Producer’s note: Someone on Quora asked: What should everyone know about meth? Here is one of the best answers that’s been pulled from the thread.
I spent about 3 years on the garbage. And yes, I was not addicted instantly. Over the years, I had done it many times with just a weekend binge here and there.
I was very high functioning, “in my own mind.” And that is what the crap really started to affect in the end — my mind. I was about halfway through nursing school, still getting straight As, when the wheels began to fall off. Horrible paranoia set in. My imagination went wild. People were following me. I destroyed a family computer because it was “bugged.” (By whom I’ll never know). I was constantly searching my house for hidden cameras. I would constantly turn my cell phone off so I couldn’t be tracked, even when doing mundane things like driving to school. I begin to think that my fellow nursing students were really psychiatrist students and they were studying me and trying to diagnose me. I started to feel that the DJ was talking about me on the radio – and would play certain songs based on my actions. I know this may sound farfetched, and it’s hard to describe how I felt about it. It’s like I knew I was imagining it all and I knew it was the drug but it still felt so real. I could feel my sense of reality slipping away. I knew I had quit doing this crap.
At this point, my occasional weekend binge of snorting 50 or 60 bucks worth, had jumped past snorting 20 bucks a day. Rolled through the occasional injection for an extra boost. Right about now, I was slamming about a gram a day. I would slip into the bathroom at the old folks home I was doing my clinicals at, for a quick eye opener. (How disgusted and ashamed I felt- shooting up in a public restroom) I could not function any more without the stuff. I would honestly nod out mid conversation without it. I had to have a constant supply. It was awful. It was forever on my mind. I had to start selling it to support my own habit.
I am a family man. I have a good wife and lovely 12-year-old daughter. But I swear, I believed they were in on it. To this day, I’m not exactly sure what “it” was, but “it” sure felt real and horribly impending. I remember my daughter crying and looking as if I were crazy as I was accusing her of being in on it. I remember yelling at her, telling her I knew, I knew what she was doing and she had better stop it or she would be in big trouble.
The last day when I spilled my guts to my wife and asked her to help me go to a rehab, I nearly blew my head off with a double barrel 12 gauge shotgun.
I’ll never forget how I could slowly feel the insanity creeping in. How I knew it was being caused by drug. But at times I would slip into the crazy and just roll with it. Taking crazy routes, even to the grocery store, pulling over in parking lots and on side streets, just to make sure I wasn’t being followed. I would tell myself I wasn’t hurting anyone but myself. But I could see my relationships with daughter and wife crumbling around me.
Well, now it’s been over 16 months since I’ve done any meth. I still think about it a lot. I still dream about injecting it into my arm. I do kinda miss it and would love to feel that rush – that shiver – the wave of nausea when the hit first washes over you and you know it’s a good one.
But I’m relatively sane now. I know no one is or was watching me. My daughters stuffed animals don’t have cameras in them. My truck doesn’t have a GPS tracker stuck under the wheel well. The guy working on the phone line isn’t DEA. Now, I’m not worried about this foolishness. One reason is, it’s not happening. Second reason is, I’m not doing anything I need to be paranoid about.
When I decided to quit meth, my life sort of came to a stand still. It has been a challenge to stay clean. and as much as I may miss it or sometimes crave it. I hate it and where it took my mind — much, much more.
I honestly do not know anyone that uses meth without some kind of negative effects. 
