This is an odd way to start blogging about the importance of “print,” but there’s method to the madness – an exaggerated, perhaps extreme method, to be sure, but method nonetheless.
So, let’s talk about the effects of methamphetamine on the brain!
Here’s a formal description, taken from the 2006 PBS “Frontline” documentary entitled, “The Meth Epidemic:”
--- Meth releases a surge of dopamine, causing an intense rush of pleasure or prolonged sense of euphoria.
--- Over time, meth destroys dopamine receptors, making it impossible to feel pleasure. Although these pleasure centers can heal over time, research suggests that damage to users' cognitive abilities may be permanent.
--- Chronic abuse can lead to psychotic behavior, including paranoia, insomnia, anxiety, extreme aggression, delusions and hallucinations, and even death.
--- Meth, said Dr. Richard Rawson of UCLA, produces “the mother of all dopamine releases." He continued:
"When addicts use meth over and over again, the drug actually changes their brain chemistry, destroying the wiring in the brain's pleasure centers and making it increasingly impossible to experience any pleasure at all. Although studies have shown that these tissues can regrow over time, the process can take years, and the repair may never be complete … After more than a year's sobriety, these former meth users still showed severe impairment in memory, judgment and motor coordination, similar to symptoms seen in individuals suffering from Parkinson's Disease.”
OK, that’s sufficiently intellectual and scientific, but let’s move to the street. Here are passages from an anonymous user’s blog entitled “How Meth Addicts Think and Feel:”
“It only takes one time to become addicted … making you feel like it has improved you and your whole life immensely. It has you believing that you are a much better person than you were before taking it … convincing you that you don't need anyone or anything else but it … There is no room for them (friends and family) in your new and improved life nor do you have the time to really worry about it. You'll be so preoccupied and detached from your feelings that you'll even be somewhat glad that everyone you know is staying away from you. At least you won't have to deal with them for awhile.
“Now you are no longer in control and still believe that you could quit doing it at any given time. There is no connection between it and the fact that you've lost your job or the reason you've broke up with your loved one … By now, your body has also become dependant on it so when you do try to stop doing it, you can't because your body is unable to function. Before you know it, you'll need it just to just get through the day. And since your body is not functioning properly, neither is your mind and pretty soon, nothing will make you feel good or even semi-normal. The little things in life like taking your kids to school, mowing the lawn, calling a friend or relative, won't bring you pleasure anymore. Nothing will until you get off the dope and until you've given your body enough time to heal. This takes an average of 1- 3 years from the time you stop.”
After those preliminaries, though, maybe we can find some serious thinkers to help show us the way back from a world that is losing the social glue of print communications.
