One Hundred & Thirty Eighth : Better Living Through Chemistry (Attempt #23)

One Hundred & Thirty Eighth : Better Living Through Chemistry (Attempt #23): "What follows is an introduction to my most recent attempt at neurochemical self-improvement. This time I have been experimenting with the nootropic Piracetam. Don't read on if you're opposed to that sort of thing. This is just the intro. I will be recounting more in later entries.

Background

'But why?'.

It's kind of the obvious question I suppose. A friend raised it recently. 'Why do you take drugs?' I easily sidestepped the question with an accurate but disingenuous 'Which drug? Aspirin? Chocolate? Ecstasy?' retort. I knew what he meant but my question was fair enough - it really does depend on what we're talking about. I don't take ketamine to improve my concentration or social skills - and given it entirely ruins both these things this should be fairly obvious. So any answer I give will be inaccurate.

This particular drug/supplement experience is linked with a desire for self-improvement. To explain, while I am not sure I am satisfied with terms like 'ADD' or 'ADHD' (and the conditions they claim to describe) but I would say that it appears from anecdotal evidence that there are large numbers of people who have semi-serious problems with concentration spans, self-discipline, mental alertness, etc, etc. There are a number of things one can say in response to this.

1. There is no problem with anyone, everyone is fine. People are just a bunch of whining fags. Our performance in this area is fixed.

2. There is a problem and it's particular to a tiny minority who are to blame for ruining their minds with drink, drugs, video games and loud music. The immigrants may also be to blame, who knows.

3. There is no problem, but there is till scope for change.

4. There is a problem, but only in the sense that humans cannot work within unrealistic demands of society. 9 to 5 jobs are unnatural, so how are people expecting to work within such a pattern. (And so on.) As the slogan used to go : Do not adjust your mind, it is reality at fault. Our minds should work the way they do.

5. There is a problem, but this is only (or mainly) down to various societal factors - maybe our diets have too many addititives, or a certain kind of TV diminishes our capacity to think properly, or something else. Whatever is the cause, there is a modern-life induced disease which is making some of us suffer from some kind of ailment.

It should be self-evident that I am of the opinion that 3,4 & 5 are most likely to be true to varying degrees. In any case, I personally have problems staying mentally alert, and highly productive - even when performing tasks I enjoy. Naturally one's concentration / mental energy is not unlimited and it's perfectly natural to feel tired if you've been (say) studying or writing for hours and this is not my concern.

The point is, in normal circumstances I am not satisfied with my own cognitive performance. I have, since 2005 experimented a couple of times with both Ritalin or amphetamines to improve my productivity. There is a lot that could be said about Ritalin vs. (street) amphetamines but ultimately availability trumps all other factors. Ritalin is difficult to get hold of (I am not a person who feels it is ethical to lie to a GP to get drugs) and so paradoxically one is left with the illegal route as being easier. The primary problems with amphetamines (here I am talking of amphetamine sulphate or base) is roughly as follows :

- dosing is not necessarily a precise affair (to put it mildly). Yes, I could gel capsule it but I do not swallow capsules and it's just too much messing around.
- the drug is unnecessarily euphoric. I like euphoria as much as the next man, but it's inconvenient when in some circumstances.
- the effects on sleep patterns can be unpractical. It tends to result in one-day a week being 'a recovery' day (where it's best not to do much) which isn't always possible.
- the potential ruinous effect on health.

Of these, the last is the least important by some distance. I have been told by one of my friends that I will probably die of a heart attack soon, but I'm not really sure that bothers me. For sure, I am an intense physical coward and the thought of being (say) beaten up or burnt in some incident or accident fills me with dread. But the thought of 'dying' as such - how is that a worry? I'm not sure I fully comprehend how one could be afraid of being unconscious given the pleasure sleep usually brings. True, I could suffer some horrible injury, but I'm not too worried about that yet.

Anyway, the point is while I am happy to continue this substance abuse, I would prefer to combine it with something which wasn't perhaps so unsure / illegal / expensive & dangerous. Which is why I keep my eyes out for different things.

So for instance the researcher I dealt with in Cambridge (on the stimulant users trial) talked to me about a drug about to be released which will do a very similar job to Ritalin but will not be a central nervous stimulant (and cause the problems this usually does). We were both quite excited by the prospect but it occurred to me that the drugs companies must have a mid to long term interest in producing cognitive enhancing drugs. The problem as I understand it, is that in the United States, one cannot simply produce a drug and say 'This makes men smarter, I want FDA approval' - the FDA will only examine such things if they are for treatment of a particular 'disease'. And so all these drugs are developed to either 'cure' things like ADD/ADHD (if they even exist as accurate diagnoses) or treat in a different way degenerative diseases like Parkinsons or Alzehimers.

I admit some of that is probably a little conspiratorial but either way, the Financial Times recently noted that the ADD/ADHD (i.e. Ritalin, Adderall & co markets) drugs are worth something like $3bn per year, with growth of something like 20% a year predicted for some time now.

This Approach

I had read on the internet a little bit about a drug called Piracetam which was linked with improving ecstasy usage ('bringing back the magic' as it was called). I was not particularly interested in this per se (I am not looking to have a particularly hard 'roll' most nights and indeed recently when I have had it, it's actually been mildly inconvenient) but I was interested in the general effects of cognition it was said to have. So I did some reading. I will leave interested parties to read the Wikipedia article and the links given in the article, but suffice to say it was a drug supposed to :

- improve memory (in the longer term)
- improve alertness/concentration (unsure what sort of term)
- link well with amphetamine based drugs.
- cause no additional neurotoxicity and very few side-effects

I was dubious. People on the internet (as you'll note from this entry) write an awful lot of shite when they want and who knows what to believe when internet idiots meet marketing hype. Reliable research is hard to come by. There are reports recounting experiences, but it's difficult to tell how trust worthy they might be (forums help in this regard). Much more importantly these things are so unique to the individual in terms of effects. There are so many characteristics that could affect an experience that subjective accounts become very difficult to judge (without prior experience of that individual and their tolerances). Even the people I am close to, with whom I share a reasonable amount (height / birth-place / ethnicity / drug history / opinions / etc) vary biologically quite a bit (I am on average 15-20kg lighter than most people I know of the same height).

This is particularly important because the people who indulge in this sort of thing (charitably we could refer to these people (of which I am one) as 'adventurous' rather than simply lunatics) have some rather odd lifestyle traits. So you'll read someone's account of exactly what they took and when, down to the nearest milligram, with heavy warnings not to deviate from this master plan, and then in the next paragraph the writer will casually relate that he did all this while on industrial strength anti-depressants, or while recovering from heroin addiction or similar which you think must have had an effect. So I didn't know.

A few weeks later, a chance encounter with some fellow psychonauts I heard someone mention what sounded similar to Piracetam. This is someone I had encountered before and who I could trust way further than a random internetter and so I was very interested in what they had to say. Unfortunately by this point everyone in the room had taken a reasonably large dose of ketamine and so it was difficult to remember my own name, let alone complex sounding drugs. I tried to find out what the guy was talking about, but the conversation quickly became surreal and the thread was lost. Later I left them my email address and was relieved to get an email which confirmed my suspicion - we had been talking about the same things. So I thought I'd try it.

Some internet shopping later, and I was ready to go.

Methodology

I must note :

- I do not have a scientific background, and as such am ill-qualified to conduct experiments of any kind.
- I am not even attempting to make objective measures - these are all feelings about myself, which are going to be horribly unreliable by anyone’s standards.
- I make no efforts to control for the placebo effect (I could double blind this sort of thing somehow, but I realistically cannot be bothered).
- I am an idiot.

Having said that, I would generally say I am reasonably honest with myself and am reasonably experienced in this general area. With that in mind, onto the point.

I purchased 2.1kg of Piracetam. This came to something like £100 when you put delivery into the equation. According to Wikipedia, it is perfectly legal to import this into the United Kingdom, and I'm sure that will stand me in good stead at my trial.

Proposed Dose :
2.4 grams Piracetam x 2 daily (once at 8am, then again at 12-1pm)
1 x 3g of letchitin granules (approx 886mg of phosphatidyl choline and 200mg choline)
1 x spoonful of fish oil

The packaging for the Piracetam says three to four times a day, but I have a psychological aversion to taking a 'stimulant' (even a perceived stimulant) late in the day if I know I will be trying to sleep. If I think I will be going out then of course such concerns evaporate, but if I am planning a regular work day the next day I very rarely take any stimulant beyond (say) 4pm.

The letchitin is a source of choline which apparently is useful. I have read various things online saying choline is a must to avoid blinding headaches but
(a) every single report I have read has been contradicted by another report.
(b) I do not really fear headaches since I do not suffer them usually.

On rare occasion I have taken a very specific combination of drugs (in a most foolish fashion) and had the most hilarious headache but this was to be expected. I will outline details in my next entry, but suffice to say the days I didn't take any choline no such headache materialised. The internet, as usual, is full of faggots who can't handle their drugs.

I will post my findings later (today was day ten).

Otherwise, the last month and a half has been the most tremendous fun. This has mainly been due to :

- I've found a slightly more productive (but no less ruinous) outlet for my gambling
- My new job has taken on new developments which has left an organisational chart which in turn has resulted in receiving sarcastic salutes from my colleagues. I have been incredibly productive of recent as well.
- Slimelight about three or four weeks ago was perhaps the most fun I've had there in months, which was nice in a 'renewing the faith' sort of way.
- I've found being honest with people, even in unlikely situations is actually incredibly profitable.

The only downside was that I was ill at one point. My first 'flu / cold in three months, which isn't bad compared to last year (which was a continuously cold between November and March). I made it worse by some bad timing, but I am well over it now.

More later."