As a bit of a content warning, I would
like to say that this essay contains frank descriptions of drug use.
It may be triggering to some people, myself included. Drugs are
commonly used and abused by people suffering from mental illnesses,
sometimes as a reprieve from the symptoms of their illness, and other
times as self-punishment for unwanted thoughts and behaviours. This
means that drug use can be motivated by anything from self-medication
to self-harm. For me, it was both.
At a young age, I never considered that
I would use drugs. The war on drugs was loud. It wasn't until
symptoms of schizophrenia appeared that I questioned the
establishment view on drug use. It was a bit of an embarrassment for
the established view that even the most cursory examination of the
actual, unbiased literature on intoxicants – from people who used
the substances they talked about (chemists like Aldous Huxley,
psychonauts, and shamans) – showed the drug war to be extremely
misleading. It was not based on facts, but politics.
This isn't to say drugs are safe. For
someone suffering from schizophrenia (a class of people most
susceptible to the use of artificial stimulants), they are certain to
lead to a full-blown psychotic episode. But for most people, the
average person, light and moderate use of drugs is not abuse, and the
mind and body rebound after the person outgrows the habit.
My poison was crystal methamphetamine,
also known simply as “speed”. Relatively safer amphetamines,
such as Dexedrine, are uncommonly used to treat Attention Deficit
Hyperactive Disorder. Dexedrine was also used by pilots to remain
focused on long flights; metamphetamine was used by factory workers
in Hitler's Germany to increase production. A white powder that
dissolves into a steaming glassy puddle when heated, methamphetamine
is inhaled as a gas, injected, or snorted up into the nostril. It
causes the heart to race, the attention to be hyper-focused, and
removes exhaustion. I know someone who was awake for three weeks
straight due to his constant abuse of meth.
Although highly addictive, meth is less
addictive than nicotine. Once I started coughing up blood from
overuse, it was easy to cut the habit. Unlike cigarettes, it is easy
to pair the specific health effects to the use of the drug.
A few months later, I was
institutionalized; because I was forthright about my drug use, my
initial diagnosis was drug-induced psychosis. However, it is clear
to me that my drug use was a symptom of the psychosis, not the cause.
I suffer from schizophrenia and thus I used drugs, not the other way
around.
Talking to others with schizophrenia, I
learned that drug use and abuse is common among those living with
psychotic symptoms. It is a common opinion that drugs – even those
as seemingly benign as marijuana – can cause a psychotic break.
However, my unsubstantiated opinion is that a psychotic break can
just as easily be the trigger for the drug-seeking behaviour.
