| Drugs in Partyland: Think
Thru the Buzz
Adapted from the brochure Drugs in Partyland, written
in consultation with Justin Richardson, MD, David McDowell, MD,
and Ron Winchell, MD. For more information, please contact GMHC's
Substance Use Counseling and Education, at 212/367-1354.
This information is meant for educational purposes only.
Disclaimer
Pills, Powder, Poppers, HIV and
You
Ecstasy
K and GHB
Poppers
Coke and Crystal: the Binge
Drugs
Pills, Powder, Poppers, HIV and You
"It was wild: At first I wasn't even sure I was going out, then
when I got there my friends introduced me to this cute 26-year-old
DJ who danced with me for an hour. When he asked if I wanted to
go home with him to party, I thought he meant sex, but he meant
sex and Crystal and K and more Crystal and more sex. I got home
some time Sunday, tweaked, tired and with a satisfying dull ache
in my butthole."
Getting High and Don't Know Where It's Getting You?
Tanqueray and tonics in Cincinnati. Long Island Iced Teas. Poppers
in Provincetown, K in Key West or Crystal in California. Gay men,
like all people, are no strangers to using drugs when we get together
to party. What that may mean for you if you choose to join in —
whether you end up speedy or "Xstatic," calm or crashing, panicking
in a K-hole or pleasantly out-of-it on a bump or a few beers —
depends on a number of different factors. Some factors are biological:
like how much you weigh, how big a dose of the drug you took, how
you took it, and how much difference there is with that particular
drug between a dose that helps you feel good and a dose that makes
you sick.
Some are circumstantial: like what other drugs (prescription or
not) you're on, how much baby laxative may have been mixed into
the powder you just paid $25 for, or even who you're with and where.
Some factors might be called psychobiological: in other words,
how your mental and physical states combine. If you're in a bout
of depression, for example, you're more likely to want to use cocaine.
You're also more likely to feel like the world is ending when you're
coming down from a three-day binge. This depression may last days
or even longer.
What's your plan? "It's not that I plan it. You
do a bump, you feel like anything could happen. A few hours later,
you do another."
Talk to people about partying and hooking up with other men, and
they describe what one researcher calls the "SUDS": Seemingly Unimportant
Decisions. Say you decide to go out after all, meet a friend and
go off to another club, and then decide to do that bump of K. Somehow,
next thing you know, it's later than you thought, or you're going
home with someone hot, or it's 4:00 in the morning before a workday
and you're still on the phone-sex lines. Talk to people about those
extra-long nights or two-day parties, and chances are good that
there was a drug — either alcohol or some less legal pills,
powder or poppers — in the picture. Talk to people about having
sex — especially sex without condoms — and chances that
there was a drug involved get even better.
Drugs, Sex and HIV The best studies out there
on gay men's sexual behavior have found that use of cocaine, poppers
and Crystal has a significant link to unsafe sex. That doesn't mean
drugs cause unsafe sex — some people want to have that kind
of sex in the first place, and use drugs to make it easier. But
the fact remains: anal sex without a condom is the main way a gay
man gets HIV, and it usually happens while you're high. In addition
to thinking about what a drug may do to your body, give some serious
thought to what you want someone else to do or not do to it. That's
hard enough for most of us when we're stone cold sober, and it gets
harder when you're under the influence, so try to think safer sex
through before you snort, sniff or swallow.
"I do coke because then I don't have to think. One line and I can
talk to guys who'd never give me the time of day. It's like magic."
Magic has tricks to it. So does getting beyond the illusion that
drugs only make you feel good, and figuring out what drug use really
means for you and what it may cost you. You can think through the
buzz. "Seemingly unimportant decisions" may lead to really important
ones, particularly if they're about going home with someone when
you're high, or mixing drugs without knowing the risks. Your social
surroundings also make those risks easier or harder to control.
Doing poppers just before he's getting ready to stick it in you,
with or without a condom, is different from doing poppers on the
dance floor. Deciding to do a third bump of K when you've already
had five drinks is more likely to land you in a K hole. If you know
you're so high on coke that you can't even get a hard-on, maybe
going home alone is better than ending up as the bottom with some
top who won't care about condoms if you don't.
GMHC does not encourage or condone the use of any of these drugs.
But if you are going to use, here are twelve things to think about:
- What goes up must come down.
Before doing any drug, give some serious attention to how you're
going to feel afterwards as well as when you're high. Both are
part of the "drug experience."
- Know your own mind.
What works for others may not work for you. If you've had anxiety
attacks, a drug like K may seriously upset or disorient you. If
you're prone to paranoia (like everyone's out to get you), Crystal
may play into your fears. If you feel depressed now, you're really
going to be bad coming down from coke. And so on.
- Take a body check.
Look yourself over, all over, before you start the party. Any
cuts or sores that could let in HIV or other sexually transmitted
diseases will be harder to feel once you're wasted.
- Avoid mixing your medicines.
Mixing drugs is self-prescription, with lots of complicated cross-reactions
and unknowns. It's much safer not to mix drugs with each other,
or with alcohol. If you're on prescription medications, don't
take any party drug, including alcohol, without a doctor's advice
(yes, your doctor can tell you about what the effects might be
of taking a little extra, less-than-legal medicine).
- Think twice before the second round.
Have you really waited long enough to know how high you're going
to feel from the first one?
- Avoid shooting.
Except in the case of poppers, swallowing drugs is usually the
safest, since it lets them work their way into your system gradually.
Snorting is riskier, and shooting or smoking drugs rushes them
to the brain, which can make them more addictive and put you at
greater risk of overdose (not to mention HIV, hepatitis and other
complications of needle use.) If you do use needles, get a clean,
sterile one, and don't share. (See HIV/AIDS
Basics )
- Treat yourself right.
Think about how you act toward others, or how you let others treat
you, when you're high. Do you even know? Do you have a friend
or lover who can tell you honestly?
- Consider another way.
How do you hope to feel on the drug? Are there any other times
or ways you can get that feeling without getting high? Pursue
those with the same focus it takes to find drugs.
- Stay flexible.
Leave yourself the option of staying home, or of doing the party
without doing the drugs if it doesn't feel right. Real friends
will understand.
- Missing something?
If you're on HIV medications, especially protease inhibitors,
you're not likely to stay on schedule if you're tripping for eight
hours. Missing doses makes the virus stronger.
- Remember HIV.
Doing drugs brings down barriers. Plan ahead and don't let a latex
barrier — a condom that can save your life or someone else's
— get lost in the process.
- Don't be afraid to ask for help.
If you're in trouble on a drug, find a friend or a friendly face.
If you have questions about the ways you are combining drugs,
alcohol, and sex, you can make changes. You don't need to be an
alcoholic or a drug or sex addict to get the information you need.
By talking about the sex you are having, what it means to you,
and what it may cost you, it is possible to make partying —
and sex — safer.
In addition to knowing what system of the body a drug works on,
there's another important system to consider: the legal system.
Alcohol is the only party drug approved for use in humans outside
a hospital or laboratory, and most other drugs are illegal. This
means you may be adding risk of arrest to the other risks you take
when you use them. It also means that these drugs are often coming
out of somebody's homemade laboratory — meaning that there
is no quality control over how they are cut or the different doses
in each pill or bag of powder. Finally, manufacturers of legal drugs
do not and are not required to test for bad interactions between
their products and illegal drugs, which means you are taking a big
risk when you mix party drugs together or take them with other,
prescribed medications.
Ecstasy
"I change from a not-that-friendly guy to someone who looks around
and just feels like hugging people, or telling them about myself,
or sliding my hands all over them."
"It breaks the boredom of the scene for me. Maybe it's denial,
but everyone seems more interesting, more sensitive, heightened."
"Donna Summer said it. I feel love."
Ecstasy
Actually, Empathy might be more like it. This drug makes you feel
happy — friendly and open, mainly by rapidly increasing the
amount of available serotonin — a chemical transmitter that
controls emotions, anxiety and clearness of your thought —
in your brain. The serotonin system is the same one that antidepressants
like Prozac, as well as more powerful hallucinogenics like LSD,
work on.
X, which is more intense than Prozac and milder than acid, usually
comes in a pill or capsule, and for four to six hours it increases
your ability to relate to other people and decreases fear. Which
may be one reason why those boys who won't say hello at the gym
come across the dance floor to tell you how great you look later
that night. Too bad your serotonin-full brain stops producing that
crucial chemical for a day or so after coming under the influence
of X, so you who were so friendly while Xing on Saturday often become
a depressed, bitching, irritable monster on Sunday and Monday. Other
common post-X symptoms, like an aching lower back, probably have
more to do with the fact that when you're Xing you're likely to
dance all night without stopping.
Not much is known about Ecstasy use over the long term. People
who do a lot of it report that it takes more to get them high over
time, and research has shown some damage of nerve endings and permanent
reduction in serotonin levels in animals given higher or repeated
doses. There has not been enough research done to determine whether
a small amount of X alters your serotonin system, or whether such
a change in your serotonin system would affect the way you function.
Far fewer deaths and liver failures have been reported from Ecstasy
than from a drug like alcohol, and most of the fatalities and complications
may be caused by what the drug was combined with, or what was cut
into it before it was sold. Among the things found mixed into X:
caffeine, decongestants, baking soda, dog worming medicine, amphetamines,
and MDA, a trippier and possibly more toxic relative.
There is not much information about the interaction of X and HIV
or HIV-related medications, though in England — where an estimated
half million people use X each weekend — a man on the protease
inhibitor Ritonavir recently collapsed and died with the equivalent
of 22 hits of X in his body. Researchers at Ritonavir's manufacturer,
Abbot, acknowledged the theoretical possibility that interactions
between their drug and Ecstasy could boost X levels by "as high
as five to ten fold," though no studies have been done or are planned
on interactions between Ecstasy and any of the protease inhibitors.
Abbot feels that such research would appear to be "condoning" illegal
drug use.
Among the things we do know:
- X elevates heart rate and blood pressure. If you have high blood
pressure, diabetes, asthma or a heart condition, X is dangerous.
A small number of people have a severe allergic reaction to X
similar to that caused in some people by a bee sting or penicillin.
- X and protease inhibitors may cause potentially deadly interactions.
- Anti-depressants known as MAO inhibitors, like Nardil, may combine
with X to raise blood pressure to deadly levels. If a serotonin-based
anti-depressant, like Prozac, is helping you, it would be prudent
to not interfere with a good thing. MDMA may interfere with the
way Prozac functions and could lead to complications from having
too high a serotonin level. The bottom line is that we don't know
what the interactions are.
- X elevates body temperature, making you sweat up to a pint an
hour. In the nineties, there have been at least 15 documented
deaths due to dehydration caused by dancing, hot conditions and
the use of MDMA. Several others have died from guzzling gallons
of water at once. If you are going to X, try to drink plenty of
water and not all at once. If you're Xing in a hot place, take
frequent breaks, rest and drink some water. If your piss seems
dark or like there's not much of it, stop and drink some water.
Lose the trendy cap — it keeps in heat. Don't keep dancing
without taking breaks, and get some salt — or better, a "sports"
or "isotonic" drink — to help keep your body's balance.
- Alcohol doesn't get you any higher on X, but it does dehydrate
you faster.
- X can make you feel sick to your stomach as it's kicking in,
or like you have to go to the bathroom. Also, a dry mouth, tense
jaw and grinding teeth are common.
Sex, X, and HIV. X is often described as more
sensual than sexual: in other words, more about overall sensation
and less about your dick, ass and getting off. Research suggests
that X actually decreases men's ability to get hard or reach orgasm.
Still, people take Ecstasy because it helps them get over their
shyness and feel more connected to others. Bring condoms and lube
along with you to the party, before you find yourself on the way
home with a goofy grin and a fine man who seems like he can see
into your soul.
K and GHB
"I remember dancing on the pier and looking way up at an apartment
and thinking 'I could be up there in five minutes and it wouldn't
surprise me.' It's like you're on a different plane. Anything seems
possible."
K is a chemical cousin of that much-talked-about drug of the '70s,
Angel Dust. Slowing down the firing of cells in the brain's GABA
system, a master control switch for all kinds of nervous system
functions, K is what physicians classify as a "disassociative anesthetic"
and an analgesic, which means it both stops pain and makes the person
using feel as if their brain is disconnected from their mind or
their body. That can leave you kind of numb, weightless and feeling
no pain, but it can also make a person psychotic and potentially
aggressive. In the hospital, this is treated with anti-psychotic
medicines and other tranquilizers.
K comes as a liquid or a powder, often mixed with Vitamin B12,
and people shoot it, snort it, and dab it on their tongues.
The difference between feeling pleasantly "out of it" on K or so
blasted you can't function is simply a matter of dose. Take too
much and you find yourself in a K-hole, which means a half hour
or more of not being able to clearly see, hear or figure out where
you are, and as much as three or four hours of being in a semi-catatonic
stupor. Not a recipe for success, particularly in a crowded club
filled with strangers, noise and flashing lights. Combine K with
other nervous system suppressants, such as alcohol, and it's possible
to get yourself to the point where you're as passed out as you would
be on an operating table. How much is too much? Hard to really say,
which is one of the things about Special K that is not so special.
As with most other illegal drugs, little is known about K use in
the long term, or how K interacts with HIV or HIV medications.
- If you have any history of paranoia, anxiety, mania or mood
disorders, you are likely to have a very bad K experience. K can
heighten or provoke all of these, to the point of semi-consciousness.
- If you do use K, use it sparingly and wait at least an hour
before doing another bump.
- In case of a K-hole, wait it out. Make sure you have a friend
to be with you before you do the K, just in case you find yourself
unable to tell the wall from the floor. If you can't breathe,
tell what day it is or lose consciousness, have them get you to
a hospital.
Sex, K and HIV Don't get K-razy in the bedroom.
If you can't walk straight, do you really think you can fuck safe?
If you feel like your body is one place and your mind is somewhere
else, it's going to be hard to bring the two back together to cope
with telling him to wear a condom.
GHB
(In England, GBH), usually sold as a clear liquid or a powder you
dissolve into liquid, is also called liquid E or liquid X. Since
its effects are different from X (it actually works, like K, on
the GABA system), the name seems wrong. The English nickname for
the drug — Grievous Bodily Harm — may be more like it.
Not that GHB is always harmful. The right dose may make your sense
of touch electric, make you feel like sex, and give you a hangover-free
feeling like being drunk. Take a little more, however, and you slip
into a deep sleep, often one so deep you can't be awakened. Just
a little more GHB can lead to a coma, and possibly death.
Sleep — including the deep, restorative sleep known as slow-wave
sleep, when the body releases immune-boosting growth hormones —
is what GHB is intended to produce, and why it sold briskly over
gym and health-food store counters throughout the '80s. If GHB is
not mixed with any other drug, those slipping into GHB sleep will
usually twitch slightly and awaken some hours later feeling refreshed.
But add any other kind of drug that slows down your central nervous
system — like alcohol or even allergy medications — and
you run the risk of seizures, breathing failure, and even coma and
death. Nearly a dozen people at a Los Angeles concert had to be
carried into ambulances after doing GHB and who knows what else.
A man at GMHC's 1996 Morning Party had to be airlifted to a hospital
after he mixed GHB and alcohol and collapsed. A model in New York
took a swig of GHB from an Evian bottle, and woke up a day late
for her photo shoot. Two men on Fire Island overdosed on GHB and
alcohol, and died.
The issue is what psychopharmacologists call the therapeutic index
— the difference between how much of a drug makes you feel
good and the dose that makes you sick. You could take a dozen Prozacs,
for example, and probably not do yourself lasting damage. Do an
extra dose or two of GHB, and you may find yourself unconscious
on top of your sex partner (really unconscious) or waking up long
after the rest of the world has gone on ahead. And since all the
GHB you get is manufactured in do-it-yourself labs, you really don't
know how much is in that teaspoon or water bottle you're raising
to your mouth. If you have HIV, you should know that not much is
known about how GHB affects the immune system. Growth hormones similiar
to the one GHB helps to release have proved useful in treating AIDS-related
wasting. Respiratory failure and comas, on the other hand, are definitely
not recommended.
- If you have any history of seizures, convulsions or slowed heart
beat or low blood pressure, GHB is especially dangerous.
- Mixing GHB with alcohol, tranquilizers (Valium, Xanax), painkillers
or even over-the-counter sleep or allergy medications that slow
down your nervous system puts you at risk for coma, breathing
failure or death.
- Don't use GHB in a place where sudden, unexpected unconsciousness
is going to be a problem. Yes, that includes clubs and parties
(no matter how attractive an alternative coma may seem compared
to the late end of a slow Saturday night). If you do GHB, use
it in very small amounts to determine when you get high, and then
stop. Don't eat beforehand, since a full stomach may make the
effects harder to gauge.
- Make sure a friend knows what you're doing and can get you to
safety if you do go unconscious.
Sex, GHB and HIV Feeling dreamy and electric is
what most of us want from sex. What you don't want is to dream yourself
into believing that feeling good means you don't have to protect
yourself or someone else with condoms. You also don't want to find
yourself so out of it that you don't know where you've been, or
what or who's been up your ass.
Poppers
"It's like this physical passion — it just sweeps over you
— but it doesn't make you lose control for hours like alcohol
or Ecstasy."
"I don't have to be embarrassed about asking for what I want sexually,
or worry about my body. For those few minutes, I can just be myself."
"I can let people get deeper inside me: I mean physically."
Poppers get their name from the days when the drug came in small
glass tubes, covered with fishnet, that made a popping noise when
you broke them open and inhaled. Today — sold in record stores,
clubs and porn shops as vinyl cleaner, liquid incense and room deodorizer
— the drug comes in small bottles with screw-on caps. The liquid
itself can burn your skin, but inhaling the fumes acts as a vasodilator,
causing a sharp drop in blood pressure as your blood vessels open
wider. Translation: your heart races and blood rushes to your head,
which suddenly feels as light and big as the room you're in. When
that room is the bedroom, some people say, doing a hit of poppers
makes their orgasms more intense and their assholes easier to open.
You are less likely to feel pain while doing poppers, and probably
less able to feel self-consciousness for the 15 seconds to three
minutes that the rush lasts.
In the early days of the epidemic, so many gay men used poppers
that some scientists actually thought they caused AIDS. That's been
disproved, though a small study found that using poppers even once
or twice a week can suppress or weaken your immune system for days
afterwards. If you have HIV, poppers may be even more dangerous
for you.
- Tolerance to poppers does build up over time
if you're using them a lot. Some people get a rash around their
nose or mouth from regular use. Both symptoms should go away if
you stop.
- Pounding headaches are common after popper
use.
- Heart problems, glaucoma or anemia make poppers much
more dangerous.
- Swallowing the liquid can be deadly. Spilling
it on your skin can cause blistering.
- Poppers burst into flame easily. Keep them
away from lighters or candles or cigarettes.
- Poppers during sex may make you less conscious of pain
that may be an important signal to stop or readjust what is going
in your mouth or up your ass.
- Leave at least three minutes between inhalations
to avoid causing your heart to work overtime.
Sex, Poppers and HIV A number of researchers have
found that poppers are strongly associated with unsafe anal sex
and HIV infection. Getting lightheaded is one thing. Losing your
head — and your sense of whether he's wearing a condom —
is another. Also, poppers relax smooth muscle tissue (like your
anus) and deaden your senses. That may make you unaware of soreness
or tearing during sex that puts you at greater risk for HIV.
Coke and Crystal: the Binge Drugs
Most of us have learned to accept that pleasurable things —
like lying on the beach, eating or having sex — have limits.
Maybe you use sunscreen or don't swim at midday, for example, or
you realize that you're too full to have a third piece of cake or
you agree to put on a condom. While all party drugs create a sense
of pleasure, not all of them are created equal. A few actually are
much more powerful at rewiring your brain chemistry, making limits
more difficult to accept and creating cravings for more pleasure.
The result can be "binging": doing a drug for hours or days.
"Power. Sexual power, physical power. It makes me unafraid to go
up to that sexy guy and ask him out." "Honestly? It gets rid of
those questions I have about my dick, or my body. I feel awesome,
and can see people responding positively all around me."
Coke When it comes to binge drugs, coke is definitely
the real thing. Whether you shoot, smoke (crack is the smokable
version of cocaine) snort or swallow it, coke acts quickly to raise
levels of dopamine — a pleasure inducing chemical — in
the brain. The initial rush of pleasure makes you feel alert, confident
and sexy. By the time an hour or two has passed, you're beginning
to crash, and your dopamine-flooded cells are calling out for more.
How powerful is the urge to do more cocaine? Put it this way: a
laboratory monkey in one of those boxes where it has to hit a lever
to get a reward will hit the lever twelve thousand times to get
a single dose of cocaine. Give it a choice, and the monkey will
keep hitting the lever and taking cocaine to the exclusion of all
other things—food, sex, whatever — until it dies of a
heart attack. Humans, thankfully, rarely have the choice of unlimited
access to coke, but have shown similar determination when given
the chance. And since tolerance builds up, it soon takes more coke
to get the same rush.
That's not to say that every line of coke leads to a maze of paranoia,
bingeing and craving. But if you're getting high on coke, you're
also going to crash. A crash is like a hangover: your body, flooded
with dopamine, shuts down production of that chemical, and what
began as intense pleasure turns to intense depression and anxiety.
That can last for a few days. If you use cocaine a lot, your brain's
method of operations changes, with cells requiring high levels of
dopamine just for you to feel normal. Then when you stop using coke,
you face not only the initial crash but up to three months of withdrawal:
a state of low energy, bad moods, lack of pleasure and limited interest
in what's around you. Faced with that, most of us are no different
than the monkey in the box: to counteract those bad feelings, we
try to find the lever that will get us more cocaine, and more pleasure.
Presto! Dependency.
Continue doing cocaine regularly enough and you may experience
a number of problems. For one thing, most people don't have the
time or money to track down and buy cocaine repeatedly without causing
disturbances in their job or personal life. There are also medical
problems: feelings of paranoia, seizures, heart attack, strokes
and even death. Snorting a lot of coke can cause damage or bleeding
inside your nose, and smoking it often leads to burning your lips
or mouth. Brain scans of chronic cocaine users look different than
those of non-users, and these changes are probably permanent. Shooting
coke comes with risk of sores, infections, hepatitis and —
if you don't use a new, clean needle — HIV. Both shooting and
smoking get coke to the brain fast, within ten seconds, so the high
is more intense — but so is the low. The crash begins sooner
than if you snort, often within fifteen minutes.
If you have HIV already, using coke may lead to AIDS faster. At
least one study has shown that cocaine speeds up production of HIV
in some blood cells, though the study was in vitro (in the test
tube) rather than in human bodies. As with all party drugs, what
the coke is mixed with can be bad for your immune system. And, again,
little is known about coke's interaction with HIV medication.
Sex, Coke and HIV Use coke for hours — or
days — and you'll get more and more wired, and less able to
know your own signals or read somebody else's. In other words, you
may be less able to know when to go home alone rather than going
for it with someone who won't use condoms. Coke can also make you
feel mean, or aggressive, or let you think of yourself or someone
else as just a dick and not a person. Don't be a dick, as they say.
It makes it hard to take care of yourself or someone else, in the
bedroom or elsewhere.
"When you're having sex with another guy on Crystal, it's like
you're having sex with God."
"I stop worrying about things and just start doing them. I have
energy. I'm not depressed. And I feel able to talk, dance, cruise
and hit on people."
Crystal Crystal is the queen of the binge drug
(or is that "binge drug of the queen?"). Cheaper than coke and longer
lasting, Crystal makes people feel energetic, clear, able to go
without sleep or food, and very horny. It's also highly craving
inducing: people often go on a run of three or four days. Like coke,
Crystal floods the brain with dopamine, causing a definite high
followed by an equally definite and often devastating low when you
crash. And as with coke, you build up a tolerance, so if you do
it a lot, it soon takes more drug to get you high.
As with coke, getting "tweaked" — high on Crystal — usually
involves a dab on the tongue, snorting, smoking or injection. Swallowing
and snorting are the safest of these methods, since smoking and
shooting both rush the drug to the brain and increase the risk of
overdose as well as addiction.
No matter how you do it, doing Crystal for a long time can lead
to not eating enough, spending days without sleeping, and a bunch
of possible medical complications such as the feeling that people
are out to get you, depression, hallucinations, stroke and liver
damage. Since the party has to end sometime, and people who have
been up for days usually have to sleep at some point, Crystal can
also come with other kinds of consequences, like major complications
in your job, finances or relationships. Especially since lots of
Crystal use is associated with intense aggression.
What you get when you buy Crystal often varies. Beware of bunk:
a mix of Crystal and baby laxative, Epsom salts or other crap that
you definitely don't want up your nose or in your bloodstream. Even
with pure Crystal, you may experience itching skin, dilated pupils
and diarrhea, as well as a faster heart rate, and higher blood pressure.
Crystal is also processed by the liver, so the added strain may
make other medications you are taking including those for HIV more
difficult to tolerate.
Sex, Crystal and HIV On the one hand, Crystal
users say it's a drug made for sex: "I feel like every pore is cumming."
On the other, it's common to experience Crystal dick — the
inability to get an erection. That makes many a would-be top into
a bottom who's ready for action and can go for hours. And hours.
And hours. Which sounds great, but may in fact lead to rough sex,
or condomless sex, or not noticing if a condom is broken. Some guys
try to solve the problem by starting to screw with semi-soft dicks,
which means they dispense with a condom from the start. Some guys
don't notice that they've had so much oral sex that their mouth
is torn or bleeding. A popular Crystal story tells of a man who
tried to get himself off by masturbating for thirty hours without
stopping, not noticing that his dick was being rubbed raw. You get
the picture.
Whether you're doing it for thirty minutes or three hours, try
to make sure ahead of time that you have condoms with you and are
ready to use them. A recent study in Los Angeles, capital of the
Crystal kingdom, found that more than two-thirds of men using Crystal
sometimes or always put themselves at risk for HIV. A number of
other studies have found similar links between Crystal and unprotected
sex. Don't be among those who tweak today and freak tomorrow because
they couldn't think about a condom.
- Crystal and coke binges can make you feel like people are out
to get you. If you ever have panic attacks or feel paranoid,
using coke or Crystal may send you over the edge.
- Alcohol won't get you higher if you're using,
but it will put even more strain on your liver
than Crystal or coke alone.
- If you have heart problems, liver problems, or blood
pressure problems, coke and Crystal are extremely dangerous to
your health.
- Depression often follows a crash from coke or Crystal.
If you're depressed already, you may be setting yourself up for
a really bad time by using them.
- Some Crystal users become malnourished. Giving yourself
time to sleep and eat is necessary.
- Vitamin E capsules may help ease a crash.
- If you're craving coke or Crystal and you want to stop,
do something else immediately to distract yourself: go
for a walk, see a movie, call a supportive friend.
Disclaimer
GMHC neither endorses nor encourages use of the drug(s)
described. Possession, use, or sale of many party drugs
is illegal, and may make you subject to arrest and/or imprisonment.
Nothing contained here should be regarded in any way as a substitute
for medical advice from a qualified physician who is familiar with
all the details of your situation.
© 2003 Gay Men's Health Crisis |
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