As an avid lover of alcohol and drugs, I have never been one to judge anyone’s choice of party favor. But no matter how much I may enjoy thinking fast, talking fast and cleaning the house in my underwear for three days straight, I have to say, there are few drugs grosser than crystal meth.
A Portrait of Meth
Meth is one of those drugs where you don’t even need to be a chronic user to look like a chronic user. When I think of people doing meth, images of scabbed-faced white people who can’t remember the last time they showered, shit or used a toothbrush come to mind. I think of dirty white socks and stale body odor and a carton’s worth of Newport cigarette butts extinguished in a Big Gulp. Energy drinks, half-eaten Twinkies and dirty fingernails with bloody cuticles—all this can be yours after just one weekend on meth.
But Wait, There’s More
Turns out, personal hygiene and teeth aren’t the only things to go the way of the dodo bird once a person starts tweaking. In a recent post, Dr. Rick Pullen, a psychiatrist and addiction specialist at Montana’s Rimrock Foundation, told The Montana Standard that using meth damages the brain’s ability to produce dopamine, the neurotransmitter in charge of pleasure and reward.
What this means is, when a person tries to go off meth, they may experience huge dips in their body’s chemical levels; leading to major depression and all the lovely things that come with that. And it often takes a long time for the brain to reset itself to start properly producing dopamine again—if at all. This is one of the reasons the relapse rate of crystal meth is so high.
Permanent Vacation
Neurologist Dr. Mary Gaddy, who treats patients out of Billings, Montana, said that while the jury is still out on whether meth use leads to permanent brain damage, based on what she is seeing in her practice, the verdict is in. “I have seen in my practice Parkinsonism from meth use, and those people are never going to get better,” she said.
So why do people use it? I am certain that is the question pondered by the well adjusted, non-genetically disposed to addiction, functioning people of the world. Knowing what we know about meth—how addictive it is, how quickly and visually it destroys a person’s health, how dirty and depraved it is (have you ever seen Spun? Yikes)—why would any one ever sign up for that? Oh, I know! Because it feels amazing.
It Gives Chase
But while a meth high could last up to 12 hours, it has very rapid diminishing return. In fact, as Gaddy points out, “people who use methamphetamine chronically tell me they never achieve [that initial high]again.”
Yet they continue to chase it. Does that sound like the decision-making process of a rational person? Of course not, but it does sound like the rather textbook behavior of an addict.
Scared Straight? Probably Not
I never tried meth but speaking from an alcoholic’s perspective, no matter how many school videos, Lifetime Original Movies or documentaries I might have seen about the dangers of drinking, it never stopped me from using it in excess. Sure, part of that has to do with the social validation of booze. It’s hard to fear a drug you see so many people using and “doing fine.” There are certainly far fewer people using meth in moderation (although I have known several who were able to make it their recreational bitch).
Although there isn’t much more we can do beyond educating people about the risks involved, the problem with warning people about meth is that many new users seriously don’t give a f**k. These are people, sometimes kids, who feel lost in their lives: unhappy, insecure and self-destructive. They may not be reading the meth pamphlet and then asking to be passed the pipe but they certainly aren’t going to get scared straight. They are probably already somewhat depressed and not able to put enough value on themselves or their lives to get scared straight.
I’m going to go out on a limb here—if depression and loneliness are the precursors to drug and alcohol experimentation, maybe we should stop threatening people with Parkinson’s and start allotting money in school and community budgets for talk therapy? It seems logical to me but that could be the meth talking (obviously, I’m kidding).
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