Posted by AMD on February 6, 2006, at 9:36:43
In reply to Re: Fell off the wagon » AMD, posted by Larry Hoover on February 4, 2006, at 23:22:34
Lar,
Good to hear from you! I missed your injections of reality into my the fantastical world of my obsessive imagination.
I've felt blunted lately. No focus. Not depressed, yet I think depression might have something to do with it.
I'm apathetic and anhedonistic, particularly with regard to any normally enjoyable things. But I'm not sad, per se, nor particularly dysfunctional. It's just that my mind is all over the place, and I'm having a very hard time organizing my thoughts and staying focused on a task. To the point where I feel like there are little fish swimming throughout my head, blocking my thought processes.
I feel like my mental sharpness is there, yet obscured.
Perhaps I should inquire about an ADD medication to offset the damage to dopamine triggered by the cocaine use.
amd
> > Now I'm back to my freaking-out-about-brain-damage-and-my-cognition phase, and sitting here depressed that I'll never be able to accomplish my goals. I feel like my planning and execution skills have diminished greatly over the past couple of months, and that this was the "capper." I can't analyze things like I could even one year ago, and I'm worried I've done permanent damage.
> >
> > Is this going to haunt me for the rest of my life? With further absintence can I expect my cognition to improve once more?
> >
> > What do I do? Did this one night of drinking to excess cause permanent damage? I have felt zonked out all weekend, have been sweating today, and generally am very depressed. I think I'll make an appointment with my psychiatrist tomorrow.
> >
> > The upside is that I feel, for once, like I have this more or less under control. I slipped, but I feel strong enough to move forward.
>
> Dude, if my experience is of any value to you, perhaps you can extrapolate to a peaceful future, rather than the one you seem to fear.
>
> Way back when, in what seems like another life, I used angel dust (phencyclidine) daily. Many times a day. I used small doses to get me through work, and then after the evening meal, I'd head out and get wasted. We used to play "chicken" with our lines. First guy to come to would lose, ya know? I remember trying to get to my feet, near the end of one such evening, to navigate to the bathroom (beer effect), and I chanced to look around me a little. Maybe a dozen of us, all out cold but for me, and me only because of the bladder about to burst.
>
> I don't know that I didn't really hurt myself, but only because there wasn't an undrugged version of me living a parallel life, to compare the drugged me to it. Given time, and what turned out to be a number of trips "back out there", I don't seem to be too seriously impaired. Not that I recommend it to others, though. 12-24 drinks a day, in other phases. A major "knife toke" period. Geez, I had a lot of different ones......Still kicking, though.
>
> Lar
poster:AMD
thread:604176
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20060205/msgs/606851.html