[am_lu]

A bit of perspective from speed user (amphetamine, not meth) who I know: Been into it for 10+ years. Usual weekend binge on 3.5 grams of good quality amphetamine. Can last from Friday evening till Tuesday, will little sleep between. Lots of things get done. Rest of the week head and brain is out service, depression you call it, nothing is been done, hard to go to work, any excuse willdo, sort out yourself some food or a takeaway, watch some youtube, sleep a lot till you get better. Current state, 5 weeks clean: go to work, no problem 8 hours shift, do your duty to pay the bills. After work - eat, relax for a bit, read a lot be it books or just daily news. Bed time. Personal projects be it coding or electronics just put on hold....

[adhdthrowaway89]

As context for readers who might not know normal dosing, the maximum therapeutic Adderall dosage in the US is 60mg per day. So what this commenter is describing is between 15x and 20x the maximum therapeutic dosage based on whether you count this as 3 or 4 days.

[nowahe]

As a semi-regular user of speed, I can almost guarantee you that a gram of street amphetamine is nowhere near 100% concentrated. You would be lucky to find it at 20% (cut with half caffeine half random white powder). I've done acetone washes of amphetamine paste, and it's almost unbelievable how little amph there is in it.

A few times I was able to get my hands on really pure dextroamphetamine (>90% validated by a lab test), and even with a tolerance, there is no way you're consuming more than 100mg over the course of a day. 10-15mg was my sweetspot to get enough focus without getting locked into tasks and feeling wired. Although speed like that is pretty hard to find and quite pricey (~60-70€/g).

I've also realized that most of the unpleasant physical side effects of speed (palpitations, jittering, elevated cardiac rythm, anxiety, etc) are actually due to the massive amount of caffeine in it and not the amphetamine themselves (tho I'm sure there is a synergy between them). Even while feeling pretty high on pure amphetamine, my bpm only rose by about 4-5 bpms (compared to 15+ on street speed). For anyone in the same case, L-theanine works wonders to calm down the caffeine side effects, highly recommend you keep some around just in case.

[nowahe]

From personal experience, I feel like the crash following a multi-day binge isn't necessarily due to amphetamine withdrawls, but more so the consequences of multi-day sleep deprivation, dehydration, under-nutrition; all the while having over-exerted yourself.

On the comedown of a multi-day binge, I don't feel depressed per se. I'm constantly tired while awake, which I can only keep at bay if I'm physically active. Also, my ability to focus and get motivated dips below baseline, inversely proportional to how high over baseline I was. (And I would speculate that it is mostly due to a depletion of dopamine & its precursors rather than a withdrawl, as it can be alleviated through a decent diet).

From what I've read as well, most of the long term side effects of amphetamine abuse stem from chronic lack of sleep, food & water rather than damage from the molecule itself. Although repeated overstimulation of your reward/dopaminergic system definitely can't be good for you, be it through adaptation or damage of the dopaminergic neurons (I remember reading somewhere that long term meth users are more prone to Parkinson's).