[QUOTE=frogus23]I'm from Oxford, England...Drugs of all sorts abound, and to be honest, practically every one of my friends does pills, wizz, MD powder, mushrooms, marijuana, acid, coke, nitrous oxide, amyl nitrate and ketamine more or less frequently...Likewise I.
Coke, acid, mushrooms, pills and MDMA are used as 'party drugs' on nights out.[/QUOTE]
Dearest Frog, considering what we have discussed previously about serotonin, if I were you I would avoid serotonergic drugs entirely...take care of that lovely brain of yours, you don't want to decrease your abilities or get into irreversible mood alterations. If you want to use drugs, central stimulatia like cocaine and amphetamine is the best for you. Opiods would be the second choice. You should really, really stay away from LSD, MDMA, philocybin mushrooms, mescaline and such. If you absolutely want hallocinogenic experiences, try sleep deprivation or Salvatorin A, the only known hallucinogentic that is not mediated by the serotonin system.
[quote="Xandax]
In my personal opinnon"]
I share this opinion and value totally with you, and I have the same problem empathising with people who find value in non-reality. If I have the most wonderful dream or fantaly, what does it matter, it is not real and thus has no impact on anything outside a few minutes in my intrapsychological world?
However, what you and I should be happy for is that in difficult situation, we don't react with escape. In the fight-or-flight response choice, we don't end up on the flight side in this regard. There are situations where life is so horrible so almost nobody would continue to live on without the possibility to escape reality. For instance, I know that glue sniffing is common among homeless orphans who live on the street in some ghettos and make a living by prostituting themselves and stealing. Some say they would kill themselves if they didn't use glue to get away from the suffering, still, they hope for a better life in the future. This I can well understand. We just have to realise that different people have different reaction patterns and also different thresholds. Nothing wrong with that, in an evolutionary perspective, a person with a low threshold is simply a person with a very agile alarm system.
What I do not understand at all is the fun of taking mind altering drugs as recreation. There are so many ways to alter your state of consciousness by experiencing reality rather than construct illusions with different drugs. Maybe it's a matter of opportunity, ideas and self knowledge - finding interesting, inspirational and stimulating experiences takes some personal research, time and energy and a lot of trial and error. Drugs in a much easier way.
I think the most important is to realise that much of these differences between people are related to differences is basic personality traits. Such basic traits are 50% genetically determined. The other 50% is an unknown mix of everything from chemical characteristics in prenatal environment, to social learning and cultural conditioning. Again, in an evolutionary context as well as in a society, all these have a functional value. This does however not mean we have to
like all sorts of combinations of traits, personally I dislike people with high anxiety traits and low sensation-seeking, but that's not a moral value, that's just personal opinion.
It is crucial to make a distinction between
value system and
personal opinion. Value systems (like moral values) should be generalisable to objective reality, and thus based on objective reality. Personal opinion needs not the be generalisable at all, and can thus be based on totally subjective and irrational preferences, emotions, thoughts and experiences. I dislike people with certain types of traits and behaviours, thus I avoid them. However, I don't view them as corrupt, weak or less worthy as human beings. It's not necessary to like and sympathise with everybody, it's just necessary to attribute equal human value and thus equal opportunities and rights to everybody.
[quote="JopperM]Her ADD seems to have gotten worse(I'm not sure if there is a link there or not)"]
That's terrible

Unless her neurotransmission has been monitored (which it never is, it's only if you participate in some scientific study as a volonteer) it is of course impossible to conclude the cause of her worsening, but one can speculate from what is known about the substances in general. Firstly, we know that people with a history of depression has some perturbations in the serotonin system. They are most likely more vulnerable to serotonergic acting drugs. Second, it is known that Prozac and all other SSRI:s cause downregulation of serotonin receptors over time. This is probably not permanent, the nerve cells will make new receptors, but it may take time - in chronic stress patients who have killed off their serotonin receptors with toxic effect of cortisol, it takes 8 months-2 years for the receptor system to recover. Third, MDMA is neurotoxic do serotonin and dopamin receptors. Worsening of depression in people with prior history of depression has been obsevered also after occational use, as well as depression in people who never before had it. Conclusion: it is very likely that the condition of your ex has worsened due to the MDMA use.
[quote="Chanak] I only had one doctor insist that I take a mood stabilizer anyway. I disagreed with her"]
I guess your doctor was too dogmatic based on the statistics that it has been demonstrated that a majority of people with bipolar disorder get successively worse over time. As usual, prediction to a specific individual can of course not be made from group statistics, so considering the side effects, there is no reason for you to start taking mood stabilisers as profylax. Instead, just keep being attentive and monitor you episodes closely. Ask some people who are close to you and who have known you well for a long time, to keep an eye on your behaviour. If you seem to worsen, you just start taking lithium then.
[quote="Chanak]
What concerns me about the SSRI drug I take is what happens to me when I forget to take my once a day dose. Not too long ago"]
*grinding teeth and trying to prevent falling into a rant about the US health care system*
You have all reason to be bothered by this. I think it is inhumane with a system that can prevent people from getting access to their medical treatment for insurance reasons. You are put at a great risk when you abstain from your medicine for as long as 30 days, what if you had not been able to resist your suicide impulses? It makes me absolutely mad to think about it. Also, as you know, you are at risk for severe, irreversible side effects if you stop taking the medicine suddenly, without a proper down-titration.