The anti-drug propaganda you were taught in grade-school was at least somewhat true.
Basically after prolonged stimulant [ab]use, your brain stops "caring" about natural rewards because they're so insubstantial in comparison to synthetic ones. Like a captive-bred animal, your brain no longer appreciates its own procurement of rewards because it has been trained to be hand-fed cocaine-battered filet mignon.
I'm not a psychiatrist or neuroscientist so my understanding is limited and based on anecdote and experience, but I've never met a career meth-or-coke-abuser who found happiness in anything once they went sober. The cravings never go away; they literally need the drugs just to feel anything more than melancholy and they are always irritable and underwhelmed without them.
There is some argument over whether dopamine receptors repair themselves; I don't know if this is true, but if not that then there is something else permanently lost to amphetamine usage.
Basically after prolonged stimulant [ab]use, your brain stops "caring" about natural rewards because they're so insubstantial in comparison to synthetic ones. Like a captive-bred animal, your brain no longer appreciates its own procurement of rewards because it has been trained to be hand-fed cocaine-battered filet mignon.
I'm not a psychiatrist or neuroscientist so my understanding is limited and based on anecdote and experience, but I've never met a career meth-or-coke-abuser who found happiness in anything once they went sober. The cravings never go away; they literally need the drugs just to feel anything more than melancholy and they are always irritable and underwhelmed without them.
There is some argument over whether dopamine receptors repair themselves; I don't know if this is true, but if not that then there is something else permanently lost to amphetamine usage.