The way MDMA affects me has changed!
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Over the last 2-3 years I have noticed that MDMA has had a much different effect on me compared to previous experiences.Before this time It have me all of the normal effects, and was great!
I realise that the euphoric effect can lessen after many doses, however more recently whenever I take it (even a small dose), instead of being loved up and full of energy, I become tripped out, thinking that I’m places where I am not, talking to people in a really confusing way, and walking away from friends totally forgetting that I’m with them.
Most recently, on a dance floor, instead of dancing and enjoying the music, I was stood on there hardly moving, talking absolute gibberish (more than your average late night party banter), and people asking me and my girlfriend if I was okay. I also forget massive portions of the night a lot of the time when I have taken it in this 2-3 year time frame.
This confusing and not fun effect is frustrating because MDMA was one of my favourite drugs. I would love to know why this is happening, if its happened to anyone else, and if there’s anything I can do to be able to enjoyably take it again. I am 26 now and have been taking it since I was 18, my alcohol consumption on nights out has increased over the years which may have contributed to this different effect. I have also done a lot of it in the past, and some very high doses, perhaps because of this my brain now reacts differently to it.
It really doesn’t take much before i’m totally not with it! On new years eve I fell asleep after doing a line of MDMA.
Any help or insight would be really really appreciated! Bear in mind the goal is to be able to enjoyably take it!
Everyone’s brain is different, I’m not a neurochemist, I could speculate on long term changes in your brain which would be interesting but not very helpful or even necessarily accurate. What I’m willing to venture though is that your serotonin levels aren’t near what they once were and as you get older the brain likely makes it less quickly which kind of creates the somewhat vicious feedback loop where you keep taking more and things keep getting worse. Also the alcohol is likely heavily at play with things getting weirder over time.
It is possible that you ‘broke’ your brain as far as its response to MDMA at some point with the mention of very heavy doses, although this isn’t guaranteed.
Advice to make it fun again, nothing ground breaking but I have a few ideas. Take a lengthy break from MDMA and while doing so try to eat clean, exercise and supplement with 5-HTP. How long a break is up to you but it seems like you’re burned out and pretty heavily enmeshed in the party scene and it is negatively impacting your well being and mental health while you do drugs. Then when you feel ready to go back to MDMA try to make it a low key event or night in with your girlfriend and take a reasonable dose. It is possible that crowds and play into you acting weird although there are always people acting weird at raves so that isn’t too much of a concern to me because it happens.
I used to candyflip almost every weekend and it definitely took its toll on me and I can verifiably say that it had a negative impact on me and it took a long time to come to grips with the idea that raving maybe wasn’t my bag anymore. I know you’re not at that point and I’m not trying to tell you to quit MDMA at all. You have a lot of self awareness to try to remedy the problem before it gets any worse, some people the heavy drug use takes more of a toll than others, and while it has taken less of a toll on you than it took on me, it still has likely altered some neural connections in a deleterious way. Taking a break and trying to feed the brain some building blocks for the neurotransmitters that MDMA works on is the best advice I’ve got but the cliche is that “neurons that fire together wire together” meaning that the recent bad experiences have likely altered things to an extent. I like the concept of neuroplasticity and brain training but don’t have any experience with protocols for drug use and reward pathways although it might be something worth looking into although much work is nascent in that field and there is a lot of crap to sift though. Basically I’m saying that I’m fairly confident there is a way to rewire your brain to do MDMA again happily and normally but I don’t think the science or layman’s work is there yet as far as how to do that.
Good luck, if you have any questions please ask, I know being told to take a break from a substance you’ve been doing for 7 or 8 years is probably not what you really want to hear but it is what I’ve got as well as supplementing building blocks for serotonin which is a fragile neurotransmitter. Others on this site have been thorough the rave ringer as well and have their own perspectives, activity on the site is low at the moment so it make take a few days but you’ll get others besides me to reply.
Shulgin talked about this, he gave an answer in hi ask Dr Shulgin column where someone had ask about the “magic” diminishing after maybe 100 doses. It’s a very real thing I know from personal experience. MDMA does not give the stunning euphoria and the rest of it that it once gave. If I’d known this when I first took it I’d have saved it for special occasions.
Here’s the column from the man himself….
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/ccle1/shulgin/adsarchive/tolerance.htm
Shulgin talked about this, he gave an answer in hi ask Dr Shulgin column where someone had ask about the “magic” diminishing after maybe 100 doses. It’s a very real thing I know from personal experience. MDMA does not give the stunning euphoria and the rest of it that it once gave. If I’d known this when I first took it I’d have saved it for special occasions.
Here’s the column from the man himself….
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/ccle1/shulgin/adsarchive/tolerance.htm
My sense is it becomes like a serotonin activating methamphetamine after many doses which isn’t a desirable reaction.
Over the last 2-3 years I have noticed that MDMA has had a much different effect on me compared to previous experiences.Before this time It have me all of the normal effects, and was great!
I realise that the euphoric effect can lessen after many doses, however more recently whenever I take it (even a small dose), instead of being loved up and full of energy, I become tripped out, thinking that I’m places where I am not, talking to people in a really confusing way, and walking away from friends totally forgetting that I’m with them.
Most recently, on a dance floor, instead of dancing and enjoying the music, I was stood on there hardly moving, talking absolute gibberish (more than your average late night party banter), and people asking me and my girlfriend if I was okay. I also forget massive portions of the night a lot of the time when I have taken it in this 2-3 year time frame.
This confusing and not fun effect is frustrating because MDMA was one of my favourite drugs. I would love to know why this is happening, if its happened to anyone else, and if there’s anything I can do to be able to enjoyably take it again. I am 26 now and have been taking it since I was 18, my alcohol consumption on nights out has increased over the years which may have contributed to this different effect. I have also done a lot of it in the past, and some very high doses, perhaps because of this my brain now reacts differently to it.
It really doesn’t take much before i’m totally not with it! On new years eve I fell asleep after doing a line of MDMA.
Any help or insight would be really really appreciated! Bear in mind the goal is to be able to enjoyably take it!
Has you tested the drug, many other compounds are sold under the name MDMA, but are sometimes something having a very close effect.
ting because MDMA was one of my favourite drugs. I would love to know why this is happening, if its happened to anyone else, and if there’s anything I can do to be able to enjoyably take it again. I am 26 now and have been taking it since I was 18, my alcohol consumption on nights out has increased over the years which may have contributed to this different effect. I have also done a lot of it in the past, an
this is a normal thing to happen after a few years use, and especially when it is taken along with alcohol. Other issues like sleep deprivation can cause other unwanted effects.
If you calm down your usage for a while (which can mean a break of several months) at least some of the magic can return. If you do stop for a while and restart, be careful that modern pills from the Netherlands can be extremely strong and your tolerance will have diminished!
Another factor is in towards your late 20s to your 30s and 40s you start emotionally maturing more and that can mean drugs don’t have as much euphoric effect as they once did (I noticed this myself when I moved regions, stopped partying for a couple of years ago and then started up again (by this time well into my 30s)
I know what you’re all saying but honestly, after taking maybe 30-50 different phenethylamines over many years, the only compound I can say has lost it’s sparkle is MDMA. Ridiculous overuse of other phenethylamines has never diminished the efficacy of stimulants, though tolerance obviously builds quickly with the psychedelic phenethylamines . It’s so bad now that even though I can get very very good crystal MDMA and some very highly dosed pills, it’s like meh every time I do it now.
Agreed, we don’t know where OP is in the life cycle of MDMA use but probably past 50 uses and the heroic doses do more damage IMO. I think if you do some of the brain care stuff early with 5-HTP it may prolong the time until you hit diminishing returns. OP asked for advice and I gave what tips I have although I doubt it will do a whole lot.
I wonder what in the structure and binding cause the loss of magic. Also the other amphetamines I’ve done I don’t recall any of them being “magic”, something about MDMA being a serotonin releasing agent and having built up serotonin causes it to be special. Amazing compound but everyone runs into the problem eventually it seems.
Your advice was perfect. I maybe shouldn’t have given amphetamines as an example as they are not hugely serotanergic but most all psychedelic compounds of the phenethylamine class and the tryptamine class are and I’ve done enough of those to know they never seem to diminish in effect. I’ve admittedly done more MDMA than any other psychedelic compound but true psychedelics never seem to lose their sparkle, only MDMA in my experience.
Has anyone done enough MDA to decide if it loses its magic as well? I would assume it might anyways with cross tolerance.
I could get it pretty regularly for a time and could get a mixture of the two for a while but didn’t go to excess with it and it is definitely way less common than MDMA. My inclination is that would maintain the magic for more uses than MDMA if you only did MDA but no one would do that, I’ve read that it actually harms serotonin receptors more than MDMA although it always felt kinder on the brain the next day than MDMA, not sure what that contradiction is about.
Met an expat on the plane back to Costa Rica who talked glowingly about MDA compared to MDMA and then told me that someone from my town popularized it in the ’70s. I’ve gotten MMMDA before and that was pretty similar to MDMA.
Without actual studies no-one could say. I can say that even though the “magic” has gone with MDMA, none of the magic has gone with any of the other phenetylamines. All the 2c-x compounds retain their magic, DOx compounds retain their magic, MDMA retains it’s effect, just after a while that orgasmic effect dulls. Any other compound given a week or two of abstinence regains full efficacy but MDMA for some reason never does.
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