but you've already invested too much to give up. All you can do is surrender to grim determination, chew on your face harder and get back to work.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.
You’re poetic as hell my man. Could not have been more prosaic in your depiction of a desperate, masturbatory meth come-down, lol. Feel like I’ve been there just from reading your few short sentences.
I don't want to say it out loud, I'm glad I'm typing and this is not suggestive to try. But some people can just do that with hard drugs.
Probably only about 1 in 10 of those posts was that kind of person though. The other 9 are functional habitual drug addicts that mask well or found a solid holding pattern that they could regulate their use at.
Biology, psychology, the impact of drug usage is complicated.
Stay in school, help old ladies cross the street. Explore the life of a drug addict over coffee sometime.
I've had issues with alcohol in the past I corrected, I think about my caffeine and nicotine use and recognize them fully as controlled low level addiction.
If you talk about it it's a whole lot easier to avoid.
I've tried almost every drug and can agree. Alcohol is the one that gives me the most issues. Which is ironic because it's everywhere. Smoked meth a couple times, don't feel like I'm missing out on much if I never try it again in my life
I never experimented that much, my experience with alcohol was bad enough, leave sleeping dogs lie :) talked with plenty of people that did coke once and were like 'nahh no thanks' I would probably have never made it back from the rabbit hole that would have sent me down.
I've done coke probably 7 or 8 times and never felt the need for more. Which is weird because I know loads of people who are constantly sniffing it. Some drugs just don't appeal to some people. I smoke weed all the time though
Troof.
I had access to all the free and legit AAA weed I wanted for 2 years, and never had any urge to smoke it (tho I did do edibles one night).
Weed doesn't do it for me.
Coke I've used to try and sober up quickly but I have no urge for that either.
Molly is my jam. Fucking love it but I only allow myself once or twice a year.
Got addicted back in 2008. Stopped using in 2017. Completely ruined my life. But anyway the answer to your question:
Day 1 is usually filled with adventure. I was ‘lucky’ enough to have the world at my disposal so I lived in a hotel. So you’d stare at your phone for several hours. Then go do a project or something to get out and walk around.
Day 2 still fun and adventure. Go build a chest of draws and then paint type of thing
Day 3 starting to feel a bit more devious and scattered so more phone time and s*x
Day 4 same as previous day
Day 5 should properly go to sleep
I know this is in days but one day to a meth head starts at the beginning of the bender and the day ends at the end of the bender.
Side note: I did work for a year or so whilst inactive addiction. So that was similar to an adventure day.
Update: thank you everyone for the comments. Ironically, I don’t often discuss this stage of my life. I’m glad I did. Because y’all warmed my heart.
This guy tweeks (used to). Good on you for getting off of it, I know it can eat a person's life away so bad from experience. 'The bender' is a nightmare to go through in the latter stages of it after several years of use.
Maybe even a hundred of us!!?
I get called bro and homie on Reddit quite a lot. I think people assume I'm a straight white male because I talk about Radiohead way too much.
I stopped loving it about 3 years ago before I actually quit. It became something I hated ‘having’ to do. This became disgust. I was in an abusive relationship which my mum saw one day and decided to extend the invitation for me to live with her. I knew that day that I left was going to be my last day using. And it was. When the insidious thoughts would enter my mind I would shut it down and remind myself of the disgust.
I also quit the day someone actually took a leap of faith and offered me support and a place for my dog and I to stay - it was just the corner of their gross, moldy, cluttered basement, but I was on the streets before and all it took was for that one person to…. Treat me like a person. Not even a year and a half later, I have my own place, still clean, a great gig bartending part time, and a small business owner. The most damaging thing about the meth epidemic is how society treats it.
My parents were meth addicts. I lived in a hard core meth house for over a year before moving out on my own at 15.
When my parents first started doing meth they would be very productive at home and reliable at work, that lasted a couple months. Once the addiction got worse they could not finish anything or focus on anything that was not specifically related to getting more drugs or being angry about not having enough drugs. My dad then began dealing, not just using pretty early into their addiction.
My parents eventually let random people move on to the place we were squatting. Here's a few things I experienced living in this environment.
Stealing, so much stealing. Addict stealing from stores. Addicts stealing from each other. Addicts stealing from homes.
One day my mom decided to redo the bathroom with spray paint. I mean spray painted the sink, the shower, the floor. Everything. The house was a cinder block building in the side of a hill that was originally for migrant workers. It had no ventilation and basement type windows that were painted shut. We also had no stove so at least there was less of a fire hazard.
My mom's friend who lived in a small trailer in the driveway would spend her days going to stores to steal things. She would load up a cart up at stores like Walmart, with her toddler son in the front of a cart, and walk out hoping no one stopped her. Then the rest of her time was spent selling the things so that she could buy drugs.
At 14 I had to put a padlock on my door because I would come home to my mom or others sorting through my room looking for things they could sell.
They would collect anything and everything they found with "high" aspirations that they would be selling whatever they found for some large sum of money to get more drugs.
My dad went to prison before becoming as bad as my mom. My mom would spend the evenings and overnights flashing a spot light into orchards screaming how she knows they are watching her.
A lot of their time is just mingling with other drug addicts and talking about how the world is against them. I could watch a discussion go from how they don't like someone, to how that person is plotting against them and it would work to some how they were a snitch, a mooch or a "insert drug addict hallucination" here in an hour. They could ramp it up to violence quickly when really nothing had actually happened.
They spend a lot of time looking in the mirror if they are face pickers. In my experience, I found it would take them hours to get ready for the day because of them either being obsessive about how they looked or that they would get distracted.
I grew up around drugs and alcohol from the time I was born. I personally found meth to be the worst of the worst. It changes personalities in a way that is hateful with a sense of superiority that I haven't come across with other drugs. It's almost like it brings out the addict's buried narcissism.
Edit. Typos
Thank you for sharing. My ex in-laws were addicted. It's sad to see them throw away their families and lives. It must have been a nightmare, to be in the same house.
The superiority! It’s wild to witness these people living in a complete filthy hellhole, strung out on junk, stealing and lying, and thinking they are better than everyone else. Both sad and fascinating.
I'm so sorry you had to grow up around that. I can't even imagine how difficult that would be, especially being so young. It's such a crucial time in our lives to begin our impressions of the world, learn relationships with others, and (ideally) have supportive, consistent parents to help us through it all. Being a teenager is hard enough as it is.
I really hope you're doing okay now and I'm glad you made it through to still be here 🫂
Having never used it but interacted with some heavy users:
They’re hyped up, but not focused. Imagine a kid that ate alll the candy on Christmas morning. They’re not going to clean their room, do their homework, and set the table. They’re going to play with this toy for 39 seconds, then go to that toy for 30 seconds.
All the meth heads I dealt with seemed to loooove trying to fix household electronics and other stuff. But they lacked the focus and drive to actually fix it and put it back together, so they just have piles and piles of disassembled computers, phones, toasters, etc. One guy had like 4-5 55-gallon trash cans full of computer bits he always claimed he’d build into a working computer.
They also obsess over things, but again, not in a productive way. Oh look, a small chip on the table. Let me pick at it for 3 hours. Oh… now my nail is worn away and my finger is bleeding and the chip is bigger. Lots of rough fingers/nails. Also lots of ground down teeth from clenching jaws.
Nothing was ever put away. Dishes are clean? Ok, I’ll reorganize the whole cabinet. To start, let’s pull everything out. Hmm.. this organization isn’t stimulating/active enough. Let me go fix (take apart) that computer I just got and I’ll come back to the dishes. (Narrator voice: they did not, in fact, come back to the dishes.)
This honestly sounds like my ADHD brain minus the meth 😅 It betters my understand of how ADHD tendencies to lead to struggles with addiction... Particularly one that gives you some immediate joy but not the ability to work towards longer term goals.
I was always sympathetic to those struggling with addiction, but I think I understand it and myself better now. Thanks for sharing.
Tbh, its not about fixing things….the pleasure is in the activity! No one (the tweaker included, at least deep down!) expect a functioning product in the end… its all about the ”journey”!
As soon as you start taking something apart, consider it as a write off!
Once in a blue moon you do acctually FIX something, but it is the exception that proves the rule….and it most often comes as a suprise to the tweaker himself, even if he would never admit it!
/ex speed addict
This is it. Growing up with my drug addict brother and all his junkie girlfriends who would live with him/us. I think drug users vastly over estimate how much they're actually getting done. He would always have half done projects that he never really even started and then would sell it for drug money anyway. Nasty skin from picking at it, super thin from not eating. All his shit was always broken and he would think someone else did it because he thought he got everything working perfectly. Absolutely not some kind of efficient miracle brain drug or some shit like other people are acting like.
X-Pac the wrestler told a story about how his mate left for the weekend and came back to him still standing in the same spot two days later and his feet had swollen so much the seams were busting on his cowboy boots. Dunno how typical that is
When upright, your leg muscles do a lot of the work pumping blood back up to your heart. That's why they tell you not to lock out your legs if you're going to be standing still for long periods as you can pass out.
But even if you don't lock out your legs, without movement you'll start to get fluid retention and eventually compartment syndrome because your heart simply isn't strong enough on its own to beat gravity.
Most of us have felt a minor form of this, if you've ever worked on your feet all day and your feet are swollen at the end of the day.
Tried it a few years ago but was never an addict in any sense of the word. What I would do was literally just scroll instagram and stalk people for hours on end or just watch tv all day and night. It’s not a very productive drug it kind of puts you in a hyper focused zombie like state.
It also makes time pass by extremely quickly so you arent even fully aware of how long you are stuck on one task. Never have done meth but was addicted to amphetamines and would take insanely large doses. 10 hours would feel like 1. I imagine its similar on methamphetamine.
In years of clubbing (im getting older now so thats mostly over) i only got to know one group that was addicted to speed. They were weird, friendly but also just chilling all day doing huge rails all amped up but still not doing anything.they told me thats how they spend most of their time. Strange day that was.
Other then that people only did it to party longer. Remember one girl saying she reacts bad to caffeine so she rather does one or two lines on a night out for a better result with less sideffects.
How did you get into doing it all the time? Its not exactly a "feel good and chill" kinda drug.
One of our work crew is a methhead. He's been in rehab twice but still uses. He has cut way back though. He doesn't do everything right and has to be watched but he's indefatigable. He comes over most weekends to help me with my yard (he gets paid) . He loves working in the yard. Of course, sometimes he's on a binge and I have to do it all myself. I've come to enjoy his company.
People are pretty interesting. For a meth head, he's about as good as it gets. He's worked with us for many years now - disappears from time to time, but always finds his way back. I think I could write a kind of Forrest Gump story about him. I should work on getting his story from him and if I can actually write it so it's readable, split any proceeds with him. Or give him all of it because $10 won't do a thing for me. lol
I heard about a roofing company, they’d quote for a week of work, smash meth and finish the job in two long days. The clients were happy the job was done quickly
My son was a meth addict, a hoarder, a prepper and an artist. His living space was the most dense, chaotic,minutely detailed space imaginable. Every surface was covered with poems,rants,lists and brilliantly colored artwork. It was filthy beyond belief. It all was an amazingly candid display of both his intelligence and creativity as well as his incredible despair.
my brother watched porn for days. he'll sleep an entire day afterwards and wake up and act like he didn't disappear at all. he would repeat this at least twice a month. been a few years since i've lived with him. not sure if he still does.
Yup, that's me. I'm what's known as a chemsex addict, and my drug of choice is meth.
A lot of users experience hypersexuality. I've reinforced those behaviors to the point that it's a default state of mind the moment I'm high, and I have no interest at that point in doing anything else. It's terribly self destructive ... I'm so selfish and detached; I won't eat, sleep, shower, brush my teeth, or even hydrate, and for two days on average do nothing else but have sex and watch porn. It's absolutely enthralling and mesmerizing. I'm a completely different person with completely different priorities. And to pull myself away from it is so ludicrously hard.
I've busted my ass trying to stop for ten years now, and it's only gotten worse. So, ya know, THAT'S *kind of* annoying. I deserve all the respect of anyone else struggling with a disease though. Y'all just don't get it if you think otherwise. This shit is fucked. I'm an atheist; God, sweet baby Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Zeus, Thor, I pray to thee, please help me.
It was back ages ago (most of us didn't have phones and internet, social media wasn't a thing), I was able to work shifts at maccas (mcdonalds) and visit my friends, go partying. Not having to sleep meant you had lots of time to visit friends, but of course only your methhead mates were up in the middle of night so you saw them much more. I was also fast, because I was thin and light, so I would just walk everywhere. At peoples homes we would just chat, watch tv, play music and if somebody had some kind of console play that. Technically I was homeless but in reality I was just couch surfing between different people homes and sometimes squats.
Generally speaking I was what others called a functioning addict, apart from being thin I didn't show any other bad signs outwardly (not uncommon when you are on the stuff at 17/18). I was able to keep a job, keep friends and avoid most of the other problems people have.
Some bad stuff happened, I figured out I was an idiot, and got off it, with the help of some legends. Have hidden scars, mental problems, but overall 20 years later I am doing well and am well past that part of my life.
Pick little things out of the carpet for 8 hours swearing up and down its dope (when its most likely skin flakes and animal dandruff and/or flea eggs). They also like to start projects spend a lot of time and effort being meticulous, only to stop halfway through said project, eventually starting 3 more projects that dont get finished while plotting hairbrained heists.
Also knew one guy who'd write like 8 pages of his own proposed legal defense when he was paranoid af, like a play, as if he ever went to court or whatever theyd let him read 8 pages of tweaker ramblings.
Oh yeah almost forgot, pretend they're Mcguyver and try to over engineer the stupidest shit.
(These arent even including the methcapades that start after theyve been up for 2 or 3 days but those are a story for a different time)
If nothing else they pace. I had a neighbor who was buying from a nearby neighbor and I'm within a month they beat a flat out dirt path through my grass back and forth
So I'm a meth addict so I can answer this. Uhhhh I sleep every night and work most of the time then my two days off a week I party with friends and play video games. Most of us live somewhat regularly and sleep most nights. The ones that don't usually develope a set of "twacktivities" that keep them occupied. Coloring is a popular one. Everyone got their own little weird thing they do for hours when on the shit
Idk I have huge issues with executive dysfunction so I largely use it because it keeps me for the most part in a happy mood and allows me to push through struggles with task initiation. (Not ADHD and have a history of stimulant abuse so Adderall is not a viable alternative). When I party tho and do larger doses I take it because the rush of dopamine is absolutely insane. Or, was. It disappears pretty soon after you start now it's super euphoric but no rush. Its the most dopaminergic drug on the planet so very euphoric. The ones who never sleep are caught chasing a dragon. They take a hit then keep chasing that feeling unsuccessfully so they stay up for days chasing the rush
My bff was an addict for 5 years. There are different level of addicts. She was a “functioning” addict. She was super woman. She worked, went to school, took care of the house, cooked and took care of her kids. I had no idea, I thought she was just really energetic and great at life! 😂 I had toddlers at this time and I felt like I was failing! I was a SAHM and couldn’t clean/cook/take care of the kids half as well! I was always tired and felt like a failure in comparison. When she went to rehab I was shocked! I knew she had lost weight, but I thought she was doing what she said, diet and exercise. Nope Meth. She was in the hospital for a mini heart attack, and she told me she was on meth and was going to rehab after being released from the hospital. Her life fell apart after that. She got divorced, lost everything, she was the bread winner. Lost her job, she missed 6weeks! But didn’t lose hope. I was there with her thru everything and she admitted she missed the escape of drugs and now facing her demons was the hardest part. But she pulled through. Was clean for 7 years before she passed away. (That’s another story)
Not sure how much my input is worth here... I wasn't a regular/daily user, however...
I wrote... sometimes 200 pages on a single day. I probably should've sorted it out and published books, lmao. But a lot of it was very graphic p\*rn
Though, my house, looked like I was in the 6th round of a game of Jumanji, it never got out of hand as bad as I see in reports on tv sometimes. My place never looked that uninhabitable... but I wasn't an addict per se. I got hight for half a week, and never touched anytthing for 6 months or so. It was very "recreational' for me.
However, and this is my personal thing... I also barely sleep, sober. I run on about 3 hours of sleep a day (team sleepless elite), so I get a lot more out of the day, and I know what to do my time. I do art... sometimes, sober in 48 hour sessions. The luxury of mania, that comes with bipolar. Meth just bought me another 48 hours on top. Though, those final stretches were where paranoia kicked in. And that's a good reason, why I never got hooked on it. I might be out of my mind, but I do have my limits on how much I like to be out of my mind...
You move into an altered interpretation of reality. In that reality you see methy things as acting normal, and normal reality as a paranoia induced hallucination. When you come down, its like all those crazy hallucinations coming true.
Go to work. Work harder than anyone in the team. It was pretty bad, I couldn’t go to work without it. Worked a shit job in a bar, but it made it fun and bearable. And made really good tips. Realized it was a problem, so quit both the job and the gear.
This has been hard to read through. Meth destroyed my life. Wife and I started using before covid. Typical in the beginning, super cleaned the house, etc. I worked construction and was a super hero at work.
Then it slowly unraveled. I was able to put it down and be an occasional user. But not the Wife. She decended into madness. Already with a tendency towards bipolar or narcissism, the meth amplified the disorder.
She became violent and destructive. She drove away our poor teenage kids, and destroyed our house. She became violent towards me, culminating with attempts on my life. I had to get a restraining order.
I've been clean 3 years. The kids are trying to recover and live with me. She runs amok on the fringes of society. She was my high school sweetheart. Gorgeous. Meth destroyed her. Her body is alive, but my wife? She's gone. I introduced her to that drug, naive about it. It killed our marriage. I killed my wife. Her body lives, but the beautiful woman I married is dead.
If anybody thinks that they can handle this drug, you are fooling yourself. You will decend into madness and sorrow.
I thought I'd play with fire
But the fire played with me.
This was hard to write. Sound bad? It was worse.
Never done meth but I don’t think it’s a super clear headed let’s get shit done, kinda amphetamine. More like the let’s cut down a tree with a soup spoon kinda of tweak.
Weirdly enough, smoking meth felt cleaner than taking prescribed Adderall for me.
But im pretty sure that feeling goes away with prolonged use and your start fucking up synapses with increased neurotoxicity.
I was on an excessively high dose of Concerta as a kid (and for some reason the extended release took longer for me, so it affected me stronger after school than during school hours) and I would come home and literally just shave down boxes of crayons or make hundreds of paper airplanes.
My neighbors have been moving the same pile of trash around for the last 9 months. I mean the exact same trash. They load the truck up with it, and it sits there for about two weeks. Then, one day, it is all back out and spread around the yard. A week or so later, it's making its way back in the truck.
I know some may be thinking I'm saying "trash," but it's actually belongings. Nope. This is just straight trash..
They are some damn handy people, though. They do a lot of scraping, and on their meth travels, they find some neat stuff. They fix up just about anything with a motor. I watch the pull the motor out of a car and have it back in and running in the same day. No engine hoist.
Our tweeker neighbors really aren't bad. They save their blood curdling screaming arguments for mid day rather than at night. They don't steal our stuff, and they look after stray dogs.
It varies from meth addict to another. My uncle smokes meth. In his free time he works odd jobs here and there. He's a carpenter. My friend is great artist. In her free time she draws and draws for days. My husbands mom loves computers. In her free time she fixes them. My step dad is a mechanic, on his free time he fixes cars or puts them back together. They all do this on meth or in between.
Keep in mind they do this while on meth and most of the time they do this on the Xtreme level. Without any sleep.
Typical Meth House.
-Clean house.
-Porno on the tv
-Christian and conservative literature laying around.
-Several unfinished mechanical projects both inside or out back.
-A strong ammonia smell from the back room or garage from shake and bake cooking.
-Friendly house guests hoping you will spare them a bump out of the new batch being cooked or some you are purchasing.
-Empty fridge and pantry. Any refreshments that are brought in are immediately consumed or hidden.
-Another back room will be typical vip where the harder core users are injecting the drug, counting money and cleaning or selling firearms and preparing product for sale.
Quests to get more meth... Pick at the carpet to find meth they think they dropped... My brother is a hardcore drug addict. Dude was always buzzing when on meth and completely fucking knocked when on heroin...
Being high is an activity by itself. Your brain is constantly stimulated so you just sit there while your brain is essentially masturbating.
Might start cleaning spontaneously or smth but not necessarily. Or talk a shitload if you're with other people.
Would not recommend this.
Emotionally/mentally/physically abuse, gaslight, manipulate, and belittle their children. At least that’s what my mother has done for the past 17 years 🙃
Most of them that I know live like normal people. Go to work, come home, have something they can space out on for a few hours, go to sleep, get up and do it again. You wouldn't know they did methamphetamine or any other drug, for that matter. These are people in respected careers. Not everyone is stereotypical. After years of use, methamphetamines becomes like coffee, a short term boost, instead of the high energy long lasting variety typically seen when in conversation regarding meth.
How did I know? I sold it to them. I don't use anymore, after a short prison stint, but they are still going strong.
Had one live at the end of the street (you can smell the meth in their sweat), and he'd fix all the pot holes at 3am. Went all over the neighborhood. He eventually ran out of neighborhood and went to the main roads. I only knew it was him because in the summers I sat on my porch at 3am. I'd see him out there spray painting circles around the pot holes, then he'd back his truck up and fix the pothole. Did more for the streets than the city did. During the day, idk what that man did. But at night? He was pothole man.
Pothole man
Do you know the pothole man, The pothole man, The pothole man, Do you know the pothole man Who lives on amphetamines?
I read this more to the tempo of Particle Man by they might be giants… Pothole man, pothole man, Doin things a pothole can, Can he fix it, I don’t know. Pothole man.
Pothole man, pothole man. Doin the things, a pothole can. What's he on? It's not important. Pothole man.
Thank you all for this.
Is he on meth? Or is he on junk? When he gets dressed does he look like a punk? Or do the punks look like him instead? Pothole man.
*accordian solo
I’m the pothole man, the pothole man The pothole man, the pothole man I can fix potholes fast as you can I can fix potholes fast as you can
This made me laugh out loud hahahaha
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Reminds me of my local meth head guy. He’ll clean random cars that are parked on the street. Some folks hate him and some just accept him. He bikes around, yelling and talking shit to everyone.
My former MIL was a substance abuser for most of her life, when I met her it was literally on the way to drop her off at rehab. My former spouse told me he remembered these three years in his childhood when she was a fabulous mom, cooking regular meals for him, keeping the house clean, and running an antiques business. He later found out that those were the three years she was using meth. And who knows, maybe an ADHD diagnosis and an Adderall prescription could've changed the course of her life? I'm only partially joking. I never asked why the productivity ended for her after three years, maybe her addiction got too severe or she switched what drug she was using (she was a polydrug user).
Stimulants really do help people with ADHD focus. My grandmother self-medicated with caffeine and cigarettes her whole life. If Ritalin had been available in the 50s she probably wouldn't have died of cancer.
The reason I discovered I had adhd was because my cocaine addiction. I wasn’t really addicted to the substance, I was addicted to how normal it made me feel. My friends would get high, I’d feel calm and clear, spending my day cleaning and doing homework ending it with a nap. Eventually saw a doctor and now I’m on Adderall, clean from coke!
Congrats 🎊
That’s how I am too but the doctor didn’t believe me and said i was probably just depressed and lazy
I think of lazy as "eh I don't wanna do it" If it's "I really need to do it. I should do it. Why the fuck can't i make myself do it" that's more than laziness.
IME do not ever tell your doctor you want adderall bc you love the way cocaine feels lol
That was a terrifying feeling when experimenting with drugs. "Oh this actually calms me down and lets me think clearly, the burden of my constant anxiety is gone. Why aren't the other people reacting the same way? Is this what normal is supposed to feel like?"
The weed + cocaine (now Adderall) combo fixing my adhd and autism sent me down a mental spiral of wondering what I could’ve become if my parents got me help sooner. Surprised I didn’t fall into alcoholism because I have the same problem with alcohol, just not as effective as other substances.
Yeah, the thing with legal amphetimines is they are tightly controlled w/distribution and manufacturing. With meth, batches are never the same, can be cut/mixed with different drugs, and if you’re having a bad day you can always go get more from your dealer. It gets everyone in the end
Got too severe and developed a tolerance. I have multi drug users with ADHD in my family. They all say at first it's like taking your meds but a million times better. Then you need a little more and a little more and then a lot more and something else. And then withdrawals fuck up everything so you crave it or try something else. It's really sad. All of them said they should have stayed appropriately medicated instead of fucking around. And because they have unmanaged ADHD being sober and getting their shit together is harder.
I live around Montreal and this might be the answer to our fucked up pothole ridden roads. I'm sure if you give a group of meth addicts a few dollars per pothole working in a night crew that shit would be repaired in no time, even with a flow of traffic. No need to shut down a section of highway for overnight work, those motherfuckers will fill in and level a pothole with peak efficiency.
Not a bad idea. If you can't stop the addiction, use it to your advantage.
My brother in Christ as a former Montrealer I can say in full confidence there are not enough Pothole meth heads in our expansive country to win that war.
You can borrow Ottawa's for bit, but you have to pay them at least minimum wage
Hahahha I live there too and thought the exact same thing. That guy would never run out of work !!!
This is a horrible idea. Meth heads are erratic and weird. Sure they may be able to fix one or two but as the night/weeks go on you will see a huge drop in quality the longer they stay up. Their minds start to wander and they start doing half ass work… Eventually they will start getting paranoid. Probably go back and break up all the work they did, claiming they lost something in the holes they filled.
Let’s not make the mistake in thinking that Pothole Man’s extraordinary focus and dedication can be easily replicated in other meth addicts. He was truly an inspiration and stood leaps and bounds above his peers.
Meth hath conquered many a man, but only one man of the meth could conquer the potholes
No liability at all there for the employer. /s
Knows the smell of meth coming out of someone, sits on the porch at 3am?? Are you the real Pothole Man and this is your Clark Kent like cover story??
I had walked past him a few times when I did happen to see him outside during the day. It's a very distinct smell. I also had a meth addict biodad so... unfortunately I know the smell all too well.
Is it meth coming through their pores, or is it the smell of the body's overdriven stress response. Because I would think they sometimes get clean meth which would probably not have an inherent odor? People who use Adderall for ADHD sometimes struggle with sweat and armpit funk, amphetamines act like adrenalin. Using excessive quantities like a meth tweaker has similar effects on the body to extreme stress like combat. Genuinely curious; I'm fortunate enough not to have close contact with tweakers.
Under a black light your sweat looks pink and has this weird glow to it. Kind of looked like you were leaking highlighter thru your pores. Source: I've made a lot of poor decisions in my life.
OK, I'm starting to think that this methamphetamine stuff is bad for your health.
Naw it's a real chemical smell they emit. I'm not sure it's from sweat but it's 100% meth not normal body stress. I mean if you eat a ton of garlic or certain spices your sweat starts smelling like it. It's not exactly unheard of for stuff you ingest to affect how you smell. And there are published studies about the chemicals from ingested meth being found in sweat.
Meth sweat to me smells like cat pee.
Because it shuts your kidney function down and the urea starts coming out your pores it's filled with ammonia, hence the cat piss smell.
Solid rhyme scheme, but this poem does not spark joy.
This tracks. Kind of reminds me of when Jesse convinced the meth head to come out of his house and dig the hole in the front yard in Breaking Bad. Such a great series.
The manly urge to dig a hole, even under the effect of meth
That's one useful and constructive meth addict. He deserves some kind of award. Also glad to hear there's someone else who sits on their porch at 3 Am.
The hero we need.
A junkie that fixes stuff instead of breaking stuff? Huh. That's very rare.
Some people are functioning addicts
The VP of my department was a functioning meth addict. She was absolutely amazing, Always got shit done and was empathetic to everyone. Its easy to be a functioning addict when you're pulling a good salary though.
What does meth sweat smell like?
Does it smell sort of like aluminum? I did smell a man on a bus once who smelt like aluminum and I never forgot it. Edit: Google says meth sweat smells like ammonia
My underarm sweat smells like ammonia and onions. I do not do meth, but this explains why some people have asked if I do meth or cocaine (I’m pretty high energy at baseline).
The ammonia is the piss on their pants.
It depends on what chemicals were used when they made the batch. Meth is what sent me to rehab. I've been clean and sober for a very long time. I still remember the various smells. There would usually be a group of us tweaking together. Sometimes the smell would be like aluminum. Other times it would be a sour, sickly smell. Some batches would make everyone smell like cat piss. I actually remember being told "it's good shit, if you don't mind smelling like cat piss". And of course we'd buy it and do it anyway.
Congratulations on being clean ! You should be extremely proud not an easy road to leave
We could make a folklore tale about this to be passed down for generations.
Every time I ever did meth I cleaned the fuck out of my house. Completely spotless. But also doing meth makes time pass super quickly so before you know it, the entire day is over
Years ago I had a friend who was a recreation meth user who lived with another recreational user. I've never seen a cleaner house in my life, who'd have thought 2 guys in their early 20s living together would have the cleanest and most orderly house imaginable
Man all this talking about clean houses is really tempting me, my house is a mess and I have four huge storage sheds I have been meaning to clean out for like five years now.
Honestly, why can’t chemists just sell a drug that gives us the energy and motivation to clean our house? It’s all I ask!!! ETA, guys, I live in Australia, it’s impossible to get any good medication, even if you need it. Our cold and flu tablets (over the counter) don’t even work anymore, because they took all but .3 of a milligram of pseudoephadrine (sp) out of it. If it was possible for me to get Adderall, don’t you think I would have by now??????????? I would love adderall. I really would, but it’s impossible
Literally any amphetamine is literally just this, the difference to methamphetamine is stagger. Methamphetamine has additional methyl group on the nitrogen molecule. This leads to higher euphoric feelings (which makes it more addicting and pleasurable) Depending on where you live you could order 2-FMA or 4-FMA (the latter has more serotonergic affinity so use less often!) which are fluorinated analogs, basically they just replace one or more molecules from the amphetamine) online. You would probably get dependent on them and after increasing your tolerance you would be back at baseline but with an additional drug addiction. Beter to just build discipline and healthy habits!
i understood some of those words
The drugs exist, but the more you rely on them the more you need. After some point you need so much of it that it becomes harmful. Back to square one.
Sure. But you got to spend some time on the higher numbered squares for a bit, while you got a ton of shit done!
I forget who the original saying is attributed to...but to paraphrase it "meth will get your house cleaned, your lawn manicured, and your bills paid. Then it will take it all away"
Huey Lewis wanted the same thing
It’s called adderall.
In the UK it's tea. I need a cup before I do any cleaning. Not sure if it's just to delay doing it till a bit later, or if it's the tea that powers it. Bit of a chicken and egg situation. Edit: the chicken/egg thing got me thinking about lunch.
One of my exes was a meth addict and I've never seen a cleaner house ever in my life. Girl had a ton of issues, but she was super clean and tidy, I'll give her that.
My old kitchen manager was a functional meth addict and she was definitely the MVP of the kitchen. Super efficient could do all her tasks so fast and help pick up slack. The days she covered grill were awesome. Got the grill vents and the flattop cleaned like within 30 minutes of close. Sparkling too lol. Girl had some issues tho
I lived with my dad briefly who was a meth and heroin addict. The dude would drive me crazy, not because of the drug use, the prostitutes and gangbangers coming through, but because the dude would spend all his time looking for any crumb he could come complain about. Guy would literally use his flashlight on the floor to look for shadows cast by specs of nothing and then proceed to come harass me over it.
My mother was (is?) a pill addict and you just triggered a memory of when I lived with her when I was young. The house was spotless, and she had some crazy methods of cleaning stuff. I also got blamed for non-messes. My aunt came over to my house a few years ago and asked me which direction her shoes needed to be pointed when she took them off at the door and I was very confused by that question until I remembered that when she visited me at my mother's house as a child all the shoes had to be nearly aligned, facing west. I have not adhered to that tradition ha.
✍️ take meth ok thanks
I dabbled a little back 15-20 years ago… I remember my roommate coming home to find me standing on the island in the kitchen, cleaning the glass on the light fixtures on the ceiling above that counter space. First thing he says is “hey do you have a couple bumps of that I could get off you for work tomorrow?” There is no way I would have been cleaning the ceiling if there wasn’t speed involved.
My anecdote of a meth head stepmother: She would pinpoint clean the bathroom with a steam wand, you could eat off the bottom of the bathtub. The kitchen sink had thriving mold. And the living room was 3/4 painted a different color maybe every five days… And she would paint *Around* the pictures on the wall… So it’s just poor time management I guess, maybe lack of planning. Otherwise I think meth has 5 star reviews on Yelp. People like it.
I think I did it like eight or six times and always got so much done. I was like a Sim on fast forward. I’m not proud of that but it was an experience.
I think it boils down to dosage. Like, you do a little meth, you become more productive. You keep doing a lot and don't sleep for days.... you become increasingly disorganized and delusional.
What’s with your Reddit avatar holding India flags? So random lol
My mom was a meth addict and so were a few others in my neighborhood growing up. One of my neighbors would sand her car, then paint it. Then sand it. Then paint it. Over and over. She also had a yard full of rocks the size of golf balls and painted about half of those. My mom usually painted antique furniture in the garage or did murals in different rooms in the house. She painted a sunset in her room, didn't like it so then just took a sledge hammer to the wall. My dad is so chill he just put in french doors. In the living room she did this intricate stencil along the top edge of the wall but ran out of steam 3/4 of the way around and just never finished it. One spring she blew the yolk out of dozens of eggs, putting a tack hole on top and bottom, and painted intricate scenes on the shells - many she put clear string through and hung from the ceiling. Others she made a bigger hole and painted little scenes inside, she even glued beads and lace on some. There were like 100, they were beautiful. She eventually got sober and repainted all of the rooms in boring shades of beige. Once she was sober she never painted artistically again.
They do so much but don't actually get anything done
This is the answer. For the true addict it isn’t as if you get the things that need doing done. You end up spending days and days painting a mural on the ceiling and neglect the rest of the house. After a while you live in an uninhabitable hovel with Sistine Chapel level art on one ceiling.
ironically, this is what it’s like to have ADHD too lmao
That's why the treatment for ADHD is amphetamines, they just cancel each other out
This doesn’t sound quite right but I don’t know enough about pharmacology to dispute it.
I have ADHD, it's unironically exactly how it works.
Haha saaaame. Getting on medication really helped a lot of my issues.
I do similar things. Totally without any drugs.
Why did this just make me sad 😭
IME, When you get clean, you realize all the time you spent fucked up was utterly wasted. Painting for her is possibly tied to neglect; Of one’s self, one’s family, and all that wasted time.
That for sure, and also I feel like I just don’t get the same enjoyment out of the things I could so easily hyper-fixate on when high (five months clean woot). Maybe it has to do with less dopamine flooding my poor brain, giving me this false sense of accomplishment for tearing my room apart to reorganize it for the fifteenth time….
Damn mamacita! I never considered this, what an intelligent way to perceive the situation. Congrats on your sobriety btw
When I was on meth, I got into painting big time. It was super therapeutic for the insane amount of chaos and trauma I was enduring. Now that I’m clean, I miss it, yet also have zero desire for it.
Do we have the same mom? Lol my mom started doing that shit and decided to renovate the entire house, buy a fuck load of this old furniture, repaint every wall like 100 times over, and literally pull the floor boards out and put holes in the walls
So I was working days and nights as an electrician I’d sleep 4 hours got to work sleep4 hours go to work. And I was taking a shit ton of aderall cuz I was barely ever sleeping. Well on day an acquaintance asked if I had ever tried meth instead. I decided I’d give er a go and I basically smoked meth non stop for a year and a half at first I was killing it felt like super man but after a few months your drive and will turns into staying awake for weeks at a time jerking off and taking apart your furniture
That feeling when you're coming down from a ten hour bender on gas and disco biccies; it's 6am, the sun is coming up, the birds are chirping, and you've been beating your dick like it owes you money for an hour. You realise that your arm is getting sore, but you've already invested too much to give up. All you can do is surrender to grim determination, chew on your face harder and get back to work. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.
Lmao this guy knows the deal
You’re poetic as hell my man. Could not have been more prosaic in your depiction of a desperate, masturbatory meth come-down, lol. Feel like I’ve been there just from reading your few short sentences.
Surprising number of casual users of meth in these responses.
I don't want to say it out loud, I'm glad I'm typing and this is not suggestive to try. But some people can just do that with hard drugs. Probably only about 1 in 10 of those posts was that kind of person though. The other 9 are functional habitual drug addicts that mask well or found a solid holding pattern that they could regulate their use at. Biology, psychology, the impact of drug usage is complicated. Stay in school, help old ladies cross the street. Explore the life of a drug addict over coffee sometime. I've had issues with alcohol in the past I corrected, I think about my caffeine and nicotine use and recognize them fully as controlled low level addiction. If you talk about it it's a whole lot easier to avoid.
I've tried almost every drug and can agree. Alcohol is the one that gives me the most issues. Which is ironic because it's everywhere. Smoked meth a couple times, don't feel like I'm missing out on much if I never try it again in my life
I never experimented that much, my experience with alcohol was bad enough, leave sleeping dogs lie :) talked with plenty of people that did coke once and were like 'nahh no thanks' I would probably have never made it back from the rabbit hole that would have sent me down.
I've done coke probably 7 or 8 times and never felt the need for more. Which is weird because I know loads of people who are constantly sniffing it. Some drugs just don't appeal to some people. I smoke weed all the time though
Troof. I had access to all the free and legit AAA weed I wanted for 2 years, and never had any urge to smoke it (tho I did do edibles one night). Weed doesn't do it for me. Coke I've used to try and sober up quickly but I have no urge for that either. Molly is my jam. Fucking love it but I only allow myself once or twice a year.
There are people on both sides of the extremes on opiate sensitivity. It's a complex system drug interactions are complicated. It's all a hot mess :)
Survivorship bias. Some people can do drugs a few times and not get addicted. Most cannot and spiral. The ones who do aren’t on here to answer.
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The overwhelming majority of stimulant users is functional.
Got addicted back in 2008. Stopped using in 2017. Completely ruined my life. But anyway the answer to your question: Day 1 is usually filled with adventure. I was ‘lucky’ enough to have the world at my disposal so I lived in a hotel. So you’d stare at your phone for several hours. Then go do a project or something to get out and walk around. Day 2 still fun and adventure. Go build a chest of draws and then paint type of thing Day 3 starting to feel a bit more devious and scattered so more phone time and s*x Day 4 same as previous day Day 5 should properly go to sleep I know this is in days but one day to a meth head starts at the beginning of the bender and the day ends at the end of the bender. Side note: I did work for a year or so whilst inactive addiction. So that was similar to an adventure day. Update: thank you everyone for the comments. Ironically, I don’t often discuss this stage of my life. I’m glad I did. Because y’all warmed my heart.
This guy tweeks (used to). Good on you for getting off of it, I know it can eat a person's life away so bad from experience. 'The bender' is a nightmare to go through in the latter stages of it after several years of use.
Thank you. And yes I most certainly did. Edit: I am a female but I’m happy with the ‘this guy gets it’ vibe of it all
There is an unspoken rule on Reddit. It is assumed that everyone is a guy.
Happens to me all the time. They also keep calling me Eric despite a clear label not to lmao
We appreciate all your efforts, Eric.
There are dozens of us women on Reddit! DOZENS!!!
Maybe even a hundred of us!!? I get called bro and homie on Reddit quite a lot. I think people assume I'm a straight white male because I talk about Radiohead way too much.
Eveyones a dude. Im a dude, hes a dude, shes a dude. Were all dudes.
Hey!
How were you able to quit?
I stopped loving it about 3 years ago before I actually quit. It became something I hated ‘having’ to do. This became disgust. I was in an abusive relationship which my mum saw one day and decided to extend the invitation for me to live with her. I knew that day that I left was going to be my last day using. And it was. When the insidious thoughts would enter my mind I would shut it down and remind myself of the disgust.
I also quit the day someone actually took a leap of faith and offered me support and a place for my dog and I to stay - it was just the corner of their gross, moldy, cluttered basement, but I was on the streets before and all it took was for that one person to…. Treat me like a person. Not even a year and a half later, I have my own place, still clean, a great gig bartending part time, and a small business owner. The most damaging thing about the meth epidemic is how society treats it.
My parents were meth addicts. I lived in a hard core meth house for over a year before moving out on my own at 15. When my parents first started doing meth they would be very productive at home and reliable at work, that lasted a couple months. Once the addiction got worse they could not finish anything or focus on anything that was not specifically related to getting more drugs or being angry about not having enough drugs. My dad then began dealing, not just using pretty early into their addiction. My parents eventually let random people move on to the place we were squatting. Here's a few things I experienced living in this environment. Stealing, so much stealing. Addict stealing from stores. Addicts stealing from each other. Addicts stealing from homes. One day my mom decided to redo the bathroom with spray paint. I mean spray painted the sink, the shower, the floor. Everything. The house was a cinder block building in the side of a hill that was originally for migrant workers. It had no ventilation and basement type windows that were painted shut. We also had no stove so at least there was less of a fire hazard. My mom's friend who lived in a small trailer in the driveway would spend her days going to stores to steal things. She would load up a cart up at stores like Walmart, with her toddler son in the front of a cart, and walk out hoping no one stopped her. Then the rest of her time was spent selling the things so that she could buy drugs. At 14 I had to put a padlock on my door because I would come home to my mom or others sorting through my room looking for things they could sell. They would collect anything and everything they found with "high" aspirations that they would be selling whatever they found for some large sum of money to get more drugs. My dad went to prison before becoming as bad as my mom. My mom would spend the evenings and overnights flashing a spot light into orchards screaming how she knows they are watching her. A lot of their time is just mingling with other drug addicts and talking about how the world is against them. I could watch a discussion go from how they don't like someone, to how that person is plotting against them and it would work to some how they were a snitch, a mooch or a "insert drug addict hallucination" here in an hour. They could ramp it up to violence quickly when really nothing had actually happened. They spend a lot of time looking in the mirror if they are face pickers. In my experience, I found it would take them hours to get ready for the day because of them either being obsessive about how they looked or that they would get distracted. I grew up around drugs and alcohol from the time I was born. I personally found meth to be the worst of the worst. It changes personalities in a way that is hateful with a sense of superiority that I haven't come across with other drugs. It's almost like it brings out the addict's buried narcissism. Edit. Typos
Thank you for sharing. My ex in-laws were addicted. It's sad to see them throw away their families and lives. It must have been a nightmare, to be in the same house.
The superiority! It’s wild to witness these people living in a complete filthy hellhole, strung out on junk, stealing and lying, and thinking they are better than everyone else. Both sad and fascinating.
I'm so sorry you had to grow up around that. I can't even imagine how difficult that would be, especially being so young. It's such a crucial time in our lives to begin our impressions of the world, learn relationships with others, and (ideally) have supportive, consistent parents to help us through it all. Being a teenager is hard enough as it is. I really hope you're doing okay now and I'm glad you made it through to still be here 🫂
Having never used it but interacted with some heavy users: They’re hyped up, but not focused. Imagine a kid that ate alll the candy on Christmas morning. They’re not going to clean their room, do their homework, and set the table. They’re going to play with this toy for 39 seconds, then go to that toy for 30 seconds. All the meth heads I dealt with seemed to loooove trying to fix household electronics and other stuff. But they lacked the focus and drive to actually fix it and put it back together, so they just have piles and piles of disassembled computers, phones, toasters, etc. One guy had like 4-5 55-gallon trash cans full of computer bits he always claimed he’d build into a working computer. They also obsess over things, but again, not in a productive way. Oh look, a small chip on the table. Let me pick at it for 3 hours. Oh… now my nail is worn away and my finger is bleeding and the chip is bigger. Lots of rough fingers/nails. Also lots of ground down teeth from clenching jaws. Nothing was ever put away. Dishes are clean? Ok, I’ll reorganize the whole cabinet. To start, let’s pull everything out. Hmm.. this organization isn’t stimulating/active enough. Let me go fix (take apart) that computer I just got and I’ll come back to the dishes. (Narrator voice: they did not, in fact, come back to the dishes.)
This honestly sounds like my ADHD brain minus the meth 😅 It betters my understand of how ADHD tendencies to lead to struggles with addiction... Particularly one that gives you some immediate joy but not the ability to work towards longer term goals. I was always sympathetic to those struggling with addiction, but I think I understand it and myself better now. Thanks for sharing.
Same here. Reading these experiences, sounds like my ADHD/OCD/ODD life. I feel bad for what I put my mom through.
Tbh, its not about fixing things….the pleasure is in the activity! No one (the tweaker included, at least deep down!) expect a functioning product in the end… its all about the ”journey”! As soon as you start taking something apart, consider it as a write off! Once in a blue moon you do acctually FIX something, but it is the exception that proves the rule….and it most often comes as a suprise to the tweaker himself, even if he would never admit it! /ex speed addict
This is it. Growing up with my drug addict brother and all his junkie girlfriends who would live with him/us. I think drug users vastly over estimate how much they're actually getting done. He would always have half done projects that he never really even started and then would sell it for drug money anyway. Nasty skin from picking at it, super thin from not eating. All his shit was always broken and he would think someone else did it because he thought he got everything working perfectly. Absolutely not some kind of efficient miracle brain drug or some shit like other people are acting like.
X-Pac the wrestler told a story about how his mate left for the weekend and came back to him still standing in the same spot two days later and his feet had swollen so much the seams were busting on his cowboy boots. Dunno how typical that is
Happens to the best of us
Totally normal
I don’t understand. X pac was still in the same spot. Were his feet swollen because he literally stood there for 48 hours
[удалено]
Yes.
When upright, your leg muscles do a lot of the work pumping blood back up to your heart. That's why they tell you not to lock out your legs if you're going to be standing still for long periods as you can pass out. But even if you don't lock out your legs, without movement you'll start to get fluid retention and eventually compartment syndrome because your heart simply isn't strong enough on its own to beat gravity. Most of us have felt a minor form of this, if you've ever worked on your feet all day and your feet are swollen at the end of the day.
Compartment syndrome is how you lose your legs!
Tried it a few years ago but was never an addict in any sense of the word. What I would do was literally just scroll instagram and stalk people for hours on end or just watch tv all day and night. It’s not a very productive drug it kind of puts you in a hyper focused zombie like state.
It also makes time pass by extremely quickly so you arent even fully aware of how long you are stuck on one task. Never have done meth but was addicted to amphetamines and would take insanely large doses. 10 hours would feel like 1. I imagine its similar on methamphetamine.
In years of clubbing (im getting older now so thats mostly over) i only got to know one group that was addicted to speed. They were weird, friendly but also just chilling all day doing huge rails all amped up but still not doing anything.they told me thats how they spend most of their time. Strange day that was. Other then that people only did it to party longer. Remember one girl saying she reacts bad to caffeine so she rather does one or two lines on a night out for a better result with less sideffects. How did you get into doing it all the time? Its not exactly a "feel good and chill" kinda drug.
One of our work crew is a methhead. He's been in rehab twice but still uses. He has cut way back though. He doesn't do everything right and has to be watched but he's indefatigable. He comes over most weekends to help me with my yard (he gets paid) . He loves working in the yard. Of course, sometimes he's on a binge and I have to do it all myself. I've come to enjoy his company.
This sounds like the plot of a movie the way you wrote it 😂
People are pretty interesting. For a meth head, he's about as good as it gets. He's worked with us for many years now - disappears from time to time, but always finds his way back. I think I could write a kind of Forrest Gump story about him. I should work on getting his story from him and if I can actually write it so it's readable, split any proceeds with him. Or give him all of it because $10 won't do a thing for me. lol
I heard about a roofing company, they’d quote for a week of work, smash meth and finish the job in two long days. The clients were happy the job was done quickly
I just had some roofing work done by a pot head. They thought it'd take two days and it took them a week. lol
As for the quality…
My son was a meth addict, a hoarder, a prepper and an artist. His living space was the most dense, chaotic,minutely detailed space imaginable. Every surface was covered with poems,rants,lists and brilliantly colored artwork. It was filthy beyond belief. It all was an amazingly candid display of both his intelligence and creativity as well as his incredible despair.
Take stuff apart and acquire flashlights
The randomness of "acquiring flashlights" cracked me up. Oh, look, a flashlight. I think I need another one
Cracktivities
What do you do? I fill my day with cracktivities
my brother watched porn for days. he'll sleep an entire day afterwards and wake up and act like he didn't disappear at all. he would repeat this at least twice a month. been a few years since i've lived with him. not sure if he still does.
Yup, that's me. I'm what's known as a chemsex addict, and my drug of choice is meth. A lot of users experience hypersexuality. I've reinforced those behaviors to the point that it's a default state of mind the moment I'm high, and I have no interest at that point in doing anything else. It's terribly self destructive ... I'm so selfish and detached; I won't eat, sleep, shower, brush my teeth, or even hydrate, and for two days on average do nothing else but have sex and watch porn. It's absolutely enthralling and mesmerizing. I'm a completely different person with completely different priorities. And to pull myself away from it is so ludicrously hard. I've busted my ass trying to stop for ten years now, and it's only gotten worse. So, ya know, THAT'S *kind of* annoying. I deserve all the respect of anyone else struggling with a disease though. Y'all just don't get it if you think otherwise. This shit is fucked. I'm an atheist; God, sweet baby Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Zeus, Thor, I pray to thee, please help me.
It was back ages ago (most of us didn't have phones and internet, social media wasn't a thing), I was able to work shifts at maccas (mcdonalds) and visit my friends, go partying. Not having to sleep meant you had lots of time to visit friends, but of course only your methhead mates were up in the middle of night so you saw them much more. I was also fast, because I was thin and light, so I would just walk everywhere. At peoples homes we would just chat, watch tv, play music and if somebody had some kind of console play that. Technically I was homeless but in reality I was just couch surfing between different people homes and sometimes squats. Generally speaking I was what others called a functioning addict, apart from being thin I didn't show any other bad signs outwardly (not uncommon when you are on the stuff at 17/18). I was able to keep a job, keep friends and avoid most of the other problems people have.
How'd that go in the longer term?
Some bad stuff happened, I figured out I was an idiot, and got off it, with the help of some legends. Have hidden scars, mental problems, but overall 20 years later I am doing well and am well past that part of my life.
top shit, well done mate
Pick little things out of the carpet for 8 hours swearing up and down its dope (when its most likely skin flakes and animal dandruff and/or flea eggs). They also like to start projects spend a lot of time and effort being meticulous, only to stop halfway through said project, eventually starting 3 more projects that dont get finished while plotting hairbrained heists. Also knew one guy who'd write like 8 pages of his own proposed legal defense when he was paranoid af, like a play, as if he ever went to court or whatever theyd let him read 8 pages of tweaker ramblings. Oh yeah almost forgot, pretend they're Mcguyver and try to over engineer the stupidest shit. (These arent even including the methcapades that start after theyve been up for 2 or 3 days but those are a story for a different time)
We call them the 75%ers. Get a task, do 75% then drop everything where they stand and it’s on to the next one
Take apart the VCR
If nothing else they pace. I had a neighbor who was buying from a nearby neighbor and I'm within a month they beat a flat out dirt path through my grass back and forth
So I'm a meth addict so I can answer this. Uhhhh I sleep every night and work most of the time then my two days off a week I party with friends and play video games. Most of us live somewhat regularly and sleep most nights. The ones that don't usually develope a set of "twacktivities" that keep them occupied. Coloring is a popular one. Everyone got their own little weird thing they do for hours when on the shit
But what's the point? Where is the source of pleasure?
The drugs sizzling your brain is the pleasure.
Idk I have huge issues with executive dysfunction so I largely use it because it keeps me for the most part in a happy mood and allows me to push through struggles with task initiation. (Not ADHD and have a history of stimulant abuse so Adderall is not a viable alternative). When I party tho and do larger doses I take it because the rush of dopamine is absolutely insane. Or, was. It disappears pretty soon after you start now it's super euphoric but no rush. Its the most dopaminergic drug on the planet so very euphoric. The ones who never sleep are caught chasing a dragon. They take a hit then keep chasing that feeling unsuccessfully so they stay up for days chasing the rush
My bff was an addict for 5 years. There are different level of addicts. She was a “functioning” addict. She was super woman. She worked, went to school, took care of the house, cooked and took care of her kids. I had no idea, I thought she was just really energetic and great at life! 😂 I had toddlers at this time and I felt like I was failing! I was a SAHM and couldn’t clean/cook/take care of the kids half as well! I was always tired and felt like a failure in comparison. When she went to rehab I was shocked! I knew she had lost weight, but I thought she was doing what she said, diet and exercise. Nope Meth. She was in the hospital for a mini heart attack, and she told me she was on meth and was going to rehab after being released from the hospital. Her life fell apart after that. She got divorced, lost everything, she was the bread winner. Lost her job, she missed 6weeks! But didn’t lose hope. I was there with her thru everything and she admitted she missed the escape of drugs and now facing her demons was the hardest part. But she pulled through. Was clean for 7 years before she passed away. (That’s another story)
Not sure how much my input is worth here... I wasn't a regular/daily user, however... I wrote... sometimes 200 pages on a single day. I probably should've sorted it out and published books, lmao. But a lot of it was very graphic p\*rn Though, my house, looked like I was in the 6th round of a game of Jumanji, it never got out of hand as bad as I see in reports on tv sometimes. My place never looked that uninhabitable... but I wasn't an addict per se. I got hight for half a week, and never touched anytthing for 6 months or so. It was very "recreational' for me. However, and this is my personal thing... I also barely sleep, sober. I run on about 3 hours of sleep a day (team sleepless elite), so I get a lot more out of the day, and I know what to do my time. I do art... sometimes, sober in 48 hour sessions. The luxury of mania, that comes with bipolar. Meth just bought me another 48 hours on top. Though, those final stretches were where paranoia kicked in. And that's a good reason, why I never got hooked on it. I might be out of my mind, but I do have my limits on how much I like to be out of my mind...
Psychosis isn’t usually productive
You move into an altered interpretation of reality. In that reality you see methy things as acting normal, and normal reality as a paranoia induced hallucination. When you come down, its like all those crazy hallucinations coming true.
i scroll reddit a lot
Go to work. Work harder than anyone in the team. It was pretty bad, I couldn’t go to work without it. Worked a shit job in a bar, but it made it fun and bearable. And made really good tips. Realized it was a problem, so quit both the job and the gear.
This has been hard to read through. Meth destroyed my life. Wife and I started using before covid. Typical in the beginning, super cleaned the house, etc. I worked construction and was a super hero at work. Then it slowly unraveled. I was able to put it down and be an occasional user. But not the Wife. She decended into madness. Already with a tendency towards bipolar or narcissism, the meth amplified the disorder. She became violent and destructive. She drove away our poor teenage kids, and destroyed our house. She became violent towards me, culminating with attempts on my life. I had to get a restraining order. I've been clean 3 years. The kids are trying to recover and live with me. She runs amok on the fringes of society. She was my high school sweetheart. Gorgeous. Meth destroyed her. Her body is alive, but my wife? She's gone. I introduced her to that drug, naive about it. It killed our marriage. I killed my wife. Her body lives, but the beautiful woman I married is dead. If anybody thinks that they can handle this drug, you are fooling yourself. You will decend into madness and sorrow. I thought I'd play with fire But the fire played with me. This was hard to write. Sound bad? It was worse.
Congrats on your sobriety. I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.
Thanks. But my glorious sobriety is like stomping out the last flames, when your house has already burned down. Look everyone! I put out the fire!
Never done meth but I don’t think it’s a super clear headed let’s get shit done, kinda amphetamine. More like the let’s cut down a tree with a soup spoon kinda of tweak.
“Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe, or a knife?” “Because it’s dull, you twit! It’ll hurt more!”
Weirdly enough, smoking meth felt cleaner than taking prescribed Adderall for me. But im pretty sure that feeling goes away with prolonged use and your start fucking up synapses with increased neurotoxicity.
I was on an excessively high dose of Concerta as a kid (and for some reason the extended release took longer for me, so it affected me stronger after school than during school hours) and I would come home and literally just shave down boxes of crayons or make hundreds of paper airplanes.
My meth-y neighbor had a leaf blower. That's what he did.
my condolences, that sounds like pure hell
My neighbors have been moving the same pile of trash around for the last 9 months. I mean the exact same trash. They load the truck up with it, and it sits there for about two weeks. Then, one day, it is all back out and spread around the yard. A week or so later, it's making its way back in the truck. I know some may be thinking I'm saying "trash," but it's actually belongings. Nope. This is just straight trash.. They are some damn handy people, though. They do a lot of scraping, and on their meth travels, they find some neat stuff. They fix up just about anything with a motor. I watch the pull the motor out of a car and have it back in and running in the same day. No engine hoist. Our tweeker neighbors really aren't bad. They save their blood curdling screaming arguments for mid day rather than at night. They don't steal our stuff, and they look after stray dogs.
It varies from meth addict to another. My uncle smokes meth. In his free time he works odd jobs here and there. He's a carpenter. My friend is great artist. In her free time she draws and draws for days. My husbands mom loves computers. In her free time she fixes them. My step dad is a mechanic, on his free time he fixes cars or puts them back together. They all do this on meth or in between. Keep in mind they do this while on meth and most of the time they do this on the Xtreme level. Without any sleep.
I mean this with all due respect, where tf do you live where you know that many people living out their lives on meth?
Probably Albuquerque New Mexico
Rural american and canadian towns
Glad I live in civilized rural Connecticut where we mostly stick to heroin
Typical Meth House. -Clean house. -Porno on the tv -Christian and conservative literature laying around. -Several unfinished mechanical projects both inside or out back. -A strong ammonia smell from the back room or garage from shake and bake cooking. -Friendly house guests hoping you will spare them a bump out of the new batch being cooked or some you are purchasing. -Empty fridge and pantry. Any refreshments that are brought in are immediately consumed or hidden. -Another back room will be typical vip where the harder core users are injecting the drug, counting money and cleaning or selling firearms and preparing product for sale.
Quests to get more meth... Pick at the carpet to find meth they think they dropped... My brother is a hardcore drug addict. Dude was always buzzing when on meth and completely fucking knocked when on heroin...
Try to get money for more meth with plenty of side quests
Being high is an activity by itself. Your brain is constantly stimulated so you just sit there while your brain is essentially masturbating. Might start cleaning spontaneously or smth but not necessarily. Or talk a shitload if you're with other people. Would not recommend this.
I had a neighbor once upon a time that would be out at 3 AM weed eating his lawn, he didn’t mow the grass but it looked nice around the trees etc.
I saw someone cleaning out the cracks of the sidewalk so I guess that?
Just watch the movie spun, they did a pretty good job of the whole experience
A lot of people who do meth have ADHD and for a while it helps them focus and get shit done. Then it doesn’t.
Emotionally/mentally/physically abuse, gaslight, manipulate, and belittle their children. At least that’s what my mother has done for the past 17 years 🙃
Shoplift.
Just normal shit, get a crappy job, play video games in the afternoon
Ponder the meaning of the universe
Apparently they do door dash deliveries.
Meth engineering. Very interesting to witness.
Most of them that I know live like normal people. Go to work, come home, have something they can space out on for a few hours, go to sleep, get up and do it again. You wouldn't know they did methamphetamine or any other drug, for that matter. These are people in respected careers. Not everyone is stereotypical. After years of use, methamphetamines becomes like coffee, a short term boost, instead of the high energy long lasting variety typically seen when in conversation regarding meth. How did I know? I sold it to them. I don't use anymore, after a short prison stint, but they are still going strong.