Knowing the Appearance of Meth and Getting Help
Meth came into my life when I was very young. My parents did it in front of me on a regular basis. I was an addict my entire life by the time I arrived at South Shores Detox and Recovery. For the bulk of my life, I only had one interest, and that was getting high on crystal meth. My meth addiction caused a lot of pain in suffering to me and the family I started on my own.
For my parents and me, there were no questions about what does crystal meth look like? It ruled our lives and was often found across the surfaces of every table and countertop, likely coating the walls of our house itself from all the exhaled smoke.
Meth users like myself become completely detached from reality. Crystal methamphetamine does a tremendous amount of mental, emotional, and physical damage. There aren’t a lot of other drugs that compare to methamphetamine. I’ve tried a lot of other substances, but nothing controlled me the way that methamphetamine did.
I suffered from mental health problems for years and only made it worse through my meth addiction. Smoking meth every day for years on end made me a hollow, and dangerous person. I had been getting in trouble with the law since my preteens.
If you or someone you know suffer from methamphetamine addiction, I’ll lay out everything you need to know, including how to find freedom from meth with the help of the good people at South Shores.
How Meth Addiction Begins
Like me, my parents became drug users early in their lives. As early as I can remember, my father was injecting meth and my mother was smoking it. The crystal meth smell was always unpleasant to me. They had no problems doing all of this in front of their children. Nothing mattered but the drugs, which is often the case with meth abuse.
On top of being addicts, my parents were also meth makers. They would cook it in our house and sell it. I met a lot of sketchy individuals in my youth because of this. There were toxic substances in the air at all times. The smell of burning plastic, nail polish remover, and denatured alcohol filled every room in the house.
I grew up thinking pure methamphetamine hydrochloride was basically the best kind of vitamin, something to be sought after and prized. I will never forget how my Dad would hold up a beaker filled with jagged shards, and look at it with more pride and love than I’d ever seen in his eyes for me or my siblings.
Growing Up and Breaking Bad
Most people became familiar with meth from watching Walter White and Jesse make batches of blue magic in the show Breaking Bad. I did not. Nothing was new to me in this world, and by the time I got around to trying meth, I thought it must have the best taste in the world to keep my parents coming back in the way they did.
But in reality, powdered meth has a chemical taste, and it isn’t much of a vitamin. I first used it when I was thirteen. It had become so normal to me to be around it that I had no idea of the danger. I was hooked from the first hit. Meth is a very potent central nervous system stimulant and even doing it can pave the way to becoming a full-blown addict.
When my meth addiction began, it enhanced everything. Even if I was in the worst of moods, a hit of meth made me feel like I was on top of the world. My grades suffered and eventually, I dropped out of high school following tenth grade. My parents barely batted an eye, and life went on in our household.
As usual, nothing mattered but the drugs.
The Smell and Look Of Liquid Meth
Methamphetamine can come in many different forms. It comes in powder form and liquid form, even in the form of meth pills in more and more places. Because my mother and father had different ways of doing meth, they had different ways of preparing it. They would cook the meth, and my mother would take some of the rock form for herself to smoke, then start chasing it with alcohol, while my father would add water in order to inject it.
Liquid meth has a yellow hue once you add water to it. It smells like cat urine. I never was inclined to inject it like my father because I associated it so much with that smell. Injecting a drug like meth creates a very quick high. I also remember the smell of rotten eggs coming from the kitchen a lot. Substance use disorder will make you look over lots of things, and the horrible smell is one of them.
My mother eventually died because of her meth and alcohol use, and my father eventually got clean. Meth users can suffer from a variety of physical ailments, including rapid and irregular heartbeat, elevated body temperature, high blood pressure, and skin sores.
How Meth Addiction Controls Your Life
My drug abuse lasted decades, and even some of the purest meth in the world couldn’t satisfy me. When my father quit injecting meth and got clean, he encouraged me to do the same. It was difficult for him to say much, due to his addiction being one of the reasons I also became a drug user. All the memories in my life somehow include crystal methamphetamine.
The physical and mental health issues I suffered from were never issues I wanted to address. My meth use led to severe meth mouth, which is something most meth users deal with at some point. Meth makes you grind your teeth, which can lead them to crack and break easily. You will grind your teeth down to the bone without even realizing you are doing it.
My Crystalline Road to Ruin
What does crystal meth look like? The reason they call it crystal meth is because it has a crystal-like appearance. When smoking meth, the crystal is broken into small pieces and smoked through a meth pipe.
Meth is typically smoked but it can also be injected, snorted, or consumed anally. Long-term recovery seems impossible when you are deep into your meth addiction, but there is always hope.
What Does Meth Taste Like?
Meth has a bitter taste that is hard to get used to. Even when I was years into my addiction, the taste always bothered me. Meth users typically put steel wool in their pipes to filter out some of the impurities. One of the other tastes often associated with meth smoking is battery acid. Smoking meth also damages and weakens the teeth, making them easier to break due to grinding.
A highly addictive stimulant like meth will make you forget your health and hygiene. It can also lead to violent behavior and delusions. I would stay awake for days on end and everything paranoid me. I thought people were following me and trying to kill me. I lost a lot of weight because I wasn’t eating. Whenever I did eat, it was usually junk food.
The Five Senses of Meth: Cook, Snort, Smoke, Shoot, Repeat
I was cooking meth off and on throughout my addiction, to supply myself and also make a little bit of extra money. I have been in many illegal laboratories in my life, many of which I lived in. At one point during my drug addiction, I was living with six other meth users in a two-bedroom house.
No one ever went to bed and there was always a lot of finger-pointing and an overall lack of trust. To say that we had mental health issues would be a laughable understatement.
When Meth Abuse Goes Too Far
I have had many legal issues because of my addiction. I’ve been arrested for assault, robbery, and impaired driving, and have had countless drug offenses. When you’re a drug user in this way, the legal system becomes a part of your life as much as the drug. You get to know the cops who arrest you and the judges who put you in jail. There were a lot of police officers who did genuinely try to help me, but I only thought they were out to ruin my life.
Meth users have a distinct look, and I fit the profile perfectly. My eyes were sunken in, my skin was picked apart, and I was extremely skinny. Long-term meth abuse destroyed my body and I still suffer physical issues even though I have been clean for years. I didn’t have a lot of people in my life who cared about me. My father was the only loved one who tried to lend a helping hand.
A Moment of Clarity Can Come in Handcuffs
After being arrested for assault and being faced with real hard time, I finally decided it was time to at least attempt to get clean. I thought that if my father could do it, why couldn’t I? It was clear that the meth look was not serving me well. The idea of addiction treatment was scary, but I figured I would give it at least one try.
Although I still will never forget what meth tastes like, or how the crystal form shines if the light catches it just right, I will be eternally grateful that my Dad (and the arresting officers) enabled me to find a chance outside of a life ruled by shards of glass.
Achieving Long Term Recovery from Meth Abuse
I entered treatment at South Shores Recovery as a broken man. The withdrawal symptoms were intense, but I was willing to push through detox and start working on rebuilding myself. Once I started opening up about my addiction, things got easier. For the first time in my life, my physical and mental health became a priority. Meth had wreaked havoc on my central nervous system, but I still had a little bit of fight left in me.
By no means was my time in recovery easy. I had dreams about getting high and when I woke up I had the meth taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, a lot of meth addicts don’t make it through treatment the first time. I’ve known many people who have gone to rehab multiple times and never got clean.
Once I was in recovery for a couple of weeks, I finally began to think rationally. It took a long time to fully get all the crystal meth out of my mind and body. Thinking clearly for the first time in my life was a unique experience. No more liquid meth, no more meth powder, no more staying up for days at a time. I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet, but I was pretty confident after recovery that I would make sobriety a priority in my life.
Meth Is Everywhere
There are many forms of legal methamphetamine that are prescribed to treat several different issues. There are some over-the-counter medications such as cold medicines that contain trace amounts of methamphetamine. There are also pill forms of meth that are prescribed to treat ADHD. Meth is rarely prescribed unless it’s for a condition such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
There are also television programs that glamorize the world of meth. Shows like Breaking Bad have brought meth into the public consciousness. I’m not saying a lot of people who watched that show started using meth, but it did make meth more publicly known. I’m hoping if anything that this show warned people of the dangers of meth.
The Ongoing Work of Overcoming Cravings and Triggers
Now that I am clean, I work hard on keeping my sobriety going. I go to meetings, and I try to work on the way that I react in situations. Sometimes when I get frustrated with something, anything, I think about using meth. The hair stands up on the back of my neck and I get light-headed.
When this happens, I try very hard to breathe deeply and fix my attitude. If all else fails, I call up the phone and talk to my Dad or other former meth addicts I know who have successfully found recovery. Many of them are men and women I met during my time following meth detox and in recovery at South Shores.
How To Help a Loved One?
When someone you love is an addict, it can be very hard to know how to approach the situation. You don’t want to be judgmental, but you also don’t want to ignore the problem either. The best way to help them is to educate yourself on their specific addiction and find ways to connect with them in that way. If you don’t have a reference point, it’s hard to know what to say.
When I meet people in recovery who are newly sober, I am very patient with them and try to let them know that they are in the right place. A lot of addicts never reach out for help. The fact that some people will give recovery a shot is commendable. It takes a lot to take that first step. It’s important to let people know how big it is for them to ask for help.
Meth Recovery and the Beauty of Honest Struggle
In recovery, you come across a lot of people who struggle. You can be sober for years and have weak moments. In those weak moments, it’s important to remember that sobriety isn’t going to be an easy road. There are days when you feel like throwing it all away, but it doesn’t mean you have to.
Despite those difficult days, it’s possible to string together much better days. If it worked for me, it could work for anybody. All it takes is willingness and a desire to seek recovery each day.
That’s ‘all,’ and though it can be hard, the people at South Shores will believe in you until you believe in yourself.
Get Support to Overcome Crystal Meth at South Shores
I hope that my story of finding the light out of a very dark place that meth brought me has helped shed light on the smells and tastes of this powerful drug.
If you are struggling, or suspect a loved one may be abusing meth, help can be found, and is actually waiting on your call.
Reach out to South Shores today, and get some options for a life freed from meth. There is hope, and it is only a phone call away.