Yeah been there, done that, twice.
Ecstasy, or MDMA, is only psychologically addictive; meaning pretty much what DangerousDave said. You get caught up in a looping thought pattern where you manage to convince yourself that you’re only happy when you’re high on MDMA. That serotonin rush sure is a more-ish feeling; or it is for me anyway.
The first time I became addicted to it was not long after first trying it on my 20th birthday. Was always open minded about drugs but ecstasy was genuinely the only substance as a teen I was eager to try. Having suffered from chronic depression from 15 the concept of happiness in a pill certainly had its appeal. Guess I kind of set myself up for abuse before I even tried it, but when it surpassed all expectation it became a one way ticket to addiction.
At the height of my initial addiction I spent 6 months smoking £40 worth of weed everyday and eating between 10-20 xtc pills a day. They were cheap nasty pills too, mostly amphetamine and fuck knows what in them; with very low MDMA content. My flat mate at the time had recovered the pills from his mate who’d been busted for dealing coke, instead of paying me financial rent he fed me all the pills I could munch and as much bud as I could smoke. I spent so much time beaming I adjusted to being constantly off my face and actually functioned and led a fairly normal life; even held down my job as a healthcare professional. 6 months or so went by living with my head in the clouds; then abruptly one day I decided I’d had enough.
No idea what brought me to this sudden decision, but glad I stopped when I did. I saw and felt very little negative repercussions during my binge; but after I stopped the damage became apparent. 6 years down the line and my memory hasn’t recovered, doubt it ever will, and I still struggle to naturally regulate my body temperature. Think that’s something to do with my renal system. Either way I overheat easily, on the plus side (kind of) my body doesn’t sense when it’s cold. I.e. I’ll feel cold to the touch, may shiver etc. but my brain won’t consciously alert me to the fact I’m not warm enough. So I can pretty much spend all year comfortably in shorts and a t-shirt. After being clean of x for a fortnight and noticing my memory wasn’t improving I kicked the bud too. Then I stayed completely sober for 6 months; after this period some of my memory function had returned but not much.
After 6 months of detox I grew bored of sobriety once more. This time I sourced some high quality MDMA. WOW! What that fuck had been in all those ‘xtc’ pills I’d put in me?! This is when I decided to start being more knowledgeable of what was actually available and what things do. Previously I’d have taken anything to get high, beyond that point I researched my drugs and thought more carefully about what I was doing to my body and brain. I behaved myself, mostly, for a few years until I encountered the Lego pills.
Upon trying these it was evident that they were my first true mdma/ecstasy pill. So clean, cleaner come up in fact than the actual mdma I could source from the same person. There was an extra bit of magic in those pills too, not sure what it was but they had a real trippy element to them. Unfortunately I fell in love with pills too much once more; enter ecstasy addiction number 2. Again this addiction lasted around 6 months, although Lego were too strong to have everyday, so I did them only at weekends; which in retrospect was still far too often. During both episodes of my E addiction the substance certainly never lost its magic, my tolerance went up a shit load so I was having to take a lot more, but the sensation was always the same immaculate high. The second bout of addiction was not brought to an end voluntarily though, they really started messing with my already terrible depression. The toll on my mental health put a lot of strain on my relationship with my girlfriend.
So I took the bull by the horns and stopped suddenly again. I realised my addiction was not only affecting my life, upon this revelation I chose my girlfriend over MDMA. With this altered attitude I’m now able to approach MDMA and pills more sensibly. I can happily go months without even thinking about the stuff now. But when I’m reminded it’s there it is difficult to say no.
