Crystal Meth Addiction

One form of the drug methamphetamine, a synthetic man made chemical, is crystal methamphetamine also known as Crystal Meth, in short. It is a white crystalline drug that people take by snorting, smoking or injecting or even ingesting orally. Use of crystal meth creates a false sense of happiness and well-being including a rush of confidence, increased energy, decreased appetite and hyperactivity. The effects of the drug can last up to 24 hours but from the very beginning they start to destroy the user’s life.

Crystal Meth is known by many street names such as ice, glass, meth, crank, chalk or speed and is most commonly used as a “club drug” while partying in night clubs or rave parties. It is a dangerous and powerful chemical that acts as a poison although it first acts like a stimulant but eventually ends up destroying the body systematically. It is associated with serious health hazards including memory loss, violence and aggression, psychotic behavior and potential heart and brain damage.

The devastating dependence caused by the highly addictive meth crystals can only be relieved by more consumption of the drug as it burns up the body’s resources and is highly concentrated so that it “hooks” the users from the very first time they use it and is hence, one of the hardest drug addictions to treat and, at whose hands, most people lose their lives. It usually comes in the form of a crystalline white powder that is bitter tasting, odorless and quickly dissolves in water or alcohol.

Though it comes in various forms such as that of a compressed pill (known as Yaba in Thailand and Shabu in Philippines), powders of many different varieties of colors including brown, yellow-gray, orange and even pink, it is most commonly smoked by blazing the clear, chunky crystals resembling ice. It is manufactured in illegal, hidden laboratories and is often mixed with stimulants such as amphetamines by extracting the ingredients from pills and combining it with chemicals such as battery acid, drain cleaner,  lantern fuel and antifreeze.

Stages of Meth Abuse & its Vicious Cycle

The first stage of the “rush” includes the initial response the abuser feels when smoking or injecting meth wherein the heartbeat races and metabolism, blood pressure and pulse rate soar. This rush lasts for more than 30 minutes and is followed by a “high” or the “shoulder” (lasting 4-16 hours) whereby the user feels aggressively smarter and becomes argumentative along with facing increasing episodes of delusional effects such as intensely focusing on an insignificant item and repeatedly cleaning the same object for several hours.

The third stage of meth usage is called the “binge” (lasting 3-15 days) which is the uncontrolled use of a drug and refers to the abusers urge to maintain the high by smoking or injecting more of the substance. Each time the abuser smokes or injects more of the drug, he experiences another but smaller rush until, eventually there is no rush and no high. The fourth stage of meth abuse is a phase of addiction known as “tweaking”, the condition which results at the end of the binge (when there is no rush or high) and when the abuser is at its worst and most dangerous state. During this critical juncture, the abuser loses his sense of identity and becomes disconnected from reality as the hallucinations are so vivid that the abuser remains in a world of his own with intense itching becoming common as the abuser is convinced that bugs are crawling under his skin.

The next stage to hit the binge abuser is the “crash”, when the body shuts down completely as it becomes unable to cope with the overwhelming drug effects and even the most violent abuser becomes lifeless (goes to sleep for 1-3 days). After the crash, the abuser returns to a deteriorated state of “meth hangover”  whereby he becomes starved and physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted (lasting for 2-4 days) and the chances of addiction becomes more real than ever.

The withdrawal period lasts between 30-90 days and when the realization of its reality hits the face of the abuser, he becomes depressed and loses the ability to experience pleasure while craving increases to such an extent the abuser often becomes suicidal. That is why meth withdrawal is extremely painful and difficult to deal with and most abusers (more than 90 per cent) return to abusing methamphetamine.