The Effects of my Environment on my Mood

You wouldn't believe the variety of moods I experience. Unless you've read my post on bipolar disorder, in which case you would. In either case, I'm going to elaborate a bit on what type of shit I go through.

Right now, I'm in a pretty good mood. I woke up relatively early, drank a bunch of coffee, and went to the gym. All of these activities seem to have had positive effects on my mood. In fact, the latter two are the most consistent mood elevators that I have in my metaphorical toolbox right now.

Recently, I've been waking up in a quite sour mood every day. The world feels cold and unfriendly in the morning, and my body feels like it's lined with lead and bricks and heavy shit like that. Even drinking a cup of coffee seems like it will take infinite effort, partially because of the act of filling up a cup and then taking sips, and partially because my depressive inertia will have to be broken when it inevitably brings me up to speed.

Fortunately, this morning was a bit better. I'm not entirely sure why, but I woke up before nine o'clock, and while I did go back to bed for a few hours, I didn't do so grumpily. But enough about today. Let's talk about why my mood cycles so much, and why the things that help do so.

The first thing that comes to mind, besides my natural mental state, is caffeine addiction. As I discussed in my post "Caffeine and Other Drugs", caffeine inhibits the function of adenosine, a neurotransmitter responsible for, among other things, limiting neural activity. My body may be reacting to this consistent inhibition by producing and releasing more adenosine to make up for the caffeine. Thus, before I've had my daily dose of coffee, my neural activity might be limited more than it would be without the influence of psychoactive drugs in my life.

Since I'm prone to rapid mood cycles anyway, I suspect that the caffeine withdrawal joins forces with natural depression and kicks my ass. The only solutions that I see to this problem are complete abstinence from caffeine, or a consistent regimen of several cups of coffee a day. Hmm, which shall I choose? I'll be right back, I need a refill on my coffee.

Yum, caffeine. Let's talk about the working out part. Aside from making me big and buff (hypothetically - not as much as I'd like, in practice) it seems to energize me and put me in a good mood. I wonder how exactly it does that?

Woah, I just learned some crazy shit. It turns out that aside from releasing endorphins (the body's natural painkillers), exercise releases anandamine, a neurotransmitter which hits the cannabinoid receptors in the brain and body. Yes, the same receptors that THC, the most active chemical in marijuana, hits. It undoubtedly has different effects on the brain than THC, but it is involved in mood and appetite control. So, in as few words as possible, it turns out that working out gets me a little bit stoned! No wonder it can be so addicting.

I don't use marijuana, for a variety of reasons (including the risk of getting kicked out of my house, and risk of extreme mood states, as discussed in my post "Bipolar"), but I have sure had some good times when I did use it. It's really interesting to me that exercise may reward the brain in the same way that THC does.

I'd really love to get properly addicted to exercise. It would be oh so nice to crave something healthy the way I crave cigarettes, coffee, and all of the drugs that I don't do anymore. I guess I'll just have to keep doing it as many times per week as I can bring myself to, and see what happens.

Well, that's all for now, folks. If you just learned as much as I did, and took as great an interest as I did, from my quick Wikipedia search, you oughtta come back tomorrow and see what I've got for you.

My Addiction

So what’s the deal with drug addiction? That shit sucks, man.

I’m a drug addict, personally. It sure does create a lot of havoc in my life. Not only can I not use psychoactive substances responsibly, which is a problem in and of itself, but there’s this stigma attached to drug addiction that can really be a downer.

I think I’m going to explain the disease of addiction, and how it is manifested in my behavior. Maybe you’ll learn something! (Like, for example, how crazy I am.)

Addiction is a psychological disorder. It is multifaceted, but its primary components seem to be lack of self-control, shortsightedness, and thought distortions; all brought on by any substance which changes the way one feels.

So what does that mean in the real world? I’ll give you an example:

A couple of years ago, I stayed at a friend’s uncle’s house for a weekend. She was in charge of house-sitting, which we interpreted as “getting loaded for seventy-two hours straight”. We brought a bag of marijuana, a fifth of vodka, and a few hits of LSD with us.

Now, my memory of the weekend is a bit hazy, so I can’t give you a play-by-play of how the entire weekend went; but I do remember quite a bit of it, so I’ll piece together the rest.

On the way there, I and one of my four acquaintances (we’ll call him “B”) took one hit of acid each. When we got to the house, we all immediately took a walk to go smoke a bowl of weed. Everybody got to his or her desired level of fucked-up for the moment, and we went back to the house to watch the movie “Tommy”.

To kill a bit of the suspense, I’ll tell you right now that the acid was bunk. Neither of us tripped on it, and we ate about five hits together by the end of the night. So that night we just got stoned and drunk and watched weird movies.

The next day, we looked at our supplies (a few crumbs of weed and about a quarter of the bottle) and decided that we needed moar drugz. I believe that I was the one who enforced this decision, as none of the other people involved are nearly as drug-crazy as I am.

So we went into Berkeley, the nearest city in which we were likely to find drugs, and hung out on Telegraph Ave looking to score. We came back with a box of nitrous oxide cartridges, a “cracker”, and a balloon.

Well, by the early evening, we had gone through all of the nitrous, booze, and pot. Everyone else was having a good time, but I was desperate for more intoxicants. Here’s where the story gets grimy:

The man who owned the house had been married, and his wife had recently died of some sort of cancer. Because cancer is a particularly uncomfortable disease, she had quite a stash of medications in the bathroom. I did a bit of exploring, and came across a bottle of 5mg Valium (diazepam) pills.

I had never done Valium before, but I had heard good things about it. First, I did a bit of research online. Then, I crushed and snorted two of the pills. A short time later, I either snorted or ate four more pills, giving me a total of six 5mg pills ingested, or 30mgs diazepam in my system.

It turns out that when you mix benzodiazepines (the category of drugs in which diazepam falls) and alcohol, you get really fucked up. As I understand it, this is because they both cause the release of the neurotransmitter GABA into some things called GABA-A receptors somewhere in the brain. I got wasted.

The rest of the night consists in my mind of little bits and pieces of memory and a lot of filled-in stories from friends. Apparently, I convinced a girl that we had to acquire more booze, and we walked ~2 miles in search. I loudly asked her if every single establishment we passed would sell me beer, including such places as a hardware store. When we eventually came across a 7-11, I hatched a quick plot to get beer.

You see, I was 18 at the time, and the drinking age in California is 21. So I waltzed into the 7-11 with a five dollar bill in hand, grabbed two 40 oz bottles of beer, ambled over to the counter, and slapped the five down in front of the cashier. I was intent on walking out of the store with the beer, having paid the cashier, without getting carded. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought of what to do if any other variables came into play.

The cashier informed me in an Indian or Middle Eastern accent (not that his accent is relevant) that he was not allowed to sell alcohol after midnight. Despite my confidence in my plan to illegally buy beer, I was struck dumb. I skulked back into the beer aisle and put the bottles back, then walked out empty-handed.

The rest of the night involved me ranting and raving about some song that I enjoyed at the time (I believe it was by the Flowbots), and describing line-for-line what it meant to me to this poor girl I was with. The next day, I bought more nitrous and stole more Valium. I ran out of both after about a week of using daily.


This recall may seem at first like a typical college adventure, but let’s look at it a little more closely.

Here are a few signs that something is wrong with me.

1. I took three substances at once the first night.
2. While everyone else was relatively satisfied with the idea of a night of light drinking and smoking, I needed more (the nitrous).
3. After taking three substances the second night (nitrous, weed, and alcohol), I was unsatisfied; I needed more.
4. I did not hesitate to steal medication from my friend’s uncle’s dead wife, and snort it on his (the uncle’s) kitchen table.
5. In doing this, I was fully aware that it would horrify my friends.
6. After adding a fourth substance to my intoxication, I was still not satisfied.

The point is, when a psychoactive substance is introduced to my system, all I can think of is ways and means to get more. I’m broken; I cannot think properly. I have drunk myself into sickness more times than I can count, gone into hospitals and institutions a total of four times in two years as a direct result of my drug use, gone psychotic as a result of my drug use, been arrested as a result of my drug use, and given up my home and family in order to use drugs. Until I ran out of money when homeless and friendless, I would not stop. Only when it was impossible for me to get high again did I enter a rehabilitation facility.

There are many ways of feeling good. There are ways which do not involve drugs that feel just as good as your average high, if not better. I know that, and I have experienced positive feelings from many activities without getting intoxicated. But somehow, I always go back to drugs.

It is not logical. It is not reasonable. I’ve got a broken thinker, and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life. It is only with an AMAZING support group, books, meetings, and a lot of psychological conditioning that I am clean now. And I’m not even convinced that I’ll be clean forever. Despite the inevitable arrests, hospitalizations, homelessness, and death that will come of drug use, I’m probably going to go back to using.

So if you know someone who has a drug problem, don’t talk down to him, ignore him, judge him, hate him. Just get him some help.