Psychoactive Drugs Essay, Research Paper

PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS

There is one person I know that has been addicted to psychoactive drugs. He was addicted to LSD and Cocaine. He spent about a year and a half snorting cocaine and taking hits of LSD. For one whole year he didn’t go one day without snorting cocaine. It would depend on the mood he was in to decide which drug he would consume that day, or if he wanted to take both of them all at once. He was never himself when he took either of the drugs. It was like he was in his own little world. When he consumed a large amount of LSD in one day, he would be the happiest person in the world until he started to come down from the drug. When he started to come down from the drug, he didn’t really want to bother with anyone around him. He would be very moody and aggravated with his surroundings at the moment. On the days he would consume a large amount of cocaine, depending on how much he would take, he would be sweating, his heartbeat would be so fast, he’d have to lay down for a while, so he could let his heartbeat slow down. A lot of the time, when he would take LSD for the day, he always thought that his friends had something against him, like they were mad at him. He would accuse them of doing things they hadn’t done. He would get very untrustworthy of me and his friends when we were around him. He would also be very paranoid if he drove a car while on either drug. He’d always think that there was a police car following him, or if it was late at night and really dark out, any car that would be behind him, he would think it to be a police car. Once he actually thought or hallucinated that the cars sirens were on, so he pulled to the side of the road and let the car pass him. After that happened, anyone who would be driving behind him, he would pull over and let them pass him. Sometimes when he would consume a large amount of cocaine within one hour, he would be totally off the walls like he was acting like he was a 3 year old. His behavior was different each time he took either of the drugs. Sometimes he would be so mean when he took LSD, that he would purposely pick a fight with whoever was with him at the time. He would often say that he was going to quit very soon, but that never really happened with the snap of his fingers. It took him another 6 months for him to totally stop taking the drugs. There was one incident one night he took a combination of the two, and took a little too much of the drugs. And what didn’t help his situation at all is that he smoked a lot a marijuana on the side. One night he took 7 hits of LSD, and quite a bit of cocaine, all at once. By the end of the night we found him in his bedroom, totally nude, nothing on him what-so-ever, with sweat dripping from his body. He had a body temperature of about 106. His heart rate was a least 65 beats per minute. He was on the verge of dying of a heart attack at the age of 19. If he were to taken any more of the drugs he took that night, he’d probably be dead. After that incident, I think he realized what could’ve happened to him that night, and what thankfully didn’t happen to him. I think that’s why he quit while he could.