so i've been asked multiple times to make a video about
meth addiction and or stimulant addiction
and i've kind of resisted that to be honest with you i've had some mixed
feelings but recently i got asked that question
again or i got that suggestion as far as what
to make a video about from desiree i hope i'm saying your name
right thank you for the suggestion so i decided you know what i just need
to cover this topic people want to know
for those of you who are new here i'm amber hollingsworth and you're watching
the youtube channel designed to help you understand the
science and psychology of addiction our goal is to shed light on addiction
because addiction can only live in the darkness and once you put the light on
it it pretty much goes away okay so let's
get back to our topic which is addiction to meth and or stimulants like
adderall speed all that kind of stuff the first thing you might want to know
is why were you resistant to making a video
about that well i have two reasons i'll tell you what those two reasons why
the first reason is this because honestly
addiction is kind of pretty much the same
regardless of what the addiction is there are some little nuances that are
slightly different because of the effects of any particular substance
but addiction itself the process is like the same no matter the substance
it doesn't even have to be a substance it could be a behavior addiction is
addiction and honestly what does it take to get
better from that is kind of the same too so part of my
resistance in addressing this specific substance is
because i want everyone to understand that the commonalities between all the
addiction are way more important than the differences but because you've
asked and you want to know i will go over the
the little nuances the important things that are a little different about
being addicted to meth or stimulants that differ from
other addictions but before i do that let me tell you the second reason why i
was a little bit reluctant to cover this topic
this one is a little bit more about self-preservation
here it comes i finally figured out that anytime
i make a video about any specific substance or kind of substance those are
the ones i get really nasty negative comment remarks on
it doesn't matter what it is because it seems like or at least i think this is
what's happening the people that find those videos are
not looking for recovery or they're not looking for how to help an addicted
loved one they're looking for how to abuse that particular drug
so the people that land on those videos tend to be the wrong people
and i get a ton of comments that are either mean or negative towards me
or mostly just justifying and defending the drug
i mean it's crazy it doesn't matter what drug i talk about it's like you've got
all these people trying to defend that and say why
that's not a problem or that's not addictive or you know you shouldn't
worry about that i don't know it's just kind of crazy to
me so that's my second reason but hey i promise to tell you some specific things
about this type of addiction you know most people think that when someone gets
addicted to meth that they're going to be totally
tweaked out of their mind they're going to be
really you know we've seen that like thing on
youtube like the faces of meth addiction and someone just
looks like rails and their face is scabbed up and their teeth are falling
out and they just look horrible hey yeah that is in stage meth addiction
and it can definitely definitely look like that but
long before someone gets to that point they're gonna look
fairly functional for awhile so it's surprising for a lot of people to know
that there are a lot of people out there addicted to meth that are going to work
that are going to school and that function okay for a pretty good
long while now eventually if they keep using the substance it's
going to get unmanageable and you're going to see some of those stereotypical
type of symptoms now like i said before there are little
nuances that are specific to every little different type of addiction
but the two things that really stand out to me that are
different about addiction to stimulants and or
methamphetamine is this one this is maybe the big one
here and that's that when you abuse stimulants you can have
psychosis and what that means is sort of out of touch with
your reality you can become delusional you can become paranoid you think things
that aren't true you think people are after you
are trying to do bad things to you and they really aren't when people are in
that state of mind they're a lot more dangerous i mean for the most part when
people have drug or alcohol problems the
substance itself doesn't necessarily make someone a danger
unless it's like driving intoxicated that makes someone a danger
mostly what's problematic about people that are addicted to substances is
what they have to do in order to obtain the substance
that can be dangerous like stealing manipulating lying and all that
kind of stuff not necessarily the substance itself but with
meth and stimulants it can be a little different because the effect of the
substance can bring you to this point of psychosis
and delusion when people are like that you don't know
what they're going to do if someone feels like their safety's in
jeopardy or that you're going to try to do something to hurt someone they care
about you're dealing with someone in a
fight-or-flight response and you don't know what's going to happen so
if you're dealing with a loved one that has that situation i always want you to
take that seriously because like i said when people are like that they're really
unpredictable now the second little nuance about
stimulant addiction that i want to bring to your attention has more to do with
the recovery process you know used to we thought that if you
use drugs it fried your brain but for the most part what we've learned
is people's brains actually do heal most the time when they stop using
the substance it's called neuroplasticity i hope i
said that right and it's basically your brain's ability to change and be
flexible so for the most part when people quit using substances the brain
eventually comes back it doesn't always come back
immediately it may take months however when it comes to
addiction to methamphetamine or severe stimulant abuse like
withdrawal that post-acute withdrawal period
seems to last quite a bit longer they seem to have
depression that last longer sleep problems that are more persistent
in actuality research has shown that the brain does not bounce back the same way
from this particular addiction so i'm not saying that it won't i'm just saying
that those post acute withdrawal symptoms
may last a little bit longer with this issue
other than those couple of factors which are slightly different
the important part here is what is causing the addiction
what's underlying addiction in general and so
the next thing i want you to do is watch this video about the root cause of
addiction here's the underneath part i'm going to
put it right up here so you can watch that next