Conor Meehan | Contributing writer
I think it’s fair to say that the student population is pretty well versed in the world of ups and downs. I’m also fairly confident is saying that a good amount of these ups and downs are chemically induced, or at least chemically enhanced. We often speak of the ups, but we know equally well of the downs, and it is these chemically induced downs that will be the focus of this article. As many of us know, the severity of these downs varies hugely. Coffee-drinkers/Monster drinkers know of the mild/extreme energy dips that follow a caffeine high. For fans of alcohol, there’s always been the mind-numbing malaise of the next morning’s hangover. And for those of us willing to venture outside the legal drug market, there has no doubt been the experience of the dreaded skag. Yet although these experiences are fairly common to many of us, I think most of us have very little understanding of them. The point of this article, then, is to provide the drug-using and prospective drug-using population with an analogy that will hopefully serve to clarify their understanding of drug-use, and so allow them to make better and more informed decisions regarding it. Seeing as my analogy will be directed at students, and given that managing disposable income is a perennial challenge for students, I think the world of economics will provide us with a good source of analogy. The basic idea of the analogy is that, dramatic as it may sound, a comedown is essentially like an economic recession, only it happens in your brain. We are all too familiar with idea of a recession by now, so this should be easy to relate to.
To really understand this analogy, it first helps to think of your brain as a kind of intricate, co-ordinated system, like the global banking system. The banking system is comprised of different types of banks between which there is constant commercial trade, a process made possible by the use of money. Your brain works in a similar way; instead of being made up of banks, however, your brain is made up billions and billions of neurons. Information is constantly being passed between these neurons, and this is made possible by the use of ‘neurotransmitters’ – these are chemicals within neurons that allow for information to pass from one neuron to the next. For the purpose of this analogy, then, let’s say that neurotransmitters are the ‘money’ or ‘currency’ of your brain, whilst neurons are the ‘banks’ that hold these currencies. In the same way that a banking system functions well when it has enough money to trade with (i.e. when it has liquidity), your brain will function well when it has enough neurotransmitters.
The production of emotions is informed by the balance of neurons in the brain. When it comes to producing that emotion known as happiness, your brain relies mainly on three different ‘currencies’ (i.e. neurotransmitters). These are serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Due to their general good nature in making us feel happy, pseudo-neurologists like myself short-handedly refer to these neurotransmitters as ‘The Three Amigos’. As we neurologists know, the more of the three amigos you have, the happier you feel. However, like money in a bank, the brain’s supply of the three amigos is not unlimited. They are chemicals and as such, they can suffer depletion. This is why the brain usually behaves responsibly, and releases them in a steady fashion – this keeps you relatively happy, and relatively sane. From time to time, however, some people begin to think that their brain is behaving a little too responsibly. They get bored with it. They decide it’s being frugal. This is usually why they decide to take drugs. You see, what drugs do is they essentially send a message to your brain, saying something along the lines of a Freddie Mercury lyric: ‘I want it all’ says the drug to the brain, ‘and I want it now‘. After a certain amount of time (known to drug-users as the ‘come-up time’), your brain will comply with such a message, and The Three Amigos will be let loose. Thus ensues the fun part of drug taking, known as the high. Most people never want it to end. As the drug-addled brain so often says: ‘Don’t stop me now, I’m having such a good time!’
But (of course there’s a but), one should always beware the facts of nature. Nature dictates that achieving happiness isn’t as easy as taking drugs. This is probably wise, because, if it was that easy, then everyone would be on drugs all the time, and nobody would ever get anything done. Think about it: if people were happy to stand in a room listening to repetitive music and being blinded by flashing lights, the body of human knowledge would not be particularly laudable. Thus, to spur us on to greater things, nature has dictated that the release of The Three Amigos doesn’t come for free. Their services must be paid for. Nature says that there are two main ways of making this payment. One way is to earn it, through strenuous endeavors such as exercise, or meaningful achievements. The other (cooler?) way is to take drugs. Taking drugs is like taking out a loan – you’re basically borrowing The Three Amigos from your ‘neuron banks’. This is important to note, because in the same way that sourcing money from a loan isn’t earning money, sourcing happiness from drugs isn’t earning happiness. In nature’s eyes, the high is essentially an unwarranted gain, and thus it will always demand that you pay it back.
Herein lies the problem. You’ve taken the loan, gone on a spending spree (sometimes a lavish one), and now you are, neurologically speaking, broke. And when the debt collector eventually comes knocking, there’s nowhere to hide – of course, you can’t hide from your own brain. The debt must be paid. This is why the comedown kicks in. A comedown is essentially nature’s way of imposing a ‘regime of austerity’ on your brain, until such time as the neurological loan is repaid. During this sad time, the brain’s supply of The Three Amigos is limited, sometimes almost entirely restricted. How long this regime lasts for, and how strict it is, depends on the drug(s) used and the amount taken. Consuming the caffeine in a cup of coffee is like borrowing a fiver from a friend. It’s not such a big loan, and so the saving measures needed to pay it back aren’t so severe. Drinking alcohol is like taking out a loan from a bank – you presume it’s safe because it’s legal and regulated, but so many people are so often shocked at the payback they experience the next morning. At the really extreme end of the scale, however, are drugs like cocaine. Doing lots of cocaine is like taking out a colossal, high-interest loan with the mafia, and then going straight to Vegas to blow it all on a weekend of vice-riddled excesses. It can be a fun (and often decadent) experience at its peak, but the payback can be lethal.
Hopefully you can now see how a comedown is analogous to a recession. Our very own recession provides a particularly good source of analogy, mostly for the comedowns associated with the more illegal kinds of drugs. It too was preceded by a long high, known as the Celtic Tiger, and this has been followed by a long and ongoing regime of austerity, during which we are experiencing a kind of payback for the unwarranted excesses of our high. And like the drug-user, we too had our dealers (banksters), feeding our irresponsible habits.
At this stage, then, I think a lot of us would agree that recessions, whether economic or neurological, are part and parcel of life’s experiences. As such, they should surely provide us with some kind of meaningful advice. What could this advice be? Well, in the case of both the Irish economy and drug-use, I think we can learn that unwarranted gains don’t last forever, and that they are usually followed by some kind of payback. But, more pragmatically, if you do find yourself in any kind of recession, then perhaps the more important lesson to be learnt is that of perseverance. No matter how bad things get, whether economically or neurologically, we’ve learnt that we have to keep looking forward, keep beating on, even with our boats against the current.
As the ever-experienced Freddie Mercury used to say in such dramatic fashion: the show must go on.
