Excuse the junkie

                                                  Excuse the Junkie
                                                          by Nick.


                  On this glorious Saturday evening, I finally shot speed again!

    When such expressions (e.g: finally) are employed, perseverance standards need to be set straight. Otherwise, those who cannot relate to an addict’s conception of finalities risk misplacing their empathy, thus peeling off a trench of their defenses for undue causes.

    Stay focused comrades. Never forget to remember that my subject is a methamphetamine addict, not an aids patient. The latter gambles with probability; fails; and meets damnation while pursuing vain lusts. The worst case culminates in a slow death, concluding an unfair trade of momentary pleasure for an eternity devoid of all similar pleasures. The former, however, self-negotiates his deal, and takes the poison in exchange for gratification. The terms are clear: once tasted, junk redefines pleasure. The consenting junkie will ever be dependent on junk for excitement. However, shock value eventually expires and effect quality deteriorates with time. Having given up on natural sources of pleasure and being betrayed by their replacement, the old addict survives, but the life he never appreciated fades into a muddy turmoil of past regrets.

    If you’re lucky enough to be mentally retarded and immune to mass brain washing, you might be wondering why one victim of misjudgment demands acceptance and compassion while the other is showered with disgrace. Perhaps the best argument offered so far is that sexual needs are justified, while detachment from life and hunger for elated states of consciousness are, by comparison, absolutely unacceptable. (groundless arguments, if stated in bipolar vocal tonalities that deliberately revere certain statements while ridiculing others, are widely used means of persuasion. Using “matter-of-factly” speech tenors is helpful as well, for it misleads the opponent into being intimidated by false statements framed into auras of fake factuality).

    So back to our intended clarification; “Finally”, when unaccompanied by itching, nausea, or failure to control erectility - otherwise called “erectile dysfunction” * - usually refers to some two weeks of complete compulsory sobriety or around six weeks of specific abstinence – meaning the addict sanctifies the carcass of his control-breathing ego and distracts his craving with less preferable substances.

(* The alternate term stains the otherwise “humiliating” lack of sexual release - perhaps due to unrelenting thoughts of another object of interest - with a medical smudge. “Go!” said Cortius the surgeon to his students: “fetch the different, the unique, the funny, the endearing, and all that which was never classified, then ‘syndromize’ it into defeat… No deviance from the stream shall remain nameless… The man who had endured a sustained sexual lag will lay assured; he now proudly possesses a disease!”)

    The experience of methamphetamine injection falls beyond the scope of my immediate interests for many reasons which I will not conceal. First and foremost, meth acts upon mood states and mood states only; whilst lacking any effect on perceptive and imaginative functions. Literature is filled with narratives of substance experiences: Huxley elegantly delved into his past hallucinations under acid, recounting surreal observations of the past with impeccable precision.
De Quincey described opium-induced dreams with unprecedented livelihood and imagery but did not, perhaps intentionally, touch upon any of the many, many other effects opium executes on both the cognitive and affective states of the consumer.
None of those enlightened scholars had faced the challenge of describing the mood states their respective substances induced.
Should I attempt to describe the exceptional mood state I drenched in right after the last micrometer of the 25-gauge insulin needle abandoned the lucky vein in my right arm, I must entertain a descriptive process that bears both reciprocal (from mood regulators to perception and back), and subjective (judging the current mood state based on knowledge of the self’s prevalent nature) components. As such, this process emulates that of a suicidal patient describing his mood state at the time of critical despair; how many “sane” people would actually relate to such a description and eventually grant the anguished their approval to his self-killing, judging it as very reasonable given the description given? Probably none would. And the reason exceeds that of mere altruism and valuing of life. Simply put, only when the exact combination of both perception and mood states; occurring at a specific time; and under similar (if not identical) circumstances, that it is presumed possible for another individual to reach the same inferences about the same situation. Peculiar to me is the fact that, during group sessions, meth junkies usually display a heightened intellectual demeanor – a characteristic effect of all stimulants. However, when attempting to share the affective experience with their fellow junkies, mutual discourses usually adhere to the level of complexity necessary to produce statements like “Are you feeling it like I’m feeling it?”, at best.

    How can anyone describe so extraordinary a condition, when past experiences hold no remotely similar antecedents that guide comparative judgments?
We judge our ever-changing mood states by comparing them on the qualitative variable of, say, happiness. Thus, today’s mood is only classified as “happy” if it tops some past mood states on the happiness scale. Otherwise, I’d say I’m in a normal mood. In fact, many optimists explain sadness as a reminder of the parallel existence of happiness, dismissing any absolutist value of feelings.
In contrast, I would not say I felt “happy” when I injected speed. For after the injection, old standards cease to operate. Happiness no longer exists nor does its scale matter. The speed high can no longer be described, for it doesn’t follow any known standards, and any judgment of its effect based on regular criteria would be catastrophic:

In comparison, we’ve always been depressed!