happiness over everything

“GO TO COLLEGE” they say. “LIVE YOUR LIFE” they suggest. We get there and realize life don’t stop; Miley Cyrus tried to tell us. I’ll second that college is the best time of life, but it’s also the realist. You truly find yourself or lose yourself trying to find yourself. Drugs is another ballgame though, but I won’t stunt like I never tried anything. I plan to share a few statistics from the American Addiction Center about college students and their interactions with drugs.

I’ll start by saying college is about discipline. How dedicated are you? That doesn’t make consuming drugs the correct thing to do though. Statistics show that many students get addicted to marijuana, pills and psychedelics. I believe things become an addiction when individuals use them out of excess, and that’s pertaining to more than drugs. Porn can be an addiction too. However, the article mentioned a survey was taken and many students admitted using the drugs to release stress and others admitted being curious. I’ll second to the curious crowd that tried Adderall to study for a chem test. But having ADHD, it helped me so much. I believe I passed the heck out that test, but I never went to a doctor to get it prescribed. I didn’t want to be dependent on it and I once had anti-depressants to take as a kid and felt no difference in myself. I was shocked to know there were cases of about 97,000 students that had experienced date rape or sexual assault from nights out for drinks.

The American Addiction Center shared signs for someone abusing substance. One sign was the declination of academic performance and attendance. The person can either begin to look bad or they’ll always want to get cute and go out for drinks. Be watchful of mood changes as well. The best way to seek out their mental space, just ask questions that direct at their behavior but from a space of concern, so you do not come across as critical or pushy. You can always offer them resources, especially the college students. The website mentioned and gave hyperlinks to search various states that offer special programs to help with student recovery. The website also mentioned that rehab is covered in insurance and there are various timelines on rehab attendance based on your need of inpatient or outpatient.

All in all, drugs can damage you in the long term so try your best to stay away. That’s what I understood from the article. A lot of times its hard to turn the cheek but you must be careful because one time can turn you out for who knows how long. IT also mentioned micro dosing to be common now, and I thought was interesting because I have seen that a lot on social media. I’ve seen them “promote” it as a healthy experience but the intention behind the usage makes all the difference.

Microdosing can be defined as ingesting small amounts of a substance. A Psilocybin can be described as a psychedelic mushroom. You may have heard this term once before from Jhene Aiko where she describes her experience as a journey in the sky. There’s also another substance called LSD that gets tried often in college and that is also a psychedelic. I’ve heard to be careful who you allow in your space during these trips.

In the article I read, there were two studies completed. There was a collective of 98 microdosing participants and a collective of individuals that had their pre-existing beliefs on the microdosing concept. It is said that the 6-week time window allowed participants to have rest days and an elapse. Some of factors they were observed on was their mood, wellbeing, mystical experiences and other variables. There were many changes some things reduced and other things increased. The scholars kept in contact with the participates via email and questionnaires before and after the study. Of the 98 participates there were only 63 who were observed. Studies found that men were more likely to microdose than women. It was more common for the age group of 18-25, and they were educated. American and Australians had the higher rates of usage compared to Canada.

The other test group was a collective of individuals who had a mindset of assumptions. This collective basically experienced what they believed they would experience. Their results showed slightly different compared to the collective that was open to the new experience. Overall, the collective reported experiencing less anxiety, an increased vivid imaginative as well intense emotion.