Hey all, just want to say I’m glad that I found this site and it comes to me as a place of love, respect and kindness.

My question exactly is well, over the past few years I have gone through quite a rough patch and I was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 19. I was using a lot of drugs at the time including a few times DMT and other psychedelics, also things like cocaine and ecstasy. When I was diagnosed I was admitted to hospital for 8 weeks due to psychosis. My drug use had continued after that as always and I was admitted again about 4 months later for another psychosis. This continued on for about 3 more times and I continued with the drugs and the 5th time I went into hospital I managed to stay clean and am no longer feeling addicted as I was. To get to my question I wanted to ask would it be safe to maybe dabble a little bit. My psychosis’s where only ever brought on by a lot of using. I just want to know if I can at least smoke marijuana once every two months or something like that. I have nearly fully recovered from my last psychosis and am still experiencing very mild hallucinations which are just small shapes and colours which are slowly going away with the medicine I’m on. It’s just I have a high sense that I’m searching for something and that searching is always for filled with the psychedelic experience. Could I maybe use psychedelics once or twice a year and smoke pot once every so often?

Thank you for any response possible.

I see things in a very shamanic way and want to feel like I used to when taking stuff thank you.

hello dmthack, welcome to the Nexus,

my opinion is that you need to stop taking drugs for a good long while. Theres more to life than psychedelics, yes there fun and they can be educational but they can also mess you up.

i think you need to try a period of abstinance, you say you havnt even recovered from your last psychosis and your wanting to start using psychedelics again, do you really think thats a good idea?

i think all the normal advice is good, meditation, exercise, socialise and get out and about in the world, life is still great when you straight headed.

Thanks for your reply mate.

I thought someone would say that. I have been meditating and eating fairly healthy though my exercise has been less than fair.

Yer i do think its a bit of a silly choice if i did choose to use them at this point.

How long exactly is long while to stay off them?

Thanks

i am no doctor, so my advices needs generous pinches of salt if applied to a serious condition of another person.

if i had issues with these substances i wouldnt take them again for a long, long time. you need your mental health, its important, much more important than getting high.

Greetings DMTHACK. I am sorry to read about your brain/chemistry situation. That would be a very scary thing to experience things that look and hear real, but as it turned out, is not.

It also would be a scary thing for those who love you to witness.

My suggestion is the same as 3rdI.
Give yourself time to experience everyday reality. I don't know your situation, but with me when i would go through substance binges i was trying to escape reality for various reasons. Boredom, fear, friends doing it so i might as well, spite, etc..

IME of a friend who has dealt with a similar situation, this bleeds into all areas of their lives and not just the substance use. The friend is trying to find the secrets this existence has to offer and forgets to focus on this everyday reality that our senses receive.
I have so many friends who are in transcendental meditation, which is awesome by the way but has one hole people find themselves stuck in. They are trying to escape everyday reality. They are trying to connect with those New Age areas like Orion, Pledies, or whatever else.

I try to tell them that they are here on earth to be human. So be human. How do they expect to achieve the enlightenment that they seek when they are trying to escape reality through drugs and meditation.

Don't get me wrong, i love meditation as well as New Age, buddist, hindu ideas, but so often people are focused too much on the astral world that they forget about what is directly in front of them.

The saying i came across the other day was awesome, "we must fall in to ourselves, not project out".

I think maybe that is what you need. Give yourself a healthy dose of what this beautiful world has to offer. There is no reason to escape it. But there is every reason to embrace it.

I hope this helps you man ... or woman.

Hey dmthack, I have a few opinion which might not include a solution or an answer to your question, but will definately induce a different perspective on things.

First of all, I'm diagnosed as well. Since I'm 18 or so, closed a few doors when mentioned, obviously, but never stopped me from leading a pillfree zero-complaint life. Partialy because I don't think for a second that this picture that some doctor painted over my registry - has any more connection to objective reality than they think I have.
And because you haven't wrote anything of your experience on "the other side", it does appear that the experience of what is reffered to "the real world" and "everyday reality" is a bit stronger on your side, strong enough for you to not even know what is that thing that you are searching for by taking psychoactives. And THAT is the key.

I'm not saying that your next trip should be all investigative and detached buti do ask that you sit back for a second.. Close your eyes. And ask yourself what is it, ask for the key. Just don't open your eyes until you have something with some probability.



I had to, I'm sorry, couldn't ignore it.

Your mental situation sounds a little precarious... I would steer clear of all substances for a while.

Let's talk about that exercise thing for a second. It's hopelessly underrated. For starters, you have some very important long term benefits; by regularly boosting your metabolism your whole body will function more smoothly, you can clear out blockages in your system on many levels, leading to an overall general sense of improved well being.

On a more short term basis, a period of 45 min or more of sustained exercise actually creates a kind of low-level psychedelic buzz, that thing sometimes referred to as "runner's high". For me, it's usually a bike or a kayak, and I'll push myself pretty firmly for much of that hour. About 30 min into it, I'll feel this amazing sense of clarity; the curtain lifts, the bigger picture manifests in the mind's eye... You realize that it's always there and all you need is to clear out the fog every now and then. I've had epiphanies while exerting myself that felt very similar to moments I've had on moderate LSD doses.

At any rate... That kind of natural high can be an amazing thing, and is the only kind of buzz I'd recommend to you at this time.

Good luck; I hope you get a handle on your situation.

Thank you so much for your replies.

I have been reading a few Buddhist books lately and have found a great interest in the teachings provided by Gautama Buddha and have a strong desire to make Buddhist self-realizations. All your replies have been very helpful and I will take them on board. I hope through meditation and so forth that I can go completely back to my original self before all this happened.