So I'm a big fan of MDMA, but I feel I shouldn't be taking it every weekend. This is frustrating because I want to take it every weekend.
What drugs would you recommend as having similar effects to MDMA? I haven't done many other drugs but I know I like benzos and know I dislike weed and hallucinogenics.
I guess stuff like ket, coke and speed immediately come to mind.But I'm worried about ending up in a k-hole, and I don't imagine coke and speed have as nice effects as MDMA. Either way, I feel as if taking coke and speed instead of MDMA would also mess with serotonin production.
For a start, ket is not in any way like MDMA, what the fuck, secondly any drug that has a similar effect to MDMA will be bad for you in the same way as you seem to have deduced. Coke will turn you into a broke arsehole and speed... I don't know. Everyone hates on speed but if you're only taking it occasionally it's not so bad. I did it almost daily for a year and seem to have no lasting effects other than things get weird if I take it again.
>>7616 Pharmacologically, any amphetamine is closest to MDMA. Then comes coke and other stimulants.
Ketamine is nothing like MDMA either chemically or subjectively, so I have no idea why it's even on your list. I will state right now that based on your post I would not expect you to enjoy it.
You could do with seeking out some basic knowledge of drugs and their mechanisms of action and educating yourself on their long-term and short-term effects, especially in regards to the development of tolerance. I would recommend the book pictured as it's a very accessible and impartial introduction to their basic neuropharmacology.
>>7616 > Either way, I feel as if taking coke and speed instead of MDMA would also mess with serotonin production.
MDMA is primarily a serotonin releasing agent, it rapidly reverses the flux of serotonin in your brain causing a decent dose to utterly saturate your brain with all your available serotonin. This is rather different to Cocaine and (detro)speed which primarily work on the dopamine transport system. Cocaine is primarily a re-uptake inhibitor, while (dex)[meth]amphetamine is primarily a releasing agent (with re-uptake inhibiting characteristics). These differences lead to the experience of each drug being quite different.
A good MDMA rush is probably the most pleasurable thing I've ever felt, but once you've rushed once no matter how much you take you'll never get back to the same place that same night, simply because your brain is out of serotonin now. There is minor dopaminergic activity from MDMA but if you're using it as anything other than a "one and done" kind of deal you're really misusing it. It generally takes about a week for your brain to replenish your serotonin and be ready for you to get a rush again.
Likewise amphetamines are releasing agents, but primarily of dopamine rather than serotonin. The effects really depend on exactly what's in your speed. Pure uncut d-meth will light your brain up like a Christmas tree given even a tiny (10-20mg) amount. However, repeated dosing rapidly diminishes your stocks of dopamine and after about day 3-5 of a binge you'll no longer be able to get high. At all. Good old racemic amphetamine as found in the UK, even at a fairly high purity, can be used for a far longer time because 1) it's simply not as efficient a dopamine releaser as its doubly-methylated cousin and 2) the side effects of all that levo-amphetamine (vasoconstriction, blood pressure spikes, raised pulse, blue fingers, cold toes, etc) mean that you'll probably take it a lot, lot easier than you would with pure d-[meth]-amphetamine.
Like >>7617 I did (racemic amphetamine) speed practically every day last year and it never seemed to lose its effects, but again I also didn't binge excessively on it like meth makes you want to.
Cocaine on the other hand is primarily a dopamine re-update inhibiting agent and you can basically sniff coke or smoke crack every day damn day forever because the mode of action (re-uptake inhibition as opposed to increased release) doesn't deplete your brain in quite such an irreversible way. Obviously, over time, your dopamine receptors will down-regulate and you'll need bigger and bigger doses but, unlike with MDMA and meth, there is no 'wall' that you hit and suddenly just can't get high any more for a few days while your brain re-stocks itself.
Regardless, cocaine comes with a whole bunch of health risks that you really don't want (it's a potent sodium channel blocker which means that it's very bad for your heart in high doses, it combines with ethanol in-vivo to produce cocaethylene which is unbelievably toxic to your liver, and to boot the quality of it in the UK at the moment is basically zero. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you'd be better off sniffing glue. Even if it's a pritt-stick).
The TL;DR of all that is that none of those drugs are even going to closely resemble the feeling of MDMA, but neither will they mess with your serotonin production. Your dopamine system on the other hand....
>>7618 > Pharmacologically, any amphetamine is closest to MDMA. Then comes coke and other stimulants.
Molecularly, yes. However the mode of action and especially the subjective experience are all really quite different. Probably the closest you can get, pharmacologically speaking, to MDMA are some of the substituted cathinones such as methylone and mephedrone. Methylone is essentially beta-ketone-MDMA and mephedrone has quite a lot of serotonergic activity while also being much more "re-doseable" than MDMA. Again, doing either of these drugs on a daily basis is probably not a great idea.
One option is GHB, which although possessing a very, very different mode of action has an experience remarkably similar to MDMA. The trick with it is in the dosing; to get the pleasurable, almost MDMA-like rush, you have to pitch your dose in the very narrow margin between "I'm not feeling a damn thing" and "I've passed out". Once you titrate your perfect dose, though, you can basically re-dose infinitely and with no apparent loss of potency. I once did GHB on a two days on/one day off schedule for a month and had no withdrawals or loss of effect.
Please note however that the "one day off" is vital in that scheduling because prolonged (3-4 days) of around-the-clock GHB dosing brings with it probably the most hellish dependency and withdrawals known to mankind (GHB is more gabagenic-ally complete than either benzodiazapines or alcohol. This means that withdrawal can only be successfully treated with GHB. Seizures, cardiac arrest ,and death are all very likely outcomes for GHB withdrawal).
To sum up, in my long and varied wanderings around the world of psychoactives I think I can safely say that the only drug I've ever found that you can do every day without serious health risks, show-stopping tolerance development, or going utterly screwy, is cannabis. Which is a shame. Because I don't bloody like cannabis.
>>7622 >your brain is out of serotonin now
>It generally takes about a week for your brain to replenish your serotonin and be ready for you to get a rush again.
That actually sounds quite scary.
>>7626 Surely, then, anything that fucks about with your brain's natural serotonin levels can be detrimental to your emotional well-being in the long-term?
>>7627 Yes. It can be the opposite too, it's contextual. Like if you have an amazing time and hook up with the filthiest of all the raver girls and live happily ever after or something else that's not quite such an arbsurd example. What do you mean by natural, anyway? Everything you do and consume has an effect on your brain's serotonin levels. You could go for a run to get a runner's high.
>>7616 I am an idiot who does not know much about anything. But AMT and MDAI might be worth a look. So could 2CB or other shulgin variants. Look into entactogens.
Not to be a killjoy but... You're just going to have to suck it up and not take it every weekend.
You won't find a drug that replicates MDMA, especially if you're a fan of the real deal. The closest stuff you will find is way worse for you, so it's hardly an alternative.
It's just tough sometimes. I wish I could spend every weekend fucked up too, but my drugs of choice tend to make a profound impact on my perception of reality if I do them more than once or twice a month.
